[IC] TotMV:G^2: Clash of Fate: The Barracks (Social/Prep Phase)

[StormLord]

Spicy HG started to reach out a handshake for Lena but stopped mid movement, looked down at her still somewhat blood smeared hand, and decided against it.

"I'm Spicy HG.  Good to meet more new people.  Uh, sorry about the whole, um, yeah."

She showed her hands and gestured to her eyes while she spoke.

 

"Here you go."

She handed over the lump of now cooled gold after pulling it out of seemingly nowhere.

[Yours Truly]

Solomon gave Spicy a bit of an odd look in exchange as he grabbed the lump of gold in two hands and gingerly placed it on a new present floating platform made of books. He then gestured at her bloodied hands and her eyes before he said, "I assume that the reason why you cried tears of blood involves that long story you don't want to talk about and has nothing to do with how you come from an odd universe where people cry blood and bleed tears right?".

[Ragnarok97071]

When Spicy hesitates and begins drawing her hand back, Lena instead reaches out, firmly taking hold of it and shaking, smiling, seemingly unconcerned with the blood, utterly unconcerned with it being unhygenic or any other concerns, just happy that this person seems friendly. It's a pleasure to meet you, her demeanor says clearly.

 

Strange, this girl who becomes flustered and unable to properly function when confronted with normal human situations, but completely disregarding things a normal person, or even a normally abnormal one, would take pause at.

[StormLord]

Spicy HG was at least a little surprised at the girl's choice of action, not that it really bothered her or made a significant difference.

"You seem quiet, is everything alright?"
 

She turned back to Solomon to answer his question quickly.

"Yes, and no it isn't normal where I'm from though...Yeah no I'd don't really feel like getting into it.  So what's your plan with that tainted gold?"

[Yours Truly]

He pointed at Lena and made a zipper closing gesture on his lips before he said, "She is quite literally unable to speak, it apparently has something to do with a long and embarrassing story involving a pact and her being trained to be a killing machine from birth, but anyway." He stood up and slid the one ring he was wearing off of his finger and brought it up to eye level, "I honestly want to know if I can craft something with the gold that will help make my current spells of choice more...debilitating."

[Ragnarok97071]

Lena smiles, ending the handshake and pulling away her hand, producing a cloth from a pocket to wipe away the blood, considering before offering it to Spicy, mostly still clean, nodding along when Solomon states that she's unable to speak, then letting them talk, since they apparently had something specific to talk about.

[StormLord]

Spicy HG takes the cloth and cleans her face and hands with it before returning it.

"Thank you, and let me get this straight.  You had the power and expected responsibility to sunder armies in the name of the greater good forced upon you without any consideration for whether or not you ever wanted it in the first place?"

She shook her head and sighed, then after waiting for a response she looked back to Solomon again.

"I think you're forgetting that aside from presumably hitting people with questionable materials barely considerable as 'books' I don't actually know what you in a fight."

She reaches over to his throne and pulls out a choice book as she speaks to exemplify her point.

[Powder Miner]

"It's..." After that one, hesitant word, Navin trailed off into silence, and he took a few moments to formulate what precisely he was trying to put together into a sentence. "I..." Still unsatisfied, he frowned, visibly tried to think it through for another couple of seconds, then sighed and slid down the wall into a sitting position. "I suppose I ought to explain a piece of background first. I... do not take taking a life lightly. I don't mean to say that the others do: It's a piece of the superhero community and also of my religion that one ought to avoid killing whenever it is possible... but it is not always possible. Sometimes, when people with mighty powers or inventions are using them to be as deadly as they can, you have to kill them." Navin took a deep breath here, to steady himself. "...and sometimes there are wars." The weight on that phrase was emphasized by the brief silence that followed it.

 

"I... I need to place myself into a certain mindset to make myself do these sorts of things, to kill. It... it is hard to explain this precisely." Navin fidgeted and wrung his hands as he tried to come up with a way to follow up on that. "It... I have this war mindset, is what I might call it. When I go into it... augh. I... I have said before that I am not very good at communicating these things and..." Navin choked up here, as he had to work to fight off the memories buried deep inside the very thing he was trying to speak about. "This... this is all very deeply rooted in something that is very painful to explain, and I would have to take up your time to do so. It... I know I did the equivalent for you, but... well, unless you are sure you want to hear my burdens, considering the ones you already have, then I might have to leave it at that."

