Powder Miner

Fear, as it turned out, is something of a powerful motivator -- and the brief lull after both sides began their initial collision and either were still reeling or still approaching was broken by the wild attack of a very unhappy moth... a very unhappy moth with a destructive magic tablet. Secluded-from-Illumination attacks Axe Recruit A! "Wellllllll, shit." The poor bastard didn't stand a chance. As utterly slow and lumbering as he was, even Secluded-from-Illumination's abject panic didn't make her wildly thrown lines of corrosive magic miss -- they flew right into him, cutting lines into his body, and then he swayed backwards slowly, before landing backwards on the concrete with a loud crash that may or may not then have made Secludie jump right out of her skin. Axe Recruit A is dead! "Well, damn-- oh, and, of course, the bug on the giant bird has something to say about it." The black ant black mage took a slow step back, although his tablet was still kept in the ready position. "Hello there, big guy, let's just keep things cool oh shit oh fuck--" His morale began to break as Ebon went in for the attack. Ebon Knight attacks Dark Initiate A! As lance strikes delivered by terrifying mercenaries on top of large (and also terrifying) birds tend to be, Ebon's strike was devastating -- and it was very much true. Sure, he didn't accidentally overwhelmingly exploit some weakspot, but slamming right into the black ant initiate's chest was close enough. The ant had been in a relatively healthy position, initially... but with a powerful blow like that from Ebon, THAT sure as hell changed. The lance plunged in and out, and the ant quietly held his chest for a moment. Then, he looked at the battle, at his assailant, back at the battle, at himself, and back at his assailant, groaned, and fell limply down. Dark Initiate A is dead, probably. Ebon Knight felt that this guy was familiar from a while ago... hmmm... maybe somebody he knew, but not very well, from before his exile. Soggyshanks, meanwhile, took a rather outside-the-box course of action - he cut the arrow in his leg, and then proceeded to run right past the armored bug with a halberd, who was currently still halfway holding his weapon in Ebon's direction, mid-turn due to a slow reaction and his choice of weapon. This gave Soggyshanks the opportunity to get right up to the base of the sidewalk, and just lob that axe in a spinning arc towards Flies Freely. Soggyshanks attacks Flies Freely! Lobbed over a big-ass crack of sidewalk or not, Soggyshanks' aim was not false, and his spinning hatchet rotated through the air until it came to a sudden jarring stop inside the flesh of a veyr unhappy pigeon, which made some sort of strangled squawking rage noise. For his part, Flies Freely shouted loudly as his mount was hit and shook, and still looked a little surprised. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa, we're eager now, aren't we? Come on man, I'm a mercenary, you gotta let me get through with some banter before you start on killing my bird. Especially with... wait, wait, wait, that IS him. Am I... blind??? The Ebon Knight himself! (But yes, see, I am a fan so let me at least talk to the guy for a moment.)" "ARE YOU SHITTING ME?? WE ARE DYING OVER HERE." As if to punctuate her words, a double assault began on Corporal Dart, once she had to try to fight off desperately as both Life-Recorder and Faithful Diligence pulled out their weaponry and took shots at her. Sure, they weren't coordinated at all despite their recent but brief tenure together, as they weren't soldiers. Life-Recorder attacks Corporal Dart! Faithful Diligence attacks Corporal Dart! This lack of coordination from the two Scholars' Assistants likely saved poor Corporal Dart from a good amount of pain -- the chakram thrown by Life-Recorder still struck, bouncing off of Dart's cheek while leaving a slashed line across her face, but aside from the bleeding the wound didn't seem to be all that deep. Still, though, a wound doesn't have to be deep to inspire juuust a bit more caution than usual, and in this case it meant that she theatrically leapt right out of the way of the incoming fireball sent by Diligence. "FREEEEEEELLLYYYYY!" Map Notes Status EXP: 22/100

Nader let out a long breath, and began to approach Gaster, attempting for a moment to put his paws in his pockets before discovering slightly awkwardly that it wasn't really viable. He hadn't really expected everything to be already dealt with when he got there, which caused his mental train of thought to derail a bit, but... well, that made it a whole hell of a lot easier, Nader supposed. At least... perhaps this was an opportunity to finally get some closure. He let in and then released a breath. "So, you'd be Dr. Gaster, yeah?" There was a pause of a few seconds before Nader continued speaking. "I'm not in retrospect sure how much of an active part you really played in all of the events that happened down here... but I was down in this lab earlier. Since there was some manner of thing... well... wrong with me, I was able to see you and your companions, and your entries, and, well... it wasn't great for me, frankly. I was going to try to free you, but it looks like that's already been done... that spell Lucine, used, if it comes down to freeing..." He shook his head. "Sorry, I'm rambling. I'm Nader Jabal - I was human when I was down here last, armored, and... quite armed." As disastrously as that had turned out. "did you observe me down there? If so, were you involved in my wanderings down there? I saw and was spoken to by your companions, and like I said I saw your lab entries detailing your work with KARMA. I spoke to Asgore about you too, since I did a stretch as a disembodied SOUL."

