Powder Miner

"Mmhmmhmm, yes, I imagine this is all quite momentous. These are incredible discoveries, are they not?" On Brilliant's shoulder, out of her sight (and as only the particularly observant could even catch), Curiosity made a very clearly over-exaggerated thinking expression at this. "To answer your questions... this writing is something that you may or may not have seen yourself if you've ever come across any intact human salvage; there are a lot of lines and curves, but the shapes of the symbols themselves always seem to be the same. It seems to be something very formalized and precise, rather than the one-on-one representations that we use in our magic. But as for how I know about the greater magic... well, eheh, I'll admit that I'm working off of some scarce information, but I was going through and deciphering collected scraps of human writing in our basement and I saw one that talked about ongoing research on "theoretical magics that exist outside of known frameworks"... it's not a lot to go on, but if my plans go right, we should be gaining a whole lot more information about it!"

Eulalia let out a sigh that was well and truly exhausted, a lot of the vengeful energy she'd had not so long ago drained out of her by this point. "Can't believe I've been doing this poorly. I finally get an opportunity to even the scales after all of this damnnation and torment, and... ugh." Evidently at least not one to give up, Eulalia fired off a blast of magic at one of the remaining fiends. Eulalia to F5, shoot Revenant Q.

Brilliant reached over and patted both of Stardust's shoulders now. "I'm sorry that I can't promise you won't get into fights... but I'll make sure they go okay, okay? You won't have to be afraid with me around!" "Or me!" "As for what we'll be doing on this journey..." Her body suddenly practically jittering with raw excited energy, Brilliant Deduction dashed right out into the middle of the mingling group, and then twirled dramatically, her cloak whirling around her as she did. "You all are going to be accompanying me on a journey that will change the face of the Scholars' Redoubt, nay, the known world, nay, even the world Outside!!!" This was accompanied with a dramatic pause, Brilliant holding a very smug look on her face. "During the last year, I made my brilliant deduction which gained me my name -- after finding enough examples of a strange set of symbols that kept repeating on ancient artifacts left behind by the vanished Humans! I had figured that they were some sort of way of holding meaning like on tablets' symbols, but they repeated and seemed to be mundane, so they were some way of keeping normal information... what I discovered is that they actually correspond to sounds! Through months of tireless experimentation with various sounds along with my wonderful assistants Curiosity and Life-Recorder, I figured out that these sounds together in fact make words -- those strange Human symbols everywhere were a way of putting language into physical form, all along! I call it... writing! It's an odd term, but the inspiration just came to me." "Now, naturally this is all very revolutionary and will change the world for sure on its own... but in the middle of my looking through old Human writing, I found something very fascinating. Now, those who are experienced with scavenging or studying already know that the Humans could use magic... but from what I've read, it appears that magic the way that we think about it was only ever the beginning! It would probably be too overwhelming if I were to get into the specifics of what I've found out just now, but it seems there's extremely powerful magic out there that we could revolutionize the world with!" "As for what I need you all for, well, I need escorts and assistants and traveling companions... we're going to be traveling a long, long way -- somewhere few bugs from the Scholars' Redoubt have been before! We're going to be going into the North, because some of the bugs there have been known to collect Human artifacts instead of raiding. I received a tip from an explorer up there which suggests that some of these places have collected a lot of fragile Human artifacts that would otherwise have decayed out of an admirable desire to make sure they are remembered, and I am sure that this includes their writings! If we can together find a tip on where to go from there, we will make the future!" She settled down a little, but was clearly still quite pleased with herself. "Now, I'm sure this is a lot of worldshaking and interesting information to take in, so let me know if you have any questions and I'll answer them."

