Skyside 6: Return of the Cheddar

[Shadowcaller]

[Drug Bust]

Oh swell!

There's her friend!

Zee lines up her shot and unless something tackles her that terrible alien hybrid is about to have a bolt of densely packed solar plasma blasting through his head at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Pew!

Most of the time people don't survive this sort of thing. That's kind of the idea.

[Drug Bust]

Larza's narrow, almost reptilian eyes settle on the nearest worker in charge of moving product. "Found a little fleshy one, I did."
She lets out a wicked little groan before scuttling closer - as silent as ever. "Fat little man, go to sleep!"

The goblin continues to mutter to herself as she retrieves a tiny blade from a sheathe.

--

She'll prick the worker, he might not even really feel it. He will most definitely feel the poison which follows, however.
He's in for several hours of deep sleep. It is a delirious sleep, feverish.

It is a product of the faewolden after all.

Drug Bust

The satchels of drug being moved around are large and heavy, and whilst they are currently basically undefended- there's a worker still obliviously moving them, but he's ignoring the gun fight so he'd probably ignore Larza if she didn't give him an order- I'm not sure Larza could easily steal some. They're wrapped in bags based on how much the workers moving them can lift, and they're bigger than Larza is.

The cultist has climbed into his vehicle and is preparing to leave. As the vehicle doesn't have a proper cab, there's nothing that would stop Zee shooting him now.

The biggiest gun Minerva can see in the hands of the opposition is a pair of Followers rushing to assemble a Vickers machine-gun and get it working so they can fire it at the gunslinger and the other girls, who don't have anything near as heavy and fire back with a mix of bullets and lasers.

Drug Bust

Then that's the followers she's going to empty her clip into. As she's also moving her aim isn't the best but she figures only a few hits would be enough to effectively immobilize that weapon.
Once that's done she's going to switch to her melee weapon, Seth's Justice. Which is a flaming mace while brandishing her rosarius. She's planning to simply start smacking people with the weapon while trusting her rosarius and power armor to keep her safe.

It does help that the rosarius projects a force field around her but as far as she was concerned, that was simply the Emperor keeping her safe.

Warehouse of Payne

Once they seem to be out of danger, the little fly-spy might suddenly be revealed as the bear which fur it was hiding in disappears in a swirling mass of green energy only for Anika the kal'dorei to emerge from it. She usually didn't pass hugs around as apparently some people were uncomfortable with that, but if Val was cool with it she's going to return it. Their length differences only making it slightly awkward.
"Aw thanks, Val. But shouldn't we have like arrested the guy and taken him to VIGIL? Or maybe Inside? Now he might take revenge!"

[Hattish Thing]

[Drug Bust]

Good, good! The fat little mud person was down for the count! Now was the time for filcherly duggins.
Her toothy grin widens in anticipation. This was the best part of her job, after all.

Quickly, she looks about. "Git ye a' tae masell, dinnae we?"

--

With an evil little look upon her colorful face, Larza skitters atop the unconscious human and proceeds to rifle through his pockets, snagging anything that seems even potentially valuable. Did the man have any gold teeth? Perhaps a fancy little watch? A wallet with a few dollars? "C'moan nou, gies whit wants we!"

If her search turns out fruitless, she'll make her way to the sack and start pocketing handfuls. "Hek ek ek, thought a'd forgotten aboot ye?"

---

[Abandoned Crematorium]

Unfortunately for the horrible fly, the crematorium is well secured against invasion from the outside. Incidentally, this means that its particularly difficult to break out of, as well. Unless, of course, you know how to access the secret passage! For now, Dr. Valiance fails to notice the thing, distracted as he is by Anika's idea of a hug. It is, perhaps, more than a little awkward.

Rather than complain, however, Val simply goes along with it. "Oh, uhh - hey there. Cool."

--

When she pulls away, he scratches at his head. Better come up with some random lie, seeing as the answer was basically just laziness.
"Nah, nah. We're setting him up, you know. So we can catch him later, for something worse."

