Trog's Tavern CLIV

[bc56]

You think it's weird for you, Zee? What about poor Sekhmet here? She screams when the sink attacks, and then again when Zee partly transforms. She seems to recognize Zee's "totally normal human" features. "You're that thing! That deer dragon tree thing!" She's even more frightened by that revelation. Whether or not Zee kills the sink, she'll probably be surprised to find the fiendling nervously threatening her with a ball of flame in her extended left hand. "What did you do!? What is your part in all this!?" Sekhmet's clearly not thinking rationally. "Who do you work for!? Do you know my mother!?"

[5a Violista]

Superheating metal does make it a lot more malleable, and with that strength it gets pulled apart.
But even though metal conducts heat easily over to the ceramic base of the sink, ceramic is actually pretty heat-resilient and so the base of the sink isn't really affected by it.
On the other hand, the sink recognizes that the heat is what made its pipes so easily torn apart.

So, the sink bends, aiming its basin in both of their directions. After all, it recognizes that both of them now have sources of heat that they could use against its pipes.
Its faucet turns, and water sprays at both of them, aiming to cool off Zee's arm and put out the fire in Sekhmet's hand.

[Rebonack]

"I'm that thing!" Zee confirms as she shields her face from the spray of water and uses the ripped off pipe to try to clobber the heck out of the sink. It might be fire retardant, but usually sinks don't fair well against heavy bits of metal smacking them. "The dragon deer tree thing! That's me!"

Then she makes a burbling noise when the sink sprays her with some more water.

It isn't doing a great deal to cool her off, what with Zee being a star and all. Probably just turning the room into a sauna.

One way or the other, Zee's going to kick that broom closet door open. She's still got things to do!

"I work for Trog. He owns the tavern," Zee yells over her shoulder, apparently unconcerned about fireballs. "Your mom stopped by a while ago looking for you. I told her I wouldn't tell her where you were. Then to bugger off and decked her in the schnoz when she started getting uppity."

Oh.

Well.

Sounds like she isn't friends with Sapphira.

[bc56]

Sekhmet gets all wet! This puts out neither the fire on her head, nor the fire in her hand. Her magic sustains both of them. "How did you... What about... What do you know about me?" She stammers, bewildered. If Zee's telling the truth, she's possibly on Sekhmet's side. If she's lying, she's most definitely not. "What did you tell her exactly?" The sink seems mostly forgotten.

[5a Violista]

Sadly,
it seems all the efforts of the sink were futile. It failed to put out either of the fires, and only makes the room extremely moist and wet.

Zee's right in that smashing it with metal breaks it.

Congrats.
You just killed a sink.
It gives one last burble, and falls apart, spreading water all over the floor.

[Rebonack]

Thus the sink is vanquished! Zee probably gets a few more ticks in her reliquary.

Yep.

Sounds like Zee is kicking the door down to check out that mirror.

Pow!

Take that door!

"How? Mostly via nose-punching. I've got quite a bit of experience in that field since I'm the tavern's bouncer, too. I know you're a kind person who's had all sorts of awful stuff done to you."

Mirror?

Probably poked now.

Poke that mirror!

"She was mostly trying to get me to tell her where you were and I wouldn't," Zee adds. "She got violent. It didn't work out quite as she probably expected it would."

[bc56]

"You defeated her? In a fight? How did you know where I was? Sekhmet just seems confused now. "What, entirely, do you know about me?" Zee knew about the incident at Marlick Bay, but for some reason, Sekhmet doesn't remember that. But what else does Zee know? June is practically forgotten now. "I saw you in the game! You must be important, somehow."

[5a Violista]

The door to the closet is easily kicked down.
Similarly, the mirror is easily poked.

Upon being poked, it's like...the space unfolds around them, starting at the mirror. At least, that's kind-of what it feels like. Like, you're in a piece of paper that's being unfolded.
And they're both suddenly on top of a large plateau, made entirely of gray stone.

There's about nine other people here.
First, on a throne made of porcelain (not a porcelain throne, but literally a huge throne made of porcelain), there's a single woman, sitting in the most loungey position possible, with a leg over an armrest, and an elbow on the other armrest. She's wearing a fox-mask, and has a fox-tail. "You made it!" she exclaims. "And you brought a friend."

