Powder Miner

Tim Against pretty much all odds, Tim found that the process to make a Divining Rod went pretty much completely normally. He converted Iron and Redstone into Covalence Dust, and though a caked residue that Tim wasn't familiar with and couldn't really identify was created (and would have to be chiseled off of the ground if he wanted to mess with it), the Medium Covalence Dust came out just fine. Then when he applied it to the stick of oak, there actually wasn't even any side effect or byproduct or anything. He just got the Divining Rod he was looking for. Perhaps, though, the larger surprise was the results that his Divining Rod gave him on use. Aside from the residue of the crafting process, which was slightly larger in value than everything around it, the Divining Rod detected absolutely nothing at all that had high EMC in the area, no matter where Tim walked -- nothing. Either the strange rod was genuinely the only high-value item in the whole place, or something else was going on. Kusuke The reply Kusuke received from the gaunt man was loud... but it had to be, over the deafening cacophony of an incredible amount of glocks simultaneously firing, courtesy of the GLOCKMAN kind of just idly standing there and existing shootily. ”WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!” ”I THINK HE WANTS YOU TO GO WITH HIM, DIDI!” ”OH. SURE!” And Didi followed Kusuke into the ship -- once he crossed that threshold, he froze for a moment, gaping. Not frozen in time, or in space, or anything, but simply stunned. Those inside the ship would note that with Didi's presence the atmosphere in the ship regained the surreal, disturbing feeling that it had outside, but thankfully much lower in power, and Kusuke would note that the horrible feelings particular to him didn't seem to come with Didi, merely a base sense of things not being quite right. ”Oh. ...oh. I...” Vitor Vitor got to projecting a Gae Bolg, but once again something bizarre happened, and what Vitor got was not quite what he'd meant to create. On one hand, he got an item that was a permanent object, instead of a temporary hardlight construction... but it wasn't quite the Gae Bolg that the Brazilian Mage was used to. Instead it was a... green spear, with indented patterns where Gae Bolg had its raised lines. Holding it, Vitor could innately feel it responding to something in his soul, although quite weakly since it seemed that whatever Essence it was responding to was not very strong in him. Leo, on the other hand, could at least feel this bond clearly enough to tell that the spear links to his heart in some way.

As Lizaveta watched Crimson take an arrow, she had the horrible realization that Death had actually seemed interested in what Lenore had been saying. Her eyes widened and she put a hand to her mask over her mouth, watching the struggle to save his life with a burning void of horror sinking into her emotions. "Crimson-- I-- I'm so sorry-- I didn't think that-- I didn't think he would listen-- I..." She fell silent, looking down. She didn't really think that she could say anything that could help. She would just have to try and fight harder to make up for what she had now done, she supposed... she and Baldur, who was standing there, stuttering, unresponsive. Lizaveta stepped forward... and slapped him full in the face, with a resounding smack, a clear red mark made on the cheek not covered by his mask. "Look, Orchid. If we did this... we need to fix it. You can't just stand around!" And with that, she stalked off towards one of the copses of trees, into combat. O16, toss a Wind at the Mercenary.

Of course, Ceridwen had already long had suspicions at this point as to who Milich had captured. From the moment she’d heard that it was a Mid-Wing Commander, she’d worried about the possibility that it was him who had been captured. When she had been told his physical description, her worries had been shocked into a near certainty — the chances that it was some unknown new mid-wing commander that just happened to resemble him were very low. And yet, irrationally, she’d held out hope. But when a very familiar ledger was passed into her hands, soot stains she’d seen get baked into the paper as she stared over broad shoulders as a child, drawings she’d commented on and had seen made, the buckle she’d accidentally been the one to break trying to be helpful with the ledger at 15, an incident which had seen her panic but be forgiven relievingly quickly, the preliminary work on the very armor he’d sent her off with with well-wishes when she’d graduated... Ceridwen hugged the thick book tightly to her chest and her breath came out quickly and shortly, her eyes burning as she tried her best not to cry. There was absolutely no denying now that the identity of the captured Mid-Wing Commander was none other than her mentor, Gareth Jernigan.

A long sigh came from Lizaveta, that turned into a snarl as Death pointed his bow at Mim. “I don’t think we’re getting out of this one without a fight, Mink. He already went on a spiel about killing us all, and he pointed his bow at Snowbird, and he’s got mercenaries in the trees. This guy knows who we are, and he seems intent on killing us. I don’t know WHY he has whatever psycho murder motives he has but... Fuck it, honestly. I don’t care anymore. I mean, I used to hate fighting and killing but then I kept running into all of these terrible people and their armies and I’m just done with it. We already took out the Gulan army, I carved a path through them as well, and I’m about done with it. He’s going to spout some terrible things and attack us, so let’s just take out his people and then take him and probably War out, and that’s an obstacle to our mission now out of the way, and probably one to my mission later out of the way too.” Lizaveta hefted her wind tome, magic beginning to coalesce at her fingertips.

