Sutoratosu

"Oooooh....shit. Thats... yeh, I see what you mean now" Arya sighed. It was one big surprise after another, it seemed. Still "Uh well... look, it's all out in the open now, and... that's what important. Hopefully we can fix the misunderstanding with Naya, and well.... um..." she was still blushing a little bit, as she kicked a few loose pebbles off the path "We can talk about the...other stuff later. We should... probably head back to the pavilion though, try to patch up everything... plus we probably got into even more trouble by running off. But... Natalie..." She finally regained enough of her thoughts to look the other girl in the eye, slowly supressing the warmth that had spread throughout her face. She wasn't if she was right, but well, there had already been two surprises now, whos to say there wasn't a third waiting? Only one way to find out "is there... anything else I should know? Just out of curiosity. I figured if there is, it'd probably be easier to say it now, since we've already.... you know. If there isn't, we should really head back and try to fix this"

"hmmmm, you have a point" Lucille said before she took out a bit of charcoal and began drawing on the ground. Before long, letting a combination of extensive muscle memory guided by the trance like state a Thaumist needed to carry out their work, she'd constructed two complete Circuits on the barren ground, and set the two halves inside them. A snap of the fingers, and one of the circles fire right up. Lucille went to work almost immediately as the surrounding area quickly filled with a bright white light... And out hopped a pigeon sized animal, covered in steel feathers that heavily resembled knives in their right. "Enw peonh, ohw sid?" It asked, cocking it's head as it looked upon the one who had created it. Lucille could only stand there, have in fasincation, half in disbeleif that the thing had actually... talked. "Uh...C-come again?" She asked. At the same time she did, she reached out with a bonded part of her mind, trying to form a connection... "I didn't quite... catch that..." "Het nrte is aetl. Eht tcteciliyer was rtndue off." The bird chirped "Uoy hsmnua aer the iflth fo sith orlwd, uoy sudolh usrdeernr now so hatt ruo ogrilsou magiraa ovslordre nca imcla erith gruitfhl caple as hte oamnndit cpisese!" "Hang on, nevermind, got excited. You're not Sapient little buddy, you're just capable of speaking something close enough to human language.... it's not quite as basic as mimicry, but it's not as advanced as holding actual conversations. Which meeeeeeans...." Lucille binds the Steel, talking Pigeon! The bird turns to Soma now, looking her dead in the eyes as speaks it in perfect.... something "She'll be plenty useful, I'm sure. Most of what she says is gibberish on her own, but with a little rational thought giving her direction, she's not half bad at relaying messages. Anywho, onto the next one.... who knows, maybe it'll be able to talk too" Lucille herself chuckled, before again snapping her fingers. The other circle fired up, and again, there was a bright flashed as Lucille walked over. thinking on how Soma used her weapon, perhaps it would be best if this one could serve as a potential replacement.... hmmm yes, she had just the right type of creature in mind... Minutes passed. The bird was silent as it hopped along the ground beside Soma. Soon enough however, the glow of mighty magic at work faded, and lucille was kneeling at the edge of the circle. In her hands was a generously sized reptilian creature, which Soma likely would've recognized as a Chameleon almost immediately. As it saw her, it stuck it's tongue, which was barbed with razor sharp blades, before shifting it's body color. And like that, the lizard was gone. Literally gone- for in lucille's hands, it seemed like she was holding nothing at all. Nevertheless, she stood and made to bring said nothing to Soma. "Oh come on, don't be like that" The girl chided. Almost reluctantly, the Chameleon reappeared, staring up at the Parahuman. Seemingly on lucille's prodding, he reached out and grabbed onto her, quickly climbing onto soma's shoulder. Lucille herself was practically beaming, clearly pleased that not only had there been no flesh horror, but both of them had out at least decently well "I think that little guy will make a decent replacement for your weapon, until we can scrounge a new one up for you. He can fire his tongue just like you could, and well.... don't let him lick you, it won't be a fun time. Aaaaaand one last small thing.... I could only tell cause I was inside his head figuring out all the odds and ends, and it really has no bearing on me, given well..." She waved a hand infront of her blank eyes, even outright feinting as if she were going to poke one of them. Neither eye gave any reaction, as one would expect from a blind girl "buuuuut it felt like he was triggering something just now, and when I took a gander in his senses, it was like he could bend some type of energy around himself somehow, and my guess is that it was light waves... You might want to put a collar or some sort of identifier on him, just to keep him from getting lost. though, he might be able to bend them around the collar too....um.... well, nevermind, forget I suggested that. Just let me know if you ever need any help finding or training him. That little trick isn't much use when you can't see to begin with. Plus it's easier to condition things when you can sense what their feeling." Lucille gifts the Razor-Tongued Chameleon into Soma's custody!

"oh... Soma...." Lucille trailed off once she realized who it was. She recalled the relative positioning of where the weapon landed and retrieved the broken halves. It was difficult for her to be certain, but from the touch alone the damage certain seemed to co-oberate the story. "Well... I'm sure we can do something with it. Maybe it's not suitable as a weapon anymore, but... why not turn it into a pet?" As far fetched as that statement probably sounded, the expression on the girl's face was earnest. It wasn't like it was the first time she'd made life from the inanimate, and it likely would not be the last time either.

