Powder Miner

That Night The night had been... productive for Satomi, but that felt like an understatement. Strictly, just in terms of the projects that Satomi had completed for the defense, what she had done wasn't overwhelming: she'd created two siege weapons, which was just another step along her fortification of the village. But in terms of what she had actually learned, what she had accomplished during the night for her own progression as an engineer, well... that was something completely different altogether. That was something of a magnitude that Satomi wouldn't even completely recall in the morning. Satomi, at first, had just wanted to repurpose the skeleton of her incomplete jackhammer into a repeating crossbow as per part of her plan: it wasn't quite the same as the cluster siege crossbow that she had been planning at one point, but having a continuous and very rapid-firing siege crossbow would be essentially the same thing, and Kusuke's springs were capable of doing that. At first, though, she just thought she had some great frustration in store for her -- tungsten was a new metal for her, and whereas it had shown its value elsewhere, it wasn't actually very good for its intended use as a central component of a complicated and heavy siege weapon: breakage was frustrating possible, sometimes the springs unseated, and sometimes they snapped what they were attached to. So she'd ended up consulting Toshiro for advice on smelting (she knew the basic Kaiu techniques of metallurgy and a couple of their more special ones, but she was not an expert like some were), and that was when she'd been exposed to information that would on its own have revolutionized Crab Clan capacities back home: advanced techniques of metallurgy that even the Kaiu and probably even the Tamori had never come close to discovering. ...and thus began what can only be described as a frenzy of work. Satomi casted gears, she recasted springs and proceeded to drag Kusuke over to make them oscillate again, she tweaked, she redesigned, and she even began to experiment. A long wooden (albeit with pieces of metal) bar, notched in various lengths and shapes, was designed, and built to be slotted into a special area near the base, where a very fine and intricate collection of springs and gears would turn the crossbow upon its base and aim it up or down based on the way the notches hit slots in the base, and of course some of the other springs and gears. A larger spring slowly pulled it through this groove, so that the series of instructions Satomi carved into the bar would execute in order, firing in patterns that matched up to what Satomi had seen on the Wall for movement of goblins and ogres. The device that "read"' the bars and a couple of bars themselves were created for hours after midnight, with Satomi in such a wild, calculating mood of complex creation (considering several potential systems at once and then darting to ways that alterations would cause consequences) that it would take her some time later to suss out what she had actually done: she never stopped to contemplate, she just moved on and continued to build. Nonetheless, what she ended up creating was something magnificent: a crossbow turret, gravity-fed and repeating, as well as automatically aiming along patterns of likely enemy movement. It was a beautifully complex weapon, probably the best thing Satomi had built in her life thus far, and it inspired such a sense of manic glee that she went into the creation of her next weapon with the same kind of incredible complication. It... well, this one should have remained simple. She had created what was essentially an axe trebuchet, swinging down a massive axe blade with incredible, torsion-spring powered force, and even with a rail system to move along its section of the wall, but... the 2AM glee-fueled weapon had totally redundant systems that only served essentially overcomplicate and brag, with what was even a rather lethal system of self-collapse if the user made a large mistake with the unnecessary system of levers along the weapon's chassis. But Satomi wasn't even done, or so she thought. Next, she went to the forge, with the intent of giving her precious daisho something of an upgrade. But it was four in the morning, everyone else was gone, and without her glasses and with her incredible bleariness, even though Satomi fiddled around the forge itself for half an hour, she completely failed to see the pieces beyond the main forge, even the ones she should have been well familiar with, that she needed to actually get the process going. Everything was various levels of blurriness, after all, especially this late, and eventually she just gave up. Maybe, she figured, she could fiddle with the automatic crossbow for a little while, but in the end she just ended up slumping over it and falling to sleep not long after she started. The Morning When Satomi woke up, the very first thing she noticed was that she was incredibly uncomfortable. She had only had a rest of three or four hours, and the time before that had been thoroughly exhausting. She wasn't lying down anywhere, as instead she was essentially half sprawled on top of her recently-completed crossbow, with her torso draped over the top of it and her knees on a small platform she'd made to work on for an extended period of time and not get her knees dirtied. And last, but not least, she was soaked, dripping wet from head to toe as a furious rain had begun after she'd fallen asleep. She was wet, she had to work for a few moments to extricate the edges of her wet clothing from the crossbow, and she was cold, so overall she was thoroughly uncomfortable. But that wasn't that unusual for a Crab Clan samurai, was it? Many of the samurai of her great clan spent days and days upon the Wall, watching for the eternal and vigilant threat that was the Shadowlands, an entire massive stretch of land that was intelligent, that was evil, that constantly sought for a way to destroy them. Satomi had been one of those people, too, in her role as a Kaiu Engineer working upon the siege weapons of the Carpenter Wall. So she was fine enough, though she wasn't usually the toughest, and it wasn't long at all before Satomi collected herself to walk into the town in order to finish the work upon the southern wall. Satomi was quite the sight when she actually walked into the town, in a couple of different ways. One way was that she was visibly far more tired than the other members of the party who had slept in a nice warm inn -- rings were under her eyes, especially if anyone actually looked at her face close-up, and her gait was a bit slower, although she would be perfectly functional once she actually had a couple more minutes to wake up and once she buckled down the work. The other way, well... her hair was soaked and falling down her face and shoulders in locks, even forcing Satomi to occasionally sweep a lock of hair out of her face, a little bit cutely, perhaps. And that wasn't the only way in which the rain had affected her appearance: seeing as she was drenched head to toe, even though the colors of her kimono ensured that it wasn't particularly translucent, the way it clung to her was... interesting.