Perlita turned her head to see 6D's condition - rather thoroughly shredded, and in the midst of hobbling towards Saejik's AT-TE - and proceeded to very nearly jump out of her skin "¡Ay! That is NOT good! Please hold on, 6D, I don't want to let you get hurt like before again!" With an almost sloppy, quick wave of her hand, Perlita tossed away some of the Elder Coins that she'd recently gathered in order to get rid of the thing that she could feel clamping down on part of her soul, and then she began hauling ass in 6D's direction more or less as fast as she could, sprinting across the battlefield to get to the robot who had been taking quite a few hits for her. "Hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on Crawford!"yellow She violently jerked her hand through the air, and was rewarded by the appearance of her Persona, at which point Perlita made a hard throwing motion with her arm at 6D. "DIARAMA!!" And with that, she attempted to sent a swirling wave of pink magic winding around 6D...! Perlita bids 18 Elder Coins to free up Media, and then casts Diarama on 6D, healing her for 7d4+SYN (14)+SYN (14) HP! If 6D has already eaten shit, she tosses this heal at Mira instead!

Ferdiad was not the only one who had been distant from the group recently. Lizaveta had spent most of her time at the beach far away from everyone, sitting against a tree and sort of just staring out at the water and going through her thoughts. She felt... almost as if she were being pulled in half. She kept finding pleasure in darker and darker and darker things... she'd enjoyed killing a lot of the lecher-king's guards, she'd enjoyed killing the members of the army of Gul, and she'd wanted Darcy dead so, so so very badly, it had ached. She'd toyed with Ferdiad just to grasp at an advantage, with little regard for Pestilence herself. And another part of her reacted with fear and confusion every time. Why did she react to the things she did the way she did? Why was it that she couldn't seem to stop? Always, she kept sitting here feeling sorry for herself, but it never changed, did it? Always, when the next thing came along that fit into her motivations, that that dark part of her wanted to enjoy... she did. And this battle was no exception. Ivan Ivanovich carved through the damned Perusians, the scumsucking bastards reduced to going around him because they couldn't handle his might, for all their arrogance, all their money, all their pride, all their continental power. And then their army was torn to pieces in one sweeping blow, a tidal wave of blood. Finally, they were getting what was fucking coming for them. They couldn't step on the world forever and avoid retribution. Oh, they thought they did, they thought they did, but now they were getting taught the fuck otherwise, weren't they? She almost felt bad for trying to raid the Rian castle, but of course Ruslan was a fucking monarch like the rest of them, and his hands were drenched in blood, blood less guilty than the organs and flesh and limbs and dead that littered that battlefield-- Lizaveta had held her arm to her mouth for most of the past few hours, continually hiding a smile that threatened to form, continually holding in the vomit that threatened to come. Smile? Vomit? Which... both, maybe, maybe it was both. She swallowed heavily. "I'd be for going straight in, personally. We aren't going to have that much time before they call reinforcements in, since they're already a traveling army and might be prepared for attacks on their camp." K22, equip Worm.

Ebon Knight (krim): 83, 81, --, 20, 93, 24, 19, 65 +SKL, +DEF, +RES Faithful Diligence (ElfCollaborator) 65, __, 25, 90, 14, 90, 38, 5 +HP, +MAG, +LCK, +RES, +SPD Life-Recorder (Unlurking Sentinel): 44, 11, 1, 59, 16, 9, 20, 87 +HP, +STR, +MAG, +LCK, +DEF, +RES Lotus (Raindrop Valkyrie): 74, 88, --, 40, 33, 100, 61, 16 +SKL, +SPD Mercy Harefoot (kj1225) 30, 88, 57, 68, 95, 98, 26, 38 +HP, +MAG, +SPD Pinecone (RedMageCole): 15, 57, --, 67, 27, 44, 12, 52 +HP, +DEF, +RES Secluded from Illumination (Trash): 63, --, 47, 9, 55, 6, 16, 93 +MAG, +SKL, +DEF, +RES Soggyshanks (Yours Truly) 41, 4, --, 22, 50, 18, 87, 91 +HP, +STR, +SKL, +DEF Stardust (EXLink32): 80, --, 1, 84, 70, 41, 80, 82 +MAG, +LCK from preferred stats Sting (ctsun): 24, 63, 65, 73, 61, 89, 58, 27 +HP, +SPD Brilliant Deduction: 67, --, 57, 60, 4, 42, 96, 60 +MAG, +LCK, +SPD Recruit Bend: 46, 85, 52, 45, 97, 71, 48, 84 +HP, +SPD from preferred stats, +DEF from preferred stats

