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

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"You couldn't alone, but with my aid you could. Dragons can shape matter that isn't owned by anyone, see? So all we need is the material to do it." She then turns to look up at the storm above. "Huh, I don't remember that being there earlier." She turns to look around the mushroom forest they're in. "In fact, I don't remember being in this area at all. I'm completely lost, dude." Finally, she looks to Thariza. "You got any idea where we're supposed to go? I mean, I'm not afraid for some clouds but those clouds feel off. In fact, this entire area feels weird."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Sapphira's Prison]

Kalya nods, and places her cudgel and shield on the ground, pulling out one of her bells and the mirror instead. She approaches the crystal carefully, ringing the bell in an inverted figure eight. To any observer, the sound the bell makes should be oddly twisted, as if heard underwater, as Kalya shapes the sound into a protected bubble which should envelop her, shielding her from any malign energies. Once she's close enough to the crystal, she'll face the mirror towards it and attempt to use the mirror to read its energy. This would accomplish two things. Firstly, she may have a better idea of what the energy is, what it does, and the source of that energy. Maybe even a direction if she's lucky. Secondly, she'll capture the resonance of the energy in her mirror. That way, the mirror will be able to recognize other sources of the same energy.

[bc56]

The energy is dark, demonic power. It's flowing from somewhere distant into the crystal, and just being stored there. The source is... Hard to define, but clearly very powerful given the rate at which the crystal's power grows. Perhaps it is the Archfiend the vigilantes came looking for? The energy, when traced, points northeastward, into the wilderness.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"That makes two of us," Thariza says glumly. "Something really weird is going on. There's this huge laboratory we were going to, and apparently something bad happened there. So reality might be getting turned inside out right now. Judging by the mountains, we're not far from where you picked me up, but everything looks different."

[Terumitsu]

[Scouting Weirdness]

The woman raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Depends on what you mean by 'possession' I suppose. She have made a few notes in my tome but otherwise I don't make a habit out of keeping her belongings on me."

Above them, more strange clouds are rolling in and it appears like they might soon have a full-blown storm on their hands.

"Possessions tend to have traces of genetic material which is useful when tracking in ways other than visually." came the reply, hand still outstretched with the agreement still glimmering in the air. "Though that may be of a lessened value considering.." a short nod upwards indicating the storm. All while this was happening, a pale substance with the consistency of paste was being rubbed against the burned locations, smelling a bit like oxidation and something with a profile similar to petroleum. The woman may or may not rightly guess it's function being some kind of repairing or restoring agent but that information would not be properly divulged unless asked. Regardless, it would be nice to be in full working order though it didn't exactly have indefinite stores of the substance.

In regards to the storm itself, however, the drone seemed to be quite indifferent... Though it might just be hard to read anyway given the measured lack of any movement or body language beyond bare necessity.

[Morty]

[Sapphira's Prison]

Wenomir draws his sword and stands behind Kalya, watching out for anything coming from elsewhere. The crystal might be the obvious danger, but that doesn't mean there aren't others.

[Earl of Purple]

Wrecked Motorway

This stretch of motorway looks long disused and abandoned, dotted with rusting wrecked vehicles, craters and weeds growing in cracks in the tarmac. Some of the 'weeds' are young trees, growing in craters or around wrecked cars; most are much smaller, and whole stretches of the black road surface are masked beneath moss and grass. Occasionally the road still sees use; a herd of deer migrating into the reclaimed wilderness, survivors fleeing some apocalypse on their homeworld, traders looking for communities and sometimes a horde of zombies or some other threat that had also escaped an apocalyptic world.

Today something else is in the road. A giant doorway of black glossy obsidian has erupted from the road, swirling black and purple within, and spat out a ball of black fire that crashes, bounces twice and skids to a stop next to an ancient three-car pile up. The fire slowly dies, revealing a chest of glowing metal bound in black chains that are not glowing despite the heat. The portal closes, the obsidian cracking and shattering into a heap of volcanic glass.

[Ashen Lilies]

[City Out of Time]

There is... a lot of magical resonance here. Sorceries from long ago are still permeating the time anomaly. And there is something strange inside the building, but Cass can't quite tell what. Nothing that suggests the large door is particularly dangerous to go through, though.

