Powder Miner

"So... you summon avatars of some sort then." Satomi turned to address the group as a whole, then. "Right. My name is Satomi, and I come from the Kaiu family of the Crab Clan. My clan has held the borderlands near a tainted place known as the Shadowlands for centuries, and my family the Kaiu built and even now maintains the Wall that marks that border. I am a samurai, so I do have some martial training, and I have dabbled in iaijutsu, but I wouldn't really compare to a true bushi or duelist, to be frank. Uhm, my talents lie more in engineering, especially in construction of buildings or fortifications, and in the creation and operation of siege weapons. I have a particular talent for this, though I would be I imagine useful for more general artisan purposes as well, just not as much."

Satomi replied to Arminius with raised eyebrows. "Wow. Where I come from, monsters are almost all corrupted by the taint of the Shadowlands and turned into horrible demons that are constantly trying to kill everyone and are only held back by constant warfare along the Kaiu Wall. It sounds like things are... different, for you, to be sure. ...oh, well, except for the Nezumi. But I would not call them monsters, they are good allies against said horrible oni and are a most valorous people. Not all of the other clans understand that though." When the dragon decided to perch on Satomi's head, it drew an "Ack!" and a jump from Satomi, who promptly grabbed lightly at it and tried to pick it up off of her head. Still, in the middle of this she managed to ask the woman a question. "Um, are we expected to pretend to be from this "Earth Bet" realm? If it is as different as the others' realms seem to me I imagine this would be quite difficult." She didn't take Jun's handshake -- it seems that she is perhaps still a bit weirded out for physical contact. Plus she's prying a dragon off of her head.

Satomi couldn't help but wince at the sudden amount of attention she was receiving, though she had to admit she had probably brought it upon herself. Satomi wasn't the antisocial wreck she had been in her younger years before her gempukku and her Yasuki friend got her out of it, but having all of this attention from all of these gaijin was still more than she could really handle completely comfortably -- especially with that thing flying near her. It really didn't look like any oni she had ever seen (oni were hideous, after all, with near to no exception), but that didn't change the fact that were she on the Wall, a strange flying creature would probably be trying to latch onto her face and tear it off, or something like that. Then, of course, she was barraged with questions. She could answer those, at least, because they weren't very complicated questions. "Um... no. I'm not Japanese... actually, I don't even know what a Japanese is, matter of fact. I am Rokugani, from the Emerald Empire of Rokugan. Is this Japa, or Japan, whichever one is right, a land past the gaijin countr-- er, past Thrane and Merenae? Are you from Thrane or Merenae? Your skin tone would match such." She paused, and then answered another question. "Yes, I am a samurai of the Crab Clan. I'm not a bushi, but I am one of the engineers of the Wall, who are every bit as vital to my Clan's vital task!" She paused again and listened to the woman named Doctor, letting out a quiet "hmmm". "Oh. None of this sounds familiar. We really are not from the same realms at all, are we? However that works..."

Satomi stared at the older man who had been talking with her, for a few moments. "No, I... just because you're gaijin doesn't mean I'm trying to kill you. I..." Satomi took in a trembling breath. Courage, Courage, she had to abide by her Courage -- what kind of Crab Clan samurai would let themselves be cowed by their fear? Not a good one, that's for sure, and Satomi knew she had enough flaws as a samurai already. Taking another deep breath to continue to calm herself down, Satomi began to slowly slide her sword against her sheath, the sound of sharp metal against leather quietly ringing out for a few seconds as the small samurai put away her weapon inch by inch. She took another deep breath. "R-right... right..." With another breath, she took her hand off of the sheath and looked around the room much more calmly, albeit still clearly a little overwhelmedly. Then another man came up to speak with her. "Jun... that sounds Rokugani, but you certainly look... big... for a Rokugani. Uhm... I am Satomi. Kaiu Satomi. Crab Clan." Indeed, the back of her kimono had a gold-colored design of a crab in a circle in it. Rather than wait for his reply, Satomi took the moment to voice her opinion of the explanation the group was being given. "If you're not just lying to us... that does sound a lot like my duty in the first place... to protect the world... worlds? Even Jigoku... this must be a fearsome threat indeed... I suppose if I were to protect Rokugan and beyond as my Clan is tasked to do, to take this task on too would be natural... if you're not lying. Gah, this is all so much..."

