Outside: Grass touch place

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"Amazing." Ambrosia comments as Utoya describes the functionalities of her hand. Then she gestures at the moonfolks legs. "And what's the purpose behind your leg and feet enchantments? Since simply the fact you can replace body parts like that is thrilling to me. Do feel everything they touch as if they had been made of flesh or is different somehow?"

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"My legs are quite a different matter, I'm afraid. I had an accident, you see, and these were the result." She explains. "They're quite fantastic designs in their own right, if less flashy. All my prostheses do have touch receptors, though the technology to fully mimic natural sensation has yet to be developed. It's one of the reasons I keep my left hand original."

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"So the sensation is more dull then, like say, the one you feel while wearing gloves?" She flexes her own fingers which Utoya have yet to seen uncovered by armor. "Since I've always found human touch receptors to be a tad overwhelming. So I guess you could say I'm a bit envious of your enchantments." Ambrosia smiles. "But I take it that making enhancements like yours is fairly common where you're from then? Since imagine a lot of people on this plane, and mine, would feel uncomfortable replacing parts of their own body unless they were gravely injured in some way." Like Utoya had been in the case of her legs but she didn't want to linger on that subject.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"Similar perhaps. It's not easy to put to words. It's limited though." Utayo stretches her hand open, then places it on her lap again. "Augmentation is quite common on my plane, yes. There are conflicting philosophies concerning it, however, so I'm certainly aware of hesitance towards it."

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"Yes, I'm familiar with a mindset that believes that by altering the body you somehow taint the 'purity' of the spirit. I imagine that the opposing philosophies you just mentioned might be of a similar vein." Ambrosia waves her hand dismissively as if putting this out of her mind as quickly as she brought them up. "Personally, well, this entire body is ultimately just a tool for me." She gestures at herself. "As crass as that might sound. So I don't really feel that I would 'ruin' anything by changing it. I take it you feel a similar way?"

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

Utayo contemplates that for a moment. "No, I don't think so. I might suggest that your perception is shaped by your true self being outside your body. If I'm interpreting correctly. For me, my own body is still important to me, and I treat it with respect. It's just that what makes my body sacred is not tied to any concepts of being natural or original. It's my own autonomy over my body and how I relate to it that takes priority over all else."

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

Ambrosia nods to confirm Utoya's assertion and then listens to her perspective.
She then rubs her chin as she considers it. "Mm... that makes sense. Perhaps I read too much of myself into you then. Since I do understand that my perspective is rather unique and the idea that someone could share it made me start projecting a bit." The scholar shrugs.
"But to get back to your perspective, you mean that by altering your body you grant yourself more autonomy, more freedom, yes?"

[Earl of Purple]

Cloud Castle- Skeleton Carriage

The man seems somewhat taken aback by the way Benedict speaks but masks it by bowing once again, seemingly out of reflex. "My apologies, I didn't realize you were from the empire as well. You looked... so different." Then he quickly decides to change the topic.
"But, as I said, I am Geun Namgung-" He suddenly hesitates and looks between them, but he relaxes again as they don't seem to recognize the name. "-and I am a scholar of this library. As I said, it was a long time since I saw a human face so you have to excuse my lack of manners. So what brings you here? Are you with the, ah, people on the second level?"

"We are not from the Empire. I am from the Duchy of Cornwall, part of the Kingdom of England, a realm currently being torn apart my angry peasants and rebellious vassals. My wife is from the world of Scadrial, but more recently the city of Skyside." Benedict smiles and bows. "I am Benedict Beaulieu, my wife is Mergei Beaulieu. We are not with the people on the second level; I am a visiting occultist, interested in any works on diabolism or demonology that may be present in this hall of learning." Mergei drops into an awkward curtsy when she's introduced, but says nothing.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"You have it in reverse." Utayo clarifies. "It's because I have autonomy that I can pursue augmentations to myself. It's because I exercised my autonomy in making that choice that makes it no sort of violation. Do you follow me?"

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

Ambrosia makes a 'hm' sound. "Yes, I think I do now. Your choice determines what's a violation and not and since augments are your choice they can be as much a part of your body as any of your other parts." She remarks after some deliberation. "So for instance, if I decided that this-" She puts her hand on her chest. "-was as much a part of my as my dragon body, then it would be. Which is a perspective that I haven't really considered before. Curious." It does seem to have given her something to think about.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

Utayo smiles. "Yes, exactly. Not that I can speak to your particular example. I've never had a body that's both mine and not after all. But I imagine it must be, in a sense, an extension of yourself."

