Outside 49: I don’t remember what it looks like either

[Deathkeeper]

Phoenix Tower

He can reach through the mirror's surface, though doing so lets the reflection reach out. Whilst he's groping for the key, the reflection tries to grab Krayger's flesh, and reverse his feelings for Rassa, so instead of the negative emotions he associates with her he feels equal and equivalent positive ones instead.

The key is on the wall, so to reach the mirror has to be quite close to the wall. As the locked door is at the top of the stairs, it's basically impossible to get the key and the door reflected in the mirror at the same time.

Phoenix Tower

Now, Krayger could probably just pull his hand back out of the mirror, possibly pulling the reflection out with him. This might even work. But your instincts don’t let you do calm rational things. And in Krayger’s case, what his instincts case him to do is to draw his massive revolver with his free hand, reach into the mirror with it, and pull the trigger in the mirror minotaur’s face.

[zeifly]

[Red Plains]

Myzid seems a teensy bit crestfallen when June decides not to fly. Truth be told, he had been hoping to show off some. Still, half a loaf is better than nothing, and he nods.

"You're probably right. Well, let's get to it, then!" He pulls the pack he is carrying off his shoulder and begins digging around inside of it.He seems to be having trouble finding whatever it is he is looking for.

"Oh, come on! I specifically put it on top so that it'd be easy to find. Where is it?" He continues to dig through his pack for another minute or two before pulling out a bundle of rope and exclaiming proudly, "AHA! There it is! I knew I had packed it today." Myz turns back to look at June, "Right. This will only get us roughly 60 feet in the air, but hopefully that will be enough to let us see something."

Myz will take the bundle of rope and place it on the ground. He then proceeds to draw a few runes in the dirt around it. Once he finishes, he stands up and begins to concentrate. After a moment, he speaks a single word, "Rowy" at which point one end of the rope begins to rise up into the air. The rope continues to stretch towards the sky until the entire length of it hangs in the air. Myz looks at June with an excited smile on his face as he grabs the base of the rope. "You coming? With that, he climbs the rope, which remains suspended in the air despite Myzid's weight. As he reaches the top, he seems to disappear.

If June follows him, she will discover that there is a pocket dimension at the top of the rope. It's as though she is standing inside a glass cube and can see in all directions easily, however, it's invisible from the outside.

If she takes a while to follow him, Myzid will poke his head through the bottom of the space, making it appear as though he is just a floating head, and say, "It really is fine. It won't fall or anything, and it'll be like this for at least an hour."

[5a Violista]

[Red Plains]

Seeing Myzid's reaction almost makes her change her mind about which option to take...but then, she remembers that yes there was a reason she picked this one.

She watches as he digs through his pack. She actually gets a little curious, the longer he digs. "Oh." It's a rope.
Okay, she does have to admit how it rises up like that is kind-of cool. And having a rope that you can just climb whenever you want would be pretty exciting. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "Coming."

So, she climbs up.
The top is pretty cool, looking around from this place. Wow...you can see about....three times farther. Yeah. That math feels like it checks out. "This is pretty neat," she says. June looks around, scanning the area for signs of a some sort of town, or whatever. Ashbourne. There is a lot to look at, because of all the hills and because of how far it's possible to see up here compared to on the ground. So, June carefully looks, making sure to look between every crest and on the hilltops and along the horizon and everywhere.

Turns out, there are a couple of things around, if you look close enough: to the northwest, about ten miles out on the very edge of what's visible on the horizon, there's the roofs of a couple houses, chimneys, and one with smoke.
Meanwhile, to the west-by-southwest direction, about five or six miles out, between some hills, there's evidence of some ruined stone structure.

[zeifly]

[Red Plains]

At June's reaction, Myzid's smile widens. He's very happy with how well he was able to perform the spell. Once she's fully inside the pocket dimension, he begins looking around to see what he can spot. It's at this point that he really takes in the beauty of the surrounding area from this vantage point. A soft, "wow" escapes his lips as he gazes out over the plains with their fiery color. He spots the ruins to the southwest, but has some trouble seeing the town to the northwest until he spots the chimney smoke. As he continues to search the horizon, he asks June, "Do you see the place you're looking for? What is it supposed to look like?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods]

"'Anything nearby' includes us, Thariza." Ambrosia reminds her as the rainbow cloud slowly seems to start to spread out over the region in the distance. "And what exactly are you planning to do against a cloud? We don't even know what it's doing or if there's anyone actually in danger. We should stand back and try to analyze the situation before we rush in. For one, see how dangerous this is before rushing in."

