[IC] TotM:DC "Terraria: A fresh start"

[Powder Miner]

So that was it -- Jun had come slinking on back because she needed something. Of course. Now, unfortunately, Satomi really couldn't justify completely ignoring the request without it being an abrogation of her Duty: Jun was an ally, and she was also helping prepare for the invasions of the Trespassers, and thusly working on her armor was in fact something she had to do to advance the cause. But one thing Satomi could do was make Jun's life a bit more difficult than she otherwise would have. So Satomi fixed Jun with another brutally cold look, and spoke. "Hmmph... I am busy with a great deal of other things right now, Jun. I have the walls to build, I have the siege weaponry to build, I have whichever other upgrades and fixes I may decide to perform... so I will work on your armor, but only after I am done with everything else."

[Projeck]

After seemingly being ignored, Calvera sighs. Perhaps Satomi was too wrapped up in her mind, she was busy after all, with the wall. She thought of who else was handing with making things, and one particular person came to mind, who she hadn't had much time to talk to besides one moment. She jogged off, eventually finding Leo. She gave a wave, but didn't speak up yet as she noticed Kusuke, which caused her to physically tense up, and make her steps more calibrated and cautious. The look of discomfort was evident on her face to anyone who cared to study it for a moment, eventually stopping a few feet away from the two, keeping her hands in her pockets.

[Yours Truly]

Jun nodded in response to Satomi's statement before she politely said, "I understand, making sure that this village has the defenses it needs to survive the siege is a lot more important than adding additional plating on my suit of armor. Also if you can't get Leo to help you out you should try asking Arminius or Lucille for help, as while the two of them presumably can't swing a pick worth a damn they can presumably order their minion to help or design some form of biological stone carving monster. That and you might want to ask Calvera if she can exert her own gravitational field if you needed any help with lifting the stones back to the wall."

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke . . . more or less ignored Calvera's presence; he was focused on something else, after all. He wasn't exactly bothered by her presence, he just didn't want her within a mile if they were fighting anything until she learned that you had to be careful with ranged attacks into close quarters.

Quote

 

Int check: 17 vs 20,
Quality: 55,
Random Blitz: 30,

Kusske checks the ingot over before accelerating it forward, he doesn't notice anything amiss.
The only notable changes after he throws it forward are a slight increase in glow and the occasional flicker inside.

 

"Well, that was less awful than I expected. Should I be noting anything in particular here, or. . .?"

[Endlessblaze]

"That looks good to me."
Leo turns back to the shop and calls in 

"Hey toshiro, come out here and see if this looks fine"

[Powder Miner]

Satomi wasn't too sure what Jun meant by "gravitational field", and she wasn't exactly going to be going to see Arminius if she could help it (much like Jun, who had unfortunately approached her...) and she didn't fancy the idea of creating a mining oni. So she could happily reject Jun's advice on this one, something of which Jun's only indication would be a small smug curling upwards of her lips. "Well, now that you have been informed, I have other things I need to do," that they would let her escape Jun was only a nice bonus, "and I must go now to do them."

 

Satomi stood up, leaving the towel she had been using earlier on a spot on the bench, straightened her gear up, and then she began to take a walk around the village in hopes of both ditching Jun and finding the two people she was currently interested in acquiring aid from. She ended up finding them, too, seeing them a distance away from the shop of the blacksmith, and she approached the two of them, walking not quite right up to them, as they were working on something, but close enough to be seen clearly. "Kusuke-san, Leo, when you are done with that, I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me mine for stone for the southern wall."

[Sutoratosu]

On 4/4/2018 at 6:26 PM, kj1225 said:

Arminius has to think on that for a while.

"We don't interbreed actually outside of specific circumstances. In fact, used to be aside fron Enchidna couples the children were always the mother's race. Now it's easy to find someone that can make it a 50/50 chance for human or monster though. As for where monsters came from... no clue. They've just always been there."

"... I see. Interesting." It was all she had to say as the circle fired up. Zoidberg tossed the blood into the boundary, and she immediately went to work...