Not to be left in the dust by everyone, at least figuratively. Lotus decided to chip in her little part to the beginning of the fight, drawing an arrow from her quiver, pulling back the string of her mightily-sized (at least relatively) longbow, quietly aiming in on an as-of-yet-untouched member of their band of adversaries, and... Lotus attacks Axe Recruit A! Big, meaty, gormless, and somewhat armored, the axe-wielding black ant stood no chance at even noticing Lotus' arrow before it zipped across the sidewalk and collided with him, let alone dodging it. And so the ant found himself rocking back and grunting loudly, before he looked down to see that there was an arrow jutting out of a black plastic plate at his side. And before he even finished reacting to that, there was another arrow suddenly sticking out of the same plate of armor. "W-what-- aw, man. I knew this was going to happen when you guys had me go out front... and they already took down Quivers, too... aw man..." The axe-ant hefted a sigh... but also hefted his weapon. TURN 1 ~ ENEMY PHASE Despite his weapon now being upraised, the axe-ant visibly took a few moments to size up his competition before stumbling over to the side to try to strike at the bug that had just gone and shot him. His axe began its journey downwards, the ant grunting loudly as he threw his entire body into swinging the axe downwards, but to his surprise, by the time it reached its destination, a particular bee had already thrown himself in the way of the axe. Axe Recruit A attacks Lotus! In that moment, it suddenly became clear exactly why such a slow-witted bug had been chosen to follow along with a little raiding band such as this (well, aside from... unflattering summaries of the black ant band as a whole). While the axe-ant may have been sluggish in several respects, as it turned out he was a wall of muscle. The wooden axe came crashing downwards, a splintering sound ringing out as the axe knocked a gouge into Pinecone's shoulder plate, carving through it to deal a serious blow to Pinecone. Being a tough bug, Pinecone was still standing mostly strong, but it had been a frankly titanic blow. It wasn't something that Pinecone let go totally unanswered, as a poke of his javelin drew a little blood, but he didn't quite have the power to respond in equal force. Still, the axe-ant was barely standing now. "Ahaha... almost, huh? Well, guys, now would really be the time for you to follow up..." There was a sigh from the rear, where one of the ant mages spoke up. "Well, Muscles," there was a slight hesitation here, because the ant had always thought that name was stupid, "The Corporal is going to kill us if we let you die without doing anything about that." Taking in the situation, and how the large bee seemed to be there to throw himself in front of attacks for the others in whatever traveling group he was in... "Let me and Charred go first." Dark Initiate A attacks Ebon Knight! The ant mage held onto his tablet, focused on the representation on its surface, abstract as it was, and a cloud of thrumming black energy was sent in the direction of Pinecone... where it met his body, it channeled blasting force into him, and he was soon beset by a crisscross of wounds across his front as currents of energy in the miasma of dark magic whipped across him. The bee was, by this point, a mess, having taken two deadly attacks... but, incredibly enough, he remained on his feet to launch a javelin at his assailant. Not having expected his target to stay moving, the ant dark mage was caught entirely flatfooted, managing little more than a wheeze. The other mage sounded... less than impressed. "How did you not manage to take him out???" "I don't know!" "Leaving it to me... typical." Fire Initiate A attacks Ebon Knight! Having made her statements, the black ant mage