(A few minutes ago) It had been a week, but Lizaveta found that she was still shaken up by the incident with Ferdiad -- severely so, even. And, worse, she wasn't even sure just what it was of the many things involved there that was shaking her up. Was it the violence that had very nearly resulted in her death? Maybe... she had expected him to attack, of course, even had been intentionally goading that. But she hadn't expected him to swing a sword at her, even if he'd turned it away so it only clove the table in two. Was it her own behavior that was making her feel so sick about the whole thing? It'd definitely been vicious what she'd done, thinking about his weak points in detail and then using them completely mercilessly on him. But... she'd had reasons for doing it, though, right? She'd been trying to keep him from murdering somebody who was central to a lot of people potentially finally escaping oppression. But yet... she hadn't found success with Darcy, either? She couldn't help but have this nauseous feeling that there was something going awfully wrong around her, something going awfully wrong with her. But... that couldn't be the case, right? She'd finally found her reason to go on, so things had to go okay, right? ...either way, the end result (expression hidden by her mask) was: "Um... I don't think I should be on the team talking to him, all things considered..." (Now) That nauseous feeling hadn't gone away (it hadn't for days now, really), and Lizaveta was finding it awfully distracting as she sat in the bushes waiting for the thieving half of the operation to go or not go. So, to distract herself, she asked Kane a question (quietly, of course). "So... what... do we end up just hitting every drug merchant along this route...?"

"Yyyyep. Admittedly, it was just the one fight that I was in, but the damn thing was a rabbit." Bend sighed. "It went... worse for me than the fight with those Marauders, I'll admit." That whole awful incident was as a matter of fact the source of several of the scratches on Bend's poor banged-up armor, and the source of a lot of anguish for him besides. He glanced at Soggyshanks for a moment. "Hey, thanks. That's appreciated." Then back to Life-Recorder. "Uh, the names of the guys in lead were Shinywings and, well... Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death. As far as I can tell, they were... trying to kill themselves on us, 'cause the Marauders are getting their shit pushed in. It's, uh... honestly, it was kind of fucked up." Brilliant Deduction gave Secluded-from-Illumination a pat on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Secludie, but, yes. It's a long journey I have planned for all of us, into some unfamiliar places, so I expect we'll run into trouble more than once. That's why I really wanted to take advantage of the Redoubt delegation while I can get it." "But don't worry! I trained in using a staff starting from when I was a kid, before I really was able to get into my projects here!" Boy, that almost seemed a world away, now. "I'll make sure everyone stays safe." Finally, she addressed Stardust. "Sorry about that... the Scholars' University is actually a pretty concrete organization! It took a lot of work and ingenuity for me to get where I am as fast as I did, and even then that was a year and a half." One wasp leg was brought up to scratch pensively at her blonde hair. "But maybe you can get useful experience of some sort on my journey?"

Nader raised a furry hand (a little odd, now that he thought about it -- halfway between hands and paws) in a little wave. "I cut a little bit of a different figure without the armor and the terrifying amount of weaponry and being a fff..." With there being somewhere from two to four children in the house, Nader actually didn't curse for once, "...and, uh, being a tiger, so... I'll probably have to say who I am to your husband. But I don't think I want to interrupt him when he's with his son... would you mind if I just waited for him?" This was a choice motivated by two things. Firstly... well, the man had a right to finally enjoy time with his family, after how tragic its whole history had been. And secondly... well, perhaps it would just feel odd to barge into a scene with a kid, with... everything that had happened. "But... yes, I'd like to speak with Asgore. I was the second Orange Soul, for reference, and I spoke with him for a little while while he... erh... while he held my soul. With both of us alive in a way neither of us really expected to be... I'd like to follow up on it."

Satomi had a lot of negative qualities to her (stubborn to such an extreme point that "to a fault" doesn't adequately describe it, xenophobic [if less than most in her homeland], and possessed of a very fiery temper), but she wasn't stupid. So when this man began speaking the way he did, mysterious and his words practically dripping with double meanings, her little defensive blustering fell away and she fell silent, just listening, just contemplating what he was saying. After a few moments of silence, she eventually spoke up. "...you're being literal and figurative at the same time here, aren't you? I would wager that if I were to go down that dark path I would in fact end up... either at the clocktower or I guess somewhere there'd be a problem to solve, but... I... think that this sounds too fitting to be just a coincidence." Satomi had been throwing herself fully into her pursuit of protection of worlds from the Trespassers, and she'd been fully aware that she was sacrificing some things to do so -- the time to perform mundane good deeds like save a deer from the collateral damage of her siege weaponry, for example. She knew that a simple light-hearted path of festivity was not one that could be trod at the same time as the path of Duty. These were things that she'd already decided, of course. But something he was saying, about getting swallowed by darkness? Was that a path that she could potentially be facing? So many threats came from evil and darkness back in Rokugan... to be consumed by it would be a terrible fate indeed. "How is it that you know enough to say something like that? Who are you, precisely? Are you involved with the battle against the Trespassers, perhaps?" Was he telling her the truth about her path? Was it a warning or an encouragement? And if he was involved with the fight against the Trespassers... was he a friend?

