Outside: Grass touch place

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The Aspect covers enough of the mundane stuff that unless Kothar has some unusual tracking ability there's going to be nothing obvious about the Vile Necromancer's current location.

Especially as the skeletons are still fighting the merchants, who are now undeniably winning- without the Necromancer to Direct them, the skeletons are much stupider and resorting to mass wave attacks with little cooperation or coordination between individuals. But there's still enough skeletons that the merchant caravan will likely appreciate the help, especially as it's been a while since they've fired any of their guns.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
Sekhmet isn't surprised by that. Any unusual-looking person will have some creeps interested in them because of it.
She puts the coral and the scallops in the bag but leaves the broken shell alone.
When June starts feeling her altered body again, Sekhmet pauses. "It's fun to be something different once in a while." That's why she's thinking about trying out mermaidism. "Uh, do you need a mirror?"
The topic of smithing brings a slight smile to Sekhmet's face. "I'm, uh, trained as a blacksmith. I've thought about working hellish metals, but I, uh, don't have any practice with them." She's used to iron, steel, and a bit of copper and bronze, not the exotic materials she now has access to.
"So, uh, what do you think is in that ruined castle?"

[Japaraita]

"Hm?" June looks at Sekhmet. Oh! A mirror. Yeah, a mirror would be nice. I haven't got one, do you?" she asks, expecting something something just like a small make-up mirror. Actually, that line of thought gets her thoughts onto a tangent about make-up, and how it must be a nightmare trying to find foundation for her skin tone.

She starts looking for some of the more interesting shells, leaving other ones behind. If she's going to make a necklace, she'll need more interesting ones, right? Not the boring-looking ones.

"Hellish metals sound like they'd have a lot of pretty neat properties," she comments. "Like, imagine a type of steel that instead of adding nickel or chrome or whatever to make it stainless, you add some small amount of hellish metal. It'd have some really unique properties, and could probably be used for a lot of different things." Of course, it'd require a lot of testing. Geez, crafters get all the coolest new things to explore, she thinks.

June moves on to another spot, to continue her search. "Well. So. The castle apparently made the earth sink enough that the space around it turned into a lake, so it's probably got a bunch of birds on the upper floors and fish on the 'ground' level," she hypothesizes. "Saw some herons flying by earlier today, too, so maybe some of those. Not that big of a lake, from what I've heard, so there might be some deer and other things like that, too."

June grabs a shell.
"Assuming it sunk slowly and got hit by one of those winter floods...hmmm...." She does her best thinking aloud, so saying this aloud helps her figure out what might be there. "The basement and dungeon area would've been flooded first, right? And some rooms might've had mud fill them up. So there still might be all sorts of old things still intact underwater or under mud, so that'd be the best place to explore. Maybe some kind of monster moved in because, I mean, 'abandoned castle' just screams monster, right? but if there is, it must not be too dangerous otherwise the locals would've called for help to exterminate it. The upper floors, however, still might have things in them that would be too heavy or too big to easily carry out after the castle started sinking."
Well, that's what she expects to find there.
Since they're on the topic, June asks, "How about you? What sort of things do you think would be there?"

[bc56]

Travelling Trouble
Kothar charges in towards the caravan and begins cleaving through the horde of skeletons with great swings of his axe. It's time to finish this.
Too bad the necromancer is gone that would make this quicker.

Japaraita
Sekhmet nods and gestures, causing a shimmering plane of light to appear, standing vertically in front of June. The simple illusion functions more or less as a mirror, although if June touches it, her hand will pass right through. Now she can see what her altered body looks like and not just feel it.
On the topic of foundation, first of all, the Nexus has cosmetics catering to its many unusually colored denizens. Secondly, Sekhmet doesn't wear makeup (not that you could tell from looking at her). Her face just naturally looks like that because of her succubosity.
"What's in there? I don't know, I haven't even seen the place. But, uh, I was thinking monster. Probably." June brings up a good point that if there is a monster it can't be very dangerous or they'd have been warned away from the castle. Sekhmet's curiosity has been piqued to the point where it overrides her fear. "If it's flooded it would be a good place for mermaids to explore."

