[IC] TotMV:G2: The Ballroom (Travel Phase)

[Aurorix]

”N-no, you're fine...” Hayle responded to Navin before hearing Dackly request. It's not that she didn't like him she was just not good around new faces. This made her feel a bit embarrassed and guilty for making him think that she was uncomfortable. ”O-of course! I'll do it right away!” She said before gathering 20 containers. She started scooping out the stir fry into each container. At least she was good for doing menial tasks such as this.

[Powder Miner]

Navin smiled slightly and bowed slightly in both apology and thanks, before shaking his head. "You have no reason to feel any guilt, Dackly. There are, it seems, quite a few of us aboard this castle, and it isn't as if you would have any way of knowing what each of our individual preferences would be. Besides, I am not the type who wishes to impose, nor the type who is easily offended by such unavoidable things, so you have no ill feelings from me. Still, I've got to thank you for your consideration in preparing this separate meal for me. It does look delicious."

[Hal Henderics]

Gozer's curiosity is peaked, "Is your limitation born of source or substance? It might seem odd, but we have methods of producing things like meat and milk from things that are neither, using alchemy, such as turning fruit into a form of steak."

 

Dackly's Vegetarian Meal is finished much more quickly, leading to a final product of 20 stored meals, 1 Vegetarian Stir Fry, and 2 Normal Stir Fries.

 

"Now then, assistants and audience, Let's dig in early, the rest of those can be divvied out when we all get a chance to gather up."

 

Dackly does something quick with her face and ends up with two stone chopsticks in a decent example of slight of hand.

 

The smell is simple and good, a stunning contrast with her Alchemical experiments, her cooking seems to be by the book and rather straight laced, the meal is glowing pink, which Dackly assures is simply the result of love and care going into the dish's creation to ensure that the meat is soft and succulent, or that the sauce is smooth.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Hal Henderics

[Powder Miner]

Navin leans against the wall again as he listens to the... statue being, he thinks. "Source. Ahimsa is essentially the principle that all life is sacred, so the logic is that animals take more lives to raise and slaughter than a plant does to reap. Something like that would in fact neatly solve the problem! Meat still wouldn't be my favorite thing, as I've never developed a taste for it, but I'd eat it without any sort of complaint."

 

When Navin receives his meal, he gives Dackly a nod of thanks, and then pauses, looking at the stir fry for a few moments before looking around the room for an implement with which he can eat it, speaking casually while he does. "You've created a fairly large haul of food, hmm? That is very considerate of you."

Edited May 7, 2017 by Powder Miner

[Hal Henderics]

"Yeah, the only real downside is one of those situations where your food is really questionable because sure, it could be apples transmuted into an odd but satisfying apple steak, but it could also be a bed and 7 swords transmuted into a type of steak."

 

Dackly comments, before hefting an Altar to Nyx off Gozer's Back, and scraping half of her food into a black flame in it's center, sacrificing it.

 

"And yeah, Making food gets you more than eating it does."

 

She nods, before digging utensils out of a drawer, and handing them over.

 

"So where your talents lie Navin? Everyone aboard has quite the repertoire of skills, as we have seen thus far."

 

Gozer asks, not distracted by food with his inherent lack of need for it.

[Powder Miner]

"On my own world, I am what is referred to a superhero, I suppose -- essentially I fight either malevolent beings in defense of people or places they are attacking, or I fight evil people with supernatural abilities, using my own, which I will describe in a moment. I specialize in close combat, and I am trained in Aikido so if possible I can defeat many opponents nonlethally. Where this is not an option, however, I can do damage, even through armor, because my powers... well, there is no way around this, I am capable of creating explosions from my fists when I fight. It's a fairly simple and destructive power, but I've figured out one or two uses for it other than simple punching."

 

Navin accepts the a fork, lightly twirling it in his hand. "Thank you very much." And with that he spears one of the vegetables and begins to eat.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Powder Miner

[Hal Henderics]

While Dackly stuffs her own face, Gozer speaks.

 

"Intriguing. Are your limitations, that is, if you have any, hard set, self imposed to protect yourself from recoil, or self imposed to prevent collateral?"

