VVVVVigil: Valorous Veterans Vanquishing Venal Vermin

[Morty]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Wenomir hugs Cora's invisible frame, his mind working rapidly as the children ramble. What in the name of the gods he loathes is going on here? Why is Lapis turning into a- well, enough gaping.

"Don't worry, kids. I'm on it. You stay here with the other members and I'll talk some sense into this face-stealer. Someone call Commander Cessie!" he yells to the other members before closing his distance to the giant-Cora in a blur. Not even the real Cora has seen him move this fast, most likely.

"Hey! Why don't you pick on someone-" not her own size, she's giant... "-closer to your own size?"

[Lord Magtok]

A Visit

Clearly Laz is underestimating the badass factor of knight armor. "Great, I'll guess I see you tomorrow then. I hope it the entire thing will take about an hour. But if I start to take up too much of your time don't be afraid to tell me, okay?" She offers her hand to shake.

"No problem. See you tomorrow!" Saint Lazarus shakes the reporter's hand without any of her initial reservations or fears. Whatever she was worried about before, it seems to have passed for now. Maybe it'll come back later, when the real interview begins.

[5a Violista]

[A Cat and Heights]

Flaming Hawt Reinholdt is visiting again!

This time, it's not in regards to his previous business here. Which means he doesn't really need to find a commander in charge. Though he will slowly make his way in that direction if he doesn't run into anyone else.

[A Cat and Heights]

Awen the witch is not a commander. She is, however, taking yet another trip to drop off a book at the library and grab one or two more.
Awen is, as usual, wearing too much clothing even for this weather - pretty much her whole head is covered by a headscarf and veil, and then there's the gloves and long dress and scarf and...and...etc.

And her fox is following her.

While on the way there, she sees Reinholdt. That's someone she's never met before, as far as she remembers, so...
She takes a detour towards him. "Hello," she says, shifting the books to under her arm so she can wave. "You looking for something?"

[Reinholdt]

[A Cat and Heights]

Reinholdt tends to wear too much clothing too, but relative to summer. He's decently dressed for winter. If an excess of leather clothing counts for winter. Probably doesn't. But it is exceptionally built to stop bite attacks.

Rein doesn't recall having ever met Awen either so she's probably correctly. He would have remembered the fox who Rein has to bite back an fawning awww over. "Hi, yes," Reinholdt says, waving back at her. "Are you familiar with most or all of the members here?"

[5a Violista]

[A Cat and Heights]

Excess of leather is actually pretty nice in winter, especially if there's padding on the inside so it doesn't feel weird. It also feels nice when lying against it for longer periods of time in the cold. There's definitely warmer things you can wear and if not taken care of it can get damaged easily by the weather, but it works out fine for winter clothing.

"I've been here for a while," she says, "so I mostly do. Not really sure about some of the newest people."

[Shadowcaller]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Giga!Cora sniffles and reaches down to grab the wand again (unless she is stopped) and stares at Wenomir. "Are you going to hurt me too?" She inquires as she displays her thumb and then gestures at her ear and for a moment it looks like she's going to tear up again.

A Visit

Perhaps.

Faith leaves but will return at the appointed time and place, now carrying a camera and some other equipment. She is dressed in the same coat, though if she actually feels the cold is a good question. Though perhaps it was partly the same reason Laz was keeping that heavy armor on most of the time. To hide one's shame.

[Gullara]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Cora immediate goes to the side of the building so she can peek around it and watch Wenomir in action. Laela can come too. Things are looking up! Bastion tries to grab her other hand and pull her back behind cover, but she wrenches her hand away. "Get her, Wenomir!"

[Reinholdt]

[A Cat and Heights]

"I guess that's good enough," Reinholdt mutters to himself before looking back at Awen, his pink, pupiless eyes always watching the fox out of the corner. "Anyways, you guys have been having a lot of demon issues a lot lately, right? I ran into a demon at Trog's recently. Not a minor one either. A real lord of the underworld. She was looking for her daughter and didn't seem to have very good intentions. If the daughter joined here for sanctuary or to rebel or whatever it is teenage demon daughters do, I thought you guys would want to know. Maybe warn her."