Having mostly just watched the process of Heidrun allowing the ghost to move on with an air of what could best be described as "rapt awkwardness", unable to contribute at all to the process but ultimately at least glad that this suffering person could finally find a way out of all the pain that this horrible place had brought. When it was finished, Navin let out a long, quiet breath. "We may as well look around to see if there is anything that needs handling for the sake of public safety, or anything that is potentially useful. You are probably right that the group that stole the briefcase is not here, and I am hoping that the fact that this thing was here means that nothing else dangerous is, but I do not know that I can leave anything else like this here in good conscience. If there is any sort of useful equipment here, it would at least make visiting this place worth our while in another sense, anyhow. We can afford to be a little cursory about it, though, so long as we don't let down our guard."

Isobel Low Truth be told, Isobel ended up just kind of feeling awkward as she watched the newcomer get into a swordfight with the guardian. It wasn't that she was worried -- Isobel was no expert on sword sparring or anything, but the whole thing seemed mutually agreed-upon and under control, so she didn't really figure that anything was going to go wrong. It was just that... well... honestly, she kind of had no idea in the slightest what she was doing and now was kind of just standing around. And... she wasn't really sure what she was doing up here in the first place, still? It was getting to be just a little annoying, to tell the truth, she was starting to want to spend some of her time on her own terms. She wasn't sure if her Marisa was going to show up here, but it'd sure be nice. Still... perhaps she owed Masako just a little more patience this time around compared to the Yuyuko debacle. "So... are we going to take the new guy and get him accustomed to everything once he's done his spar? Or is the plan for us to do something else instead?" LOTUS "Fun." LOTUS couldn't help but let out a sarcastic comment as she listened to this person proclaim herself to be the most dangerous individual down in this place, although she did have to admit that it was something worth taking into consideration, as it was not guaranteed by any means to be empty boasting. "I will, at least, mention that what we were brought to was actually something not particularly shady but something for the defense of this whole set of worlds. We were given a deed of land down here in order to aid our efforts in order to continue defense of various worlds in general; we don't have much of an interest in directly interfering with this realm except for insofar as we are doing so in response to other outside interventions. We were merely scouting for potential resources to aid in setting up a small outpost here."

Bend chimed in, tangential to the conversation between Lotus and Mercy Harefoot. "Hey, I have been in a battle before that! Just, uh, not against other bugs." And he'd been kind of mauled without managing to do much in the way of contribution, but they didn't need to know that.

Bend shrugged a little awkwardly at Harefoot, electing to ignore a great deal of the energy and chaos around them. "So, it's not your fault or anything, but boy did some shit go down at there. We actually ran into --get this-- Marauders of all things on the way there, and the fight was... well, it was pretty bad, man. Hopefully things'll be a bit smoother with everyone else around to help out if shit goes down again when we're doing whatever we're doing for the scholar." "Oh, and I'm Recruit Bend, by the way." As for Brilliant Deduction, she reached... not actually all that far down (Brilliant Deduction was anything but small) and gave Stardust a pat on the head, evidently finding her adorable. "Sorry, ahaha, but that's not really a decision I can make! Life-Recorder is right, it's a pretty long-term process. It took me years to get in as a proper scholar, and it took me accomplishing something big enough to get a new name!" "But you should be able to make a good bit of progress with what we're going to be doing, anyway! It'll be a pretty large and very important expedition, if I do say so myself, ehehe, and I'm sure it'll revolutionize our understanding of a lot of things, so you should have your foot in the door for being a scholar when we get back! In fact, I'm sure that Life-Recorder, Diligence, and Secluded-from-Illumination will become full scholars! It'll be a very big deal."

