Outside: Grass touch place

[Ironsmith]

[Greater Sattleborough]

"No, I did not. My ex-husband did." Jubilee explains as the driver dismounts and starts tugging at the door. "You're familiar with the concept of a eunuch, I take it? A manservant who has had his parts rendered useless so he could be trusted around the court's women's living areas?" She gestures over her shoulder toward the driver. "It's the same general principle, only rather than worrying his servants might betray him with the use of their manhoods, he was concerned that they might use their heads. So he had them cut off."

I must be honest;
I am not so very proud
Of my role in that.

Jubilee gives her scythe a little frown. "...The end result is that they have almost no mind to speak of." She continues. "No will of their own, very limited ability to reason, no conscience and no consciousness. There's enough left of them to hear and understand orders, and very little else. My ex-husband's idea of the perfect servant."

There's a loud crash as the dullahan passes its hand through the window, sending shards of glass tinkling across the floor.

"...I disagree. Strenuously." Jubilee snarks.

[Rebonack]

[Ingress]

"Sounds like a good time to talk about Invocations!" Cat declares as her remaining four kitties begin screening for our heroes so that they can have an important discussion about Game mechanics. "So you have your four Spheres, right? You can Invoke them to basically tell the Game how to change and it'll listen. The more Spheres you Invoke at once the most powerful the scope of the change, but ALSO that means it'll take longer before you can Invoke again. Usually it's a good way to blap things if you haven't got a gun yet."

A beat.

"Oh right you'll get a gun once you pick your role, too. That's probably important to figure out."

She says.

While sounds of violence happen nearby.

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

"Oh, right!" Amadel baps her forehead. Yeah! Those things she picked back there that represent her Path. "Let me see... I have Entropy, Time, Information, and... and..." She snaps her fingers, trying to recall the last one. "...Quality! Right. So that might be helpful."

Actually they're practically custom-built for this. Sure, Information probably couldn't do much, but Time, Entropy and Quality could all lead to the erosion and collapse of the cave, if she had the measure of them right. And that would pretty much take care of everything inside, more than likely.

...Then again, three Invocations seems just excessive. She probably ought to hold back just in case it doesn't work and she needs to be able to do something again when a monster climbs out of the rubble or something.

Okay. She'll invoke one. That should give her the shortest cooldown and a good idea as to what sort of scale she's working with.

As for which one... Entropy. That seems to be the one that best describes what she wants done.

Amadel closes her eyes and focuses.

Entropy. She wants Entropy. Collapse the cave with Entropy.

QUALITY.

Wait, what?

[bc56]

On the Trail of the Lair
"I'll do that but... How should we contact you?" Mary asks.
A reclusive mystery dragon living on a floating island in the middle of nowhere probably won't have a phone.

[Rebonack]

[Ingress]

BE RUINED

So usually there should be an object of an empyrean's will upon the world. Like in this case, the cave itself. When a Sphere is invoked it can be a bit... flexible. It can apply to the usual object of the concept or its inversion. Amadel here touches the Quality of the cave as a shelter and decrees that the cave will no longer function in its purpose of being a cave.

A rather loud rumbling sound fills the air as hairline cracks begin spiderwebbing their way through the stone.

"Oh snap rocks fall everyone dies! Get outta there kitties!"

The kitties do not all get out.

They are too busy engaging with all the demons inside.

With a tremendous crashing sound the whole hillside falls in on itself, the force of the implosion likely blowing the pair of aspirants off their feet.

Cat sits up from where she got knocked prone, dusting some limestone powder off herself.

"Haha! That sure is one way to do it!" she laughs, apparently not TOO bent out of shape over the loss of her husks.

[Halae]

[Ruined Observatory]

Khannie's floundering a bit here. She knows this dumb thing's fear effect is just magical nonsense. She's had to throw down with WAY scarier things than this before but she's still stuck shaking in her hooves.

So what's going on.

What's this thing's deal?

It's attacking emotions. And... eating at memories? It's-

Oh!

Oh that's gotta be it!

It's like the fox trick where you attach emotions to memories. All of a sudden the fox is that person you trust implicitly. She knows how that sorta magic works. Khannie focuses her own magic inward and calms her own feelings like the shadow foxes had taught her. Suddenly the overwhelming terror-thing is just some weird monster.

Skye, meanwhile, lunges spear first!

Normally this would be a solid way to transfix the swirling star at the heart of the horror, but it doesn't seem too keen on allowing that to happen.