Spoiler

Int craft: 10 vs 15,
Quality: 22,
Random Blitz: 35,

Lucille....isn't quite sure why this plant keeps doing this.  She can't get the flowers to bloom, much less the oils into the pollen in a high enough concentration to be effective.  On top of that it isn't so much a vine and a dense nettle-like plant that grows about four feet tall in bushes, at least it grows fast.  While the plant's needles are small and easily broken it has thick waxy leaves and a sappy stalk, when either are broken they release the goblin-specific toxin.
Due to a lack of safe test subjects and the otherwise difficult to create plant, she isn't sure what the exact effects of the toxin will be, just that it will probably be non-lethal, hindering, and it won't effect anything but goblins.

...to say she was scowling by the end of it was an understatement. Not at all what she'd been shooting for. What use was this going to be? They needed something that could easily desiminate the toxin into the air at key positions, not some piss ant little pine bush that only unleashed it's payload when the bristles were bro-

     "Calm down..." She mutters to herself. She didn't know where the surge of anger came from, felt familiar though. As if whatever part of her had been guiding these creations by instinct lately had lashed out in outrage over such a failure. In all honesty though, she still wasn't entirely sure this thing was a separate entity also hitching a ride. But just now it had certainly felt like it's rage had been hers.

 

She took a moment to take stock of the situation. It was useless in it's current form yes, but perhaps if she could... make it grow large enough, push the envelope beyond 4 ft, make the bushes thicker at their apex... it could at least be used to hinder the Goblins during their march. Force them to either go through or around them, and well... the latter wasted time. The former... she wasn't sure what the former would do. But it would do something to them. 

    She recalled last night's dream. Thinking back to how the other girl's cells had called out to her, she focused, trying to hear a similar resonance. Soon enough she found it, and reached out to adjust it ever so slightly...

Spoiler

Int craft: 13 vs 12,
Quality: 15,

 

Spread Blight:  By making an Ess check Lucille has the ability to cause rapid minor damage to the cells of certain sections of a plant's biology.  Damage done in this way is extremely likely to develop into "Plant Cancer", eventually becoming a larger overgrown tumorous welt.  The tumor continues to grow even if it wouldn't normally, is supernaturally tough, and depending on position may cause extreme damage to the plant or drain all of its resources(during a drought for example.).

No. NO. She realizes almost too late what she's doing as the thing begins to form a welt on part of its branches, alarm bells screaming from deep inside her to stop this before it becomes an even greater fiasco. Reluctantly, she listens, letting the call of the cells fade away as the ambiance returns. The welt is still small, and luckily, on a relatively minor portion of the plant. With a quick utterance, a blade of sound safely removes the offending peice, casting it into the river. She thinks it's fine, but an idea pops into her mind:

 

What if they had been her, all over again? What if the dream had gone precisely as the first time? It she could do something as complex as right the defects that caused that girl's own body to attack itself, why was something as simple as this beyond her reach?

 

     "..." She's not scowling anymore. Arminius can see it. The look on her face goes beyond mere anger, to an emotion almost primal in it's ferocity. The silver of her irises has changed to draconic, emerald slits that burn with the light of a small sun, though they still lack pupils. Her canines and nails are far more pronounced as she shakes her head, muttering something in a language the red headed man cannot possibly understand. The very air itself seems to ripple at her words though. 

 

It only lasts for about a minute though, before she takes the failed experiment and begins to head back to the village. Arminius manages to catch her eyes return to normal as she passes him by. The ripple fades as she speaks

 

"I have work to do."

 

And like that, she leaves the area. Her beast stare at each other in confusion, but eventually they too follow suit. The only one left is Do, and soon enough he lands and lets Finger's off beside the man.

 

The next moment he takes off again, following his master and the others.

