What's Left of the MagCave II: We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

[Murkus]

Two Flew over the Cyborg's Nest

Magtok blinks. That's...hold on, what is she trying to do? There's got to be an angle here, right? More importantly, what is our angle? How are we going to make use of this divine deadbeat? She's not getting her booze for free, that's not how we-oh, there's an idea. Yes, of course. That will do nicely, won't it? Two birds with one stone.

"I mean...sure, I guess? How far does your holy angel aura thing go, though? You're not going to be turning the wine into water or exorcising ghosts just by standing in the same room as them, are you?" He studies her intently, like one of his weird science experiments, minus the clipboard full of notes on her latest and strangest mutation. It's been a while since Magtok's had access to The Alcohallway or The Boozeatorium, mostly because of that nasty poltergeist that keeps throwing wine bottles around. If he had an angel around to help him grab a few bottles, though...

[Two Flew over the Cyborg's Nest]

"Holy angel aura thing? Uh..." Fettina thinks. She doesn't know if she even has a holy angel aura thing. "Like, way far dude. I once looked at a demon wrong and he exploded. Man just flat out blew up. I don't think I does anything to wine. It works fine when I drink it. I have to drink so much of anything to get drunk these days though."

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

Kathy nods, and quietly says, "Thank you," she takes a deep breath and stands up. Her shiny reflective waist cape doesn't need to be brushed off, at least, and it doesn't look like the ferrofluid from the Faketok body stained anything important. Always nice to maintain your unperturbable image, "I... if it's all the same, I'd rather not ever talk about it. If it becomes important, I'll explain, but until then..." she makes a motion with her giant metal hand; as close to saying 'it is what it is' nonverbally as she can get.

"I'm not really worried about the gift. I figure if we spend long enough together, I'll get the chance to mooch off of your everything anyways," She grins at him gamely. Really, she's already providing the means to get this place back up to par, so 'hanging around and mooching off your dad' seems like a relatively simple way of going about this stuff, and despite her claim to laziness she doesn't intend to be idle here either; there's a lot of space to clear, and a lot of potentially dangerous parts of Mount Enn need to be cleared of experiments gone rampant or animals that took over in the interrim, "That said, I do have my own place in Inside, so I won't be hanging around here all the time."

[Lord Magtok]

Two Flew over the Cyborg's Nest => Blame It On The (Beetle)Juice

Spoiler

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[Two Flew over the Cyborg's Nest]

"Holy angel aura thing? Uh..." Fettina thinks. She doesn't know if she even has a holy angel aura thing. "Like, way far dude. I once looked at a demon wrong and he exploded. Man just flat out blew up. I don't think I does anything to wine. It works fine when I drink it. I have to drink so much of anything to get drunk these days though."

"Great! That's exactly what we need. I have an incredibly mild and inconsequential ghost problem in the Boozeatorium. I'd deal with it myself but holy symbols don't really work very well if you don't actually believe in anything, and my Ghostbusters merchandise is in a vault programmed to only unlocks once a year, every June 8th." You have to be exceptionally careful with those energy streams. The temptation to fool around with a bunch of proton packs is just too great, however, so Magtok wisely sealed off his only means of blasting ghasts so it'd never be an issue. I suppose he could also call on his brother Needs to deal with this problem, but...honestly, how much do you want to bet Needs put the ghost there himself? Did one of his little rituals just to keep Magtok too spooked to try boozing his problems away. Nah, better find someone else entirely to address this stupid little problem for us.

"It shouldn't take very long. Just walking down a hallway should be enough to scare it off forever," Magtok explains, before he starts making a gradual descent towards Mt. Enn below. The front door is built into the mouth of a giant spooky skull with a glowing red eye, because of course it is. Past that is a needlessly large and ostentatious foyer. Where a number of massive propaganda banners once proclaimed the virtues of mindless obedience and unquestioning loyalty to the cyborg, and warned of the consequences that would face any Magbot who was less than completely virtuous, now there's mostly barren walls, aside from a poster from this or that videogame, a WATCHFORCE banner, and a single motivational poster featuring a Russian Blue cat dangling from a tree, with the words 'HE CANNOT HANG ON FOREVER' resting menacingly below.



MagCave Foyer

Spoiler

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[MagCave Foyer]

Kathy nods, and quietly says, "Thank you," she takes a deep breath and stands up. Her shiny reflective waist cape doesn't need to be brushed off, at least, and it doesn't look like the ferrofluid from the Faketok body stained anything important. Always nice to maintain your unperturbable image, "I... if it's all the same, I'd rather not ever talk about it. If it becomes important, I'll explain, but until then..." she makes a motion with her giant metal hand; as close to saying 'it is what it is' nonverbally as she can get.