"Since I know you're the kill-first-question-later type of person, I'll get pleasantries out of the way as fast as possible." Gesturing at a group of three people, she says, "I've got a distressed damsel; if you kill me before rescuing the hostage, then you lose." Speaking of the hostage, June's over there on hands and knees, apparently washing the ground with a rag, and is wearing a French Maid costume. Meanwhile, one of the beefcakes there is holding a mask matching the throne-woman. The other beefcake, on the other hand, is quickly putting the finishing touches on the French Maid costume - a bow here, a bonnet there...
and the two beefcakes are wearing blue jumpsuits with a toolbelt. Dressed like that, June does look more like a damsel-in-distress than before.

The throne-woman takes a deep breath to relax. There, now that that's out of the way, she doesn't have to worry about getting immediately murdered by Zee. "Second! I researched your weak point! Asked a bunch of people." It's a kind-of ridiculous weak point, if you ask her, but she eventually heard that Zee's weak to cleaning equipment. In fact, her asking that other guy to clean up the food spill in the tavern is just more proof of that. "And so I equipped everyone with it!" Both cleaning equipment and cleaning outfits. That's what the French Maid costume is for, too. It represents cleaning, or something. Whatever. Dumbest weakness ever, she thinks.
She gestures at the other five beefcakes, who are fanned out between Zee/Sekhmet and the distressed damsel June. They've each got the same jumpsuits on, and each has different cleaning equipment. One has a mop, one has window cleaner spray, one has a broom, one has a feather duster, and one has a bunch of bleach-soaked sponges in a bucket. Completely normal cleaning equipment.
None of them advance or do anything yet.

But, the woman says one more thing: "Oh! But don't worry. Feel free to finish your argument first...sorry for interrupting. I'll wait." Whatever they were arguing about sounds much more interesting than any kind of fight they could have.

[Rebonack]

"I had some help, but yeah. I seriously doubt that she was expecting to throw down with an angel instead of a human bar-tender," Zee replies. "You just seemed like one of those 'chosen one' sorts of people to me. Someone to keep an eye on and make sure that baddies don't snatch you up."

A beat.

"Huh. You don't know about Marlick Bay? That's kind of weird. I mean, that's ongoing for me but I'm pretty sure that should be past for you. Are you sure you don't remember anything?" she asks.

A beat.

"Wait, you didn't say that out loud, did you? Fluff it, I'm really off my game today."

And then?

Mirror stuff!

And...

...cleaning supplies?

Zee is pretty sure that using a tool, specifically a cleaning tool, as a focus for thaumaturgy is just a thing the Watchers do. They don't actually have to do that. It's tradition? Probably? Her memory of her home world is kind of a mess thanks to all the awful Shadiel had subjected her to. Regardless, it sounds like Foxmask had misunderstood who the Watchers are and what they do. Which is fine, probably.

She runs her tongue along her teeth and makes a clicking noise with her lips.

Just a completely unremarkable sound.

Sekhmet, however, should immediately understand that sound means that the thing in the throne is a dangerous fae that possesses people through mask. Don't touch any masks. Try to get to June while Zee distracts them.

It isn't telepathy or anything of the sort. There's just far more information coded in that sound than should be possible.

"If you think I'm going to back down because I'm afraid of a good scrubbing then you're dead wrong," Zee says defiantly as she draws the tonfa on her hip holsters.

[bc56]

At the mention of Marlick Bay, Sekhmet just looks confused. "I've, uh, never heard of such a place." No. She does not remember it at all. She begins sidling towards June, trying to get around the brutes to rescue the damsel. Hmm come to think of it, June is a woman's name. Was June a lady this whole time? Awkward.

[5a Violista]

"No, wait, why are you two suddenly acting all friendly again?!?" Cearta the foxmask-lady complains. She wanted to watch the two of them fight. "Ugh! Just get her!"

Meanwhile, June notices Sekhmet approaching. He stops scrubbing and turns his head to the two guards by him, to tell them in an out-of-breath voice: "Hey, I can't breathe, you made it too tight." And to the one holding the mask, he adds, "Could you help, too? I'd like to breathe again." This sufficiently distracts the both of them so they're no longer paying attention to Sekhmet, and are instead focused on untying and resewing things.