Ceridwen took in the room — it certainly didn’t look like the terrible, all-encompassing miasma of death and decay and filth and misery that the dungeons had been, so she derived some comfort from that, but the room had been cleaned recently... Ceridwen didn’t quite have the evidence to know just what had happened to him here, then. Ceridwen only managed to nod shakily at Chin’s question before frantically asking a question of her own to the servant. “T— taken away? Where did he get taken away to? What was his condition when he was taken away??” So she would be left to be terrified until whenever... if ever... she found him, then, would she...?

Lizaveta frowned, all too happy to stay in the wagon during the initial barrage of arrows — she came out when the rest of the group did, though, frowning out at the group of four people that seemed to be attacking them. “Who are these people? Have they been following us to attack us? ...Why??”

Perlita stared with her eyes wide and hr hand over her mouth as 6D was... was... devoured. She barely paid much attention to the transformation, disgusting as it was, but to fear what had happened to 6D. Was she... was she dead? Was it Perlita's fault for not acting in time? She... she couldn't afford to stand around in shock, not if she wanted to prevent this from happening to the others, but Perlita's visage seemed a little dazed as she followed the others to the roller coaster. She wasn't even focusing on how bizarre a fight on a fucking rollercoaster WAS, instead she was simply climbing on. "..." Perlita sighed, downcast -- but there was nothing to be done about it, right now. All she could do was cast Patra as many times as she could, right now. "Crawford!" Perlita gets on the Roller-Coaster, and then casts Patra on Mira and Gabriel, removing all ailments from them!

As they moved through the mansion and were informed of its various dangers, LOTUS let out a wary "Sounds like we have a fairly large chance of getting murdered in here. We're going to have to keep on our guard, people. I suppose it might be a little rude, but even our erstwhile guard is telling us all of this, after all." LOTUS' demeanor took on a more analytical set as the group entered the library and met a very pink and evidently very magical girl, named Patchouli, apparently. Walmond's explanation of the artifact had been fairly minimal, and considering that Patchouli seemed to be expecting a lot, LOTUS took it on herself to provide a fuller recollection: "We were in the forest, and encountered who is probably the 'miss black-and-white' that was just referred to a short time ago -- a blonde thief, so far as I can tell, in a black-and-white witch's outfit. She was immediately hostile, exhibiting likely signs of some sort of corruption, and we engaged her in a fight. After beating her, we discovered that her behavior had indeed been altered by an object that she had been in contact with, which twisted her to be hostile and violent. After removal she was whiny and indignant, but not malicious. It sounds like Sakuya here had a similar incident in which a similar object caused similar corruption -- at the time of contact with the artifact Sakuya has been referring to, had her appearance and voice been altered in addition to her behavior? It's also worth noting that we have encountered similar corruption in a previous place. Though the corruption there was mostly permanent and based off of singular contact with a larger artifact, similar aggression and hostility towards the inhabitants of the location we were in was present, and this turned out in that case to be the work of outside beings known as "Trespassers" that our group fights. Their modus operandi would appear to be entering locations and corrupting its inhabitants to lay waste to these locations, and judging by the artifacts we have seen here, I would bet that a similar case is ongoing here. In this case, your opponent would not be Sakuya, nor us, but the source of these artifacts, the Trespassers." "Hmm," Isobel mused on the side, "we don't know all that much about 'miss black-and-white', do we? I don't believe that I ever actually caught her name."

Lizaveta sighed and fell silent as Kane spoke to her. He was, of course, correct in identifying some of the things that she had worried about... but she was already a step ahead of that. "Yes, I... I kind of got some of that already from what Stella was saying. But I was thinking... if it's not to put the gods in the power, and it's not to restore the monarchy, then what are we going to do with them? I'm not sure I see another use, but maybe you do. So... if we're going to go through with this, I want you to promise me something, Kane. I want you to promise me that you're not going to use this to put all-powerful beings in charge of Purgus, or to strengthen the systems that have led to so, so much suffering here... I've already been unsure for a while of what I was doing, but if I end up being a tool of the oppressors, I... I can't do that."