"I'm not really worried about the gift. I figure if we spend long enough together, I'll get the chance to mooch off of your everything anyways," She grins at him gamely. Really, she's already providing the means to get this place back up to par, so 'hanging around and mooching off your dad' seems like a relatively simple way of going about this stuff, and despite her claim to laziness she doesn't intend to be idle here either; there's a lot of space to clear, and a lot of potentially dangerous parts of Mount Enn need to be cleared of experiments gone rampant or animals that took over in the interrim, "That said, I do have my own place in Inside, so I won't be hanging around here all the time."

"If I promise to never drop in unannounced, do you mind telling me where this place is?" Magtok offers, glancing down at his left forearm, which opens up and vomits out a pen and sheet of paper. This is obviously just for effect, and maybe to give him something to do with his hands. I mean, we both know by now that the tin man is recording this entire conversation in his head and doesn't need to write down notes for anything, right? "Keeping in mind, of course, that if you don't tell me, I'll just tell a Magbot to follow you home later. Just as soon as I actually have Magbots to boss around, I mean...which may or may not be dependent on you finding where I left the Magbot blueprints." He's joking around, of course, but I wouldn't put it past him to quietly construct a surveillance bot for the sole purpose of following Kathy around from afar. Obviously some very bad things happened to her before, while he was gone, so who's to say she doesn't still have enemies who would harm her now? Why would he not do everything he can to protect her from those enemies?

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"It's not anything special. It's a two story building in Inside; a cybernetics shop, above which is my apartment. I own the building at this point - turns out, my fuel rod design is good enough to fund the startup for a business. Who'd have guessed, eh?" She'll rattle off the address for the place, "I also do repairs for robots and the like. It can be pretty tedious at times, but it lets me iterate on designs, which is more satisfying than being a mercenary ever was. Even got my own 3D printer that can handle metalwork and chemicals."

"Just promise me you won't do the classic dad thing if I come home with a boy," A raised eyebrow and an amused smile. She doesn't actually expect magtok to level a shotgun at someone she decides to get in bed with, but... she also wouldn't put it past him, "Or a girl, I guess, but do I prefer men."

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"Can I still take passive-aggressive jabs at him? Take you aside, ask why a daughter of the MagCorp empire would settle for someone like that, 'accidentally' allowing him to overhear me so he's goaded into trying to prove himself? I feel like that's something I would probably do," Mag admits, his hand rubbing his chin as he immediately loses himself in thought, his mind drifting towards other ways he could menace Kathy's love interests. Could maybe hire MERC to dress up as supervillains, kidnap her, and lure the boytoy into a cliche showdown. Maybe build a maze with a robo-minotaur, or hook him up to a polygraph machine and ask a series of terribly embarrassing personal questions. Oh! Even better, what if we-

"...oh no. Oh shoot, I am exactly that kind of dad," the lord of the cave realizes, trying to figure out some way to stop his future self from ruining everything. I mean we're talking about a hypothetical future son-in-law here. We can't do anything that could be misconstrued as dangerously unhinged or attempted murder. That's how you get shunned, Magtok. She's sharper than most people you interact with, bolder too. If you step out of line, do you really think she'll hesitate to cut ties with you, just disown her whole family if it's too much of a burden? It would be easy, Magtok. She doesn't need you; you haven't been there for her for her entire life. The polygraph idea is fine, it's totally something we can work with! The minotaur, however, is not. What we're aiming for is eccentric, but harmless. Hiring mercenaries to play comic book villains is not harmless.

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"Do remember that any guy I'm likely to fall for is likely going to be able to fight small armies by himself, so maybe don't rib him too much?" Kathy says with an amused smile. She's not even lying - Her grade for 'impressive' is competing with her history of coring battleships with mech weaponry and spearheading mechanized cavalry, "Though, I guess I might be easier to impress if the guy is a researcher or something. Regardless, I'm attracted to intelligence, competence, and maybe I have a thing for exotic pretty boys," Kathy shrugs, "Not like you don't have a thing for exotic pretty girls. Your history with cat girls isn't exactly a secret."

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"I don't think I know any exotic pretty boys who can obliterate armies." Reinholdt doesn't count, shut up. "Actually, I'm not sure if any of the Nexus's latest crop of bachelors could pull that off. If they can, they're keeping a tight lid on it. Maybe go start a war in Skyside, see who shows up?" He's kidding, Kathy. It's just a joke.

...You are kidding, right Magtok? You wouldn't seriously suggest that your daughter instigate a large-scale armed conflict just because it might lure a cute boy with superpowers out of hiding...RIGHT?

