Chevaleresse

The first of the flying monsters dives at Magnum's bus, raking its limbs along it for [10] damage before returning to the skies. Mitsurugi unleashes a barrage of danmaku, dealing [19] damage to each Bel Lahmu, [18] to each Lahmu, [14] to each Wyvern and the group of Dragon Teeth. Saber points her blade at the group and raises her flag, urging the monsters at her side forward. The Wyverns and Dragon Teeth gain +3 damage on their next attack! Magnum shines the spotlight on the blackened holy woman before them. [25 vs 21: Success] He gains the following information: A warped form of the saint Jeanne d'Arc. Originally an impossible existence, an aberration in a timeline brought her forth. Not actually the original saint, but merely modeled on a madman's thoughts of how she should feel. It is unlikely that she would be able to resist a proper divine power, or the flames that consumed who she is modeled on. Saber rushes forward, setting her sword aflame. She slashes at Soryn, dealing [12] damage and setting him aflame for [10] damage per turn. The second flying monster swoops at Gabriel, battering him with strong limbs for [10] damage before flying out of reach. The first wyvern flies toward Gabriel as well, raking him with its claws for [13] damage. Atton shoots a bullet at one of the Dragon Tooth Warriors, striking it for [17] damage. It does not look particularly enthused by this. Snow taunts the first Wyvern and Saber, drawing their attention to her! The second of the ground-based monsters skitters forward toward Atton and drives a sharp limb toward him, dealing [6] damage. Saber takes Snow up on her offer, slashing at her with a flame-covered sword for [0] damage. She's set aflame, but it doesn't seem to be able to harm her through her armor. Gabriel sets Lahmu A aflame, dealing [11] damage. The nuclear fire continues to eat at it, dealing [5] damage per turn. Soryn places a Hemosphere around Mitsurugi, spending 17 health to create a barrier that will absorb 25 damage. On exhaustion, it will deal [25] damage to the attacker. Magna directs her various minions to attack. The beasts leap toward the flying monster, dealing [24] damage together; it seems they're having trouble reaching it. The first officer's bolt of fire deals [20] damage, and sets the monster aflame. The second one has a similar effect on his target, dealing [19] damage and burning it. The third's target isn't quite as badly affected, taking [17] damage and being burned for [5]. Magna then re-euthanizes her second beast to heal two of her officers. Edmond boosts his Intelligence by 11. The second Wyvern attacks Magna's third officer, dealing [10] damage. The group of warriors rushes the group of undead minions, attacking each. The first officer takes [7], the second [7], and the third is forcefully de-animated. The beast takes the hit meant for its now-vanished companion, and collapses in turn. "You think that's going to be enough to stop me!?" Sinister, purple-black flames surround Saber for a moment. Saber's SYN has increased by 5! Her INT decreased by 2, and her CON decreased by 3. The first monster skitters up to Soryn, and impales him for [12] damage. Perlita heals Mitsurugi! . . . but she was already at full health. Spicy HG rushes Lahmu A, striking it repeatedly for a total of [27] damage. Status: Initiative

"The Shadowlands, huh. . .?" Definitely not something that existed in his history. He could try and draw some similarities to the Boundary, but they didn't sound like the same thing at all. Some superficial aspects were the same, but he doubted these Shadowlands represented the space between timelines and worlds. "You said it's the Kaiu wall? So your family is the one responsible for building and maintaining it, then?" Satomi seemed to have architectural talent - among other things - so it made sense.

Arturia was rather glad that her cabin hadn't been assigned to hiking. She was rather. . . sedentary. Though it probably wouldn't have been too bad. Regardless, she was happy to be doing some wood carving. It was an activity she enjoyed, even if she wasn't particularly good at it. She sat in a spot, far enough away from the others that there would be no one looking over her shoulder but close enough to make sure that nobody was planning on stabbing anyone else with a chisel or something. Presently, she was attempting to represent her mental image of the Rock of Reat - a fortress from her favorite series - on the wood. So far it was. . . earnest, at least.