The information she obtained was... interesting, but it proved to not be that helpful as she'd reached out with her own power and tried to replicate the effect the Aragami "core" apparently had on the other cells. Twice she tried, and twice, she failed. All she could really do was shrug it off as she stood up- it was disappointing, but not surprising. The little trick she'd tried had been practiced using bugs and other small critters, nothing on such a small and quite frankly strange order as a bunch of hive-minded cells which could apparently each act as individual organisms in their own right, when not daisy chained. She clicked her tongue a few times, used the echoes to map things out again, and headed back to the others. Just as she got closer however, two peices of something- made out of wood and metal, from how they hit the ground, nearly struck her, and probably would've if she hadn't heard them coming and stopped a good foot or two off of their trajectory. She listened around and eventually deduced that the nearest humanoid shape on the sonar had probably been the one behind it. "Ya know, there's no point tossing something," she said to the figure- not that she had any real way to know who it is without them talking to her "someone around here could probably help you put it back together.... or at least turn it into something that's useful again."

"I...I....I..." Arya just stuttered while an increasing warmth rushed to her cheeks, as pale as she was, it would've been all to easy for Natalie to see the nice shade of rosey red. There'd been a great many things she'd theorized would've been the cause for everything. This however... was most certain never one of them "I'm... the reason why? You... You really felt like that...? I... never had someone actually interested in...well..." For the first time in a very long time, she found herself verbally disarmed, sheepishly rubbing one arm as she looked away. The irony of just how this whole situation, from Mother Opium setting up the intervention, all the way to right now, was not lost on her. But it also didn't make the topic of conversation feel any less foreign and awkward. "I.... never knew.... never even guessed it. It all... makes sense though, now that I think about it. And... I know why you always stayed away, Natalie... and I didn't really blame you. It was just... how things were. How they'd always been for me...and I never expected any of that to change when your mother sponsored me, but... if this is how you really felt, you could've said something sooner... when there were times like now, where no one else was around and it was just us..." Slowly, but surely, she could feel herself getting a reign over the awkward mix of emotion. Well, not so much get a reign over it, as much as she simply sorted through the thickest parts to regain a bit of clarity. And as she did, something else Natalie had said caught her attention. Something... strange "What do you mean 'you changed someone else for the worse' though?" she asked "What happened? Who are you talking about?"

There was a moment of silence, as Arya considered things. finally though, just as the other girl was heading further down the path, she called out "What's going on Natalie? Come on, talk to me..." it was a plea laced with genuine concern, more than a simple request "It doesn't matter what it is, I'll listen. Whatever's going on, it's obviously getting to you; I doubt you would've exploded on that girl just now if it wasn't. You don't have to deal with it alone." Of course, knowing Natalie she half expected her to simply keep walking to the cabin, but at least she could hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd turn around. Or at the very least, if she didn't, the plea would still get her thinking later on. Or maybe the cynic in her was right (despite how much she told it to fuck off right now) and these hopes really were in vain...

Lucille released the Circuit and crept over to one of the fallen "Aragami" as the man over yonder had apparently named them. Her beast had been sent back to the bus- they may have cleared out the ones here, but it didn't mean there might not be more lurking in the area. Clicking her tongue a few times and using the ambient noises of the environment, she found her over to a large mass of something relatively soft, going off how the sounds had echoed from it. She clicked yet more times over it, as she ran her hands over the strange armored hide, and indeed, from the sonar imaging she got, it held the same basic profile as one of the bipedal, large tailed.... things that had joined the attack. "Such a waste.... though maybe it's for the best," she muttered "If your kind resisted me that easily, then you can't be that far off from gaining sapience. I wouldn't want to have one of your around, once that happened... considering what I felt inside your heads. Not as bad as the Serpent was, but not much better either." Nevertheless, she opened her senses, let herself fall into the trance, and scryed over the remains, trying to find even a hint of what an "Aragami" was defined as, and how it generally functioned as a biological organism...or organisms rather, going off what she'd felt earlier.

The knight's charge was swift and silent. Not but a few moments after the scavenger slung his magic, Mercadier was breaking through the haze of darkness left in it's wake, blood cold as ice as he ducked up and underneath the swordsman's already faltering guard. From that point, there was nothing that could save him- The dour knight had already exploited shatterpoint to get this close, and he was about to exploit yet another. One located right underneath the ribcage. His lance thrust upward with an almost sickening, wet squelch, impaling the Initiate like a hot knife through butter. The force of his final blow so great, it made the poor fool jolt upward from the impact, and it was there he hung upon the lance, as Mercadier looked at him. Eyes barren, expression matching a deadman's indifference. "..." Nothing. So absolutely disgusting were their foes, by this point he found that all he'd had to say, he'd already done it as he'd slain the earlier ones. And it was in that silence that he lowered the weapon, callously kicked the corpse off, and turned his attention to the last foe in view, practically daring the Recruit to face him in single combat.