---

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Dr. Valiance frowns. Asking Ms. Mithar for anything right about now felt like pushing his luck. "Would you, uhh - mind asking with me? It's just that, uhh. Well, things have been a little rough. Bummer, I know." Bummer indeed, Val. Then she brings up the horrible thing.

With a sigh, he starts to explain. "It's, um. Well, its hard to explain. It won't hurt you, at least - it hasn't yet."

---

[Olympian Extractions - Factory Floor]

The foreman nods, taking this opportunity to spit upon the metal flooring. Rather than address Carlie, she focuses her attention on Reed.
This was the one who was really in charge, after all. Why waste her breath on the other?

She frowns, continuing. "Men are cowards, missy. They work their hours, they head home - listen to the radio."
"That's it. And they're happy for it, right pleased about it. There are exceptions, of course, radicals. But its no sweat off our brow."

"They make noise, lots of noise. But that's all. My guess? Folk ain't missin', just keeping heads low. Not showing up. Union's got their little thumbs on 'em."

[Recaiden]

There's four horses to pull the carriage, though they've been disconnected.
Arron begins his chant, and the skeletal horses start to look at him.
"Horses heed me,
Skeletons need me,
Riders feed me,
You are mine."

Benedict interrupts by drawing a simple green symbol in the air and channeling magic into it; Arron's the intended target, but if Miri looks too long at it, then she may too be affected. It's a sleep glyph, since that's relatively subtle and won't cause any collateral damage that would attract the local gangs that keep the peace here.

The manservant is quite a good catch, and the noxious herbs in the jar won't affect it anyway. Might kill the body faster, but the manservant can use dead bodies as well as living ones; it's just the decay that causes issues. That and the fact corpses can't feel fear, so the manservant can draw on less power from its host. Plus the toxins from the plant require either contact or inhalation, and it's holding the jar and not really breathing; there's no breathing holes in the bronze plate nailed to its face.

The servant has the jar!
Miri was under the mistaken impression that the manservant was using living bodies, and would need them replaced when they died. Too bad for her, convenient for the possessing manservant.

Right when she sees Benedict start drawing a magic symbol, lightning jumps from her antlers to her hand, and then through the air towards the occultist. How dare he try to keep his own skeleton horses!? This is rather more electricity than the sparks she managed to conjure when looking into things with Mildred, since she's so worked up about...everything. But I wouldn't expect it to do any permanent damage.
Then she tries calling out to the slaves. "Help us, come with us! He'd steal your youth and feed you to demons, but you can get away now!" It would probably be better to just make them 'remember' how horrible Benedict can be and that escaping on skeleton horses is their best bet, but Miri isn't sure she can manage to concentrate on that, or affect three people at once or anything. Thus, talking it is.

[Shadowcaller]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

"I can ask with you." Ambrosia confirms stiffly. She seems far more interested in the sound, likely since it happened to be far closer than Lady Mithar and perhaps slightly more dangerous in these circumstances. "Not yet? What does that mean? You were clearly afraid of it and that is enough reason for me to worry. Apparently it was something we could run away from."

[Hattish Thing]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Dr. Valiance shrugs before frowning. If he let her in on the secret of the deadsite, he'd risk news of his greatest find leaking out into the public. Could he trust her with this? "Okay. This is difficult to explain." How would someone even start with this? He didn't even fully understand it. "So, uhh - let's start from the beginning. Around thirteen or fourteen billion years ago, everything we know of in the cosmos was an infinitesimal singularity." He starts gesturing with his hands, its hard to take it seriously. "Then, uhh - something happened - the universe expanded into three dimensional space." His eyes flare up.

This was something important, or at least, it sounded like it. "As the immense energy of this initial expansion cooled, light began to shine through. Eventually, small particles began to form into the larger pieces of matter we know today, you know?" Did she? Best make sure. "We're talking galaxies, stars, and planets. Cosmic type stuff." Onto the big part. The part that got all weird and spooky, the part that Conference Zeta had obsessed over for years. "Now, things get weird when we start talking about 'space-time'. It's a funky word, yeah?" Quick definition, Val. Hurry this along, this place is creepy. Not a place to hang around.