"Honestly though, things have felt...quiet lately. Riverside and Skyside have had their little crises here and there, but there's always something going wrong over there. Inside's been alright, one skinwalker invasion aside, but even that hasn't gotten anyone influential or powerful killed. I have this one doomsday scenario I'm trying to prevent, but it's so isolated from everything else, it's hard to feel too worried about it. Maybe I should do something crazy soon." Start a new business, like maybe a hotel, perhaps? Rob a bank? Pick a fight with some slavers in Skyside? Rejoin VIGIL just to see the look on Wenomir's bitter face as you smugly saunter in and save the day? Rob two banks?

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"Well, you've got the means to do it at this point, or you will in at most a couple weeks. Just let me know if it happens; we can do it as a father-daughter thing, maybe kick some poor security force in the face," Well, it seems she's got a better read on Magtok than one might have thought, though one has to wonder if she was really talking about a bank with that little security force comment, "I've kind of always wanted to get my hands on somekinda magical doodad. I'm good with energy flows - maybe I could do something with it."

[Murkus]

[Two Flew Over the Cyborg's Nest]

Fettina is mostly just impressed by the unashamed self-aggrandizing of Magtok's front door. I mean, it would be corny if you saw a villain on TV do it, but this is a real live person with the gall to place their threshold inside a giant skull facsimile of their own face. "Dude, you've seen Ghostbusters? I haven't met anybody on this damn planet who's seen Ghostbusters! Nobody's from Earth! Everyone is from some whack place that doesn't even have movies."

"And Watchforce! Hey! I loved that show. Are they making it any more?" Tina chit-chats as they approach. There's something about that poster with the cat... but she can't place it, and Magtok was clearly going for a janky supervillain vibe in here. She'll keep going with the cyborg til' he stops, presumably at the legendary Boozatorium.

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

Magtok raises an eyebrow. He's not used to people going along with ideas like that. Caelynn tried to talk him down from doing evil, Mainframe had to be his voice of reason on occasion...hell, even AMEN had a habit of belittling his suggestions to go out there and cause some senseless mayhem, back when he still worked with those ingrates and failures. It's as refreshing as it is bizarre and confusing to hear anyone freely giving out their trust and approval towards one of his madcap schemes, especially since he hasn't actually figured out what he's going to do yet.

"I think I'm leaning towards Skyside. VIGIL and HALO might have some of the cat's interesting magical artifacts stashed away, and a bank would have its charms, but...nah. I'm trying to be a little more moral than I used to be; there's no real room for moral ambiguity if you're kicking in a slaver's teeth, right?" Well if she's not going to try to moderate Magtok's eccentricities and nonsense, I guess it falls on Magtok himself to try to do that.




Two Flew Over the Cyborg's Nest => The Boozatorium

"I'm not even sure if we're actually on a damn planet. I mean, if you go into space, it looks like a planet, but other times, it has the physics you'd expect from a flat earth conspiracy theory, or a disc held up by four elephants, who are themselves standing on top of a giant turtle," Magtok complains, surprised that Tina of all people claims to be from an Earth. No Earth he's ever heard of had chrome angel women who look like they belong on a metal album or a Led Zeppelin t-shirt.

"Also, you know like half of my money came from just ripping off things from Earth? I don't think this place even had retail before MagMart showed up, and the Agent Chrome movies might be the most creatively bankrupt endeavor I've ever had. I bet you if anyone ever did a shot-for-shot remake of Star Wars, and just called it...I dunno, SPACEWATCH or something, they'd make millions." Magtok pauses for just a moment, his eyes sparkling with hubris and ambition. Someone in MERC probably knows who has the rights to WATCHFORCE, and if we could just get introduced and make the right deal...

"Anyway, I think Watchforce stopped because of studio issues or something. When I have a big pile of money again, I'll think about financing a new season," the cyborg idly promises, leading the way down a snaking and uneven hallway. The temperature suddenly seems to drop as they close in on the Boozatorium, with Magtok pulling his arms in closer to his robe to resist the chill in the air. Stupid ghosts, why does everything have to get cold and uncomfortable when spooks and spectres are involved?

[Murkus]

[The Boozatorium]

"So aside from maybe ripping off Star Wars to rope in some dumb saps, how do you plan on making a huge pile of money? I bet you could make a killer resale value on this place. Does one dude really need all this space?" She looks around. "I mean, damn, the heating costs alone... but it is cool. Did you build everything in here?"

Fettina doesn't really seem to notice the temperature drop. Whether it's because the cold is ghost related or because Fettina's tactile senses are a bit dull in this form is anyone's guess.