[City out of Time]

Electra nods, and stops rubbing her temples after another moment. The headache seems to have subsided for the moment, and she opens her eyes and moves up to the large door, examining it more closely to see how they might get it open. If it's just a large door, Electra's strength should allow her to open it, barring some kind of magic, but she wants to be ready in case there's something unfriendly waiting on the other side.

[City out of Time]

Cass keeps close behind, keeping her sense open in case there's any change. If there is, at the very least, she can shout out a warning.

[Morty]

[City out of Time]

It doesn't appear as though the door is blocked by any magic. Maybe it was, but it has long since faded. Pushing the door open exposes them to old, stale, musty air full of the smell of paper. Nothing else happens, however. Opening it further shows the inside of a circular tower, filled with shelves of books and scrolls. They line the walls and underneath them are galleries accessed by stairs and ladders. The time anomaly seems to be falling down further here and the place looks much older than the rest of the city. It's as if it was abandoned... not recently, but in mortal memory and it's not preserved in stasis like the rest.

Particular evidence of it may be a giant skeleton in the back of the tower. Leaning against some of the platforms, the figure towers over its surroundings. It appears that in life, this being reached the third floor of the spire. Its proportions are odd; it appears that its arms were very long and that it had an elephant-like head with a single eye. Its bones are covered in rotting clothes that must have been fine and expensive once upon a time.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[Sapphira's Prison]

Quin watches their surroundings closely as Kalya examines the crystal, but doesn't say anything more for the time being. He doesn't want to disturb her in the middle of what seems to be a delicate analysis, and he trusts that Wenomir will know what to do once she's finished. For now, he simply does his best to be on his guard: ready to spring to his comrades' aid at a moment's notice.

[City out of Time]

Once it's clear that nothing is going to jump out and attack them, Electra will pull the door open far enough that she and Cass can pass easily into the space, but not so far open that a stray bit of wind will blow the papers around too much, if possible. She moves into the space quickly and carefully, but once things seem to be clear, she'll nod at Cass, and gesture towards the odd skeleton.

"What do you make of that?" Her voice is quiet and subdued, but curious all the same.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

The other Ambrosia looks in the direction of the mountains as Thariza points them out.
"Huh, now that you mention it. Those mountains does look awfully familiar. I can't recall you being here though, nor some giant lab or all these mushrooms."

She scratches her head while looking around in confusion. But as they consider their options a red lighting bolt suddenly strikes one of the smaller giant mushrooms just a few meters from Thariza, immediately followed by deafening thunder.

"Whoa! Holy *****! I need to deal with this weather."

But if Thariza looks at the mushroom again, it appears to have replaced by a tree that appears to be made of a strange stone-like material.
Then another red lighting bolt strikes, this time the ground a bit further away, and a large green stone seems to sprout where it struck. More lighting can be seen in the distance, the thunder which follows so loud that she can't even hear what the Ambrosia is saying despite her mouth clearly opening to speak.

[Scouting Weirdness]

"Ah, so you're after genetic material, not something conceptually linked..." She seems to start consider her options as the drone repairs itself, but both of them are interrupted as red colored lighting lights up the skies, shortly followed by loud thunder.

Then the lighting strikes nearby, the ground where it struck suddenly filling up with water which for a moment exists in a bizarre diagonal-like shape on the ground before just collapsing outwards. If analyzed, this seems to be seawater and that the vegetation underneath it has changed into unknown species of purple seaweed.

"It's getting worse, we need to find her and get out as soon as possible."

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Gah!" Thariza is becoming more and more freaked out. What is she supposed to do about all this? "I have no idea what to do. Except run out of here as fast as we can and figure it out later."

[Murkus]

[Forest of Flowers]

Damn, that's quite a tale even for Viviana. She pulls back and looks up into Lucy's face. "Well... I suppose that's just about all there was to be done. But... I wish... I don't know! They should have let you consult me! Or... or something!" She shakes her head. "This just doesn't seem right."

[Innawoods]

Votsona stares. His cheeks fill with color. He pivots his body so he can get his legs beneath him and rises to his feet, facing the cat. Fids just straightens up and shimmies her weight from hip to hip, waiting for Vots' judgement.

