AMEN XLVII: Who's the Leader, Again?

[ThePhantom]

AMEN BASE

A panel on the wall flips over, revealing a tv screen, which flickers for a moment before revealing the purple hat of Mr E.

"My apologies for the lack of information regarding the ponies, sir. I was focusing on getting some of the troop-increasing technologies we have here working."

[Shadowcaller]

[AMEN Base]

"What about... AMENside? Can you transport things there instantly?" Sargon asks curiously. "In fact, are you even in control of AMENside anymore?"

[Zefir]

[AMEN Base]

"No." Zefir repleis to Sargon. "Without any member for some time, we had to cut of AMENside. Even thought an ex member took over the place. Hmm."

He turns to a camera.

"E? Do you got informations about Southside? I heared something happened their, but I don't know what exactly."

[ThePhantom]

[AMEN Base]

"Recently someone calling themselves an Empress has built themselves a castle. They're trying to organize their dominion, with people willing to work for her and searching for those willing to act as her agents. Not exactly a force to recompense but that may change in time.

Speaking of gathering forces, do I have your permission to increase the budget? There are some forces for hire that may be useful in our plans."

[Shadowcaller]

"My informants tell me that there is also an invading army parked in Southside. Not to mention the forces that were already there before. But I doubt we need to concern ourselves too much about them, the main targets are north- and eastside. Westside automatically falls when northside falls there would be no one to pay the mercenaries money. Southside is simply a huge mess, if we stay out of it, whatever fractionated factions that remain there will surrender once we bested the rest. Otherwise we will destroy them." Sargon claims before turning to look at the camera. "What are these forces for hire you speak of? I thought MERC was the only real mercenary faction around here."

[ThePhantom]

"Those too small in number to be counted as a fraction and those too open-minded to work for MERC. Scum, for the most part, but even scum can handle a weapon and fill a rank. And manpower is something AMEN sadly is lacking these days. And, if we press the issue enough and are willing to pay, well, a very large amount, I believe we can get at some of the criminal element of the city to be helpful."

[Zefir]

[AMEN Base]

"I don't belive that." Zefir says. "They might not come for help in the other parts, but they might tryto increase their own terretory. It might help against the forces of the side, but only until they face us. We should at least keep an eye on them so we are aware of their steps."

[Shadowcaller]

[AMEN Base]

Sargon waves dismissively at Zefir. "Whatever they do, it will likely benefit us. If they try to grab more territory, they aid us, if they do nothing, they aid us, if they would join eastsides resistance... I find that unlikely. But fine, keep an eye on them then."

Then the demon king turns back to E. "I see, so tell me more about this 'scum' then, what makes them different from your minions? Do they have weapons of their own? I know that a few of my own have turned to mercenary in lack other things to do. If we somehow managed to convince the criminals of the city to join our side, that would be a major improvement however. Criminals prefer to be on the winning side, right?"

[ThePhantom]

"Most of the scum are not very reliable, and they aren't as focused. The henchmen are required to get some practice with their weapons while they don't necessary do that. And yes they have their own weapons, if they didn't it wouldn't be worth trying to hire them.

As for the criminals, they might join us, but they will want some proof that we can win, or else they won't risk themselves in open war. In fact, its likely that they won't risk open war at all and just take advantage of the chaos that will result from our strike. Definitely worth keeping on eye to ensure proper focus."

[Zefir]

[AMEN Base]

"The same as the southside groupe. Only difference is that they will be effected." Zefir says.
"Do we still have other paries in Riverside that could be a problem?" he asks E

[Shadowcaller]

[AMEN Base]

"The akaris legias, or as you probably known them, the burning light. They will prove a great deal of trouble as they, unlike most of this realm, is familiar with our strategies and forces. I'm not surprised that they have settled down in Eastside of all places considering their ideology. You probably haven't read the sqitish ja torm, the 'ideology of choice', but it suggests a decentralized chain of command which Eastside have with their 'democracy'. To quote the book, 'even if the head is cut off, the body keeps on going.' What I mean is that unlike northside and westside, Eastside have no almighty leader. No real head to cut off. So we must use different strategies when it comes to the two sides.

In Northside I want you to enter Malechenar and assassinate their leaders while we are distracting them with forces outside. Once the head of their forces is cut, the body will collapse. In eastside however, as already suggested, we need another tactic. We need to focus on their arms, their military forces. Perhaps blowing up their little citadel will do, I'd have a strike commando do it if you act the distraction." Sargon argues.

[ThePhantom]

"Likely the temples and other places where the divine are closely focused. Unfortunately, battling a god is outside our abilities unless they try to take on our strongest member.