The blood and bustle of the battle against the death-seeking Marauders had forced an early halt to the day's travel -- there's no sense in trying to spend the day walking when you're a collection of heavily wounded and bleeding newbies who had mostly just experienced their first battles. Thankfully, the termites of Built Upon Ruins had the hospitality to put the delegation up in their hive (possessed of a frantic industriousness, but too small to manage quite the levels of size and bustle as the Redoubt), in part as thanks for essentially protecting them from the first Marauder raid in years. They provided food, much-needed healing, and lodging for the night... but a hurried day of travel had followed, covering the remaining distance to the Scholars' University a day later than scheduled. Fire Emblem on Forums: Tiny Steps Chapter 1: Scholeric Encounters' The Scholars' University makes for an interesting contrast to the Redoubt. Its grass is essentially untended, even moreso than that of Built Upon Ruins, growing higher than the height of two bugs on top of each other, but for a road cut into it leading to the entrance of the University, visitors left to travel the same way in and out -- at least it was a wide enough pathway to allow animal traffic. Arriving at the gate to the Scholars' University and peeking in to see its contents revealed another large difference between the two main political centers of the Scholars' Redoubt: while the Redoubt, like most bug cities, had been a sprawling jumble of dwellings built on and dug into the floors and walls of the rooms of the household, huts and burrows and ladders and hanging dwellings and all manner of living spaces... the first room of the Scholars' University was surprisingly-well organized, with few dwellings in sight and instead only a number of neatly divided spaces, barriers of papers or plastic or cloth cordoning off fairly sized chunks of the room, with neat pathways allowing for easy travel. But that wasn't to say that the Scholars' University was more ordered than the Redoubt, by any means. For all the chaos of its arrangement, the Redoubt had had a certain level of functional order imposed by necessity -- the military center of the region and alliance that birthed it couldn't exactly be choked up by foot traffic. But, right now, one of the major intersections of paths in the room here at the University was thronged with crowds of scholars and scholars' assistants waiting impatiently or excitedly at the scene of an ongoing argument, one loud enough to faintly carry over to the Council delegation standing at the door. "You NEVER cease to amaze me with the SCALE of your buffoonery, you moron! Who do you think you are trying to steal my portion of the room!" "This is a perk of seniority, buddy, my experiments are in urgent need of space and you just happen to be next to me! Don't you have any respect for my pursuit of knowledge?" At the gate itself stood a much more reserved individual, albeit one who seemed just about as irate as the two loudly arguing, judging by the way that he kept sending death glares back in this direction: a bug in green and brown robes, with big bright green antenna sticking out of their head: an aphid, by the looks of it. "It's amazing how I never have the space to perform even a single task without this sort of stupid distraction." "Seniority? You have been here for a grand total of one week longer than I have, you imbecile! That is not a source of serious seniority!" "Those are the rules! You have to do it!" "Wait... hey, get out of the way, you two, are those..." "From the looks of it, you seem like exactly the kind of motley bunch the Council has been sending us -- and, if so, you're the last of these delegations not accounted for. You're late. But you look like shit, so I'm guessing you got caught up in something extraordinary, in which case... whatever we'll work with it." "No it isn't the rules, you're quite literally just making this up now, aren't you? Did you even check with Aphid Steady about this?" "W-well I--" A head of yellow hair could be seen bobbing up and down in the crowd of bugs, trying to jump up to get a better look. "IT'S THEM! Move move move move get OUT of the WAY this is IMPORTANT--" Detecting that the situation behind him had changed, the aphid turned to just watch the ensuing madness, hands on his temples. And that madness... "Wh--" "H-hold on a moment, what do you think-- uahh!" "SOGGY, MOVE THEM!" The two scholars arguing, a middle-aged pair of men wearing purple and red clothing, stumbled out of the way as a figure in wooden armor slammed into them, with a short hornet with yellow hair and a blue cloak having propelled herself bodily into him to use him as an impromptu battering ram (not that she could have moved him more than a step or two if he'd tried to push back). At that point, she began running headlong in the direction of the University's front door and the party standing there, a grin on her face. Five different bugs (two spiders, one of which was the one she'd used as a ram, two red ants, and a moth) were left to scatteredly follow after her. "Finally, finally, finally! Oh, I've been waiting for this for so long! I am SO glad you all have finally arrived! I've been preparing for this journey for forever!!! Now, we can--" The aphid opened his mouth to interrupt, but the hornet kept barreling through his unformed protest, the two black-and-yellow insect legs jutting from her ribs gesticulating wildly with her excited speech. "I suppose, before I get carried away, that I should explain! I'm the last scholar waiting for the delegation sent by the Redoubt to help me with my project -- and this is the most important project of the year, have no doubt! That makes you all," here she gestured at Pinecone, Stardust, Lotus, Ebon Knight, Sting, and Bend, "the most important delegation! These five," here she gestured at the poor bugs left to follow her piecemeal, "are my assistants and associates, except for the guy of the two ants, who I think was meant to be part of your delegation!" She clapped, now, and changed tone just a little. "We should all get introduced to each other -- we're all going to be working together, after all. I'm Brilliant Deduction, Scholar of this University, and specialist in Outside cultures, traveling, and Human Artifacts! This," here she produced a small bug-shaped speck of blue and red from seemingly nowhere, "is Curiosity! Now why don't you all tell each other who you are?" "Hi!" Secluded-from-Illumination, Soggyshanks, Faithful Diligence, Mercy Harefoot, and Life-Recorder are in!