"Come on, stick to the schedule, stick to the-- sighhh."

Before Sandman left, Nader turned, reach out, and said something to him before he got far enough away that Nader's voice would ring through the whole wing. "Sandman, if you meet anyone not on the radio heading towards the medical sector, tell them that the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth tiles from the right are a safe entry point where they won't have to worry about tripwires. Nader had set up a rather extensive set of traps around the medbay entrance, hoping to off an alien or three if they decided to storm the hospital and came across his unpleasant surprises: that he had taken all the standard rifles he could grab from the armory and the claymore, and rigged them up around the entrance so that the claymore's detection and tripwires would unleash a hell of firepower onto any enemy who brutely charged the medical entrance. Then he put his finger to the side of his mask, pressing it in just the right way so the edge of the mask pressed into the headset's button inside of his helmet. <"This is Nader. I just buttoned up the hospital entrance real tight; if you're coming in, come in through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth tiles from the right, because those are the areas I kept clean from tripwires and the claymore's detection range. If they try to go in brute force through the medical wing at some point, they're going to have a nasty surprise. Also, I'm on my way to the breach! Don't know how quickly, though."> The fact of the matter was that though Nader was completely ready for a fight, he was constantly encased in about one hundred and sixty pounds slash seventy-two and a half kilograms of gear (Nader would always have a soft spot for imperial) and that meant that as strong as he was, Nader was NOT very fast. Still, that just meant that every second counted even more, and Nader went stomping off in the direction of the reactor bay without hesitation, his heavy armor clanking loudly as he moved down the hall. At least he had become much swifter in his armor over the course of these two missions. As Nader heavily and loudly jogged towards the reactor bay, he cocked the Gut Punch, which he had attached to the underside of his Sorraia.

The first thing that Nader had done after arriving on the Avenger with the rest of the team was to find a wall to sit down and lean against for a few minutes: Nader felt that the fact that he was getting shot, blown up, and practically left hanging by a thread sometimes was probably toughening him up a bit, but damn was it ever tiring. He could probably give himself a few minutes of rest, but the fact of the matter was that he had things to do and no idea how much time he had to do them in. Ah, damn, he was starting to miss those seasonal deadlines back at the Bureau of Engineering... but he didn't have all day, did he? Well, hell, maybe, but he couldn't be sure. So he'd beelined over to the Armory, and he had immediately got to work on some new guns: recent encounters had convinced him of a role for something to deal with close combat besides just punching things in the face, and as for the other gun he was itching to put some of the principles listed in Rachel's Uplifting Primer to use. Even if the book was the propaganda tool of a hopelessly theological totalitarian dictatorship, he HAD noted that it had some pretty useful little tidbits. First, though would be the shotgun. UF-XW (XCOM World - he couldn't exactly go naming his guns after years, so dimensions would do)-US (Underbarrel Shotgun)... "Gut Punch". Yeah, that'd do. And then he'd try to build the laser cannon, UF-XCOM-AAL (Anti Armor Laser, for he already had some ideas)... "Tigerseye." ...by the time Nader actually finished, the results were... mixed. On one hand, the Gut Punch had gone rather similarly. It was a simple gun, so Nader was absolutely in his area of expertise, and it showed. He'd created a shotgun (and a somewhat more modern one than the ones at home, to say the least), and he'd created a nice rig to attach it to the underside of the Sorraia even though the Sorraia didn't exactly have attachment rails on it like some of the guns he'd noticed in Australia. Sure, the Gut Punch was actually a full-size shotgun, with absolutely no quibbling on that front, but if he was carrying the Horsekiller on one arm he could carry that too. When he'd taken it to the range, he'd been impressed, too -- both with the gun and himself. It had a fairly accurate spread, though the barrel was a bit short, and when firing the gun he'd noticed that he was getting much more accurate himself -- he'd even managed a double gun fire, for the hell of it. Nader hadn't been some ace fighter in his days of the twilight of Moskurg, but he had been a younger man and after that he hadn't fought for most of a decade, and he'd gotten slow and rusty in his movement in the Rabid Tiger Armor. But now, Nader finally felt that he had worked himself back up to peak condition, there! If only he had had the same kind of success with the Tigerseye. He'd completed the shell and even much of the exterior laser work just fine, because he'd had his notes from the Primer and XCOM's own laser work to use, but... god damn. Electronics were not his specialty by ANY means, even though he'd participated somewhat in the radar projects like everyone else in the bureau, and trying to figure all of this shit out was maddeningly difficult. In the end, he had to leave it half-finished, because the complex mess that was the internal wiring was... it... it was just unworkable for now. Of course, he hadn't actually left it half-finished out of choice... The reason that Nader left the Tigerseye unfinished was that, as he was at the workbench muttering under his breath and trying to make sense of a mess of wires, the intercom snapped to life and what was clearly the voice of one of the space alien colonialists was transmitted over it. With a violently shouted "MOTHERFUCKERS!" Nader burst into action, taking the unfinished shell of his laser gun, shoving it a little bit violently into a drawer and then slamming that drawer shut. He looked around for the key to the drawer, letting a second curse loose, but he couldn't find it. And yet he wanted to keep the aliens away from the gun, so as he emitted a "I KNEW they'd come at some point!" he found a metal spike loose within the room, took the spike, lined it up with the drawer, and used a heavy kick with one armored leg to drive the spike through the front of the drawer and into its top, rather thoroughly jamming it shut. They weren't going to get to the Tigerseye! Then, with that taken care of, Nader cursed a "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," and rushed into another part of the armory, to start gathering all of the standard guns he can get his hands on and carry. He was going to head to the hospital wing from there, because he was going to give those stupid alien motherfuckers a very unpleasant surprise. And by a very unpleasant surprise, Nader meant setting up a bunch of traps and a bomb in the entrance to that wing, because he was going to fortify that place like it was 19 fucking 39.