 

"I am an Earth Elemental, An aspect of earth itself.  Dackly is a Gorgon, whose gaze inflicts petrification and other effects based on her emotions and radiation reflected from her face."

 

"Our powers synergize well."

 

Dackly cuts in.

 

"Don't sell us so short Gozer! We are also not so green on Dimentional Travel, we've picked up a ton of tricks from bumming around the multiverse a tad.  We've Entered into service of Nyx, Embodiment of night as one of her paladins, I learned how to parry, Gozer knows a special guarding technique for protecting himself and others, he can make invsisible psychic bombs and save em up, and we also have a special set of mechanical balloons that can take things back to base if they don't struggle too much."

 

"And my own Gaze Abilities are Petrification from Hate and Fear in a target, Purification and Blinding from Honor and Glory, Softening from Love and Care, And explosive transmutation from a substance I no longer have access to. Oh, and I can make Magic Spears that are able to save targets suffering from corruption or assimilation thanks to Cleric-ing it up with Nyx."

[Powder Miner]

"Self-imposed in order to prevent collateral, and to avoid using excessive force. I've got some level of control over the direction of force of my blasts, and I've had one of my teammates back in my world complain about me breaking "Newton's Third Law" in that respect, so recoil isn't an issue, but it is still quite a bit of destructive force."

 

Navin puts his hand on his chin. "It sounds like you two have quite the array of talents, hmm? Magical effects, defense, bombs, balloons. Yes, that's very useful indeed! It sounds to me that we are quite lucky to have you on our team. Especially because you seem to have experience with this sort of scenario. I've crossed dimensions a couple of times myself, and so this is not the most confusing thing I've dealt with, but I am no specialist on the matter, I have simply worked with those who are to a limited extent in the past. I had not heard of the Trespassers before this, though. Had you?"

[Hal Henderics]

"Eheh, I've... Dealt with a similar problem in the past."

 

"Intriguing.  Dackly's most 'Bullshit' aspect of her power is how her Gaze Abilities only discriminate what she can percieve.  It is all too likely that she could turn to stone one of your directed explosions.  We have sold petrified immaterial weapons in the past as an effective cash grab, It's quite the combination when She can turn magic and energy to stone, and then I can manipulate that energy because it falls under my sphere in what is surely a loophole to make the universes weep."

 

"Yeah, back when I wasn't a plant lady, I turned our enemies to stone because it was nonlethal and I could exploit their radiant soul energy as healing tears to empower others, and as energy to empower my own form or magical objects."

 

"People really did not get the idea that turning a threat to stone is better than killing them off if it works at all.  Half of them questioned if it was even safe! And I had been doing it for as long as I had known Gozer, so like, what, 500 years? 800?"

[Aurorix]

Hayle took a fork and says, ”Thank you for the meal!” to Dackly and Gozer. She was hesitant at first to eat. No matter what anyone says, food should not glow pink! But she didn't want to be rude and she took a bite. Fortunately it didn't taste funky, it was actually really good. She kept eating while listening to the conversation. One should not speak with their mouth full of food.

[Powder Miner]

Navin's eyebrows both raise when Dackly mentions the exact amount of time that she had known this one technique. Navin may not be quite as expressive as some people, but that gesture certainly communicated surprise. "Well, that is... quite a long amount of time, hmm?" Another vegetable is raised to Navin's mouth and consumed, while the superhero considers the implications of Gozer's statement. "You keep coming up with more and more impressive capabilities. I am very, very much impressed. I get the feeling you'll see a lot of action in the team we seem to be building up here. You can turn things back once you've turned them to stone, correct? I have to like the nonlethal aspect of that. It sounds like it has potential field-medical use as well."

[Hal Henderics]

"Absolutely, What Hate has done, Love Undoes, it is my Petrification's Counterpart, Soften, Against things that are not stone, it lives up to it's name, softening them, but against targets who have been turned to stone, it restores them to their normal self.  Soften however, has a side effect of it's own that I can control. When a foe would normally reach the depths of mortality, a target that has been Softened has a reserve of survivability, at the cost of strength, due to their bodies becoming much more resilient, but also rubbery and weak.  So it is a second non-lethal method at my disposal, bringing my methods up to 4, Imprisonment via Petrification, Pacification via Softening, Pacification via Purification, and Manual interfacing, such as by this device!"