[Yours Truly]

44 minutes ago, StormLord said:

Spicy HG takes the cloth and cleans her face and hands with it before returning it.

"Thank you, and let me get this straight.  You had the power and expected responsibility to sunder armies in the name of the greater good forced upon you without any consideration for whether or not you ever wanted it in the first place?"

She shook her head and sighed, then after waiting for a response she looked back to Solomon again.

"I think you're forgetting that aside from presumably hitting people with questionable materials barely considerable as 'books' I don't actually know what you do in a fight."

She reaches over to his throne and pulls out a choice book as she speaks to exemplify her point.

Solomon's eyes lingered on the copy of "Tempations of a Turncoat Tank Operator" that Spicy held in her hand for about a second before he swiftly clapped his hands together and banished it back to the WW2 themed library it came from. "I used to just throw ever increasing amounts of books at people while cursing at their general direction until they stopped moving, but now I am focusing on cursing people more...since I realized that I could put in a lot less effort and achieve the same result by just distracting someone with debilitating curses and then letting the 10 or so other guys on the party fuck him up for me. It seems like it would be a lot easier on the wrists anyway."

[Ragnarok97071]

Lena nods, confirming that Spicy's statement is, in fact, true. There isn't any resentment in it, no opinion at all, really. It just was. That was what she did. She was a weapon, no more, no less. It was as much what she was as being a goddess is what Spicy was.

 

She still stays mostly in the background, letting them have their talk about important things, more important than her past, at least.

[StormLord]

"Well maybe I should tag along while you're working on it.  I know a few curses of my own and I can always deal with it if the gold decides to burst into flames again."

She paused for a second, obviously thinking about something.

"Have either of you seen Mitsurugi?  I should talk to her some time before the next battle."
 

[Yours Truly]

Solomon looked thoughtfully at Spicy for a moment as he thought back to the last time he met Mitsu, and after a moment had passed he shrugged his shoulders and said, "No I haven't seen her since the last time we met actually, so I am not really sure where she is right now....also yes any help would be appreciated."

[Ragnarok97071]

Oh, good, they've moved on to more important things again. Lena smiles, taking a small step back while they have their conversation.

[Yours Truly]

Solomon's expression suddenly turned as he turned around to quickly gesture at Lena after he realized that, "Oh and by the way her name is Lena, I was actually waiting for her to say her name to you for a bit there; you can see how dumb of a plan that was." He then straightened out his shirt a little bit as he placed his ring on a recently manifested bowl shaped floating platform made of metallurgical manuals and moved slightly closer to Spicy, "But yes about those curses...what can you do with them?".

[Hal Henderics]

"FREE MONSTER CREATURES FOR SALE!"  The snake Woman shouts at the top of her lungs, slithering around carrying strange statues shaped like grotesque little monsters.

 

It seems after helping Atton with his troubles, she's seen fit to loiter around and make a nuisance of herself.  The Stone Squirrel from before follows behind her silently.

[StormLord]

Spicy HG took a few seconds to think before responding to Solomon.

"I'll have to find her later then.  As for the curses, I do what anyone else does, ruin people's days with them.  On a more serious note, I think we should enchant the ring or bangle or whatever the gold ends up as with something that either makes your weapon apply a curse or improves your ability to apply curses over all."

[Ragnarok97071]

Lena nods along at Solomon telling Spicy her name, smiling in affirmation that that was, in fact. her name. And then there's a voice behind her screaming about monsters. She turns, weight dropping a little, before realizing it's just the snake-lady from before with... statues? Were those Gi... no, too small. Also not quite ugly enough. Still *really* ugly though. She glances back at the two that she'd been with, making sure they're still both in their conversation, before turning fully to face the woman, edging closer, looking at the little statues, obviously wondering what they are, why she'd referred to them as 'monsters' instead of 'statues', and several other things.

[Hal Henderics]

"I made these little critters through alchemy, but they aren't that useful to me, if you are curious"  The woman says, slinking to full height as she shows off the cold frozen visages of the monsters.

 

"I had to turn em to stone, to prevent any... Problems.  They should be safe now though.  As safe as a rabid little tooth filled monster can be."  she giggles, her one eye forming the centerpiece of a smug look.