H17, Impale the initiate

Moves: I. II. III. Lucille will use all 3 of her moves this turn to play the Healing Kazoo on whichever allies are at the lowest health! Brachus use his Restorative Breath on the same targets as lucille! (Heal Kazoo restores [6d5]% Mhp on the target. Restorative Breath heals 1d6+Syn{5} HP on the target)

"Alright," Arya had sighed, "fine, guess I did go a bit far there. I'm so-" And then all hell broke loose as the murders shouting began. The two of them had gone back and forth so quickly, there'd not been a single moment for Arya to interject, and by the end of it Natalie had stormed off towards the cabin and the girl with fake glasses was face down sobbing into the table. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck..." she hissed just under her breath. Yes, yes, great work here, she had done. This was certainly helping the problem with Natalie, indeed. "God damn it, that spiralled way out of control...." To be fair, it wasn't like fake glasses girl was exactly innocent by any stretch of the word. But Arya had just wanted to give her a hint that maybe she should bugger of, maybe intimidate her a little bit too- blondie had reminded oh too much of well.... most everyone. But even as she stood to follow after Natalie, some part of her couldn't help but glance back and feel just a bit of.... not quite guilt, not sympathy, but something that could come close enough to the two that she lingered for a moment. "I appologize. About all of that... well, some of it... look, I'm sorry" and with that said to Naya, she ran off towards the direction of the cabin... Natalie couldn't have gotten that far ahead in such a short time, could she?

There wasn't a flicker of reaction on Arya's face. Not even the smallest sign she'd even heard Black-Glasses' complaints, as she finished refining the effigy's shape and moved onto the fine detailing of it's fur, eyes, mouth, and claws. None until she very calmly and evenly said "I think the slur you're looking for is 'Mack', " The knife and miniature bear kept moving. She seemed to have shifted focus to the eyes above all else, going into almost excruciating detail with the knife as she did.... something to it. "Don't know why you're suddenly afraid to say it to my face; I hear girls just like you whispering it behind my back aaaaall the time. What, is it the knife? That what's got ya spooked? I mean yeah, sure I'm good with one, maybe even as good as I am with the Sketchpad. But do you really think I'm stupid or impulsive enough to turn this on you without a better reason than 'she insulted me'?" She chuckled darkly, shaking her head and continuing to carve away at the effigy's features "Look, I don't know who you are, and I really don't care, but... Don't go flattering yourself, m'kay? You wouldn't be the first bitch to call me Mack, and you wouldn't be the last either; been called it so many times by now, it might as well be my middle name. As if some pissant little girl like you could really make me snap, after I've gone this far keeping it together. You'd be nothing more than another random voice in the chorus; there is nothing you can say to me that I haven't already heard, or been called worse." With one last stroke of the blade, she seemed satisfied, slamming the (largely un-finished) bear down on the table, and turning it to face Naya. Though the hints of impressive detail, namely the flowing fur, most of the sculpture was still textureless, save for the head. Unlike the rest, it had been finished in all it's gory detail, one eye a ruined mess as a single arrow protruded from it, sunk so far through the socket and into the brain that only the fletching and lower half of the shaft was visible. Especially fine attention had been paid to the fur around the wound, the whittling lighter than in other areas, which compared to the fur detail around it almost gave the impression of slick wetness spreading over the patch. The beast's mouth was twisted in a death keel as the life left its single intact eye. A cold, unfeeling eye, one that, despite being nothing more than whittled wood, seemed to pierce right through anything it faced right down to it's very core. "Now," She flashed Blondie a friendly smile, but her eyes remained as cold and dead as a wage slave who'd just worked the single longest shift in her life "Were you gonna whine to Natalie some more about her roommate, or did you come over here to bother her because you actually had something of substance to talk about?"

"Right here," Arya answered just as the blonde girl with glasses asked. She sat just a bit further down the table from them, wooden block in one hand and carving knife in the other, the former rotating and turning as the latter worked with a nonchalant deftness. She didn't even seem to be paying attention to what she was doing, yet as the moments dragged by the block quickly began to take the profile of a bear raised on it's haunches, claws raised threatening. Eyeballing it a bit before beginning to further refine the rough shape, she continued "Name's Arya. Don't think I've ever seen you before...you a friend of Natalie's?" It honestly wouldn't surprise her, if the girl answered yes. Clearly Natalie herself wasn't too thrilled with her company, but Blonde-Hair-Black-Glasses seemed to think there was nothing wrong. Hard to tell whether she was just socially dense, or there was something else going on there.