Rein holds up a finger and starts digging through his pockets before finding and handing Marin a folded up piece of paper. "Here's an artist's rendition." Indeed, unfolding it reveals... something that might be qualified as art? If drawn by a five year old. Rein's not used to creating fine arts, only stealing them! He peers at it and winces at his own drawing. "Errr... you can probably ignore that. The daughter's just a generic tiefling from all accounts."

[Lord Magtok]

A Visit

Perhaps.

Faith leaves but will return at the appointed time and place, now carrying a camera and some other equipment. She is dressed in the same coat, though if she actually feels the cold is a good question. Though perhaps it was partly the same reason Laz was keeping that heavy armor on most of the time. To hide one's shame.

Faith is greeted with a mumbled hello and a stiff wave. For whatever reason, the presence of a camera makes everything a thousand times worse than last time. Saint Lazarus finds herself unconsciously adjusting her helmet, making sure her entire face is hidden away so that her parents won't pick up a newspaper and find out she never really died and she's been living with a street urchin in Skyside as a degenerate unholy corpse monster who hunts the living and feeds on their disgustingly scrumptious, delectable fleshmeats.

Also the back of her neck was a little itchy.

[Murkus]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Ooh, now this was a rare treat for Laela. As scary as all this had been, she got to see actual heroes fight the wicked ghost. Or... maybe talk to it. That was what her dad said you were supposed to try to do first anyways. But what good would talking with this thing do? They had tried that already!

Well, mostly yelled at it to stop being such a jerk, but still. She hides with Cora.

[Rebonack]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Poor Lapis.

No one will help her.

The black, fluffy wooloo continues flailing her legs in the air like an overturned beetle.

[5a Violista]

[A Cat and Heights]

"Yes, a lot of demons have been showing up."

Awen looks over the artwork as she holds it.

She nods.
"I'll make sure to pass it along. Do you know anything else about her? Either the demon or the daughter?" She supposes if they have to, they could use magic or something to determine the identity of the girl.

[Morty]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

"I don't know. Will I have to hurt you?" Wenomir asks, stopping in front of the gigantic Cora. "You're already hurt and harassed people here."

One of the Vigil members standing by will help Lapis to her feet. She's a jovial-looking halfling in heavy armor, with a very large shield and a short sword.

[Shadowcaller]

A Visit

"Something wrong?" Faith inquires, apparently not making the immidiate connection. "You could always tell me to stop when you don't feel comfortable with something. But I think once we get going it might feel easier. Why don't you just start by telling me something about yourself? Off the records." The reporter holds up what seems to be a recorder, seemingly to show that it's off. "You can ask questions to me too if you like." She starts to look around for somewhere where they can sit down.

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

The giant girl seem to consider her options. "I'm gonna leave." She finally declares with a snivle and with a wave of her wand a giant broom materializes, hoovering in the air besides her.
As Wenomir doesn't seem satisfied with that however, she suddenly look all the more grumpy. "...'kay. Just a sec. I'll undo the stuff." Giga!Cora eventually relents and starts to wave her wand in their direction.

Now several things will happen at once. As promised, Cora will no longer be invisible and as an added bonus, Laela's hair have also returned to normal.
However, other things have changed as well. Such as Wenomir's sex as he now appears female in every sense of the word. Giga!Cora madly points and cackles as she swings her left leg over the broom.

Looks like she is really planning to leave.

[Lord Magtok]

A Visit

"What do your hands look like?" Saint Lazarus embarassedly blurts out without thinking, the very moment she's given an opportunity to ask Faith a question about herself. Obviously there's something spooky and suspicious going on underneath those gloves, right? Some sort of horrible monster claws of murder and death, surely. Jenette needs to know, before this goes any further. She needs to discover what's up with those secret hands.

"I'm sorry, I...it's just been bothering me this whole time, not knowing, and I'm sure it's not half as bad as in my imagination, but if you're covering them up..." Obviously it's because there's something awful and monstrous hidden away. Well...we're both monsters now, so let's see 'em! Show us your evil demon claws, Faith!