[Halae]

MagCave Foyer

"True, but it does send a message to the other slavers that if they try to take slaves you might try to stop them, which isn't ideal since it makes you an obstacle. If that's what we're going to do, you'll want to prep the defenses first, before we get into it." Kathy says, already working out the practicalities of this kind of plan, "We'd be better off robbing a casino, or bank, if we don't want to put a ton of prep work in."

[Lord Magtok]

The Boozatorium

"I'm a lot more than just one dude, Tina," Magtok scoffs.

...

"...By that I mean literally. I am literally more than one dude, because of all the clones that I assume you know about." Tina does know about the clones, doesn't she? Of Magtok's long and illustrious history as the only mortal man in the world to shrug off a thousand deaths and defy all those godlings and spellcasters who thought you needed stupid, lazy nonsense like magic or pointy ears to live forever? Surely she couldn't possibly have missed all of that, everyone knows how great he was back then, right?

"I could probably sell some of the stuff in here, though. Maybe rent out some space to a few mercenaries, too," Magtok muses, as they descend further into the depths. It gets way colder once they finally reach the Boozatorium. You can see your own breath down here, that's how cold it is. It's more or less a cross between a liquor store and a massive warehouse, which is about what you'd expect from a name like Boozatorium, I guess. Row after row of wine bottles, stacks upon stacks of beer cans...jeez, why does he even have this much alcohol? Magtok doesn't even drink that much. Is this all for the next time he hosts Spooktober or something? Is massive quantities of alcohol essential to some weird mad science project he's working on? I don't underst-

"BOOOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOO!" calls out the Ghost of Hangovers Past, the Phantom of the Vodka, The Demon of Drink, the Portergeist, the one and only Spirit of Spirits! It's actually kinda goofy, hearing a ghost say 'boo' like that, but the wine bottles lifted into the air and chucked towards Tina and Magtok aren't nearly as funny. Those could actually hurt someone. Mostly Magtok, since Tina's all angelic and whatnot. Still, it's the thought that counts, and this ghost's thoughts are incredibly rude. It appears briefly in front of our duo, coalescing into the form of a fat drunkard with a ruddy nose and a green, glowing liver, before scurrying away behind a stack of kegs and cackling hideously.

MagCave Foyer

"It'd be less work, but also much less of a challenge, wouldn't it?" Oh no, he's talking about challenges now. There's no way you're getting him back on track to something like a bank robbery or a casino assault, Kathy. He's wedded to this idea now, spiritually attached to the notion of busting into one of those awful Skyside slave shops. You couldn't talk him out of this nonsense any more than you could talk him out of another failed marriage, Kathy. Better get your best high-altitude gear ready, because we're Skyside bound now.

"I think we should go for it. VIGIL hasn't made a move in all these years because that sort of business is just so grim and sad and awful. Nobody ever wants to confront that kind of ugliness, but I see it in the bathroom mirror every morning." A joke. He's kidding, he knows he's got the highest cheekbones and a lurid tabloid story of questionable veracity with every catgirl, shapeshifter, and Remnant/Intersection officer in the Nexus. "Really, how will they ever cope once we've obliterated all those worthless slavers? When Magtok can call himself savior, liberator, hero of the Nexus and none of them are even half as accomplished? Wenomir will seethe," the cyborg laughs uproariously.

[Murkus]

[The Boozatorium]

"Dude, who says something like that," Fettina busts up laughing. She's glad he promptly explains his whole clone situation, but what a line. Still, when she stops to think... "...Wait. All the clones? Like, more than one of you, actively moving around? How do you deal with the neural fracturing? How do you even know... you know..." She stares at him. Where she comes from, this isn't just illegal, it's crossing a rather disturbing line...

Of course, that line of thought is interrupted by flying bottles. One second Fettina is just standing there with condensation forming on her chrome skin, relishing the ability to actually feel this level of cold, and the next she's clouted with some fine wine. The first one bounces off her temple, eliciting an 'ow!', and the others shatter against her wings as she endeavors to enfold herself and Mags. "Hey! ********!" Fettina's eyes flash as bright as the sun. She glances at Magtok as they simmer back down. "You okay? Hang on." She marches after the (literally) damned mischief maker, heels clacking on the cave floor. She looks pissed, and she gives off a light that probably would drive back anything with evil intent.