Mostly thanks to gravity suddenly inverting and intensifying, yanking Skye off course and into...

Umm...

The ceiling?

Floor?

Either way, not spear-first into the monster.

Speaking of the monster, it suddenly gets WAY more pointy than it was a few moments ago, each point ending in a burning spike of cold stellar radiance.

[Ruined Observatory]

That's not great. If this monster can change someone's course without any apparent effort... well, let's try how often it can do it. Hiep grabs a nearby chunk of rubble, easily as big as she is, and flings it at the creature with a heave and a burst of yellow starlight.

[Ruined Observatory]

Skye doesn't find it particularly difficult to spin and land on her feet once again after that particular issue, though she does find it annoying, including a small wardrobe malfunction with her chest she absolutely doesn't have time to fix right now. That's going to have to wait until after the beast is slain and her comrades are safe.

One of the things she learned during her stay in the Wyld was the art of Imposition. Establishing your own rules for your environment to get things done and avoid the power of other beings. It's not something even most exalts learn, but it's a necessary skill, and while it's going to take significantly more effort here in a place of relative stability, affecting only a single aspect - the gravity - shouldn't be too terribly hard. It only needs to last a moment anyways, long enough for Skye to charge for the anomalous entity and murder it.

She surges forth once more, blazing and incandescent with a pillar of light that fills the room in blue-green glow!

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

Oh snap the kitties! Somehow Amadel had forgotten all about them.

But it's too late to stop the invocation, and the cave collapses, blowing Amadel off her feet and back some distance. Unlike the cats inside the cave, she doesn't seem to be hurt.

Amadel stands and dusts herself off, the limestone powder clouding around her hands and seeming to cling to them as she steps forward, examining her handiwork. Somehow it still felt a bit surreal... maybe that was just the usual first-time jitters acting up, or maybe it had something to do with how... uncontrolled that result was.

"Cat, I am so sorry, I..." Amadel stops herself. What exactly is she going to say? "I completely blanked"? Yeah, that's a consolation, sure.

"...Did... did I at least get it?" Amadel asks, changing subjects. Cat might not be too bothered, sure, but Amadel's probably going to feel guilty about this for a little while, and it'd be helpful to know the sacrifice at least wasn't in vain.

[Rebonack]

[Ingress]

That's a question isn't it?

Why so uncontrolled?

It usually isn't like that. Very odd. Maybe Tahara just needs some more practice?

Cat hops to her feet with her fists on her hips.

"Hey don't worry about it! They got broken for a good cause. And it looks like we probably finished the quest, too! All demons smooshed!"

Which is exactly when the now animated fiendish cat statue bursts from the rubble and roars.

"Oh hey I guess I was wrong!" Cat says without missing a beat as she pulls out a mass of vines wrapped around nothing and fires an annihilation grenade at the statue. The ensuing explosion just sort of erases part of the thing.

It's still angry and trying to pounce on our heroes though.

[Gold]

[Running]

TASBot wastes no time in backing up after his attack, as he raises an arm to shield his screen from launched bone shards. He flexes the fingers on his other hand, quite pleased at the results of his first attack - and he notes that Riacan seems to be happy to have found a worthy opponent, too. He can tell the redheaded warrior is tough, tough enough to tank a punch that would've floored TASBot himself, but toughness doesn't win fights alone.

"If you thought that was good, I'm nowhere near done, so give it your best shot," TASBot taunts, right before the ground below him comes alive with masses of metal tendrils breaking out of the earth. This attack is where things really start to heat up, TASBot thinks, as not only is it much less predictable than the preceding one, but particularly uncertain ground presents a problem to the generally land-bound robot. Indeed, the robot will be forced to tap into his reserve energy - thankfully something he has a lot of as a direct result of the forest running that led him here, but also something that can be burned through very quickly if he isn't careful.

A blue glow is faintly visible under TASBot's shirt as the world appears to go into slow-motion around him. Now using the power of Speed to move 40 times faster, TASBot can react to and manoeuvre around the metal snares with only some difficulty. He uses this increased evasivness to make his way to a nearby tree and shimmy up it far enough that the tendrils either can't reach him or can't catch him off guard; he then immediately returns his speed to normal, conscious of the fact that the energy cost of a trick like that is anything but sustainable.

While clinging to the tree, TASBot will taunt Riacan again with "Want some fruit, pal?" then wait to see what happens. If Riacan tries to attack from far away, TASBot will shimmy around and put the tree's trunk between the two. If Riacan comes closer, though, TASBot will take the opportunity to drop from height on the tree and dropkick the warrior.