Satomi made a little bit of a disbelieving sound, as more of the strange people began to talk, one of them pulling out what was clearly some bizarre weapon (gaijin pepper...?), and one of the others telling her to calm down. She didn't slide down her sword, but at the least she didn't pull it up further either. She spoke with a slight tremble in her voice. "Calm down? How can I calm down? I'm in a room with a bunch of gaijin, and at least one creature that isn't human at all, and I'm not sure if it's an Oni or not! Well... it's not trying to kill us, so maybe it isn't, but-- this is all impossible! I've been pulled from my duty into a situation so-- so alien that you are probably the most normal part of it, and you're a foreigner! How am I supposed to calm down?"

One of the people to suddenly awaken (standing up) in the room is a teenage girl, looking to be around sixteen to eighteen, with orange hair down to her shoulders, dressed in a dark blue and gray kimono with sandals, and two swords (one longer than the other) sheathed and tucked into her grey sash. The moment she woke up, she squinted; all of a sudden, she was in a white room, with bizarre furniture, strange lighting, not to mention a variety of extremely bizarre looking figures, such as the clearly non-human figure presently speaking. In this context, and coming from a very xenophobic country as she did, perhaps it was understandable that the very first thing this girl, Kaiu Satomi, did was get overwhelmed and freak out. "Wha--" Satomi began, unable to find complete words to say at first as she stuttered out various sounds, "Wher-- I-- How-- Wha-- Wha... What is this?!" She finally managed to complete her sentence, taking a step towards a corner so that there was a little bit of distance between her and the others, and sliding her longer sword a couple inches out of its hilt (albeit not yet fully pulling it out). "Who are you?! How did I get here, and where is this? Am I still in Crab lands?! What are some of you, even-- am-- am I in the Shadowlands?!" She slid her sword a couple further inches out of her hilt.

Satomi Kaiu (western name order used here, eastern in her sheet), kind of intended to be the Mar or Periw of this game.

"Right! Well, here it goes then, I suppose! I haven't used this one in a while..." Navin straightens his fingers, forming knife-hands, and takes a brief moment to move his joints and get ready for quick movement before he pounces at Cu Chulainn. With a shout, Navin brings his arm whirling around in a vertical circle, focusing his power to his fingertips and releasing it as his jab hit the Servant, as a tightly concentrated, armor-piercing blast. Piercing Strike (Deals 1.25*[2d6+STR+SYN]) damage, ignoring RES. [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN] Navin also has a 9% chance to block melee attacks.

"I'm not sure I would actually agree with that assessment, Friedhold. The one unexpected thing she did pull was to take some of us out of commission temporarily, and while we did have to use Nobunaga's help to get through that, we knew that she could do something similar to that, and the team makeup I created did its job, in a couple of cases far better than I had known they were capable of. The problem we faced this battle wasn't a lack of information. The problem was very simply that we weren't tough enough to deal with all of the injury they were dealing us. It's a matter of strength more than anything else. I made sure to bring along multiple healers, and we were still taxed. That all said, come on, let's get going. The others are still fighting!" LOTUS changed his display to an arrow pointing out the doorway. "...I guess I've seen that sort of thing before -- changelings and mercenaries getting gunned down on the station I'm from. But if someone could actually just be being controlled... terrible. but we can't go getting ourselves killed, huh...? Well, uh, anyway, alright, moving!" And indeed Isobel started moving out the door.

Isobel let out a breath and looked down. "...well, maybe you're right. But I don't like it..." LOTUS chimed in here. "Remember, this is a war situation, not a happy superhero show or something like that. We really can't afford to go around leaving these super powerful entities alive, because we're talking about a wholesale war of extermination where who is alive and who is dead greatly matters for force composition. Assassin here dying, well, I might have wanted to get some info but she absolutely had to die. The skeletons she has created were much too much of a threat to leave her alive."[/color

Navin glanced at Magnum, and then at Cu, and then at the fleeing soldiers. "I am not sure that I would worry about cutting off his escape routes. I very much doubt that he cares that much about his safety... or that of his subordinates, it would seem. Still... it is true that he cannot be allowed to keep doing as he wishes. Perhaps I should... knock him down a peg, is how the expression goes, yes? A man who would both kill us and kill his own allies does rather need to be stopped." Navin then lunged at Cu, aiming his wrist at Cu (so that the armor kept the spikes from wounding him), and launching that wrist into Cu with an explosion, Navin's weight and the force of the blast being driven into another extremely powerful shove. Rocket Shove, stunning Cu for a turn! [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN] Navin also has a 9% chance to block melee attacks.