Vots continues to eye Blanche pretty intently, taking a couple steps forward. After a moment he crooks his finger. "Come here," he says. "Let me have a look at you." He lets an easy smirk take his face.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Forest of Flowers]

Lucy rubs her head, mentally digging through Sylvess' memories a little bit...with his permission. "I-I mean it's not, but they don't think it is either? The goddess sort of, um, did a thing immediately and they woke up the next morning having trashed an entire room and already changed." It was not really what anyone expected, or what anyone wanted.

Well, not that quickly, anyways.

She permits herself a slight giggle at the brief flash of memory of Sylvess climbing the walls in a state of utter panic.

"I'm sorry, Vivi. But that's it now. The eggs are out. No more vanishing, I promise."

[Gullara]

Eon shakes his head. "If I knew exactly what I wanted to know, I could tell you. But I do know somewhat. I have an interest in a certain story, about someone called the Banished King. It seems to appear in every known culture. I would be interested in hearing your telling of it, and the lessons you learn from it. In exchange, I have occasional visions of the future. Perhaps something I have seen might be of use to you?"

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq eyes the cake warily. What is he to do with that? This is the biggest piece of confectionery he's ever seen; they're not exactly easy to come by around here. Finally, he claps his hands. Two young elves come running.

"Take it and bring it to the market office. We shall enjoy it shortly, with compliments of our guests." Then, however Eao mentions the story. Ramuq's face falls, then becomes carefully neutral. "What is your interest in this tale? We did not think it had reached foreign lands."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Zhareen too claps her hands as the elves come in to carry the cake away. "Grand." She remarks with a smile.

Then she turns to Eon. "Oh, not that particular tale but tales very similar too it you see. Yours the oldest and most prominent within your culture however so we suspect you might be the origin of it somehow." She scratches her head. "We're not really sure how it spread, but the nexus can be pretty strange at times."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Korrina stands off from the main conversation for the moment. She produces a book. It appears to be a hand bound tome. She flips through it, focused on it more than the conversation as far as anyone can tell. Zhareen has her talents, Korrina is going to pursue this task using her own.

[Ashen Lilies]

The energy is dark, demonic power. It's flowing from somewhere distant into the crystal, and just being stored there. The source is... Hard to define, but clearly very powerful given the rate at which the crystal's power grows. Perhaps it is the Archfiend the vigilantes came looking for? The energy, when traced, points northeastward, into the wilderness.

[Sapphira's Prison]

Wenomir draws his sword and stands behind Kalya, watching out for anything coming from elsewhere. The crystal might be the obvious danger, but that doesn't mean there aren't others.

[City out of Time]

It doesn't appear as though the door is blocked by any magic. Maybe it was, but it has long since faded. Pushing the door open exposes them to old, stale, musty air full of the smell of paper. Nothing else happens, however. Opening it further shows the inside of a circular tower, filled with shelves of books and scrolls. They line the walls and underneath them are galleries accessed by stairs and ladders. The time anomaly seems to be falling down further here and the place looks much older than the rest of the city. It's as if it was abandoned... not recently, but in mortal memory and it's not preserved in stasis like the rest.

Particular evidence of it may be a giant skeleton in the back of the tower. Leaning against some of the platforms, the figure towers over its surroundings. It appears that in life, this being reached the third floor of the spire. Its proportions are odd; it appears that its arms were very long and that it had an elephant-like head with a single eye. Its bones are covered in rotting clothes that must have been fine and expensive once upon a time.

[Sapphira's Prison]

Quin watches their surroundings closely as Kalya examines the crystal, but doesn't say anything more for the time being. He doesn't want to disturb her in the middle of what seems to be a delicate analysis, and he trusts that Wenomir will know what to do once she's finished. For now, he simply does his best to be on his guard: ready to spring to his comrades' aid at a moment's notice.

[City out of Time]

Once it's clear that nothing is going to jump out and attack them, Electra will pull the door open far enough that she and Cass can pass easily into the space, but not so far open that a stray bit of wind will blow the papers around too much, if possible. She moves into the space quickly and carefully, but once things seem to be clear, she'll nod at Cass, and gesture towards the odd skeleton.

"What do you make of that?" Her voice is quiet and subdued, but curious all the same.