"Well... kind of, yeah. You weren't exactly light on me through all that, huh?" Bend let that sit for just a moment as he pulled out his flute, and with a little toot helped the wound finish up its healing and further diminished the pain. "But, y'know... you're just a kid. Being pushy isn't worth getting hurt like that at all. You're... what, 5, 6? I'm not just going to let you sit there and suffer just because you were a bit annoying. That'd be incredibly callous." Here, Bend let out a small sigh. "Plus, I know what it's like to be the person that everyone else just sits around and lets be miserable. I'm not gonna inflict that on someone else."

"Yeah.... sometimes things do really hurt. It's a shame you had to get caught up in all of that." Bend sighed, and fussed with the bandage a little, trying to tighten it a bit before resigning himself to the fact that his handiwork was kind of just shit. The question she let out at him drew his attention, though. "Why... what?" She was probably asking why she'd been attacked, or why he'd healed her. He wasn't sure which.

When Stardust began absolutely screaming and wailing at the top of her lungs, Bend couldn't say that he had really been caught by surprise, because the moment he saw her get hit (and it was actually bad, too) he knew that things were about to get really ugly. But that didn't mean it was pleasant by any means, because she sure was loud. ...he did feel for her, too. Even as obnoxious as she was, Stardust really was a kid, and it was pretty screwed up that this whole bloody fight had happened. Even he had only been in something this bloody once before, and it hadn't been fighting bugs then. Sighing, Bend came up to her, grabbing the hand of her wounded arm for a moment to make her stop flailing. "Please try to hold still for just a moment..." His other hand put the herb-paste-soaked bandage to her shoulder firmly, and then he darted the hand that had been holding hers in place to wrap up the bandage as quickly as he could. It was quite the sloppy bandage as a result, tied loosely and somewhat ajar (Bend winced), but nonetheless, it did start to do its job, her wound slowly closing thanks to the medicine.

"I don't suppose that I could just intimidate her(?)," his tone wavered a little bit, as the idea of an inanimate object having a gender was a bit off to Nader, but she was probably just some sort of robot, "into behaving better, huh? Past that, I can try my best, but like I said, I don't really know how to do magic or anything." He laughed just a little. "So maybe plainlt scaring her straight should be kept on the table. Probably not while I'm in the middle of talking with Asgore, though, admittedly... that wouldn't likely do much to convince him that I'm actually fine now and NOT going to go on any sort of rampage." Well... maybe it wouldn't do that well for convincing Lucine of that either, but he'd... he'd just make it work, whatever.

Satomi started a little as something started talking to her -- a dark blur sitting on one of the rooftops, which in the darkness of night, Satomi was only just able to resolve as a humanoid silhouette (and if he had been wearing something greyer, she doubted she'd have been able to do that). Her response to his words, though, was defensive and immediate -- "No, I know perfectly well where I'm going!" She didn't need directions, of course she wasn't just... well... okay... maybe she WAS lost, but that didn't mean she didn't have it under control! She could totally figure out somewhere useful to go, she didn't need to be... led around! There was a long pause. "But... if I were to theoretically need directions, to some sort of issue or threat that needs solving, or maybe hypothetically to a clock tower, what would you say?"

