Chevaleresse

"Admittedly, I have nothing better to do. I need to rest after the mock battle today, and this damn armor is only going to fit right once they're burying me in it. And you seem decent enough out of the rest of the. . . people, in the group. Even if you have a death wish." She was trying to be polite. Not really succeeding, but the attempt was made.

"If I had to guess, you're going to keep asking questions, and I'm going to keep trying to brush you off, with a slight chance that you decide to say something especially stupid and I deck you for real." She glared at the piece of armor before her, puffed her cheeks out in frustration briefly, and then started gathering the various pieces of metal together with an irritated huff.

"Sure, I'm a person. A person who's just a warrior. There's not much else to know about me." She set down the piece she was working on, and grabbed another - a portion of what protected her right arm. She rubbed at a spot beneath her long-sleeved shirt before setting after this new part. "And I question your continued pursuit of this. Is it a habit of yours, talking to people who hit you?"

"Pardon me, sir, there's an issue I should really be taking care of. . ." Not that the faux-polite phrase was fooling anyone; Elias's expression was fixed into a threatening scowl. "If you'll help me with this bit of cleaning, Sebastian?" he asked over his shoulder, already moving through the crowd. He stared straight ahead at his target, not even bothering to glance about as he walked through the various partygoers, and around whichever ones didn't have the presence of mind to get out of the butler's path. It was rough going, though; Elias wasn't a stranger to weaving through large numbers of people, but this location wasn't exactly small, and the guests were often either distracted or simply unwilling to move out of his way. . . though Elias was similarly unwilling to be stopped, and was not above physically shifting them out of his path should it not take too much time.

"That's. . . what?" Kusuke followed after Leo, not allowing the golemancer to escape that easily. "You can't cite some principle that doesn't exist in any other world and then pretend that makes your point for you. I can assure you, there's no such thing as 'elemental delineation' here. I should know, I'm. . . well studied on the matter." A bit early to let that one slip, especially since I can barely remember what it implies. "There's no law of nature or magic that protects you from your mistakes spiraling out of control. . . and I'm sure as hell not going to ask you to demonstrate another apocalypse tactic as 'proof.' And society developed just fine without it, for the record. Enough to have nuclear power and space flight."

"You're reeeally pushing it, huh." She suppressed the exasperated sigh that rose up in response, and picked her tools back up. "Liked it better when we just talked about fighting," she muttered under her breath as she set to work once again. "Besides, I explained everything to you already, didn't I? Easier to focus and shoot things when you have armor to soak a hit for you, and all. What else do you even need to know?"

Rhian promotes to Knight She gains the personal skill "Born With A King's Heart. . ." +5% growth in SKL She gains Greatbow (C) Bow (D) Her preferred stats are Defense, HP

"What the fuck are you talking about? That's not how it works. One person accidentally destroying the world is exactly what happened in mine. Are you calling me a liar, or are you just that stupid? Because I don't know where you're from, but on Earth there's no mystical field protecting you or anyone else from your fuckups. I don't care what cutesy little stories you have about what happened back home, that's not how it works here or anywhere else that I know of." Kusuke fixed Leo with a hard glare. "Let me make this very clear. You're going to change your behavior, or it's going to be changed for you." After a moment, he added, "And if you laugh at the deaths of nearly the entire population of the entire planet again, I don't think I'm going to be able to stay nice."

"I've been working day and night to help Satomi build fortifications so this place doesn't get torn to shreds, you blind idiot. I'm sorry you forgot to take a break from putting your hand into bonfires and getting confused about the burns to notice. All of those improvements you mentioned? They mean nothing. Zilch. Nada. Absolutely fuckall if one of your moronic experiments ends the fucking world. Are you that dense that you can't see that? Stop playing with shit that wants to kill us all. That's it. That's all I'm telling you to do. Is it that hard?" Kusuke sighed deeply, but continued speaking in a somewhat calmer tone before Leo had a chance to offer another retort. "And what about when you finally off yourself with one of these experiments? What happens with your Dysto then? You're going to do its job for it, and possibly cause another apocalypse in the process."

Rhian's first response to Kerr's statement was to raise her left hand and hit him in whatever part was most convenient. It wasn't exactly playful, either; she veritably smashed her gauntleted fist into him, though the awkward angle of the hit prevented it from doing any real damage. "Don't call me cute unless you really hate your limbs staying limb-shaped." She seemed content to leave him to recover from that blow without hitting him again, at least for the moment. She'd done it impulsively, but now Rhian was hoping it'd be enough to dissuade him. She didn't particularly feel like spinning her tragic backstory out for a near-stranger at the moment.