[Thursday Violist]

[Japaraita]

June stands up and looks into the mirror. "Huh." "Ooh." "I see." she says, as she looks at herself and feels out her hips and waist and so on. She does try to adjust the mirror a little, but ends up passing her hand through it, so she just turns herself to keep on looking at different angles.

Even so, red still isn't one of the most common colors for foundation. At the very least, it makes it easy to tell if you need warm-color or cool-color foundation!

"Yup! That's what I thought when I was told about it, that it'd be perfect for me to explore the basement! I'm sure not that many people come here who can breathe underwater, so that's why I was thinking of looking down there. Just need to buy a trowel and maybe a couple other things..." she says, before thinking, and saying, "Oh, hey! I have a great idea! Since you can turn into a mermaid, this'll be perfect: You should come with me, and we'll check it out together," she says.
Sure, June gets that maybe Sekhmet was trying to hint that she wanted to go by saying 'mermaids' and some of the other things she's said this conversation, but June still wants to make it seem like it was her idea.

"And, don't worry! If there's a monster in the upper part of the castle, I've got gun!" she claims, acting very reassuring. She flexes her biceps, too, to try to appear pretty strong and capable. It does look a little funny with her proportions. "So I can protect you. Unfortunately, it won't work underwater," June says, "but it seems really unlikely there'd be an underwater monster there. If I've got a good enough understanding of how the lake works, any water monster coming in would either have to walk through a tiny stream, or would have to get trapped in during the winter. Maybe if it were springtime, there'd be something to worry about, but I doubt a dangerous monster would survive half a year in that kind of lake."

Deciding she's had enough with the mirror, June crouches down to look for more shells in the plants, and...actually catches another angle of her reflection, and shakes her hips at it. "Haha. I just can't get used to my reflection yet."

[bc56]

Japaraita
"I, uh, guess I can do that," Sekhmet replies, "It'll be fun, right?"
Perfect. She got June to suggest her turning into a mermaid to go exploring, so she wouldn't feel weird about it. If she had suggested that she turn into a mermaid and explore the ruin with June, she would have been imposing and it would be rude.
"I know, right? It feels so strange to see something different in the mirror." she concentrates and her body warps to become a perfect duplicate of June, clothes and all. She looks into the mirror and joins June in laughing. "Hahaha, even when I do it to myself I still expect to see my normal appearance there. And hear my normal voice." Succubi actually have an advantage in that department - their self-image adapts more quickly to fit new bodies than a human's would. "Oh, uh, sorry, is this too strange? I can change back."

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
"I know, right? It feels so strange to see something different in the mirror." she concentrates and her body warps to become a perfect duplicate of June, clothes and all. She looks into the mirror and joins June in laughing. "Hahaha, even when I do it to myself I still expect to see my normal appearance there. And hear my normal voice." Succubi actually have an advantage in that department - their self-image adapts more quickly to fit new bodies than a human's would. "Oh, uh, sorry, is this too strange? I can change back."

[Japaraita]

"Yup! It'll be pretty exciting," June says, reassuring Sekhmet. She nods rapidly.

She looks up and down the transformed Sekhmet, and then into the mirror at them both at the same time. She almost reaches out to touch Transformed Sekhmet, but...ends up not doing it, 'cause she figures it'd probably be rude to just outright do that. "Yeah, that's gotta be weird for you," June says. She puts her hand on her hip. "No, actually it's not that strange, almost looks like I have a sister or something," she says. "Or maybe it's just because I just still don't really mentally see..." She makes an hourglass shape with her hands. "...as me. I dunno, might get weird later but right now it's not too strange yet."

June looks up and down the reflection, and bites her bottom lip, thinking about their reflections.

"Oh! Actually. my plan to go check out the castle in a few days was based on me first needing to find some kind of wagon and needing to scout out the way to get there." She balances unsteadily on one foot, and holds her other out. "But with these babies, that's no longer a necessity."
June puts her foot down.
"I bet I could probably gather up everything else I need in maybe a half hour, or hour tops." There's a single general store in town, so she'd be getting most everything from one place.