[Sapphira's Prison]

"There's another source of the same energy coming from that direction," says Kalya, pointing north eastward in the direction she can sense the energy. "But the power in this crystal is... growing somehow. We could try to suppress it. Or destroy it." Kalya backs away from the crystal, putting away her mirror and walking around the periphery of where she can sense the dark energy emanating from it clockwise. Five times she'll stop, ringing her bell with the warding call and scratching a rune into the ground with the tip of her cudgel, marking out the points of an invisible star. It's not an enclosure that's particularly long lived - only as long as the marks remain scratched in the dirt, but it's quick and simple, and she wants to see how the crystal will react.

[City out of Time]

"Looks like a cyclops skeleton to me," says Cass, taking a few steps closer to the skeleton to examine it more carefully. "Their skulls get confused with elephant skulls sometimes, because the eye socket looks like the hole that an elephant's trunk attaches into. But you can tell the difference by the shape. The cyclops' eye socket is round, whereas if it were an elephant skull, the opening would be more squashed looking..."

She frowns, stepping up until she's close enough to reach out and touch the skeleton, though she doesn't, just yet. "I wonder why it's here..."

Cass is an impulsive idiot most of the time, but even she's wary about touching random corpses in a time bubble, though.

[Arkhosia]

Innawoods

Blanche's focused attempt to not allow her eyes to wander intensifies as Votsona gets to his feet, her blush intensifying as he finally speaks. She steps forward wordlessly, glancing away in embarrassment - and unintentionally failing her original aim in the process.

[Morty]

[Sapphira's Prison]

"Normally I'm all for smashing objects used for dark magic, but all this energy would probably just burst out if we did that," Wenomir says. "It wouldn't be safe."

[City out of Time]

The skeleton is strange. That is, on top of already belonging to a one-eyed giant. It seems out of sync with the place, somehow. Like it's not affected by the same kind of temporal anomaly as the rest of the city. But it has to be affected by something, otherwise the bones would have crumbled to dust long ago, given how old the dwarves claimed the city to be.

[bc56]

Sapphira's Prison

The ward is put in place. It holds for a moment and the crystal's power stops growing, but then the source punches through the shield and begins charging it once more. It's very potent. But it could be tracked. Perhaps it can be stopped there rather than here.

Journey to the Center of the Elves

"Most curious." Eon is very intrigued by this. "The tale is, in some form, present in every known land. We suspect something supernatural is at work. We have reason to believe your people may be the originators of the tale, or closely related to them, and might be able to explain more how this could be, or the significance, culturally, magically, or otherwise."

[Murkus]

[Forest of Flowers]

Lucy rubs her head, mentally digging through Sylvess' memories a little bit...with his permission. "I-I mean it's not, but they don't think it is either? The goddess sort of, um, did a thing immediately and they woke up the next morning having trashed an entire room and already changed." It was not really what anyone expected, or what anyone wanted.

Well, not that quickly, anyways.

She permits herself a slight giggle at the brief flash of memory of Sylvess climbing the walls in a state of utter panic.

"I'm sorry, Vivi. But that's it now. The eggs are out. No more vanishing, I promise."

[Forest of Flowers]

"Well now that's just plain rude. And you don't need to apologize to me, girl, not ever. But I can't help thinking, if this goddess could do all that, why couldn't she have helped you? Didn't Sylvess think to ask?"

Innawoods

Blanche's focused attempt to not allow her eyes to wander intensifies as Votsona gets to his feet, her blush intensifying as he finally speaks. She steps forward wordlessly, glancing away in embarrassment - and unintentionally failing her original aim in the process.

Innawoods

Votsana clicks his teeth and chirps in his delightful raspy accent, "I... wasn't really expecting this, I guess. I didn't expect Fids would be such a bad influence either." Vots gives a pleased little laugh, lip curling up as he smiles. He shuffles half a step closer, tentatively lifting his prosthetic hand. He tries to gently touch the rim of her jaw with those smooth metal fingertips and lift her face. He just wants to meet her gaze, at least the once!

More softly, Votsana adds, "What brought this on, then? Fidella would have... erhm... amply served your needs. I'm told she's very good..."

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

Wow even the putti manage to figure this one out pretty quickly.

