Powder Miner

"...if we were ordered to kill people who hadn't done anything to anyone, I-- I don't-- I don't think I'd do it. Not that. I watched them do it. I watched them, and I tried to stop them, I tried as hard as I possibly could, I, I-- they just kept killing, even in their dying moments, rather than stop. And I wouldn't ever do that, even if I were in their place. Especially after seeing that." Ceridwen steeled her expression a bit, though a downward quaver at the edges of her mouth betrayed her continued distress. "And I'm sure that they'd tell me that I don't know what it's like to be as desperate as them, and that I don't understand what the place they come from is like, and... they're probably right. But these four are the ones here to talk, and that's why you can hear that argument at all. The knights who attacked the Warriors' Village --and that's what they are, an armored shock group, not some sort of random wild attack, they thought that much out-- aren't here, they died killing. And of course the two people they killed aren't here, either. We can't just brush that aside. Those two people were trying to survive and protect each other every bit as much as the escaped prisoners." "We can't just act like that didn't happen, or that it's something to easily forgive. We can't just give them what they want because they came out here to sack the village and helped with the assault that was meant to kill all of those defenders. Even if we shouldn't kill them, because killing people who have surrendered is... is callous, and a betrayal... we can't just reward it. We can't. We can't!"

These merchants were from Vaa -- not from Perus. That meant that they weren't the head of the bourgeoisie, not like the Perusians, and for a moment Lizaveta was actually unsure. ...but if they were trading with Perus, actually giving things to the Perusian merchantry themselves, then they were in fact members of that class, hoping to ride the coattails of the rich and very much cruel so that when said powerful Perusians tightened the circle and knocked away as many people as they could that they could be one of the few remaining members of that suicidal class. ...yeah, Lizaveta could justify fighting against them. Even if she hadn't done much fighting with Virtuous before... or killed anyone before. "...right. Okay! Let's do justice, Phoenix!" K2 also uh Kane moves to J5

Ceridwen had remained silent for most of the conversation, looking down at the ground, but with arguments in favor of letting go being put forward she decided to speak up -- well, more like shout. "We shouldn't let them go!" Ceridwen looked down, surprised by the intensity of her own outburst, and then looked down. "I-- I saw the fighting at the village, and I went off to go help. I saw that the knights were attacking and wounding the Warrior's Village's men, and... I, I came in, shouting, attacking, to try to stop them, maybe. Enough to make Johanna reprimand me for charging in." "But... they didn't. They didn't even try to fight back against us, or flee, or surrender, or try to talk anything out, or-- or anything. They just kept on going trying to kill the people in front of them. And it's not like they-- tried to sneak in, or something. They had a bunch of heavily armed and armored people come to the front gate, to try to kill everyone in their way, and according to what they were saying to each other, the general told them to "secure the village"." Ceridwen let out a shaky sigh. "And they weren't trying to bull their way forward, either. They-- they killed two people, even as I tried to stop them. I watched them do it, they just ignored me so they could kill people. And when they'd killed those two, they, they teamed up on the person they'd already been wounding -- one of them even killed themselves just trying to get him dead. They only even bothered attacking Johanna and I when I dropped down between them on the third person they wanted to kill." "Then the last one hurt Johanna rather than me when we were both going after him because he could hurt her. And they did still kill those two others, too... I was just staring at the second person, afterwards. The-- the one they just... ignored me to kill. I..." Ceridwen fell silent for a moment, getting choked up, before some more fire entered her, albeit with a clearly upset air. "When it became clear that they couldn't take over the village, and that's what they were trying to do, they decided to die in a way that would let them kill and hurt as many people as they could! Maybe-- maybe it was out of some... desire for an honorable death or something, but they killed two people because they could, ganged up on someone else they thought they could and almost killed him!" "I... we shouldn't just kill them. That's... I don't think that's right either. But... we shouldn't let them go. Definitely not. I, um, I'm just, I've never really been into much of Caliss, so I-- I couldn't say where to put them, or anything else. But... they shouldn't just get rewarded for doing what they did."

First, a rush of wind hit Ceridwen, cast by one of the escaped prisoner mages, and the sharp wave of wind seeped quickly past the shields and plates of her armor, slicing lines into her and causing blood to run out from beneath the shield at the front of her armor. But she stayed on her dragon, still up, still trying to protect the others -- only to take a javelin to the head from Kiba Windamier. It didn't pierce her skull, but it was enough to send her careening off of her dragon, pain lancing through her head and her gut. Still, after letting out a strangled yelp upon hitting the ground, she saw that she was the only one on it. "A-ah, okay, see? This time it wasn't anyone else, who... ah..."