***************************

By the time the sun sits at it's highest point, Lucille has constructed another circle, on the outskirts of the village. It's already blazing with it's pearly light, and her mind works furiously as she sorts out one genetic defect after another. How so many things went wrong, she does not know. But it disgusts her nonetheless, more than she thought a simple failure could, more than she thought it should honestly. But that part of her was still there, still pushing. Whenever she began to slack, to think that maybe it was good enough, the drive came anew. More fuck ups highlighted, more glaring than the last. And the cycle of disgust, furious work, and petering out would begin again. 

     For hours, she stayed like that. Untl finally, the last cycle began to wind down, and this time she didn't feel as though she wanted to shred the pissant creation. For her troubles, she'd gotten a nice a tension headache, a pulse that even now would not die down, and a specimen that would actually work for her purposes:

Spoiler

StormLord - Today at 7:01 PM
Crafting: 18 vs 9,
Quality: 47,

 

Lucille manages to reprogram the nettle into a vine, though it retains the waxy leaves and stalk the oil is also laced into its pollen(oily mist).  Though she still can't exactly test the effects of the oil she is far more confident that it will work as intended.

 

Tentatively, she tries to reach out again... this time she listens closer, pays more attention to the subtle differences between plant and animal cells that had, as far as she could tell, been the main cause of... that literal cancer inducement hours ago. She feels something stir. Something grow impatient. It does not have more hours to spend on this. It does not feel this project should've taken hours to begin with. And it seizes her hand mentally and guides it through the process as if Lucille were nothing but a toddler before it. And perhaps in some ways, she was, given...

Spoiler

Training: 20 vs 6,

Quality: 54,

 

Chlorokinesis(Trick)- (fluff pending): [By focusing her inherent power and making an Ess check, Lucille can control plant life within her vicinity. The effects of this control can range from accelerating or hindering it's growth rate, causing them to bear fruit/seeds ahead of time or wither, using the plants to lash out at or otherwise hinder targets, etc. The difficulty of this check is based on the magnitude of the specific effect and how many plants she is attempting to control at once]

 

Works as intended.
 

within just minutes, she manages to make the vine lash out at empty air, coiling and writhing like a snake agitated. Within several more, she manages to extend and decrease its length by amplifying the rate of growth or stunting it and causing the necessary number of cells to die off and their components be cannibalized by those that remain. She releases her hold after only 5 minutes. The vine becomes inert once more.

...

...

But the lingering thrum of energy at her finger tips feels as alien as ever.

[kj1225]

Arminius blinks before going to get his clothes on. That was fucking creepy and he had work to do, so he started back to the village at a notably slow pace. When he got there, he looked for the Dryad and found the plant woman easily. 

"Hey, I'm here for that camouflage I was asking about. You got time to make it?"

[Aurorix]

"Oh the ingot is heated up already? That was fast." Toshiro spoke impressed at it's speediness. He head over to the ingot and inspected it. Yea, the thing is most likely liquid now judging by what he can see through the ice.  "Yea, from what I can tell it's about ready."

[Chevaleresse]

"I suppose I could help. I don't suppose you've got a machine or something to do it?" Kusuke tried to think for a moment. Satomi was probably from an era where they quarried stone by hand. . . and Kusuke wasn't an expert on mining technology. There had to be some easier way to do it, though. "Has anyone told you what a jackhammer is yet?"

[Endlessblaze]

"Thank kusuke, he used his powers to accelerate it by a few hours, without him, we would still be waiting."
Leo turns to satomi and waves.
"Ill whip up some mineing golems soon. I might join you."

[Powder Miner]

Satomi turned and gave Leo a quick little half-bow of thanks, and then turned to Kusuke, because what he had said had fully captured the technology-loving girl's attention... in fact, in what was practically an instant, she had suddenly whipped out her notebook and walked several steps until she was now only a few feet from him. "A jackhammer? No, I have not heard of it. Ooh, but if you have knowledge of some other new technology I can learn, please tell me all you know about it. There are so many things to learn about here in this world. Concrete, this "solenoid" that I still need to work with when I actually have the time, and now this "jackhammer" thing?" Satomi was openly grinning. "Well, this is the best part about being out here in all of these strange worlds!"