Okay, back to space stuff. "Basically, 'space-time' is a mathematical formula, but more importantly, its the crunch upon which we base our understanding of the universe." Go on, getting closer. "See, its flat. Meaning, it just stretches on forever and ever. This is a big deal." Or something. Even he had difficulty explaining it. Now the really good part. "It's infinite. We do not live in a finite universe. What, uhh - does that mean? You may ask?" He walks over to a nearby chalkboard, wiping some blood off of it before picking up a piece of discarded chalk. "It means that, at some point, everything starts duplicating. Or close to duplicating, at least."

Better explain just what you mean by that, Val. This is getting heady. "You can only put the stuff inside an infinite universe together in so many different ways, you know?" He starts to write something down on the chalkboard: 10^10^122. He seems pretty excited by this. "Going back to the idea that space-time is flat, the number of possible particle configurations in multiple universes would be limited to 10^10^122 distinct possibilities, to be exact." This is something of a big deal, it seems. "So, with an infinite number of cosmic patches, the particle arrangements within them must repeat — infinitely many times over."

"This means there are infinitely many 'parallel universes': cosmic patches exactly the same as ours, containing someone just like me, as well as patches that, uhh - differ by just one particle's position, patches that differ by two particles' positions, and so on down to patches that are totally funky." That was the hit, that was the big deal. He grins a little. "Moving even beyond that, uhh - cause it gets weirder, you know." He starts to draw a long, straight line on the board. "Since the universe is flat now, it must have been flat in the past, when the universe was an incredibly dense singularity. This means that the universe has, uhh - maintained this level of flatness over thirteen billion years of expansion."

"In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×1057 parts. That's crazy. So, what does this say about our understanding of time? Well, it suggests, basically, that time doesn't really necessarily flow at all." What does this mean, Dr. Valiance? What are you getting at? More importantly, what had Conference Zeta been getting at? "So, we've set the stage, yeah? The universe is infinite, meaning infinite duplications are a thing. We've ruled that time doesn't really move forward, meaning that its just as accessible from any direction." We're getting somewhere. Now onto the final part. "By jumping through points in time, one would be able to assert themselves within a cosmic patch once located at a certain point."

"It's not time travel, Rose. It's... multiverse travel. That thing we heard? Well, uhh. Okay, we'll get to that in a second."

"Are you following, sunshine?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Ambrosia crosses her arms over her chest once its clear that by 'beginning' he meant the actual beginning of the universe, or rather, Dr. Valiance's universe. The most prominent theory she had heard theorized regarding her own universe had a lot less math but a lot more esotericism. They both also sounded equally irrelevant for what was going on here. "To be clear, are you talking of your world, the nexus or the multiverse? Since this sounds like multiverse theory to me. I understand the basic concept though. But what does it have to do with what's going on? You seem stressed out so you should probably cut out some context."

[Hattish Thing]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Dr. Valiance continues to speak, seemingly nonplussed with Ambrosia's commentary. "My world? Oh, nah - this goes way beyond my world, or yours." He begins to draw a diagram of the Nexus. This part seemed important. "This place, its an anomaly. All parallel worlds eventually lead here. This is, uhh - important!" Why was this important? Best get on that before Ambrosia loses patience. "See, the doors are always open, here. We're not meant to jump worlds, when it happens, uhh - you're sort of cutting through spacetime itself. That's not good, it takes time to heal." The duration was dependant on numerous variables, it wasn't worth going into.

"During that, uhh - period, well... there's a window of time wherein particles from either world are capable of free interaction." Now we were getting into the point of this whole thing. "When I arrived in the Nexus, it wasn't totally by accident. See, I was still working with Conference Zeta then. We were focusing pretty hard on exactly what I've been talking about, but - uhh, it wasn't a theoretical." He takes a deep breath. It felt like a lifetime ago. "We were cutting into parallel worlds. It was ridiculous." He could hardly believe it at first. "But it worked. Half the facility ended up here. For years, they rebuilt - and then? Well, uhh - experiments began once more."

Only this time, they had the benefit of the Nexus's porous fabric to work with. Dr. Valiance doesn't say this, but its clearly implied. "Other versions of the organization were reached, resources were pooled, and uhh - then it all stopped." He didn't know what had happened. One day, the primary research facility was simply gone. "This laboratory? It actually didn't start out in the Nexus."