 

Dackly pulls out a twisted metal cone, a bit like a dunce cap in structure, this twisted steel plate is covered in glowing green spikes, and inside of it, mechanical arms whir and glow.

 

"This weapon allows me to pacify a target by either applying it directly, or by dropping it over their head, where automatic mechanical arms smack them senseless with poison doped clubs."

Edited May 7, 2017 by Hal Henderics

[DragonRage]

"Sounds interesting!" Samantha chimes in, presumably startling pretty much everybody as she didn't appear to be in the room until now.  "Oh, uh, sorry.  I was taking that whole suggestion to practice more to heart.  By trying to convince people that I was not in fact in the room.  I guess it worked?  But now I've got a killer headache, so I should probably ease off for a while."

[Powder Miner]

Navin doesn't look particularly bothered, even if he did jerk in undisguised startlement when she first spoke. He does, however, give Samantha a sidelong look. "You might want to be careful who you do that with, miss Grey. I've gathered that at least one person in this castle reacts violently to that sort of thing. You did show enough control not to damage any of us though, which is a good thing." 

 

He looks back at Dackly and can't help but chuckle. "Manual interface, huh? Well, that's certainly a rather direct way of doing it, but I suppose I can't fault it considering my set of abilities is as direct as it gets too."

[Hal Henderics]

"Eh, eventually you get to the point where enemies either can handle a beatdown, or are so weak that you have easy options."  Dackly Shrugs.

 

"It's good to have a lot of options. So why don't you have like, a hand cannon?  That would be my first though about someone who can make explosions from their hands.  That or a Mechsuit powered as such."

[Powder Miner]

"I can direct the explosions I create to some extent... but it isn't perfect, and the explosions still do originate around my hands, so this pretty much excludes the possibility of wearing anything on my hands, which is a reason that I don't have gloves like so many other superheroes. I'm afraid that I would blow the back end right off of any sort of cannon. With that said, I've also worked our a few techniques that ensure that this isn't too much of a problem -- with martial arts and versatile positioning of my hands, I can get quite a bit of use with just my power and my hands."

[Hal Henderics]

"I imagine you could, yes.  I simply must get a sample of such explosive power next time we are somewhere where damages can be managed."

 

"I've never utilized a chunk of petrified explosion before, admittedly."  She comments, thinking to herself.

 

Dackly plops the Altar in a corner of the room, and kneels down at it.

 

"Lady Nyx, who has heaped blessing upon blessing unto me, I thank you for your guidance and for watching over me in these interesting times, I pray that you would deliver a message to any of our allies to whom it may concern, that I would offer repayment if they would do me the favor of obtaining a few simple materials for me, so that I can make something that would help them."

"Meteoric Iron, as much as is reasonable.  A measure of LSD, or as it is more commonly known, Acid. A demon, or a demonic contract, of any sort.  Gasoline, or a common fuel.  Technology, of any kind."

 

Gozer continues.

"Bring plants, seeds, fruit, at your leisure.  And tools for delving into magic."

 

Dackly Smiles, and Gozer seems to nod, after a few moments prone.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Hal Henderics

[StormLord]

After being picked up from Rio Friedhold decides to look around the castle and see if he can find something to eat.


Friedhold enters the Ballroom/Kitchen.

[Chevaleresse]

Masaru pokes his head into the ballroom. That's odd. . . This whole place is older, but the crack in the floor looks pretty new. . .  Nice place, nonetheless.

[Sutoratosu]

With the... incident at the restop behind them all, Ghost and Tama made their way to the Ballroom. The suites at the moment didn't really have any amenities besides a few broken beds, and even if the ballroom was even worse, at least the rubble dotting it's space made semi-decent seats.

    As she pushed the door open though, she noticed a few others already gathered there. The swordfighter from earlier being the closest.