[General Shrimp]

Overly Adventurous

Yet another arrow hits its mark, and for a moment Kestrel feels like she's surging towards victory. She's pushing back! It's hurt, she can totally do this!

And then the shadow lunges ahead, faster than she thought it can move, and with Kestrel's focus on the wolf mouse she does not have the time to react. The claws tear through her shirt, digging rows of ragged lines down her chest and stomach in a horrible blow that sends her stumbling to the ground and crying out in pain. Only, with the strike came a strange pricking sensation across her skin. And the blow hurt, but not nearly as much as she would have expected. There should have been a nasty tearing feeling, horrible pain and a vivid slash of blood. But there was no blood, and already the pain had died to merely a dull throb.

Kestrel stares down at herself in disbelief, hand touching her chest to check for the wounds. And instead of warm skin, her hands found something cool, rough, and hard like wood. Because it was wood. She scarcely believed her eyes, but somehow her skin had taken on the form of tree bark!

She's not given a lot of time to dwell on this new development, as another slash forces her to snap back into the moment and just barely roll out of the way. The birdgirl scrambles hastily to her feet, confused as to what's going on but ready to continue fighting.

Overly Adventurous

"I reckon we oughta stop meetin' like this, little Missy." Comes a voice from above, as bright orange wolf-like eyes peer down at Kestrel from the trees. "Yer makin' a bit of a habit gettin' in over yer head, aren'tcha?" Atreyu asks with a chuckle as he hops down beside her. The big silver-furred werewolf flexes his claws, and then reaches over to give Kestrel a little pat on the back. "Need a hand?"

Regardless of what she says, Atreyu mutters to himself (which as a wolf mostly just sounds kinda growly), causing his hands to start glowing brightly, which seems to give the shadow pause for thought. It swishes back and forth angrily, trying to slither forward again but seemingly being forced back by the bright light.

The wolf mouse lets out another snarl, awkwardly shifting its weight to one side as the arrow wounds seem to be taking effect, now looking rather vulnerable with that pesky shadow being held back by the light.

Atreyu winks at Kestrel. "Just givin' you an openin', little Missy."

[Shadowcaller]

On the Trail of the Lair
"I'll do that but... How should we contact you?" Mary asks.
A reclusive mystery dragon living on a floating island in the middle of nowhere probably won't have a phone.

On the Trail of the Lair

Ambrosia reaches up to touch what Sekhmet and Mary realize is actually a tiny (or normal sized if you aren't a giant dragon) that's connected to the golden chain she's wearing around her neck. The pages of the tome move on their own accord at the dragons claw taps against it.

"Mary, can you come here? I have a device you can use to get in touch with me." The dragon leans down, curving her neck to let the tome hang all the way down to ground level so she won't have trouble reaching it.
Still, there is that nearly overpowering scent of ozone that's ever present around her but Mary have had to endure that for far longer than it would take to get up to the tome.

If she does so she will find the sketch of an amulet that looks more electronic than magical. Device or gadget really is the accurate description for it. "Just reach into the tome and grab it."
Mary will find that it's like reaching into the surface of a pond of water, slightly cold to the touch. The amulet somehow floating near its surface just waiting for her to claim it.

"It's connected to a machine made by a... friend of mine. It will let you contact me, among other things. Honestly, you can probably figure out more about its functions than I can." Since this is effectively an smart watch in amulet form.

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

That's a question isn't it?

Why so uncontrolled?

It usually isn't like that. Very odd. Maybe Tahara just needs some more practice?

Cat hops to her feet with her fists on her hips.

"Hey don't worry about it! They got broken for a good cause. And it looks like we probably finished the quest, too! All demons smooshed!"

Which is exactly when the now animated fiendish cat statue bursts from the rubble and roars.

"Oh hey I guess I was wrong!" Cat says without missing a beat as she pulls out a mass of vines wrapped around nothing and fires an annihilation grenade at the statue. The ensuing explosion just sort of erases part of the thing.

It's still angry and trying to pounce on our heroes though.

[Ingress]

Crap. Of all the inorganic cats in that cave that could have survived, it had to be the one that wants their blood.

Can she risk another Invocation? It seems like it might be too soon. And with as unrefined as her technique so obviously is, she can't risk the possibility of blowback hitting Cat.