[Yours Truly]

Solomon was just about to reply to Spicy's question when Dackly shouted something about her having some 'free monsters for sale', and after he waited a few moments for her to explain herself a bit further he gave the woman an odd look before he said, "What kind of problems could they possibly have that the person who basically has a use and solution for almost everything can't find a way to fix them or make use of them?". 

[Chevaleresse]

Mitsurugi thought for a moment, the slightly puzzled expression remaining on her face. Navin was troubled by the killing he had to do. Not a strange concept, in and of itself, but one she'd always had difficulty relating to. She was a guardian spirit, and a governor of nature's wrath; killing was simply something that had to be done, on occasion. It was a part of her function, a part of who and what she fundamentally was, in a way. It was difficult for her to place herself in the shoes of a man who seemed so bothered by it. Still, it would be unbecoming of her to reject the attempt entirely, especially since Mhasalkar had already done his best to comfort her. "Please, tell me. If you believe it will be helpful for you, anyway; I would not want to put you through such pain for no reason."

[Hal Henderics]

"They're a bit too spicy for me.  My scrapbook holds better records than my memories do."

 

"Squigs.  Horrid little creatures.  They are a type of Orkoid creature, which, upon death, spreads spores everywhere, and outside of that, reproduces like mad, adapting to fill every biological niche and overwhelming a biosphere in a short period of time."

 

"Their adaptive abilities are useful, but even after sterilizing them, I hesitate to release them anywhere without a quarantine."

 

"The only way to clean an ork infestation out leaves a glass marble in place of a planet."  She says seriously, flipping through her scrapbook.

[Ragnarok97071]

Lena's expression mirrored Solomon's questions, though she didn't know quite enough to actually have a reason for wanting to know about these problems. She just wanted to know what they were, because problems could sometimes also be opportunities, or should be solved in as expedient a manner as possible in order to avoid them becoming bigger problems, and... what were those things, anyway?

 

Then she gets her answers. Orkoid? Spores? Infestation? Glass... oh my. They sounded useful, but... that would require... hmm...

 

She raises her hand, trying to get the woman's attention, before beginning to fervently write something down on her little notepad, eventually coming to the end of it and showing it to her.

 

Quote

You require a location which is both isolated, secure, and able to both prevent spread of these creatures outside of itself, as well as able to be easily erased if necessary to keep a containment breach from spreading, right?

 

I am in possession of a Transspatial Geographical Habitation Sphere, or Geosphere for short. This is an item that creates and maintains a discreet dimensional pocket that can contain buildings, constructs, and other, similar things. It also currently does not have an ecology, really, just grass and a single building, so if necessary it could be hard-reset without too much trouble or loss. If you would like, I can work with someone with the right skills to attempt to construct some sort of farm for them there, if they would be useful.

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Ragnarok97071

[Hal Henderics]

"Is that so?  Well then it is nothing less than my responsibility to gift you these creatures."

Someone skilled in cold reading, or even dabbling would note the Pure unadulterated gleam of greed that briefly overcomes Dackly's face.

 

"At your command, dear, I can infuse these statues with my Loving Gaze, which will both soften them up and negate my Petrification."

 

Dackly says with a bow as her tail shuffles the statues over to Lena.

[Yours Truly]

Solomon decided to leave Dackly and Lena on their own by saying, "Well I sincerely hope that the two of you have fun whatever the two of you are planning, and that said plan won't blow over to this world and cause us to have to handle a fledgling ork invasion on top of everything else." Before he turned back to Spicy and said, "In all honesty I think that with the amount of curses I am already throwing around the place, we would be much better off with going with that second option of yours....although." He looked around the place a bit before he continued with, "We could probably look for Mitsu first before we start to forge anything, I am not in any particular hurry."

[StormLord]

Spicy HG listen to and watched the exchange between Dackly and Lena, only interrupting at the end with a short wave and saying:

"I should be around if you happen to need anything cleansed with holy fires, such as a horde of uncontrollable world-eating monsters.  Those are my favorite."

She turned yet again back to Solomon to continue their conversation.

"Hmm.  Well as much as I'd like to go find her(and no offense) I need to talk to her in relative private, and I get the feeling wherever she is she isn't alone.  Anyway, back to the curse item.  I we should at least be able to get the physical part done fairly quickly, though we should probably move to the armory before trying to melt down any metal."