"It's from an entirely different world, and its not meant to be here. And, well, turns out... there are some side-effects to that."

"Displacements. Ghosts, almost. But not quite."

[Shadowcaller]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Now this sounded a lot more interesting, if only since it sounded all too familiar. "Interplanar research." She remarks with a thoughtful nod.

"They weren't the only ones messing around with it. The nexus attracts the interested like honey attracts flies it seems. I've encountered at least two other entities who have been experimenting with it. The side effects seemed worse though. Things from endless worlds pulled into the same location all at once made everything spiral out of control. Then in the opposite end things started to get pulled away from the nexus, leaving only ghostly images behind. What I believe might have been a famous example of this was the empire of Inside which existed many years ago. One day most of the soldiers simply disappeared, leaving only the organization that would become known as Remnant behind which eventually also disbanded.
However, there were stories about 'ghostly soldiers' showing up all over Inside years after the empire had disappeared. My theory is that they were pulled out of the nexus like people were pulled in and I wonder if this phenomena could be related to that."

[Rebonack]

[Abandoned Crematorium]

WELP!

It looks like the cherub is being ignored again.

Great.

He's probably just going to sit there and sulk until someone approach his container instead of...

What are those stupid meat-puppets even doing?

Touching each other?

Eeew.

They're so gross.

[Morty]

[Olympian Extractions - Factory Floor]

"They must be keeping quite low if they did not come home," Calm Reed points out. "Or do you suspect the Union of secreting them away somehow?"

[Hattish Thing]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Dr. Valiance nods gravely, somewhat calmer now. "Uhh, yeah - you got the gist of it, basically." He claps his hands together before approaching the nearest vat. "Ah, good. This one's ready. Give me a hand?"

He'll start to press buttons in the tank. The fluid begins to drain.

[5a Violista]

[Olympian Extractions - Factory Floor]

Carlie is okay with the foreman just speaking with Calm Reed. Sure, she'd rather her comments actually be answered instead of avoided, but that evasion does say a lot about the foreman.

It also gives Carlie more time to look over the files again.

And, it's okay. If the foreman doesn't want to acknowledge Carlie's statements, Carlie won't bother wasting her breath on the foreman either. After all, the foreman isn't really the one in charge here.

[Shadowcaller]

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

"Er, what are we doing exactly?" Ambrosia inquires as she approaches the vat. "Do you need to retrieve a sample?"

But he was focusing on the vat though...

"Actually, by the way. I found this journal here." Well, there it is in her hand all of sudden. How mysterious.
"If we aren't in any danger from anything but ghosts you might want to have a look at it."

[Earl of Purple]

Abandoned Crematorium

The cherub isn't being ignored! The captive next to it is tapping against its perspex box, possibly trying to attract its attention. Of course, it's not warded in the same way as the cherub; the heavy-duty lamps were keeping it mostly contained- or at least uncomfortable. Those are still there, but have no power; the lights are out.

The fly-thing is content to explore right now, looking for a window, airvent or door. Hopefully one of the people it's here with will leave using one of them before it dies, so it can head back to its creator and tell him where they are.

If the hugs are for everyone, Felicity will join in. She's a bit more comfortable hugging Anika than Val, though. She might work for him, but she still finds him a bit creepy.

Drug Bust

The cultist has his head ventilated. He'd just gotten the vehicle started, and his corpse slumps over the wheel foot on the accelerator. It's not travelling very fast- the top speed is low and the acceleration isn't very good- but the tracks mean it has very good grip on the road.

The worker doesn't have anything on him, except a bag of pills labelled 'Docility' and a half-eaten cucumber. Larza can take the drugs, though. The sacks are filled with more of the pills.