The cloud does already seem to cause strange things to occur as the sky near it is starting to change color and soon starts to look like a ceiling of stained glass.

[Journey to the center of the elves]

The merfolk will waves and smile at the elf from down below. "Hello! It's a delight to meet you! I am Zhareen Teplos from the fourth tower and we, in cooperation with HALO, wish to do some anthropological research here to understand your culture better." She gestures at Eon and Korrina. They're not exactly the most ordinary visitors. "I brought some supplies and baked a cake for you as a gift." She nods towards the two bags and the giant cake that she put on Korrina's flying carpet.

[Gullara]

[Journey to the center of the elves]

Zhareen raises her finger and gestures at the tower. "Oh! Good idea, Eon!"

She gestures for Korrina to follow, now speaking as if she was leading a school class on a trip. "Come on now everyone, let's go to the tower and remember to be respectful to everyone you see! We don't know much about their culture yet so let's see if they allow us entry into their village!" She will start to slither towards the tower, taking the lead of the little group.

[Journey to the center of the elves]

The walls of the town are closed. No one seems coming or going at this time, at least from this direction. From beyond the gate, the city seems strangely quiet. The normal sounds of a city are muted, but there's also a lot of music. Singing, playing, chanting. A head pokes out on top of the wall. It belongs to an elf, with pale brown skin, very dark eyes and dark hair, tied into two braids. She's wearing a leather and fur coat.

[Journey to the center of the elves]

The merfolk will waves and smile at the elf from down below. "Hello! It's a delight to meet you! I am Zhareen Teplos from the fourth tower and we, in cooperation with HALO, wish to do some anthropological research here to understand your culture better." She gestures at Eon and Korrina. They're not exactly the most ordinary visitors. "I brought some supplies and baked a cake for you as a gift." She nods towards the two bags and the giant cake that she put on Korrina's flying carpet.

[Journey to the center of the elves]

Korrina simply keeps silent while Zhareen starts talking to the elves. Zhareen is personable, so it'll probably go fine if these elves are at all receptive.

[Recaiden]

Since the army of undead and the volcano-raising staff came, it was clear that they couldn't keep the prison secret. So keeping the cavern sealed is less of a concern.
Instead, the hive installation has grown out and around the mountainside, consuming stone and metal and anything that might have lived in the area. It's all a purple living carpet now, except in one place that they can't really improve on: the original magic circle that Sekhmet drew.

The cavern mouth is surrounded by guardian beats, fangs anchoring them deep in the ground.
Hounds are on constant patrol outside, to give them earlier warning of anything going wrong. And more, of course, constantly watch Sapphira. They've learned a few small things watching the fiend over the weeks.
Rows of archers lie in wait. Several of them are a new variety that the hive began developing after fighting eldritch forces at a certain village. Their claws and spines are silver-lined, their crests with holy signs cut into them (this is vaguely heretical from the hive's perspective, but, you know, special circumstances).
Holy water from the original trap is scattered around, in little living balloon creatures that cling all over the cave.
No voxes talk to Sapphira these days. The fiend has been so disappointing. So human.

[bc56]

Sapphira's Prison

The archfiend has been pretty disappointing to watch. For a while she amused herself by shifting into the shapes of different hivelings she'd encountered, but for the last few days, she's just stood perfectly still, not even blinking, looking more like a very realistic statue than a living thing.
But today is different, because today, she strikes. The whole time she's been staying still, she's been working some of the not-matter of her form into a hairline crack in the stone slab she's bound on. Now, she enlarges that bit of herself very rapidly, to split the stone, to break the circle, and to step triumphant out from where she once was bound.

Journey to the Center of the Elves

Eon stays quiet. Zhareen seems to have this in hand. She's certainly far more sociable than he is.

[Recaiden]

That's the problem with stone. It will, in time, be worn away. Really, having the fiend there just sped things up.