Isobel listened to the conversations going on around her, at the same time as she goggled at the artwork on the walls -- this Ran woman talking to Rory, who seemed to be undergoing similar troubles as LOTUS except without the whole "new body" bit, Japanese art, more Western-looking art, though Isobel found herself unable to recognize any of it, since it all looked very old, and... ...oh, there was some much more interesting art in places on the walls. Evidently this woman was quite brave, though Isobel found that respectable (the seeming lack of boundaries with other people, less so). Isobel unashamedly let her eyes linger on some of that, neatly adjusting to the sudden movement to the next doorway. When Yukari started talking, though, Isobel dragged her mind back to business though, and looked down at LOTUS... oh, right. The white-haired fairy was half-protruding from Isobel's apron pocket, and currently her hands were on her face, clumsily patting around as the former-tablet continued to try to come to terms with her family. And then she poked herself in the eye. "Ah!" Isobel sighed. Perhaps LOTUS was going to be out of commission, at least for a while. Isobel supposed that she was going to have to ask the kinds of questions that LOTUS would want to ask if he-- she? were less occupied. "Are we talking about invaders from outside of the world here, miss?"

"WHAT," LOTUS replied in flat but very loud outrage at Ritsu's teasing, the green circuit pattrerns on her dress, face, and arms glowing a brighter green, before she promptly coughed a couple of times thanks to all the shouting she was doing. "Ah, that is un-- unpleasant. Ah. I can sense that you're organic too, Ritsu, why aren't you reacting too?! It's not just the limbs, there are, a lot of-- just-- a lot of-- a lot of things!" The now-fairy attempted to stand up, fueled by outrage, but promptly proved unable to get her balance, as she fell back to the ground, just in the other direction, with an angry squeak -- followed by a second attempt and a second failure. Isobel, still bent down in front of LOTUS, frowned and then picked her up with one hand, looking around and then at Ran. "LOTUS, we are in the middle of a new world, I think you should try to calm down if you can--" "HOW THE FUow, how could I possibly calm down?! I've got all sorts of things I cannot even begin to compute, and even if I were able to compute one I would then have to process all the oth-- ack!" LOTUS was interrupted and started sputtering as Isobel started stroking her head. "What are you-- why are you-- okay-- maybe-- maybe this is kind of pleasant..." LOTUS looked down, blushed, and trailed off into silence.

Isobel Low had been, of course, surprised when, right in front of her a portal to seemingly empty space but for eyes popped into existence. She hadn't been too surprised by that, mind, since strangeness with the very fabric of space itself was not actually unheard of where she came from... but she had mostly frozen on the spot, eyes riveted on the portal and her stance shifting to one that was on guard, preparing in case she had to dodge something coming out of the portal. And then all of a sudden she felt hands on her back, and she was pushed through the portal into freefall in an empty space between dimensions, and that was rather more surprising altogether. After a short scream, Isobel noticed that several of the others from the castle were in the same predicament, and the scream cut off, replaced instead with a quiet sigh. Well, if several of them were in this situation, chances were good that it was another involuntary summons to deal with the problems of a world, like she'd experienced a few days ago on the world of Houses Asterlux and Shienar. She could deal with this. Isobel landed surprisingly lightly on her feet, and saw the person presumably responsible for their predicament come halfway out of a portal -- and then promptly switch gravity around on them, causing Isobel to yelp lightly but land on her feet once again. The environment they were being led to was at least pretty and serene: a Japanese garden, complete with cherry blossoms, something she'd seen from other botanists she'd met. The calmness of the actual manor did a good deal to help calm her further, and Isobel began to speak. "Okay, well, I'd want to know if we were brought here to help with the T--" "WHAT," "WHAT THE FUCK," the voice rang out again, from Isobel's apron pocket. Whereas the usual voice that came from that pocket was low, dry, masculine and electronically modulated, the voice currently coming from her apron was moderate in pitch, and mostly organic except with the faintest trace of modulation that came when the voice cracked. Oh, and it was feminine. "WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK." the voice repeated, in total shock, rising higher and higher as panic creeped into it more and more, until finally something came tumbling out of Isobel's pocket with a scream, and fell onto the ground. That thing was a woman one foot tall, flailing wildly. Her skin was white in tone, her hair literally white and short -- not close-cropped, but simply only what would be a few inches long if she were human-sized, and a little black lotus sitting at an angle on her head. Her eyes were a dark blue. As for what she was wearing: a black dress (with bright green trim and green circuit patterns that extended past the dress onto the skin of her arms and face) that went down to her knees, showing no cleavage (of a chest that was not massive but not small either, at least in a relative sense) but showing her collarbone and her shoulders. Her feet had black heels, and finally, on her back were four wings -- translucent, green, and in the narrow, pointed oval shape of lotus petals. Also, she was now openly flailing around on the ground, that panic total, arms alternating between slapping against the ground and feeling up various parts of her body -- face, limbs, wings, chest. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ME WHAT ARE THESE THINGS I AM SENSING THERE ARE LIKE FIFTY DIFFERENT KINDS OF NEW SENSORS AND ALSO-- ARE-- ARE THESE LIMBS? AND WINGS? I HAVE LIMBS AND WINGS AND AM I ORGANIC WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON I THINK I HAVE VOCAL CORDS AND-- oh I've got-- I'M FEMALE? AAAAAAAAAAAaaaa," the new fairy screamed, her voice only becoming quieter to the others' ears when Isobel, wincing, bent down and picked the fairy up, placing her hand a couple of inches in front of the fairy to muffle her voice somewhat. "LOTUS, you're-- you're--" "WHAT AM I?!" "You're adorable! And also some kind of fairy or something, oh, wow, um, yeah."