At the demonologist's request, stellio loosened his breast plate a bit, sliding in a gauntleted hand and quickly retrieving an old, leather bound journal. How many decades it had been since he last wrote in it, he did not know, nor did he know how long it had been since he last delved headlong into whatever libraries or other potential places housing information about them, desperate to find even a scrap of information to help him excise the damn fiends. Quite frankly, after a certain point, probably right around the time he'd enlisted, he'd simply given it up, resolving that if he could not find a way to excise them, at the very least he could hone his will enough to resist his constant temptations... Shaking his head as the old memories faded back into the corners of his mind, he offered it to the witch "Already compiled, years and years ago. When I was younger and a bit more naive, I had thought to seek out each and every last drop of knowledge I could about them, just encase there was some way out of it... there wasn't." Within the old journal would be contained a veritable wealth of names, titles, and various descriptions, each of them numbered as neat, scribbled little entries across the journal's pages, each entry detailing the name, role, and other tidbits of the countless denizens of the abyss. As one would read it, it would become Obvious a teenage stellio had started off his notes by exploring the most common of the Ogres, the foot-soldiers and cannon fodder breeds; namely the Imp and it's more powerful relatives such as Devils, and stellio had included a sketch of every one of their types- all of them resembled tall, emaciated humanoids with broad wings, hunched posture, curled horns atop their heads, cloven feet not unlike those of a goat or horse, and a serpentine tail. They appeared to be pathetically weak individually, but the knight in his younger years had made a special note of how they tended to make up for it with otherwordly cunning easily capable of outdoing even the best mortal conman. After Imps and Devils, the entries focused on progressively stronger classes of Ogre, organizing them into strict orders of magnitude which escalate from lower, middle, high, and finally the Peak. Lower and Middle orders contained the names and descriptors of lower Ogres such as Imps, those who were meant as little more than common rank and file and middling level officers, while those of the high order represented the Generals of the Ogres, direct servants to the supreme god of darkness, the fabled and dreaded Diablo, and his cabal of lesser Ogre gods... and chief among these Generals, Stellio had placed a demon named "Galf", an imposing, gargoyle like-being who had become notorious for his ferocity and steady victories during the ogre battle, only to be defeated by three angelic knights sent by the gods themselves in order to help mankind retain control of the surface realm. Cheif among his strategies had been converting and corrupting the souls of fallen men into vampires and other ungodly undead as a means to bolster his own armies. The Peak Order, or "Cabal" level as Stellio had put it, contained the most powerful individuals ever known among the Ogres- each one of them powerful enough to rival a full fledged god in their prime... names included a being named Ashmedai, who apparently had a more masterful command of elemental darkness than any of his peers. Danika, who in her own right had quite the story which stellio had made sure to include, who was honestly more a prisoner to the Cabal of Ogre Gods than a willing participant, but had eventually grown to sympathize with her captors and orchestrated to improve the lives of the Ogres... or tried to. Cheif among the fell gods, was unsurprisingly the very beast he had mentioned earlier- Diablo, the mage wyrm. A great, horror-inspiring figure who was said in times of old to have rivalled the creator god himself, whoever that might be (for, as Melisa would likely pick up from various footnotes stellio left, the people of his world had long since debated and warred over the question of just which "god" had actually created the world and was thus the one true deity to rule them all). He seemed to be able to take on a variable form at will, from a fully fledged, mountainous sized dragon, to a centaur form of an Imp-like humanoid fused to a twin headed dragon at the waist, to yet more appearances. Stellio went into greater detail about him than any others, going so far as to recount tales that he claimed no other scholar could know, in the text... tales of how Diablo, sealed away after his failed bid to take the surface world from humanity and elevate the Ogres from the misery of the underrealms, had found a disciple through a corrupted artifact, and through him had tried to return to the world merely a few decades ago, using a massive war as a cover... only to be vanquished and sealed again by a few rebels before he could regain his full might.

The mechanic felt something rise in him, as the god's taunts started to actually hit closer and closer to home. Just as quickly as the fires flared however, Asmodeus was there, voice even and leveled as he snapped the man back before he could fully lose his shit "Focus Sully." The AI reminded him, "Focus. Don't let him get what he wants out of you, don't let him get that foothold. It's all a ploy to knock us off balance and create the opening he needs, just like the battle against Ball-Boy." The mechanic grit his teeth still, hot fury just bubbling beneath the surface. But he took a breath, nodded his head, and re-established a firm control over Revenant's raw nature- the rush the persona provided was like being caught up in a storm, a massive tempest that seemed all too willing to swallow him whole. And if he slipped up even a minute, he'd be giving the dragon control yet again, and it would just devolve into a repeat of last fight. Yet both Sasha and Asmodeus had been convinced that if he just took the to try and be the dominant force, if he learned now what he'd been too afraid to back then, maybe, just maybe, he could do this. "Didn't know the God of Lust was a psychologist." Was all Sully countered with, verbally. In terms of the situation around them however, his efforts were far more swift; before the small missile could even clear half the distance to him, a blast of lightning arced forth from his palm with countless tendrils of crackling radiance, intercepting the ordinance and causing it to blow it's payload uselessly in the middle of the arena. At the exact same moment as his interception, Ragnorok had altered its course after the God dodged it... but this time there was no attempt to slice into Swag. No, for the moment that Sully launched the electrical burst, Ragnorok produced a blast of far greater magnitude from behind the god, sending forth a bloom of pale grey, violet and blue electro-magnetic force, a bloom that expanded outwards in the blink of an eye as the explosion from the premature detonation would've served to distract from it's march. SPECIAL ABILITY: DISABLING EMP, ACTIVATED VIA RAGNAROK Just as Solomon was taking action, so to did Asmodeus, pumping the repulsion fields around the mech to high and watching every sensor they had for any sign of an approach from any direction- instantaneous teleportation based or otherwise. He held two words especially ready on his voice synthesizer, just encase the projected possibility he was most apprehensive of came to be true, and the mechanic might have to embrace the power he'd been neglecting by trial by fire. Though there had been some practice in the time before the exhibitions, he couldn't help but still be leery over whether the mechanic would manage to replicate their results in the heat of a split-second save or die scenario... but he could hope.