There's no time for shock or alarm among the hive creatures.
Four hounds leap in, to tear at whatever imitation shape Sapphira is having.
The archers turn the space within the broken circle into a criss-cross of flying silver-and-bone spikes.
And someone considers. What can they do to even inconvenience this creature?

[5a Violista]

[Red Plains]

June keeps on looking.

"Um...not sure," June says. "It's a village, so. Looks village-like? I think? Probably?"

[zeifly]

[Red Plains]

Myzid turns to look back to where he had seen the chimney smoke.

"Well that looks like a village over there. We could go check it out. Even if it isn't...I forgot the name of the place you're looking for, but even if it isn't that place, maybe the people there can tell us how to get there."

[bc56]

Sapphira dissolves into mist, letting the barrage of attacks fly through her (although the silver projectiles seem to burn away at her form as they fly through). She coalesces on the other side and breathes out. A thick, black, toxic fog roils forth from her mouth, a disgusting mix of chemicals that will cause flesh to necrotize and melt into pus on contact. It's a thoroughly unpleasant way to die. The deadly cloud billows outward to begin filling the room with the stench of decay.

[5a Violista]

[Red Plains]

"Yeah," June says. She looks over in the direction that Myzid is looking. "That might be it."

She looks down.
"So, um. How do we get back down?" she asks. "Climb down, obviously, but I mean, how do we go back through this floor or whatever we're standing on?"

[zeifly]

[Red Plains]

As June looks down, she notices that there is a trapdoor, which is strange. She doesn't remember coming up through a trapdoor. Nevertheless, there it is, right in front of her, or, rather, below her.

"Well, we just go through that trapdoor and climb back down." Myzid replies and then gestures for June to climb out. "Shall we?"

[Morty]

[Journey to the center of the elves]

The elven guard frowns, trying to understand what's going on. These visitors are strange. Is this large tailed woman a fey of some sort? She doesn't act like one. The other two just look like humans, so probably harmless. In the best traditions of the profession, she decides to kick it upstairs. Scholars from a faraway land clearly ought to be met by someone more important than she is.

"Uh, alright. Sure. We'll open the gate for you." She leans down in the opposite direction, to someone behind the gate. "Open the gate!" Turning back to the newcomers, she says: "Head on through, then go left to the merchants' quarter. It's where we receive visitors. Someone there ought to point you the right way."

[Walk in the Woods]

"Oh." Thariza seems embarrassed, as much as a Charr can manage. "Yeah, I guess I didn't think it through that far ahead. But we are approaching the laboratory of a being who likes to poke stuff just to see what happens."

[Shadowcaller]

[Journey to the center of the elves]

One of the humans being a heavily pregnant woman who is sharing a flying carpet with a giant cake.

"Thank you so much, ma'am! We'll be at our very best behavior." Zhareen exclaims with a salute to the guard before heading in the direction she described.

The others probably don't much to add so Morty can likely post again.

[Walk in the Woods]

Ambrosia raises her finger, not moving an inch forward yet. "I should note, 'laboratory' doesn't give that place justice. It's more like a giant citadel that's protected by a horde of their servants. My idea had been to request an audience and convince them to let you go. It doesn't look that's going to be very likely now however."

She pauses as thunder can be heard in the distance after a green flash of lighting goes across the sky. It looks like the explosion have caused such a huge cloud of smoke that it have also created a strange thunderstorm upon the now multi colored sky.

"Whatever we do, we must be procede with utter caution, Thariza."

[Morty]

[Journey to the center of the elves]

The way indicated by the guard leads the trio among mostly-identical, tall buildings and the townsfolk. They're elves with a similar skin tone as the guard, with a variety of facial markings. They're all dressed in warm fur and leather clothes. The passage of the three strange foreigners draws many eyes, but the locals are strangely restrained.

The merchants' quarter is a considerably more temporary section of the city. There are many small huts, lean-tos and tents, where many different people mingle and talk. Elves that look similar to the locals in different clothes and with different facial markings, but also non-elves. Some humans, dwarves, halflings and even a small group of hobgoblins.

The trio are met with a tall, imperious elven man with drawn features, prominent cheekbones and jet-black hair kept in a bun, held together by white bone pins. He's wearing a fine dark fur coat trimmed with white.

