Chevaleresse

"Umm. . ." Lucine scratched the back of her head. The truth was, she was a very picky eater. Living in a castle surrounded by choosy mages tended to have that effect. "I guess, since I'm really hungry. . ." She would probably eat whatever what was put in front of her at this point, though it was to be seen whether she'd ever come back to this place.

"I am as much a whore as you are a king." She kept the pain from her voice and face. She could have credited her theater training, of course, but she was focused on nothing but ending the pain and suffering this man continued to work.

Justine moved smoothly, pivoting from her dance into a far more deadly motion. She crossed the space separating her and the wicked king, Joyeuse singing as it moved through the air with purity of purpose. "She isn't the only one you need to worry about." H3, stab Darcy for great justice!

Korinna stomped forward, not so much grumbling under her breath as simply outright growling at their foes, before making a full-body motion to swing her axe at one of their opponents. K6, hatchet the Fiend

Despite Lucine's determination to reach Asgore and save Nader, if such a thing was even possible at this point, she found herself feeling lethargic. It was a feeling she'd come to be worryingly familiar with on this trip thus far: mana depletion. It seemed that whatever magic had been used to heal her had not been entirely sourced externally. That, or she'd simply hemorrhaged it out in her blood. The girl idly poked at the still-missing patch in her hoodie, still damp and darkened with her own blood. Despite the urgency of their mission and her almost certainly alarming appearance, Lucine slowed in front of the hotel. "Um, Proditor? I'm sorry, but I'm, uh, really hungry. . ." The little mage was visibly unsteady on her feet as she spoke.

"Okay. We'll do our best." The effect was somewhat spoiled when Lucine let out a small squeak as the two began to flicker upward. She managed to push herself back to simply squeezing her eyes shut for the succeeding motions, if they could even really be called that. This elevator shaft was rapidly becoming her least favorite place in the mountain, however; that much was certain. She would remain in a mostly-frozen posture until she knew that they were done with the rapid, stuttering teleports and ready to move normally.

Yukari raised an eyebrow. "An interesting manipulation tactic. I would try to find something a bit more novel, next time you have a request of me." She gestured lazily with one hand, and another gap appeared just off to Walmond's right. "Fortunately for you, I'n in a good mood today. Do watch yourself, though. You, too, are an otherworldly threat to my little playground, along with the rest of your group."

Yukari casually strolled out of the side of the building, her signature inscrutable look on her face once more. A parasol laid lazily across one of her shoulders. "Would I be willing? Perhaps." The youkai appeared pensive for a moment. "You're very bold, you know, asking such a petty favor of a powerful youkai such as myself."

Walmond, sticking his head out through the gap, discovers that it leads to neither Yuyuko's nor Yukari's manor. Instead, he sees the back of what appears to be a Shinto shrine of moderate size. Nobody seems to be around at the moment. He gets the distinct feeling that Yukari can still hear him, though.

"But, I said there was. . ." She felt at her pack. Untouched, of course. It seemed nobody had seriously considered her suggestions, not even when she was laying on the ground bleeding out. Lucine mostly just wanted to sit and cry. It sounded an awful lot like Nader was dead, and like her actions had a lot to do with it. She couldn't give up hope quite yet, though. If Nader's soul had merely been taken, and not destroyed. . . "W-we have to get there as soon as we can." She stood up. "What's the fastest way there?" The effect of her determined words was somewhat spoiled by the way her voice audibly wavered as she choked back the desire to flop on the ground and bawl instead of doing anything meaningful.

A piece of paper flutters down from the ceiling onto IP's head. Reading it, it appears to be a deed (in English) that entitles the holder to a plot of land in the Hell of Blazing Fires.

Lucine sat up woozily. She hadn't really been expecting to be able to do so at all, and things had gotten very hazy very quickly. There was some kind of exchange between Nader and Asgore, she knew that much, but it was hard to summon forth the details of what had happened before that flash. The girl poked at the hole in the front of her hoodie, feeling smooth, unblemished skin and no wound of any sort - though the edges of the hole were still damp and coppery-smelling. "I, um, I don't know. There were these weird creatures here, and then Asgore asked them to go away, and then. . ." She glanced up at Proditor, hoping he could explain what happened in her place. Lucine didn't really want to talk about it.

"Oh, it was no trouble at all." Youmu shot a look at Yuyuko, and the attack bounced off of her impressive defenses for no damage with a nearly audible tink. The gardener/cook/swordswoman/half-ghost declined to comment further, however. There was a brief sensation of falling, if one could feel like they were falling in every direction at once, as the group stepped through the portal. It subsided as soon as it began, though; Yukari had apparently sated her thirst for abusing the group earlier. What waited on the other side, however, seemed. . . less than welcoming. Ash, dust, and fire hung in the air. Wisps of an unfamiliar, but still hostile-feeling magic flitted about in the air, and the entire place was somehow dank and humid despite the lack of water in sight. Flames seemed to blaze in almost random places, with those spirits circling about them, and spires of rock sprung from both above and below. Still, the place had a sort of forlorn beauty about it; there was enough visibility to see for a fair distance. A palace-like structure sat a long ways off, and it seemed that there was even a town built down here, though their current location wasn't anywhere close to it. "Right, I nearly forgot." The relative calm was rather abruptly cut short by a passenger train appearing in front of the party before crashing into a nearby stalagmite. Cracks spiderwebbed through the rock and the lead car was thoroughly crushed, but by some miracle the train neither fell over nor crashed into the party itself, instead coming to rest mostly upright and undamaged save for the first two cars. "This place is now yours. Do mind the neighbors, though." Before anyone could respond, Yukari turned and walked through another gap; this one, however, did not close behind her.