They already had to accept a quest to start the tutorial so that makes sense.

"Excellent work, Aspirants!" the Servant proclaims. "Next is weapons and weapon load outs! Allow me to introduce you all to-"

Pillars of celestial material burst from the earth, rising high into the sky! The surface of each is covered in shimmering, iridescent bubbles. And within each bubble? A weapon.

"-the Armory of Heaven!"

Wow is that ever a lot of guns. Heaven's always got the coolest weapons.

"Each of you began your existence with SWORD firmly in your grasp. It is your will to conquer made manifest. But there are other tools with which you might equip yourself! Some of you may have already acquired such tools."

Like Eao!

She looted a bunch of them.

"If you have, then you have likely discovered that you can only equip two such tools at a time. A side-arm and a long-arm. Long-arms are your primary implement of destruction, boasting greater variety and power. Side-arms are a backup tool to be employed while your long-arm is recharging."

The floating geometric construct gestures at the weapon racks.

...somehow.

"Long-arms come in five varieties. Spread, blast, lance, cannon, and assault. Spread weapons are devastating in close quarters, but have limited range. Blast weapons can destroy foes in a wide area, but are dangerous to you and allies. Lance weapons have extreme range and precision, but must recharge often. Cannon weapons are very powerful, but must charge before they begin firing. Assault weapons offer a balance between range, power, and accuracy but do not excel in any category."

Oh BOY guns!

"A final consideration, Aspirants. Those of you with access to Spheres will find that weapons which resonate with one of your Spheres will be be most effective in your hands."

Lapis plops down on her haunches, crosses her front legs, and gives a little huff. "Guns are dumb. Swords are better."

"YOUR FACE IS DUMB!" one of the putti shouts at her. "Guns are cool!"
A second putti goes, "OOOOOOOH!" and high fives the first.

"Aspirant Lapis Lazuli. On your previous tutorial session you did not pick any arms. Please choose a long-arm and a side-arm to continue," the Servant admonishes Lapis.

"Maybe get something long ranged?" Arukhael suggests helpfully. "Just in case you're fighting something you can't reach with your sword?"

"Fiiiine... I won't ever use them anyway," Lapis relents. She examines the options and picks out a Shape aligned pistol and cannon weapon. They're both shifting, scintillating things. Crystalline forms that are in a constant state of flux.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Gah!" Thariza is becoming more and more freaked out. What is she supposed to do about all this? "I have no idea what to do. Except run out of here as fast as we can and figure it out later."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Don't worry dude! As I said, I can control the weather. Just... keep anything off me while I do it since I think this might be a tough one." The other Ambrosia claims as she raises her hands towards the sky.

The lighting overhead seems to divert away from them and instead strike the ground some distance away which in some cases don't change at all and in others change drastically. A part of a mountain appears in one spot and in another a huge flower instantly blooms.

"See? I just need some more time and I can probably undo this bitch of a storm."

[bc56]

Eao excitedly runs to the weapons. "C'mon, Lapis, guns are fun!" Eao likes guns. She already has a bunch of them, but now she can have more! She grabs an Information sidearm quickly, but has to think for a little bit before taking a Matter aligned lance.

Selekhael, on the other hand, has to think a lot. She doesn't really want a gun, let alone two. But it would've been useful against the elf. Or the goblins. She relents and picks up a Time spread weapon and an Entropy sidearm. If they're doing guns now, they must be doing a shooting range next, right? She doesn't know how to use a gun at all.

[Morty]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq's mood has by now changed from haughty self-importance through uncertainty to fear. His eyes are wide and he speaks quickly, anxious and uncomfortable.

"We do not- we are forbidden to speak of this story to outsiders. However it spread to other lands, we had nothing to do with it. This tale needs to stay buried. If someone spread it elsewhere, they threaten the destruction of our people."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

How does Thariza wind up surrounded by people orders of magnitude more powerful than she is? She's not sure if she likes it. But right now she's not going to complain. She just takes her bow off her back and puts the string on.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Forest of Flowers]

"I-I mean, um-" Lucy blinks and gives Vivi a very confused look. "You make it sound like it's a really easy thing for any goddess to do. I-is it? Because it- it sort of sounds complicated and I think this goddess was a fertility goddess in particular, sooo maaaaaybe not the right one for...whatever you're suggesting." Lucy seems a little lost here.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[Sapphira's Prison]

Quin watches quietly while Kalya scratches the runes into the dirt, still looking around, listening while Wenomir mentions that breaking the crystal might not be such a good idea. When the power blows through Kalya's barrier, his head will snap towards where it breaks through, and his eyes will narrow for a moment, then he'll nod to Wenomir.