[Lord Magtok]

The Boozatorium

"I'm fine," Magtok insists, though I'm sure he would've said something like that even if he had been beaned by a brewski. He hurries along after Tina, but takes care not to outpace her, lest he get pelted with adult beverages a second time today. "Let's just evict this stupid ghost and-"

"FooooOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOooooooools! You treshpash on my domain! I am the phantom of fermentation, the demon of DUIs, the booziesh of boogeymen!" the ghost cackles again, scurrying away from Tina with remarkable speed for a ghost who can't even walk a straight line. There's no bottles being thrown this time around, though. The ghost is too focused on getting away, on evading Tina and that look at all costs. This would probably be way harder for Tina if the specter was sober enough to remember it can fly and pass through walls, but fortunately(?) for Magtok and Tina, the Spirit of Spirits is just too sloshed to ghost properly right now.

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"Okay, logistics time," Kathy says, actually considering this, "What transport options do you have? Can we get in and out before they fall on us like a ton of bricks? And if so, where do we put the slaves we've rescued? The MagCave isn't well defensible at the moment, so we need somewhere we can dump them without them immediately getting captured again," This doesn't sound like the kind of argument you get when someone is trying to shoot holes in your plan. This sounds more like Kathy is attempting to develop an operational plan; if Magtok thinks about it, he may recall that Kathy was a military operative for a number of years, and she's drawing on that pool of experience to figure out how to handle the trip. Hell, she sounds downright excited to take part.

[Murkus]

The Boozatorium

"I'm fine," Magtok insists, though I'm sure he would've said something like that even if he had been beaned by a brewski. He hurries along after Tina, but takes care not to outpace her, lest he get pelted with adult beverages a second time today. "Let's just evict this stupid ghost and-"

"FooooOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOooooooools! You treshpash on my domain! I am the phantom of fermentation, the demon of DUIs, the booziesh of boogeymen!" the ghost cackles again, scurrying away from Tina with remarkable speed for a ghost who can't even walk a straight line. There's no bottles being thrown this time around, though. The ghost is too focused on getting away, on evading Tina and that look at all costs. This would probably be way harder for Tina if the specter was sober enough to remember it can fly and pass through walls, but fortunately(?) for Magtok and Tina, the Spirit of Spirits is just too sloshed to ghost properly right now.

[The Boozatorium]

It doesn't even really enter Tina's mind that the ghost could easily evade them. She'd probably be thinking more clearly and find this situation a whole lot funnier in general if she hadn't just been beaned with some booze. She starts to pick up speed! "Hey! Get back here!" Fettina takes to the wing, and her flying in these confines might cause a bit of random destruction. "This isn't your house you ******* creep!"

She'll 'corner' him if she can. As pissed as she is, Fettina doesn't want to flat-out tackle the guy if she doesn't have to. And that's assuming her angel-ness lets her touch him at all. Probably a valid assumption, but he could still easily evade her through the walls or floor if he were to figure it out. "Hey, what's your problem? Is this like, your 'bit'? If you're actually the booziest of boogeymen, this seems like a pretty lousy place to haunt. There's just... this guy." She forks her thumb at Mags. "I know some sweet clubs that would love to have you."

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"I'll extend the range of the telewarp grid before anything else. Rent an apartment in Skyside next to the city's edge, set up a beacon...no no, a rental storage unit, not an apartment. Everyone poofs and reappears there, then we fly them out before the slavers can do some sort of magic to trace the teleport. Not sure what we'd use to fly them out yet, haven't gotten that far, but I can probably talk Felandria into taking care of them in HALO until the heat dies down. Plenty of empty rooms there, given how big and crowded everything used to be. Shouldn't be hard for Fel to screen who comes through, seeing as the base is in the middle of the ocean" There certainly were a lot more characters around back in the day, but I think Magtok might be overestimating HALO's capacity. Aren't refugees more of a GLoG thing, anyway? Though GLoG is a relatively undefended campground, so I suppose that could be an even bigger issue than housing.

"Either way, we'll still need to beef up defenses here. There's almost certainly going to be a retaliatory strike, to make an example of us and demonstrate that their Skyside business is to be begrudgingly condoned, or else. MERC won't appreciate its home security people being on the frontlines of a conflict with slavers, but with a few cheap turrets centered around the front door, a teleport screener active, and maybe a..." Kathy's dad frowns, his mouth outpacing his thoughts. He doesn't usually let that happen; talking about things like logistics and security must not inspire the same sort of creativity and passion that running in guns blazing and screaming usually does.

"-maybe we could put a portal to Mt. Enn's volcanic core over the threshold, and then drape that in a hologram meant to look like a totally normal and harmless door?" There we go, Magtok! See, it wasn't that hard, was it? Now you're thinking with portals!



The Boozatorium

"Did no one tell you up above, foolish cherubim? Like you, I have a sacred duty! I haunt these halls on behalf of the heavens themselvesh! This man, he hoards his whiskey, violates the sacred covenant made with the heavensh!" the ghost bellows self-righteously, after running out of hallway and blundering into a wall instead of through it, his nose bouncing off of it like a rubber ball instead of the incorporeal being he's supposed to be. I guess ghosts can still feel pain, because that's just enough of an inconvenience for the spirit to just flop to the floor in defeat instead of continuing this madcap chase around the room.

