Powder Miner

Linton Rye will promote to Myrmidon. His second PS is already in his sheet. His weapon preference is Thrusting. His additional 5% growth will go to MAG.

Ceridwen couldn't help but grin again when Yn Ddiddorol hopped backwards, pulling her out of the range of the "enemy" soldier's swipe. "Oh, Ynddi, you are just fantastic as usual, you really are. Alright, my Goyan opponent, let me test you!" And then Ceridwen hefted the slim lance in her hand, taking a stab at the soldier! (And, of course, pulling it.) Ceridwen stabs the Soldier!

Ceridwen raised the lance in preparation to attack. "Alright, Ynddi, let's--" "Rnnh. Nnnn!" Yn Ddiddorol, who had been kind of just keeping watch on the battlefield as his rider fought on foot, was looking straight at the incoming force from the north, and making urgent noises in Ceridwen's direction. "...oh. Yeah. Good point, Ynddi. I'm going to prepare for the incoming advance!" And she hopped onto her dragon, who swooped into the air, if not too high, and dropped Ceridwen off between their healer and the "enemy". Mount, and then move to N7.

Despite being rather battered, it would appear that Ceridwen was in good spirits. “I’m fine ma’am,” Johanna WAS her superior, “the armor did its job precisely and partially deflected the arrows! I think I may advance a little to help clear these two out.” Of course, Ceridwen figured it would be a different situation if they were actually trying to seriously wound her, but given that they weren’t supposed to be taking this lightly, Ceridwen figured she probably ought not mention that. Yn Ddiddorol, meanwhile, growled at the archer, albeit only halfheartedly; he could figure out that this was a play-fight, and he wasn’t very aggressive anyways.

"Oh, a mock battle? I can do a mock battle, alright!" One benefit of having had a Mid-Wing Commander as her mentor was that Ceridwen had been doing these for years, and so she was on familiar ground. ...well, she reflected as she launched into the air with Yn Ddiddorol, not quite familiar ground -- she couldn't help but be distracted by seeing the Calissian forces and the unfamiliar layout of the land, and she worried that her reflexes would dull... especially since she had been given a lance, and the balance of it was, while something she was trained with, a mite less familiar. Yn Ddiddorol began to make a sound, then: "Hr--" "Ah, ah, I know you've been practicing your roar, Ynddi, but save it for someone we can actually get the jump on! For now I need you to just drop me off so those archers down there don't shoot me down." "Grnnffff," the dragon almost pouted, but swooped low to the ground, allowing Ceridwen to hop off while it circled around her sides, feet planted on the ground as well. "Alright then," Ceridwen said in the direction of the "enemy" soldiers, "Show me what Caliss has to offer!" N9, dismount.

Soon enough, Yn Diddorol wasn’t the only one examining Michi’s armor — Ceridwen began to do so as well, noting with interest how the plates on Michi’s armor moved when Ynddi nosed at them. “Interesting... I’m proud to say that my own armor is made by one of the Dragon Knights’ greatest blacksmiths! It’s rather experimental, really, I’ve got these loose outer shoulder plates and the shields tied to my body in hopes that they’ll catch or deflect arrows — which can be a big problem for us. I notice that your armor has a little bit of this partially redundant plating as well, but as a whole it seems more, hmm... restrictive? As you can see my armor is relatively loose, so it’s heavy but doesn’t much restrict my range of movement.” She peered at Michi’s helmet now. “You wouldn’t find a helmet like that in the mountains, either: the loss of so much vision would be dangerous in the air. But I suppose that if you’re on the ground you might be worried about someone being more able to aim at your head and eyes...”

Ceridwen flicked her eyes between the other three for a moment, looking rather put out -- she wasn't entirely sure what she could say to that. "Erm... well..." Given an out by the purple-haired guy's bringing of attention towards Yn Ddiddorol, Ceridwen smiled again and bent forwards a little bit to talk to the armored one about her dragon, who responded amiably enough to Michi's patting of his snout, giving the armored figure a better angle... though he still seemed to be more interested in his armor than anything else, nosing at the different plates lightly. "I think I already said his name, but this is Yn Ddiddorol! He's probably curious about your armor -- both him and I are fairly experienced with different types of Dragon Knight armor but Calissian armor types, and other ones, are pretty new!" Something occurred to her. "...oh yeah, my name is Ceridwen Rhydderch, by the by."