[Purple Eagle]

Spoiler

Show

[Training Grounds]

When Svetlana charges, Wenomir seems to stay on the defensive. When she feints, he instead steps back and keeps his distance, testing her to see if it will throw her off-balance. He will follow up with a quick, sudden upwards diagonal swing to test her further. Will she keep her guard up?

"AMEN has hurt plenty of people. Fortunately they're now a shadow of what they once were. Usurped... I was seriously injured in that battle myself and once I recovered, there was another crisis. So I didn't keep close tabs on what AMEN was doing for a while."

[Training Grounds]

Do you know what Holly dislikes?
The fact that this conversation keeps on turning back to AMEN. She tries to come up with a new scheme to alter the flow of it.

"Yeah, I said she'd be a good fit for this organization," she adds, mentally tying this to the 'overzealous' comment.

...
But what would make this battle more interesting? Holly considers saying something that might throw off the concentration of either of them. For Svetlana that would probably require committing some crime in front of her so that would be bad. But what about Wenomir? She has no idea what sort of thing would take. So she starts experimenting, trying out something. Eventually, she hopes she'll find something that can throw off their focus.
"Hey, just because you think he's hot doesn't mean you should go easy on him," she shouts out. "I'm sure he won't mind a couple new scars, since those are his best features."

[Training Grounds]

Knowing who she's fighting, Svetlana foresaw him possibly not falling for her feint, and makes sure to keep her balance as a result. The quick diagonal swing that comes afterwards sees her moving to just barely block that hit. Switching to the defensive, she jumps back and smiles widely. "Ah-ha! Just as expected from the great Wenomir-sensei. Ojej... a little more and I'd have been hit!" She comes out of her fighting stance, though remaining in a position that'd allow her to return at a moment's notice, and bows forward slightly. "To spar with you like-"

She doesn't get to finish her statement, for Holly decides to start commenting on her fighting skills. The excitement on her face gives way to slight puzzlement, and she turns to Holly, stares at the elf and shakes her head. "Forgive my acquaintance, Sensei. She does not fathom the level of respect I have for you." She says, disapprovingly.

((Seeing as posting has become super-difficult for me, and the fight making it harder, let's end the battle here. Easier for me to not procrastinate if there's no battle to look forward to writing.))

Changing back to a neutral stance, perhaps after more sparring where she proves herself to be well-trained, if a bit aggressive, she bows respectfully to Wenomir. "I hope I have impressed you, Sensei."

Spoiler

Show

The inside of Lapis' 'fort' is more or less what one would expect from looking at the outside. A bit cramped and woven together from branches and leaves and pure Truth distilled into a coherent substance. Or at least the closest analog that can exist in a physical universe. Lapis is pretty excited about showing off her fort! Usually people look at it and tell her that it looks nice but they don't really mean it probably because it isn't made out of boxes like most mortal buildings.

Mortals really love their boxes!

Lapis has tried boxes before. Sometimes they have leftover one from moving things around and Lapis hid inside of one of them and jumped out at people when they walked past but they told her not to do that anymore so she stopped.

"I'm still made of matter sort of so long as I'm in the Game so eating stuff is a good idea," Lapis admits. "I guess maybe I don't have to? But I should. The Game has lots of rules to follow."

So many rules!

They can be kind of a pain sometimes.

"I'm not totally sure what demons are but I heard that some attacked VIGIL once so people here don't like them. Faeries are things that don't exist and they want to make everyone else not exist, too."

Man.

Faeries are just the worst.

Lapis rearranges some of the interior furniture (actually several stumps she uprooted) of the fort to make more room. "Mom's usually at Trog's? Or going around the Nexus helping people. She likes doing that."

And at the offer?

"Ooh, are you good at making things pretty? The half-sister my Mom made, Karaglen? She's really good at making pretty things! I'm not so great at it, though. What sort o

f things do you know how to make?"

[Lapis' Fort]

Asher and Ruth look at the naturally-made abode with genuine admiration for this 'little' angel's handiwork. Both making themselves at home, they commend her for her work. "It looks super nice!" Asher begins, and Ruth continues. "It could be better built, however I see the love you built this fort with. Good job, Lapis!"