conjured a small bolt of fire, which she winged in Pinecone's direction. ...there was a brief silence as she missed entirely, the spell disappearing into nothingness with a small paff on hitting the ground. And then that silence was broken as Pinecone, ever diligent, nailed the enemy mage with a javelin, causing her to shriek and her arms to wheel backwards, evidently totally unprepared for a physical strike. "AAAAAAA NONE OF YOU SAY A FUCKING WORD!" At that point, another wild bolt of fire was sent Pinecone's way, and this one burst across him, the bloodied bug finally toppling over with a loud noise (and nearly taking Stardust out in the process). Pinecone is down! Next up in the attacking squad of ants was a wood-armored bug with a large wooden halberd in his hands. "Focus less on the bickering, and more on the battle." As he chided his teammates, he approached the biggest, most terrifying target on the field, and just went for him. Halberdier A attacks Ebon Knight! However, as the halberd-wielding ant discovered, for all his stoic bravery, there's a large gulf between being courageous enough to attack an intimidating foe and being skilled enough to successfully attack an intimidating foe. His halberd was thrust slowly, and Ebon Knight's crow was able to step backwards with a large stride out of the way -- only for Ebon to drive it around the ant's halberd, opening the ant up to a pair of strike from Ebon's lance. The halberdier's armor, however, was heavy, thick wooden plates, and it would have protected him from much of the harm... would have, if the second jab dealt out by Ebon hadn't been a mighty one, the mediocre thwok of the first strike shown up by the meteoric CRASH of the second. The halberdier's chest plate splintered away when faced with the powerful blow, and then there was no further obstacle to Ebon's lance. Halberdier A is dead! "Ah, shit, shit, shit, FREELY! We need your people to help!" With that increasingly desperate command, Dart, well, darted down to make her strike, completing the flank to the party's right as she ran with shocking speed right up to Harefoot. Corporal Dart attacks Mercy Harefoot! The ant corporal didn't have any of the problems faced by her underlings, as the target she chose was one much less able to defend against her strike, let alone counterattack. Dart moved with an odd sort of staccato grace, quick motions made one after the other, a release of a sort of thrumming physical tension that ended up taking very deadly form. With one motion, she was right up to Mercy Harefoot, with the next motion, she had a dagger suddenly out in her hand, with the third motion, that knife was buried into his neck. With the fourth, she'd pulled it out and was prepared to keep fighting even after her opponent's collapse. Mercy Harefoot is down! Meanwhile, across a crack in the sidewalk... "Well, I suppose you heard the lady. Take some shots, yeah?" "Only one real good vantage spot I can see here, Freely. You'll have to help with that." "Gotcha, gotcha, I'll have your back." Sniper A attacks Soggyshanks! Sniper B attacks Soggyshanks! What followed was slightly absurd. The first sniper (the one who'd spoken) stood at the edge of the crack, aimed his bow upwards, putting it at a precise angle with a squint, and then he loosed his arrow, which flew all the way over to Soggyshanks and landed true, striking against a relatively unarmored area in his leg for painful damage. Then the pigeon-riding mantis literally swept him off of his feet, pulling him out of the way and then putting him down on the other side of the bird... leaving room for the other sniper to take his shot. That shot missed, shattering to pieces against the sidewalk, but surely it was the bug-handling shenanigans that counted. TURN 2 ~ PLAYER PHASE Map Notes Status EXP: 106/100, LEVEL UP!