Team C - Merchant Mash Stretch straightened his teapot-shaped helmet on his head and frowned out at the rampage. "This is terrible! A lot of people could get hurt with these people running around with guns like that! I think I need to do something about it!" And then the elastic clone immediately began running towards the mob, his legs stretching out into longer and longer strides as he approached them. As he did, he put one hand on his other shoulder and began to spin his arm around and around and around rapidly, his arm twisting and coiling on itself bonelessly, something that was probably simultaneously impressive and disturbing to watch. But with each coil, his arm stretched out and the tension grew. "I'm sorry for having to fight you, but I can't let you guys go and hurt people, you know, so I guess I gotta just go and get you guys with my... my, like, uh... twisty arm punching a lot of times really fast move!" he shouted as he ran at them. Stretch begins charging the Rubbery Gatling Gun!

"We're not quite done here -- I'm going to take a look at that room over there, and then I'll be back. Best not to leave things halfway done, after all." He'd have said "best not to leave any stone unturned", having learned to be thorough in his days of espionage, but he WAS mindful of the monster child's presence, after all... and the king probably had listening devices around every corner to keep his subjects in line and to be able to know when to disappear them at just the right moment to make sure his grip never went unchallenged, a rule of absolute domination that he probably thought would be eternal, unchallengeable, for all those tried would face the consequences, consequences never outright seen but enough to make those who might want to look beyond the surface pause and decide not to, after all, that was what kings did, after all "Try not to get lost out there without me, and don't say anything strange, please, you all." Not when the walls potentially had ears, though he understood that adjusting their speech for this world was a difficult balancing act. With those warnings given, he entered Asgore's room.

LOTUS' response to Rory was just a drippingly sarcastic: "Did that one take you all day?" The response to Empi was, at least, a little more involved. "Most of the worlds we've been on have been violent disasters -- this place, and most definitely the world of House Asterlux. The only exception of the worlds I've been to here is the Rio of Overwatch, and even that place wasn't fantastic. If you want to show caution, then forming a little cabal with Rory here of all people isn't the way to do it, just let the group as a whole show some general caution. If this robot maid WAS out to get us, then do you really think just the two of you would make much of a difference? You can barely fight at all, and surely any saboteur would be more and powerful enough to fight Rory on their own. What would you do if something actually did happen? ...also if it's overdone for you, and you've just seen movies about it, I'm not sure you can even imagine how tired I am of the whole shtick by now. I've lived it, many, many, many, many times. This is setting up for some stupid moment down the line from one of you two, I've seen it happen, and it's best to shut it down now before it escalates."

"U-uuehh, ughhhhhh..." Perlita let out a sound of pure, unadulterated revulsion after being licked and drenched in saliva by the monster, the disgust she was feeling on multiple levels actually so strong and core that she didn't even want to think about it. Of course, even if she'd wanted to, whatever this thing had done to her ensured that it would have been difficult, so Perlita just settled for doing her job instead. It looked like 6D had taken a lot of licks for her, for which Perlita was eternally grateful... but it also looked like she was suffering for it, so Perlita's immediate action was to call a "C-- Crawford!" and then bathe 6D in teal sparkles, something which would have cleared up her malfunctions... and actually even cleaned up the slobber! How nice. Perlita casts Patra on 6D, removing all ailments from her, also healing 12 HP to 6D and healing 12 HP herself (if her missing HP isn't just unupdated).

Such social subtleties as the exact kind of slightly passive-aggressive awkwardness in Solomon's tone of voice were rather lost on Navin, and instead he simply considered Solomon's question. "We could meet back here and then take taxis to another area of the city once again and find a private space -- if we are followed by someone truly dedicated, well, we are going to be followed and only having a room to ourselves would in most cases be a defense, but leaving the port to speak after our investigation could at least put us out of earshot of any simply mildly interested people, and at the least anyone dedicated would be outside of their usual turf, so to speak. Also, yes, Heidrun, your presence would not be unwelcome. It always pays to be careful when you are dealing with people like I suspect these runners are like - the particularly cunning, standard-breaking kind of villain."