Lucine came to rest on her side, propped up by her backpack. On some level, she was aware that she'd probably just killed herself. She felt bad for putting Nader through that - she didn't think he was a bad guy, underneath it all, even if he had his problems - but maybe, something would come of it. She coughed weakly, the motion sending another spike of pain through her chest. The sensation was enough that she felt it through her entire body. "I'm. . . sorry. I just wanted. . . to help." She tried to breathe in more shallowly, but it was hard to tell whether it was actually helping. "I think you can. . . figure things out." She pawed weakly in the general direction of her bag. "There's some cards. . . Sorry I couldn't show you. . ."

Lucine, seeing Asgore move away, had already begun to move towards him again; she wanted to ensure that they had a chance to talk things out before the shooting started. Unfortunately for just about everyone in the room, himself included, Nader was still very Nader; Lucine had glanced at the King of Monsters for long enough, and in her hurry to forestall the action she saw coming, she put herself directly in its path. Lucine places herself in the path of Nader's shot.

"Are they really gone?" Lucine glanced around, concerned. The strange creatures could have just retreated for some kind of ambush. . . but maybe it was out of respect for Asgore that they had left? Or maybe they really did just want to play, somehow? "That was weird, and kinda scary. But, um, hi everyone." Lucine waved as her outfit reverted back to normal. "Uh, Nader? Are you. . . okay?" The man had been acting increasingly erratic lately, and she wasn't sure what to make of it. Especially not now that she'd brought the one who had been going around and harvesting souls for a polite chat. Or, well, he had brought her, but details. "Did you maybe see a lizard person run past?"

K4, booty shake at Arthur & Lenore

Lucine helpfully contributed with another earsplitting shriek of fear when she stumbled into the room, and immediately witnessed Asgore taking an attack for Nader that seemed to originate from the. . . things, attacking them. Things that she had no way to describe, other than being both alien and disturbingly familiar. It reminded her of something she'd seen at home, once. A memory she'd tried to push back, of a strange wretched thing that still hadn't been disposed of. A sister of hers, in a twisted way. She at least had enough presence of mind to grab Opal out of the air and deploy the device's magic, swapping her outfit around and granting her the imitation divine ward that was God Hand - though she didn't yet allow the AI to take control of her actions. "I-I don't know what they are. Nader, what's happening!?"

Lucine had been terrified enough that she couldn't even shriek on her way down; she probably would have remained stationary and trembling for a few extra moments after landing if the sound of gunfire hadn't brought its own delightful mix of emotions. She squeaked in surprise, then took a few steps towards the noise. The reports of the weapons sounded familiar, very familiar. "Is that-? I think that's Nader!" She turned to Asgore. "Be careful, my friend Nader is here, and I think he's in trouble, but he also might hurt you if you show up suddenly. Just, umm, stay behind me or something." And with that, Lucine turned and ran full tilt towards the booming roar of firearms, hoping that she wasn't going to arrive too late to head off something terrible.

Lucine gave both Asgore and the elevator shaft a number of concerned-looking glances before deciding that, between the monster's kind exterior and apparent confidence in not splattering horribly at the bottom, combined with this being a rather ridiculous and elaborate ploy to kill her if that were ever going to be the case, that she would, in fact, trust him. ". . . Uh. I see." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Just do it, I don't really want to look." Lucine had never really considered herself to be afraid of heights, but a fear of plummeting down a dark elevator shaft to her doom was rather different, in her opinion.

Lucine looked down the shaft, then back to Asgore, then down the shaft again, then at Asgore again. "Umm. . . sure." She glanced sideways at nothing in particular. "Can you, um, fly or something? I don't really see a good way down there." Regardless, she took the proffered hand, despite the fact that it was probably several times the size of her own.

". . . Did I scare her away? I didn't mean to." Lucine sighed. She really hadn't thought this through. "Where do you think she went?"

"It's okay." Lucine stood up, prepared to follow as well. "I can't really do the whole summoning thing on the way, but I could show you the Cards? I have a few. . . although I guess most of them are ones you probably wouldn't recognize. I actually don't really know some of them myself, but. . ." She dug in her bag, debating stuffing Opal down into it before deciding that the magical device might be needed in a moment. She fished Jim Raynor's card out, then grabbed Opal out of the air and popped the Herakles card out as well despite the resulting squawk of protest. "These are Class Cards. They're like, umm, how do I explain this. . ." Lucine thought for a moment. "Basically, sometimes when people die and they're really important, they get recorded by this weird magic thing called the Throne of Heroes. There's a big ritual that can make partial copies of those records, and I can make things that are sort of copies of those."

"I guess." Judging by her tone, she still didn't feel particularly sorry. Lucine took an experimental sip of the tea, before glancing back up at Asgore. "And, um. . . I know you said that me trying to help using the cards was a nice thought, but I think we could really do it." She looked at her feet for a moment before her eyes came back up again. "I could show you it if you gave me a chance." A small spark of realization landed in her mind, prompting her to forget her irritation with Alphys. "Hey, you're kind of a mage or something, right?" A brief moment of concern flashed over the girl's expression, before she decided that an underground monster mage was probably not going to try and turn her into a cup because she wasn't human. "I could show both of you it, and then maybe you could see if you could help."

"I didn't break in! Or, well, um, it wasn't my idea, anyway. And how was I supposed to know that was your house?" She folded her arms in that smug way that seemed to be common among all twelve-year-old girls. "You didn't even let me try to explain before you zapped me. And those weren't soldiers, either. Those are my friends." Lucine deflated slightly as she remembered why she was there. "We were just trying to figure out how to stop all this bad stuff from happening."