No, it looks like she's going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Amadel grips her sword with both hands and intercedes, putting herself directly in the cat-demon's path, blocking its access to Cat, and bringing up her blade to chop the creature in half.

...Only for said blade to pass through it harmlessly.

"Oh come on."

[Earl of Purple]

Greater Sattleborough

"Yeah, I know about eunuchs. Dad threatened Krod with it sometimes, but not often." Samantha wasn't always worth threatening, since her dad didn't expect her to carry on the tradition or do anything of any real import. So she wasn't taught.

"Then... why don't you replace them? Tell them to go find your ex-husband and, uh, I dunno. Depends on how things went. If you don't like him, tell them to beat him to death with the wet end of his arm or something." But they might not have the memory to remember plans that far ahead, or might listen to what said ex-husband asks instead of dismembering him to beat him to death with his own limbs.

[Rebonack]

[Ruined Observatory]

Khannie has managed to get herself focused! Her shadow spreads across the ground around her, tendrils of darkness lashing around her to tether herself just in case more gravity wackiness happens. And also to give her more surface to shield herself just in case this monster does something nasty. For the time being, she's watching. Analyzing. Something that was hard when she was blinded by terror last time around.

Hiep picks up a pretty nice piece of carved masonry (all things considered. It's one of those artful works masterfully worked to depict people, animals, and trees in stone. No doubt it cost a small fortune to fashion it. In times past, the pastoral idyllic scene it invoked would be a calming one, alas it is now merely a projectile) and hurls it straight at the monster!

The projectile passes right through it as if it were made of empty space.

Which...

Probably isn't an unreasonable conclusion regarding its composition, really.

It DOES cause it to falter, though. In spite of the fact that it doesn't appear to have harmed it at all that DOES seem like it did SOMETHING. Like it's dustier inside?

Did something to the stone, too. It looks corroded. Eaten by time. As if it had been sitting out in the elements and getting weathered for a few thousand years.

"The rocks are messing with it!" Khannie says, her ears suddenly perking upright with the realization. "It's made outta empty space, having normal stuff inside it must be bad for it." Lighting her horn, she levitates several much smaller pieces of rubble and begins lobbing them into the monster one after another.

When Skye leaps again the cosmic horror once again inverts the gravity, this time for the whole room. Loose objects begin flying around as the ceiling suddenly becomes the floor. But her effort to keep herself grounded works and she manages to spear the creature through it's brightest star-
-which promptly goes supernova.

The blast of radiance is pretty intense and the force behind it enough to easily knock our heroes off their feet. And besides, it's quite possible Skye's spear will be temporally corroded just like the stones were.

[Ironsmith]

Greater Sattleborough

"Yeah, I know about eunuchs. Dad threatened Krod with it sometimes, but not often." Samantha wasn't always worth threatening, since her dad didn't expect her to carry on the tradition or do anything of any real import. So she wasn't taught.

"Then... why don't you replace them? Tell them to go find your ex-husband and, uh, I dunno. Depends on how things went. If you don't like him, tell them to beat him to death with the wet end of his arm or something." But they might not have the memory to remember plans that far ahead, or might listen to what said ex-husband asks instead of dismembering him to beat him to death with his own limbs.

[Greater Sattleborough]

"Well, a few reasons." Jubilee begins as she scrapes broken glass off the bottom part of the carriage window. "The first is simply that, for as much as an ass as he was, I can't say I really hate the man. Not that I don't have good reason to, it's just... the feeling's not there." She shrugs. "So even if I could do that and it would go off without any difficulties, in the end, I don't want to. Especially not knowing that's how I feel... last time I tried to make myself hate somebody that much, it ended horribly for everyone."

"The second," She continues, hauling herself backside-first onto the window, "Is that it would hardly be an answer for what to do with these two. If I sent them back to my ex-husband to beat him to death with his own arms, if they carry out their orders, it would end with them standing over his corpse and doing absolutely nothing else until someone who can give them orders intervenes... so me, basically, or you, and it's not likely we'd be going in that direction again for a very long time. What kind of a future is that?"

"And the third," She concludes, audibly straining as she pulls herself up onto the carriage roof, her feet briefly dangling in front of the window, "Is that it likely wouldn't even work. My ex-husband can still give them orders, so unless they managed to surprise him, which they'd have no way of really doing on purpose, an assassination attempt like that would probably end with him simply telling them to stop, and they would." She reaches back down through the window and retrieves her scythe, pulling it up onto the roof of the carriage with her. Her hand then comes down a second time, offering Samantha a boost through the window if she needs it.

