Outside: Grass touch place

[Rebonack]

[Moonstruck]

"A counter- I don't even know what that would mean," the priest replies, utterly baffled by such a concept. "The ritual was just meant to appease, not to bring down wrath on us."

The comment about punching a god in the face sure gets a reaction.

"PHow- How could you speak such blasphamy?" the priest gasps. "The Moon Presence is a god!"

And Sele probably recognizes the feel of this sort of god. The unreality that clings to the land. Of mortal dreams and stories and imagination coagulating into an entity that then demands rituals in return for favor. These transactional relationships are a tell-tale sign of the forces of the Dreamheart at work. Every action reinforces belief.

There's a good chance the god was fading thanks to the village getting new gods and used the power the ritual gave it to try to remind the village of their old contracts.

"Maybe we should just break all this ritual stuff," Catherine muses as she considers how best to break all this ritual stuff. She does, after all, have quite a few options.

"No! That will no doubt just enrage the Moon Presence further! You need to convince the villagers that the old ways have to be honored! If they reject the new gods and submit to the Moon Presence then this terrible curse will surely be lifted!" the priest pleads.

Oh hey, an update!

A mooncalf has appeared and the villagers of Dolftholm fear it is an evil omen. Investigate the sighting and ensure the village isn't lost to the forces of unreality.
> Travel to the village of Dolftholm
> Destroy a mooncalf
> Question the villagers about the strange goings on
> Reach the Shrine in the Old Grotto
>> Destroy the Moon Presence Effigy
OR
>> Convince the villagers to worship the Moon Presence

[Cloud Nine]

Stealing colors to paint with them would be pretty neat. It sounds like the sort of thing particular mischievous pixies might do. Has Nina ever tried stealing someone's colors to paint with them? If not then maybe she should try it some time.

But then she jumps at a door and turns its handle! Thankfully it has a handle. If it had a knob then turning it like this would be much harder but as it is June can just act like she's a cat who has figured out how to leap at handles to open doors.

So the door opens and behind it is-!

A bathroom.

June has found the bathroom the giant was going to.

To be fair, it is a really nice looking bathroom with gold and blue stone flooring and walls. There are some mirrors made of... normal mirror stuff it looks like? And a very large toilet that appears to be made of cloud. The bathroom is very clean and smells like a fresh spring rain, which is probably better than most bathrooms frequented mostly by giant guys smell. These are no doubt very important discoveries.

Even if the giants are evil slavers they keep very clean bathrooms.

Meanwhile!

Dizzy and the giant being hauled behind Dizzy soon make it to the top of the stairs and up onto the tower where all the prisoners are waiting. Dizzy doesn't waste much time going "HUP!" and tossing the giant over the edge of the tower. He goes tumbling end over end down down down and hits the cloud far below and just sort of poofs right through it.

POOF!

Now there are TWO giant-shaped holes in the cloud down there.

Dizzy does that 'brush your hands off against each other' thing. A job well done!

"Yep," Dizzy confirms to the pixie's first question. "Also yep. There's a THE Dragon. It's one of the names of Helel ben Shahar. I'm not sure if he's a REAL dragon or not, though. I think it might be metaphorical?"

Apocalyptic metaphors are tricky like that.

"Don't know about fairies. I've never heard of anyone like you outside stories before. And foxes are definitely real," Dizzy concludes with absolute certainty.

The prisoners, meanwhile, seem ancious. "What are we going to do? How are we going to escape?"

"You guys wait here, I'm going to go 'liberate' a boat," Dizzy says before leaping over the edge of the tower and spreading those BIIIIIIG dragony wings wide.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

Truth be told, Nina has never stolen colors from someone or something. She was only born a short while ago, after all, and hasn't hung around any of the other of her swarms except very briefly, so she hasn't even considered it yet.

June drops down from the handle and holds the door open.

She looks into the bathroom.

It's honestly not what she was expecting. She was expecting some fancy cloud room. Bathrooms aren't even something one would expect to see in some kind of fantastical place like this, and yet here it is. "..."

She lets the door close. At the very least, she knows that this isn't some sort of horror-survival castle bathroom, since horror stories always have extremely dirty bathrooms in the worst condition imaginable.

June moves over to the other nearby door - the one with the blue and gold - and repeats the same process to open it. Run, jump, then push with her legs.


The mirrors in the bathroom crack. The cracks, by pure chance, form a smiling face.


Nina flies up to get a better look at the falling giant.

She laughs at the giant-shaped holes in the cloud. "That looks just like a cartoon!" Once she's had her fill, she returns to Dizzy's shoulder.
"Real dragons are pretty cool. I hope he's a real one." Even though she doesn't have a clue who Helel ben Shahar is.