[Chevaleresse]

Satomi's rather quick approach was almost startling. Not that surprising, really, given her obsession with technology, but he'd just been thinking he might've come off as condescending. Evidently not. "A jackhammer is basically a combination of a chisel and a hammer. A mechanism on the inside moves it up and down with enough power to break up rock and concrete. They use them when they need to clear roads or get through stone for whatever reason, and I'd think they'd probably use them for mining, too. There's probably different kinds, too."

[Aurorix]

"Alright people, lets get to work!" He turns back Kusuke,  "I suggest you stand back, this might get a little dicey." With that he got over the forge and waited for Leo to open up the ingot so he can begin his work.

 

Crafting music

 

 

 

Leo sets the ingot on the anvil, he and Toshiro get into position with Jun and Kusuke standing to the side watching.  Leo raises a shield of Thran metal mana(-4) and pulls back the Eternal Ice casing from the ingot causing it to ooze slowly forward like hot taffy.
The first volley of energy blasts forth, even causing the mana to ripple in places for it’s thrown back and dissipates.  The second volley comes after a brief and eerie silence, this time instead of a series of small blasts it releases a single bolt that pushes Leo’s barrier back some, yet it holds.
After another two seconds of calm Leo pulls the remaining Eternal Ice away and Toshiro starts striking.

Str check: 8 vs 6,

The metal is hard and difficult to work this quickly, but Toshiro manages.  Within the first 30 seconds he’s already got the ingot stretched to half the needed length.

Luck: 86,

It’s retaining the heat surprisingly well, meaning Toshiro has slightly longer to work before reheating is needed.


Random Blitz: 11,

The ingot pulses again sending out another bolt of energy.  However instead of striking Leo’s barrier it swings wide and slams into the nearest available target: Jun.
In less than a second Jun is reduced to a twitching, contorting pile on the ground before Kusuke can rewind her and it’s gone as quick as it came.
Over all check: 16 vs 9,
Quality: 90,

Another minute or two of hammering and the occasional energy blast bouncing off Leo’s barrier and Toshiro has something that could only be identified as a Rapier.  Unfortunately all of the metal from the heated ingot save a small nub from the end was used to create the weapon.  Perhaps something else could be used for the guard?

Random Blitz: 45,

As Toshiro finishes up and looks over the blade one last time before handing it off to Leo to make a guard he’s hit with a vision.
He or someone else is standing over a dark alter, holding this weapon, a glowing blade of light(not unlike Jun’s current weapon), a white blade of ice, and a blade of wind and lightning.
He comes to having nearly fallen over inspecting the blade.

Needle of Agony:
Deals 4d6+[Dex] dark damage to a single target.  The target suffers 1/4 the damage dealt in stacks of “Agony”.  If the number of Agony stacks they posses exceeds their current HP they become incapacitated/die.  Agony stacks are cleared from active targets at the end of each round.
 

 

 

After Toshiro handed off the blade he stared blankly into the blade as the vision came to him.  "Dark Alter... Dark Blade... Blade of Ice... Blade of Light... Blade of Wind and Lightning...." The fishman spoke out loud, emotionless and like a robot. When he came to he shook his head. It was clear to him what was going on, this wasn't just some imagination trip.  "I-I just had a vision. A vision where someone stood in-front of a dark alter with a bunch of different blades." 

[Yours Truly]

Jun took a short walk around the perimeter of the city after Satomi rather abruptly finished their conversation, and she walked back to the forge soon afterwards to check up on how Leo and Toshiro were doing, and possibly invite the both of them to a short jaunt over to the bus and the islands in the skies. She literally took one step inside of the smithery and got all the way to opening her mouth and saying, "So how is it-" before a bolt of agonizing black lighting struck her and left her flopping on the ground like a fish while saying 'GHGRFHALBLRBRGHLL' for the few moments it took for Kusuke to recall her to a time where she wasn't involuntarily doing the worm. She quickly dusted off her cloak out of a force of habit before she thanked Kusuke with a quick, "Thank you for that." Before she turned around to face the two crafters doing their work before she slowly walked back a couple of steps out of the smithery while she said "Well I guess I'll leave the two of you to it then! I'll uhh....go out and meet Tattletale for now then."