Meanwhilemeanwhile! The five with cleaning-weapons are obviously more focused on Zee than Sekhmet, because Zee is, of course, the scarier target. Even though Sekhmet is literally a demon or devil or whatever. But as long as Sekhmet doesn't start moving erratically through time, they figure she's not that much of a threat. They're barely even paying attention to her.

Of course, the five decide it's time to attack, because of the order given by the lady on the throne.
First, the one with the bucket starts by hurling a sponge at Zee, trying to hit her in the chest.
With that distraction, the mop and the window cleaner rush forward while the feather duster hangs back to protect the bucket, and the broom slowly advances to act as backup.
As soon as they're in range, the window cleaner one sprays window cleaner at Zee's face, trying to blind her.
And then the one with the mop follows that up with a stomach-jab.

[Rebonack]

Alright here we go battle time!

First thing first, Zee drops into a dramatic three-point hero landing pose to allow the sponge to go sailing harmlessly over her.

Not that...

Y'know.

The sponge would harm her in any way that she's aware of.

She just knows that these clowns THINK it will. And if she can play along then that means they're less likely to pull out something that might actually be lethal. She would prefer to avoid lethal stuff flying around since that means Sekhmet and June might get caught in the crossfire and that would be kind of lousy.

Then the completely normal barmaid springs back to her feet, hurling one of her tonfa at the guy with the spray bottle! Getting smacked in the wrist with the hardwood baton would probably really hurt and possibly make him drop his 'weapon'. If that doesn't work, she's going to use some footwork to keep mop-guy between herself and spray bottle guy. With her other tonfa she deflects the mop and darts in close, putting herself inside the goon's guard as she aims to headbutt him right in the schnoz. There's a decent amount of force behind the attack, but none of the overwhelming arcane power that she displayed last time Foxmask sicked goons on her.

Clearly just the mere act of having all this cleaning stuff on hand is weakening her.

"It's like you expect to be able to mop me up no problem. But you're going to find out that I'm a stain that just won't scrub out."

[bc56]

Sekhmet keeps going. No sudden movements. You can do this. She actually used to be fairly good at sneaking. Although now, having a ball of fire floating above her head makes it much harder. Just a little closer, next to the distracted guards, then she can do something, although she has no clue what.

[5a Violista]

"W-wait, no! You -! You guys -! Work together better!" Cearta tries backseat-combating, clearly wanting to join in and make them fight better, but instead she just stays there, seated in the back. She's really into it, though.

Bucket-guy, having missed his first shot, sets down his bucket so that he can grab two sponges at the same time. In his bucket, he has...3 more, after these two. He hurls both of them at Zee, but unfortunately one of them hits one of his allies.
Thanks to Zee's attack, spray bottle guy loses his grip on his weapon (ouch; his wrist is probably going to swell after this). With his hand injured and his weapon dropped, he starts to panic and backs up
The mop is deflected, and the beefy guy has his nose smashed! He starts bleeding from his nose, but that's not enough for him to give up. Especially since he knows he has backup right behind him in the form of broom-guy. Broom guy advances to take the place of the spray bottle.
And then, the two of them attack from opposite sides at the same time! One from Zee's right and the other from her left.
During this time, the guy with the feather duster...still stays back. It probably would have been best if he had advanced, but he's already still in the back, it's too late for him to come up now.
"All stains will come out, if you scrub hard enough!" Cearta shouts over at Zee. Then, at her minions, she adds, "So scrub harder!" This appears to have some sort of motivating effect on them. Sort-of. They feel kind-of ridiculous, swinging around cleaning supplies, but they know this is working against the barmaid. She's tough, yes, but nowhere near as scary as they've been told.



Sekhmet makes it past the combatants. All that's left between her and June are two guys: one with a mask and one with a sewing kit. They're sufficiently distracted (and the lighting on this plateau is weird enough) that she can sneak up.

The one closet to her, the one with the sewing kit, is too busy adjusting the width on the dress's back, Loosening it in some places, folding it in others, and so on, while June does her his best to not move, except at incredibly inopportune times.
Meanwhile, the one with the mask is on the other side of June. He's nowhere near as good at sewing as the first, and so he's struggling tying a basic knot around June's waist.
If you believe Zee, the one with the mask is much more dangerous than the one with the sewing kit, simply due to the fact that the mask is so inherently dangerous.