    "He was an annoying waste of space, wasn't he?" she remarked as she walked past the half-dragon, "That skeleton you wasted. His were probably some of the worst lyrics I've heard in years. How long have you been fighting, by the way- those stances of yours were impressive, to say the least."

[Chevaleresse]

Masaru nods. "I'd say worse than a waste of space. Liches are almost universally terrible people. Not that there are a lot of them, because usually anyone going that far into it gets offed by his own creations or people like me before they finish.

 

Anyway, I've been fighting for what, a decade now? Not full time, but being a professional adventurer means you end up doing a lot of it. And thank you, I've spent a long time working on refining them."

[Sutoratosu]

"Hm. Liches, is that what your world calls them? Either way, it seems a bit odd to me, that anyone would actually choose to take on such a decrepit form...  where I come from, those who even remotely resemble the state he was in are always the victims of some sort of sloppily preformed resurrection rites, or malicious rituals... souls improperly roused from death and forced into a body that rejects and decays around them more with every passing second. The whole experience causes most people to lose themselves, deteriorate into little more than animals who destroy every living thing before them until someone comes along and gives them peace again.

     Or if they're lucky, only part of their soul actually makes the journey back from death, and they won't even feel most of the hell they're existence is. Like broken shells of themselves almost, just wandering about mindlessly and feeding off the lifeforce of anyone they come across, all to try and recover what was stolen from them... but, regardless, either fate is hardly something most would relish."

    "...Speaking of which, an interesting thought just came to mind-" Tama interrupted her train of thought     "does our current situation mean that you are effectively the living equivalent of a Husk? You may not be mindlessly wandering and sucking the life out of people, but... well... you certainly fit the bill of a broken shell. And if you're a living husk, with most of your soul gone, how much longer might you have before the binds between your body and spirit grow feeble, and you wither and slip away-and this time farther than even the spider can reach into oblivion..."

    "Shut. The fuck. Up."

    There was a pang of panic in her, even as she bid the Deva silence. But she swallowed it for now- she had no desire to think of such a thing, had no stomach to think of such things... or rather, the utter futility that they implied. Her voice quavered for just a breath moment, before she took control of it again.

    "N...Never mind about that though... you said you spent a long while refining your skills; Did you develop those techniques yourself, or did you have someone to actually teach you?"

 

 

[StormLord]

After digging through the kitchen and finding some stir-fry to eat Friedhold and the child walk out into the main room looking for a table to eat at.

Friedhold upon seeing Ghost/Masaru in the main room: "Oh, you must be some of the others I was told about.  Sorry if we're imposing, I wasn't told much other than that this is some sort of home base for a larger group of 'Trespasser' fighters and that food was this way."

[Chevaleresse]

Masaru shook his head and made a placating gesture. "No, I was just telling Ghost a bit about my experiences. I did have a mentor to teach me the basics; older elf, lived up in the mountains near my hometown. People paid him food and whatever else he needed to teach them or their kids the bladeforms; didn't really want much else, although I do think he kept some money on hand in case he had a dry spell of students. I took the lessons when I was younger and got a refresher for him when I decided on my career. The specific ones I use have been refined and modified to fit my own style, though; I can put a lot more power into a swing than most people, and this beast-" he raises his sword to indicate it "-isn't quite the same as a longsword or a katana."

[Sutoratosu]

"I see then... I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with what an 'Elf' is though," Ghost had remained largely silent when the man in the white coat had appeared, and a girl trailing close behind him. She could not put her finger on it, but... something about both of them felt... off. Perhaps it was the myriad of dried blood stains covering the attire of both, or the fact that for whatever reason, it seemed a mere child had been dragged to this place too... in which case, was it even really a child at all? She doubted whatever force, be it some automatic mechanism of this 'multiverse' or the intelligent design of some individual, would have selected a candidate that was not able to adequately hold it's on in combat... and surely, as frail and timid as the girl looked...

      "You're staring at them like a wolf after a lamb..." 

       She had not even noticed how intensely she'd been scrutinizing the two until Tama pointed out. Coughing as if to clear her throat, she turned her gaze back to Masaru. "Regardless... it sounds like he was a great teacher, if he had a reputation that drew so many to seek him out..."