HALO CLXXXV: The Titles End Here

[Ironsmith]

[Halo Skybase]

Vlad looks up as he's addressed, slowly pulling himself to his feet, wiping his hands on his oil-stained t-shirt. "That's what it says on my business cards." He chortles, offering one of said hands to Henry. "Vlad Lustig. These are my babies you're looking at." A wide grin pokes through his wavy black beard. "How can I help you, mister?"

[Keeper]

Halo Skybase

"I'm Henry Vadnova. I'm from the seabase. I um. I was looking for someone who could help me with some uh. Particular difficulties of my anatomy and supernatural abilities. Um. Primarily my ability to um. Pass through solid objects."
Henry looks down and immediately regrets it, locking eyes with Vlad instead.

[Ironsmith]

[Halo Skybase]

It probably doesn't help that Henry's glance downward prompted Vlad's own, which in turn was not helped by the vague, cagey reference to his "anatomy" producing difficulties, before he goes on to clarify he's referring to his intangibility. "Ah, right, okay. You, sir, are very much in luck." He grins, giving Henry a little clap on the back. "A colleague of mine recently prompted me to start looking into the material implications of the Venkman Principle in relation to nanomachines. He was a little bit vague on the specifics of what he was looking for, but it's left me with a lot of new fabrics to try out. Let's look them over and see what works for you, yeah?"

Vlad reaches down and grabs a chrome-plated box attached to his hip, which he starts fiddling with while muttering under his breath. "...So tell me about yourself while I get this set up, mister Vadnova." He continues. "...By which I mean, you know, biomechanically. I'm not about to ask you if you like long walks on the beach or anything."

[Keeper]

Halo Skybase

"I thought I would ask since apparently an old Halo veteran used to have powers like mine.
Um. Well, I got killed a while back and mostly came back, which has left me mostly alive but still capable of well, ghostly things. I still breathe, but I kind of just eat whenever I want? My skin still needs to be kept damp because fish. I have gills that work but they can't work at the same time as my lungs. I generally like things cold which you might have noticed." Henry explains. It definitely does seem a bit more chilly with him around.
He also clearly has clawed toes and feet which he's never been sure about because obviously sharks don't have claws or digits of any kind.

[Earl of Purple]

Post-Shuttling Down

"You do. You dreamt you were falling last night, for about an hour. On the outside, anyway, dunno how long it was in the dream. You floated a yard above the bed, head down and feet up and anything that got within that yard was flung at the ceiling." Neveah really wished she'd recorded it, but it's kinda normal for the group and she didn't know Leotello didn't know he did it.
"I could've told you that at any point, it's not conclusive!" Leotello and Neveah don't notice if Lia leaves for the interview room, too distracted by the argument, though Mycroft will bid her a farewell.
"So, ah, what can we do in the meantime?" Rovert is ignoring the argument, and focusing all his attention on Henry, to a potentially creepy extent.

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

"Yes, we all know that rewriting personalities is quite bad." Artie says drily to the being that caused an event that rewrote her personality and is mildly sure tinkered with Skye's.
"Anyway yes I whether you go with this Mask or something like your severance idea I think all of us can agree that being a cognitohazard is bad." Of course she isn't aware that Skye kind of maybe is one but still.

Lab

If Libra detects any sort of sarcasm or irony in Artie's voice, she isn't showing it and she doesn't have the best poker face.
"Yeah, we'd need something else." Libra rubs her chin thoughtfully as she looks up at the ceiling.
"So either we just go with Skye's appearance or you could just name someone else for your base human appearance. I wouldn't hurt them or anything, just scan their physical appearance."

[Shark to Meet You]

There's a loud thud as one of the windows of the windows near the shuttlepods is impacted by the snout of a great white shark.
Annoyed the shark backs off and swims away.

And after a few minutes it instead collides with the docking bay doors. Repeatedly.

[Keeper]

Lab

"I don't want to use someone's appearance who hasn't given me their consent. Right now, Skye has done so, so that's the only person I'm comfortable with using. Just...aged up a few years please? I'm not really comfortable with being a teenager again."
Properly speaking, Skye might be an adult by now but Artie is not good at guessing ages. Either way, she considers herself to be in her twenties despite the sort-of immortality. She does, of course, not know about Libra's plan for Skye's aging process.
"Assuming Skye is still alright with it. You could consider it something to look forward to? Though most people are done growing in their late teens so I suppose there won't be a huge difference..."

[quillpleasant]

Post-Shuttling Down

"Lovely, thank you," says Lia, curtsying to Henry, "I look forward to working with you." This is exciting. She's never been part of an organization before.