[cheshirewolff]

"Oh, yeah. That is true. Adventuring spirit sort of runs through the Nexus." Olvisin looks at her now empty mug. "I should probably call it a night too. Want me to show you to MERC or would you rather stick around here for a while longer?"

Isabeth nods- it is getting rather late. "Oh, I appreciate the offer, and I might take you up on that in the future. For now though, I think I need to spend some more time getting to know this place before I think about finding an occupation." She smiles. "And I appreciate the conversation too, it's nice to find friends in new places." And with that, she goes into deadtime.

[Zefir]

That gets a deep laugh from Honeysuckle, and she orders another drink. Jasphattan mix? Yeah.
Haha! No one ever asks her about her tragic backstory! But she should keep it focused on the recent times.

"Family broke up when I was born. Mom sold me to slavers. Escaped. Weird moon stuff." she wags her tails for emphasis.
"Think I, uh, killed a lot of people?" A shrug.
"But tonight! Here because, you know. Romance. Very difficult." And the new drink has arrived, just in time. She drinks down half it at one go.

The man had appeared a little relaxed up to now, maybe starting to be drunk, but then suddendly he appears clearer and looks schocked.

"That's some harsh parents there. In my homeworld you kind was also treated bad. Sometimes even more like objects then living beeings. Never understood why." he says appearing a little sad. It appears that her kind isn t liked in many worlds. Two out of Three as he can count. Silence follows.
"Romance? Taverns mostly a big deal for that. Already found some 'prey'?"

[bc56]

Now that she's actually here, what should Sekhmet do? She's not sure how to help June. She's not a fighter, she hates fighting. But maybe she can try something else? She concentrates on the two men, trying to project thoughts into their minds (this is the easy part). She sends feelings of pure, wordless terror, of being frozen in fear, of running for her life. Hopefully, they aren't very strong-willed, and won't be able to resist the foreign influence, and aren't clever enough to distinguish it from their own natural thoughts. Sekhmet's only seen this kind of psychic projection used once before, and she may not be able to replicate the technique perfectly.

[Rebonack]

Okay.

Pretty good progress thus far.

Foxmask is pretty focused on Zee and so are her goons. Just need to keep that up a little while longer until Sekhmet frees June and then the kiddie gloves can come off.

Normally this would be a pretty great time to use a Drift but Zee can still feel space roiling from the last time. So probably not a great plan. Especially since it might clue these dweebs into the fact that the cleaning supplies aren't actually having any sort of negative effect on her. No, she'll have to stick with traditional acrobatics and bopping. That'll just have to do.

Okay! Mop broom sponge! Zee charges straight for broom guy, briefly crouches, and makes a pretty spectacular standing leap clean over him! There's even one of those axil-twists in mid air as she flips and lands facing him, lashing out with a kick at the back of his knee! Those cleaning supplies might be stopping her from doing anything spooky but they sure aren't making her any less strong or agile than usual. The kick is followed up with a sharp tonfa strike at the back of the goon's head. Ideally not enough force to kill, but plenty enough to knock someone out.

That's a pretty narrow margin, but thankfully Zee's fairly intuitive feel for physiology helps a bit.

"You don't seem like the sort of person who's ever tried to get wine out of a carpet before!" Zee challenges. "You think soap and water are good enough? Hah!"

This would all be rather silly if not for how actually dangerous it is.

[5a Violista]

Filled with terror, the man with the sewing kit drops the sewing kit and panics. What's even going on? he wonders. All he knows is that there's something terrifying behind him. He doesn't want to stick around here; he's not even a fighter! All he does is sew clothes! He immediately runs as far away as possible on this plateau.

The man with the mask, on the other hand, actually has a higher mental strength. But not that much higher: that's why he wasn't chosen for the combat squad. He stops what he's doing, frozen and uncertain about what he should do. Should he run? Should he fight? He looks up, and sees Sekhmet. She looks pretty terrifying. So should he run? But he was instructed to stay with the distressed damsel in order to...