[Rebonack]

[Ingress]

Okay so a couple problems here. First is Amadel's glitching. That's very unusual and also a problem. With her attack whiffing the giant cat is free to pounce on her and begin playing with her like a rat!

Except it...

Sort of...

Clips straight through her.

And into the ground.

"Huh," Cat says as the stuck cat demon begins jittering and contorting in a violent, chaotic fashion. "I don't think that's supposed to happen."

Definitely not supposed to happen.

The back end of the demon begins rotating around, faster and faster and faster as it rapidly builds up momentum despite not actually going anywhere until suddenly the whole system snaps and the monster goes hurtling off into the sky, spinning end over end.

Cat shades her eyes with one hand, watching the monsters ascent heavenward.

"That was hilarious. I've never seen something glitching out like that before," Cat laughs without a hint that the oddity is a cause for concern.

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

Um...

Okay?

Amadel watches with concern as the cat-demon-thing apparently forgets how to exist in harmony with the laws of physics for a minute, jumping back a bit as it goes sailing out of the ground and off... somewhere.

With any luck, never to be seen again.

"...Wait. Um. Did... did that work? Does that count?" She asks, looking over to Cat.

If they accidentally glitched the monster out of existence and Cat's quest log was keeping track of it, did they just break the quest?

Or is it about to come back down somewhere and take a metric butt-ton of fall damage?

Or-or, does the log just keep checking if the creature is still there, and not look for its death specifically, and consider the quest done if it's somehow reduced to the state of "no longer a problem" regardless of how, exactly, that happens?

After all, it's obviously no longer an issue for the locals regardless, since it's not likely to be able to maintain its curse if they sent it outside of reality or set it up to disintegrate on re-entry, and that's the really important part. But it'd be nice to still be able to reap the rewards from it, such as they are.

"...I guess we're done here, then?" Amadel prompts, attempting to sheathe her sword and finding it sticking to her hip without disappearing. "If so, maybe we should dig through the rubble and see if we can pull together any of your kitties."

She still feels kind of bad about that.

[Morty]

[Ruined Observatory]

When the light and the force wash over Hiep, she... remains standing. Is it sheer stubbornness that keeps her upright? Maybe, but either way her claim to being a simple janitor is growing weaker. What she does next doesn't help.

"Get clear! I'm going to collapse the ceiling on it!"

As she says it, she hefts another large pile of rubble. If this thing is hurt by large objects inside it, she can provide some.

[Halae]

[Ruined Observatory]

The blast washes over Skye, warded off by the blue-green power of her exaltation. It'll keep the spear from corroding entirely, but it can't stop it from becoming rotten and useless, so she drops it and the weapon clatters to the floor.

She'd been about to act on Khannie's advice before Hiep called in, so she's still in a combat stance as she calls out, "Understood!" and rather than drop it immediately to get clear, she'll do a palm strike towards the lower end of the creature, the same position that, on a human, would be the lower body, intent on essentially spiking the thing towards the ground with an essence-reinforced blow. It should keep it grounded long enough for Hiep to manage.

And then she jumps away, landing on a piece of furniture that happens to be on the ceiling, relative to the others.

[bc56]

On the Trail of the Lair
Mary reaches into the book, a bit uncertainly, and takes out the amulet. "This looks a lot like my phone," she comments.
"I, uh... Thanks for not hurting her," Sekhmet adds. "It's a huge relief to know she's safe. We should, uh, probably rejoin the others."

[quillpleasant]

Sudden Cave

The gas spore is bypassed, without disturbing it or making it explode. Lia is no doubt grateful of this- or she would be, if she'd known its exuberant nature.

Ahead, the cave narrows significantly, though it's wide enough that Lia can squeeze through- the orb did, and it's wider than she is. Beyond the crack the cave widens out again, and there's an exit visible. Or, at least, light. The angle is rather poor, and the illumination isn't great, but she's in a large cave bulging to both sides with a crack leading out. This part of the cave is a lot drier than the previous one, and there's fewer geofacts created by running water- no cave pearls in this part of the cave, and the ridges along the floor are smaller. There's some detritus in the centre of the cave where people have dumped things, and that's providing fuel for more mushrooms and fungi. There's another of the pallid tendril-bearing paralytic predator-parasites Lia encountered earlier, concealed amidst several large and unusually formed branching red fungi bodies covered in small holes. There's no human bones underneath that pile, however; it's a mound of compost and rotting food, with animal bones and rotting vegetation. Lying nearby is an unmoving human, a bulky man wearing grey trousers and a matching shirt, an unpleasant bronze mask over his face. Just visible underneath the man is a sword and a wheellock pistol, probably held by the man before he tried investigating this cave.