"Dangerous indeed," he says, before glancing at Kalya. "Might the power drain away if we cut off the source? Perhaps that will be less risky to the surrounding area, not to mention ourselves."

[City out of Time]

"Maybe it was part of their alliance," Electra posits, moving closer to the skeleton, but being careful not to get too close, let alone touch it. She looks around the massive space, looking for indications of the remains of books or scrolls that might hold something of the info they're searching for. Being able to zoom with her eyes is probably helpful in this space, though whether she'll be able to read any of the writing here might be another question. Just because she's been in the Nexus for awhile and has been attempting to study and understand magic such as it is doesn't guarantee any sort of familiarity with an ancient, and possible eclectic dialogue. "Though given the size of this place, it could very easily have been one of the librarians. You're right, though. It's weird that this is still here, given what our employers told us. Shouldn't the bones be gone by now?"

[Gullara]

Journey to the Center of the Elves

"Most curious." Eon is very intrigued by this. "The tale is, in some form, present in every known land. We suspect something supernatural is at work. We have reason to believe your people may be the originators of the tale, or closely related to them, and might be able to explain more how this could be, or the significance, culturally, magically, or otherwise."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq's mood has by now changed from haughty self-importance through uncertainty to fear. His eyes are wide and he speaks quickly, anxious and uncomfortable.

"We do not- we are forbidden to speak of this story to outsiders. However it spread to other lands, we had nothing to do with it. This tale needs to stay buried. If someone spread it elsewhere, they threaten the destruction of our people."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Korrina speaks up, interrupting if she has to make sure she speaks before her companions. "If it's such a danger, we should ensure that we've haven't made a mistake. Perhaps Zhareen can recount the tail as we know it. If it is the same story we can take appropriate precautions." She suggests. Even while looking up at Ramuq she's drawing in a fresh page in her book.

[Purple Eagle]

Spoiler: quotez

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[Rolling Hills]

Wow even the putti manage to figure this one out pretty quickly.

They already had to accept a quest to start the tutorial so that makes sense.

"Excellent work, Aspirants!" the Servant proclaims. "Next is weapons and weapon load outs! Allow me to introduce you all to-"

Pillars of celestial material burst from the earth, rising high into the sky! The surface of each is covered in shimmering, iridescent bubbles. And within each bubble? A weapon.

"-the Armory of Heaven!"

Wow is that ever a lot of guns. Heaven's always got the coolest weapons.

"Each of you began your existence with SWORD firmly in your grasp. It is your will to conquer made manifest. But there are other tools with which you might equip yourself! Some of you may have already acquired such tools."

Like Eao!

She looted a bunch of them.

"If you have, then you have likely discovered that you can only equip two such tools at a time. A side-arm and a long-arm. Long-arms are your primary implement of destruction, boasting greater variety and power. Side-arms are a backup tool to be employed while your long-arm is recharging."

The floating geometric construct gestures at the weapon racks.

...somehow.

"Long-arms come in five varieties. Spread, blast, lance, cannon, and assault. Spread weapons are devastating in close quarters, but have limited range. Blast weapons can destroy foes in a wide area, but are dangerous to you and allies. Lance weapons have extreme range and precision, but must recharge often. Cannon weapons are very powerful, but must charge before they begin firing. Assault weapons offer a balance between range, power, and accuracy but do not excel in any category."

Oh BOY guns!

"A final consideration, Aspirants. Those of you with access to Spheres will find that weapons which resonate with one of your Spheres will be be most effective in your hands."

Lapis plops down on her haunches, crosses her front legs, and gives a little huff. "Guns are dumb. Swords are better."

"YOUR FACE IS DUMB!" one of the putti shouts at her. "Guns are cool!"
A second putti goes, "OOOOOOOH!" and high fives the first.