"Order is required for a functioning universe." Ruth replies, when Lapis mentions eating stuff and universe rules. "Mortals, however, have a fallen, chaotic nature. Resisting order for chaos is easier for them. Take heart, Lapis, for rules make everything work smoothly." She speaks, while Asher busies himself jumping from stump to stump, giggling happily. "In some other universes, demons are deformed, disgusting things that are obviously evil. Where I'm from, there's no visible difference between angels and demons, where it comes to our base forms. A demon is the same thing as a fallen angel. For example..."

Ruth creates a construct of light, an angelic being in the form of a little girl of about 5 with white hair, silver skin and a wide smile. With Lapis' angel senses she'd be able to tell that though this being looks pretty, she's pure evil. "This is Agony, a demon who's in the Nexus and the real reason Asher is here, too. As you can see, asides from the evil we angels can sense, to a mortal she looks like an angel."

Asher and Ruth fly in the air a bit, enough for their feet to not touch the ground, so Lapis can make all the room she wants. Ruth makes a mental note to go and see Lapis' mum at Trog's, sometime.

In response to Lapis' question, Asher generates some sand, molds it into proper furniture like chairs, tables and cupboards, and hardens them into rock, with his angelic powers. "Ta-daaa! Will you let momma help me turn the stumps into sand so I can make more? She's old, so she can transmute stuff!"

It's important to ask, so that Lapis doesn't get sad that her stumps are gone, if she still needed them.

[Reinholdt]

[A Cat and Heights]

"Yes, a lot of demons have been showing up."

Awen looks over the artwork as she holds it.

She nods.
"I'll make sure to pass it along. Do you know anything else about her? Either the demon or the daughter?" She supposes if they have to, they could use magic or something to determine the identity of the girl.

[A Cat and Heights]

Reinholdt shakes his head and shrugs. "The mother is a shapeshifter, so the daughter probably is too. Unfortunately she was too self-important to give out any important information. Like, you know, a name. The first thing you'd normally bring up when looking for someone?" He's not particularly worried the mother will find the daughter very fast with methods like that.

"Speaking of, I'm being rude. I'm Reinholdt, Treasure Hunter Extraordinaire." Rein gives his trademark flourish. "A pleasure to meet you."

[5a Violista]

Spoiler

Show

[Training Grounds]

Knowing who she's fighting, Svetlana foresaw him possibly not falling for her feint, and makes sure to keep her balance as a result. The quick diagonal swing that comes afterwards sees her moving to just barely block that hit. Switching to the defensive, she jumps back and smiles widely. "Ah-ha! Just as expected from the great Wenomir-sensei. Ojej... a little more and I'd have been hit!" She comes out of her fighting stance, though remaining in a position that'd allow her to return at a moment's notice, and bows forward slightly. "To spar with you like-"

She doesn't get to finish her statement, for Holly decides to start commenting on her fighting skills. The excitement on her face gives way to slight puzzlement, and she turns to Holly, stares at the elf and shakes her head. "Forgive my acquaintance, Sensei. She does not fathom the level of respect I have for you." She says, disapprovingly.

((Seeing as posting has become super-difficult for me, and the fight making it harder, let's end the battle here. Easier for me to not procrastinate if there's no battle to look forward to writing.))

Changing back to a neutral stance, perhaps after more sparring where she proves herself to be well-trained, if a bit aggressive, she bows respectfully to Wenomir. "I hope I have impressed you, Sensei."

[Training Grounds]

*Since Holly's participation in the scene isn't currently the focus and it's not her turn anyway, I'll wait for Wenomir to post.*


[A Cat and Heights]

"Oh. That makes it harder," Awen comments. "But not everyone's a shapeshifter, so that makes it a bit easier." Why can't all bad people just introduce themselves normally? That would make everything easier.

Anyway.

The lady-with-hidden-snakes-mixed-in-with-her-hair looks at the Treasure Hunter. "Nice to meet you," she says. She curtsies. "I'm Awen, the...um, the witch." And, gesturing at her fox... "And this my fox, Renard." Very creative name, actually. There's not many foxes named 'Renard'. Oh, wait, nevermind, it's a common fox-name. Then, she adds, "He's very rude."