The assassination should be simple enough, I could do that myself, if we find someone else to coordinate the troops. As for Eastside, the timing is good for a different method. They are running an election at the moment, so if we take steps to influence the candidates we should have a simple enough time dealing with them."

[BladeofObliviom]

[AMEN Base]

Deep in a forgotten room somewhere in the depths, something stirred. The constant snoring, a fixture of that area for what seemed like months, was interrupted, replaced by a brief creaking noise, and then the sound of a toppling creature. A groan, followed by the unmistakable din of an explosion and what sounded suspiciously like a dragon roaring in pain.


Saahep awoke on the floor of her quarters, dimly realizing that she had just managed to roll off of her bed entirely, wings stretching high and shaking off...dust? How long had she been asleep? Shaking her head and pushing herself off the ground, she looked down only to see a tiny message: 'Do Not Disturb, on pain of Explosive Runes'. Oh. Nearly a minute later, after her ears finally stopped ringing and the room finished spinning around her, Saa grunted through the pain, shook her head again, and looked down at herself to assess the damage.

Most of her scales near the rune were blown clean off, and much of the flesh underneath shredded by the force of the blast. Luckily the hard carapace underneath that seemed to have been scorched but otherwise undamaged. If that had cracked, she might need medical attention; As is, she'd live, even if this hurt like the dickens. Saa grunted, questioning her decision to lay traps set against anyone who might try to steal her stuff while she slept. In fact...where was all that stuff anyway? She looked around, noting with a frustrated growl that several of her personal effects were clearly missing, including her armor and sword, as well as the bag where she kept miscellaneous adventuring equipment. And her hoard. In fact, someone had almost stripped this room pretty much clean in the meantime, apparently slipping right past the traps. All that was left was the bed, her desk, and the dagger she slept with, still in its thigh sheath. Well, those things and the half-inch-thick layer of dust that used to be on everything before explosive runes spread most of it into the air. Saa sneezed, and to her horror, she sneezed fire into the dusty room.

When the resulting conflagration died down and she opened her eyes, the grumbling draconic monster took one long look at the smoldering remains of her bed and desk, and then looked down at her shredded chest-flesh, which might take a while longer to regenerate properly now that it had what appeared to be second-degree burns. She didn't even feel that bit of flesh anymore, actually. Maybe she'd need that medical attention after all.

Saahep decided that she was not having a very good morning.



She emerged from the room several minutes later, wearing only her fortunately-fireproofed pillowcase, closed end torn open and pulled up to her waist as an impromptu pencil skirt, with a gaping wound on her chest exposing the gray chitin underneath her layer of scales and flesh. A henchman passing by on patrol stared just a split second too long and met her gaze. "Not a word.", she muttered icily, and the henchman wisely decided to move on. Stalking forth to the main room with her wings splayed, half a tonne of purple mutant-dragon-lady clad only in a floral-patterned pillowcase around the waist entered in a silent fury, barking questions at anyone unfortunate enough to be present.

"What year is it? AMEN still exists here, right? Is Zorzo still in charge or was there another coup?

Oh, and who had the balls to take my thrice-damned hoard?!"

[ThePhantom]

Main Room

Assuming that the meeting of the demons and Saahep waking up are at similar times, Mr E turns his hat towards her through the screen.

"Ah, I wasn't aware that you were still within the base, Saahep. Zorzo left, she didn't quite feel she was up to the job, so Zefir is now in charge. As for your hoard, well, we were having budget issues and it was there. Sorry about that."

[BladeofObliviom]

Main Room

Saa opened her mouth as if to say something in response, and then closed it. Her wings flared out to their fullest extent in a burst of sheer shock before falling, still extended, far enough to brush up against the ground. One eye twitched in Mr E's direction, a baffled expression upon her face. She thought for a moment she was about to roar, but nothing came out, until finally she settled on covering her face with her claws.

And laughing.

"Okay, wow. You...ha. Wow. I'm so mad right now that I can't even feel it anymore. It's just...I didn't think I could hate another living thing this much, you know that? I can't even properly classify it as rage anymore, it's so beyond my experience that it almost feels like afterglow. Just...it's bizarre. I think I crossed some wires in there that aren't supposed to be crossed." She stops talking, unable to stifle a girlish giggle that just sounds ridiculous coming out of such a creature. "It might also have something to do with the gruesome physical injury." Black blood oozes alarmingly freely down Saa's belly, beginning to soak into the pillowcase. "I should probably do something about that." She deadpans, sounding surprisingly okay for someone clearly grievously wounded and in a bizarre anger-Zen.