Isobel's mouth quirked a bit as she was handed the plush Lancer and held her in one hand and LOTUS in the other, bringing them close enough together for the Lancer plush to tap on LOTUS' screen. She felt kind of like a kid playing with dolls, and just a little bit like the kind of kid playing with dolls to smush their faces together, and despite the fact that their goal here was actually something serious, she was having visible trouble not bursting into laughter again. Ah, well. LOTUS darted his dot eyes in Isobel's direction to show that he could see her, and then made a languid roll with them. Yes, yes, laugh it up... in any event, he did have a job to do so the display on his screen turned into a series of letters in squares, and a box below that was empty for now, though it would fill with LOTUS' guesses as to the words Lancer was trying to write as she wrote them. "Tap the letters with your hand to write the letters of a word. The lower box will suggest words and you can tap those to input the word instead of going a letter at a time if I've guessed right. I will remember what you're writing and will repeat it when you have completed a statement."

Satomi still didn't trust Leo's creations entirely, but at the least he wasn't talking about using the Taints of this realm to make weaponry, and she wasn't in so good a position as to be able to reject his work out of hand, especially since he was just about the only other prolific worker of machinery that this group had, besides Kusuke who worked in a smaller context. "Plas-muh... Lightning weapons... "Railguns"... uh, hmm. I can only guess at one of those, but considering that your mining golems have been useful I shall choose to be optimistic about what you can create. I just have two rules for you though: if you're putting something on my walls, don't use the Taint, and make sure it won't burn my wood down. I am definitely going to want to try to use some of that floating metal tomorrow, as I can immediately think of uses for it and I'm sure I can come up with more. As for your mining golems, have them get some stone. It doesn't have to be very much, as I've only got to work on the side walls and I have some stone left over, but if possible I'd prefer not to have to resort to concrete like the northern wall."

LOTUS shifted the position of his eye-dots on his screen to be looking roughly in Edmond's direction. "I only care about being transferred from holder to holder, don't worry about something like this being beneath my dignity -- I am a tablet, after all, and I'm aware of the kinds of things this chassis, the kind of chassis I was built to inhabit, can do. I do in fact have a touchscreen, for that matter, and I'm likely able to perform the task better than a non-intelligent device since I can change my display at will and can place potential suggestion words." Isobel made a "hmmmm" sound. "Well, as nice as it would be to get back to what I was doing, I think I've parted from that gracefully, and well... I can't shake the image of LOTUS getting kicked around by a little stuffed Lancer, so I should probably stick around myself." She let out a giggle on the mental image, which got an annoyed pair of line eyebrows to form on LOTUS' screen. "That's not funny." This didn't do anything to stop Isobel's mirth in the slightest, of course. "Ehehehe, hehehehe, yes it is. Yes, yes it is."

"Ritsu, hmmmm? I'll have to remember that. Oh, and as for that in your hand..." Isobel let out another "hmmmm" as she examined the little plush of Lancer in her hand. So they had kept her as a... little stuffed toy, then. It was just as bizarre to look at as the first time Isobel had seen it. LOTUS, meanwhile, was thinking about something slightly different. It would be a few seconds until he re-established connection to the Uplink, if the pattern held, so he would be free to focus on the current scenario, for the most part, even though his joy was overwhelming him a bit. Finally, FINALLY he had connection to the Tactical Uplink once more. He had so greatly missed it, and even if the responses from what were essentially his siblings came in bits and snatches, it was infinitely better than the total isolation he had been suffering as of lately. "Ah, the plush Lancer, I see. Have you got anything out of her yet? I am in fact available to help if you need me to, either way!" The cheery note in LOTUS' voice got another surprised glance downwards towards him from Isobel.