"Aspirant Lapis Lazuli. On your previous tutorial session you did not pick any arms. Please choose a long-arm and a side-arm to continue," the Servant admonishes Lapis.

"Maybe get something long ranged?" Arukhael suggests helpfully. "Just in case you're fighting something you can't reach with your sword?"

"Fiiiine... I won't ever use them anyway," Lapis relents. She examines the options and picks out a Shape aligned pistol and cannon weapon. They're both shifting, scintillating things. Crystalline forms that are in a constant state of flux.

Eao excitedly runs to the weapons. "C'mon, Lapis, guns are fun!" Eao likes guns. She already has a bunch of them, but now she can have more! She grabs an Information sidearm quickly, but has to think for a little bit before taking a Matter aligned lance.

Selekhael, on the other hand, has to think a lot. She doesn't really want a gun, let alone two. But it would've been useful against the elf. Or the goblins. She relents and picks up a Time spread weapon and an Entropy sidearm. If they're doing guns now, they must be doing a shooting range next, right? She doesn't know how to use a gun at all.

[Rolling Hills]

Zabb watches everything that happens in wonder. The empyreans need guns? The sword they come with doesn't shapeshift? Curious. "Cool! Do I have to pick one, though? I don't need it!" He states matter-of-factly.

Just so he'll have a gun, though, he manifests a sword and turns it into a rifle.

[Shadowcaller]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

"Good idea, Korrina." Zhareen remarks, giving her apprentice a lingering look as she steps away. Just what was that girl up to now? She had her suspicions but she was going to give her the benefit of a doubt.

Besides, she wouldn't want to argue with her in front of Ramuq.

Then she starts to recount not her own version of the story but the one she was told to her by Maria:

"The version I'm most familiar with is there once was a great Drow Queen who ruled over the distant Nightlands. She was cunning, beautiful, and wise. But her shortsighted sisters were unable to understand the great benefits her policies had for their people, only able to focus on the immediate cost to them. So they turned on her and the Drow Queen narrowly escaped with her life, killing her handmaiden in her place so that her sisters would believe her dead."

"Instantly her sisters turned to infighting amongst themselves about who was most suited to rule in the Queen's place as treachery after treachery. This left the Nightlands vulnerable to attack and disorganized when the dwarves invaded, spreading through all lands with their war machines, stripping all beauty from the world to horde or to melt."

"The Drow Queen refused to let her legacy be known as the family overrun by dwarves. She took it upon herself to come out of hiding and create an alliance of convenience with the lesser races. With her great strategic mind and inescapable tactics leading the less fortunate, the Queen drove out the dwarves and forced them back to their slag pits."

Maria pauses. "This was used in my culture as an object lesson to always kill off your family all at once in order to properly consolidate your power base so you aren't left vulnerable. And to finish the job."

As she finishes, Zhareen crosses her hands over her chest. "The lesson taken from this by Maria's people is particularly odd. That is probably more cultural than anything, but is it otherwise anything like the story you've heard? Since I can also recount a very similar story from my own culture."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Great, this should be a piece of-" Just then one of the lighting bolts is diverted away from them, but in a way that makes it hit the knocked out red dragon instead.
"...whoops."

The dragon disappears in a blink, like it was just teleported, and in its place appears a creature that have roughly the same proportions as the dragon and is also red. But the similarities end there however.
It's abdomen looks to be more at home at the body of a bee than a dragon, ending with two long stinger-like appendages. It has one pair of long thick legs that gives the creature the gait and overall body structure of an raptor though it has three pairs of arms where such a dinosaur only would have one.

It's head is too a mix of dinosaur and insect features with white jaws, scales and a nose that might remind Thariza of a t-rex is she ever seen one (or more likely, a dragon) but also a pair of black antennas sprouting out of its head and three pairs of eyes that glow a sinister green.

(link)

The creature starts looking around, seemingly as confused as everything else that happen to come here, but as soon as it spots the two it lets out a growling sound that doesn't sound too friendly.
"Um, that's not good. I'll just try to redirect another lighting bolt at it while you distract it, okay?" So that Thariza can fight something else?

[bc56]

Eon looks concerned. "Your society destroyed? By what? Can it be prevented?" So the story was spread by these people's enemies? It suddenly seems far more important to understand what happened.