Foxside: The Temple of Inari 56 - Rice, Wine, and Spell Slots

[Artemis97]

"You enjoy." Vice says. He smiles at the thought of a restaurant. "It's an idea, isn't it? But I think I have grander plans."

[Recaiden]

The priestess grins, and digs in to the enchanted food.
"And what might those be?" she asks him. Does coming here play into them?

[Artemis97]

"I want a temple." Vice declares. He watches the priestess for her reaction. "This one is nice."

[Recaiden]

Blink. Huh?
The priestess laughs, and then misunderstands. "Well, I'm afraid we can't just hand out temples to anyone who comes in. This one is in use, after all. Now, if you want to join the clergy and work your way up..." Although she's been here for years and still has a ways to go before being put in charge of a temple. Would Vice have the patience? "They're a lot of work, though."

[Artemis97]

"No, no. I don't want Inari's temple." Vice clarifies. "I want one for myself."

[Recaiden]

The priestess tilts her head curiously.
"Just who are you?"

[Artemis97]

"I go by Vice." He answers. "But that's just in this realm. I am from..." He frowns and waves a hand. "beyond."

[Recaiden]

"Um, how far beyond, exactly? I'm from the Ways myself." Although if this one who goes by Vice is to be taken as he appears, he considers himself a god. Perhaps he is, although the priestess suspects that people who deserve to have temples don't have any trouble getting temples. She could be wrong.

[Artemis97]

"They call it the Far Realms here." Vice says. "What are the Ways?"

[Recaiden]

The priestess's eyes widen. Aren't beings from the far realms supposed to be horrible tentacle monsters and brain-eating eldritch fire? ... Maybe they are and this cute elf is just a disguise.

"It's between the stars, very far up where there's no nature or- but that's not important."
"So, what would you do with a temple, Vice, that's grander than a restaurant? "

[Artemis97]

"I want to help people." Vice says, his brow furrowing. "I want to give them what they want."

[Recaiden]

"And this would be a place where people come to get help from you?" The priestess asks, thinking the answer is pretty obvious.
"That's nice of you. But you have to be careful. Sometimes people don't want what you think they want, or even what they think they want."

[Artemis97]

"That would hardly be my fault." Vice replies. Something in his tone suggests he expects exactly that sort of thing to happen.

[Recaiden]

The priestess shakes her head, "It is your fault, even if you have good intentions. Trying to help is good, but you can't just say that you tried."
"How, for example, would you help me?" He's up to something, this Vice, but he doesn't even try to hide that fact...

[Artemis97]

"Well, what do you desire?" Vice asks in return.

[Recaiden]

"I'd think a god would just know." the priestess teases. "That's part of the work of the temple, is figuring out how to help people." She wants to rise through the ranks of the priesthood, return to her notional homeland and fulfill the job she was raised for, stay in Inside and be part of city life, fly into the depths of space and never come back, work out the strange relationship between her and the queen, make amends for that novice she frightened when she was new here, prove that the Mote is better than the Broadsword after all, spend time with this creepy fascinating Vice, etc. Can she say any of that?
She shakes her head.

[Morty]

One half-elf detective is currently leading an angel here, the latter in a state of significant inebriation. Michalson hopes the priests here can help and will believe him that it's an emergency.

[Recaiden]

A six-tailed fox-person in silvery robes greets them as they come out of the portal.
"Greetings, neighbors; the blessings of Inari be upon you. What can we do for you today?"
Public drunkenness isn't the sort of thing that gets you rushed to the hospital. But he will listen.

[Gnrlshrimp]

"Heeey, I remember this place!" Ithuriel declares, loudly. She steps away from Michalson...then she takes a few more steps as she staggers sideways for a moment before awkwardly righting herself. "Old, old place. Been around almost as long as Trog'sh! Anyway, I need to be sobered because we have to go do a thing." She points at her uniform. Proud Intersection Officer right here, not disgracing herself in any way!

[Morty]

Michalson, who isn't actually wearing a uniform, shrugs slightly.

"Yeah, we just got a chant about somethin' that may happen soon, but my colleague 'ere is deep in the... indisposed," he says.

[Recaiden]

"And there are no sober officers on duty who could investigate?" Arlem zips over in case Ithuriel should fall and need to be caught. But it seems the angel has things sufficiently under control.
He looks at the drunken officer this way and that, and pokes at her thoughts to see just how indisposed she is.