Isobel sauntered on into the courtyard, a smile on her face -- she was about as pleased with herself as the cat that caught the canary, and it clearly showed on her face, and even in her stride. Perhaps it was a bit silly, but being able to score herself a date with a hot (and also clever and more than a little flirtatious) girl had been a pretty big confidence booster, and had maybe reminded her that she did have a life outside of that blasted tablet, even here. ...even if she was in fact currently moving to pick him up. She kind of had to, right? Well, whatever. She was in a good mood, dammit, so no use whining about it! When she got to the bus, LOTUS was currently lying on the bottom step, with his screen displaying a very rare thing indeed: a full on smile, a pixel ":)". Picking up the pAI, she raised her eyebrows as she saw his expression. "Wow... in a good mood, are you?" LOTUS' response came after a couple of seconds. "Yes! Focusing on something, think it's working... Unbeknownst to her, the pAI had successfully navigated his way through Magnum's simulation, had successfully figured out how to configure his systems in a way that roughly approximated Magnum's interdimensional communications, and now was in the process of fulfilling something that he had long been lacking. Isobel stared at the screen for a little while, and then shrugged languidly and turned to see that Edmond was waiting outside the bus. She turned to the man who somehow was short enough to match her height, noticed the MUCH taller robot maid was near him, and spoke to them, with her cheery mood audible in her voice. "Hey Edmond, hey miss... robot maid? I don't think I know your name. Were you two waiting for LOTUS too?"

Isobel's face spread into a grin: she was very visibly very proud of herself. Damn, she was smooth. Plus Marisa seemed to be a really nice girl anyway (and the fact that she really was smoking hot didn't hurt), so she was genuinely looking forward to having that date! She had to admit to herself in the back of her mind that she was clearly a bit desperate right now, and that that was probably a symptom of her deeper issues at the moment, but for now she was just going to let herself have this very nice thing with Marisa. No point in beating herself up over it. At the same time that Marisa was wincing, Isobel was shaking her head just a little and nodding to herself, and when Marisa spoke to her Isobel replied with her smile still in her voice. "Oh, and you had better believe I'm looking forward to it too. I--" Isobel paused and raised an eyebrow as she moved her hand to the ear with her radio headset on it, listening for a moment. Then she sighed and spoke into it with a slightly annoyed tone. "Yes, yes, I'll be right there." She rolled her eyes, and then shot a sheepish smile Marisa's way. "Ehehe, sorry about that. LOTUS wants to move things forward, I think, because he wants me to go pick him up. It's probably my responsibility to actually go and take care of that, but it was really nice meeting you, Marisa. And it'll probably be really nice getting you alone again later~" With that parting flirt, Isobel winked salaciously at Marisa, and then finally turned to walk out of the library and towards the courtyard.

Satomi looked waaay up at the new arrival, a gigantic green-skinned man who was nearly her twice her height and rippling with muscles to a degree to put some Hida, even, to shame. Her jaw dropped for a moment, before she reined herself in: this "Captain-General Commander Commissa Centurion Warlock Nob Warboss Azgrurk Da Third of Da 423rd Brigade" was very, very, VERY big. She had to crane her head up to look at him. Actually, he was ogre size, and even the color of some ogres, and it was really beginning to make her twitchy -- she had to stop herself from going for her sword a couple of times, because it wasn't as if he was tainted like her homeland's ogres were. "Rrrright... well... ahem... I do suppose that he could be useful. Both for being a "Mekboy" and for his size and strength, which could for example be useful with the siege crossbow mounted on the northern wall..." That's when the Guide recounted the message sent from Arminius that the siege was going to be the day after tomorrow, and Satomi's face turned grim very quickly, and she nodded with a somber air to her. "...I'd not expected a long time until the siege, but that is an urgent limit indeed. I will be able to finish the walls by then, but even with Kusuke's help, which I will need and will call upon, both for time and springs, and maybe one of those engines, I am not sure that I will be able to fill all of the mountings for siege engines. If you have the capacity, I would appreciate it if those of you who could created siege engines for me to place upon the walls. Jun, I want to know what you and your cohort found, and if it is useful. For the rest of you, tomorrow would be the time to start adopting more directed projects, because we do not have the time to play around. If any of the rest of you require something, now would be the time to say so."

Having made sure that the wall was on schedule, Satomi had a few more items of business to attend to before she retired for the night. First off, she was going to coordinate between the members of the team, something noone seemed to want to do on their own, but something that was going to be vital for actually mounting a coherent defense. After she took care of that, she was going to take the time to put together two siege weapons, if she could. But the first task was the more important, and it would be the one that she would devote her energies to. Satomi did this by walking around the town rather energetically (no time to be lackadaisical), and by looking for any members of the party present in the town, for the Guide, and for the Dryad. Every one of these people that she came across got variations of the same message: Satomi wanted to see what the fruits of their labors were, learn what they had learned, and to see if they could help each other out on any projects. Accordingly, she wanted them to come to the center square of the town at the earliest possibility, because she was going to hold a meeting and, in her words, "I want to get it held early enough that I can continue my other work tonight, too." Once she had finished this, headed back to the meeting location, and waited for a few minutes, Satomi clapped her hands and began to speak. "Right. So, we cannot hope to mount an effective defense unless we share the information we've gathered with each other and share what projects we have been working on. As for me, I have been working on the walls all day -- the northern wall is complete, with a stone base and wood reinforcement as originally planned, with six siege weapon mountings -- I expect to be able to fill at least two of these, but perhaps not all, so I would appreciate if you created siege weaponry or potential siege weaponry components to mount on the walls. I have also completed the stone core of the southern wall."