She makes sure to hold on tight as Dizzy jumps off the tower. "Hey, can I drive the boats when we get to them?" she shouts, still holding tight. Driving a cloud boat sounds pretty fun. (Thing is, they're probably made for giants, not pixies.)

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The one Kothar smashed isn't getting up, but... there's no other destroyed skeletons present, even though the fight has probably been going for a while; most of the caravaners have light injuries, and there's a few in the centre of their crude wagon fort getting treated for more serious injuries.

The skeletons fail to avoid the sweep, and clatter to the floor as their shins are cleaved. The skeleton with the hoe attacks again, rather awkwardly from its prone position on the ground, as the skeleton behind Kothar swings its sword at the lizard knight again.

The plate-clad figure is also approaching, and draws its own sword, a gleaming length of steel that sparks with runes etched into its surface. The two robe-clad figures don't move, staying where they are and observing the fight.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Well that's how things go sometimes. Sometimes pixie swarms break up into smaller subswarms. Sometimes they plant themselves as a mushroom or flower somewhere and grow into a whole field of new pixies! Who knows what would happen if some of them found Venus' glade and decided to be mushrooms there.

So! Some mirrors crack. Obviously that doesn't cause bad luck since that's just a superstition. Breaking the mirror doesn't cause misfortune. It causes spirits to hate you and then they cause misfortune. Obviously.

Anyway June opens the other door. Inside is a supply closet! It's full of things for cleaning (explaining the bathroom) and for torturing prisoners (explaining the messed up peasants). June could probably take some of those things, but they're all giant sized so it might be awkward.

The only path remaining is the flight of stairs going down where sounds of crackling and electrical arcs are coming from. Some mechanical noises, too. Almost like the sort of noises you might expect from machines that bottle things.

Meanwhile!

"I wouldn't know, I've never met one," Dizzy admits to being super lame and having never encountered a real dragon. It's a giant tragedy, to be fair. "But it sounds like I might around here. Assuming I stick around instead of rubber-banding back to where I came from all of a sudden. Hoping the answer there is 'no' since it was kind of a mess back home."

What with the world ending and everything.

Swooping down lower, our heroes will get a better view of the boats!

...they look like boats.

Made of the same fancy materials as everything else up here, including the weirdly solid cloud. They have big propellers on them, wired up to several lighting bottles plugged into the machines. It doesn't look like there are any giants nearby at the moment.

"Unless you can push way above your weight that might be hard," Dizzy points out. "Since these are boats made by giants for giants. Which means all the controls are going to be giant."

Then!

Dizzy lands near one of the boats and looks around.

No giants.

Great.

While Dizzy isn't too worried about a throwdown with one of these oafs the less conflict the better. Dizzy doesn't want to get caught after all since those villagers need to get back home.

[bc56]

Moonstruck
"Absolutely not. I know two gods just off the top of my head who would happily become patrons of a village like this without all the nasty punishments if the sacrifices are on time. I'm not telling the people to go back to the old cruel god that's currently trying to kill them all." Sele draws her sword. "All right Cat. Let's smash this place."

Travelling Trouble
The toppled skeletons are easy to evade, which gives Kothar a chance to turn and smash into the remaining skeleton with his shield, striking with outsized strength. He's not unaware of the approaching dark knight, but his first goal is to eliminate the minions.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

Before right now, nobody would know what would happen if some of them found their way to Venus's place, mostly because it had the potential to be an extremely complicated situation, so they would not to be found anywhere near that place. However, upon reflection, it's actually remarkably simple and will come up the next time someone visits the Church of Venus.

Well,
it figures that there'd be a supply closet.
It just makes sense, after seeing the bathroom.

She takes note of its location, in case she needs to very slowly drag a giant inside a supply closet or she needs to grab some giant torture devices. They're all too heavy to just carry around with no aim, however, so if she needs some huge tools she'll just need to remember to come back here.

She continues, then, and finds her way to the stairs.
It sounds promising. She half-considers going back to the supply closet to bring something that can destroy the machines...but decides carrying something over eight times its normal weight up stairs whose steps are two to three times higher than normal would be a recipe for falling backwards and making a lot of noise.

So she just climbs up.
June feels it's similar to climbing a mountain.

She goes up, following the sounds of machinery, and starts brainstorming ways to break the machine when she gets there.


Meanwhile

"Ha! I've met a dragon," Nina claims, sounding extremely smug and superior. Dizzy may be a giant, but she's a dragonless giant. "More than one, even!"

She does need to correct herself, though. "Well, not me me, I wasn't born back then, but, like, almost me. Not quite me. It wasn't me me who met it, it was June who did, but that's basically the same thing so it still counts. But not you. Might as well call you dragonless for the not-seeing-dragons that you've been doing."
The pixie then spends a few moments trying to define what 'me' is exactly how it technically counts that she's met a dragon.