[ThePhantom]

"There are some healing potions in the cupboard, if you desire them. And if you want a replacement of the treasure, I can work on getting what Gordon left behind. The trouble is he knew more of my tricks so it will harder to get out then from your room."

Mr E winces. He is very likely going to get roasted later for this, at least his cloning tank is still working so he'll still be around, but burning hurts, a lot.

[BladeofObliviom]

Spoiler: OOC

Show

You know, I didn't have a thief in mind, and really just wanted to write about Saa suddenly losing her possessions and flipping out, but Mr. E having slipped in there to rob a dragon's* hoard in order to cover a budget deficit is downright hilarious. Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh.

(*Saa's not a true dragon but the point stands)

Main Room

Wordlessly (though still twitching), Saa slinks over to the mentioned cabinet, proceeding to withdraw what she hopes is an actual healing potion and not something from Mr. E's stash of knockout drugs. "Pretty sure I paid for a lifetime supply of these...", she mutters to herself, popping the cork and throwing the glorious healing fluid back. A little potion is just what the doctor ordered; enough to jumpstart her natural healing factor back up, mostly closing the wound. The scales will take longer to grow back, but at least she isn't bleeding all over the place.

Now no longer giggling, but impossibly smiling (though smiling always looks a little weird on a dragon's mouth...), Saa returns her attention to Mr. E, her gaze filled with predatory intensity. "You know what? Lesson learned. I need to find a better place to store stuff I actually care about. Credit where it's due, you bypassed all of my wards without waking me or dying horribly." She catches a sound coming out that almost sounds like a purr. She really hopes no one else heard that; it'd be embarrassing. "So I guess I can be calm about this. I'm...well, it's really kind of a paradox but I'm so angry that I'm not even mad. If that makes sense? Nothing really does right now." Goddamn does she feel weird. If she didn't have scales, she'd probably be all red in the face. Now that she thinks about it, Mr. E admitted to it honestly. She'd probably never have known if he just shrugged instead.

Saa doesn't bring up the offer to go after some of Gordon's old loot. Maybe some other time. "Actually, more than anything, I'm hungry." She laughs. "Don't worry, I don't eat humans. Maybe I'll go run to Mallside and...oh right." She thinks a moment. "I guess I can't really go out like this anyway." Saa takes a moment to inspect herself, wearing nothing but a pillowcase partially-soaked with her own blood. "Hm. I need a new wardrobe.", she says to herself.

[Lord Magtok]

Outside

Magbot 427 of MagMart's Inside branch arrives outside the AMEN valcano, dutifully plodding towards the entrance. This is one of those places his boss would visit, right? He's sure he'll find a Magtok here, someone to tell him which store aisles to mop. I mean, it's not like the Magclones would ever quit AMEN or anything, right? They certainly didn't do anything of the sort years ago, long before they all packed their bags and left the Nexus. No, there's no way that could be what happened. Someone would've told Magbot 427 if that was the case, a memo would've been passed around!

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

Some things appear to have changed around AMEN, for instance, there is a big floating stone temple parked near the valcano. Most likely illegally as AMEN members wouldn't have it any other way.
Another thing that has changed is the addition of big scary looking dudes patroling the area.
"Nuz gah ghormaz?!" One of them yells as it comes walking steadily towards the Magbot just as he nears the AMEN entrance, probably not a great runner with that stature.

[Lord Magtok]

Outside

Huh. Some sort of sentient life form. It's not a Magtok, it's not a fellow Magbot...Oh, it must be a customer, then! Some sort of infernal, I'd guess, but it might also be an elemental, so it's best not to assume and offend anyone. They're most likely here for the special on MagMart's brand of 'I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Baby-Souls!,' the delectable treat with the same great taste, and half the sinning! Why would they be all the way out here when the nearest MagMart is miles away, though? That seems awfully inconvenient. Maybe they're lost?

"Sorry, sir. This janitor unit is not equipped with one of our universal translators, it can only process the standard Basic, Common, English, and Low Gothic tongues. You want one of the sales representatives, they'll understand. The nearest representative is 1370 meters that way, in aisle six. That's 8.5 miles, or 17 flodwalks, if you use imperial or antikatheran-prime units of measurement," the Magbot apologizes courteously, pointing towards Mallside, before it continues on its way, oblivious to any kind of danger the massive beast might represent.

[5a Violista]

Inside
Speaking of! Harley demonstrates that she still exists by existing in the base again.
(Actually, nobody was really talking about her.)

...anyway, she sits on the couch's arm, with a notebook in her hand. She's writing in the notebook, while humming some tune she heard the other day. It's probably Irish, except she doesn't know the words so maybe it isn't.

She plans out what she's going to do, drawing diagrams and such.