[bc56]

Japaraita
"That, uh, makes sense," Sekhmet says in June's voice. "When I first got all..." she makes the same gesture, "Like that, it felt strange for a while too."
"I don't need anything, so, uh, if you want to go get ready, I'll meet you at the castle. Okay?"

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
"That, uh, makes sense," Sekhmet says in June's voice. "When I first got all..." she makes the same gesture, "Like that, it felt strange for a while too."
"I don't need anything, so, uh, if you want to go get ready, I'll meet you at the castle. Okay?"

[Japaraita]

June suddenly feels a feeling of sisterhood with Sekhmet: June hasn't always been a mermaid, and now she's learning that apparently Sekhmet hasn't always been a demon. "Oh! I totally get what you mean, I wasn't always like a mermaid, with fins and everything, either, so, yeah, I totes get it."
She nods.
And finally tears her eyes away from the reflection.

"Um. Yeah, so..." She looks at Sekhmet again. "So, let's say I'll take about forty-five minutes, feel free to keep on looking for shells or have lunch or something." June points in the direction of the stream. "And just follow that stream, and you'll get to the castle for sure. I'll meet you there!"

She smiles again, and turns away to go back to the town. And she waves as she returns to town.
And she was actually a little worried that the fins-to-legs transformation would've only lasted as long as she was near Sekhmet, but since Sekhmet's not saying anything, she assumes that's not the case.

So. June returns to town, to buy some things.

Sekhmet can stay or do whatever.

Should she head towards the stream and follow it, she'll follow it into a forested area, then down between two hills, and then to a somewhat shallow lake-slash-wetlands area with a half-sunken castle in the middle. The water is only slightly saltier than the freshwater of the stream, but much less salty than ocean water. There's reeds growing, animals of all types around including deer, fish, frogs, birds. . .
The water is shallow enough that one could walk straight to the castle if they follow the stone path that hasn't sunken too far, but deep enough that swimming would be a whole lot easier. The castle's ground floor is nearly underwater, making the easiest way to get in (besides swimming) is to climb the wall a little to the second-floor's window.

June only shows up after about an hour, with some things.

[bc56]

Japaraita
When June arrives at the castle, she'll find Sekhmet, returned to her original appearance, waiting for her (Sekhmet spent most of the time collecting more shells, then flew over to the castle). She's seated on a flat-topped rock near the edge of the lake and apparently petting a deer. When June arrives the demon looks up and waves, and the deer, in sudden fright, bolts away. "You, uh, took your time."

[Rebonack]

[Moonstruck]

Hurrying back to town, our heroes discover that the children are absolutely poking the dead mooncalf with sticks again.

Because of course they are.

What else would you expect children to do with a weird dead animal?

Selekhael is calling out for help as soon as she shows up! Or not help, as such. More like calling out for useful information. The children poking the dead monster look up at her just in time to get a stern but still somewhat playful look from Catherine. The sort of look that says 'come on you guys know better.'

"Papa says not to look at the pond at night time when the moon is full or I'll get stolen away to the fairy land," one child says.
"That's just a dumb story. The grownups just don't want you to fall into the water and drown," an older child retorts.

That is TYPICALLY the purpose of stories about child snatching monsters that live near rivers. Telling a kid that a monster will get them is usually a bit more effective than telling them to be careful around dangerous bodies of water. A concrete threat is way more scary than a nebulous one.

[bc56]

Moonstruck
"Don't look in the pond during a full moon, got it." Sele says. "Cat, c'mon! We've got to go look in the pond!" After all, the moon is always full here because of the moon curse. They just have to wait for nightfall.
(Sele should be glad nobody here is a werewolf)

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
When June arrives at the castle, she'll find Sekhmet, returned to her original appearance, waiting for her (Sekhmet spent most of the time collecting more shells, then flew over to the castle). She's seated on a flat-topped rock near the edge of the lake and apparently petting a deer. When June arrives the demon looks up and waves, and the deer, in sudden fright, bolts away. "You, uh, took your time."