She sees the boat.
She definitely wants to drive it! She'd be a ship captain, and maybe even a pirate, and everything.
Nina looks back up at the tower where they came from, and wonders if they're going to have to ferry down people to the boat. Or maybe ride the boat up there and tell everyone to get on. "Do you think everyone will fit?" she asks, a little concerned. She doesn't know. Sure, the boat is giant. Bot, to a pixie the size of her, so is everyone else. All the people they rescued were also giants. In fact, they were even closer in size proportionally to the actual giants than to her size.

No!
Enough of the concern. There's more important business, like trying to become the captain of this ship.
She flies off Dizzy's shoulder and lands on the boat. She looks upwards, and declares, "Alright, I'm the captain of this boat now! I'll let you be the navigator and first mate, so it's your responsibility to steer the boat."

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The skeleton is destroyed as Kothar's flaming axe cleaves through its rib cage, and collapses into a pile of bones. Four more skeletons peel off from the melee around the wagon train to approach Kothar, though one is soon felled as a musketball is propelled through its skull. They'll try to circle around Kothar, though their main purpose is to distract him long enough for the knight to arrive. They're still going to attack, one with a scythe, one with a spear and the third with a sickle, but they're trying to keep the paladin away from the main melee.

The knight is jogging now, easily closing the distance and raising its sword to swing.

[bc56]

Travelling Trouble
Kothar isn't too concerned with the additional skeletons. A real challenger is approaching. Sure, he collects a few more scrapes from their weapons but it's nothing he can't heal later.
As the dark knight raises its sword to swing, the lizardman ducks downward and angles his shield to deflect the attack. He lunges forward, swinging his axe aggressively to drive the knight back away from the skeletal minions. If they're going to fight, he wants it to be one on one, no distractions.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Maybe Dizzy will visit the Church of Venus once this grand adventure is completed, just so that strange happening can come to pass. But if Dizzy did that, then there would be even more Inside scenes which might not be wise.

Anyway!

This supply closet right here.

June soon discovers that the lightning bottling factory appears to be wholly automated. Which makes sense. If people know how to automate things then why would they ever want to do it themselves? These aren't the hand made lightning bolts that giants used to make for Zeus after all. These are mass produced lightning bolts that are inside little jars.

So! The machine. It's definitely an odd machine. Judging from the cranks it looks like it might be powered by windmills up on the roof of the castle which our heroes TOTALLY saw on their approach and weren't made up just now. Those in turn power armatures with big wool pads attached to them that rub a big amber rod at the center of the contraption. This in turn creates lightning that ZAP!s into bottles which move on down the conveyor belt. Since this machine has many moving parts throwing a wrench into some of the gears would probably cause some significant problems.

Meanwhile!

"I'm not going to pretend to understand how those two things square together," Dizzy admits whilst landing on the deck of the cloud boat. But wait! "Oh, wait, did June make you out of that talking goop? But the goop turned into a little pixie instead of a... I don't know... big slime monster or something?"

Dizzy definitely isn't clear on how all this works.

"You know, technically, I have dragon wings," Dizzy points out whilst stretching the wings in question before folding them carefully. "That makes me about one quarter dragon by volume."

The rest of Dizzy one quarter human, lion, and scorpion, respectively. Also one hundred percent giant.

While Nina is busy proclaiming herself the captain of the ship Dizzy is trying to figure out the controls. The cloud boat has got that big propeller on the back with a vertical and horizontal flappy thing. And for controls it has a big joystick probably for steering and a lever probably for thrust.

"Alright I think I know what I'm doing," Dizzy concludes, gripping the lever and easing it forward a little. The propeller begins spinning and the boat begins moving forward! "Okay, yeah, this should be mostly easy. We'll have plenty of room for everyone since the boat is so big."

Then it lurches slightly because the boat is tied down.

Duh.

Dizzy shuts the propeller down and begins untying the ropes.


[Moonstruck]

The priest seems increasingly distressed by what's going on.

"No, please, you'll only make the Moon Presence more displeased!" he pleads as Catherine draws forth her generic flaming sword (she really needs to customize this thing) and sweeps it through a bunch of the candles.

Which results in nothing happening aside from what you would expect when destroying some candles with a flaming sword.

That just leaves the sacrifice in the middle of the floor and the effigy over there.

"You must stop!"

"Nope, sorry! Your god is mean and it sounds like the rest of the village thought your god was mean, too," Catherine replies with that ever-present pep. "We're going to put a stop to his reign of terror and let him be forgotten once and for all!"