Isobel looked flabbergasted at Aurora's little rant. "I... think I'm fine with my poppies. Eek..." LOTUS moved his eyes so it looked like they could be gazing at Mitsurugi. "I think Aurora is entitled to a little bit of mockery here. The fact of the matter is that we came within a hair's breadth of taking casualties, and I had to make use of outside help to have this fight take the course it did, even. Aurora is one of the single largest reasons there weren't casualties here, and that's because she had to constantly juggle her healing beams, even as she was continuously taking fire herself -- it's not an enviable situation. I do agree with what she said about learning to heal, or at least maybe with Isobel finding somewhere to grow more of her poppies for people to hold, or something. If we're going to be taking this much injury in every battle here, we need more ability to recover from those injuries." That's when Isobel turned to Laver. "By the way... Laver... I know that we can't go in not intending to hurt whoever we fight next, but... we could maybe hold off a little bit in the future towards the end, right? Leave them alive...?" "Well, it would be in our interest in any event to keep at least one of the Servants we fight in each round of battles alive at least for a while, because we'll need to gather information. Keeping a Servant alive just because you feel bad for it, however, would be an unacceptable risk." "But... we spared the guards at Vishkar, right...?"

There was a pause from both the botanist woman and the tablet she was carrying -- however, the pause of the latter was much shorter, as LOTUS only took a few moments to react before beginning to speak once more. "Well... that's that I guess," the AI said simply before then pausing for another few moments as far as the others could tell, but in reality, he was sending a transmission over the radio channel: <"Edmond, you're going to have to get information on Saber and Lancer from Berserker before you kill him; Aurora has gone and removed Assassin from existence; we're not going to be getting anything from her. The team has, at least, taken no casualties, though it got close."> Then he moved his eyes on his display towards Aurora. "Is that something you can repeat, Aurora? That kind of damage is, obviously, useful. Everyone, we're going to want to get going -- without Ghost transporting us, I don't know if we can make it back to the fort and castle in time to reinforce them, but we should absolutely make the attempt." Though Isobel walked towards the door like Laver, she remained silent for longer than LOTUS did, a pensive and perhaps regretful frown on her face, wringing her gloved hands nervously with the quiet sound of leather creaking. Eventually, though, after LOTUS' barked suggestions and questions, she spoke up in a much quieter tone. "Against her will, she said... are they being mind controlled...? Possessed...?"

Navin grimaced as he set himself into a similar defensive stance as he had earlier, angling his looted alien plating to take as much of the brunt of the incoming attack as it could, and bracing himself otherwise to deal with the impact. The grimace wasn't for him, though -- their companion Silef was in some serious danger. Basic Defense!

"Atton, what in the world are you doing? Why are you flirting with the horrible necromancer? I get the feeling you want to accomplish something but I can't divine what it is. He's right about our strategy, though we shouldn't be complacent: the plan to take down her minions went off -- with some hitches, but it went off. With that threat significantly diminished, now we need to focus on just taking her down! Atton, here's a bit of tactical advice -- with the situation as it is, the reward of that heal of yours is well worth the risk, we can do this anyway but we'd do a lot better with that kind of aid! Aurora, heal yourself and Venus! Laver, heal Mitsurugi! Friedhold, I want you to keep your camo up for a couple more seconds, but I want it dropped soon. Venus, I want you to keep yourself defended, unless you think it's safe enough to shoot. Everyone else, start hitting Assassin, we want to both start actually killing her and keep the pressure off of our healers!" Efficiency Analysis on Atton, reducing the cooldown of Never Give Up! by 1 and making it usable.

Thanks to the support of his allies, Navin found as he brought his arms back down that he'd come out of that with not even a nick more than the minor wounds he'd already had. Sufficient proof that his statement on fate was more correct than Cu's, the Marathi superhero wagered, though naturally the credit here belonged to his teammates more than it did the gods. It was then that Edmond began to speak, and Navin listened to his shouted orders, getting himself once again into a ready pose. Sounded like they needed people attacking the other soldiers, and though it didn't make Navin happy to do it he would continue to do what was needed. Navin rushed towards one of the enemy soldiers with a shout, readying his fist to perform the same maneuver that had killed the earlier officer. This soldier wasn't staggered like the previous target, his armor wasn't breached, and Navin didn't have that extra power in his muscles, but Navin figured that it would wound the soldier anyway. Flurry of Explosions on Soldier B! (STR + SYN damage four times) [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN] Navin also has a 3*DEX% chance to block melee attacks.