She then quickly turned around and ran the fuck away from the smithery to get food from the inn before she headed off to hunt down the one person who could presumably make finding a sky island a trivial matter.

[Powder Miner]

Before all that had gone down had gone down, Satomi had been pressing Kusuke for details on what exactly a jackhammer was. "Okay, so I now understand the purpose of a jackhammer, it is essentially a rapid-fire device for applied force to a small area, if I am understanding you correctly, which does sound effective for breaking hard, cleavable substances, but what about its mechanism? How does a jackhammer wor..." Amazingly enough, something managed to distract the orange-haired engineer from her technology-inspired fervor, and she trailed off... it looked like they were doing smithing work right now!

What began as somewhat excited intrigue, though, very quickly devolved into something else. The catalyst was the blasts of black energy that emanated from the metal Leo and Toshiro were working. First, she watched the small blasts of energy, and the smile started to die from her face. Then, she watched the ingot seem to reformulate its tactics (something she deeply hoped she was just imagining) before hammering into the barrier that had been set up. By then, the smile was very wholly dead. Then she watched Jun walk in, very promptly be slammed by a strike of the black magic, and collapse into a loudly gurgling pile. The look in her eyes, then had become fierce, a sharp edge now making up the core to her gaze as she pondered the situation while Kusuke took care of Jun. Satomi did not like Jun, but this was a sign of something potentially very, very bad.

 

When the golem-maker and the fishman samurai finished their craft, Satomi looked at them and began to speak. Her expression was dead serious, mouth a tight line, and also wholly unnervingly intense, nearly unblinking as she stared the two craftsmen down. There was something dangerous in those eyes of hers, right now, analysis of threat and a capacity to do something, and the Crab Clan samurai's voice was appropriately low, hard-edged, and intense as she spoke. "Leo. Toshiro. Just what did you just create that sword with? Just what have you involved yourselves with?"

[Endlessblaze]

"Some alloy Toshiro made. Fires off bolts of energy that cause pain, and can potentially kill cells if struck hard enough, or if magic is applied."

If Leo notices satomi's anger he dosent show it. instead focusing on the blade. He test the alloy with the wyvern bone.

Spoiler

Thaum > Death Wyvern Bone > Tainted Alloy Ingot(14 vs 3): This mana type takes the form of a black cloud of mist/fog that causes severe pain to anything that steps inside and is capable of feeling pain.

 

Thaum > Tainted Alloy Ingot > Death Wyvern Bone(4 vs 18): This mana type takes the form of a quickly moving blast of energy.  Anything infused with Life mana that it touches quickly evaporates into dark energy as the mana is used up.  Things not infused with Life mana absorb the dark energy to no effect.

 

"These should be useful..."

Picking up a random branch and the wyvern bone leo mutters some words, and they reshapes themselves. the wood cast off its bark, and wraps around part of the rod of bone to form a smooth wooden grip. Bearing both a button and a switch.  The bone binds to the blade and spreads out as a forward curving guard.

"That looks good"

He holds the weapon up into the light and examines it. the shifting color of the blade. the way it gleamed while sucking away the light.

More words, and the bone and wood start to glow

He will need to give it a test, but this should work.

 

Spoiler

Needle of Agony:
Deals 4d6+[Dex] dark damage to a single target.  The target suffers 1/4 the damage dealt in stacks of “Agony”.  If the number of Agony stacks they posses exceeds their current HP they become incapacitated/die.  Agony stacks are cleared from active targets at the end of each round.
Level 2(craft): Once per combat as a free action the user may fire a bolt of dark energy that deals 2d6 points of dark damage and inflicts half as many Agony stacks.
Level 3(craft): The user can as an action create a dark cloud of mist that is roughly 6x6x6 and inflicts 2d6 Agony stacks to any enemies that passes through it, cooldown = 5.