[Japaraita]

Maybe it's because Sekhmet was transformed and didn't have wings at the time when they parted, but June wasn't expecting at all for her to fly. Flying's a lot faster.

"Oh, sorry!" she calls out. June has both her suitcase and a knapsack that she didn't have before. She walks towards Sekhmet, and then leaves her suitcase next to a tree, only bringing the knapsack with her. "The shopowner needed to ask around for some things!" she says.

She comes up close. "Wow, you're like some kind of princess, petting a deer and all," she comments.

She gets to the rock next to the edge of the lake. "Okay. Um...." She looks at the lake, trying to decide the best way to get there. She'd rather not get the knapsack wet if possible, because - although most things in there are waterproof or don't care about water - there's a couple things she'd rather not risk getting wet just yet. "So. Plan." She holds her thumb up, counting 'one'. "Let's first explore the above-water part, checking for any monsters, any cool things, and structural stability," she says, "Then second, we can look in the underwater parts. And finally, if there's any rooms buried in silt that looked interesting, we can dig those out."

She bites her lip. "And if there's any emergency, we meet back up over here."

June turns to Sekhmet: "Sound like a good plan?" she asks. She digs through the knapsack, and pulls out a pistol that's wrapped up and inside a large plastic zip-lock bag. "And if you see any monsters, just call out and I'll take care of it."

Some herons make some kind of clucking sound as they stroll around the reeds.

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

The skeletons are rather easy to defeat, especially once Kothar joins in. The original caravan of thirty people spread across five covered wagons are down to twenty-two, though six of their dead are simply piles of flesh due to the necromancer's efforts.

Their leader is a regal-looking human with dark skin and golden eyes, wearing a large coat made from brightly coloured quilted patches, holding a bronze-and-ivory sceptre. He's accompanied by a woman wearing steel lamellar carrying a musket, the only person present with a sword at her waist. "Thank you, sir, for coming to our rescue. Take whatever you wish from our cargo; without you, we would have lost it all, and until we sell it we are carrying no coins."

[bc56]

Japaraita
"Uh, queen, actually," Sekhmet says without thinking. Hopefully June didn't notice that. She'd rather have a low profile on this trip.
Sekhmet spreads her wings and leaps into the air, landing on the sill of the second-floor window a moment later. "Come on, I'll, uh, help you up."
What's it like up here? Does Sekhmet need to be worrying about something instead of extending an arm to help pull June to the second floor?

Travelling Trouble
"Is no trouble, is duty," Kothar responds. He would have come to anyone's aid without promise of payment. Well, almost anyone. "What you have?" He doesn't need anything from their cargo, most likely, but it doesn't hurt to check.

[Thursday Violist]

[Japaraita]

Fortunately for Sekhmet's desires to be low-profile, June interprets the queen correction as Sekhmet saying she's too old to be a princess or alternatively doesn't like being seen as the stereotypical princess. Which, June finds to be a reasonable assumption. After all, she's never met an actual queen before, but has met several people who are okay with being called 'princess' or 'queen'.

She doesn't think any more about it.
However, she does think about flying.

June starts wading-slash-swimming across the shallow lake, while keeping her bag above water. As she swims, she realizes that part of the sunken area she's swimming over is a submerged front courtyard.


The room that Sekhmet lands in is a sunroom. since all the rooms on these upper floors were either residential and residential-adjacent for the upper-class, libraries and galleries, a balcony above the great hall, or stairwells up to the towers. The sunroom still has most its furniture, although much of it is water-damaged: tables, chairs, flowerpots with some long-dead and some overgrown plants.

Upon landing, she disturbs a long and enormous snake that was resting in that room. It looks at her and slithers out of the room. Also, as she remains in there, three quite-large rats come by to check her out and check the intruder out. And, if she listens, she'll hear some thick and heavy sounds coming from another room - actually, the library - which suggests, if there is a monster, that's where it has made its nest.

Unless she's scared of rats or snakes, there's really nothing for Sekhmet to worry about in the immediate.


June arrives at the window.
She holds a hand up to receive help getting in the window. "Thanks," she says. "Swimming with legs is so weird," she adds as additional commentary.