Isobel stood up carefully as the maid did... and sighed slightly as the others spoke. "Please ignore Masako... we are not a detective agency. Please let me give you a little bit more thorough... and accurate... explanation of what is going on. We come from outside of this place... in fact, we come from another world entirely. I'm afraid I don't know enough about this place to know whether or not that would be unbelievable, but if you're going to be with us it should become fairly apparent, even with the transformations we seem to have undergone on this world. We were sent here in order to deal with a threat also from outside of this world, called the Trespassers, which... trespass on other worlds, corrupt them, and destroy them." Meanwhile, LOTUS' attention was on... other things, as the fairy flew up out of Isobel's pocket (well, flew out and then fell onto the ground, and took a couple of other starts before then actually managing to fly up) and over to Rory, Instructor Prototype, and Empi. "You two are ridiculous. If I have to deal with another idiotic divide about "oh, it's a robot, oh no, oh noooo, oh noooooo, it must be out to get me" I'm going to lose my mind. I've dealt with more than enough of these same roundabout, waste-of-time scenarios, and it almost always goes one of two ways. Either somebody gets hysterical and starts going on about "machines" or "fleshbags" and a lot of people kill each other for no reason, or it's some predictable tale of "wow, I guess you AI aren't so bad after all" which only comes after some ridiculous waste of everybody's effort. Get over yourselves. Especially you, Empi, you've actually seen me in my AI form, why are you acting up now? We all appeared out of nowhere. I understand caution, but to loudly assume interdimensional assassins at every opportunity is priming yourself to make bad decisions."

Walking out of the room with the mercenary group he was part of, Linton's eyes swept the room before he replied to the green-haired boy that was a part of the motley group that had evidently been carving its way across the Paxi guards. (One look at Johan caused Linton's mouth to quirk downwards ever so slightly -- he could recognize THIS particular tribe on sight, and it meant his battle was going to be more chaotic.) "We're a mercenary group. And I am fine with waiting for introductions -- we do need to keep moving tightly. But I will say that your arrival was quite fortuitous." N23

Rather contradicting Fuefuki's disdain-driven plea for silence, Kietasenshi proceeded to answer every single person who had addressed him, regardless of whether or not they were still actually listening to him. To the rather angry bird lord, Kietasenshi's response was an intrigued: "I think I'd like to hear that, Lord Yama." To tell the truth, Kietasenshi was never really sure when the bird's stories were true, when they were embellishments, or when they were simply false, but the dead samurai didn't really mind. It was entertaining either way, and as long as it wasn't lying in the service of getting into a nice pretty position of power, or really anything useful, it was fine by him. "Though, heh, if I get my way we're not going to have the time for stories, I'd love to go fight whatever is causing what's going on here." To the sword youkai, Kietasenshi gave a surprisingly emphatic response: "No, there definitely is. Tea ceremony and flower arrangement... I'll tell you what they actually are. What they are is this nice little disguise for people to use in court, to look like they're all genteel, and to give them time to watch you and plot. That's what they're there for, and that's all. Court games. Fighting, or some craft like carpentry that's actually useful for something, that's a different story altogether. These things are honest with their intentions." And, finally, to the thoroughly annoyed instrument: "Nah, fuck that, watching the seasons silently or whatever sounds incredibly boring. Music in the snow, whatever, what really counts is the wind in your hair as it whips through the battlefield, the alertness in the very air, tracking those around you to find the perfect step, or block, or moment to lunge... a lot more dynamic, don't you think?"

Ferdiad, Reiko, and Arthur weren't the only members of Virtuous to undergo internal turmoil. For not the first time, Lizaveta found herself wondering about why she was in the group, and what she was doing. They'd said they weren't there to surrender their lands to the gods, but... what were they going to contact them for, then? What was the point of it? Were they maybe going to try to make some new, reformed lines of kings and queens for each country? Lizaveta... couldn't help something like that. She was already working directly with the Queen of Ceda, and felt like a hypocrite, felt low for that, but if she were to end up recreating the system of monarchy... Lizaveta ended up hunting Kane down. "Kane... we need to talk."

Just barely, Ceridwen once again found voice, in order to respond to the servant. She was quiet, and still looking down, her voice occasionally becoming thick with a mixture of emotions, but she did respond. "Y... yes, we were looking for a Dragon Knight prisoner. Is... is he here?" There was a longer pause, this one lasting some time, before Ceridwen found the courage to ask her next question: "How-- How is he?"

Jack had been bleeding out, but a few desperately applied sources of healing caused dormant nanites to kick into gear within him -- the New Conglomerate soldier was wreathed briefly in green light, surrounded by green floating specks, and he was climbing back to his feet, stretching his limbs with a few pops and then grinning. He withdrew a grenade from his belt, bounced it a couple times in his hand, then shouted "Good fuckin' thing this isn't an anti-vehicle grenade," and proceeded to huck the grenade, in the enclosed space, right at the Neo-Shadows. Jack throws the Frag Grenade at Neo-Shadow C!