Stretch finally landed in the spot he was making his moves in for the final time, finishing off that particular set of bouncy beats. But instead of just landing stationary, he did a slow, swooping backflip. landing upside down and standing on his hands (an easy task to do when he stretched them out somewhat to increase his standing area. "You like that? I've got a whole lot more funk in me! Keep paying attention for Stretch Armstrong's Diamond Dance Juice Bouncing Stretching Senssssation!" He flicked his legs out to the side, and began to turn them... and turn them... and turn them... his hips going backwards and then forwards in continuing 360 degree circles which would probably be rather disturbing to see for some but ended up with his whole body twisted into a coil. "Rubbery... Break Dance!" And with that, Stretch dropped onto his shoulders, his legs uncoiling and uncoiling and uncoiling into an extremely rapid upside down spin on his shoulders, his entire body spinning but his legs kicking outwards in a widening, increasingly rapid circle, the whole affair eventually reaching a blinding speed. A warbled sound emitted from the whole spectacle, which only careful listening would reveal to be Stretch shouting "Go! Go! Go! Go!" at himself, but distorted by his high-velocity spinning. Stretch charges and uses Rubber Gatling Gun, which normally would do 1d4+[SYN/2] damage four times, but which Stretch just uses to dance!

Nader rubbed his hands (no, wait, paws, no... uh... huh, now that he was looking at them they were kind of in between) together as he considered Asgore's words. "Right... I had figured that would be the case. I suppose I should just get going, then. Like I said earlier, I think my entire situation is different now that I'm..." Nader paused and, failing to find succinct words, just gestured up and down at his newly tiger-y form. "Well, you know. I don't expect to run into the same sorts of problems, but just to be sure, I'm going to head down before I go..." Nader wrinkled his snout a bit as he considered the implications, "...retrieve my gear. There might be some danger involved there, perhaps, but... well, it has to be done, and I reckon it's likely that I can handle myself even without all of that equipment, at least a little." Nader cleared his throat a little awkwardly and then clapped Asgore on the shoulder once more. "Well, then, I believe it's about time I go do that, then. Lucine, you don't have to come with me if you don't want to, but if you do, I'm heading back to the underground (er... extra underground?) laboratory, now." And with that (letting Asgore get in any parting words if he wanted to), Nader turned and began the walk to the lab.

"Well, that's certainly much less subtle." Satomi digested what she was being told with a predictably wary look, giving the cloaked figure a little bit of a side-eye as she listened to him. But she was by no means showing open hostility, or even really hostility at all -- more simply the somewhat grumpy paranoia of someone who feels she's been personally on the losing end of things far too many times recently. "I would think that by "mutual acquaintance" you would mean Ebon, but being a 'third party' would draw that into question... I can't think of anybody else, however. I suppose that's worth considering at some point. However..." Satomi took the notebook from the mysterious man, and turned it over a few times in her hands, looking it over carefully. "You are right on my stances on action and quiet, and to a degree on trust -- the circumstances are certainly suspicious, after all. However... let it be never be said that a Crab let an opportunity to better fight the necessary fight go untaken simply due to squeamishness around a stranger. The accessory shop, you said?" There was a brief pause as Satomi remembered the circumstances that led to her current position in the first place. "...er... where would I find that?"

Soggyshanks was another one of the Scholars' Redoubt party to take the front line, striding up towards his armored ant foe with what a surprisingly casual stride, before lifting up his hatchet and... Soggyshanks attacks Lance Recruit A! --and seemingly without any effort buried his hatchet all the way up to its spine in a gap between two plates of the bug's wooden armor, right through into his shoulder. Despite the fact that the attack itself had looked apathetic, with Soggyshanks' energy tempered by his not currently standing out, it was still more than effective enough when completely unhindered by the armor that should have blunted it. For a moment, the ant soldier stood missing an arm... and then he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, without even making a sound. (The fact that this was actually just dumb luck didn't need to stop Soggyshanks from looking cool.) Lance Recruit A is dead! "Damn! These guys clearly aren't nobodies. Hold fast, people, and then we strike fast! We can still deal with them if we hit smart!" Map Notes Status EXP: 92/100

Perlita spend a moment hemming and hawing, torn between providing some healing in a scenario that didn't really need it, and getting the party a supply of Elder Coins through a... risky but hopefully effective. Eventually, though, she opted for the latter, especially considering that the Star Wars empire guy (uh.... Captain Sae-something, oh no, she was absolutely going to be too awkward to ask later) seemed to be turning to tend to them. "Uh-- um-- I'm going to-- I'm going to get some of those Elder Coins! I think this should be enough for everybody for a little while, too, as long as this doesn't really horribly mess up!" Perlita let out a slightly strangled noise of pain as she offered up a large amount of her very life force to the machine selling Elder Coins, but started taking deeper breaths not long after that. Then, having calmed herself sufficiently: "Okay, Crawford...! Diarama!" She promptly suffused herself with pink healing energy. Perlita trades 60 HP for Elder Coins, and then immediately heals herself with Diarama, healing herself for an astounding 7d4+SYN (14)+SYN from Better to Give... (14)+SYN from Altruism (14), or 7d4+42 damage!

Isobel Low Isobel just shrugged widely, looking at Masako... before another thought occurred to her and her shoulders drooped as she considered it. (The sigh wasn't audible, but it definitely was visible.) "Masako, at this point I feel it's important I ask a question: if you have some plan figured out where I end up in here... do... well... am I just going to end up getting stabbed by somebody inside as a matter of course anyway? Because, well... I would very much like to avoid that. I suppose there is the whole spellcard system, but I'm... I'm more than a little bit tired of getting battered around here. I do not want to get beaten up again." LOTUS LOTUS had had no objections to the idea of getting out of the way of the battle, having performed a weird little backwards wing-flapping jump-trot to get well clear of the battle -- a decision immediately rewarded when a great deal of danmaku proceeded to fill up the space around IP. But there was one thing this denizen of Hell had said that ended up gathering LOTUS' interest. So, hands cupped around her mouth, the foot-tall fAIry rose her voice to be heard over the sounds of the ongoing spellcard duel. "Hey! You said you're one of the "four devas"? Excuse my unfamiliarity, but I assume that means that you are a figure of some importance in Hell?"