Once up, she first reaches at her neck to make sure her gills are sealed close. She then sets down her bag and starts digging through it for what they'll need during this exploration of the dry part of the castle: namely, the gun and a flashlight. "Like...imagine trying to walk except you can only use your arms. It's weird."

[bc56]

Japaraita
Sekhmet isn't worried about rats or snakes. They can't really hurt her. The monster probably can't either but it's still scarier.
She considers June's complaints. "Is being a mermaid going to, uh, ruin normal swimming for me?" She's not really thinking in detail about this. She could be a mermaid whenever she wants, so she could make mermaiding her normal swimming.
"Also, uh, shh. I can hear something in the next room." Once June has her gear, Sekhmet slowly opens the door to look cautiously inside.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
Sekhmet isn't worried about rats or snakes. They can't really hurt her. The monster probably can't either but it's still scarier.
She considers June's complaints. "Is being a mermaid going to, uh, ruin normal swimming for me?" She's not really thinking in detail about this. She could be a mermaid whenever she wants, so she could make mermaiding her normal swimming.
"Also, uh, shh. I can hear something in the next room." Once June has her gear, Sekhmet slowly opens the door to look cautiously inside.

[Japaraita]

June puts the knapsack on her back again and follows Sekhmet, with a flashlight in one hand and the pistol in the other. "Ummm...would it? I don't...think so," she concludes. Her voice gets lower as she realizes tries to be quieter and sneak up to the next room. "Not unless you're a mermaid for a long time. "Like...I've been one for several years" she says, still whispering. "But even then! I haven't had legs for just as long, but it only took a few tries to get back to walking."

The door opens slowly.

It's not pitch dark in there: there's some light getting in from the other side of the room, and from behind Sekhmet through the door. But, still, with bookshelves (many collapsed) and curtains (in poor condition), it still makes parts of the library more difficult to see in.

There's a big enough splash on the far side of the building.
And, in the middle of the library, there's a pile of books in the shape of a giant nest. "Hey, look," June says, once she sees the nest of books.

June - after Sekhmet opens the door enough - moves in to just inside the library, and holds her gun out, checking the corners and behind bookshelves near the entrance.

And a small sound comes from the nest. Should they approach the nest, they'll see two baby...creatures. Mostly plantlike, but it's like a plant tried mimicking the shape of a human as well as a couple other animals, before becoming mobile and actually more animal-like. There's a dead deer with its neck bitten, also inside the nest.
In fact, the deer's antlers stick out of the nest so they don't even need to get close to know the deer's there.

[bc56]

Japaraita
"Uh, I mean would it make it not fun anymore?" Sekhmet clarifies.

The room is distressing to Sekhmet. "All those books... Destroyed." She sees the deer carcass and the plant creatures and shudders. "Those things are too small to be what I heard." The big adult creature must be nearby. Maybe it's the splash she heard?
At least it seems like it's probably safe to pass through this room, the babies don't seem dangerous. Sekhmet heads for the light source on the far side of the room.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
"Uh, I mean would it make it not fun anymore?" Sekhmet clarifies.

The room is distressing to Sekhmet. "All those books... Destroyed." She sees the deer carcass and the plant creatures and shudders. "Those things are too small to be what I heard." The big adult creature must be nearby. Maybe it's the splash she heard?
At least it seems like it's probably safe to pass through this room, the babies don't seem dangerous. Sekhmet heads for the light source on the far side of the room.

Japaraita

June goes further into the library, looking around behind the few still-standing bookshelves, making her way past the nest and towards the window on the other side, with her pistol out. "I'm sure some of them are recoverable, but it'd be a lot of work," June claims.

The light source on the other side of the room is about where the splash came from, and is just a broken window with a tattered curtain on it. If Sekhmet looks out, there's just water and fish out there. Whatever jumped in clearly moved.

Drip.
There's a sound coming from the same direction Sekhmet and June came from, back towards the sunroom.

"If it can swim, we need to handle this before we search the basements," she says.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Water dripping out in the hallway, and the sound of something dragging lightly on the floor.