Before the Evening Makes its Way to Night Satomi swept her eyes over the stonework of the under-construction southern wall -- it appeared to her that it was coming together very nicely. The stone structure was coming together pretty much according to plan, especially since she and the skilled sections of the workforce had done something very similar earlier that day. Without having to rely on concrete bricks, Satomi also had another advantage: the wall would not have those weak points, and even if the northern wall had its concrete bricks distributed in such a way as to be non-vital, the relatively even strength of every brick in the wall meant that Satomi anticipated that the wall would be somewhat tougher than the previous one. Then her mind bounced to another topic... and Satomi certainly had a lot of topics to think about. Apparently, Calvera was gone. Satomi didn't know if she'd just left in some failure of Duty, if the universe had chosen her to leave, or if some other factor had caused her to disappear, but this wasn't the first time it had happened and Satomi had began to have some concern. The composition of the forces arrayed to improve world against the Trespassers was a dynamic one, and Satomi's plans in the future would have to revolve around that fact. Whatever had happened, though, they had lost a member, and it was a blow. Satomi would have to work that much harder, wouldn't she? And just like that Satomi's mind bounced elsewhere again -- but she did have the capacity to think about a lot of things in a short amount of time, and it was something she was proud of. And speaking of things she could take pride in... Satomi's work had truly blossomed over the course of this mission. She was learning, she was taking in new information, and she was getting a chance to put old information to use. The patterns that the Kaiu had drilled into her were now things that she was getting to play with in ways she had never been able to before. The structural tolerances of the stone-masonry for example: Satomi had just between these two walls discovered how the placement of stone vs concrete bricks mattered. Sure, she had been assigned to do work on the Wall before, and sure, she had had to build a siege weapon for her gempukku... but everything in the Crab Clan was driven by a constant fight. Efficiency, not wasting time, and continuous work were priorities, and aside from her gempukku Satomi had mostly been following the projects of higher-ranked Kaiu. But this... this was entirely different. She was working for an urgent purpose, yes, but it was a project with a culmination in sight, a project she was leading, and one she was given the resources and manpower to see through herself! It was wonderful, and it was letting her realize just where she truly lay in her skills with engineering, skills rapidly developing as she got her hands on so much technology from so many realms. Yes... the more she thought about it, the more she suspected that she was doing very well indeed. This was pride, perhaps, but after some thought Satomi was starting to come to the conclusion that she had potentially completed the Path of Stone... not in terms of being unable to progress, of course, because she still could learn so much, but in terms of rank and achievement within the Kaiu Dojo. As Satomi improved the worlds around her, the worlds improved her as well. Spending all 30 of her Merit, Satomi gains the Path of Stone perk!

Nader had been silent for a moment, running through his head the possibilities of Forenia getting invaded by extradimensional chaos monsters. Nonetheless, as the conversation moved on a bit, Nader found himself speaking again, having crossed his arms (and his guns were now on his back, so he wasn’t going to be beating anyone in the face with a Horsekiller barrel). ”Though I don’t doubt that these chaos beings, who aren’t truly gods —there is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah— anyway, though I don’t doubt for a moment these chaos beings wish us malice even across dimensions, I can confirm that there are no “psychics” or wizards at all on Earth, at least mine. Now... perhaps this complicates things. Perhaps these beings really do make democracy more dangerous on your world... but I am not sure I believe it. There are many people who believe in my world too that democracy is doomed to failure. They believe that totalitarianism is the inevitable future. But as Moskurg and Arstotzka proved, as I am told that in at least Dr. Spaceman’s Earth the Nazis have proved, this isn’t the truth. You admit indoctrination yourself, which is a good step further than the awareness many have — have you considered that maybe everything is not quite as you have been told?”