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

“I suppose it has become hard to separate this me dragon me.” Ambrosia admits. “There’s people that I live attached to this identity, this mask if you will, that I could never leave behind. I always imagined that once I free myself from the shackles that tie me to the fey I would shed my human identity and live as a dragon forever. But the more I think about it the more I understand that I couldn’t do that without hurting those I care about.” She frowns, this was not something she was supposed to think about right now.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

Utayo lets that linger for a moment before she replies. "Do you resent this form you take now? Pardon me if that's not a question you wish to answer."

[Magtok]

Tower of Oujet

With Laz shouting about Anika just reaching deep down inside herself and finding even more bear! Just a deep wellspring of bearness. They charge forward together, Laz swinging her sword through zombie necks and Anika... being... a bear? I guess. They chew their way through the mob of undead, the gross mutated monsters swinging at them as they pass but really these things are the slow clumsy sort of undead that really aren't a threat unless they dogpile you. There's nothing stopping our heroes now!

Up ahead it looks like a bunch of the obsidian zombies are... ritually killing themselves and spilling corrupted blood everywhere?

Weird.

Saves the VIGILanties the trouble, right?

It would be nice if Saint Lazarus could believe that, but this is obviously some sort of ritual sacrifice meant to make everything even worse somehow. Open another portal, perhaps? Summon a bigger, badder obsidian monster? Create some sort of blood golems to act as their shock troops? Whatever it is, it can't be good, but without any clear idea as to how to stop them, short of killing them in a way that is somehow insufficiently pious and/or occult...

"Anika, you mind trampling over anything that looks like a magical rune painted in blood up ahead? I have a bad feeling about...whatever it is they're doing over there," the ghoul knight asks, in between vicious swings of her terrible sword. They're almost surely too late to stop the whatever-it-is, but it's on their way to the tower's entrance, so they might as well try, right? I mean, this whole mess feels like they got here too late, and only the stalemate between opposing zombies factions has kept evil from already securing a win today, but that's no reason to give up, to think saving the day is somehow beyond our grasp. We can do this, just you wait and see!

[Shadowcaller]

"We are not from the Empire. I am from the Duchy of Cornwall, part of the Kingdom of England, a realm currently being torn apart my angry peasants and rebellious vassals. My wife is from the world of Scadrial, but more recently the city of Skyside." Benedict smiles and bows. "I am Benedict Beaulieu, my wife is Mergei Beaulieu. We are not with the people on the second level; I am a visiting occultist, interested in any works on diabolism or demonology that may be present in this hall of learning." Mergei drops into an awkward curtsy when she's introduced, but says nothing.

[Sky Library]

Geun looks between them, appearing at loss for words for a moment. "...well, I must compliment you on your gana then." So they were foreigners after all. He seems to relax once he realizes this. "You must have come a long way to get here as I must admit my ignorance of your home country and I am considered one of the most well-versed scholars where I'm from. But if you are interested in knowledge then you have come to the right place. I could take you directly to the occultist section if you so wish. Though keep in mind that some of the volumes there are considered dangerous to read. I was warned by, ah, my host. The master of this place."

Tower of Oujet

Being an awesome bear that these rotten post-people can't stand a zombie of a chance against!

While she was primarily focused on running she still took joy in seeing these lame-ass minions being thrown to the sides and getting decapitated as they barreled forward. Heads and undead were soaring around them and so was her spirit. There really was nothing stopping them now.

Then Laz suddenly says something and she actually starts paying more attention to her surroundings and so she spots it.

An unholy ritual.
The bear grins.

Yeah, Laz wouldn't need to tell her twice. Anika knew exactly how to deal with these evil nerd art projects.

She tramples towards it to ruin anything that even remotely resembled a symbol and will knock those zombie art performers to the ground as she does so. Couldn't spill your own blood if you were knocked on your ass!

[A Sleepless Night]

"That's a difficult question, I admit." Ambrosia replies as she looks off into the distance. "I- wouldn't say so." She continues after a moment as she meets Utoya's gaze once more. "There are aspects of it that I resent. The powerlessness, the vulnerability, the inability to eat most things, the pressure to be a certain way, the lack of flight-" Ambrosia gestures to the moonfolk. "-I'm sure you understand that aspect better than most people."