"I violated what with the who?" Magtok pants, not sure if all this running around the room has him too tired to remember what any of that means, or if it's something totally made up that the ghost invented just now to try to talk Tina out of busting it. Maybe another MagClone made some sort of illicit whiskey deal before he was born and didn't tell anyone else about it?

"The whiskey! The Angel's Share, sinner! On the holy month of Oktoberfest, you denied Paradise its proper due!" The Spirit of Spirits insists, which just prompts a really confused, skeptical look from our cyborg. I mean, why would Magtok know about whiskey industry terminology? The bots were the ones who usually dealt with all of this nonsense, not him.

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"Yeah! And we'll need some kind of grand entrance too," Kathy says, "I'm thinking, like, a big dumb battleship. Except it's not actually a battleship, it's just there to distract everyone and put on a good show while we're doing the actual work. We can put holoprojectors all over it to get a giant Magtok head in the clouds, looking down scornfully at everything. Add in some super-speakers - we could refurbish the design of my screamer weapons!" Magtok may recall the sonic cannons in Kathy's shoulders, "-and we've got the ability to literally have you looking down on everyone."

She rubs her giant metal hands together, "That way we can have a team of MagBots or MagClones, or whatever you think is best, assaulting the slave area while our giant dumb distraction is laughing at everyone so hard it messes up vehicle instruments!"

[Murkus]

[The Boozatorium]

"Hey! Do I look like a naked baby to you? I'm a silver and gold, rock and roll metal goddess, jumped straight off an album cover to herald the Good Times!" Fettina tries a little more deliberately to flex her celestial meta-muscles so she can help sell this personae, and the light shimmers across her skin again like an electric charge.

"I just go where the booze is, man. I'm an angel of fortune. Ain't nobody tells me anything, and I've never been up above." Fettina glances around. She thinks she understands what this dude means, but not now Magtok could have deprived 'the angels' of it. "Look, if heaven wants some, why don't you just take some and get gone?"

Tina makes a big show of cracking her knuckles. It sounds like ball bearings falling on concrete, and she tries to hide a flinch at the gratuitously threatening sound. Still, she carries through, "That is, unless you don't work for Heaven. In which case, you're gonna get the ass whooping of your afterlife!"

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"A giant floating head, huh? Not too different from what I did in that Excelsior fight, except actually functional and not just hovering about, being a useless distraction. Hm." Magtok wonders how he could've possibly been so arrogant back then, to not affix the giant singing head prop with some actual weapons during the siege of his own home. Who could've ever known hubris as overpowering and spectacular as his own could ever have negative consequences?

"Having eyes on the situation from overhead would give us one more angle to see what their defenses are and where they're going, too. Now, these people are probably the type who would try to demoralize us by using slaves with explosive collars as cannon fodder. It's what I would use if I were a completely terrible person, after all. The giant head distraction could disable a few of those, or inadvertently set some off, but either way, being ready for that kind of grimdark stunt is important. Maybe some sort of virus, if it's a tech-based collar? Could send someone unaffiliated with us to go window-shopping just to get a better understanding of what we're dealing with," Magtok thinks aloud, trying not to indulge that little voice in his head telling him to get Affidavit involved in this mess. That loathsome creature might be a puddle of binary and self-satisfaction, capable of doing all sorts of things non-AI people can't, but that doesn't mean he'd cooperate with any of this. Worse, he could cooperate perfectly, but be an absolute ass every step of the way, ruining the whole adventure for everyone.

The Boozatorium

"Well, you see, err...that's not quite-" the ghost stammers, trying to remember the details of his flimsy excuse for haunting this place. There was also a coffee brew made with devil horn grounds in the room down the hall, wasn't there? And a weird satanic ritual circle downstairs, designed to curse elves with severe libido problems, so that they might never rise to positions of power and influence within the Nexus ever again. There was also a similar thing with a housecat and-

"I'll make sure this angel gets her share of booze, and you agree to leave and never come back."

"Now hold on, she said she was a goddessh. I don't think-"

"What's that? You want a double divine beatdown?" challenges a hologram of Tina that definitely wasn't here a moment ago, posing with one bicep held high for all to admire. The spirit of spirits blinks, suddenly terrified. It was willing to chalk up the two Tinas from a minute ago to rum-induced double-vision, but now there's four of her?! Oh no, these odds are entirely too much for the ghost.