Lia is significantly more flexible than a human would be- her lack of bones allows her to contort her limbs in quite a variety of ways, even if it's a little uncomfortable. She makes her way through the gap with no difficulties, and is relieved to see another potential escape. This could have been much worse, if she had appeared far below the surface.

Plus, this cavern is a treasure trove for a hungry myconid- and Lia is always hungry. Rotting organics and animal bones are fine dining to her, and her mouth waters in anticipation. But first, there's the matter of this human.

With the mask, it's hard to tell if he's dead, or merely unconscious. If he is alive, those weapons could be very dangerous to Lia, and she's unwilling to take too much of a risk this close to her escape. She slowly lowers herself to a crouch.

"Hello? Are you injured, sir?" she calls out softly. Then a little louder. "Are you alive, sir?" And if this fails to provoke a response, she'll carefully crawl over and give him a couple firm pokes. Better safe than sorry.

[Rebonack]

[Ruined Observatory]

The thing about really stark blasts of light is that they cast very deep shadows, a fact that Khannie takes full advantage of. The darkness thickens and clots in front of her, swelling with the force of the explosion and drinking up the shadow cast by the light. When the blast-wave rolls past she lets her barrier slump back into the floor, her shadow now reaching even further and blanketing half the floor and walls with twisting tendrils of darkness.

She tries a few probing attacks, spikes of shadow seeking to impale the interstellar horror, but the shadows do absolutely nothing to it because it's absolutely nothing. Frowning, she keeps up with her volley of hurled objects.

Skye's strike does seem to pin the horror in place, but there's the obvious downside of needing to touch the thing to do so. Skye may find that getting her arm OUT of the creature after swatting it is difficult. It's interior is a zone of distorted time. The reason objects passing through it corroded as though subjected to thousands of years of weathering is because they were subjected to thousands of years of weathering. Hopefully her aura will be able to protect her from the monster's entropic touch.

After Skye leaps away the monster acts with undo cleverness and attempts the steal the memory that filling the nothing with something harms it in a bid to sabotage the forming plan.


[Ingress]

Cat is still squinting off into the distance, watching the demon steadily receding until it has finally vanished from sight.

"Huh?" would be her reply to Amadel.

She was really only half listening.

"Oh yeah, no, they all got wrecked. I can tell how many husks I've got. I'll need to find some dead animals to make new ones," she reports.

Notice she didn't say she'll MAKE dead animals to make new ones.

Zebakhel COULD just murder some random wildlife and raise them as her otherworldly pet zombies but that just seems mean, you know? She would rather think of her skill application as helpful recycling. Thankfully it doesn't even need to be an actual cat! She can just reshape it while she's working on it.

"And we totally finish this step of the quest! We just need to head back to the village to report the success and get our reward! We'll probably get some Renown for this and maybe lunch, it'll be cool!" Catherine says as she laces her fingers together behind her head and marches off, whistling cheerfully.

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

...Ah.

Cat raising zombie helpers certainly explains why she doesn't seem so upset if one or all of them get smooshed. They probably don't even technically register as "alive" to begin with.

That comes as a little consolation to Amadel, admittedly. Though she's not sure how she feels about continuing too far down that line of thought.

But she puts that out of her head at Cat's mention of the reward they're looking at. Renown and lunch. The former she didn't even realize she wanted, but...

...

Well, lunch sounds good, at any rate.

Amadel smiles and skips after her companion, a new spring in her step. Despite the weirdness they'd just been through, things do seem to be looking up.

[Shadowcaller]

On the Trail of the Lair
Mary reaches into the book, a bit uncertainly, and takes out the amulet. "This looks a lot like my phone," she comments.
"I, uh... Thanks for not hurting her," Sekhmet adds. "It's a huge relief to know she's safe. We should, uh, probably rejoin the others."

On the Trail of the Lair

"I wouldn't know anything about that. Electronics and I don't agree and not because of ignorance on my part. But this one is special so it should work for you too." And she certainly hoped Mary's other electronics wouldn't start malfunctioning now.