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The armoured knight doesn't dodge Kothar's blow, letting the axe strike its breastplate, denting the metal and releasing a burst of magical electricity into the axe and presumably into the lizardman. The knight also retaliates against the blow by kicking at Kothar, and trying to drive him back towards the skeletons. The one with the scythe tries to hook it around Kothar's feet before pulling him over, whilst the other two slash or jab at Kothar's back.

The skeletons attacking the fort get a little less well-coordinated, as the Vile Necromancer chooses to Direct the skeletons fighting Kothar rather than the main group.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

June remembers seeing those windmills on their way in, she had thought they might've been involved with the steering the cloud but after seeing this machine she finally understands what they were for.

Having never met Zeus, June doesn't appreciate the quality of hand-made lightning bolts. In fact, these mass-produced lighting bolts are little more than just fancy electrical batteries.

Then again, it still is lightning. It'd be dangerous for June to just reach out and mess with the rod or the wool pads (which likely came from those wooly bugs outside), since she's not immune to electricity. Pain magic doesn't work on machines, probably. Not unless the machine is programmed to feel pain, but that would be a really weird manufacturing machine. She considers just unplugging the machine, too, but that would be way too easy to fix.

So, June goes back downstairs to get the supply closet open again, to look for a literal wrench. Or, alternatively, something else similarly large and solid and metallic (but that she can still easily carry) ((she imagines something metallic could mess up the lightning-production better than something that can't conduct electricity as easily)) (((if all else fails, she can just toss the keys she got earlier instead))).

So, she does her best to carry it up the stairs to the machine. She looks around for the place that maximizes fragility, destruction, and difficulty to fix, and places the wrench there.

And, for good measure, she goes somewhere where the room looks flammable, looks around for any giants just in case, takes a deep breath, and then shouts one of the two Dragon Words she knows: "Yol". Fire. Dragon's fire appears, and then June runs, back the way they came in.


Meanwhile

Nina flies up to be more eye-level with Dizzy. She shakes her head, looking a little offended. "No! That's disgusting. I hate that goop stuff, it's so gross! She's the one made out of that oily nightmare stuff, not me!" she says as she points back towards the castle tower. Nina is just 100% pixie. Maybe 90% pixie, with the remainder split between green dragontail and indigo milk cap. Or...something along those lines. She's not entirely sure, but it's something along those lines.

She lands back on Dizzy's shoulder, and actually gets a look at the wings. "Okay, that is a little impressive. I can't call you 'dragonless' then," she says. "However!" She twirls, and acts like she's a stereotypical detective. "Dragons are really big! If you're one quarter by volume, that probably only means your great-great-great-great-great-grandma was a dragon," she claims. "But scorpions are pretty small," she adds, "So you're probably a million percent scorpion."

...

The pixie watches Dizzy work for a little bit.
She starts to feel bad, because she can't actually help. She looks up at the tower, wondering if she could help them down somehow...no, it'd be better to just wait until the boat gets up there.

Nina sighs.
She really wants to do something to help.
Luckily, she suddenly realizes something that she could do. "Hey! I'm going to keep watch in case any of those skyscrapers come by and notice you!"

She starts flying upwards, looking for giants. It's pretty strange, she thinks, that she has only seen those two from the dungeon area and no more. She keeps her eyes peeled for giants (or birds), so she can fly back down and warn Dizzy when she notices any.

[bc56]

Moonstruck
Sele's blade bites deep into the ritual circle with her first swing. Then she takes a step forward and strikes the sacrificed effigy with all her might.
Hopefully, this will cause something to happen. Hopefully that something will not be utterly terrible.

Travelling Trouble
It's worth noting that Kothar hits like a truck. Nothing of his size should be able to strike with such force. He grunts as lightning courses through him and keeps his forward momentum.
As he collides with the knight he speaks holy words of power in his native tongue and flares with a bright light that drives away creatures of darkness. That should keep the skeletons (and any other undead or demons that might be lurking around) off his back while he tackles the knight to the ground through the haze of electrifying pain.

[Rebonack]

[Moonstruck]

Destroying the ritual circle doesn't cause anything to happen.

Destroying the effigy doesn't cause anything to happen, either.

"No! It isn't my fault! Stay away!" cries the priest.

Or, at least, nothing visible to our heroes.

The priest begins crawling away from some invisible spectre before suddenly seizing up and flopping to the floor. Shortly thereafter he begins convulsing violently.

Cat seems concerned.

"Sooooo do we help him? I think he might have just gotten possessed by a spirit," she guesses.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]
Inside!

The search for wrenches doesn't go unrewarded! There's a giant sized pipe wrench for turning giant sized pipes! Pipe wrenches are normally pretty big already so a giant pipe wrench is enormous for a wrench.