"Just need to find where it's hiding..." June backs towards Sekhmet, keeping an eye on the room.

[bc56]

Japaraita
Sekhmet looks at the books. "It's too damp. They'll be rotten and runny." Sekhmet's eyes sweep the room for any signs of the big monster. She can almost hear something she's sure. A dripping sound. But from where... Oh!
"Behind us!" Sekhmet whirls around to face whatever is making that dripping sound. She's not a fighter, she's not prepared for something to jump out and try to eat her. So hopefully it won't do that, but you never know.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
Sekhmet looks at the books. "It's too damp. They'll be rotten and runny." Sekhmet's eyes sweep the room for any signs of the big monster. She can almost hear something she's sure. A dripping sound. But from where... Oh!
"Behind us!" Sekhmet whirls around to face whatever is making that dripping sound. She's not a fighter, she's not prepared for something to jump out and try to eat her. So hopefully it won't do that, but you never know.

[Japaraita]

June turns around when warned.

She drops her flashlight so that she can hold the gun with both hands to aim better. "It's...oh! I see it!"

The creature comes through the same entrance the two of them used not long ago. At its core, it looks like a cross between a person and an animal, but surrounding that it has a much larger body that seems to be made entirely of plants, and its full body is the size of a horse. It's got massive leaves that drag on the ground, and all of it is dripping wet.

June moves just in front of Sekhmet: "Stay behind me!" She holds the pistol out, aiming at it and waiting. Also, more importantly, trying to figure out where she should shoot it. In the middle, right? Probably in the middle.

The creature slowly walks through the door, with its leaves dragging on the ground. Drip. It doesn't try to hide or anything, and just walks straight towards them. After it's fully inside the library, the creature makes a noise and starts dashing at them.

BANG! June fires a shot at it.
She shoots again. And again, shooting pretty quickly about a dozen times at the running creature. Eventually, as it gets close, it stops running and collapses just in front of them, having been hit a lot of times.

After the echo of the gun stops, it's pretty quiet as most of the nearby animals have fled. Only the two baby creatures in the nest are making any noise.

June keeps on aiming at it, breathing heavily and keeping her finger to the side of the trigger in case it suddenly starts moving again.

It doesn't. But, from this distance it's pretty obvious that the animal-humanlike 'body' is actually more like a fruit than an actual body, with the rest of the body being the real body of the creature.

[bc56]

Japaraita
Sekhmet covers her ears amid the gunfire. It's really all she can do. Breathing heavily, she slowly removes her hands from her head as soon as her ears are done ringing. "You... Killed it." She stares at the dead human-looking fruit thing. "What is that?" As the shock dies down she moves back towards the exit. "Let's, uh, get out here." Sekhmet is not thinking about the baby monsters left without a mother. Desperately not thinking about them with all her might. She just wants to get away from this room and it shows.
Maybe June should take her swimming.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
Sekhmet covers her ears amid the gunfire. It's really all she can do. Breathing heavily, she slowly removes her hands from her head as soon as her ears are done ringing. "You... Killed it." She stares at the dead human-looking fruit thing. "What is that?" As the shock dies down she moves back towards the exit. "Let's, uh, get out here." Sekhmet is not thinking about the baby monsters left without a mother. Desperately not thinking about them with all her might. She just wants to get away from this room and it shows.
Maybe June should take her swimming.

[Japaraita]

"...yeah," June says.

Once she's sure the monster's not getting back up, she picks up her flashlight.
She walks past the nest, and tells herself that there's no point in trying to take the little creatures with her since, in the first place, she has no idea what they are or how dangerous they'll be when they're older, and...well, just that. Judging by the deer and the shape of the fruit thing, it's likely some kind of predator, she tells herself. "Not sure what it was, but if other people came by here, it could've gotten dangerous." And, it suggests there's probably not any other monsters around, or it would've had something other than a deer in its nest.

She quickly follows Sekhmet out of the library. "Ugh, I hate fighting things." She takes a deep breath, and speeds up so she can lead the way away from there. Instead of going towards the sunroom, she turns the other direction and they get to the balcony above the great hall. From here, they can look down and see the whole hall flooded, and it's only a short drop down into the water.