"But the ability to manipulate things with your hands and the way you show affection... they're nice. Not sure they make up for all those other things but I wouldn't want to give those up. In fact, I believe I would feel more comfortable in this body if I could just modify it a bit." She gestures to Utoya's hand again. "-like you have but not in the same way of course. Unfortunately, I'm already straining the fine line between human and dragon as it is."

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"Perhaps you should put some serious thought into the prospect. It's certainly something that's possible. Though I admit I'm uncertain of the local facilities for such augmentation. I'm afraid it wouldn't be possible for you to get any work done where I did." She smiles with light amusement.

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

Ambrosia let's out a laugh. "I'm certain that I would find such a facility if I looked around. But I don't actually need it as there's a natural process going on here." She gestures up at her horns again. "As you can already see. My essence is causing mutations like these to appear all over this body. It's a relatively slow process but I could speed it up if I wanted to. But while no one on this plane would bat an eye seeing that on this plane its a different story on my own. In the empire I live in its often considered a blessing but you wouldn't even have to leave its borders to find people who would consider me something of an abomination. But regardless of what they think it always draws unwanted attention."

[Rebonack]

[Tower of Oujet]

See?

These two are professionals.

When they see some baddies setting up an evil blood ritual they know that your best bet is to stop it from completing. Unfortunately there are lots of zombies in the way. Fortunately a giant bear smashing through zombies is very persuasive.

Or...

Maybe not persuasive.

Terrifying?

Yeah, that one.

Our heroes cleave through the walls of baddies and Anika manages to gouge her claws through the growing circle covered in cuniform just as the whole thing flashes with baleful crimson light and vaporizes, filling the air with the metallic tang of burnt blood.

As well as a terrible sound.

"Ourt ourt!"

Oh no.

The blood seal just summoned a Blood Seal.

This one doesn't look quite as huge and awful as the one Anika faced in the basement of that restaurant, but it's still a blubbery abomination covered in way the heck too many mouths and tentacles. It immediately heaves itself upright before trying to slam its bulk into Anika, a roiling aura of deadly chaos lashing out from it at everything nearby.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"And these... mutations. Can you control them? The term doesn't imply control. How do you know you'll get the results you desire?" Utayo asks. Her eyes linger on Ambroisia's horns. She hadn't thought anything strange of them before.

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"I don't. Which is yet another reason that I try to contain them as much as possible. Since to answer your other question, I can't control them once they happen. But they should cause this body to become more like my real body. Besides horns I've grown scales, claws-" Ambrosia flexes her fingers again. "-feathers, all similar to what I have as a dragon, but smaller of course. In theory this body would eventually start to grow larger, but that's all guess work on my part as this is all completely new. Dragons never had a reason to possess human bodies until me."

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"I had suspected that this was an atypical experience based on how you discussed it. Is there a particular reason you choose to occupy this form?"

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"Well..." Ambrosia pauses for a moment. "...as you saw back at VIGIL I'm susceptible to control by fey in particular since they created my people. This human shell protects me and hides me from their gaze however." She let's out a small sigh and closes her eyes. "Which, yes, is rather ironic. A dragon hiding behind a human. Shameful really." The scholar opens them again and peers at Utoya. "Since I assume you were at least familiar with dragons of your own world?" Ambrosia had gotten the idea that Utoya at least had been familiar with the term.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

Utayo looks rather intrigued by all this. It's all so bizarre. "I am yes, at least abstractly. It's not often that dragons deign to grant mortals their presence. I have seen them at a distance, however."

[Gold]

[Shady Hollow]

Does defense against j-walking mean you feel compelled to cross the street at a designated crosswalk, or that getting hit by a car deals less damage?

Anyways, the walk certainly is miserable because Changer can't risk ruining a brand new jacket by surrounding his whole body with electricity again. His natural regeneration can handle them, but only just, and if they like the taste of jacket material he's probably saying goodbye to his new threads.

"Somebody here has had an amazing killing spree." Changer says when he sees the huge pile of corpses. Then, he notices it also doubles as a hive for these insects. In which case, there's only one responsible plan of action, and step 1 is to find kindling.

To start things off, Changer will go around and search for any dry stick or other flammable object that he can use to get a fire started.

[Magtok]

Tower of Oujet

► SHOW SPOILER

"Ourt ourt!"

Oh no.

The blood seal just summoned a Blood Seal.

This one doesn't look quite as huge and awful as the one Anika faced in the basement of that restaurant, but it's still a blubbery abomination covered in way the heck too many mouths and tentacles. It immediately heaves itself upright before trying to slam its bulk into Anika, a roiling aura of deadly chaos lashing out from it at everything nearby.