[Shadowcaller]

A Visit

Faith initially blinks in surprise, not expecting that kind of question so soon. But as Laz clarifies she nods. "No, that's fair. You don't have to apologize. You're not the only one that's asked that after all. Sometimes me hiding them away like this have the opposite of the intended effect." She gently places down some of the gear she's been carrying against the wall of a nearby bulding. The she holds up her hand and loosens the belt fastening the glove before she pulls it off in a single motion.

While her skin is grey nothing looks too unusual until the start of her fingers. It appears as if the skeleton of her fingers has continued growing after her "death" and at some point broken through the skin where her nails should have been. Now they are extending several inches outwards and are ending in sharpened points that for all intends and purposes could be called claws. Furthermore, they seem to be partly covered in a black substance that seems to be coming from her own body like blood.

She flexes her inhumanly long fingers in front of Laz. "Was this what you wanted to see?" She smiles. "Anything like yours? Perhaps we should paint one anothers."

[Morty]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Wenomir suddenly feels very strange... but not unfamiliar. When he looks down and realizes just what happened, his vision blurs with incandescent rage. How dare this creature...

"Reverse or I really am going to hurt you!" (s)he yells in an unfamiliar voice.

[Training Grounds]

Wenomir scowls at Holly. Obviously, scowling is more or less his default expression, but now it deepens. There's a lot of disapproval packed into that narrow, focused look.

"That was uncalled for. Svetlana was giving it her all. And she fought well."

[Ashen Lilies]

[ELVES!!!]

Anika nods. Bard-y stuff. Very important. All those songs and books... Wait...

"Oh! We got a library too! That should be the first thing on our list. Back home they always said it was vital that people perserved the story, and that's what bards do, right? You could like, write a grand story about VIGIL or make a song out of it." Anika stops for a moment and claps her hands. "That would be so cool." She grins, her pointy canines showing. "Can you do that? We probably have some stuffy tomes in there that got all the information you need." The druid seemed to have utter confidence that the bard could make something much more interesting out of them. Anika based this on the fact that she'd peek through even the stuffiest of the tomes if Rain happened to be on it's cover, no matter the subject.

[Elves]

Rain frowns a bit. "I prefer getting my stories from people, rather than books," she says, uncertain. "But I could take a look... and there's people in libraries, right?"

[5a Violista]

[Training Grounds]

They're right: that was uncalled for, and Holly feels it was a little out-of-character for her. Sure, it succeeded in achieving what she was going for, but...

The half-human raises her hands so they're in front of her, and her palms are forward. "Maybe it's because I don't know all that much about fighting," she lies, "but to me it looks like you two should be similar in skill, but she wasn't making any headway so that was the only thing I could think was happening."

"I didn't mean anything by it, I swear."

[Reinholdt]

[A Cat and Heights]

"Give em a few years in the Nexus and they'll become shapechangers." Reinholdt laughs a little, even though that's exactly how he did it.

Reinholdt suddenly becomes intensely suspicious of Renard and it shows as Rein's attention falls solely on the fox for a moment. "Renard you say?" Rein's stare is piercing. "Is that Reynard with a y?" Reinholdt is apparently familiar with a fox Reynard who is dubious of moral character! He would hate for Reynard to be this fox. Or any fox really. Reynard's return would be disastrous. But he finds a small part of him hoping too. It would also be fun.

[5a Violista]

[A Cat and Heights]

Yeah, that does seem to be somewhat common, suddenly gaining shapechanging powers of one kind or another.

Awen, having noticed Reinholt's suspicion, quickly shakes her head: "No, there's no 'y' in his name. I practically raised him myself since he was a kit so it's unlikely you've met him before." The only time they're really separate is after they have an argument. Arguments are kind-of awkward, however, because it seems like Awen's the only one who can normally understand him or even hear him.

She thinks for a moment.
"What was this Reynard-with-a-y like?" She needs to know if more people are going to ask her this question in the future and how bad it is.

[Reinholdt]

[A Cat and Heights]

Maybe she is the only one. Reinholdt has yet to hear Renard say anything after all. "Hmm... Alright. Sorry. I guess." Renard was probably fine and Rein was being rude.