June starts justifying aloud why it was probably okay to kill that creature, as she puts her hands on one of the few places that still has a bannister standing: "Okay. So, that monster obviously didn't care about the nest or its babies," she says. "When we walked in, instead of defending its children, it fled and used them as bait so that it could sneak up behind us." It's a post-hoc explanation, but it does seem to be helping June.

She sighs.
She drops her backpack, and puts the gun inside it. "Well, at least now we know it's safe to go searching underwater. That was likely the biggest and only dangerous thing around."
She grabs a rope and a large purse from her backpack, and ties the rope to the bannister. "You think this is a good enough place to enter the water?" she asks Sekhmet, to rope her into the conversation and pull her thoughts (June assumes Sekhmet's thoughts are running along the same lines as June's) away from the creature in the library.

[bc56]

Japaraita
"Me too. I, uh, don't know how you can stand to shoot anything." Sekhmet relaxes once they're out on the balcony and sits down, dangling her feet over the edge. "You're right it probably was a heartless thing," she agrees with June, not really believing her own words. "This looks good. Plenty of space to, uh, swim down there." She removes her glasses, and considering her options, slips them into her cleavage. They won't help her underwater.
Subtly, she uses magic to fix her eyesight. She's not comfortable not wearing glasses, but sometimes it's necessary.
"So, uh, is there anything else I should know about being a mermaid?" she asks. She's already picturing how she needs to alter her body for it.

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
"Me too. I, uh, don't know how you can stand to shoot anything." Sekhmet relaxes once they're out on the balcony and sits down, dangling her feet over the edge. "You're right it probably was a heartless thing," she agrees with June, not really believing her own words. "This looks good. Plenty of space to, uh, swim down there." She removes her glasses, and considering her options, slips them into her cleavage. They won't help her underwater.
Subtly, she uses magic to fix her eyesight. She's not comfortable not wearing glasses, but sometimes it's necessary.
"So, uh, is there anything else I should know about being a mermaid?" she asks. She's already picturing how she needs to alter her body for it.

[Japaraita]

"...it's a lot easier to shoot an animal," June says, not really making it better, but just saying it. With the rope tied, and the bag tied to the rope as well, she starts looking into her purse for different things. She pulls out a waterproof headlamp, and sets it on the ground next to Sekhmet. She makes sure there's other necessary things in there, like trowels, and a crowbar.

She looks at Sekhmet. Or, more specifically Sekhmet's chest pocket. Oh! she realizes. June looks at her own available pocket now. She could probably do that herself now, too. "um, if you want to keep your glasses dry, you could keep it here with my bag," she says. "That way it won't fall out and get lost if you swim too fast."

Without getting her own headlamp, June zips up her purse and holds it on her shoulder. "Things to know about mermaid. . ." She starts counting out a couple of things off hand, "Let's see. Tail to swim, gills to breathe, talking underwater. . .oh! Important thing, getting leverage and pulling and pushing against something is a bit different underwater. You'll get a feel for it eventually, but it's different so don't let it trip you up."

June sits next to Sekhmet. She considers asking Sekhmet to turn her legs back to fins, but decides she doesn't want to impose. "Okay. Ready when you are."
Once Sekhmet signals she is, June slides forward and into the water.


The great hall is pretty big. Not much else in it, though, just waterlogged furniture and fish. Really, there's three main routes out of here which can be glimpsed from here: one to the right, which leads to the kitchen and the stairs down to the winery and the servants' quarters, to the left which leads to the armory and stairs down to the dungeon, and straight out which leads to a few other rooms but no way down and not much interesting. "Let's stay on this floor until you get used to fins," she says.