"Fiiiiiiiiine! I'm leeeeeeaving! And taking the Magweiser Lite trash with me, you should knoooooooooow better!" the ghost wails, spinning about in circles as it floats up and away into the ceiling.

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"Oh, that's actually easy. We just need to set up a jammer, so they can't send a detonation signal. We're gonna want to do something with the jammer too - technically, it's just a saturation signal causing interference for other wavelengths, so we could theoretically use it to broadcast a message at the same time as it's shutting down all radio communications, triggers, and so on," Kathy says, smoothly sidestepping the dilemma Magtok had been contemplating, "I imagine you have better ideas for a broadcast like that than I do."

[Murkus]

The Boozatorium

"...M'kay. That was surreal, man. You attract some funky people." Fettina swivels to look at her duplicate. "And what, didn't think I could handle him myself? You really do need to get to know me better." She flutters her eyelashes at the cyborg. "But at least you picked some pretty backup for me."

"So where's the good stuff at?" Fettina folds up her wings and appraises their winnings. "That thing he said. Do you have your own brands too?"

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"Would something like 'you have nothing to lose but your chains!' be too controversial?" Magtok asks aloud, though I doubt Kathy would get the reference. She doesn't really strike me as someone who's read any Marx before. Honestly, I'm surprised our Maggy knows of the slogan. Personally, I think it sounds a bit corny, and an ultra-capitalist maniac like Magtok really isn't the sort of person who ought to be quoting from the manifesto earnestly. We'd probably be better served by just stringing a bunch of threats together, along with instructions to the slaves, to get them out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Hm. I'll figure out something better. So we go in quietly, I pretend to be a buyer, and then the signal goes out and-" Magtok, hold on. Are you sure you really want to be talking about this in that much detail before you make this plan a reality? It's very bad luck to openly discuss your plans in exhaustive detail in a narrative-driven world like this one, you know. Gotta hold back a few important secrets, or the audience will get bored because they've already heard the story before when you were explaining the entire plot in advance.

"...yeah, I think we could make this work. Give me a couple months to get this place in working order, maybe talk to HALO or VIGIL about delivering refugees to their door, and maybe even set up some sort of automated Wall post so people looking for a morally unambiguous fight know where they can one." And probably build some horrific superweapon too, so the audience has something cool and secret to look forward to.

The Boozatorium

"You could handle him, sure, but could you handle him as fast as two Tinas?" Your duplicate's got you there, angel. To give Magtok a chance to escape those fluttering eyelashes and letting Tina get away with provoking a reaction out of him, the hologram takes the lead and steps in to distract Mag's new drinking buddy, blowing Fettina a kiss before waving goodbye and fading away into a cloud of cyan ones and zeroes. The cloud then gets carried away by a passing breeze, and Tina's one chance to check out her own bod without the use of a mirror is gone as quickly as it arrived.

"And I thought the entire world was funky people," our favorite cyborg adds, raising an eyebrow at the chrome angel. "Are you telling me it isn't? That there's an oasis of sanity out there somewhere I wasn't invited to? A bunch of normal normies norm-ing it up in peace and harmony, without any ghosts or demons or talking cats ruining their good times of normalcy and stability?" He pauses to consider the idea, staring intently at a bottle of Calublufiok Cognac. Naming a bottle of brandy after the infamous apocalyptor probably wasn't the best idea in retrospect, and undoubtedly why that brand never really took off. Let's put that back down for now.

"Blegh," he adds, though secretly he's more than a little fascinated by the idea. Imagine, other human beings! People who might have seen the same Star Wars movies he did! They might really be out there somewhere, making jokes about how all his products are rip-offs of things from Earth, talking about contemporary internet memes, indulging in nostalgia and memories together to cope with how wild and wondrous this patchwork nightmarescape can be. Gods, can you imagine it? Magtok could have a normal human conversation with someone. He could go an entire five minutes without doing any of this ridiculous supervillain crap. I mean, he can sorta do that right now, with Tina, but it's not easy when she insists on being an album cover, and not a living, breathing flesh person. Oh! He could also find out if they ever made any Star Wars movies after Revenge of the Sith! Or ask about the second Christopher Nolan Batman movie he never got to see, since that came out in 08. Man, wouldn't that be something!

"I do have a few brands, yeah, but most of it's trash. Tried to corner the market on some drinks I thought didn't exist yet in the world, but it turns out one of the things all these magical, primitive, pre-industrial people are really good at? The folk who make up the majority of the Nexus's population? It's making booze. Trog's was here before I ever was, and it'll still be here long after I'm gone. So I stuck to my specialty, stupid jokes. I put the faces of people who wouldn't dare show up in a courtroom to sue me for putting their likeness on drinks, on the drinks."