Not so big that it can't be carried but still big!

Anyway June throws it into some gears.

This causes the machines to come to a screeching halt and definitely damages something. Several jars of lightning even explode!

Then she sets the bales of extra wool pads on fire, which are probably there to replace the pads on the machine when they wear out. All in all a pretty solid job of ruining things all around.

Now she just needs to make it back to the tower and escape! Probably soon because those breaking machines are making an ungodly ruckus.

(Outside)

Dizzy raises both hands in an I surrender sort of way. "Okay point taken you aren't nightmare goop."

That seems very clear now.

"Also percentages don't work like that. And I don't have a grandparent on my dad's side. Unless you count Elyon I GUESS but that feels wrong even saying out loud. Elyon doesn't have grandchildren. It's child or bust. My mom's side is all humans," Dizzy explains somewhat confusingly whilst removing the last of the rope.

Then!

Dizzy begins flying the boat up to the tower! The boat should be pulling up right as June arrives.

Also there's smoke and explosions coming from the castle.

Also also, some giants are coming outside and pointing at the stolen boat. This is good because Nina will be able to spot them like an excellent lookout. This is also good because one of the giants wasn't looking where he was going and fell down a giant shaped hole in the clouds.

This is bad because they've now been spotted by giants.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]
Inside

Satisfied that she's disrupted the castle's biggest weapon, June figures the only thing left is to get out of there.

She enters the dungeon room, goes through it, and then starts to go up the stairs, as she starts to realize she doesn't exactly have a plan to get down. Hopefully when she gets there, Dizzy'll notice her, and she doesn't need to find her own way down.

Unfortunately for all the villagers who are waiting, June has gone back to looking a littler spookier than normal.

Outside

June sees the boat coming. Actually, perfect timing!
She waits for all the other people to get on first before she gets on.


Nina feels a little sympathy for Dizzy for being disowned by her part-dragon part-scorpion part-lion grandfather. And, worse, Dizzy seems to be okay with it.

Nina flies up to Dizzy's boat. "They're coming, they're coming!" she says to the first mate. "They're going to take their own boats and come here!"

The pixie looks down at all the giants.
What can she even do? Maybe she could try messing with them like she did with that other giant earlier, but...if she went down there, she'd be surrounded and she'd be alone. That's...not really something that she wants.
She elects to stay up with everyone else.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Dizzy has not, in fact, been disowned by any grandparents jumble of seemingly random creatures or otherwise. It's just that Elyon doesn't have grandchildren. He's got children of which Dizzy is one, according to Dizzy. Like many things involving the heavenly realms it's complicated.

SO!

"Alright everyone pile in! Quick!" Dizzy calls out, waving at all the villagers to hurry. "Hell they're heading for the boats. HEY! What have we got to mess those boats up? I probably should have done that while I was down there."

That definitely would have been wise but Dizzy was too busy trying to hurry.

The boats all appear to be powered by one of those bottled lightning things. They seemed to be pretty fragile. And really explody, based on June's experience in the lightning bottling plant. It also looks like the boat has three EXTRA bottles stored.

As soon as the villagers (and June) are aboard Dizzy CRANKS IT and turns the boat away from the castle.

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

Would have been good to know Kothar's got enhanced strength as the axe was swung, so I could have incorporated it into the effect.

Two skeletons stumble back to avoid Kothar's holy aura... As does the knight he's facing, which helps in knocking the figure over. The third skeleton, the one with the sickle, simply collapses into disarticulated bones. The knight perhaps weighs less than Kothar might expect, of an actual person wearing such a suit. The knight has dropped their sword, and instead punches at Kothar's stomach with a steel-clad fist. That strike, and also knocking the knight over, did not trigger more electricity.

Further back, the tall figure steps closer, whilst the other robed figure gestures at Kothar and sends a blast of fire at the paladin, either not caring for the knight's fate or trusting the knight to survive the blast- although unless Kothar moves, his position atop the knight will ensure he gets the brunt of the attack.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

That complicated heavenly realm system explains the absent father syndrome. If all of their children get claimed by their father, then...it just explains it. Dizzy's absent father probably doesn't even consider Dizzy to be his kid, but more like...a sister or something. Or maybe a brother because they don't have a mother. Probably don't even understand the concept of taking care of children. Which is pretty awful.
That is Nina's opinion on the subject.

Speaking of Nina, she has an idea on what to do to stop the giants. It'd be easy! All she has to do is go down there, and. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
...
Nina's scared. So much that she's even shirking her captainly duties. She should go down there. She wants to go down there and save the day. But...she's just too scared, cowering on Dizzy's shoulder.