Ceridwen's expression morphed into a bit of a frown at Rhian's reply to her. "You said you're not from Caliss and I've never been anywhere else but here and home, so I don't know what it's like where you're from, but... I don't think being nice is acting like a bootlicker."

Ceridwen's expression snapped into one of some startlement when Rhian tossed that last line at the heavily armored soldier. "Um... that's not quite necessary, is it...?"

"Well, thank you! Oh, and, uh, don't worry about touching Ynddi," Ceridwen could see the armored figure's wariness slash caution about their posture, "They train our dragons as much as they train us humans up in the Stronghold, and he's too smart to attack people for touching him! Well, and he's not very aggressive anyway!" She leaned forward to pat her dragon's head, the shields on her armor shifting slightly again. Yn Ddiddorol nuzzled into her hand slightly, but for the most part seemed more interested in exploring Michi's armor.

The Dragon Knight (Ceridwen Rhydderch) had a rather succinct initial response. "...oh." She also couldn't make sense of the other girl's expression change, so she wouldn't try to. Eventually, though, she started speaking again. "Umm, where are you from, then?" She looked around again and witnessed the continuing, well, they could only be called shenanigans of the other members of the Allied Guard. "...and are you sure this isn't normal for Caliss...? I'm sorry, I've just never been outside of the mountains, so..." Well, it was all a bit much. Then she heard the words from the person who appeared to be more heavily armored than them both, and for a moment she covered her mouth and blushed, though she regained most of her composure to speak. "Oh, wow, do you really mean it? I'm sure it's just Yn Ddidderol here giving me a height advantage, heh heh..." Said dragon was now inching himself (and Ceridwen) towards Michi so that he could poke at Michi's armor with his snout. "Ynddi! Seriously, behave!"

One figure cutting a fairly prominent presence when she approached the group was a girl (looking around eighteen) on a dragon. Obviously a representative of the Dragon Knights, the girl was a redhead, with long hair and grey armor (with bulky, extra shield-like plates on her shoulders, chest, back, and hips sliding lightly as she moved) backed with green cloth, riding on a dragon the same metallic grey color on the top but green on the underside. On her face was a pair of grey eyes, and also an expression of total and complete mystification. She had never left the Antei Mountains before being assigned to this Allied Guard, so every sight and sound she took in was a new impression of mysterious outside lands and ways of life. So this... ”Ynddi, don’t bother her!” The girl noticed that her dragon had begun to approach one of the smaller groups conversing on the field, and in particular a woman in heavy red armor, likely out of curiosity as he was wont to do. Once the Dragon Knight got her dragon to stop, she looked around with that same mystified expression, and eventually spoke at the brunette. ”Um... is this what most Calissians are like...?”

Mug’ll be made at a later date. Ceridwen Rhydderch:

Navin pursed his lips as he looked at their opponents. The beasts weren't much of a concern, admittedly -- he'd destroyed the last ones he'd fought well enough, and putting these unfortunate creatures out of their misery and suffering didn't violate ahimsa like the violence he had committed upon humans here. Navin shook his head, to clear the guilt from that from popping back up again. What concerned Navin was the attitude of their opponent -- foolhardily arrogant, to be sure, but this was an attitude that Navin had seen before many a time. It was an attitude that often belonged to supervillains; some could not back up this attitude, to be sure, but those that thought like this and weren't failures... their attitudes often came from incredible power, power which often led to thunderous and bloody battles. Navin would have to be on his toes. For now, though, he had to deal with the beasts that his shirtless enemy was using as minions. He wouldn't be able to reach the flying ones (a natural consequence of fighting with your fists), but Navin was aware that he had one of the greater concentrations of offensive power on the team, figuratively and literally, so he was going to deal with the larger beast that miss Saigai was not currently dealing with. "You will not find us banished so easily!" he shouted at Caster, and then charged the twisted aberration, feeling the pumping of his power through his circulation as he drew a fist back. Upon reaching the creatures, he swung, an explosion cracking out into the air, and used the movement from that to again deal a powerful blow and a blast to his foe. Navin uses One-Two Punch in Greater Lahmu B, to deal 3d6+STR (10)+SYN (11) damage, two times! Navin has a DEX (6)*3 chance to dodge melee attacks, 20% damage reduction against slashing and piercing attacks, 15% ailment resist chance, and a [STR (10)+SYN (11)]% chance to delete enemy buffs (all on non-bosses, one on bosses) when hitting them with a non-AOE STR+SYN attack. He also rerolls all saves twice and takes the lower result.