"What in the fuck?" Saint Lazarus swears, taking full advantage of the new forum to truly express how she feels about this monstrosity and its grotesque excess of mouths and tentacles. What the fuck is a Blood Seal, and is that what they were actually trying to summon, or is this just what happens when you smudge some of the runes and Hell doesn't know how to interpret all of the typos in your request for reinforcements? No, it's gotta be the latter. There's no way this was deliberate; nobody would actually want one of these things around, right? It's like someone took a cute little baby seal, the pinnacle of cuteness, went to a videogame options menu, and pulled the slider for its adorableness from a hundred all the way to negative five thousand. And then they smacked it around with an ugly stick for half an hour, just to be sure.

Naturally, Saint Lazarus has a hard time reacting to the beast in time, awkwardly fumbling with her sword and hardly getting it in position in time for the body slam meant for Anika. She points the tip of her blade at the blubbery mass, trying to use the seal-thing's momentum against it and impale itself on the sword. This would probably work a lot better if it wasn't so damn huge, though.

[Shadowcaller]

Tower of Oujet

The seal!
Looked like that unholy pinniped had been summoned once more!

But if these braindead zombies could conjure that thing it probably wasn't even particularly difficult or original. Not only had those cultists been murderous nerds but they had been lame murderous nerds.
Well, she certainly wouldn't let herself get beaten by their stupid pet demon!

Rather than attempting to avoid it as it comes against them with all its bulk she aims to run straight for it. She affords herself a glance at the ghoul knight while she's fumbling with her sword. Come on, come on, not the time to lose your grip on things, Laz!

There! She got it!

Focusing on the seal once more Anika continued barreling forward until she and the seal connected on the battlefield with Laz's sword lodging itself between them. She certainly hoped it had been worth it as this was probably going to hurt a lot.

...

She should probably have asked if Laz could be healed by magic before committing to this.

[A Sleepless Night]

"Ah, so I assume they don't walk among you in humanoid form like I do?" Humanoid, as in human. But Utoya wasn't human was she? Close in appearance certainly but she might not see it that way. "...I hope you don't mind that word, humanoid. I've lived among humans for such a long time that they've become the norm in my mind."

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"No, that's fine. My people are called the Soratami, for your information." Utayo explains. "But no. At least, not often. I've heard tales of dragons taking on different shapes, but I'm not sure of the trust of such tales."

[Shadowcaller]

[A Sleepless Night]

"There are all kinds of fanciful tales about dragons from various planes of existence. I don't think I actually mentioned this but I actually go around this plane interviewing dragons and dragon-related people to find out as much as possible about the variations that exist across the worlds of the individuals that have ended up here. From what I've learned dragons and humans exist in many places, but I don't think I've ever seen your kind. The soratami." There seems to be an implied question here.

[Rebonack]

[Shady Hollow]

What?

No!

That wouldn't make any sense at all.

It makes it so that the wearer isn't harmed as much by J-Walking type damage.

Obviously.

Regardless of absolute nonsense the swarms of biting flies are mostly interested in getting under the jacket and biting Changer himself. Given that they are both small and persistent this probably isn't too terribly difficult. Upon reaching the macabre hive our hero decides that some fire would be a good plan here.

There's only one problem.

This is a swamp.

Everything is wet.

There ARE some dead trees sticking out of the mire, though. He could probably get a few dry branches off of those but he would need to climb (float?) up a bit higher to reach them.


[Tower of Oujet]

Disbelief seems like a pretty solid reaction on Laz' part.

Crashing headlong into her foe also seems like a pretty Anika reaction on Anika's part.

Anika smashes into the seal with terrific force, the blubbery monster failing utterly to be budged even a little bit. It probably weights at least three times as much as Anika does right now and considering that Anika is a huge bear that's really saying something. The sword sinks into the monster's blubber and sprays a plume of chaotic corrupted blood at our heroes, which is quite frankly not great to have on them. Where it splashes on them they'll begin bleeding pretty badly which is probably worst for Anika than Laz given that Laz is dead and does she even NEED blood?

Also that gash the sword just made?

It's a fanged mouth now.

Because this monster is terrible.

And also trying to eat Laz' sword.

[Gullara]

[A Sleepless Night]

"I haven't in my travels either, actually. Perhaps there's something unique about Kamigawa that caused us to develop." She shrugs. "I'm afraid I'm no biologist, so I couldn't speculate. Not that it's simple to compare different planes even so. We were just speaking how sources of energy differ, after all."