 

 

Snow decides to ask a question.

"Hey toshrio, who did you say this weapon was for?"
 

[Yours Truly]

It did not take long for Jun to obtain a sandwich from the inn, for obvious reasons that are related to how easily prepared they are and how much money she was willing to give to the innkeeper (as in, she was actually willing to pay for it). It took quite a bit more time for her to reach the bus itself, and she was quite surprised by how peaceful and quiet the trip over there was....almost a little bit too quiet, but she soon found out that her paranoia was unwarranted as she just...walked up to the bus and entered through the door the way a normal person would have. Although granted, a normal person wouldn't have practically materialized in thin air in front of the door before they opened it.

 

Tattletale turned slightly in her seat to greet Jun with an obviously sarcastic, "And what did you wanted to find out this time?," causing the LED's on Jun's face to light up in the form a warm smile as she hands the other woman some fresh food; before she sits down on a nearby chair and says, "Well was it that obvious?." She slowly takes off her helmet to let her hair breathe a little bit before she smiled at Tattletale again and asked, "I mean I did promise that I would check up on you every day right?," she then coughed before she went on to say, "But anyway I also came here because I wanted to ask, do you....know where a floating island would be located? The Dryad who prophesied our coming said that they would hold some artifacts that would be of interest, and I happen to know two other people who would be very interested in reaching one, and do you happen to know if the meteorite shower would bring anything of value with it? And if one would fall close enough to the village to be something we should worry about?".

 

Tattletale takes the food and thanks Jun quickly before she listenedto the woman's questions. "Well you're in luck. There is a group of several floating islands directly above the village right now. I'm not actually sure on the meteorites though, it seems to depend on how many 'powerful creatures' are defeated between now and then. Make of that what you will. Also I wouldn't suggest getting to close to that other ship, the kid who landed it brought a trained sniper with him to guard it and I really don't want to hike all the way up that hill to tell them about your dead body." She opened up the bag and pulled out the sandwich. "Oh, sliced goat, nice."

 

Jun nods in affirmation after she heard Tattletale's replies, and she spent a few moments to just..watch the other woman eat the sandwich as she tried to think of absolutely anything else she could ask, "Well thank you for your help and the warning then, but anyway you don't happen to... know if anything particularly wrong is going to happen with a certain rapier that is currently being crafted in the town right? Just curious. And uhh...do you have any particular requests for tomorrow? I am pretty sure that they have something other than slide goat and sausages in that Inn"

 

Tattletale looked up from her lunch for a few moments as she pondered the answer to Jun's question, and she shook her head a bit as she said, "Nothing off the top of my head though..." a slight wince is present on her face for but a moment before she quickly continued with, "oh that one's going to give me a headache. Yeah I'm leaving it alone." The sarcasm was audible in Jun's voice when she replied with, "Well that's certainly encouraging," and she slowly put her helmet back on as she continued with a hopefully encouraging, "But anyway I'll be back here soon with everyone I could muster for a trip to the floating islands, and I'll try and get someone to make a way to talk over long distances somehow just in case one of the few monsters that can break into the bus gets a little bit too close for comfort. But until then you should just...keep doing whatever it was you have been doing to survive out here. Take care."

She then slowly got up, and walked towards the exit before she ran towards the direction of the town as quickly as possible, and she idly waves at the general direction of Lucille and her pets as she passed them.

[Aurorix]

"Someone requested I make a sword with some metal so I am making a sword, nothing more nothing less." The fishman spoke bluntly cleaning up the forge after making he blade. He could tell the gal was getting serious so he shouldn't be anything less.  "As for who asked me to make it, it was Jun. She is an ally is she not, I haven't seen or heard anything about her to insinuate otherwise."

[Powder Miner]

Satomi watched as Leo casually added bone to the sword, bone which molded itself around the handle, and then she watched as he further added magic into the whole mix of it, observing how the blade Leo was handling seemed to darken the very area around it, and her expression managed to harden even further.