The dragon the turns to Sekhmet. "That's a strange thing to thank someone for." She replies, letting out an amused snort. "But you should. Just remember everything I've said and contact me if you have any other issues with her recent changes." She couldn't help but to feel a responsibility of sort to Mary. After all, she now shared a lot of what she was.

[Rebonack]

[Ingress]

The walk over to the village is pretty leisurely stroll and upon arriving Cat's description proves true. They DO get lunch and they DO get Renown, though the latter is kind of... abstract?

Also!

Amadel gets some alerts!

Finish your first quest!

Complete a quest while part of a party!

And it would appear as though she has acquired a pair of TALENT POINTS which are... apparently for something?

Maybe she should ask Cat about that on the way to Trog's? Cat might not respond coherently right away, mostly because she's eating the free gyro she got.


[Englebrook]

Thus far the people of Englebrook have taken to calling them varmints.

They aren't too much a threat, provided there aren't too many of the toothy little fuzzyballs around. A farmer with a sturdy shovel can dispatch one without too much trouble. But when lots of them show up? Well, then there's some trouble. The people of Englebrook were content to deal with the varmints on their own to begin with, but after the Holsum farmstead ended up razed they decided it was high time to call in some help.

After all, there's always help to be had around here right?

Always some do-gooder ready to solve the problems of some poor villagers?

That's usually how it goes, at least.

Surely this varmint problem isn't indicative of any graver threat, no sir.

Those approaching the village will find an expanse of outlying farmsteads surrounding a central hub of sorts. Calling Englebrook a town would be quite generous. It largely just serves as the gathering point for the farmers and a place to trade goods at the general store or trade tales at the Muddy Boot inn. A rough palisade of tree trunks encircles about two thirds of the town and looks to be a recent addition.

Incoming adventurers could check in at the inn, certainly. That's always a good place to start. There's a barber's shop. A small temple dedicated to some agricultural god. A blacksmith. And of course the town sheriff who may or may not double as the mayor. Regardless of where our heroes begin, they may wish to hurry before another farmstead gets eaten.

[quillpleasant]

Englebrook

"Extra credit: Engage in community service (colloquially known as an adventure) off campus that involves the slaying of monsters. Write an essay between 600-800 words reporting what the service entailed, which monsters were involved, and how you went about slaying them." So read the handout that Octavia had gotten in her Monster Slaying class at PREP, and being an energetic go-getter she immediately started searching for potential avenues of completing the assignment.

Now Englebrook is clearly dealing with something, but Octavia has her doubts as to if it will really count. After all, 'varmints' don't exactly bring dangerous monster to mind, and playing the role of exterminator wouldn't really fit the bill. But who knows? Even if it doesn't fulfill her extra credit, it might help people, which is also worth doing.

The angel manifests in the middle of town in a flash of light, and she looks around with interest. Appearing as a headless teenager dressed in an oversized green coat over black athletic wear and combat boots, her halo is currently in the form of a retro white video camera, its lens glowing red as it pans back and forth, recording the surroundings. She has no arms or equipment- that's what the halo is for.

For a moment she considers heading to the inn- but she's underage, and that might be against the rules. Octavia is many things, but a rule breaker is not one of them. So instead she heads to the sheriff's office, figuring that might be the best place to go to find out more information about what's actually going on here.

[Ironsmith]

[Ingress]

The walk over to the village is pretty leisurely stroll and upon arriving Cat's description proves true. They DO get lunch and they DO get Renown, though the latter is kind of... abstract?

Also!

Amadel gets some alerts!




And it would appear as though she has acquired a pair of TALENT POINTS which are... apparently for something?

Maybe she should ask Cat about that on the way to Trog's? Cat might not respond coherently right away, mostly because she's eating the free gyro she got.

[Ingress]

Amadel, meanwhile, walked away from the village with a bag of a dozen plain hotdogs. Thus far she had eaten three of them. Well, "eaten"... she didn't so much eat them so much as they sort of just disappeared when she put them near her mouth, amid sounds of chewing and delighted humming.

It's been way too long since she's had a hotdog that wasn't cold. Or covered in congealed grease. Or half-eaten already. Or on a bun that wasn't stale and moldy.

As she unwraps hotdog number four, Amadel glances to one side, seeming to notice the milestones for the first time.

Those seem important somehow.

"Heh, Cad?" Amadel asks around an apparent mouthful of meat and bread. "Whad are Talend Poinds?"

[Rebonack]

[Englebrook]

The most important thing to remember about any adventure is that it's dangerous to go alone. This is one of the first principles of monster slaying! You should always have at least one partner slash buddy with you just in case one of you gets mauled and it's difficult to get to somewhere safe. This, of course, begs a very important question.