"Welcome to our fair city," he says. "My name is Ramuq, of the House of Olug and it is my job to greet important visitors. Such as scholars from a faraway land, I'm told."

[Walk in the Woods]

"You don't need to tell me twice," Thariza says grimly. "This really doesn't look like the result of anything going even remotely right. But we have no real way of finding out more from here, do we? So either we wait or go in mostly blind."

[Shadowcaller]

[Journey to the center of the elves]

Zhareen makes a bow, which is somewhat of a feat considering her strangely built body. "It's a honor Ramuq of Olug, I am Zhareen Teplos and this is one of my acolytes Korrina." Then she gestures at the other oracle in the group. "And that's Eon." Not even a title. Somehow he's the odd one out between the woman with half a fish body and a pregnant warlock on a flying carpet.

"We are indeed scholars from an organization know as the fourth tower and we're quite interested in your culture. In particular the being you worship." She gestures to herself. "See, we of the fourth tower are trying to make a great list of all the spirits and deities in the world and yours is not yet on our list." Which was all true, it was how Zhareen presented herself every time they went on visits like this to Korrina's knowledge.

[Walk in the Woods]

Ambrosia doesn't reply, instead she raises her hand to indicate caution as the strangely colored lighting starts to lit up the skies right above them. In the distance the great mushroom cloud have started to collapse and spread out in the area around them.

Then for a moment the world around Thariza seems to blur and the next moment something swoops down from above and attempts to grab her and lift her off the ground.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods]

"What theeeeeeee-" Thariza's voice trails off as she's grabbed and carried away. She trashes and struggles in the air, looking up to see just what has done it.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods]

Thariza have found herself being lifted into the air by a dragon which looks extremely similar to Ambrosia except less slender and more bulky in form.
"I got you!" A voice which also sounds remarkably similar to the scholars voice exclaims. "That was a close call, wasn't it-" The dragons head turns and her eyes widens as she stares down at Thariza. "Whoa! You're not Blanche!"

But before this awkward mistake can be resolved a shadow comes over them. "End of the line!" Another dragon, this one in pure red is coming in from above.

The dragon holding her glances upwards. "...can I count on you in a fight, catgal?"

[Terumitsu]

[Walk in the Woods]

Anomaly.

Noun.

An entity or occurrence which is a measurable deviation from the known or expected.

...

Anomaly.

Abnormality.

An observable event which falls outside the given parameters of a system due to the misjudgement of requirements or a lack of required information.

...

"Anomaly...

Huh..

Well I was looking for a reason to use this anyway. Base functionality should be.. No, would be smarter to go in with a few lanterns. There, that should be enough." A thundering crack as a glittering silver-steel thing bolted from the side of a mountain hold. The silvery shell that hurtled through the air was exactly that: Both an artillery-like shell the size of a human and a shell protecting a payload from a harsh landing. Rather than landing with an equally harsh and damaging impact, the shell tumbled over mid-flight and slowed itself into a controlled fall with a series of low-pitched hums. Cracking through the canopy with perhaps surprisingly little damage to the surrounding foliage, the shell landed with a final, low thrumming. With a hiss, the exterior split open and out stepped a being of metal flesh. It's shape was of a humanoid (perhaps vaguely feminine? Hard to say, considering) crossed with a dragonfly: Four arms, two legs, and a head mostly consisting of compound eyes that glittered in varying colors depending on the angle it was looked at. Just above it's multifaceted eyes was a singular cerulean feature that seemed to be a nearly fist-sized gemstone. In place of antenna was what might generously be called horns if not for being fused into something resembling an omega (Ω) from which hung five separate phials as if they were adornments. Indeed the single, deeply violet flower petal in each one seemed to be at least in support of this although the workmanship of each container seemed to be both decorative as well as fortifying.

In short, some weird person or thing was going to poke at the weirdness going on. Typical nexus fare, really.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods]

"Who the rust is Blanche?" Thariza growls, flailing about some more. Figures that the same day she finds out her only friend is a dragon, she ends up stuck between two more. "I can fight, just as soon as you tell me who we're fighting and why."