June takes advantage of the frozen man. Adjusting herhis position so most of his weight is on one arm and one leg, he bounces then springs his body into a grounded hammer-kick at the guy's temple. Not being a master of physiology, he doesn't know how hard to kick to knock the guy out, but he does manage to sprawl the guy onto the ground and make the mask fall out of his hands.
"Thanks," June says to Sekhmet.




Foxmask, frustrated with how the people are fighting, smashes her hand against the armrest (causing it to break apart) and finally gets up off the throne, and strides towards the feather duster and the bucket people.

The guy with the mop is understandably frustrated as well: he hasn't managed to hit her once! And all of his allies are being taken down one by one. Such as the broom guy, for example. Thanks to Zee's knowledge of physiology, he receives only minor brain damage and is knocked out, falling to the ground.

Then, at that time, Cearta punches the guy with the feather duster and Sparta-kicks the guy with the bucket. The guy with the bucket falls over and spills his bucket, while the guy with the duster crumples. Cearta confiscates the feather duster.
"Pfft. As if a thing like you could even comprehend the true meaning of wine spills," she says, falling back on an old insult.
In her hand, the feather duster changes metaphysically, as if it's becoming a weapon infused with raw conflict. It gains a quality to it similar to that of the Golden Apple of Discord, giving it the feeling as if it gets put into the right place, it could start a war.

The Foxmask lady, feather duster in hand, charges at Zee with the duster outstretched like a lance. And, concurrently, the mop man (who is now behind Zee thanks to her fancy maneuvers) comes at her from behind with a swing.

[bc56]

"Let's get out of here!" Sekhmet says, reaching down to help June up. "Come on! We don't have much time!"

[Purple Eagle]

[3 Angels - Later]

Asher leads Eao to Trog's Tavern to go look for Zee, opening the door and walking in. He's with one of Zee's siblings and is a celestial himself, so it should be okay. He walks up to the bar, remaining standing. "Zee? Hi, I'm Uriel, but you can call me Asher!"

[bc56]

"Hi mom!" Eao says. The young Seraph is in human child form, looking about 9 years of age (a gross overestimation of her actual age of 19. Days.). "We found the robots!"

[Rebonack]

[Weird Mirror Fight]

"Oh yeah well here's my counter-point!" Zee replies defiantly-!

Before pulling down a lower eyelid with one finger and sticking out her tongue.

"Blegh!"

And then she runs away!

Running away is a pretty great way of avoiding enemy attacks when you foes are only equipped with melee weapons. Zee is pretty specifically running in a direction that'll make it less likely for Foxmask and her minions to notice that June and Sekhmet are busy escaping.

Since... this was all a big distraction, wasn't it? Probably, yeah.

Zee's kind of a wily one.


[Back in the Tavern!]

"Hiya Uriel who's also Asher! Hey Eao! You found the robots, huh? What were they up to?" Zee asks.

As is usually the case she appears remarkably human with all of her not-human bits all folded in on themselves. If she really let it all out then she wouldn't fit in the tavern and that would be a real shame.

[Purple Eagle]

[3 Angels in human form]

Of course, Asher's also in human child form, choosing to mirror Eao's apparent age of a 9-year old child, older than his usual 5-year old appearance around Tuskfang in GLoG. The cherub grins up at her, then looks up slightly, but not quite up.

Lapis did say her true form was really big!

He gets serious when the robots are mentioned, and replies first. "We went to their base, but they were packing stuff up, so we made it to the command center and got some info. They were building a really big ship! Tell her, Eao."

[5a Violista]

Mirrored

June nods.
With Sekhmet's help, he gets up and runs off. Thanks to everybody being out or distracted, there's nothing to impede them.
So they run back to the mirror, right? Once they get there and touch the mirror, space folds back around them, and they're both in the closet again. "We got away. Once again, thanks." Once back in the closet, June looks for his old clothes - it doesn't take long: turns out they were left in the closet when June was taken. With those grabbed, presumably they continue getting away.

(As June's finger is still dripping a little blood, he puts that finger in his mouth to stop it from doing that.)