"Like I said, decade and a half, I know how my life is going by this point, Dr. Spaceman. But I'd rather not take a sudden teleportation and gun to the back of the head if I have anything to say about it. Good to hear the Nazis got fucked where you're from, though. Ours invaded Russia, too, and they're still stuck there, so I guess that maybe that's a good sign. We've got Cannala to worry about too, though, so... well, that's a problem for my world." He glanced at Aquila. "It's probably not very likely that you're from a totalitarian regime. A terrible medieval monarchical regime, maybe, but with totalitarianism the dictators and kings need that level of technology and infrastructure so that they can infiltrate and grip every level of society. Nothing at what I estimate your... relative historical point at is going to be able to manage that, and be thankful for that." And then he looked at Rachel, silently for a few moments, before he spoke again: "What a grim future you must live in. Totalitarianism hasn't taken over my world, though it's currently in its best efforts, and that means that for me totalitarianism is itself the alternative. Understand something: The first totalitarian nation, the Soviet Union, formed in 1917. Moskurg and Arstotzka became totalitarian a few years after that. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, they're 1933 and 1922 recently. I was born in 1912. I am older than the existence of totalitarianism. I've seen, and designed weaponry for in two cases, successful nations without totalitarianism, which despite the exhortations of the Nazis' lackey party, have not collapsed without it. Have you been taught that totalitarianism is the only way to run a government? I'm sorry to say this, but you've been indoctrinated. At least I had the benefit of time and experience of nations without it, I suppose. ...King of Moskurg trying to have me killed didn't endear me to it, either."

"Do you think that they're somewhere else right now? Or if they got left behind in Roswell and are still doing their thing, just... without us? ...not trying to brag, but I'm worried about how they'd do without me. I guess Malachi would have to do all the healing." Perlita fell silent again and lapsed into thought. "Yeah... I hope they're okay. I mean... I bet other people will get involved, right? And Malachi could handle a bunch of those things on his own." She sighed. "I really do tend to worry about a lot of things these days, you know... everyone back home, the worlds here, and about myself I guess. You know...?" Perlita shrugged, once again rendered wordless by her own bitter feelings. Eventually, she sighed, looked up at Gabriel, and smiled a little sadly. "But... yeah. It is a good thing you're here. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do if I were alone at this point... maybe go and just... just scream somewhere or something. I don't know, it'd be embarrassing and a big deal and... yeah. I dunno. But I don't have to, so thank you."

Satomi was blissfully unaware of Kusuke’s intense discomfort, and happily tromped off with him to go get some time to build her bolts. And that she did, using an occasional bump back in time to go retrieve the gel she needed for the bolts, or to fletch another one, or to make another specifically-smithed bolt head. It was a little bit of a complex affair... but complexity was something that Satomi deeply enjoyed, and the process of making the bolts visibly seemed to instill a serenity into Satomi that had her quietly but cheerily humming a Rokugani song to herself (a Kaiu family song about siege weapons, not that Kusuke would know) near the end of her work. Eventually, she finished her work, and piled the finished bolts by her siege crossbow, beaming proudly. The ammo consisted of hollow bolts, with just enough structure to survive through the process of firing and hitting, filled with the slime gel and with both a relatively long fuse lit before firing and a bolt-head with a hole in it through which the gel inside would project itself once alight. She turned back to Kusuke, with a very satisfied smile, and gave him a little bow of thanks. ”I again owe you my thanks, Kusuke-san. The possibility exists that I might desire to call upon you later, but for now I am going to be working upon the southern wall so I may not need to until perhaps later tonight.”

”A totalitarian, Aquila, is someone like the coward fucking King of Moskurg or the sociopathic “Glorious Leader” of Arstotzka who decides they want all the power and fuck everyone in the way, so they change their government so it’s jammed into every little aspect of your life, and ALWAYS is listening or watching. In Moskurg they had a bunch of spies listening for someone to say something they didn’t like, and they encouraged you to report anyone else you heard saying something like that. They caught you saying something like “Fuck the King” you’d disappear and never come back, or if they were feeling extra nasty execute you in public.“ Nader sighed, and actually spoke with some composition. ”Totalitarianism is a kind of government designed to be all-encompassing, to be inescapable, and to wield the power of life and death with impunity. It is designed to infiltrate its citizens’ minds, to indoctrinate them with an ideology that convinces them all is fine, even as people disappear around them and even as their every action is driven by a nearly mindless, terrified fear. It’s a kind of government that bends the world around it to keep itself paramount. It is evil in one of its most wickedly clever forms, and if I understand this world correctly, it’s what the space alien colonialists have instituted, I’d bet money. As for the Nazis, they’re another brand of totalitarian. They believe in a return to this... agrarian, ordered fantasy of their country, Germany, where their Aryan people expand across much of Europe and live in farms or work in factories in order, inescapable order, where every supposed smiling citizen is a cog in a malicious machine. They don’t like the Jews, they don’t like the Slavs, and they want to conquer the world. Now... the King and the Leader failed, in the end — when Forenia no longer was torn apart by war, when at the peace conference they went for their spies, generals, the Moskurg soldiers, AND the engineers as scapegoats, well... the Leader was slain by a hammer with rockets on it, and the King by a miniature Death Ball — that’s a boulder with wheels, propelled by rockets. Forenia became, in the end, ready to face them. I expect the Nazis will fail too, when there are people ready for them, and these people here,” Nader gestured at the XCOM soldiers in the shuttle, ”are the people ready for the alien colonialists.”