"Thank you all for the concert, and the ride. It was a lovely experience," she says to the elves, smiling. It really was! A good distraction from her melancholy.

Her goodbyes made, she heads down the corridor towards the room mentioned. It takes all her willpower to not drop to all fours and scuttle about taking all the new sights and smells in, but this is serious business, and she has to be professional.

[Halae]

Lab

Skye shrugs, "I am fine with this. Perhaps the me of twenty-five years would be appropriate? Old enough to have gotten past all the nasty growing pains and well into actual adulthood," she considers a moment, "It'd be nice to see where my growth is going to end up."

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

"I don't want to use someone's appearance who hasn't given me their consent. Right now, Skye has done so, so that's the only person I'm comfortable with using. Just...aged up a few years please? I'm not really comfortable with being a teenager again."
Properly speaking, Skye might be an adult by now but Artie is not good at guessing ages. Either way, she considers herself to be in her twenties despite the sort-of immortality. She does, of course, not know about Libra's plan for Skye's aging process.
"Assuming Skye is still alright with it. You could consider it something to look forward to? Though most people are done growing in their late teens so I suppose there won't be a huge difference..."

Lab

"You're not going to turn out exactly like them. A lot of you is gonna shine through their base form. But if that's what you want, who am I to stop you?" Libra shrugs.
"Anyway, that will be the base form of the mask then. But it still need a motivation and a identity to go with it. Motivation... uh..." She visibly struggles again. "Damn, I wish I hadn't dismissed that goat so quickly. But it's just like your other masks, right? One being a guard and the other being like a... love person. So what's this gonna be like? You're gonna need to copy the motivation from someone I should say. But don't worry, just like with the appearance it's gonna be your inter- inter... you version of their motivation."

She floats over to Skye again. "For example, if you'd copy it from her you'd be like a fey fighting duo, though the reason why you'd fight them would be your own."

[Keeper]

Lab

Fighting fey while continuing to be one would feel VERY strange to her.
”Um. I think I’d prefer to just be someone who helps save lives. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. That’s why I tried to become a doctor in the first place. Is that good enough?”

Surely Libra knows at least one or two people who are like that?

Post Shuttling Down

”Huh? Interview?” Henry asks, but Lia is already gone.
Left alone with the elves, Henry tries to think of something.
”Well, you’re welcome to stay here for a bit while Miss Maria. You can look at the library too. Or kill time at the pool? I don’t think either of those should have mirrors…”

[Halae]

Lab

"That shouldn't be a difficult thing to find," Skye says, considering, "Perhaps someone at GLoG would be a good person to borrow that kind of motivation from? Helping people is their stated aim, after all."

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

"Alright, that one's easy to get." Libra will just take it from... giant alligator and/or crocodile woman.
She claps her hands together. "Now just for the final piece, the identity. The personality. One that needs to be mixed with yours to make a mask a... well, a mask. Otherwise it would just be you with a specific goal and a different appearance. It's probably the trickiest part though so you will definitively need her help for this one." Libra points a thumb at Skye. "Since personalities can't often be described in a few words, but I guess I could find someone matching a personality description? Probably won't be as accurate as you might like though."

[Keeper]

Lab

Artie blinks. "You...want me to name someone who I think has a pleasant personality? Um..." Artie definitely has trouble with this one. She's met plenty of women she wouldn't mind being more like. But well, Dorota is too much of a scientist to work with this. And there was that kind woman she met on the road, but that would probably be again, too motherly to go for a heroic type.

She glances over at Skye. Maybe she knows someone more appropriate?

[Halae]

Lab

"What about Sophie? She's a therapist, and willing to fight on behalf of what she believes is right if her charges are threatened."

Skye hasn't actually met Sophie yet, mind. This is just what she's heard. She considers it a very good thing.

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

"The sun-y woman? I guess. I, uh, don't have any suggestions myself. Been a while since I was around so I haven't really been keeping track on people's personalities." Libra shrugs helplessly. "Unless you want the Halia personality. Or the Cessie one I guess. Those are the only two people I really recall."

[Keeper]

Lab

Wow Libra already forgot about all the other people she’s helped/“helped” over the years? Truly her mind is fickle.
”Well, I would like to continue being me, mostly. But I will settle with good people who are selfless and not about to be doing anything creepy. Since I don’t know any of the people you’re talking about.”
She might have met Sophie once?
And yes she’s definitely talking about her predecessor when it comes to being a creep.

[Halae]

[Lab]

Skye just shrugs. She doesn't have any other good suggestions at the moment.