[bc56]

Japaraita
"No, uh, it's okay," Sekhmet doesn't want to part with her glasses, and her magic means they won't get in the way or be uncomfortable sitting there.
As soon as June says she's ready, Sekhmet unravels the magic she used, causing (unless something weird occurs) June's legs, figure, and clothes to return to their original forms. Once that's done, Sekhmet takes a deep breath, the last breath of air she'll get for a while, and changes. Her legs and tail twist and melt together, growing fins and becoming a mermaid's tail with black scales that shimmer an iridescent blue like a gas flame. Her wings fold into her back; she won't need them underwater. Her clothes become something like the top half of a one-piece swimsuit. She pushes off and slips into the water with a splash, then carefully stretches her tail, feeling its range of movement. "Wow this is different," the demonic-looking mermaid comments. "Uh, yes. I should, uh, get used to this first."

[Thursday Violist]

Japaraita
"No, uh, it's okay," Sekhmet doesn't want to part with her glasses, and her magic means they won't get in the way or be uncomfortable sitting there.
As soon as June says she's ready, Sekhmet unravels the magic she used, causing (unless something weird occurs) June's legs, figure, and clothes to return to their original forms. Once that's done, Sekhmet takes a deep breath, the last breath of air she'll get for a while, and changes. Her legs and tail twist and melt together, growing fins and becoming a mermaid's tail with black scales that shimmer an iridescent blue like a gas flame. Her wings fold into her back; she won't need them underwater. Her clothes become something like the top half of a one-piece swimsuit. She pushes off and slips into the water with a splash, then carefully stretches her tail, feeling its range of movement. "Wow this is different," the demonic-looking mermaid comments. "Uh, yes. I should, uh, get used to this first."

[Japaraita]

Unfortunately, June isn't under any magic effects that would cause something weird to happen simply by unraveling the magic. She feels her waist again once she notices it's back to normal.

"Oh, hey," June says, "Our scales are pretty similar in color." The difference being Sekhmet's are black-with-iridescent-blue while June's are black-with-red-glint-in-the-light. She starts swimming around in circles. "Ah, this feels a lot better to swim with," she says.

While Sekhmet is getting used to her new muscles and body shape, June starts checking out the adjacent rooms. "Stairs over here," she says, making note to return to check it out after they finish this floor. "And stairs over this way." She makes note of that, too. "Over here, lots of dirt built up."

She swims back to Sekhmet. "So, deteriorated kitchen first? Or probably-rusted weapons first?" she asks Sekhmet. "Or I guess we could get the layout of the castle first..."

[bc56]

Japaraita
Having sufficiently felt her new tail, Sekhmet starts swimming. Her succubus magic alters muscle memory and self-image to her new form, so the basic strokes come as easily to her as walking. She'll have to learn anything more complex on her own.
"Hehe, they are," Sekhmet responds, "I'd like to swim around and, uh, find the layout. That way I can practice before going into rooms that might have sharp rusty things I need to avoid." She means both the kitchen and the armory in this case. Without waiting for June's assent, the merdemoness swims out into the hallways to have a look around.

[Earl of Purple]

Travelling Trouble

"Your duty led you to help, and I am grateful to that." The merchant leads Kothar around the wagons, revealing one is loaded with bags of flour and grain. Another is loaded with cleverly packed crockery and glassware, all of it currently intact. On top is an ornate black jug of cuendillar, the unbreakable heartstone created from magically-altered iron. The third wagon is used to carry the caravan's supplies, with water barrels, tents, bedrools, as well as what used to contain the caravan's gunpowder and shot. The pikes used are also being stacked on there. The fourth wagon contains handheld electronics of various sorts, stored in watertight metal boxes- there's phones, radios, GameBoys, MP3 players, and so on. The final caravan is potentially more interesting, bearing a variety of magical trinkets and items. There's several sets of enchanted armour, a longsword dancing with symbols that fade in and out of view and move across the steel, a wooden horse with articulated legs prancing under its own power, five capes, and a box of jewellery.

[bc56]

Travelling Trouble
Kothar examines the supplies with a critical eye. He doesn't need supplies, electronics, or pottery, so it's their stores of equipment that interest him. He can't wear armor meant for a human, and he's not used to wearing armor anyway, so that's not an option. He examines the sword more closely. "Why not use sword in fight?" It was sitting stored here instead of being used against the skeletons. Why? Is it cursed?