Isobel tightly clasped her head in her hands, and she stood there unmoving except for a dreadful, persistent little quaver. That same awful paranoia was back, but now it was overwhelming, a tidal wave of hatred and mistrust that washed her over no matter how hard she struggled, and now threatened to sweep her away. From the corners of her eyes she thought she saw her so-called allies preparing to strike her down, send her dead to the ground like all those nightmares or close calls back on the Exodus. God help her... she wasn't cut out for this. She wasn't cut out for this. She wasn't. So all she could really do was stand there, terrified, quavering, and pray that they didn't come to reduce her to a corpse. She sniffled. LOTUS, on the other hand, was, being that he was unaffected, much more cogent, though he was frantic anyway. "Low? Low? Isobel? Oh, that's not good. And she's not alone, either. And... ah, this is getting to be a very bad situation." He opened up on the radio, starting with one of his half-electronic sighs. "I'm sorry for using our resources so rapidly, but the situation over here continues to be increasingly dire. I need Nobunaga's help so she can come over here and keep Atton going." Then he spoke out loud again. "I've got help on the way for Atton! Aurora, this means you need to focus on yourself and Mitsurugi instead! Atton, I want you to focus on figuring out how to best utilize your talents shortly! Samantha, Venus, Mitsurugi, I want you three to be hitting Assassin, we need to keep the pressure on her to keep up!" Isobel... will be stunned. Nobunaga should use Inspire on Atton!

Navin skidded across the ground briefly thanks to Cu Chulainn bodily throwing him, the alien armor plates in his suit sliding perhaps more smoothly than a more human material might, but by no means smoothly. Still, he got to his feet, because going flying through the air was pretty much a daily activity for a superhero. Bringing his eyes back up to their primary opponent, Navin saw the attack charging up again, sighed slightly, and nodded. Then he steeled himself, angling himself so that Cu's attack wouldn't hit him dead on, and raising his arms. He did, however, look Cu straight in the eyes, speaking with absolute conviction in his voice. "My fate was chosen years ago, by God. Not by me. And most certainly not by you. And I will continue fighting as I must to fulfill it." Navin uses Basic Defense! [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN]

Nobunaga should buff Bridgett's SYN with her full buff move this turn.

A pang of guilt shot through Navin when his set of thundering blows simply blew his target into pieces -- he'd just given that man an extremely gruesome death. It was something Navin genuinely hated doing... but also something that he couldn't dwell on right now, he had other things to be concerned about. Navin saw something out of the corner of his eye -- and with a brief swivel of the head, it was fairly clear what exactly that was: their primary enemy was holding the spear in a throwing position, with the type of ominous light warping around it that in Navin's experience usually meant something very bad was about to happen. So Navin scrambled forwards toward Cu Chulainn, full-out sprinting at the historical, spiked Berserker, finding somewhere to put his hands that wouldn't get them impaled... and then increasing his momentum by firing explosions off of the back of his hands. And then he took all that momentum and pushed Cu Chulainn as hard as he could. Rocket Shove on Cu Chulainn, stunning him! [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN]

All of a sudden, there's a triumphant, electronic cackle that emanates from LOTUS. "Oh, I know how we can kill a lot of them! Laver, I want you to heal Nessie because, and my apologies to her, this will be a bit risky for her. Friedhold, thank you, you're already doing what I need you to. Atton, I want you to advise Nessie on doing greater damage, and Nessie, I want you to unleash what you've been building up against every one of our enemies. Then I'm going to bring in Nobunaga to boost Bridgett. Bridgett, I want you to use Valkyrie Breaker in a few seconds, you'll be assisted, and don't bother focusing on any single group, so start charging up! Please use all the cartridges you can! I am going to advise Nessie on moving as quickly as possible, too, because she will need to defend herself immediately after she unleashes what she's been saving up! Alright, now Nessie, to be able to defend yourself in time you'll need to..." LOTUS then activated his radio to send a message directly to Lexiel. "Lexiel, I need you to send Nobunaga over here and have her provide a boost to Bridgett's magical ability, because she should be able to do a LOT of damage with Nobunaga's help!" LOTUS uses Pathing Advice on Nessie, bumping her to the top of initiative next turn!