"What's Reynard like?" Rein takes a moment to think about that one. "Well he is very much an ends justify the means kind of person. Which almost would be ok, except he goes out of his way to pick out cruel means to make people suffer so that the game in his head is more dramatic. But so long as he tricks what he considers the 'bad guy' in the end, he can act all smug about it. You're best not playing the game at all with him. He's smart though, so he'll make it very tempting to get involved." This is supposed to be dissuasive, but some people end up intrigued.

Reinholdt is more interested in something mentioned before though. "What kind of witch are you? Witch is a... surprisingly broad term these days." Used to just need a cackle and a cauldron.

[Gullara]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

"What the heck is going on?" Cora asks no one in particular. Something seems odd about Wenomir from here and he sounds funny. He also sounds really mad.

[5a Violista]

[A Cat and Heights]

Regardless of anything else, the fox is definitely rude, though. But mostly to tease Awen, because he knows only she's hearing him and presumably he likes to see her angry or flustered. Why else would he have let her think everyone else was hearing him, for years? Why else would he make lewd comments while she's trying to focus on something? And so on.

"He sounds like he could be dangerous," she comments.

Anyway, on to the important question: "Like, I didn't really consider myself a witch before coming to the Nexus, just a maid who could do magic and but no idea what the source of my magic was," she says, "But then I found out that most of the things that I could do were just stereotypical witch things. Like, flying broomsticks, curses, laughing that can hurt people, potions, and so on."
Also, her pathfinder class is literally "Witch". But she doesn't know that.

[Lord Magtok]

A Visit

She flexes her inhumanly long fingers in front of Laz. "Was this what you wanted to see?" She smiles. "Anything like yours? Perhaps we should paint one anothers."

"Mine don't do anything like that unless I'm having a very bad day," Saint Lazarus shakes her head, pretty sure that she wouldn't want to paint anything that scary, either. 'Having a bad day' is putting it mildly, though. The claws have only popped out maybe twice, off-screen, and only when she was horrifically desperate and hungry. If Faith ever gets to see them, Laz is fairly confident one or both of them won't survive the experience. That said, they're nowhere near as spooky as Faith's own. Is that some kind of venom or evil corpse juice of doom coating Faith's claws? Do people carved up by her get lacerated and tainted with horrible disease fluids?

"Can I ask what the black stuff does?" It doesn't particularly matter to her whether or not Faith wants to tell her. She can live without knowing; she's settled down a bit, now that the mystery has been solved and there's no big terrible secret hiding in those gloves anymore.

[Rebonack]

[Spooky VIGIL Encounters]

Lapis discovers that, much to her dismay, that she's having trouble shaking off whatever was done to her! She's going to need outside help!

And only one thing really comes to her mind.

She takes a deep breath and bleats.

"WOOLOO!" very very loudly.

Oddly enough, anyone nearby will be able to tell with absolute certainty that particular bleat means she's crying for her mom.

Nothing else immediately happens.


[Lapis' Lovely Fort]

Lapis recoils at the feeling of absolute evil, scooting away from the image.

"I don't like it, it makes my tummy hurt," Lapis protests.

She hasn't seen such a creature before. 'Pure evil' in her estimation is an impossible thing, and impossible things already disagree with her. The absolute malice it radiates along with being pure evil makes it even worse.

"Why is she so bad?" Lapis asks, blinking back tears. "I don't understand why someone would be so bad."

The young seraph gives a bit of a snort as she tries to distract herself from the lingering feeling of awful by watching the sand shaping.

"Oh, that's okay. I can always find more stumps?"

[Halae]

[Descending From The Sky]

An eight foot tall bronze-colored humanoid machine, flying on jet boosters and wearing the pelt of some great white beast begins descending from above at a relatively sedate pace for something on jets. before coming down all the way to the ground on the VIGIL island, however, the individual will stop to look for a decent place to land, away from too many people and buildings so as not to hurt them while descending.

After choosing a relatively open spot, they'll move until they touch the ground and stand back up. This wasn't exactly an announced visit, but the flashy nature of the arrival and the sound of those jets means that everybody who's outside (and maybe some that weren't) know something's going on.