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

People, especially their names, are hard to remember!

Especially when a lot of those people no longer are around anymore. Libra recalls that there were a whole bunch of 'wish granters' back in the day but now they all seem to have gone extinct!

Only she remains.

And the hippo.

"So... good people who are good?" Libra fakes a yawn. "How dull. But okay, a good person of good then." She claps her hands together. "Which means we're done."

"But let me go through what you picked first. You want an appearance based on an 'adult' Skye, your motivations will be saving people and finally your personality will be based on a super-good persons. However, you will still be you and all that."

Libra scratches her neck as she pauses to consider. "Oh yeah, like all your other masks this one will have special abilities that will be, erm, influenced on these three choices. I don't know exactly what these will be, it'll be something you have to discover for yourself. But keep in mind those abilities might influence your appearance a bit, just so you know."

She offers her hand. "But are we in agreement then? I've tried being as open about this as possible so there shouldn't be any surprises other than the ones I've already mentioned."

[Reinholdt]

[Shark to Meet You]

There's a loud thud as one of the windows of the windows near the shuttlepods is impacted by the snout of a great white shark.
Annoyed the shark backs off and swims away.

And after a few minutes it instead collides with the docking bay doors. Repeatedly.

[Shark to Meet You]

In one of the rare instances of Maria leaving the library, brought on once again by the unfortunate necessity to eat after having lost perfectly good reading time passed out on the librarian's desk for two hours, the human woman happens to be passing by at this time. She doesn't even seem to notice at first, her carefully bunned, black hair standing up as her head focuses down at the book in her hands. Bloody Mary: Fey, Fiction, or Fragment of another world? is indeed fascinating, even if it's not her usual fare.

Another heavy thud into the shuttle doors seems to snap her from her reverie and Maria adjusts her reading glasses a bit as she stares at the door with confusion. Bonking further leads her to the nearby window where she peers out into the fathomless depths, trying awkwardly to see what unfortunate thing is out there causing such a ruckus.

[Shadowcaller]

[Shark to Meet You]

It's a shark.

One that would probably be known as a great white shark except this one have some peculiarities that only becomes apparent with a close inspection.

Since Maria might notice that the animal's dorsal is a vibrant ember color and it's normally grey upper body is a shade of teal, but that's harder to notice in the water.
What's less noticeable is that this great white shark is especially great in size though is not enormous. So more akin to the shark from Jaws than most sharks in movies based on the same franchise.
And it is right now stubbornly trying to open the doors to the docking bay without much success.

[Earl of Purple]

Post-Shuttling Down

"I'll go to the pool. Hey, guys! There's a pool, stop arguing and follow me!" Rovert yells at Neveah and Leotello to end the argument, and will head in any direction he's told to reach the pool and do some swimming.

[Keeper]

Lab

Artie resists the temptation to sigh. It's just a mask. By all accounts it's good to have extras. And this will maybe get Libra to be satisfied without rewriting her to be a songbird or something.
"Yes, I think that's all rather acceptable for now." she replies. She might be being a little curt but she doesn't want to give any wrong impressions.
"You know I don't think I've ever even used my second mask so thanks for telling me what it is I guess." It's technically a duelist not a guard but close enough.

[Ironsmith]

Halo Skybase

"I thought I would ask since apparently an old Halo veteran used to have powers like mine.
Um. Well, I got killed a while back and mostly came back, which has left me mostly alive but still capable of well, ghostly things. I still breathe, but I kind of just eat whenever I want? My skin still needs to be kept damp because fish. I have gills that work but they can't work at the same time as my lungs. I generally like things cold which you might have noticed." Henry explains. It definitely does seem a bit more chilly with him around.
He also clearly has clawed toes and feet which he's never been sure about because obviously sharks don't have claws or digits of any kind.

[Halo Skybase]

"Uh-huh." Vlad nods along to Henry's explanation, pulling out a tape measure and going to work measuring his legs, waist, crotch, and so on, jotting down the numbers on a fresh notepad. "Well, that complicates things. If you were just a straight ghost it would be trivial to find the right materials. As it stands, I'm going to have to get a little creative." He then pulls out his phone and quickly taps out a message.

> Hey Quire do you have any templates for slacks? [Henry's Measurements]

GIN-Tau-99 is typing...
<GIN-Tau-99> abfch-dresspants.tmp

> Thanks. Appreciate it.

"All right." Vlad clasps his hands together. "I'm going to need to see you actually go intangible to make this work. Ideally under a spectroscope. If you're willing, that is."