Minerva has taken out the machine-gun, and as she charges in with her mace she'll find some difficulty in bashing skulls in. The sight of a massive power-armoured figure charging towards them with a flaming mace ensures that most of the Followers of Joy are now running away. The exceptions are the workers, who are mostly standing around, staring at walls, or watching the fight with vague smiles, or drooling- one has curled up and is sleeping, sucking on his thumb like a baby and not a heavily built middle-aged man. Another exception is the Followers' boss, who is frothing at the mouth and running toward the Sororitas whilst swinging a super-sledge- a rocket-propelled sledgehammer at Minerva's chest. The blow will be immense, as he's boosting his strength with drugs and the rocket at the end of the hammer is boosting it further. If it misses, the rocket will make him slow to recover, however- and unlike Minerva, he's only wearing a ballistic vest and a WWI-era British helmet.

Shopping Trip

The electricity disrupted his control, and his spell failed, so Benedict starts to draw it again. "Don't listen to her! I bought you to be my wives. I will feed you, clothe you and teach you magic. You will have power, prestige and a place to stay. Don't listen to her, she's a telepath and memory-eater, she'll steal your dreams and make her your own and you won't notice because she'll replace them with what she wants you to do."

The girls look a little nervous and unsure, the Lyseni particularly, and she takes a step forward, towards Miri. The tiefling climbs into the carriage, since judging by conversation she's decided he'll discard his wives when they no longer interest and Miri is acting from jealousy.

Arron is repeating his verse, louder this time, whilst pointing at the horses. He's usurped one of them, and it's moving closer. The manservant is trying to put the lid on the jar of herbs. If it wasn't given the lid, then it will instead throw the poisonous dried plant into the crowded bazaar.

[Shadowcaller]

Abandoned Crematorium

"Something worse?" That didn't make much sense to Anika. Hadn't the reason they had come here to beat one of the baddest guys around? Now it was more like they were just stealing from these dudes.

She turns to Felicity once she hugged her. "Hey, we weren't just stealing from those people, right?"

[Recaiden]

I think the manservant did get the lid. It was only somewhat ajar. Just needs to place and fasten it back on.

Coming over closer to Arron (and the approaching skeleton horse), Miri materializes a glass ball in her hand (like when she was investigating her magic with Mildred), and throws it right at Benedict.
"I've been studying meditation. You literally feed people to monsters. I bet you have a ritual just waiting for 'the heart of a married woman'."
"Even if he doesn't kill you right away, you'll be locked up in his haunted mansion. Come with us and you'll be free."
Although it does occur to her that the fewer people, the faster they can make their escape. If four horses can carry four people and an entire carriage, one horse could probably carry the two of them...

[Earl of Purple]

Shopping Trip

Benedict ducks the glass ball and climbs into the carriage, for more cover. "If all I wanted was the heart of a married woman, I'd have married Sara. No, Miri. What I want is a legacy, I want wives because I want children. I want to continue the Beaulieu name and rebuild our powerbase until we are, once again, the premier family of magical practitioners. They'll be in my mansion, learning from me and the ghosts- any magic they can learn, I will let them learn it. If they think they aren't free and want it later, they can have it. They can have it now, if they want. I'll take them out of the city and release them. I swear that, Miri, on the sanctity of my grandfather's grave."
One of the girls speaks, the tiefling. "So we go wi' him, he teaches us magic, we get a roof, food, an' stuff. We go wi' you, we get... what, freedom? Freedom to die cold an' hungry, maybe. I'm with Benedict." She'll climb on, though the other two look a little more cautious. The darker girl does something meanwhile, Miri likely can't tell what, but she's protecting herself from mental or emotional tampering.

[Hattish Thing]

[Drug Bust]

Larza will fill her pockets with docility pills, as well as the cucumber.

Wait, no - she was somewhat hungry. She'll very quickly toss the half eaten vegetable down her gullet, quite pleased.

When she approaches the sack, she'll start shoveling handfuls of the stuff into her pockets. The colorful goblin wouldn't be able to steal entire sacks of the stuff, they were far too heavy! Handfuls will do, though - no doubt they would fetch a pretty price at the market. Once that business is done, she'll look around. Anyone else to mug?

---

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

Dr. Valiance nods as he gets to work.

Removing this thing took a lot of effort, and he wasn't particularly strong.