Nader reached out and gave Asgore a heavy pat on each shoulder, resting his hands there for a moment. "Good man. That's what I wanted to hear. You're going to be having a lot of things to do from here on out, of course... getting your kingdom in order, after all of this, of course. Being with your family again, of course. But it's better that you're around to do those things, in the end." Nader sighed a little, and grew solemn. "With all of the chaos that has been going on, I'm not sure that anyone ever told you, but there's a major threat out there that's the reason we're here in the first place. Things called Trespassers -- they go around, bluntly enough, eating worlds. It's not something that you have to panic about right now, as I don't believe they are imminent; we're being sent around to help places that are likely to have to deal with these things pull themselves together and be ready. But... well, now you all have a way to go outside, you personally have a less miserable reason to rule, and everything is looking like it will start moving forward in new ways, now? Take advantage of that. I can't tell you if we'll ever be back or not, but when that day one day comes, make sure that you're ready." Nader lifted his hands from Asgore's shoulders. "As for me... I heard what I needed to hear from you, so I... think I'm going to be going back to those labs. It... erh, with my situation as different as it is, now, I don't foresee having the same... well, I don't think I'll go crazy again. But I want to go see all of that with Gaster through to the end. I have to imagine he'd be very useful in helping you make progress down here, both for preparation for the Trespassers and just to improve things in general. And I guess that knowing all of the context around him, now... poor bastard really did not deserve being scattered through time and space like he was. Deserves to be set free from that if we can help him, and I think we can."

"Yeah, I um..." Lizaveta sighed. "Given my circumstances coming here to Virtuous, um... I don't really... have... anything. Just... yeah. I don't have anything." "So I... can't really pay for anything, and obviously there's not going to be any sort of transaction of that sort between Baldur and I. It's, um... it's uncomfortable to just beg, but..."

Lizaveta stared at Baldur for a long moment. "Yeah, I'm sure you were really happy to get to make that little declaration... now you're just getting petty." Lizaveta sighed, then, and shrugged. "Guess I've just got to..." She approached Kane and tapped him on the shoulder. "Um, Kane?"

Lizaveta ended up finding herself near Shin as she sort of just idly browsed the store, hands in her pockets despite the warmth. She'd asked to come on this trip, but... "You... don't have any money to pay for this either, right? I guess we'll just have to ask someone else, but..." Lizaveta shrugged a bit.

Eulalia let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a grunt, satisfied that the battle had come to an end (especially since it had been rather pointless in her eyes... barely even good vengeance), but rather dissatisfied with how... meager her performance in the battle had been, with meager being a frankly nice word for it. Then, she shook herself off a little bit and looked back at that power crystal. "Do we want to destroy that crystal before we leave? I would vote for doing so -- if it blows up, we can just be in position to leave first. And, well... I didn't withstand torture and slavery just to shrug and let them go on with what they were trying to do. Perhaps we ought to teach a lesson in why not to use slave labor, hmmm? A... decisive lesson, shall we say."

Lizaveta had been kicking around, feeling still pretty low. That mission intercepting the drugs hadn't done a whole lot to make her feel any better, speaking frankly -- her issues about herself, about what she was doing, about nearly getting offed by Ferdiad, and about just... just a lot of things sure hadn't been cured by waiting in some bushes and not really doing a whole lot. To tell the truth, she hadn't really been sure what she wanted to do today, and had kind of considered just lounging around, but... well, she actually didn't have a swimsuit, did she? (Or really much of any clothing but what she was wearing and one other shirt... oof...) Sitting around on the beach and just melting to death sounded unpleasant, so it would probably at least be a good idea to, well, have someone get her something else to wear, right? "Er... would you all mind if I came along...? I, um... I don't really have a swimsuit or anything either..."

"I'm more accomplished than ever, right...? So why don't I feel like it...?" Lizaveta takes Dread!