The Kaiu Engineer was still utterly furious -- the rage that had been instilled within her upon seeing her wall get brought down wasn't going to be subdued at all by getting in one hit or by getting knocked around some, even if she'd very nearly lost consciousness. No, Satomi was going to keep fighting until either the entire siege was dead or she was physically unable to fight any longer. Her armor had done well to keep her alive thus far, but that just meant she could fight harder, longer, not that she was going to focus on her own self-preservation. Her wall was down, so now the way to stop the siege was to slay those conducting it. Another fire of the trebuchet. Satomi will use the AXE Trebuchet again, on Siege Ogre 2! Fuck that thing! Active Passives: Destructive Inspiration (33% chance for a x3 crit and additional effect while using the AXE Trebuchet), Slaughtaur Shield (First time hit in a turn, take 50% reduced damage until end of turn or next action).

”But of course, Deadlift, a mad feral dog seeks nothing more than its own survival — it attacks because that is the way it has come to protect its territory and drive off that which threatens it... it is not so different from the Crab Clan of my homeland in this respect, though they would put it another way. A feral dog fights defensively, and thus it will not pay attention to that which does not present a threat. The feral dog does not snap at fleas; the Crab Clan does not often snap at peasants with weapons, or cocky samurai of other clans, for it lives instead to kill and defeat the strange creatures which threaten it. But even with as much respect as I have for the Crab Clan, for it is the most violent of the clans, neither it nor the feral dog seek much greater a goal than self-preservation. I do. I seek enlightenment, not simply to be feral — and I seek something that is different from the survival instinct that feral dogs live upon. Wild animals aren’t truly chaotic, if you’ve ever stopped and watched them; they harbor their own weaknesses and have their own little hierarchies that they are rarely capable of breaking from. What I seek is something beyond the capacity of animals, a purer and more violent chaos that is only achievable by something with a mind and a spirit to devote towards it.”

Yoko begins to genuinely monologue. "Your position is expressed for different reasons by many in Rokugan -- they believe that it is dishonorable to crush someone weaker than oneself outside of the formats of duels and orders of lords that paradoxically compel them to do so for their honor anyway. I believe that I must break all limits if I am to reach enlightenment: I must expand the scope of my violence to escape the rigid structure it lies within in my home country. I fight the strong, the weak, the honorable, the dishonorable, samurai, heimin, Rokugani, gaijin. To restrain the targets that my inner violence lashes out to strike is to restrain the core of my soul, for violence often considered mad is at the truest core of what it means to be a kikage zumi, what it means to pursue my order's path to enlightenment -- and to pursue my path to enlightenment in turn. I must be as willing to strike the weakling as the mighty warrior."