Apparently having started quite the topic of conversation, Nader was silent for a moment, blinking behind his mask in some level of surprise. Then he sighed — looked like they were all going after him now but Alan, so he was going to have to reply one at a time. Well, he was just going to have to keep it short and snappy then. First off, he pointed at Aquila. ”You didn’t run, I did. And sure Allah knows when I’ll die, but he ain’t causing it, so it’ll be far away if I have any say in it, which I do. Oh, and it won’t be for a stupid reason like, oh, I don’t know, trying to wound something multiple times your size and made of metal with a flail.” Next he turned his head to Harry. ”You’re assuming the homefront is safe, which isn’t necessarily true. Even putting aside totalitarian agents or nazi spies or nationalist rebels or whatever brand of conspiracies you have going on where you’re from, I guess fucked up robots and spirits and cyborgs or shit where Alan is from... anyway, all of that aside, keep in mind that we aren’t just in our home dimensions now. We’re in another dimension. How did we get here? I actually don’t know about you, but we took a ship between dimensions, and either it knew to take us somewhere relevant or it was random chance. But we’ve just had that thing for a brief period of time — imagine someone with more time with one of these devices; they could be anywhere, any time, instantly. Can’t afford to lower our guard unless we have some way of preventing this, because there ARE things out there that want to kill us, and once we all give these interdimensional beings the opportunity they will probably take it. ...also, I won’t be shooting any fucking kids. Come the hell on.” Well, there went short and snappy. But he’d always been prone to ranting, hadn’t he? With a gesture at Rachel, he finished the last part of what was turning into a very long spiel. ”I’m already long down this “path” anyway. Near to a decade and a half, now: I’m an old hand. Totalitarianism in the Kingdom of Moskurg, end of the Forenian War, all of the Arstotzkan-Nazi-Cannalan bullshit in the Forenian-Cannalan War, I’ve been through this shit for a while, and I know what I’m doing. You just have to know when to do things, and when not to do them, and as long as you follow that, you won’t be blowing any kids away. Like I said... experience. And one last question. You questioned whether this Twitch guy was happy, right? Well, if not for his... paranoia, would he be alive at all?”

Isobel flashed another grin at Marisa. "Yes, LOTUS is the angriest PDA. But, really, I'd be the last one to criticize you for talking about something you're passionate about. Goodness knows I've talked enough girls' ears off talking about plants or tea or wine, so it'd be unfair if I were to be annoyed by a little magic talk." Isobel curled a finger in her hair for a moment, suddenly contemplative. "Hmmm..." It might be time to wrap up the conversation, soon, being fine with the magic talk -- they'd spoken about a nice few things, introduced each other, and she'd even basically got an offer of the magical equivalent of Marisa's number, but Isobel sensed that they were going to start running out of topics very soon. Isobel remained silent for a couple of moments before visibly coming to a decision. She'd already BASICALLY asked the blue-haired sorceress out on a date, and even if she was suddenly stricken by the fact that she was moving rather fast, if they were already dancing around with innuendo, she could probably afford to be honest. "It's hard to settle on an exact date when I'm zipping around in a castle between strange dimensions and all," Isobel was a smart woman and had drawn the connection that Marisa had a less permanent situation from some of the things she'd said. She took s breath, and then finished her sentence: "...but can we call the cake thing a date, anyway?"

"Come onnn Gabriel, we were having a moment there... you don't always have to do that, you know." Perlita pouted for a moment, but eventually relented and (mostly) dropped the embarrassment fairly quickly, as this was something of a regular routine between them and had been for a couple of years now. And yet even with this in mind, though the Persona-user was no longer in quite the same state of sudden panic that she was in before, her face made it clear that she was still somewhat shaken, all told. Eventually, however, she sighed and decided that now was as good a time to let it out as any was. She looked around to make sure noone besides Gabriel was listening closely, and for a moment her gaze was riveted to the little girl in the courtyard... she wasn't sure what someone that young was doing here, but... well, the people over there had it handled, probably. Besides Grant. Whatever, she was going to say something! Perlita shook her head to clear it, and after completing her visual check of the acourtyard to make sure noone was gonna listen in and come to conclusions about her looked back at Gabriel. "Honestly... Gabriel... I've felt kinda crappy for a while now. I mean, yknow... I'm here for a reason, and I won't stop doing what I can, but I miss everyone... Malachi, Diane... Everything here is new and there's always something unexpected or scary, yeah, but I miss the others. You and them made it work when I got caught up in all the Persona stuff, and having to ditch everyone but you now that I'm caught up in all this stuff... it really sucks."

Satomi (kind of sweaty, as she was hardly abstaining from the physical work in her construction, and she had less physical stamina than she did will to keep working) she looked down at the engine cylinder spinning under Kusuke's arm, and shot a bright grin at him. "Oh, you really are spoiling me. Once I've got the construction that I need to compete completed, I'll have to get you alone for a while. There are just so many unique things you can do that..." Satomi looked upwards and played with her hair for a moment as she thought, then nodded to herself. "I really have to see how well I can tap you." By which, of course, she obviously meant tapping his talents -- those powers and knowledge of his were fantastic. Then she looked northwards, in the direction of where her wall and siege crossbow were. "For now, though, I have to get the gel ammo done for my siege weapon, which will be designed for use against the ogres, and I want to do so before the northern wall finishes. Since the last touches are being put on the woodwork right now, however, I obviously need your help to do so."