"No, I don't know 'em personally. I just know what type they are -- the people up here made a peace a while back, including the black ants here. But there are always some ants that just want to keep fighting wars, and so here we are." Pinecone launched a javelin with a smooth movement of one muscular arm, making to score the first blow of this particular post-war scrap. The enemy notably hesitated, taken aback by Pinecone's casual tone. Pinecone attacks Lance Recruit A! While Pinecone may have been far from the quickest bug, being something of a lumbering, armored lunk, especially with his personality slowing his reactions... these black ant recruits with lances were amazingly somehow even slower, perhaps weighed down by their armor (not having a layer of bare-chest-protecting fuzz like Pinecone!). With that, plus the hesitation of the rather bemused lance-wielder, Pinecone found it extremely easy to land a javelin on the zealot-following ant, the javelin making a thwack of contact and falling away. But... unfortunately for Pinecone, what he lacked in toughness the lance-toting ant made up for in toughness, so the surprisingly anemic weapon didn't manage much but some bleeding. Ebon followed up to take his own crack at the unfortunate recruit -- and he made for a more traditionally intimidating attacker than Pinecone, looming with his gruff attitude, jagged black armor, and massive fucking crow. Ebon Knight attacks Lance Recruit A! Ebon Knight's strike also flew true, with the black-armored mercenary being quicker and more precise than Ebon, let alone the enemy ant -- and it struck harder, with Ebon having momentum and strength on his side compared to Pinecone. Still, though the ant quite clearly felt this strike, it still was not enough to lift him off of his feet. In fact, it wasn't even close. The ant had to take a moment to reel, but after but a second he managed to forcibly lean himself back forwards into a stable posture. "G-- guys! Seriously, come help me out over here!" Map Notes Status EXP: 87/100

It has been two and a half days since Brilliant Deduction's expedition convened at the Scholars' University and headed out to go travel the world in search of ancient human writings. As promised, Brilliant has been leading the bugs around her northwards up and out of the Scholars' Redoubt region, on a path that at times cut through area of grass like the kind of area the Marauders had been encountered in, at times around some of the trees in the area, and that generally seemed just to be trying to beeline through the region to get into the lands generally inhabited by the people of Wasp Hell. Brilliant, throughout, cheerfully waved away any questions of safety and caution, insisting that though their journey could overall be dangerous, running into two different attacks here of all places was unlikely. ...and, thankfully for everyone who had been traumatized by that awful fight with the suicidal bandits, she was actually right. Her behavior had changed rapidly as they entered Wasp Hell, though -- she grew significantly more careful, and kept the party to the road and sidewalk, avoiding going into the grass. As she explained it, she'd traveled Wasp Hell before, and while there was a peace treaty in place these days between the hornets, paper wasps, velvet ants, and black ants... there were some people who weren't real happy about it, and who might be carrying some grudges. And, as she explained it... "Well, uh, y'know, these legs here make it as clear as day I'm a hornet. But, well, if we have any trouble, I'm confident we can deal with it!" In one respect, moving along the sidewalk had worked -- the group saw the ambush that ended up coming for them very easily, squads of black-clad bugs scrambling across the loam and the bumpy black hard surface of the old human road. Unfortunately, they weren't really in a position for seeing them coming to matter. The section of sidewalk was a rough one, huge rifts rising out of the mysterious hard, smoothish material it had been created with as age and decay had caused it to crack apart. This meant that the many large cracks made scrambling away difficult -- and the ambushers were coming in from multiple directions. Eventually, their identity became clear: black ants. One of them, in heavy armor and with the ruined stumps of a pair of mandibles around his mouth, spoke first and firmly. "A hornet! Well, boys, I think we've found ourselves a group of our old enemies roaming around! Now let's show 'em how we do it, yeah?" "Sergeant, I don't think that these guys are hornets. It's just the one." "It would appear that one of them is even another black ant." As the ambushers deliberated out loud, Bend scowled and crossed his arms. "Oh, you have got to be FUCKING kidding me with this shit. Of all the assholes we could have run into up here, it's THIS particular brand of chucklefucks." One of the ambushers was a mantis atop a pigeon and in white armor, who didn't have anywhere near the level of urgency of the others. "For sure these guys are Redoubt guys, with that particular mixture of bugs. And... huh..." He squinted. "Fuck 'em, they're good enough. If it weren't for those scholar jackasses, we wouldn't have had the treaty, and we wouldn't be fucking stuck out here in the first place! FUCK 'EM! We can teach everybody a lesson well enough if we make an example out of them! Corporal Dart, Adept Gloom, Flies Freely, set your squads up and get ready to take these guys down a notch!" "Well, eheh, sorry everyone, I guess we did get into trouble on my account... but don't worry, I'll make sure to help get everyone out of it!" TURN 1 ~ PLAYER PHASE Map Notes Status: EXP: 83/100