[Gnrlshrimp]

There's some pretty strong feelings of regret floating around in Ithuriel's mind. Not regret at overconsumption, but it's at least indirectly related to her feeling of regret. It's also a bit of a mess in there- no, scratch that, it's like a still-wet watercolour painting has been shoved into a washing machine. Very, very messy.

She had the extra-extra-extra-strong stuff from Trog's, and lots of it.

"It was deli- deliverrr- put on our table. A thing. So's we gotta be the ones to do the thing. I think someone's having a laugh forcing me to do it."

[Morty]

"Someone delivered it to us while we were off-duty in Trog's, aye, " Michalson says. "We don't know if they're havin' a lark at us, but we can't afford to ignore it. And it looks like somethin' may 'appen there in an hour."

[Recaiden]

Do something you regret, drink until you can't remember what it was.
"Maybe you're supposed to solve it while drunk?"
The priest shakes his head.
"Holy Inari, keeper of the sacred rice, guide this lost messenger out of their cups, be they even as deep as the sea."
He places a hand on Ithuriel's forehead, and should wring all the alcohol out of her system. It's probably not fun to sober up so quickly.
"Now, I'll ask you again. Doesn't this seem like an obvious trap?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

The angel does an extremely un-angelic thing (even more so than getting drunk in the first place) as she turns away and utters a long string of expletives in a remarkable display of knowledge of the foulest aspects of language while clutching her head. Sobering up that quickly induces an almighty headache...for a few moments.

Give her a moment. There we go. A much less off-balance and much more functional Ithuriel turns back around, sighing and holding out a few coins to Arlem. "Right. A donation to your temple funds, priest. You have my thanks. It's good to see the temple of Inari still going after all these years. You're right of course, this does seem like a trap. The inebriation on my part was foolish, and incidental to the message we received. But sometimes we don't really have a choice but to walk into the trap. It's out duty. We can be careful in how we approach it, but we do have to go and investigate."

[Morty]

"Aye, if it's not a lark, it's a trap," Michalson says matter-of-factly. "But it's one we 'ave to investigate. With luck we'll turn it on whoever sent the message."

[Recaiden]

"Tsk-tsk-tsk."
What awful language! Is Ithuriel sure she isn't a demon?
"But thank you kindly for your donation." Arlem sweeps the coins up and into their coffer. "Do come back safely, on a better day."

Poor brave officers.

[Gnrlshrimp]

"Sorry. It's complicated. Lots of history that I promise perfectly explains why I can curse like that as an angel, although I really should've kept it in in Her domain." Ithuriel laughs awkwardly. Poor form, officer, poor form!

"Right. Let's go, Michalson!" Turn, stride purposefully towards the exit, try and look like a proper Intersection officer!

[Recaiden]

[Army Base]

Sure, it makes some sense for a hospital and temple to be associated. You might not expect a temple to also host a military complex full of soldiers, tanks, and spaceships. But this is that kind of place. The Mote sets down just to the south of the base, where an empty field has been converted into a sort of landing pad. It helps that the ship doesn't actually touch the ground. Then it slides over to a hangar and powers down.

They have a post-flight check to get through, but then, since nothing's wrong, they can unload. Onyx can take the professor's damaged host to the wing of the hospital for people who need real medicine, while Des, and Russel lead/transport Simon and his dead crewmates to the smaller wing for people who need resurrection. "Right this way." The temple ground are, as it happens, full of fox-people, pokemon, aliens, spirits, and blatant displays of magic. It might be a little distressing.

The captain, for her part, is letting Niarlo and Maroon out of the hold. "Welcome to the Nexus."

[Earl of Purple]

Army Base

Simon's looking around in awe. He's assuming right now that most of it is holograms and projections, but he's very very wrong. He doesn't recognise the pokemon or anything, really.

Niarlo looks around, his walking-frame hissing and buzzing as he moves. "How fascinating. This technology is... Beyond me." The very tall, four-armed alien gestures around him at everything he can see. He recognises it as not holograms or projections; his people have experimented with those in conjunction with their force-field tech, and they aren't capable of stuff like this.

Maroon just floats there, looking around with its big eyes. "There is no translation for the word: Nexus. Translating the word: Nexus instead." Besides that, there's no reaction from the space-squid, although that was certainly odd enough. It made Niarlo turn and look curiously at Maroon, though the cephalopod doesn't notice.