"Not in my world, it wouldn't be," the knight responded "Most who are knowledgeable and insane enough to intentionally draw forth an ogre- our equivalent of what you might deem a full-fledged demon -must do so either by using divine artifacts to break seals that were placed for good reason, or more.... direct methods. Dark Magic alone holds none of the same conotations in my home realm as it sounds like it does, in the places you've visited. It's merely another element, with it's own set of offenses, defenses, and utilities. But very well, if you are not interested in the primary magic I practice, I've witnessed and put an end to enough arcane crimes over the decades that I've pieced together how some of the less... well known schools in my world operate. I could give you notes on the sympathetic principles by which necromancy functions in my realm, the mental degradation it seems to have on most practitioners, the names, habits, and deeds- both good and ill, though mostly ill -of the greatest ones I've crossed paths and killed, etcetera. Or conversely, I could do the same for the principles of Draconic magic- whose name indeed stems from exactly what it sounds like: Dragons. One could say it's like an amalgamation of every primary element we have, with several unique capabilities to it's name, such as long range teleportation, Precognition, the power to negate both blades and spells alike like it's nothing, the power to sacrifice one's own life force to resurrect another, so on and so forth. Admittedly, I have less information on that subject than I do necromancy, given it's practitioners are even rarer, and it's roots even more ancient and harder to track with certainty. OR, if not even the most archaic schools of magic from my realm interests you, I have just as much knowledge on techniques which scholars struggle to classify, given they produce effects comparable to the arcane arts, yet do not consume mana in order to function. Techniques born of training one's body, mind, and spirit to a razor sharp point, turning one's will into a weapon of reality warping destruction upon the battlefield. Slashing holes into reality to let all manners of energies pour forth and annihilate your victims. Loosing an arrow with such utter accuracy and resolve, that it violates the very laws of nature to bring ruin upon your target. Thrusting a spear into one's target so viciously that it tears the fabric of dimensions and spawns countless other copies of itself to mirror your movements, so on and so forth... and there are yet more tame techniques which full under this category- striking a target with enough mal intent that it shakes even the most courageous of victims to their cores, inspiring fear into countless foes with nothing but the mere presence of one's spite, spontaneously generating obstacles such as barricades and living shadows, generating auras which halt enemy advancement like an invisible wall slamming into their ugly mugs, force feeding the ambient mana to flow through one's body at an accelerated rate... the possibilities of these "Special" Techniques and skills is seemingly boundless, and I have spent just as long studying them as I have magic. If however, still you are not interested in any of these offers, then the last bastion of my Knowledge I've to offer is everything I have researched and uncovered of the Ogres or "demons" of my world, over the decades. And everything I have witnessed first hand of their power from fighting two rulers corrupted and warped into Ogres, one by his sorrows and the other by his ambition. I could give you the complete history of the massive battle they once fought against the gods and humanity, in hopes of escaping the netherworld and ruling the surface as their own. Just as I can give you the names of each of the fell generals who help to rule over them, their powers, and their roles in the Ogre Battle. Infact, I could give you the same depth of information on the gods of the ogres themselves, and their chief Diablo, the mage wyrm. Gods know the fucker hasn't left me be since he latched on, his lips are rather loose when conversing with those who wishes to groom, and the powers he grants his thralls, while devastating in battle, tend to carry their own special brand of ruin... this is my strongest, and final offer. There are few others who yet draw breath in my world who can give such a thorough account of ancient events and the hierarchy by which our demons rule themselves. So, do we have a deal for any of these, or are Diablo's taunts in my skull right now correct, and I'm just wasting my time?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Stellio, foolish, foolish stellio. hmhmhmhmhmhhoooooooh it's almost adorable, thinking your dark soul- which owes it's very survival thus far to me, by the way -can be purified by some pidly light brought from another realm. HA! Stop this rampant denial, you are one of us stellio, an Ogre in human flesh regardless what you might postulate to the contrary... your mother saw to that... As always, go peddle your lies somewhere else. I'm not buying, I'm never buying. There's a difference between persistence, and futility. How ironic, coming from the knight who futilty denies his nature, when not even a ful hour ago, you were soaked in the blood and viscera of another who you'd torn limb from limb with no mercy in your heart to be found... just like an Ogre would...