Rhian sighed audibly, clearly not amused by Kerr's goings on. Her expression shifted from annoyed to slightly less annoyed when he actually got around to answering the question, then shifted back as he finished speaking. She didn't move away from him - she wasn't about to leave her work behind or put the effort into gathering it up. "I have work to do. It's not that intriguing." She gestured at the bits of metal strewn about in front of her. What was he getting at, anyway? As he'd pointed out, he already knew she wasn't here to socialize. She mostly wanted to fix her armor and try to distract herself from how sore she was.

Rhian continued working for a moment without responding to Kerr's appearance outside of a stray glance. She set her tool down, pulled at one of the straps of the pauldron, hefted it by said strap, and then set it down with a mumbled word that might've been an expletive. This done, she turned her head slightly toward her visitor. "Do you need something?" It was hard to tell if she was irritable or if that's just what her voice sounded like all the time.

Rhian was settled with a plate of seemingly entirely meat, except for one almost sad-looking bit of broccoli wedged between two pieces of jerky. She was sitting cross-legged a small distance away from the bulk of the group, occasionally glancing in the direction of Sharon. A part of her was tempted to chime in, but she figured the apprentice was getting enough of an ass-chewing, and whatever she had to say back was just going to piss Rhian off. Not that it was a difficult or unusual thing to do so, but she didn't deliberately seek out things to get mad at. Much like many of the other armored individuals in the group, she had the heavier parts of her plate removed, but rather than being stowed they were strewn about in front of her along with a set of small tools and bits of spare leather. She muttered to herself about the fits of the plates never being quite right, and something about pinching as she fiddled with a pauldron, gnawing at a strip of beef that looked dangerously similar to what she was using to adjust the fit of the piece of armor.

Kage sighed. "This is neat, I guess." He didn't sound particularly enthralled with the toy, however. Having nothing better to do and his search being thoroughly unproductive otherwise, he headed back out to the area connecting the three points of interest. The telltale jingle of keys told him that one of the others had been more productive than he had. "So, what are the keys for? Anything helpful?"

"I see, I see." More and more mysterious. It seemed there was a bit more to Pris than he'd previously imagined, though there was the off chance she'd heard Sebastian's name and decided on some odd idea that she must have him. Not to mention the question of who this Augustus really was, and what he knew about Elias. "It wouldn't be quite proper for a noble to be waiting on a servant, I wouldn't think. I wonder what. . . Valentine's interest in me is, then. Perhaps she read something she found intriguing in a letter from Priscilla." His expression was thoughtful, brow furrowed and looking down slightly as he considered the question. He looked up after a moment, though, snapping his finger as if to jolt himself. "My idle thoughts aren't worth keeping you from your business any longer though." He gestured at the space between Augustus and Sebastian in lieu of doing so at them individually. "Please, go ahead and continue your earlier conversation."

"I don't care how long you've been fighting. I don't care how many murder machines you've destroyed, or how many you've fucking built in their place. You want to talk to me about fighting a long war? I've been chasing someone for longer than I can remember. someone who was twisted enough to put his daughter's soul into one of those damned weapons just to fucking see what would happen. You have no idea what I've given up in that fight. I can't even remember. He's not endangering my hometown, or a country, he's endangering an entire fucking world! But I'm not wantonly playing with fire and acting surprised whenever it burns me because of it!" Kusuke's voice had ratcheted up in volume to match Leo's. "You think that your trauma somehow gives you a free pass to just ruin things wherever you go? So you can, what, learn to build stronger death machines? What are you leaving behind you? Your fucking revenge is not worth this world, it's not worth anywhere we go." Kusuke's fists clenched, but the time traveler went from shouting to speaking in barely a whisper. "It's so fucking stupid. Everyone always says the same thing. 'I'm doing it because I have to, because the devastation I leave behind me is less than what this next weapon will wreak on my enemies.' Until the entire world is drowned in fire and death. I'm not going to allow you to do that here, or anywhere."