June's the last one on the boat. As the cloud boat starts zooming away, she looks at Nina, then down at the giants. She reaches down and grabs the three lightning bottles. "I'll take care of it," she tells them. She would really rather not chance killing the giants (even as awful as they are, for kidnapping and wanting to sacrifice people) but if she needs to then she supposes she has no choice.

In her hands, the bottles get covered in that black oily stuff, and she throws all three as hard as she can towards the docks.

Admittedly, she's not the best at aiming.
One of the three hits close enough to the boats and explodes. One goes short. And the third hits the cloud-ground, and instead of exploding or anything, it starts turning the cloud into an angry, black, growing stormcloud. A cloud that's just a little hungry, too.

"If any are following us, I'll take care of them, too!" June says, so that Dizzy doesn't have to worry about evading or keeping watch. To prove she can do it, in her hand a sword made of sunlight appears.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Sadly Dizzy can't comment on Nina's thoughts on the matter of celestial absent fathers since Nina is busy being scared and not really taking her captain duties seriously enough. It's understandable, being that the very angry giants are very angry. The worst part, though, is that Nina was so busy being scared that she didn't get to see that one giant fall down the giant-shaped hole in the clouds.

So!

Dizzy nods as pilots the cloud boat while June says that she'll take care of it.

Then!

She takes care of it!

The giants seem pretty upset by the exploding lightning bottle. The seem even MORE upset by the angry storm cloud that begins zapping and generally making a big nuisance of itself. Stray lightning bolts hit some of the OTHER lightning bottles in the other boats and THOSE burst, too, which results in a chair reaction and really the giants should probably give the bottles a nice insulating impact resistant outer layer or something.

"Hey, good job! That worked pretty well," Dizzy calls back to June as the cloud boat continues on its way.

...

It takes about fifteen minutes to fly down to the village.

This is definitely different than riding on a dragon but it probably isn't bad. It's a lot like riding on a speed boat, if June has ever ridden on a speed boat. Dizzy has not ridden on a speed boat. Mostly because the seas had turned to blood and any ships that try sailing in the bloody seas are destroyed. So this is a pretty novel experience for Dizzy since usually Dizzy just uses those big flappy wings for flying.

Soon enough the cloud boat is landing near the village and the peasants are leaving and thanking our heroes and Dizzy is really giving that giant beanstalk nearby an appraising look. It's one of those 'could I cut through that thing?' sorts of looks. Because you just KNOW that at least one giant is going to try climbing down it.

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

June hopes the giants are somewhat okay. Not completely okay, but somewhat okay (just enough okay that they're willing to leave and stop doing dumb things like kidnapping villagers).

She keeps watch as they continue to sail on the cloud boat. "Thanks," she says.

After arriving in the village, she gets out of the boat. June has, in fact, ridden on a speed boat, but it was not on any kind of seas that turned to blood. Just a regular lake. But maybe if Dizzy's homeworld had cloud boats, people would ride around on boats more.

June calls Nina over to her, and starts talking to her. (She has no say on cutting down the giant beanstalk, and trusts Dizzy to make the right decision regarding it.)

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Well, given that our heroes passed the three giants that were thrown off the cloud on their way down and they all LOOK alive, if comically disheveled, chances are the giants up top will be okay.

So!

With a rub of the hands together, Dizzy dumps a bunch of that sooty smoke everywhere! The smoke then solidifies into a double bitted axe!

Which is a neat trick for sure.

"Okay, time for the beanstalk to come down," Dizzy declares and begins chopping away until the beanstalk, with a great creaking groan, begins toppling over!

Upward.

Into the sky.

It crashes into the bottom of the magical cloud, causing the whole thing to go sputtering further skyward like an untied balloon.

Dizzy blinks, gazing off into the heavens.

"Huh. That... wasn't quite how this went in my head."

[Thursday Violist]

[Cloud Nine]

When the beanstalk is almost cut, June looks over warily. She doesn't want it to fall over in her direction, so she gets ready to move out of the way!

But it doesn't fall.

"Huh!" she says. That was very very interesting. She wonders how high it will go up. "Yeah, that was weird."

June (and Nina) watch it go up. "Well, they're probably not going to bother them anytime soon."

She looks at Nina, who is now on June's shoulder. Then, she waves. "Hey! The two of us have a pretty important quest to do, so we're headed off. See you later!" she says. "I hope you don't end up finding your way back to your half-destroyed world filled with deadbeat dads!"

She leaves off in some direction, leaving the village.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Nine]

Well, it does fall.

Sort of.

It just falls up. Which no one was really expecting at all. Even a little bit.

But yeah! Huh is a pretty good response.