 

Satomi’s voice dropped to something close to a snarl. ”That magic... blasts of pain and force, if what happened during its creation is any indication. The way that blade steals the light, the way that bone glows, that is not the result of simple metallurgy. Where has that power come from? What is in that blade? Would it happen to be the taint?”

[Endlessblaze]

"Well, the bone glowing is just because I enchanted it, but if by 'Taint' your referring to the crimson and corruption. Then yes. The metal is an alloy of the two that came from the giant eye. Unless there was anything more in the mix"
Leo turns to toshrio, seeming to just be curious. He could hear the edge in satomi's voice but he saw no reason to be anything but calm. 
"....Was there any thing else in the mix?"

 

 

[Sutoratosu]

Sometimes, one knows from the tension in the room that they should just... leave. Before things escalated any further.

 

Sometimes, one could just sense the fury, spite, or simple exasperation practically radiating off another person so strongly that it was if they were choking.

 

Well, as Lucille found it, that was relatively hard to do, when the same prescence making you feel as if you'd best leave before you die, was inside of your own head. Even though the initial disdain had since faded, the traces were still there. Partially from her own frustration of having taken this long to get it right, but mostly from the part of herself she could still feel stir on occasion, much like a dragon that had just awakened from millennia of slumber. Still, whether she could escape the source of the feeling or not, she wanted something to take her mind off the matter. For a while at least. 

     She found the perfect excuse in her beasts. As had been proven already from the engagements they'd been in... not all of them were as useful in this particular scenario as another. Do had raw ferocity, strength, and his breath on his side. Brachus was a boon to restoring wounds. Zoidberg was literally a peice of living armor, and Vera... well she couldn't fight at all, but she was useful for reconnaissance and relaying messages. 

 

That left two who had been rather... lacking during this expedition. Astra, and the Chameleon. The little Dragon... she had great potential, yes, massive. Easily greater than all of the other's put together. But she'd need time to grow into it. A very...very long time. And with the coming battle, well... Lucille felt it was perhaps best if she stay somewhere safer, when it came. The Chameleon though... he could fight just fine, and get away if necessary, but... she needed a bit of time away from the constant reminder of Soma.

    And so it was that the girl and her cabal found themselves deftly picking their way through the woods back towards the bus. They passed Jun on the way, and though the woman waved, Lucille either did not register the gesture (for obvious reasons by this point) or simply did not care. Astra and Brachus were much more friendlier, at least acknowledging the woman with a growl as they passed. 

 

They found the vessel still there, unmolested. As she entered, someone saw fit to wave at her for the second time in less than that many hours. She simply starred blankly at Tattletale for an awkward moment, eyes not seeing anything, before finally explaining things. It seemed the crewmate had no problem taking the Dragon and Chameleon off her hands for a while, though she did bring up a valid point about food for them later. Up till now, Lucille had simply let them go out and hunt for their own meals, though with the rampant amount of bizarre creatures- living and dead alike -running about the place, and the fact she wouldn't be directly bound to and monitoring them... Tattletale brought up a decent point. 

    In the end, Lucille figured she could get some food from the tavern and bring it to them later that evening. After making a mental note to get the crewmate another Goat-sandwich, she left the clearing and headed back to town...

 

Lucille deposits Astra and the Chameleon into minion crew slots onboard the bus! She regains 4 bonds!

((The Minion Crew section can now be found on the "Ship" page of the master sheet, for those curious))

 

The dragon still stirred. She couldn't ignore it for long, she knew it. It had to awaken soon, and even now she felt like she briefly lost parts of her own cognition when its rumblings grew particularly loud. Lost some, and felt that of another trickle in, in their place. 

 

But just what, pray tell, awaited when time was up? She didn't know. And part of her didn't want to know. 

 

...but that was only the part that had taken to being mortal. 

[Aurorix]

"Jun told me to add her Katana's blade into the alloy. I don't know what kinda metal it was but it was no ordinary iron." Toshiro answered with a shrug.