Perlita glanced around the fight nervously: the horrible formerly-human beasts that the group’s foes on this world seemed to love so much were as scary and sickening to her as ever, the skeleton’s usage of dead people to fight for her struck Perlita as wrong and was certainly unnerving, and then the guy in gold, their enemy was, well... he was an absolutely colossal jerk. Pest control, he said, and Perlita found herself genuinely insulted, not least of all because it hit a bit of a sore spot for her. There was nothing really for it except to help out with the fight, though. Now, the fighting was just starting, so she didn’t have to heal anyone, however... so she supposed that she’d work out some of that insultedness not on Caster himself, because that struck her as a bad idea, but upon one of his minions — one of the flying ones, actually, since she could reach it with her spells. With a wave of her hand in the air (actually tugging at threads only visible to her and Gabriel), she summoned her Persona, an eight foot tall and redheaded woman, albeit with blank eyes and a supernatural stillness making her clearly not a person, with a glittery cape concealing a red evening gown, stockings, and high heels. ”Crawford! Hama!” Perlita’s Persona mirrored a second wave of her hand, and a glaringly bright sphere of light, inscribed on the inside, formed around one...! Perlita uses Hama on Bel Lahmu B, dealing SYN (12) damage with a 30% chance to deal twice that! Perlita has a 40% sleep ailment resist chance and 20% darkness damage resist.

LOTUS analyzed the situation — the unorganized group of Trespasser-fighters had effectively been cordoned off into four groups by the approach of the enemy’s minions, leaving him and his holder with Lexiel, Jade, Soryn, Dackly and Gozer, Spicy HG, and he believed the last one’s name was Liliya — he had been asking around and learning names rather more extensively than Isobel. It appeared that Lexiel had taken command upon herself, but LOTUS could and would provide specialized tactical support to a few members of the current team at a time anyway. As for those flying beasts, based on observation from previous battles... ”If you’re going to fire at the flying monsters, fire at the one with the bend in the tip of its wing. I want you especially to fire at the area where the wing meets its body — it isn’t an easy shot, but if you hit it you will be hitting a vulnerability. Jade, I would like if you were to just unload into it — both to kill it and to draw a little attention, though I’ll make sure you can do that again soon enough.” As for their foe, well, the man apparently loved to rant, but then again LOTUS did himself, didn’t he? What struck LOTUS as the more crucially arrogant mistake was that apparently Gilgamesh liked the idea of raising himself up to be targeted by EVERYONE. Idiot. ”...what a jackass,” Isobel muttered to herself, rolling her eyes at Gilgamesh’s speech. The botanist (who had decided to focus upon her natural agility, and wasn’t wearing her apron, leaving her in her fairly form-fitting jumpsuit with LOTUS in one pocket) was in a somewhat awkward position. As the fight had just started, noone was in need of a poppy or help, and her chaingun would make LOTUS too far away to provide advice, so the only thing she could really do was, well... Isobel pulled her hatchet off of one of the belt loops on her jumpsuit, towards the back, and then looked at it. ”...oh boy.” This thing wasn’t meant for combat, but, well, she didn’t have much choice...! When one of the lesser horrific tooth-beast things drew near, Isobel shouted more out of harriedness than anything else, and swung her hatchet it. LOTUS uses Weakness Pinpoint on Bel Lahmu B, granting attacks on it this turn 10% Crit Chance! Isobel uses... Hatchet on Lesser Lahmu A, for 1d4+STR (2) damage. Isobel has a 15% dodge chance.

Nader made a slightly strangled sound as he saw the three giant horrible insect claw death monsters, and immediately he raised his left arm in their direction: holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, those things needed to die before they opened him up like a tin can and ate all of his organs. It wasn't long before the signature BOOM of the Horsekiller 1935R rang out, sending a .60 cal bullet (with an improved powder charge from its WW1 origins, thanks to recent upgrades) hurtling in the direction of one of the chitinous, murderous creatures. He then spoke over the radio, tension in his voice. "Nader here, I'm near to Aquila's fight, and a firefight between some normal alien grunts and some troopers, but I've also got no less than three of these, fuckin, big spiky murderbugs not far from me!" Nader fires the Horsekiller 1935R at the Chryssalids, doing 6d6+3+DEX (5)+STR (6) damage but with a 10% chance to miss plus range! The Gut Punch is cocked.