"Normally I, uhh - use a wheelbarrow for this, but someone stole it." Really annoying, that. For now, he was just planning on stuffing the chunk of biomatter in the back of his van and heading back to VIGIL. It's going to be messy.

---

[Back Room]

After several hours, Ada will wake up within a dark room.

It is featureless, without windows. There's nothing in the way of furniture, either. It only gets worse.

Chains hang from crossbeams above, and a grate can be seen at the center of the room. Rust colored stains trickle towards the grate, suggesting that it was intended to drain... something. A door leads out somewhere, seemingly the only way in which one could escape. There are problems though: Ada has been tied to a metal pole, and she certainly won't be feeling well. She's been drugged, making it difficult to concentrate.

Larza sits in front of the door, cross-legged. There's a lollipop in her mouth.

"Trch, ye look tairible, girlie."

[bc56]

"Wha? Huh?" Ada stirs awake. "You drugged me!" She seems pretty angry, but she also can't focus. Her eyes keep closing, and she has to force them open again. "I will get out of here, and then you'll pay. You can't hold me forever!" She's trying to think about what she has in her pockets that might help her escape, but she can't concentrate enough to get any good ideas right now.

[Hattish Thing]

[Back Room]

Once Ada stirs awake, Larza will rise up to her feet.

She's quite excited by this new development. With an evil little look on her face, she'll speak.

"Ah micht nae be able tae, na. Bit mah freish boyfriend sure kin, girlie." At this, she knocks three times at the door. A moment or so later, a huge man opens the door and steps in. He's wearing a tattered leather jacket over a muscle shirt. Jeans cover his legs, ending in combat boots. He's moving as if in a daze. It might appear as if he was enchanted, but in reality, he's simply been heavily drugged with 'docility', a recent acquisition of the colorful goblins.

He locks the door behind him before leaning up against it.

[bc56]

Ada doesn't look very frightened. Instead she busies herself with testing the amount of freedom of movement her restraints allow. "He can't either. I'm patient." Ada gives a wicked grin. "Besides, didn't I tell you? I don't stay dead. Do anything to seriously harm me, or make him do it, and I won't rest until I've killed you. So consider yourself warned." She's talking more about psychological harm than physical. Physical harm loses its threat when you know you can return from the dead.

[Rebonack]

[Abandoned Crematorium]

Oh hey the creepy mouth-eye kid is tapping on the glass at him.

It had those lights on it before, but they're out now. Did they hurt it or something? He still really isn't sure exactly what the other captive is. Some sort of creep for sure. But maybe just not hostile to him.

Honestly he hadn't really tried communicating with that much since it couldn't talk.

But maybe...

"Hey, can you get out with those lights off?" the cherub asks curiously.

He sure knows that HE can't get out.

Not chance.

Not with that gross crown-sigil embossed all over the box.


[Drug Bust]

Bam.

Mission accomplished!

Now, while these gangers are probably pretty garbage killing them all really isn't why they're here. The goblin set off the explosion, right?

Zee squints.

Yeah, that's how it reads. So yeah a good time to skedaddle.

Zee sticks her fingers in her mouth and gives a single shrill, piercing whistle. To most everyone it's just a whistle but to her allies of the day the meaning should be quite clear. I got the other infectious alien. We've just got the one shopping for motor bikes left let's go.

Progress!

[Hattish Thing]

[Back Room]

Well now, this was an intriguing development, wasn't it?

Her new friend here didn't seem capable of dying. That's alright, just makes things a little easier for her.

The colorful goblin struts confidently over towards Ada, a sultry grin upon her runny face. She removes the sucker from her lips before attempting to rather roughly shove it down Ada's throat. She's careful to avoid being bitten, likely an unnecessary precaution as her sharp claws would not be pleasant to bite. "Ah hawp ye lik' cherry flavoring, bint." She'll grin before making her way back to the locked door, snapping her fingers as she does so.

In response, the skyside ganger clomps forward like a zombie. As he shuffles towards Ada, he pulls out a crowbar. From the door, Larza calls out. "Ye'v git aboot a minute tae tell me howfur tae git mah stuff back."

"Otherwise mah boyfriend 'ere is aff tae be pure wrathsome."