[Powder Miner]

The words that Leo had allowed to leave his lips filtered through Satomi's ears, and her eyes widened as she processed what he had just said. She ventured forth a few words: "You mean to tell me..." Her voice began to escalate at this point, the hard edge turning into more overt anger phrase by phrase. "...that you took one type of pure all-corrupting evil, one of the things that has plagued this entire world and which they had to fight to cripple, took the other type of the pure all-corrupting evil that a war was fought to dislodge lest it TAKE OVER THE WORLD, and then YOU PUT THEM TOGETHER?!

 

Her voice was volcanic now -- she was practically screaming at the top of her lungs at Leo and Toshiro. Her voice was relatively high pitched, but with the ragged edge that comes with screaming outragedly at the top of your lungs. "AND THEN YOU TOOK THE ALLOY THAT RESULTED FROM PUTTING TOGETHER THE TWO KINDS OF PURE EVIL, AND YOU REFINED IT EVEN AS IT SHOT BLASTS OF PAINFUL MAGIC AT YOU, AND WHICH WAS IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING DIFFERENT TACTICS JUST SO IT COULD UNLOAD ITS PURE MALICE ON YOU, IN OTHER WORDS A POWER WHICH MAY WELL BE INTELLIGENT AND WHICH DID HIT ONE OF US," even if it was Jun, "AND YOU MADE IT INTO A WEAPON SO THAT YOU CAN CARRY IT TO MANY DIFFERENT WORLDS?!" She goggled at them for a moment, and then followed that up with a: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

 

She stared at them for a couple more moments, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath back, and then she spoke again. This wasn't the hard-edged voice from earlier, nor was it anymore the screaming at the top of her lungs. It was a slightly hoarse, barely restrained simmer of anger, where the emotion was fully undisguised and she was just barely managing to keep her volume down. "Had you done that in Rokugan, you would be dead. If you'd been caught doing that with the Taint, they would have killed you on the spot, and they'd have been justified in it. Maybe you don't come from a realm like mine, but I can tell you with the horrible certainty of generations of Clan experience, and thousands upon thousands of deaths that you do not create a foothold for such evil powers, those that explicitly will try to grow from them, because they will TAKE those footholds. They will TAKE them, and they will spread if you EVER give them the chance, and that will result in loss and death and devastation!"

 

Satomi had to stop to take a breath, and swallow, but she continued on. "Not only have you created an artifact of great power from two of these powers, but you clearly intend to actually use it in combat, which I must presume means blasting those energies everywhere. And not only THAT, but you are going to be taking this to worlds which have never seen the Taints of this world, and which have no way to fight it, and you are going to risk giving these evils the ability to SPREAD ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE IN THIS WAY?" Finally, she stopped talking, staring at the two of them, still breathing heavily, with fury and disbelief still written upon her face and in her eyes.

[Endlessblaze]

Leo is leaning back, a hand up in the air.

"Look just calm down. Listen, you do raise a valid point about putting other worlds in danger, BUT, this alloy seems to be LESS corruptive then its component parts. I did some basic testing with the two metals from the eye, And there seemed to be some risk from prolonged exposure. But I dident get that feeling from this alloy. As far as I can tell, its magic only causes pain, and damages a body's cells. Even the additional functions I worked into it don't show signs of corruptive influence. I cant' claim to know what your clan has had to deal with, but this place seems to be Alright despite the presence of these area's AND when i saw the corruption, it was well contained" 

Leo, was internally searching for more information that might calm down the angry girl. But the information he has to work with was limited. He dident really know what her world was like, nor did he fully understand what magic the sunflowers used to hold back the energy of the corruption. Thankfully snow came to his aid. Projecting her avatar as she had a tendency to do.

 

"Look there is an easy way to settle this. Why don't we ask the dryad if the sword constitutes a threat? We can talk to her about how it was made, and what it does, and see what she thinks."
 

Leo nods. Thankful for the suggestion.

"And if she says it might be a threat, THEN we can take action to correct that."