[Earl of Purple]

Phoenix Tower

The reflection mirrors him (except it doesn't, because it's not actually mirrored) and pulls its own pistol out, shooting back. Regardless of if Krayger is harmed by the bullet, the 'reflection' collapses and the flesh crumbles, leaving a skeleton behind- but not a minotaur one. It's human, or nearly so; there's some differences in proportions, subtle stuff mostly. It has larger eye sockets, it's missing a pair of ribs, has a notable baculum and the bones are thicker than they should be. It also has the wrong number of teeth.

[Purple Eagle]

Spoiler: ReboBC

Show

[Rolling Hills]

Lapis sticks her tongue out of her mouth a bit, hunkers down for a good start, and begins pronking from obstacle to obstacle. It's some pretty good jumping! But she's been practicing jumping anyway. Since her body is in a quadrupedal configuration she needs to kind of hunker down when she leaps at one of the walls and PLAP!s onto it like a gecko before scrambling up its face. She got lots of climbing practice, too! Especially with the Frescot kids they love climbing it's the best. Just for fun she does a little dance once she gets to the top of the tallest tower.

"That's where all the putti come from. But all the ones I've met are way mean and not nice like you at all, Zabb. Except this one I met one time he said he was doing 'Explore Mode'," Lapis recounts as she finishes her little hopping dancing and begin to descend the other wide of the high wall.

Arukhael gives an apologetic shrug and follows Selekhael. He's pretty well equipped for climbing things. Mountain sheep! "There's a bunch of stuff that probably doesn't matter. I just asked about them the first time I did the tutorial and got made fun of for it."

Athakel, meanwhile, looks pretty irritated when he's suddenly grounded. With his way too many arms he begins skittering around like a spider over and around things. It looks kinda creepy.

The putti are as awkward as ever. Ever seen a raccoon judging whether or not they can jump across a gap and then when they leap they just flop over the edge of what they're standing on?

Yeah.

Like that.

They get it eventually, though. Just not without lots of complaining.

Once everyone makes it to the end of the course the barriers and walls and platforms don't vanish. They just keep hanging there. Maybe they'll be used again later?

"Well done, aspirants!" the Servant proclaims. "You have shown aptitude in jumping and climbing. Next is Drifting, an even more advanced form of movement. Mortals are restricted to three degrees of freedom. However, you can selectively utilize a fourth. The universe, however, takes offense at this action and will not allow you to use it without limit. It is a tactical resource! Use it wisely."

And then a new barrier appears!

A dome surrounding the aspirants, completely sealed. For someone restricted to moving in three dimensions they would be trapped!

The Servant goes on to explain how one moves a few steps sideways in time to bypass physical barriers.

Eao immediately drifts out of the dome. She has a lot of practice doing this. Selekhael, on the other hand, paws at the prison despondently. The Servant's explanation doesn't make much sense to her. She's going to take quite a while to escape if no one helps her.

[Rolling Hills]

"That was fun!" Zabb proclaims once the obstacle course section of the tutorial's over! He patiently waits until drifting's explained, and then prepares to drift when he notices Selekhael's disposition.

"You have to move out of reality and back in at the other side!" He explains to her, pointing at Eao. "Like what she just did!" He waits until she gets it before doing so himself, however long it takes.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Evil dragon, trying to take over-" fwoosh
The dragon holding her just barely manages to avoid a pillar of flame breathed out of the others maw.

"Fools! I will tear you limb from limb!"

"Eep! No time! Get ready!" The dragon darts nearly straight upwards past their flying foe and Thariza can feel the dragons talons pull her forward and hold her there for just a moment before pulling her in the other direction and letting go. Launching her straight at the other, now rather surprised-looking, dragon.
"So sorry!" She can just barely hear while flying through the air.

She better stick to the landing.

[Walk in the Woods - Riss]

As then weird person weirdly decides to approach the weirdness it won't take long until they feel the weirdest sensation as the world briefly blurs around them.

The next moment they hear voices calling out nearby and see what seems to be a small group of human soldiers in green armor and armed with some type of rifles. There's also a tank with them. it appears badly damaged, but a tank nonetheless.

"What in the Emperor's name is that?" One of the soldiers gestures at her as the rest seem confused and bewildered by their surroundings.
One of them, armed with a large gun and a sword of all things seems less confused and rather than wasting words she just opens fire at the visitor.