Isobel watched as Edmond left... just as Archer went and explained pretty much everything about caster. "Um... LOTUS, I'm thinking you should probably radio Edmond with all the new stuff." The tablet was quick to reply. "Yes, yes, of course, that did occur to me too. Now..." LOTUS activated his inbuilt radio and sent a message to the comm piece that Edmond should still be wearing. <"We received a large wealth of information immediately after you left. This "King of Heroes" is named Gilgamesh, and his Gate of Babylon ability is to own gold versions of "every treasure known to man", albeit as he is a Caster, which I'm gathering is not his only form to be summoned in, and thusly he is going to be preferring magical artifacts. Also, see if you can't get Silef to join us in these next battles, seeing that this is the final stretch, we have Caster and the dragon to deal with, and things had been rough for some in this previous round of fighting."

Isobel Low and LOTUS LOTUS affected an electronic sighing sound. "Doesn't tell me a thing. Oh well. We know he creates artifacts, may potentially have some of these to sample looted from their mercenaries if you ask Silef, has an association with the phrase "King of Heroes" and with the phrase "Gate of Babylon", and has an intense magical power according to Saber, so we'll have to hope that that's enough for the scryers to work off of unless Archer is feeling particularly helpful. Edmond, you should probably head off and see if you can at least get anything from the scryers for now. If we get a confirmation of Caster's identity directly, I'll just have Isobel walk on over and chip in."

Isobel Low and LOTUS For now, LOTUS just spoke a bunch while Isobel stood there. ”Saber, you seem to know something about this King of Heroes, judging by your knowledge about his class... can you actually tell us who he is? I don’t know that “King of Heroes” is going to do us a whole lot of good in identifying Caster for Silef’s mages to track. Lancer, a question about Caster: what is his strongest ability, if you know? I imagine Saber or Archer might have to break down what it actually means, but it’s good to get as much information as we can. Edmond, the moment that we get a bit more of a solid identity on Caster, I want you to head on over towards Silef and her mages and get as much information from their scrying as you can, if you can. It’s also worth noting that that blasted skeleton dragon is almost certainly still out there, and we’re almost certainly going to have to deal with it.” Perlita Martinez Diaz Perlita gave Gabriel a little bit of a sidelong look as he wrapped his arm around her. And asked her on the weirdest awkward halfway-to-a-date thing she could imagine, oh God. ”Uh— Gabriel— it’s, uh... isn’t it a bit early to be planning that sort of thing, right? We, uh, we don’t know how long we’re gonna be doing this and I don’t think we’re going back to Roswell any time soon, you know...?”

Satomi squinted blearily at Kusuke for a moment as he haltingly explained the reason for his staring, and then she looked downwards at herself. It was only after a couple of seconds of staring, and a rub at her eyes, that the source of Kusuke's distress finally clicked to Satomi. Oh, kami, her kimono was sticking to her figure, and Kusuke must have, erm, reacted to that. Slowly, a blush rose on Satomi's own face, and when she spoke again she was rather audibly flustered. "O-oh, um, I see--" Satomi proceeded to pull her kimono away from her chest and hips, letting it more stiffly settle, though it was apparent that that wasn't going to stay that way. "I, um, well, that's..." Her blush deepened and she smacked a palm to her face. "O-oh kami, how bad is it...?" She WAS about to head over to the carpenter's, and it'd be better to only humiliate herself in front of one person rather than two.