Somewhat awkwardly, Bend patted Pinecone on one armored shoulder, producing a light clacking sound. "It's, uh, don't worry about it. It's... you kinda were totally fine for most of it? You're not expected to be invincible." He patted Pinecone's shoulder once again, and then visibly winced as he moved towards Stardust, pulling out a bandage and placing some of his vulnerary herbs onto it. This was probably not going to be pleasant.

Perlita shifted just a little awkwardly as Lyra removed her helmet -- wow, those were a lot of scars, it went to show just how much some of these people had seen. "Um... you're welcome." Perlita picked at the shoulders of her dress a little awkwardly, but to tell the truth it actually did feel kind of nice to get thanked for the frantic work she'd been putting in. "I'll be there if any of you need me again. Um, about 6D, though... I don't think I can do anything about that. I'm not a doctor or psychologist or anything, so... when something's there my magic doesn't fix, there's kind of not a lot that I can do. I wonder, though... maybe they have doctors or, like... magic doctors here? People who are better at diagnosing things?"

Slowly, entirely panickedly, Stardust's hands raised, one pointing and one holding her magic tablet... and then... Stardust attacks Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death! ...managed to miss entirely, her bolt of light passing an inch to Seeker's left and flying all the way into a far-away, entirely empty patch of grass. This was met with a triumphant "Aha!" from Seeker, who reeled up a hatchet in his hand and threw it hard at Stardust... only to watch it hit a blade of grass and be entirely fouled up, rolling up the top half of the blade of grass before falling down onto the ground. "..." TURN 9 ~ ENEMY PHASE "I would have preferred to go out against the one with the bird, but I suppose this will suffice." Moving up slightly to enter the grass, Seeker went on the offensive against Stardust, swinging with his hatchet in both hands. Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death attacks Stardust! This last piece of the fight against the Marauders was a brutal one. The downward swing hit Stardust right in her shoulder, cleaving deeply, but though she was brought to one knee by the savage attack (and was quite probably screaming her head off, given that it was Stardust), it turned out that even she was still capable of fighting. Her body moved on her own, her uninjured arm jerking upwards, pointing, magic forming in her mind, and -- there was a bright flash of light for a moment, and when Stardust was able to open her eyes again, she would see that her attacker was quite dead. Finally, it was over. Map Notes Final Status EXP: 83/100 Immediately, Recruit Bend was running, bringing his flute to his lips, and trying his damnedest to skitter around and deal with wounds and injuries. "Fuck, alright, okay, here, we just need to-" Tweeeeeeeeet. A bit of life was restored to Sting, and Bend hauled the mosquito carefully to her feet, the light girl not being terribly difficult to bring up. Then he moved to Pinecone, tweeeeeeeet, and... "Oh shit, he's so heavy, hrrnngggggggg..." ...pulled rather futilely upwards on the now-again-conscious bee, but he was at least trying his best.

Shifting around a certain continually-bemused ant to make her attack, Lotus went deep into the grass, an eye kept on the lead Marauder the entire time. Lotus attacks Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death! Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death let out a pained, frustrated noise as an arrow zipped out of the grass beyond his range of effective retribution and struck him, rocking him a little. He was beginning to look quite bloodied now -- perhaps not quite on his last legs, but not far from it, and by the look on his face it seemed that he knew it. "You really don't slow down, do you? It would be impressive, were it not in these circumstances frustrating." He sighed. Meanwhile, a voice from near Lotus, followed up shortly by the sound of a flute. "Frustrated for him is better than bleeding out for us, so, really, I'm all for this!" Bend refreshes Lotus! And, duly enough... Lotus attacks Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death! Taking little heed of the blonde spider's complaints, Lotus just aimed her bow once more, and let another arrow fly... and this one came to an impact as well, lodging very near to the other one in his chest. Seeker was having trouble breathing now... but his frustrated noise turned into a growl, and he clutched the hatchet in his hands even tighter than before. A terrible resolve filled his body, and he stood up a bit straighter despite his tenuous grasp on life. "There. With the longbow aside, does anyone care to indulge me in one last fight?" Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, Ebon was providing the other one of the Marauders with his own frustrating, uncounterable scenario. Ebon Knight attacks "Elite" Plunderer A! There weren't dramatics with this fight like the ongoing scrapping with Seeker, nor did the armored bug manage to hang onto life in the same way as his leader. Instead, the bug was hit by a downwards jab from crow-top, which slammed right into unprotected flesh now that the bug's chestplate had broken apart, and with a "Rrrngh..." he slowly toppled backwards onto the dirt with a thud, leaving Seeker as the only one standing of those that had ambushed the party. Map Notes Status EXP: 59/100