Nader reached up to scratch at one furry cheek. "To tell the truth, I think I feel more well than I ever have. My... affliction, I think, affects my soul in some way, now, but it's gone from my thoughts. Things haven't been so... clear... ever since the days with my family. It's hard to underestimate just how..." Nader searched for the words. "It's hard to understate just how much of a burden is gone from me now." Nader plopped both of his hands (well, paws) onto Asgore's shoulders. "But you know what this all means? What we were predicting would become of us the last time we, uh, spoke didn't come to pass. I wanted to come to you mostly to mention this:" Nader nodded firmly, looking into Asgore's eyes. "Everybody around us went and put in a truly incredible amount of effort. To bring an end to things without further people, human or monster or in-between, getting hurt. To free everybody without you dying like you were convinced you had to. To even go out of their way to put me into a new body even after the state that I was in and the thing that I did." "Asgore... we've both been given second chances. It's not just some sort of twist of destiny -- it was through the deliberate actions of those around us. Maybe it's not strictly some sort of 'fresh start'; we won't forget the things that we've done, and we don't really have the right to ask other people to forget either. But we are being forgiven, or at least we're being given a second chance to do things right, to do what we need to to protect and cherish what we need to, this time without hurting those around us. And... I'm glad to get this chance." Nader moved his paws from Asgore's shoulders, and placed one paw over his heart. "So I solemnly swear not to squander it. I swear that I will take this second chance at life that I have been given, with the path ahead of me brighter and clearer than it's ever been, and I will forge ahead with it. I swear that I will make the most of what I have now, and I swear that I will continue my quest to protect my world and all worlds on more level-headed ground, to neither run away nor shoot feverishly, but to do what has to be done the way it should be done.." That hand extended now, offering a handshake to Asgore. "I came here to get you to reflect on that second chance, and to swear the same. Not in the same words, obviously, and maybe not quite the same things. But you've been given your second chance just as I've been given mine, and you should take that second chance with eyes to the future and a promise to do better, too."

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Perlita found herself in a disturbing environment and fighting a crazy megalomaniac. Viewing it from that suddenly distant lens, Perlita felt a part of herself suddenly begin to get very tired of the multiverse and its abundance of people who felt entitled to trying to kill her and everybody else that she was trying to protect. But... well... not tired enough of it to stop defending it, she guessed. While everybody else strategized to deal with the deities and buildings and resources and crazy lady, Perlita set herself and prepared to fight, taking a deep breath and getting braced for combat. "...okay..." She let out a breath. "Let's do this, I guess. Um, let's see, nobody's hurt yet, and most people here are going for Magic, so I think I'll help out with..." Perlita descended into mumbling as she finished thinking it out, before her voice returned with more confidence. "I'll help you for a little bit, Bridgett!" She clapped, and swung her hand up through the air, gesturing violently as if grabbing something very much firmly. "Crawford!! Hama!" And a sphere of yellow light coalesced around the factory, rotating and rotating and-- Perlita uses Hama on the Factory, dealing 1d4+SYN (14) damage, with a 30% chance to deal double that amount of damage!

Isobel Low Isobel mostly just stuck her hands in her pockets and waited as the newcomer had (and handily lost, reinforcing Isobel's desire not to antagonize the youkai of this mountain unnecessarily) his spar, and as Masako dealt with the shrine maiden here. At this point in time, she didn't really find that there was much she could do. "Is there somewhere you have planned for us to go next, Masako, like your home or something? I'm finding myself kind of extraneous here." LOTUS "If she wishes to indulge you in this spell-card battle, I am not going to prevent you from having it. Gaining more familiarity with this world can only be a positive, especially if we're going to be having a recurring presence here." LOTUS began the process of climbing down from IP's shoulder, before electing to just jump down and furiously flutter her wings in an attempt to slow down... which succeeded, after a couple of feet of perilous freefall in which LOTUS may have yelped a little. "A-ahem. I intend to watch rather than participate, however."

Sitting in the bushes, Lizaveta had been growing somewhat antsy as the whole mess started to get complicated and drag on with the appearance of Famine of all people. "An Icon of Sin...? This can't be a coincidence, can it? First a drug trade, and then something with them involved...? And if he's working for the King of Perus... they have to be keeping this route open intentionally. It would..." The gears turned in her head for a moment and then her expression darkened behind her mask. "It would explain why they come down on unsanctioned traders like they do... they want to make sure they know EXACTLY what's coming in and out, and in this case they find the trade here, drugs or poison, useful, so they want to keep it from being interfered with."