Isobel felt that paranoia clawing at the edges of her thoughts again, and she rubbed at her cheek with her leather-gloved hand as she struggled to keep her thoughts in order -- no, right, this was just like the last battle, she came here prepared for this, she could get through this. She took a deep breath, and kept aware of the situation as best as she could: LOTUS, as unaffected as last time, kept on his constant analysis up. "Aurora, I hate to micromanage, but it would be good to heal Samantha and Friedhold! The two of them aren't doing fantastic, Samantha's tied up, and the two of them are both some of us I believe are affected by that mist again, and I'd like that one or both of them have that taken care of because I don't trust it! Venus, Bridgett, Mitsurugi, I want the three of you to hit the Beasts in whichever way you may see fit! Everyone else, please do your best to keep these three healed and, if possible, defended or made tougher! If you can't, hit the warriors some!" Isobel heeded those words herself, heading over to the goddess and more or less shoving a healing poppy into her hands. Healing Poppy on Mitsurugi, healing her for 2d4+INT health! [Isobel and LOTUS stats: 2 CON 8 DEX 8 INT 2 RES 2 STR 0 SYN]

It seemed to Navin that the others in his group had their own priorities, and so Navin made a simple, quick decision: it fell upon him to capitalize on the opening he'd made when he'd staggered the enemy officer with one of his concussion blasts. This meant that he possibly really would be killing the man, but... well, as he'd reasoned earlier, this was war, and that meant that he had to deal with the reality of the situation. He could feel the strength that the girl named Hikari had granted him, and that meant that his carefully-practiced series of punches would be less like relatively light pops, and more like a set of hammer blows -- a rather superior choice. So Navin charged at the Officer he'd weakened, and began to strike, hard punch after punch aimed towards the disoriented man, each of course paired with a small, yet still effective, explosion. Flurry of Explosions on Officer B, attacking four times and dealing STR+SYN damage each time! [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN]

"Damn! We're in some level of trouble here, so I need everyone who can heal absolutely to do so, with priority on Atton and Samantha! Everyone who has mass attack needs to start pulling out some, but not all, of the stops, because those skeletons need to die now! We no longer have the luxury of probing their defenses, we just need to kill Assassin's minions as fast as possible! If you have something that you can still use later in the battle, use it now, even if it takes a few seconds to use again!" Isobel looks at Atton and doesn't seem to like the looks of his wounds. She rushes towards him, retrieves a carefully flattened poppy from her apron, and practically shoves it into his hands. "Here, I've got you! You need to eat this, it's going to help with your injuries!" Healing Poppy on Atton, healing him for 2d4+INT health! [Isobel and LOTUS stats: 2 CON 8 DEX 8 INT 2 RES 2 STR 0 SYN]

Navin didn't like killing people, in fact he avoided it as much as he could. He was a superhero, not an executioner, and in that line of work he was adamant that death only be saved as a last resort -- a difficult proposition when one's superpowers are to literally create explosions from one's hands, but one he'd found a solution to, with careful distance of explosions and his special rocket push maneuver he'd made plenty of use of during his superhero career. He'd even managed to avoid killing anyone alive during the previous battle, simply shoving an enemy officer several feet out of the way when he was making his escape after having destroyed the siege engine. But now in the remnants of a destroyed village, Navin had no doubts that he would have to do so. These people (and this "Servant") had to be stopped, and right now he wasn't a superhero, he was a soldier. It was war. And this wasn't the first war Navin had been a part of -- war is about death, after all. Just death, in this case, Navin doubted that he'd be souring his karma this battle unless he became bloodthirsty. And Navin didn't have any intention to become bloodthirsty: although he was prepared to kill in this battle, his initial attack was harmful but probably not immediately lethal, unless his target had already been beaten severely. Taking a bound towards one of the enemy officers, he let out a little shout before sending his fist towards the officer, suddenly stopping and opening his hand, and letting an explosion ring out that would stagger his opponent and likely break his guard. Concussion Blast: Navin does 1d6+SYN damage to Officer B, then lowers his RES by Navin's SYN for two turns! [Navin stats: 2 CON, 1 RES, 3 DEX, 2 INT, 8 STR, 8 SYN]