Isobel Low and LOTUS LOTUS shifted the eye-dots on his screen Magna's way, and spoke with a tone of voice that turned a bit dark at the end. "I'm told she's surprisingly cooperative, and if that doesn't hold true then I'm sure we can figure out something." That line drew a reaction from Isobel, who turned her head downwards to look at LOTUS with some amount of worry on her face. "Um... I'm not sure I like your tone there. Awful ominous..." This in turn received some repartee from the small AI. "Ominous or no, it's a bridge we may have to come to... and unless you come up with a better plan for how to cross it yourself, what I come up with may be the best way to proceed." As Isobel gave the tactical device another unsure look, he turned his focus back to Ritsu and Edmond then. "A preliminary check? I see. I can't say for sure if it was necessary, but I understand the impetus behind it. However, now that it is complete it behooves us to proceed upon an informative path of interrogation. As we have Archer and Saber here to call upon for easier and likely more thorough sources of information regarding the issue of Servants, we should probably avoid asking Lancer questions we don't expect can't be answered by them, or at least not without asking them also. Thusly, I recommend two courses of action. First of all, ask Lancer here about the active ongoing effects of this corruption, as she is the one currently ongoing the process. Secondly, ask all three servants about the identity of the final remaining servant. Isobel, please bring me back towards Lancer." "Well, alright..." Seeing as Saber didn't presently seem likely to snatch Lancer from her hand, Isobel brought the plushie back towards the tablet. "The questions I shall begin with are these: Lancer, would you currently consider yourself in full control of your actions? If not, can you identify what is? This next one is for all three servants: What is the identity of Caster? Do you know?" Perlita Martinez Diaz Perlita was rather taken aback by Gabriel's behavior and admission, if the raise of her eyebrows was any indication. It wasn't the first time she'd seen Gabriel drop the constant confidence and be sincere about his feelings, but it was usually pretty rare that it happened this much. Somewhat awkwardly, Perlita extended a hand and patted Gabriel on the shoulder. "Yeah, it really is all wild here... but, um, since we do have each other and all I'm sure we'll make it through. We'll just do what we have to do when we have to, you know? It may be confusing, but it does look to me like there's a lot in these worlds for us to do to make things better. We just gotta... I guess see when the opportunity to good presents itself to us, and then do it. If we stick to that together I'm sure we'll do well in the end."

Satomi was stopped in the middle of her walk (to the carpenter's, as a matter of fact, because she was about to begin work on the wooden supports for the southern wall) by the fact that someone was full-on staring at her. She instinctively turned to look and see who it was, and caught Kusuke turning away from her, his face lit up with a blush that was far from insignificant. Satomi looked confusedly at him for a moment, then looked down at herself. Her lack of experience with sexuality, her being distracted with her tasks, the rain, and the cold, and the fact that at the very most she had only slept for four hours meant that even a brain as prodigious as hers failed to make the connection as to why Kusuke was so embarrassed. "Kusuke-san," she called out to him, "Is something the matter? Why were you staring at me?"

"Wonderfully informative," LOTUS immediately snarked at the stuffed Lancer's "I seek the holy grail." He then disappeared the keyboard for a moment in order to indicate that"But I'm not fully sure how far this line of inquiry can get us, Edmond, Ritsu. It's primarily treading on ground that we've been given information on by Nobunaga. I suspect that we're going to need to follow another train of questioning, but since I've got my tactical uplink back up, hurrah, I think I'll take a moment to contact them on the matter and wait for a response, because I can." And then he flashed his screen back to the keyboard. "Alright, I've gained some useful suggestions from my peers, I recommend we--" It was then that the other Servant arrived on the scene, and LOTUS shut up to apprehensively examine the situation. Though Isobel was a bit less wary, she was a little bit embarrassed to just be standing there holding the plushie that was the center of attention. When Jeanne started talking in Lancer's direction, LOTUS cut in with a "We are in the process of an interrogation, and although it strikes me that you may be useful to ask questions to if my observation that you arrived with the Saber group does in fact indicate that you are Saber, this still should not be interrupted." Isobel, meanwhile, kind of just maneuvered the hand holding Lancer out of the way of Jeanne's grasp with a sheepish expression -- both because of LOTUS' words and because she had a feeling from the other Servant's demeanor that this might get out of hand. "...Um, sorry, but we really are in the middle of something."

"Sounds like a plan. I can't guarantee I'll spot the fuckers before they get a shot off, but once I can start firing I'll keep whoever and whatever I have to distracted. Allah knows I've got the right armaments for it. I can sprint out ahead, but I'm not going to be able to keep up the pace, I'll warn you that right now." Nader then made good on his word, dashing outwards in order to be the forward scout for the whole operation, in a storm of clanking and rattling as the man and his 110 lb armor and his five guns moved off from the Avenger in about as much of a sprinting burst of action as Nader could possibly manage. As much as he sure as shit didn't like the idea of being shot in the head, it was probably prudent that he be the one to make first contact with the enemy -- chances were better that he'd get through relatively unscathed than they were for everyone else. Nader makes use of his Akimbo passive's extra move to, uh, run faster, moving to D5! The Gut Punch was cocked in the transition to the battle.