Yoko continued forwards despite the sounds and light — seemingly unconcerned by what seemed to be an increasing threat. ”I am not concerned particularly with the ambition or cowardice of an opponent, even if I do find it pusillani —cough— pusillanimous and distasteful. It is more about expressing the chaos within my own soul in the most dynamic, painful, powerful way that I can, cff, as constantly as I can, that I hope to better embody the potential of my soul and to remove the limits from it.” She popped her knuckles even as she continued forward, spoiling for a fight for whatever would either show up in front of her or perhaps behind her, even in the darkness — they were merely more strenuous conditions for a fight she was in, after all.

Perlita turned towards the antiquated woman, who looked kind of like she could belong to the more formal side of her Persona’s era, and shrugged. ”Um, no, it’s not normal on my home dimension or anything, but it’s just that this kind of... dimension traveling group tends to have to a lot of people and things popping out of nowhere.” Perlita gestured helplessly at Atton. ”Literally his entire military vehicle crashed out of the sky and made a huge noise on the world we just came from so really I guess some random woman falling out of the sky is a lot less weird than THAT.”

The situation with the gangsters, with its continual kind-of-escalation that kept moving up and down between “fight” and “non-fight”, caused Navin to sigh and scratch his head as he somewhat awkwardly took the situation in. The raising of a barrier between the gangsters and the tall robed woman didn’t much alleviate his worry, and he finally spoke up, directly to the tusked man. ”Look... I am sure that you can see that we have all sorts of strange things at our disposal, and I can see that you do not seem to want conflict; in my experience, showing off abilities in the shadow of a possible fight does not tend to end well, so perhaps instead of responding you could just... walk away, and all of us could be on our way?”

As Ceridwen approached Dulcie, she decided that at least one thing she could do is help her out. "Um, here, let me see if I can... try to help you..." E8 and vulnerary Dulcibella.

Perlita glanced around the city with a look of surprisingly mild wonderment — the alien spaces (Abductions? Coming up with a name for them had always been hard) she was used to being in were, well, much more alien than this was, with geometry that got downright like that guy with the upside-down staircases at times. Perlita didn’t remember his name, but the point here was that even though the city was worth a little gaping, it didn’t really stun Perlita. What did stun Perlita was a girl suddenly following out of the sky and slamming into Mira, knocking the armored girl down and causing something of a scene. Perlita just sputtered for a few moments, at first. ”A— b— wh— y— no... no, nevermind, this is basically normal at this point, isn’t it? Uh...” She fell silent for a moment, gesturing into the empty air meaninglessly, before she sighed and shrugged, and approached the two fallen girls. Well, they LOOKED uninjured, but... ”Um... could either of you use any healing?”

A scream of fury and anguish tore its way out of the orange-haired samurai as she watched her wall, the creation into which she had poured her time, her sweat, her pride, her learning, her urgency, her duty, the core of her being as a Kaiu, crumbled to the ground, an avalanche of stone and wood and dust. When the Wall fell at home, it was a sign of failure of the Crab Clan, of its Duty, of its strength. It was a failure of the sheer desperate force of an entire Clan that had dedicated itself to defending against a single threat, a failure of the Hida family to hold the wall, a failure of the Hiruma to scout ahead of it, a failure of the Kuni to support it with magic and to take down the oni, a failure of the Yasuki to get the resources the Crab needed, perhaps even of the Toritaka to fill their combat niches. When the Wall was breached in Rokugan, it was always a catastrophic event, which fell upon an entire Clan. In the heat of the battle, with her own personal work, the falling of this wall seemed no less catastrophic, but to Satomi it seemed she had noone but herself to blame. To the screaming samurai, the destruction of her wall eclipsed everything else in her consciousness -- the positions of her allies faded to the periphery, and she didn't even register the black cloud of roiling pain that rolled over the battlefield. Even the fact that she had been set aflame retreated to the back of her mind, the burning pain dwarfed by the tsunami of emotion and rage that crashed upon the young Kaiu when she saw her wall fall. And, accordingly, the only thing in Satomi's mind was to keep fighting, to harm and kill what had brought down her wall, to expend every last bit of her will both in continuing to defend and in getting payback. She'd do it to her last breath, if she had to. If it still works (because it's on the SW Wall as opposed to the SE Wall) Satomi will use the AXE Trebuchet again, on Siege Ogre 2! Otherwise, she whips out her god damned sword, the Wakizashi dealing 2d6+STR (3) damage! Active Passives: Destructive Inspiration (33% chance for a x3 crit and additional effect while using the AXE Trebuchet), Slaughtaur Shield (First time hit in a turn, take 50% reduced damage until end of turn or next action).