"Probably not, no," Dizzy agrees, holding up one hand to block out the sun whilst watching the cloud zip higher and higher until it vanishes from sight. "Okay, cool, here's to hoping God blesses your quest if it's important. You two did a great job with the villagers. I think I'm going to go check out the ocean since I bet the ocean here isn't made of blood."

Dizzy is really hoping the ocean isn't made of blood. See, Dizzy hasn't ever seen a non-blood ocean before and that would be really great to check out.

So! Dizzy also leaves. Via flying. Because that's what wings are good for. The cloud boat will be left for the villagers since what's Dizzy going to do with it? It's bottle of lightning will probably just run out eventually anyway.

[Thursday Violist]

[Japaraita]

The town of Japaraita is named after an interesting phenomenon that causes the nearby creek and plains to be flooded by ocean water during certain parts of winter. The rest of the year, however, it's a pretty dry place with just the creek and the wells bringing in water. The creek, however, does go straight through town and was built to drain into a large fountain.

In that fountain is a mermaid, with black scales that seem to be a little reddish in sunlight. Thanks to an interesting experience on the train, she also has a little pointed vampire-esque teeth.

She's just relaxing in the fountain, leaning on the edge of it. It's cooling, it's relaxing, and it's nice. For a video game, this world is actually pretty nice, the mermaid thinks.

There are a couple of the town's chilren gathered nearby to look at the mermaid, too. Usually they don't see mermaids - it's pretty rare for one to show up even in winter, just because how easy it would be to get stranded in the dry plains or in the creek when the ocean water withdraws.

The mermaid feels like she should be singing, but...well, she doesn't feel like it. Plus, she doesn't really know many songs. The sun's nice, the water's nice, and the breeze is nice, and she doesn't want to ruin it by singing some kind of nursery song that she doesn't even know all that well.

[bc56]

Moonstruck
"Oh for the love of..." Sele faces down the unseen presence. "Forget him, it's me you want!" Should she use an invocation? Yeah. Time. Entropy. Growth. Id. "FORGIVE him, he was trying to help you!" Even if it was a stupid idea. A really, really stupid idea.

Travelling Trouble
Kothar's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's not clueless. If the knight is too light for a person and responds to his attempts to turn undead, it must be another skeleton.
Fire, much like lightning, he can handle. But he doesn't really need to. He wrenches the knight upwards, hoping to interpose it between himself and the blast of flames.

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The knight isn't quite light enough to be just a skeleton; the necromancer which animated it and dressed it reinforced it as well, intending it to serve as a champion and bodyguard in case... well, in case heroes came along to stop them.

The knight is yanked upwards, and the fire bursts across the knight's backplate- triggering another blast of electricity, directed into the knight and also everything touching it. The knight also tries to punch Kothar in the face, before sticking out a thumb and trying to jab the lizard-paladin in the eye.

[Shadowcaller]

[Well Training]

"I plan on using every skill I have to protect people," Emily returns the question, "By learning every skill I can, when a threat does present itself I have a wealth of knowledge to draw on to defeat them. The more information you have, the more options for how to beat them you have. Inevitably, one of those options is going to be less lethal than raw brute force."

The massive woman breathes out through her teeth, "And if I don't have a sword, understanding swordplay will let me have options for defeating other swordsmen. I've often found that having decent knowledge of how enemy fundamentals works gives you a lot more options for peeling apart their ability to stop you."

"That's the core of it, really. Options, versatility. Knowledge is power over the conditions you're forced to be a part of; the more you know and the more you're capable of, the more you can push the outcomes of your situation into something you like better."

With that last statement she's looking towards Thariza, hoping the charr takes that particular lesson to heart.

[Well Training]

"Yeah... war was what I'd lived and breathed since I was old enough to understand what it means. I always knew I'd have to fight and kill and never questioned it. I wonder if this focus on war is holding us back in some ways." Some more introspection from Thariza. She's been working hard at it.

[Hog Heaven]

"Are we still strangers?" Tsumi smiles slightly. "I could change that."

The next comment elicits a pause, however. A brief blinkering of the eyelids. Then Tsumi snaps her head back in a sudden boom of laughter. Between giggles, she says, "Is-- is that your way of saying my place looks butch or something? Is that it? I refuse to believe those couple of drinks made you this bad at conversation, Dena. I refuse. Oh my Gods."

"I like the things I like. But I also like dresses and makeup and girlie things, too, if that makes you feel better," Tsumi says, beaming. "Is that what you think lesbians are into? I mean... swords and guitars and motorbikes? Makes it sound cooler than it is..."