[Terumitsu]

[Walk in the Woods - Riss]

Armor, the stink of chemical propulsion.

And confusion. Confusion could be useful? Then again, they were already in the process of firing. Armor made it a bit harder to judge but the slow motion of a finger pulling a trigger was still fairly distinctive. Slow, of course, was relative but where 150 milliseconds might seem to be an instant for some... Well... Even before the round left the barrel, it's trajectory had already been plotted as well as a fair estimate of any followup rounds; estimates which were then summarily altered to account for the fact that it wasn't slugs but some kind of gyrojet given the observed recoil and ballistic acceleration. The caliber had initially been alarming but this at least was more.. No it was still unreasonable but the implications were interesting at least.

With that said, It was a very small chance but diplomacy was worth trying a bit, right? Being on amicable terms with an armed group was preferable to having them be an interruption. It would at least be worth getting a sample of the propellant being used given the unique coloration of the flame as it whizzed past. Only so much could be gleaned from an olfactory assessment given the ambient contamination, after all.

Of course, slow was relative. Thoughts and motions that might be slow to one would be like lightning to another. To an unaugmented human, it would be as if the metal thing just shifted at the same moment their minds registered the gunshot. Or.. Did it move before? It wasn't even facing the group... It was certainly weird. Or maybe unnerving. Probably both given that it very deliberately turned to 'face' the soldiers with a measured motion and held out all four arms in the classic 'I am unarmed' gesture. "The first shot I will accept that as a byproduct of disorientation. Please to not engage in a deliberate attempt at harm. This area is currently under investigation regarding the ongoing anomalous episode." came a clear, musically toned voice from the metal humanoid-insect. Or at least, that would be all of what it said but there was plenty of time for some kind of ballistic interruption at any time during this attempt at parley

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Whaaaaaaa-" Thariza's cry of fright and confusion is quickly lost in the distance. Still, she is essentially a very large cat, so she manages to angle herself and roll with the landing after slamming hard into the dragon's back. She angles herself so that her armor takes the brunt of the impact, which doesn't actually help her, but might hurt her target a little more. Or rather, the other dragon's target. She herself is the missile.

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

Oh cool the outsider is helpful. Arukhael is pretty glad someone else is speaking up-

"Haha, you're such an idiot you don't know how to drift!" cackles one of the putti as it flops around uselessly inside the dome, also ignorant on the subject of drifting.

-or at least speaking up in a constructive fashion.

"It isn't too hard, Selekhael. You already know how to jaunt forward and back in time a little. This is pretty close, but you're just going sideways instead," the cherub explains before shrinking out of existence and then popping back in on the other side of the barrier. Arukhael then taps on the outside. "Just give it a try, you'll figure it out."

Maybe being stuck inside the dome with the putti will encourage her to try harder.

Lapis, meanwhile, begins pronking in a ring around the dome while sing-songing, "You can do it~! You can do it~! You can do it~!"

Maybe the little seraph's effervescent personality will encourage Selekhael?

All the while The Servant watches silently. It probably won't comment further until after this leg of the tutorial is done.

[bc56]

Rolling Hills

"You don't seem to know how either," Selekhael retorts. She then gets some advice. The angel's is pretty useless. She understands that that's what she's supposed to do, but she doesn't know how to do it. Arukael is a little more helpful. Selekhael prepares to jump through time, but forces herself to go off the path she had traveled before. "Woo-" She reappears outside the bubble, somehow upside down. "-oah!" The lioness gradually rights herself.
In the meantime, Eao is just waiting for the next challenge to begin. She doesn't really care about Selekhael's plight.

Journey to the Center of the Elves

Eon nods, quietly, respectfully. He doesn't have or need a special title. "Do you have a house of learning here, a temple, a college, or a library, that you could direct us to?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Phoenix Tower]

Krayger pulls his neck to the side to not lose his own head, but the gunpowder burns his neck where it doesn't land on his clothes. His hide is thick but it's still enough to make him flinch.
He takes a moment to pat down his neck, but with the double dead he can take some time to move the mirror to the wall so he can retrieve that key and stick it in the door.
And put another round into his revolver to replace the spent one of course.