"The Black Beast was the greatest calamity that ever befell mankind. It annihilated nearly all life on Earth, and even now the only places humans can live are the Hierarchical Cities on mountains." He took a step closer to Leo, expression hardening. "And you know where it came from? People messing with things they didn't understand carelessly. I don't care how much of a vendetta you have, this is going to stop. Now. It was one thing when you were only endangering your own life, but this is what, the third time you've caused an ecological disaster on just this world?" He let out an angry and exasperated-sounding grunt. "This is fucking ridiculous. Stop. Or someone else is going to have to make you."

"Maybe I could go first? One of my cards has a Noble Phantasm that should protect me if they attack." Despite her words, the expression on Lucine's face indicated she very much would not like to walk up to a camp of evil cultists and get shot at before everyone else. "Or someone could borrow Opal, but Opal barely lets me use her lately." She sounded less keen on that idea, too, unconsciously patting the backpack that the irascible device was currently imprisoned in. Her somewhat fearful expression was broken up by a slight yawn; she was still a bit tired from summoning a card earlier.

Kusuke was about near Satomi when she began her rant at Leo, as he'd been spending most of the time here either training or helping her out with the walls (with the occasional provision of a power source for a more esoteric creation) and looked roughly as pleased with him as the samurai was. "So, wait. You mean to tell me that you decided that screwing around with even more corrupted bullshit was a good idea? Didn't you almost make grey goo earlier? Why. . . Why are you so. . . you?" His voice wasn't enraged like Satomi's, but it held that sort of long-suffering frustration of somebody who had dealt with entirely too much of whatever the situation was. "Is your plan to just mix various kinds of obviously evil magic around until you make a new Black Beast that wipes us all out? What was the endgame here?"

Lots of attacks miss Jade, Gozer parries a Greater Lahmu while the remaining Bel Lahmu steals Jade's buffs. The other Greater Lahmu puts the buff on itself. Some heals fly around, and this editor sucks ass because it ate the full update. Also you guys killed two of the little ones. Initiative Status

If you really, really mean that, and you actually want to improve, I'll try my best to not hold a grudge.

Empi places a charm on Gabriel causing him to take [14%] less damage. Gabriel decides to do his best impression of a nuclear airburst, striking every one of their foes for [17] damage. The action leaves lasting burns on all of them, dealing [6] damage. The first of the flying creatures dives at Empi, raking a clawed limb across her for [15] damage. The second follows up in the opposite direction for [13]. Perlita unleashes a shining light of her own upon the second Bel Lahmu, dealing [24] damage! The small beasts rush forward at the party. One of them leaps, biting and clawing, at Kino, dealing [7] damage. Two more attack Empi for [15] damage. The final two attack Hiroki for [7] damage. The larger ground-based beasts skitter forward, impaling the ground on sharp limbs that don't belong on any man or beast. The first one throws itself against Kino, dealing [13] damage via various small puncture wounds. The second stabs out at Gabriel, striking him for [9] damage. Magna uses her high spookiness to get her enemies to target her minions instead. Jeanne edges herself up. Her minions set three different lahmu on fire, dealing [11] damage to each. Kino summons her sister to the battlefield. Enma demonstrates her excitement by murdering one of the small beasts, healing her sister for 9 HP. Mira ZEAs the first of the larger beasts for 21 damage. Hiroki deletes the remaining lesser beasts as if competing with Gabriel, and forces herself into the path of the second of the greater beasts. A strange magical pulse washes over the battlefield from somewhere else. A grisly-looking and evil-feeling sort of mud begins leaking out of the pores of Greater Lahmu A. The second beast doesn't seem to change. . . The first of the flying beasts sprouts additonal wickedly clawed limbs. The fourth also seems unchanged. . . Gilgamesh seems mildly annoyed by this ruckus, but does nothing to the group. Initiative Status

R15 shoot Futch

Give the knight another tip

Oh dear. It really was going to be like that. Damn the Lemaires and their naming schemes. "I knew who you meant. We'll have to sort that bit out later, I think." He shook his head, before his expression brightened a bit. It would be interesting to see more of Sebastian, at the very least, and he had positive associations with the man. "It's always good to pick up advice from those that are more experienced than you. It should be educational, certainly." He glanced around, a bit. No sign of either Val or Priscilla; he didn't hear the latter's voice, and he wondered if that meant that Val had evaded her, or that she'd been dragged off to talk about some frippery against her will. "How long have you been in. . . Valentine's service, anyway? It can't have been long, else I'd expect to have heard from you before now."