So it looks like Laz has some good news and bad news to contend with, which she quietly contemplates, the muscles in her back cringing in pain as she takes a few practice swings in the air with the new blade. Good news, shiny new magical sword! Bad news? Shiny new magical sword. She has no idea what this thing does, and what kind of costs or dangers might be associated with it. What if it instantly bound itself to her hand like some sort of deranged and overly attached MMO weapon? What if every kill with the blade steals away a pint of blood from her body as its macabre price for its supernatural aid? What if it refuses to return to a scabbard until it has drawn blood or taken a life? Worse than all of that, what if it talks?

She decides to run a few practice tests before Anika returns with the shiny MacGuffin. Nothing too exciting, just putting the sword down and then trying to pick it back up again, tapping the blade against a nearby piece of debris, gently prodding the tip of it against the remains of a fallen zombie, and holding it against her scabbard to see if it'll fit at all. She's not really sure what she'll do if it proves to be too magical for her comfort, too terrible and wicked and dangerous to be a zombie's blade. It wouldn't be smart to leave it here for some evil monster to find, but abandoning her hard-won prize to some dusty Vigil armory that nobody ever uses seems just as improper. Evil people can join Vigil too, after all, and why risk tempting them with the rumors of some dark and shadowy cursed sabre abandoned by an undead warrior that would surely follow her ditching it like that? No, if it's more trouble than it's worth, better to just shatter the thing than risk it falling into the wrong hands.

[Well Training]

Ambrosia raises an eyebrow at Thariza's answer. She knew that the charr had a martial culture but had she actually waged war her entire life? "War hurts the soul as much as it hurts the body, Thariza. There's only one kind of culture that I know of that needs constant warfare to survive. The empire. I know that since I'm from one. I sincerely hope that your people aren't anything like it considering the sheer atrocities I've seen committed in its name."

[Hog Heaven]

"Since when did you become an expert on what I can and cannot do while boozed up, huh?" Dena questions. "But, it's not like I mind the 'butch' things. Since guess what? I'm into swords, vehicles and engineering which wasn't exactly the most girly things either last time I checked. You're just so..." She makes a vague gesture at the oni. "...well, don't take this the wrong way but when I learned what the word 'butch' event meant it was with a picture titled 'butch lesbian' and she looked a lot like you. Just, uh, found that funny."

Orb of Oujet

'Carry' is a generous term of what Anika was doing with Laz. She was at best slowing her descent down to a non-lethal level. If she had been actually been able to carry Laz they could have just flow up to the top at the start and skipped all those stupid stairs.

But still, she should be able to carry this gizmo back to the ghoul-knight no problem.

"I'm back with the thingy!" She declares as she shifts back into her humanoid form, holding up the orb proudly. "And- hey, did you find a new sword while I was away? Cool!"

[Rebonack]

[Tower of Oujet]

So. Swinging a mysterious sword around. The weight feels about right for a sword of this size. Putting it down isn't a problem, so it isn't one of those cursed swords that fuses itself to your hand and can't be dropped. And it sure LOOKS like it'll fit in the scabbard.

Best of all it isn't talking.

So far so good, right?

Holding that sword, Laz will really be able to feel her heart thumping and her blood flowing. For most people that might just be a little exhilarating. Like her body is on FIRE with chaotic roaring energy just without the really unpleasant actually being on fire part. But since she's undead that sudden internal movement might be a shock.

When Anika shows up with the orb Laz will probably notice that she can feel Anika's blood, too, as though the hilt of Tiamat's Tooth were beating in tune with the elf's heart.

Also she knows that this thing is Tiamat's Tooth. Maybe that was the name of the squidbus? No... that doesn't feel quite right.

Anika, on the other hand, can feel the raw untamed power of the orb! It feels like holding a lightning bolt! This must be how shamans feel when they're zapping people.

[Rebonack]

[Moonstruck]

A stupid idea?

Or a GREAT idea?

The presence hesitates for a moment, then drops the priest, allowing him to drop bonelessly to the ground. Then like a striking serpent it dives into Selekhael.

Turns out this is bad for it.

Recoiling as though burned, the tendril of power slides away as silently as a moonbeam, leaving a trail of burning essence behind.

"Ugh, it smells like burnt hair," Cat coughs. The scent of deleted, destroyed dreams are pungent to her, though to Sele there's hardly anything at all. "Hey I bet I can follow this stink to wherever it's going. But should we help the priest first?"

[Morty]

[Well Training]

"We aren't now. But in the past..." Thariza sighs. "I've told you about Ascalon. How they... we... burned it to the ground. And how the human sorcerer-king cursed his own people just do deny us his capital. Then there's Ebonhawke... the last remaining human city in Ascalon. Generations of Charr couldn't take it, breaking and dying against its walls. Now the Imperators and the human queen are meeting there to make a peace treaty. Or they were when I left. I hope it worked."