Now, Gordon's Breath Absinthe did a bit better, but that guy wasn't very popular either. Probably for the best though; we probably would've run into issues if AMEN's draconic ex-leader ever spotted a bottle at his local liquor store. Gordon was not known for being reasonable when he was angry. Magtok picks up a bottle of Gordon's Breath, figuring that even for an angel with an alcohol tolerance as strong as Fettina claims hers to be, the 'almost as flammable as dragon spit' absinthe will surely be a worthy enough challenge. Still might want to start off with a mixer though, just to be sure it won't kill her.

[Shadowcaller]

The Boozatorium

Tina's phone, or whatever she calls the device she communicates with, starts buzzing. Dena's number and name (and whatever else she included) is displayed. Looks like she's getting a gorgon-call.

[Halae]

[MagCave Foyer]

"I mean, it seems pretty accurate, regardless of the political connotations around it," Oh, so Kathy has read it! Maybe not in a great deal of depth, perhaps, but she's at least heard the line, "I could be the one to go and chat up VIGIL and HALO if you prefer, or we can each handle one of them. I'm fine with whatever," Really, Kathy just wants to help, so she's hoping Magtok doesn't just do everything himself. It feels good to actively take part in pulling things together.

[Lord Magtok]

MagCave Foyer

"I can talk to HALO. You might want to avoid mentioning me when you go to VIGIL, though. The people there have a bit of a grudge. A grudge that would hopefully be softened by the arrival of a whole bunch of refugees yearning to breath free, but probably not the promise of a bunch of refugees mailed to their door eventually. Someone could easily interpret that as an elaborate trap, a needlessly convoluted ploy to smuggle some kind of spy or bomb or spy-who's-also-ingested-a-bomb into their base. If they don't find out about my involvement until the very end, well...what are they going to do, turn all those people away because of a bad feeling?" Magtok shrugs, letting a bit of his own animosity towards VIGIL reveal itself. You'll see what the Nexus's greatest mind is capable of, fools! You'll learn what happens when you question our judgment and intentions, when you so much as look at us askance! There is no greater organization in this Nexus than MagCorp, and even now, in this weakened state, it will exceed your wildest dreams and achieve what you could not.

[Murkus]

[Boozatorium]

Fettina giggles at the bawdy clone as it dissolves into code. Dang, was she that easy to duplicate? "...Are you sure you'd fit in with that crowd, Maggy?" She says, slipping toward a more casual phrasing. The gal gives him a stare as he considers his plight here in the Nexus, even if it only takes a second or two. It's like you can see the long thoughts tugging back and forth behind his eyes. She suddenly starts to realize what an 'eccentric' person really looks like. It's kinda cute, she thinks, a grin blossoming on her face.

"...Wait... is that how you paid for this whole place? For all your stuff? For the proton packs? You're a damn huckster?" Fettina breaks up in those tinny, harmonious giggles again. "I don't know if you're a genius, or... or what you are, but that's funny. Would you make a drink or some gimmick with me on it?" She flashes those eyes at him again, like twin suns. It's easy to see why people find it hard to tell Tina no, and there's not an ounce of angelic mojo involved. "I wouldn't take you to court, promise."

Then she gets a call. Magtok will be able to hear a low, soft tone coming from the side of Fettina's head. Thank god some of her implants still worked. She reaches behind her ear. "Hang on, it looks like I'm getting a call." Dena will start to hear Tina's voice now. Mags probably can too if he listens close. "Dena! Baby! Come on, I'm trying to socialize. I got him home safe, you don't have to worry."

[Shadowcaller]

[Boozatorium]

"You know I gotta check in with my gal, it's protocol." Dena sounds more tipsy than usual. "Sounds like old red-eye is making quite an impression on you though. You ought to give me all the details afterwards." She giggles. "Oh! Oh! Ask what's up with his eye! What does it do Mags?!" She shouts, though Magtok is still unlikely to hear her.

[Lord Magtok]

Boozatorium

"Tell her it sees into the future," Magtok suggests, even though it obviously does no such thing. He strides past her towards the living room, trying to hide the devious little grin on his face as he hurries by. "Tell her I've looked into your own future, and some liquor stores are going to be selling Tina Tequila in a few months. Also one of the snakes on her head is pregnant." Which would mean that Dena herself is pregnant, technically. Is she prepared to be a snake mother? Does her hair know who the father is? Will Kirk be forced to pay child support? How will she juggle her career as a deadly mercenary with her new life as a snake hair mom? Who will go out to the clubs with Tina and help her tear up the dance floor when Dena's stuck at home, rocking her hair to sleep?