Lizaveta took her mask off (it wasn't like she really had another identity anyway)... and then Baldur and Tabitha both actually provided answers... that... she agreed with? She was agreeing with Baldur??? Lizaveta just stared boggledly at the man for several moments before she actually spoke. "I... agree... with Orchid... I think that the time of the gods has long passed. They clearly want to have nothing to do with us, if they even are truly gods, so why should we come begging to their feet to ask them to rule over us once again? I believe in the dream of a united Purgus, but not through merely inviting another set of all-powerful rulers to do with us as they might please -- Purgus has had more than enough of tyrants who rule over the people from a station supposedly above it. I come from one of those "failure" nations, and I will tell you it is not the presence or lack of presence of a relic or the gods that makes it terrible. Countries like Vini are terrible because of those royalty who rule them. If Purgus will ever be united and happy, it will be because of the people in it, not anyone who would hold themselves above them."

"I doubt what we fought were kids," LOTUS mentioned, "because I appear to have become a fairy as well -- despite my small appearance, I maintain an adult mental state and largely appear to be mature. It is entirely possible that my particular circumstances are in some way manipulating that, mind, but I would wager that we were not in fact simply attacked by a large amount of children. We have also been told that the danmaku we've been operating with are intended not to be lethal, so I also wager that if we did kill them, something will be the case that mitigates that." "If nobody else is going to check, I'm going to." Isobel frowned at something being launched into a lake -- and upon seeing nobody else evidently willing to do much about it, she peered into the water to see if it was a person that had fallen into the lake. If it was, then she jumped into the water and began swimming (causing LOTUS to shriek terrifiedly and cling to her back) to try to help out whoever had ended up in the lake.

Navin mulled his options over for several moments -- the bar and the cell tower did not seem like particularly viable options to him, as he was not especially technologically literate or, er... socially literate. He had spent most of his life dealing with people actively trying to get involved in dangerous missions, whether for good or for evil, so just talking to normal people at a bar seemed something doomed to an awkwardly sputtering death. But by contrast, the warehouses seemed far more accessible to the Indian superhero. After all, he had dealt with more bizarre trap-laden, twisting supervillain lair layouts than he could count. A few containers shuffled into a maze weren't going to stop him, especially if he could manage to use his blasts to punch hand and footholds in the containers, something he admittedly had had some trouble with in past situations. Admittedly, Navin could also just blow the things to smithereens, but that wasn't exactly a discreet course of action. Between the warehouse and the abandoned warehouse, well... obviously, he was going to go for the one that didn't see him charging headlong into the entire enemy hideout with little backup. Admittedly, charging headlong into the entire enemy hideout with little backup actually worked quite frequently in his field, but he was going to elect to be cautious here. After all, if he messed up at the main warehouse, he would mess things up for everyone else, too. "I am going to back you up at the abandoned warehouse, Solomon. My particular skillset is likely most suited to working there."

Perlita had let out a little yelp when Lyra had suddenly disappeared to be replaced by Trick, who was rather intimidating up close, like this, and then she let out a much louder scream when his tongue slashed out for the second time with surprisingly blinding speed, bounced off of the android girl with a blow that was at most glancing, and then slammed into Perlita, hitting her solidly in the side of the head. She had been dealt a harsher blow than anybody else present and it had hurt. She stumbled backwards, a bruise beginning to form, and let out an "Aaaaaahhh, ow!" But that wasn't going to be enough to take her out of action, and with an apology of "Sorry, I'm going to focus on myself, for a moment..." and a cry of "Crawford!" the Latina girl used her Persona to give herself quite a hefty dose of healing. Perlita uses Diarama on herself, healing herself for 6d4+3*SYN (12) (SYN additional healing from Altruism, and SYN additional healing from Better to Give than Get)

Ceridwen couldn't find it in herself to make a response to that -- in fact, she could barely process the sudden snarling snap that came from her current investigative partner. She hadn't noticed Rhian's growing hostility a few minutes ago, being too wrapped up in her own panic to see it, and so the abrupt and powerful burst of hostility nearly physically rocked the red-headed dragon rider back on her heels. All that she could end up doing was silently gape at Rhian, her face still plenty wraught with emotion. "Rrrrrrrr..." Yn Ddiddorol was less quiet, though. A soft, low growl emitted from the gray-and-green dragon's throat, and he affixed Rhian with what was undeniably a glare, his tail whipping slowly back and forth. He didn't lunge, and he didn't even advance, merely circling in front of Ceridwen and nuzzling her briefly, but Rhian would no doubt be able to tell that the dragon was sending her a message.