Stellio had.... precious little to say, as Freya went to trouble of actively stuffing a butchered corpse inside the innards of yet another, larger corpse. Nothing except "Not even the Necromancers of Galgastan ever went to such... lengths just to recover a single corpse. Then again, corpses were not exactly in short supply, back in the isles..." He let his gaze linger on the Girl for just a minute longer, before finally turning to look over the wares the strange woman had produced. One would think the knight would be a bit more perplexed at the sudden appearance of a stranger, but well... it was no stranger than anything he'd faced back home, nor since he'd been deposited into this group. By now most of the chaos and madness was rolling right off the chin like a couple of thrown pebbles pinging harmlessly off his armor. "This Sun Tome, what precisely would you be willing to accept for it?" The Terror Knight asked "I've no idea how well it would work for another, but I can teach the basics of dark magic, and channeling mana in general. It seems to be as readily present here as it is in my own realm, at least."

For her troubles, Lucille found herself hit with a searing blast that sent her flying backwards into the very circle of protection she'd erected, landing on her ass with just enough force to injure yet another part of her, before she tumbled head over heels and slowly rolled like that for several more feet... Only to feel as a cat paw firmly planted itself on her back and stopped her from going any further; an average feline likely would've been bowled over by her momentum, but nay, not this one... for this cat's paw held the same might and resilience of the purest iron. Stoping her on a dime had been mere kitten's play, and Do was sure to drive home that fact, as he nonchalantly licked said paw afterward, glancing at his master. Two very familiar dragon whelps landed beside him, one of which looking unusually tired... probably because it was Astra who'd grabbed hold of the kitty by the scruff of his neck and ferried him out of the bus, once they'd heard the big ass tiger approaching. Thanks? Lucille sent over their bond maybe there is something more to you. Maybe you've just been dicking with me this whole time... but if you have been, doesn't explain why or how my power could still work on you... Like always however, she got jack squat in terms of a response suggesting actual, sapient awareness. Do simply mewed, continuing to clean himself as if the bloodbath around him wasn't happening. In all honesty Lucille didn't know how to take it- though part of her mind, the part that had resided in Do ever since she'd bound him, was more than a bit convinced that the peice of her own subconscious self she'd left inside him had been just as, if not more responsible, for the help as the Cat himself. Shaking her head, she sighed Well doesn't matter, that's one question that can wait.... You She turned her attention from Do to the Bond she shared with the green Whelp, Brachus Looks like this is your trial by fire, little guy. Let's see what you're made of. Inside of this circle, there's nothing to stop you from helping keep people alive as long as you can. Moves: I. Lucille (quite unceremoniously) enters the Sanctuary! II. Lucille Swaps the Trump Sanctuary for her dragon Brachus! Brachus will remain inside the Sanctuary along with her! (As a note, Swapping out sanctuary from her load out does not end or otherwise disrupt it's effect whatsoever) III. Lucille will play the Healing Kazoo on whichever ally has the lowest health! Brachus will use his Restorative Breath on whichever Ally has the second lowest health (If no one else is injured, he will use it on the same target as lucille) (Heal Kazoo restores [6d5]% Mhp on the target. Restorative Breath heals 1d6+Syn{5} HP on the target)

"Locking oneself away, believing the outside world to either be foolish or doggedly determined to undermine them... and determined to become Liches... yes, yes, it sounds quite a bit like a madman of Nybeth's caliber..." He hefted his blade up, and with speed far quicker than might be expected of such a weighty weapon, flicked his wrist as he drew in a bit of mana from the air around them. The resultant shockwave of dark energy, which soared out over the desolate landscape for several dozen meters before it finally petered out, carried with it all the blood and gore that had once coated the knight's blade. Blood and Gore belonging to the very man Freya was making her new minion. A brief, surging aura of black creeped up from his boots at the same time, crawling over his armor like an army of worms as it seemed to.... drink, lap up the blood spilled upon his armor... and for just the briefest of moments, Freya likely would've heard a demented cackle echo faintly from Stellio's position... though the voice was obviously far deeper and... unnatural than any human could ever muster. Stellio didn't even acknowledge it, just sheathed his blade "Only four however? How surprising, Necromancers in Valeria are...well, not common, but not nessacarily rare either. Or they used to be. Only Galgastan dared to actively support their research, but then again, that cannot be unexpected... Galgastan as a nation had much to answer for; everyone did, in that war... regardless, I don't suppose you have heard of these other four by name then, have you? Surely if you're world is as adverse to the practice as my homeland was, then learning what you're doing now couldn't have been as easy as simply waltzing into any library and requesting materials.... someone had to have taught you."