[Murkus]

[Fourth Tower Compound]

"Jim," Sticks hedges, still feeling he needs to say something regarding this full explanation, "If any other ontologically biased extraplanar beings ask you for assistance, I do recommend you come to me first. What's more, er... why did you help this creature in the first place? Simply because it was an 'angel'? And why you?"

There might not be time now for those questions to be answered.

"Ladies, please!" Sticks exclaims. He opens one spindly hand. "Miss Vax. Is there some danger to the broader world we ought to be concerned with, should we utilize the substance? Or would it be a danger to ourselves only? In the latter case, why not let us trade for some? What concern is it of yours if amateurs injure themselves?"

"And Miss Jaahlyn," Sticks says, "Isn't it possible this refined substance developed by the Tower lies outside the halls of your experience?" The comment about Jaahlyn's... extended lifetimes will have to wait for the moment.

Finally, for both or either of them, he adds, "What precisely is the danger in this substance? In practical terms?"

[Keeper]

Halo Skybase

"Yeah, I get it. Having to make everything water-resistant for me is a serious pain. But I can't really help being amphibious.
I uh, hear Mister Bushranger's costume was kind of tight. Which does work for if I have to swim or wear it under clothes but well." It probably wouldn't be super flattering.
"Of course I'd volunteer to vanish. But uh. Well. You have to be ok with seeing me naked. Since my clothes fall off. And also does it have to be here? It's kind of a long way down if I slip and fall through the floor." Yes Henry getting a scientist to examine you means going to their lab.

[Morty]

[Rec Room]

Some part of Calm Reed has to admit that Reinholdt has a point. She has made this needlessly complicated. But that part of her is quickly silenced by her well-honed sense of self-assurance, which is strengthened by Reinholdt's uncouth behavior.

"Toppling is not my intent... yet. But that man has rumors swirling about him that make truth difficult to discern. And any influence he might have in Vigil is concerning. But what you say seems to tell me Blanche is not involved with him."

[Shadowcaller]

[Rec Room]

Ambrosia returns with the first aid kit only to realize that she had little idea how to actually use it. That hadn't been a part of the tour.
Thus, she's just going to awkwardly hand it to Rein in hopes that he would have an better idea of what to do with it despite he being the injured one.
She only gives Calm Reed a quick glance, clearly not impressed by the way she acted. But at least she got the arrogance of a dragon. Too bad she was missing nearly everything else.

[Reinholdt]

[Shark to Meet You]

Oooh, fascinating. What an unusual coloration. Maria pulls out her notebook to start to sketch the shark when another bonk on the door reminds her that perhaps sketching during the middle of an aquatic ambush was ill advised. Ah well. There should be something around for this. The librarian looks around and finds the clearly marked 'Shark Repellent Cat Spray'. There we go. That should stop the natural wildlife from attempting to reclaim the waters.

Maria loads it up into the dispersal system and activates it. Shortly thereafter, the waters just around HALO will be inundated with a scent aggressively malodorous to sharks. A way to drive them off without hurting them. Should take care of the problem.

[Rec Room]

Reinholdt thanks Ambrosia again and starts tending to his injuries with the skill of someone who maybe has had to do this too often for themselves.

"Regardless of the rumors, he's a clear threat to society and you should put him down for good," Reinholdt recommends. "If even the idea of him influencing VIGIL is that dangerous after all, it would be remiss of you not to do something proactive, would it not?" Calm Reed better take out Magtok for everyone's sake, just to be sure.

He's about to share that Blanche's mother is dating Magtok but thinks better of it. This monk is proving untrustworthy and might put Blanche in her sights again if she has an excuse to. And Blanche doesn't deserve to be hurt over Magtok being a horrible person. "I can't imagine Blanche getting involved with someone like him," Rein lies.

[Shadowcaller]

Lab

Artie resists the temptation to sigh. It's just a mask. By all accounts it's good to have extras. And this will maybe get Libra to be satisfied without rewriting her to be a songbird or something.
"Yes, I think that's all rather acceptable for now." she replies. She might be being a little curt but she doesn't want to give any wrong impressions.
"You know I don't think I've ever even used my second mask so thanks for telling me what it is I guess." It's technically a duelist not a guard but close enough.

Lab

"Really? I figured you would have used all the masks at least once by now." Man, Artie had been stuck here this entire time hadn't she? Always in the same situation. No other masks ever coming up.

Well, good thing she had come here to make things a bit more exciting then.

"So, you wanna activate the mask right away or do you want to trigger it yourself once I give it to you? The motivation should be the activation trigger, so the need to protect or save people."