Who to ask to come along on a monster slaying extra credit project?

Obviously someone who's quite capable in that field.

And given their previous meeting AND the talk around campus that she helped take down some kind of giant lightning snake it seems like there's at least one pretty solid choice amongst the students Octavia has met thus far on her very important documentary mission.

Khannie doesn't teleport in.

She rode Rifteline to the nearest station and just had a nice brisk canter the rest of the way. One of the upsides to being a magical unicorn is that you're pretty fast AND tend to have solid stamina. And that means Khannie gets a nice workout on the way to the town. By the time she's trotting toward the palisades her flanks are a bit sweaty, but that's fine. She's got her shadow magic and the cool weather to keep herself from running hot.

Given that it's WINTER right now that means Khannie's coat has poofed up to its full extent and she arrives at the town with a light dusting of snow in her mane. She's wearing her trademark cap and the fancy cloak her dad made for her along with a set of saddle bags for carrying her stuff. But otherwise her ample built-in collection of FLOOF will be plenty to make sure she's ready to go.

While Khannie doesn't see Octavia's entrance her horn picks it up. It isn't just there sticking out of her head to look cool; it's a magical sensory organ, too. As a result it's a matter of Khannie waving her head back and forth a bit to zero in on where Octavia is. Or at least where she magic'd in.

So!

Octavia heads into the sheriff's office! Well. Calling it an office is certainly an overstatement. The small building serves as the town's jail. It sees little in the way of use, honestly. Normally, at least. The sheriff (you can tell because of his very bushy mustache, nice hat, and the metal star on his vest) is sitting behind his desk watching a rather insane looking man gnawing at the bars, snarling, and foaming at the mouth like he's got rabies. The sheriff's eyes train on Octavia when she steps inside.

"They sending robots out to do men's work these days?" he asks gruffly.

Probably not the best foot to start on.


[Ingress]

Cat is kind of sort of half-way watching Tahara 'eating' the hot dogs.

Honestly the glitchy stuff is kind of funny but also kind of disturbing.

But!

There are also important questions to ask and answer!

"Perk points are how you pick perks."

Clearly.

"So they're for specializing the stuff you can do, right? I've mostly got perks for making the Husks I make better. Karaglen has some for healing people and for making the her materia construct cool. Probably other things too? Lapis has got a million different sword perks. They do basically anything. Some on your weapons, some for class things, some for your spheres. Other stuff, too. You got some for the quests, right?" Cat asks.

[Ironsmith]

[Englebrook]

"ThEy SeNdInG rObOtS tO dO mEn'S wOrK tHeSe DaYs?"

The guy who definitely is not the sheriff pokes his head out from behind the desk, smirking as he shifts back into the shape of a teenage girl in heavy silver armor and carrying a large shield.

"That's you. That's what you sound like." The knightess chortles, stepping away from the desk.

It'd been too long since Blank's last outing. Granted, in most recent memory he'd been kinda-sorta killed, as he bit off a little more than he could chew, but he has to assume that to be... what's the opposite of survivorship bias? That. He never would have spent as long a time as a vigilante as he did if he wasn't somewhat capable, and the loss had to be something of a fluke.

Besides, what else is he supposed to do, sit up in his room and sulk until he makes a full recovery, and never do adventury stuff again? Sure, that'd make him a great boyfriend to a girl who was looking to be a professional adventurer.

Arthfael then proceeds to step up next to Khannie, the grin falling off his face like a melting snowman. Joking time is over now. Time to see what's happening here.


[Ingress]

"Oh, cool." Amadel nods and swallows. "Yeah, they just kinda popped up after the quest finished. Along with something about doing a quest for the first time and doing it with a friend." She takes a moment to look over her skill tree, hotdog the fifth disappearing up to the halfway point as she ruminates. "...I don'd habe to sbend dhese righd now, righd?" She asks.

Because it's kind of tempting to just throw them at her sword as it is. Something that'd be useful no matter what role she picks.

Which... seems like the right general idea, but she's hoping for something that works a little more reliably. Like a movement speed or health regen buff or something.

[bc56]

On the Trail of the Lair
"Gosh, I hope that doesn't happen to me," Mary comments.
"We will. Come on, we need to get back to the party." Sekhmet beckons Mary back over to Khannie and Hiep.
"Mary's safe. It's, uh, time to go back."