"It...It actually..." Lucille was rendered speechless for a few moments, as the beast had expertly countered the attempt she made. She could practically feel it's smugness, hidden beneath the torrent of raw, unbridled hunger that seemed to be the key driving instinct in it. "I almost don't believe it... these things, some of them could probably hold rational discussions on any sort of abstract subject, if they had the appropriate awareness to go along with the raw information processing ability." What the hell are they, She pondered surely the animals here didn't just evolve to be like this... if they have, why are the humans still alive, these things aren't that far off from potentially acheiving sapience themselves, and well... She recalled the images of the ruined city around them that even now, she could see through the eyes of her pets... who had taken it upon themselves to stay in the bus and watch from the windows, like good, sensible little beasts who could sense when they were much too far out of their league to survive. Know what, maybe the humans here are actually on the way out, and just haven't been fully evicted yet. It was just then however, when she began to hear footsteps in the distance. Monstrous steps, steps that even as faint as they were now, still sent small vibrations through the ground and coursing up lucille's body, along with a slight shiver running down her spine... at just what the hell in this world could be big enough to create such footfalls. "Somethings coming this way!" Lucille shouted, loud enough for each and every last person in the area to hear it "Something BIG! I'll set up a circle, fall back to it if you're too injured to fight!" Moves I. Lucille casts Edge of Silence, splitting the 2 hits to target 2 separate Ogre Tails! (Launches 2 attacks that deal [1d3+Int{13}]*1.3x Damage Each, Ignoring Damage Reductions such as from Res or Armor, but not Immunities) II. Lucille fills the empty slot in her loadout with the Trump "Sanctuary" (Self explanatory...) III. Lucille Casts Sanctuary! Allies may come and go as they please, Enemies are forbidden from entering! Lucille will not stand inside the circle's boundary upon creation! (produces a protected space of shimmering light. Any entity standing within the boundaries of this area will have any hostile actions made against them nullified, but will also be unable to use any hostile actions themselves. This Circle lasts for [Int(13)/2](*1.3)--> 9 Turns, and requires an action in order to Enter or Leave it.)

Stellio had stood away from the others, as conversations of insane murderous machines, horrid beasts, and golem armies were had, though in truth he'd heard every word even if his attention was not directly on it. What truly occupied him at the moment was the bursting, burning trail through the sky that the Rat Man streaked as he fled, and Stellio was almost certain he could hear the fool cackling like he'd lost every last marble he ever owned. He removed his helm, tracking the comet-like tail as it grew fainter and fainter over the horizon "What in the goddamn...?" He shook his head, not entirely sure how the rat had managed to literally ride upon a wave of his detonations, but at the same time, not entirely in the mood to bother questioning it much. And quite the head is was, now that he'd shown his face for the first time since this had all began; a chiseled face, darkened by the countless hours it had spent under the sun, weathered and worn much like an old stature left out to the elements... except the scars and marks stellio bore where the results of past engagements and too many years of service to bother counting by his reckoning. His eyes were little more than twin pools of dark-- dreadfully dark --color that seemed to sap the very light from the air around him, so dark, there was practically no distinguishing between what was iris, and what was Iris. All of it was framed by unkempt, dark locks draping down to his shoulder blades. Helm in the crock of one arm, stained with the spatter of crimson shed with his foeman, and filthy blade resting in the opposite hand, he took a moment to observe what was left of the killing field... And it was just then when he noticed the girl behind him, poking over the butchered corpse he'd left in his wake. A very peculiar bear he'd helped slash up (for even now, he could spot the wounds he'd inflicted marring it's hide) was pushing the cart in the distance, like the mindless thrall it was. Given the... methods she'd cleared out the explosives during the battle, and the evidence staring him right in the face, it didn't take even a full few seconds before the Knight put two and two together. "Hmph, yet another opportunistic necromancer, picking over the killing field in the hopes of using the recently deceased." Surprisingly however, his tone was not so much judgemental as it was... merely an astute observation, one so tired in delivery it sounded like it'd been made too many times to bother counting "Pray that you do not fall to the same insanity as the others I have encountered, girl. Mania seems to be a recurrent theme among those who toy with the dead, regardless what they claim their reasons to be."

Almost immediately, the Girl set her attentions on what seemed to be the strongest of the presences, the winged humanoids. Up so close now, the feeling she'd gotten earlier had only grown clearer, and she beyond any shadow of a doubt, these things were indeed like perverse colonies of ants; countless of small and insignificant individuals working in tandem to form a much greater whole. But just as with a colony of Ants, she could sense somewhere within it, a nexus, a control center, that dictated the efforts of the group through oh so subtle signals. And it was that nexus she felt which she reached out to with pieces of her conscious mind, probing and scouring for footholds to take root in, that she might take advantage of the creature's lack of Sapience and install some of her own... Moves I. Lucille Binds one of the Chi-Yous, Using it to fill in her empty loadout slot! (Against Non-Sapient Beasts/Monsters, expends a number of Lucille's Bonds equal to 1/2 the target's Int in order to turn them into companions under her control; Binding fails if Lucille doesn't have enough Bonds available to meet the requirement. 7/14 bonds remaining) II. Lucille will cast Edge of Silence on one of the Fallen Zygotes! (Launches 2 attacks dealing [1d3+Int{13}]*1.3x Damage Each, Ignoring Damage Reductions such as from Res or Armor, but not Immunities) III. Lucille will Attack one of the Ogre Tails with her Serpent Staff! (Fires 4 bolts of green energy that deal 1d4 necrotic damage each, and restore that much HP to the user) Loadout/Stats