Hiroki took a few deep breaths, deep enough that they were visible even at a distance on the slight girl's frame. They continued as she called her mech, the mobile fortress of dark plating and bristling weaponry lifting her off the ground. Her HUD flickered to life - all systems green, as usual. I can do this. Low armor, glowing gloves mean she's going to be a SMO build. I destroyed too many of those to count to get here. I can do this too. She was fighting to keep herself from cracking under the pressure, not that anyone outside her mech would know; those calming inhalations were dangerously close to panting, echoing through the cramped space of her helmet. Even if she's a god, Lord is just another fighter. And I've beaten every single one I've come up against so far. The jets on her back powered up, straining to lift the Hellfire Knight off the ground. "Set attack pattern beta, modify to concentrate fire on approach vectors." The glow emanating from the mech flared up as the plasma cannons it was festooned with flared to life, bombarding the field in front of her. The spread wasn't quite as, well, spread as her previous attacks, being aimed specifically at making it difficult to for her opponent to move directly toward her. The projectiles themselves seemed to travel almost lazily, rather than with the killing intent of most of her assaults.

i mentioned as much on discord but consider this tentative interest

More wind

"Then it shouldn't be a problem going forward, right? Everyone involved overreacted, including myself, and now it's done with. This is one of those things that can safely be left in the past." Kusuke paused for a moment. There wasn't really much more to say on that particular topic. . . "Maybe it'd help if you told us a little more about where you were from?"

Hoshiko did not seem to be particularly capable of delivering a response at the moment, despite the way her mouth opened and closed several times. Unless you counted the strangled-sounding noise as one, or the fact that her face had evidently seen the shade of pink it had been earlier, grown disgusted, and begun to emulate the bright red of her shirt instead.

"I'm just trying to explain why people are getting upset," Kusuke said, in some approximation of a placating tone. "I'm not trying to blame you for living in a place that isolated you from ever hearing different points of view on the matter. All I'm trying to do is get you to understand how important other people actually think this is, and why saying somebody has no soul isn't exactly a shining compliment. That whole thing about not having shared them? I'm trying to fix that right now. Hence this conversation."

Archer & James "I can block their attacks with my barriers. If they come down out of the ship then they're giving up their main advantage. If you get pressed, you can just move backward and bombard them, right? I doubt whoever that is actually has a range advantage over you." Truth be told, he didn't really have a plan. Still, he was confident that utilizing his strengths in combination with his Archer's could lead them to victory - or a draw that he could analyze and turn into a victory.

"Don't pretend you don't have sore points either," Kusuke said bluntly in response to her tone. "Anyway. Now that I've actually got you talking about this, can't you see why someone would be offended if you said they had no soul in that view too? Your honor's important to you, right? And your social status." He decided that the topic of how immoral a caste system - which this sounded like - was at a later time. "You'd be saying that somebody has no honor, no place in society, and none of those sort of. . . ephemeral bonds with other people. That they're less of a person."

Kusuke nodded. "Yeah. It's even more than that, honestly. It's not just what makes you a person, it holds every single detail about your life. If you use equipment that they have back on my world, you can analyze someone's soul and learn a lot about them. Not that this is a common practice; it's usually for studying the Boundary indirectly. But, yeah, that's why I got upset. That, and I know a man that perpetrates the most vicious atrocities on people because of what he thinks of people and their souls."

"Uhh. . ." Kusuke also wasn't entirely certain where to start. "Would it help if I tried to explain why I got so angry earlier?"

"How about ya try again when ya get yourself a real weapon, not an overgrown kitchen knife!" Ecquis reared up and then lunged forward, imparting extra momentum to the lance strike Myrdwyn was already in the midst of delivering. Iron Lance this fool

"Rokugan sounds like some kind of alternative version of Japan from several centuries ago. As far as I can tell, there are a few differences, but it's pretty tough to say they're not somehow related. Of course, it's probably better off than Japan where and when I'm from. . ." Kusuke trailed off, sounding vaguely sad. "Anyway. Uhh. . . I figured it might be a good idea, speaking of the souls bit, if we could try to have a rational conversation about it. Try to get things cleared up a bit more, you know?"

Kusuke, for his part, was still rubbing at his eyes (despite rewinding himself to cancel out the blindness) and trying to figure out what the hell it was that Lucille had just done. The girl herself didn't seem particularly approachable, and probably needed some rest after that, however, so he let the issue lie for now. There was another person he felt like nettling at the moment, anyway. He flopped down on a bus seat across the aisle from Satomi, and turned his head toward her. "So, you've decided that I'm not a gaijin then, Satomi-san?"