Isobel Isobel put her hands up a little in a sort of display of surrender as Momiji requested that they stay off of the mountain, shrine path excepted. "Okay, that's a request that I'm perfectly happy to honor. I don't really have any need of being on this mountain at this point, so avoiding trespassing and also avoiding the sorts of dangers I'm realizing are common here are things I'm glad enough to do. As for the Trespassers... Masako has not really been around long enough to know more than what she would have seen here and a little inference beyond that. I've been around since nearly the start, though, so what I'll say is that Trespassers are these things that seem intent on devouring... well... everything pretty much even conceivable. We don't know a lot about just what they are, as none of us have ever been given that much information, but we have seen a little bit of how they work. They seem to corrupt things within whichever world they're trying to get into -- I saw that in another world too -- and then they use these corrupted people and beings to destroy said universes, and then presumably to devour them. The way they do the corrupting seems to differ from place to place, but here some corrupted artifacts were delivered and seemed to apply that corruption to people they were on until said artifacts were removed. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that we're definitely not the only ones going around fighting them, as we were contacted early on by some other figure also doing so, and we've also run into other people who had been going around separately and fighting these Trespassers. This is a full-on war, really... I can't promise that Gensokyo won't see Trespassers show up again, even if they should be gone for now."

Nader sighed and scratched at his newly furry chin as Lucine talked about him owing her. ”I’m sure we can figure something out later.” He had almost wanted to protest that, but, well... maybe he didn’t have room to. Plus, she was a kid, so it wasn’t like he was going to fight her about it. Still, he supposed that he should get going and start getting things done now. ”Yes, I think I would like to go talk to Asgore. Second chances for both of us, I suppose.” As they walked, Nader turned to ask Lucine a question. ”Opal is that thing that you use for fighting, right?” It seemed screwed up that she WAS fighting, but there wasn’t much that Nader figured he could do about it. ”I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to it, I admit. Dunno what its problem is, but I guess I could take a look at it it it’s some sort of mechanical issue.”

Satomi spent a while considering her next move. The path on the right seemed... festive. As in, literally, it looked like festivities were going on there, which would likely just end up distracting her, if anything -- she really did want to do something actually meaningful right now, even if she was perhaps maybe incredibly lost and wasn't likely to actually find the clocktower. Then there was the very shadowy part of the city, which Satomi... well... she... she hated to admit it even to herself, but she maybe couldn't see very well. And maybe she would have an even harder time seeing things if there wasn't a whole lot of light with which to see. So by the process of elimination, that left her only one real option, in her mind: take the middle path and maybe investigate whatever that large building over there was. "Right, well... hope I find something..." she muttered quietly.

"...oh." Perlita allowed herself to let out a sigh of relief, although she still wasn't entirely happy with herself. "Um, well, I'm not really certain that I can help you do that, unless you maybe can find some sort of source of magic on your own... and even then I guess I'd still be kind of experimenting. See, um... Crawford is something called a "Persona", which is this kind of... representation of the other side of me, I guess. The issue is that I don't really know how Personas are made... there was this whole outside thing that ended up with me having mine back in my home world. Some sort of alien force kidnapped me, and Gabriel and another person rescued me... it was, uh, accepting bonds with them and deciding to help them back that caused Crawford to awake within me. I don't really know what it was that caused her to be there in the first place. Malachi --uh, that's the leader of our group back home-- says it's something to do with a "Sea of Souls" or common consciousness or something, but the gist of it is that I don't think I can teach you any of my magic. Maybe you could get a Persona if you could somehow connect to my world or another world with them, but... I dunno how that'd get done." Perlita shrugged. "Sorry if I'm not being any help."