"That's going to be no use- oh forget it, what do I care..." Lucille mumbled as she staggered out of the bus after the others. She knew she was already too late as lilly's voice faded and the sound of leathery wing flaps replaced it. She rubbed her eyes, still groggy from the mere twenty or thirty minutes of sleep, at most, she'd managed to get before the damn shaking woke her. Already however, she'd taken stock of their surroundings, smelled the dust and musty rot and ruin that permeated the broken, desolate shapes and rough landscape that bounced back as she clicked her tongue a few times, noted how despite the smell, the air quality itself wasn't actually that bad... and of course, she'd almost immediately picked up the ferocious roars over yonder. The dragons and the cat had exited the vehicle on her heels, and through all of them, she'd borne witness to the various, huge beasts hounding the two soldiers. In many ways, they reminded her of some of the predators she'd seen back home... yet yet as she called upon the power of her bloodline, expanded her senses and lightly probed over them, there was something... unlike anything she'd experienced back home. Almost like there was a hivemind in effect? Colonies of some sort? Almost like Algae, or... well the closest she could describe to it animal wise would be ants... extremely organized, coordinated ants. Yet it didn't necessarily feel like the individual beasts themselves were hive minded to each other per say, no, the feeling... it was more internal. "How...Bizarre..." The girl muttered, as she reached into her satchel and pulled out one of her staves, bringing it to full length "So much for sleep, but.... I'm not complaining, if I get the chance to study one of these things... whatever they are..."

"She's right, ya know..." Cadence sighed, gripping the bridge of her nose "those were... absolutely, positively horrible. The worst jokes I've ever heard, crimes against humanity by virtue of their very existence. Belros, I don't think you understand the magnitude of just how horrible your puns are- but you should really, and I mean REALLY... cut it out. Seriously." "Who knows, one of these days you might just make one bad enough to it kills someone... and with the luck our group has, it won't be one of our enemies. Look, let's just get out of here already... I've spent long enough languishing in this miserable shithole, and your bad jokes are only making it that much worse." Move to B19 to escape Bel's horrible puns

The blade of wind was upon the man before he could even blink, faster than the eye could track, faster than any mere mortal could hope to evade. One moment, his blade was in his hand, and the next, his hand was nothing more than a bloodied mess, fingers sliced clean through as iron clattered and flesh thumped on the floor. As one would be wont to do after witnessing their flesh torn asunder so effortlessly, the man gripped his profuse wound, screaming as the pain burned like hot irons and sent his nerve alight. Cadence turned back to belros "Hmph, pathetic. They really aren't that tough when they don't have the numbers to swarm us like ants, are they? Anyway, I'm sure you see what I mean now." She idly brought the blade back to a ready against the mercenary, not even looking at what she was doing. She thrust with the blade, striking naught but air, and yet, it seemed to catch on something, and used that purchase to carve a burning line of pure jasper aura that thrummed with arcane power. Her swordhand worked devilishly fast, and the sigil was complete in mere seconds, as the man watched on in simultaneous wonder and horror; A circle containing a triangular diagram, and within that diagram yet another triangle, countless words and glyphs filling it's boundaries. Twas the very same type of Sigil she'd once seen her father use as a girl, during one of his many experiments, done to the last detail- a delayed spell of sorts, allowed to sit and amplify as it drew in the ambient elemental energies from the environment... it would be the perfect instrument of the Mercenaries undoing. "It's a damn shame, really," She finally turned back to the poor soul she was about to destroy oh so utterly "You could've done something else with your life if you'd tried hard enough, made something productive of yourself, be a functioning member of society... but instead, you chose to get into a fight with the law. And you just lost that fight." The sigil hovered in the air. No sooner than cade finished her address, She snapped her fingers, and it shattered like glass, sending sorts and glittering motes of arcane force scattering to the winds that manifested nigh instantaneously. Tearing, Slicing, brutal winds, winds came for him, winds like rabid wolves, fast and fierce enough to sheer the skin from the man's flesh, the man's flesh from his bones, and finally to grind his bones into naught but dust. He let out one final scream before as the ungodly storm consumed him wholesale. Before long the jasper light of her spell finally died down, and the stone floors of the prison from the point the man had been standing all the way to the far wall had been hewn with the raw force of her evocation, leaving a deep gouging wound where once, there had been a man and several feet of solid stone architecture. Nothing remained of the Mercenary. No blood, no viscera, not even the dust which his bones had been so finely ground into. His annihilation had been so utterly complete, twas as if he'd never been born at all. "Heh, feels good to be useful again," she laughed, sheathing the blade and turning back to Belros "Now come on, let's get the rest of everyone's crap and then go make these wandroughts regret the day their whore mothers gave life to them!"