Nader jabs a finger at Aquila in response to the man’s statement, speaking with a voice nearly entirely deadpan. ”You: randomly charged the complex we found when we arrived without even the most basic attempts at caution, refused to run away from the horrible fat man with the hook until it was too late because you were so committed to getting into a duel with an eight foot lizardman over a petty insult, and you literally suicide charged a tank preparing some sort of special ordnance because you wanted to hit it with your fuckin’ medieval flail. The fact that you apparently think you have room to call people crazy is stunning to me.” Aquila wasn’t wholly incorrect, of course, and Nader knew it. The paranoid man was well aware that there was something not right with him, something which tied into the way he lived his life, and he’d known since 1935 at the latest, though he wondered if he’d maybe suspected it earlier. There was something in him that twisted him, that inspired fear in him sometimes and that he realized now was the source of that hellish, horrible Specter of the Moskurg days. The Specter... Nader shuddered and shook his head for a moment. None of these people had to know what was going on in his head (it seemed like a rather profound weakness to be baring), and it was experience talking right now anyway, not whatever was wrong with him. Nader gestured at Alan as he began to speak again. ”See, Alan knows. It’s not a concept I’d expect you to understand, Aquila, but when you don’t show constant caution, or when you... literally don’t show any, ever, Allah save us, then you will pay for it. But when you do make sure to keep your guard up, it can and will save your life. I’m saying this from experience, because I know that being always prepared and ready for a fight has saved my life before.” He could have gone without locking himself in a closet for three weeks, though.

Nader raised his eyebrow a little behind his mask at the Reaper's choice of invective towards Lazrus; being a weapons engineer of United Forenia, he understood Russian fairly well. However... that damned thing had lit him up pretty badly too. Even with the protection of his armor, that wound had not been ignorable, and it had taken the intervention of Rachel to keep him fighting and the intervention of Frigus to make the wound manageable. All in all, the trilingual man could pretty well agree with the Reaper's mood. But considering that he had been the one to detect the tank, Nader felt the need to impar some information to the Russian that hopefully would spare him a wound or two in the future. Suddenly smacking his clenched fist against his other palm with a thwap and a metallic clink, Nader spoke in the direction of Sandman. "This is why vigilance must be neverending. No matter if you think somewhere's been cleared of your enemy, the possibility always exists that they have some manner of stealth or ingress that you didn't see coming. That's why I was listening, and that's why I heard the sound of the metal -- because I am always listening. Unless you have a place that you can truly, honestly call secure and fortified, with your armaments within easy reach, and enough firepower around the perimeter to alert you before they get in, then you are never completely safe. It's a hard fact, and an even harder one to respond to thoroughly, but it is true, ESPECIALLY when involved with transdimensional transport, and it can go a long way towards preventing your ambush."

Though she had been put off a bit by the resource-drought-inspired change-up of her plans, Satomi was finding herself once again satisfied with how things were goinf. Having worked with this village's resident wood expert, Satomi had accepted a few pieces of information from him about the quality of the wood in this realm, and some of the ways he'd assembled it before, and she'd taken good advantage of it. Not only had she both memorized and written these tips down, but she'd adjusted her frame plans in a couple of ways to take advantage of them... and that combined with the time she'd spent on it appeared to have paid off handsomely. The wooden reinforcements she was overseeing the installation of were quality worksmanship, if she could say so herself, and it helped her get over her nervousness over the time crunch. Even if those six (and she was proud of that) mountings went unfilled, the siege would be presented with a very significant obstacle in the north. Of course, Satomi had no intention of either slowing down or leaving those mountings empty. Since the labor golems were presently working on the rest of the installation of the frame under the Carpenter's oversight, Satomi couldn't go begin the Southern wall... but she wasn't going to waste the time she has available to her, so she began work on the first of her siege weapons, and the most mundane (her more wicked ingenuity was going to be reserved for the bolts) of what she had planned. So she chopped, carved, strung, assembled, and performed other tasks, until she looked upwards and noticed that the sun was starting to hang low in the sky -- it was reaching the evening. But she was done the siege crossbow. It was a heavy, solid device (natural, being that it was a bona fide, full-scale siege weapon), but Satomi estimated it was pretty powerful. This was a good thing, too, as Satomi had confirmed in a test drawing that it had one hell of a draw weight. A satisfying piece. Satomi had built the crossbow itself, but she hadn't built the ammo and evening was rapidly approaching on her! Well, the basic concept of time be damned, she wanted to get that task complete and she knew just the guy to ask! Well, if she could find him anyway. Kusuke-san did have an excellent power for this exact purpose, but she didn't actually know where he was. She guessed, though, that it could be the mine. Kusuke didn't seem like much of a builder, so if he was here in the village then he was probably somewhere like the mine. And so that's where she checked. Running into Kusuke, her first words to him were: "Kusuke-san, would you allow me to make use of you once again? I need an hour or two to work on something and I simply don't have the time."