"Yeah, uh, is there any way we can. You know. Not do this? I know they're demons or something, but this just isn't right." He'd been doing his best to ignore the group, largely just questioning their sanity.

Once the party had slipped past the forces guarding the outskirts of the Asterlux forces, they headed quickly in the direction of Lancer; they'd been told where she was just before leaving by a rather beleaguered-looking diviner. It wasn't any further away than the other servants had been, but it seemed their battlefield was to be a featureless plain, gently rolling for nearly as far as the eye could see. Not that it could see far, with the almost unnatural darkness that cloaked the land. As a result, it felt like their walk would stretch on forever, until their target finally came into sight. A figure astride a horse, illuminating by a glowing lance. Her head turned toward the party, and she motioned wordlessly at the human soldiers near her. They formed up, and started to move toward the party; Lancer herself slowly turned her horse to face them, and then set her lance, preparing to charge. A few things, fouler than the skeletal monsters they had seen before, crawled toward them as well, four legs suspending withered bodies that might have been men once, with a head overtaken entirely by a sideways mouth with human teeth. Status: Initiative:

The party, their passage outside the castle covered by the team defending it, followed the directions given by one of the Asterlux diviners toward the Servant Saber. The sun was just barely beginning to peek over the horizon - not that it did much to affect the overall light levels, due to the seemingly ever-present haze of smoke, the darkness seeming to press down upon the land. The smell of charred timber with other, fouler undercurrents grew stronger and stronger as they approached their destination. What had once been a village, now charred and still smoldering in some places, nestled between two hills; they could see their target clearly, as the woman made no effort to hide. She turned to face them, flanked by two wyverns with black scales; no soldiers were in sight, though remnants of the skeletal monsters from before still ambled about the village, and there were. . . things. . . nearby as well. Dark purple things, with what looked like withered humanoid forms suspended by four spider-like legs, and a head composed entirely of a vertical mouth with what seemed to be human teeth. Something similar-looking flitted about in the air, now that they were close enough that the smoke didn't obscure them. "Ah, I see the humans in the castle have sent me more fuel for my flames. Fine then, burn like the rest!" Status: Initiative:

Kusuke returned the bow. "Not a problem." He largely tried to avoid looking at the people who seemed intent on tearing apart the corpses of the things they'd just fought; he was starting to think that everyone here was more than slightly crazy. He instead turned his attention to Parias. "Glad we could help, but I do want to ask: what is this place?"

Lucine silently raises her weapons after downing the skirmisher, looking for another target. There was one in particular that stood out, now that the one soaking up all the damage was down. The twin weapons that made up Opal swung toward the mad scientist known as Moira, and released a pair of brilliant magic bolts flying in her direction. Attack Moira with Opal.

Kusuke approached Satomi as she looted the creature. "I really need to get in the habit of asking first, so: would you like me to fix you up? Getting blasted with acid and set on fire didn't exactly look like a fun experience." If she consented, he would rewind her body to several moments ago, where she was unharmed. "You too, Mirri. I know some people find time travel a little. . . uncomfortable, but it'll fix you up better than any doctor could." He briefly considered clarifying that this wasn't meant as a slight toward Harry - but the flash of irritation with the man turned him away from such.

The archer struck a pose with one fist thrust up into the air, crouched with her feet spread out somewhat. "I am Hoshiko the Righteous, Chosen Hero of the Fiery Goddess, sent to deliver justice to the evil!" After a moment, it seemed that the rest of what the man had said finally clicked in her head; she showed an emotion that one might have thought the hunter was incapable of. Namely, embarrassment; she turned a shade of pink that was a lovely complement to the shade of her hair. "Er, um, no, we're part of a larger group visiting Caelum on business. No, uh, tying."

Kusuke uses his first action to Recall Soma, resetting her health to what it was at the start of this turn. He uses his second and third actions to stab the Ettins that look the weakest. He delays his final action to the end of the round, and uses Tempofrag on the Death Wyvern, or the Reivers if it is dead.

Wind the speardude