Meanwhile,
Zee's distraction worked great.
The two fighters left turn after her. The mop one chases after her, while the masked lady winds up and hurls the feather duster like a javelin at the barmaid.
It's only when the guy-who-had-the-mask finally gets off the ground and gets over his terror that they realize they've been duped: he shouts out that the hostage is getting away.
And so Cearta turns to look, only to just notice Sekhmet and June leaving this plateau.
Having just barely thrown her weapon, she shouts in frustration.

[Rebonack]

[Mirror Nonsense]

June and Sekhmet got out?

Great!

That means Zee is just here with the fae and its minions. And a tossed feather duster. Which hits her. And boinks off ineffectually. Did the discord do anything? Maybe? Honestly it's hard to say. The apple of discord didn't have any immediate obvious effect either so that's anyone's guess. So! Fae. Minions. Pocket universe thing with no one around that Zee is worried about hurting? Really this is the perfect opportunity to really put her foot down. Maybe being insistent about how serious this all is will encourage Foxmask to stop harassing her tavern patrons.

To that end?

Yezekiel unfurls herself.

Not a little.

Not even a lot.

All the way.

Things like wings fill the horizon.

"Behold."

Jaws like the throat of a volcano split, solar plasma licking her teeth in arcing bands.

"Be illuminated."

Searing light bleeds between her scales? Bark? Washing the whole plateau in unearthly radiance.

"And vanish forever."

Heavenly fire follows, threatening to consume everything and everyone on the plateau.

Just...

Just so much cosmic flame.

Goodness' sakes Yezekiel that's kind of excessive.

[bc56]

Bathroom Dungeon

Sekhmet pants heavily, out of breath. "I need to have a conversation with Zee," she says once she's recovered, as if she's the one in control, not the insanely powerful empyrean currently consuming the mirror world. "And you probably need some new clothes." Rather than that goofy maid outfit.

3 Stooges Angels

"They were building a warship! It was huge! Like thiiiiiis big!" Eao stretches her arms out as far as they'll go, but obviously it's much bigger than that. "But they hid it somewhere. We couldn't find it. They're good at compartmentalizing records."

[5a Violista]

Plateau

Everything and everyone on the plateau is consumed - Foxmask, the throne, the cleaning supplies and sewing kit and mask, the mirror frame to return, and all the cultists. It leaves nothing left in the barren space.
Foxmask's last thought before burning in the radiance is I knew that thing was a monster; she burns up once again.
Nothing remains.

Luckily!
Even with the mirror frame gone, Zee can still make it back. After all, the mirror was just a device to create the pathway and push you sideways and downways and acrosswards and inways and half-a-second-backwards to this other dimension, and Zee can obviously just follow the pathway back - with her abilities, there was actually no need to use the mirror to get here, so long as she knew the route and the destination. As soon as Yezekiel wishes to furl herself back up, she can return to the tavern.



Bathroom Dungeon

Goofy? It's a change of clothes. With a few alterations (June regrets not grabbing that sewing kit that one cultist-guy dropped) and dropping the more...visually striking elements of the outfit, June'd be okay with wearing it because he needs to wear something while washing his other outfit. "...Yeah. You're right," he says. "Actually, I'll just change into my old clothes."

June glances back, as if somehow glancing back will allow him to see Zee. "She should be out soon, right?" To give Sekhmet space to converse with Zee, June makes an offer: "When she gets back here, I'll go in to one of the other bathrooms to change." Not the Dungeon Bathroom, because who knows what else is in here. Until then, they can keep each other company.

"Ugh, that was so weird. I know I already said this, but...thanks for rescuing me."

[bc56]

"You're, uh, welcome. Don't, uh, worry about it." Sekhmet says. She's not really a hero. This was just the right thing to do. "Where's Zee? She should be out by now." She's busy eating, Sekhmet. Don't look.

[5a Violista]

June leans against a wall.

"I...don't know?" he responds. He looks back again, as if the mere act of looking back will make Zee suddenly reappear. "She did run off in that other direction, so maybe she has to fight her way back past those two people." Plus, she still has the distance to run back. June imagines it would take Zee two to four times as long to get back as it took Sekhmet and June to get back (depending on Zee's running speed). So...it's not taking too long yet. Not very concerning yet.

...
With nothing else to talk about, June returns the conversation to an earlier point: "What you did with those guys, making them run off or whatever? That was really cool. How'd you do it?"