Lizaveta gulped, and then looked in Kane's direction -- any meaning her expression would have given, though, was blocked once again by her mask. "Ah, c-come on! Phoenix, um, Phoenix did say that we have a mission to focus on... and we are in Perus..."

Ceridwen was startled out of her reverie, and after the startlement faded, her gaze moved down again -- but not staring at the corpses this time, but just out of shame. She slowly nodded. "...yes, Johanna. I'm-- I'm sorry."

Lizaveta's tone quite rapidly got very flustered. "I, ah, I-I feel like a trophy... and trophies are for the merchantry and the aristocracy, or, or something, so that's bad."

Ferdiad would just barely hear a sigh from the girl now behind him, and then a small amused chuckle. "Ahah, yes, the terrain, I'm sure that's it."

Lizaveta opened her mouth behind her mask, preparing to say something, but then Kane chimed in, and she deflated ever so slightly, letting out a breath, a sheepish tone coming into her voice. "U-um, yes, alright, Phoenix, I'll get on then. Sorry, and, um, thanks Knight." With a hnnggg of effort, Lizaveta got onto the horse, letting out a relieved sigh once she got settled down, letting her frame slump a little bit to get some rest.

Lizaveta turned to look at Ferdiad once he spoke to her, and offered a ride. Nobody would be able to see it due to the full-face nature of Lizaveta's mask, but a look of temptation crossed her face... and then passed, matched with an audible little sigh from the ideologically-driven dark mage. "Ah... surely I cannot... be the one the most in need, hff, of that aid. I cannot... just take something like that... if there is anyone else in more need." This piece of speech was quite promptly followed by Lizaveta visibly flagging a little more, speaking and walking at the same time evidently taking something out of her.

One of the members of Virtuous was Scarlet -- wearing the red of her codename even when in disguise, the entire front of her face was covered by a mostly featureless and bright red mask of metal, which would be a lot plainer if it didn't have what appeared to be goggles built in near the eye level, a necessity in order to allow its wearer to keep her glasses on underneath and try to disguise them. The body language of its wearer conveyed two things: One was tension, as actually being in the country of the detested merchantry order had Scarlet on edge. Perus was the country that was responsible for a great many terrible things, responsible for the world order of the merchants that sucked the life out of those below them, that fought and killed just in order to keep anyone else from being wealthy like them. Perus was the country on the top, the villain of Scarlet's ideology, and the country that would have to be toppled one day for the revolution to start. "Hah, ah, don't worry, Phoenix, a... a little walking is... not enough to deter from the mission...!" The second thing that was visible in her body language: exhaustion, the red-garbed figure's shoulders droops and her steps lagged, breathing heavily and slightly hunched over. Despite all the enthusiasm in the world, Lizaveta Medvedeva was just a scholar, a recent graduate of the university. She had been studious, hardworking, pushing herself to the limit in the advancement of her ability to expand her ideology... but all of that pushing herself to the limit consisted of sitting in libraries reading books about markets and history, tomes of dark, tomes of anima... not much exercise. Lizaveta's body was rather less untiring than her will.

"We can do great things together! I'm sure we'll improve a lot of lives." Lizaveta will take Worm and the Heaven affinity because I want to maximize hit for the scholar bonus, but i dunno maybe it can represent the ideal of the communist utopia

Ceridwen remained silent during Johanna’s conversation with the warriors of the warrior’s village. Part of that was the way that the man she’d worked to save didn’t seem to be very happy about it, and the way they were being treated... but truth be told, that was only a small part of it. The larger thing driving Ceridwen’s silence was the way she kept getting distracted. At first it was the twisted, torn cut that ran up Johanna’s leg and spilled her blood onto her dragon that Ceridwen found herself staring at instead of mostly listening to the conversation; bits about Dragon Knights and the Allied Guard and the escaped prisoners reached her ears, piecemeal, but she wasn’t listening to the whole thing. Then, as the man of the Warrior’s Village mentioned that they had to take care of their own wounded, her gaze moved, downturned... and focused on the two corpses on the ground, the victims of the former-imperial assault... particularly the one that she had seen die during the combat. “...”