[Zefir]

[AMEN Base]

"Aren't those guys in Malechenar Vampires of some kind?" Zefir asks. "If so we need to know their exact weakness, otherwise I doubt we could kill their leader."

"Do you have a plan for that in Eastside, E?" he asks. Zefir was not really up to date about the election. It#s a bit to much since he got to deal with keeping things inside AMEN.

Since Saa's appereance is at the same time, Zefir looks up as she purr's. He doesn't speak to her since this is a seriouse talking here and a naked female drakonic? might appear a bit out of space.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

The instructions appear to be lost on the creature who let's out growl in response as it makes its way towards the mabot and attempts to grab it and hike it up into the air. It doesn't seem like it want to harm the bot though, at least not yet.

[AMEN Base]

Sargon shakes his head. "We know for a fact that their temples aren't protected by some 'god', so you shouldn't have trouble with that. Zefir is quite correct though, even the scarce information we have about this leaders suggests that they are these 'vampires'. Creatures with very specific weaknesses. We can't just wander inside the belly of the beast unprepare, so to speak."

[ThePhantom]

AMEN Base

"Sunlight, at least for some of them. Likely the combination of cutting off the head and a stake through the heart will work as well. Of course, that works on almost everything. Through a bit of research on the exact type shouldn't hurt."

Mr E picks up a piece of paper off his desk, looks at it and sighs. In the meantime, a henchman tries to direct Saa back to a hallway.

"Well, I have a list of the people running in the election, and one of them is a member. The trouble is, its Stu that's running, so I expect that we'll need to arrange some control over another candidate."

[BladeofObliviom]

Saa isn't naked! She's wearing a pillowcase! Ironically wearing the pillowcase makes her look more underdressed than she would if she were just naked. Saa doesn't really have any humanlike sexual characteristics that would trigger the nudity taboo, in the same way that no one shields the eyes of children when a True Dragon comes by without wearing additional clothing.

No one gives True Dragons crap for going around in the buff. Double standards, I tell you!



Saa realizes with some embarrassment that Zefir and some sort of giant Demon are also here (and Harley...didn't E say she left? Hm). She sheepishly waves and backs off. The henchman is ignored. Grumbling to herself in the halls, she ends up going to the Gym, remembering she left an ugly olive green Kendo robe in there. Still frustrated and muttering to herself about stupid demons and coups and arbitrary hibernation periods, she finds the robe still hanging where she left it. Fortunately, it's worth so little that it wouldn't be worth the effort to go pawn and it's unlikely that anyone else would really want to wear it. Especially since it's in her very nonstandard size.

Luckily, the thing still fits and Saa feels less awkward about this whole thing. At least it's comfy. Realizing that she's also short a weapon, she grabs a wooden waster from the wall: A nice mahogany-and-oak cruciform arming sword. It's not her favorite style, but it'll do in a pinch, and if she whittles an edge into it perhaps it can be made into a serviceable weapon. Shrugging, she slips it under her belt. It feels weird going out like this, but at least she isn't wearing a pillowcase and nothing else. She almost sets herself up for a sparring session before realizing that the Mirror of Opposition is gone too. Damn it.

She settles for repeatedly kicking a target dummy until she feels better.


((Saa is open for interaction, should anyone be interested.))

[Lord Magtok]

Outside

The Magbot is picked up! Uh oh, better say something, fast! "Sir, as I am a sapient life form and property of MagMart, I exist in a legal gray area where, if you go much further, you will be committing theft and kidnapping! I must insist you set me down, lest MagCorp persecute you to the fullest extent of the law."

[ThePhantom]

Outside

One of the henchmen comes running out of the base and towards the magbot and demon. Mr E had a chance to check the outside cameras and things connected to the maker of the cloning tanks are quite valuable.

""Please put it down! Its something very useful to AMEN!""

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

The demon turns to look at the henchman, it's eyes burning intensely as it stares at him. It's first not clear if it understands, but then it slowly puts down the magbot again. "Zaich, nas doru ne..." It mutters and then adds, in a more understandable language. "Keep an eye on your toys." Then it marches off again.

[Lord Magtok]

Outside

The Magbot looks all kinds of confused now. Did its threats of legal and/or extralegal action actually convince the big guy to back off? Huh. Well, time to get back to what we came here for. This squishy humanoid over here might be useful, let's try asking him some questions.

"Hello, sir! This is Magbot 427, of the Kaer Avenue, Inside City MagMart. Have you seen a Lord Magtok in or around the premises recently?"

[ThePhantom]

Outside

The henchman sighs, well at least the magbot didn't get broken. Demons are just trouble, but the bosses said they are working with them.

"Not for a while, but I think that someone in the base has."