"He's git ferr th' swing oan him, ye ken."

[Shadowcaller]

[Drug Bust]

While Minerva usually got into a frenzy against the enemies of the Emperor, she found no reason to follow these petty thugs if they were fleeing.
Instead, she's looking for that cultist but can't see any signs of him.
What she sees instead is a challenger approaching. A true mad lad.
It wasn't the first time she had met a foe like this and if she got to decide, it wouldn't be the last either.

Instead of following up on her attack Minerva starts moving backwards, revealing that she's quite nimble in that armor of hers despite its unnecessary bulk. Letting her own weapon simply rest to her side she focuses on dodging his attacks rather than counterattacking. Her movements are minimalistic, taking as little unnecessary energy as possible.
So once he has spent all his energy on one attack and has to recharge, she's going to attempt to slam her burning mace right in his neck.

[Deadsite - Zeta Labs]

"Someone stole your wheelbarrow?" She inquires in the tone certain people might remembering the line 'someone stole your sweetroll?'. "Let me help you out then..."
Despite the fact that Ambrosia rarely, if ever, got involved in anything she researched she seems to have found the time to build up her physical strength as she is at least as strong as Val.
But besides her, something is also helping out when Val isn't looking. An invisible presence is secretly helping them out as subtly as possible.

[bc56]

Ada gags on the sucker before managing to get it unstuck from her throat. She sucks on it contentedly, evidently not worried about the hygiene issues involved with eating candy that was in someone else's mouth. "Hey, this is actually pretty good. Got any in grape?" she jokingly asks. She seems rather light-hearted for someone under threat of torture and maybe death. She looks the thug over skeptically. "Do your worst, big guy."

[Hattish Thing]

[Back Room]

Larza can only snicker as the other woman chokes.

There was something so funny about the sounds mud people made when hurt.

She takes Ada's confidence as hollow, a last ditch attempt at saving face. It would absolutely not work, not here - not now. "Ye'r a blustersome wench, aren't ye? Haw, we'll see howfur ye'r feeling wance he's hud a gang at ye." At this, the goblin lights a cigarette. After several hits, she speaks softly to her minion. "Okay, bairn. Let her hae it!" It's cutesy talk, the kind usually reserved for beloved pets.

At this, the large man will raise the crowbar up into the air before bringing it down with extreme force.

It should crush teeth and bone.

[bc56]

Crack!
Ada's face breaks. She screams in pain. But then it's over, and she's laughing out of her misshapen mouth at Larza. "This reminds me... Of those cultists in Kathmandu... Wanted me to be... Willing sacrifice... To their dark god... Beat me until... I said yes..." She winces in pain but laughs a little more. "Ended up... In some nightmare realm... Filled with puzzles... Sealed him away... Another millenium... Then escaped..." She spits a broken tooth out. "Think you can... Do better?"

[Hattish Thing]

[Back Room]

The beatings will continue until Larza's cigarette is finished.

There's no response from her, she simply sits with her legs crossed and admires the work.


*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*


*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*


*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*


The thug will change tactics every few blows, switching between various implements in his efforts to maximize her pain. Once there's little left of her cigarette, Larza will jump to her feet and strut on towards Ada. With a sneer and a wicked grin, she demands something of Ada. "Stick oot yer tongue fur me, girlie. Quickwise."

[bc56]

Throughout the process, Ada continues to resist. She's not giving up any stolen items just yet. She does, however, stick out her tongue when requested. "You can't do anything worse to me than I've already suffered." she spits.

[Hattish Thing]

[Back Room]

Larza scoffs before putting what is left of her cigarette out on Ada's tongue.

With a nasty little look, she'll order her once more. "Be a guid wee mud body 'n' swallow that, wilnae ye?"

Whether or not Ada complies, Larza will step back to the wall. There's a small button hidden beneath a tile panel, which she flips up with ease. As she presses the button, cold water surges forth from a showerhead above the metallic pole. Blood will start to trickle down the grate. The colorful goblin is clearly somewhat disappointed. "Sae, dae ah hae tae hae him break ilka bane in yer glaikit body, or?"

The thug will now search Ada's pockets.