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

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Behind the tapestry?

An alcove!

And in that alcove?

Another little pedestal holding a pearl that shines with heavenly light.

Linus will get the impression from the sword that this is the second of three gems that was removed from her.

Score?

"Is that another one of the missing bits?" Jeany asks as she rolls the tapestry up and shoves it into her pack.

Loot everything!


[Found a Fortress]

"Okay, I'm coming down!" Pepper calls out as she grabs the rope with her hands and braces her hooves against the wall of the shaft, toes spread wide. It looks like she's actually getting a pretty decent grip on the surface with those stone hooves of hers. Then? She begins descending. Once she reaches the end of the shaft and finds herself dangling over empty space she loops the rope around her back legs and begins shuffling steadily downward. It isn't a particularly fast process but the gaiad seems to know what she's doing.

Spako will probably have an easy time getting down on account of his smolness. Well. Current smallness. He can be pretty big when he wants to be.

Meanwhile!

A June nears the bridge she'll be able to hear... chanting? coming from the strange stone monument at the back of the dais. Some of the sigils carved into the rock look like they're glowing.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus grins.
"Bingo. Looks like this level's gem." Linus greedily plucks the pearl off the pedestal and sticks it into the slot in Friendly But Unnamed Sword under the first pearl that they recovered.
Who knows what fantastic things it will have in store for him this time?

Found a Fortress

Once Pepper is safely down the rope Spako grabs hold and slides down with his wings open to slow himself. Doing so, along with his scales, prevent his hands from suffering rope-burn.
"Oh, it's cozy down here. Too bad it's so far away from home. Could always use more forts. I bet Sylvess' kobolds could really fix this place up." he muses as he looks around.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

The second gem is restored.

With this new source of power, the sword can store the harm its mystic shield absorbs and release it as a searing arc of heavenly light.

Righteous retribution!

When enough power has been absorbed a little glowing halo will appear above Linus' head.

Snazzy.

"Okay, we'll want to check out those other doors next," Jeany says, gesturing at the other door nearby, then to the one at the south wall.

Only question is, which one is next?

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Oh look, more powers without even any magical downsides!
This dungeon is being so nice to Linus.
"Well, this is the way we came from. So the other door probably came from the other fork in the path. So I think we should go to the opposite one." Linus points as he sheathes Sword again with her shiny second pearl.
Now they just need to criss-cross their way to the south end of the board and go through.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Down to the southern door our heroes go!

Thankfully picking their way across the chessboard isn't terribly difficult and nothing awful assaults them along the way.

And beyond the final door they discover!

A trap.

When the door opens a boxing glove on the end of one of those extending arms comes zipping out to sock Linus right in the face.

Now, this probably wouldn't cause much harm.

BUT!

It might cause him to stumble backwards and step on an illegal square. Who knows what sort of terrible thing might happen if this transpires!

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus blinks and pulls up his shield. Even unexpanded, the metal thing keeps him from getting his nose broken by a large boxing glove.
He does however take a single large step backwards. The last two millimeters of his heel pass the tile line.
Is this enough to count? Who knows!
"Well that was annoying." he grumbles.

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

Oh, there's chanting.
Chanting is definitely concerning.
It means that there's definitely people somewhere nearby. Or maybe some kind of recording. But most likely people. Or more clown-robots.

She glances back at the rope to see how close they are to descending. Chanting tends to build up to something, in her experience, so she needs to find out whether or not it's building up to anything.

She goes farther along, towards the stone monument. She needs to find out who the chanting's coming from.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2, Banquet]

G'nichi's anger flares and his eyes lock on Jeb. "Sir." he booms.
"Since we woke up you have done nothing but rush these proceedings. Proceedings which, I should not have to remind you, are intended to end with you killing one of your own. Someone of your maturity should not be breathing down the community's neck rushing them into committing a murder. A murder which let's be honest, we have nothing to go on. Two outsiders are dead because they broke the rules. The roles were divvied up minutes before we woke up which was under an hour ago.
Even if we wanted to go after someone, we have nothing to go on. What happened in the last half hour? We got ready and gathered, you two showed up covered in blood and announced two dead, then we walked here and sat down, I told people murder is wrong, and you are now claiming that I am clearly evil because...I told everyone murder is wrong?
That's nothing! Are you honestly suggesting someone ought to die for a blind guess? Your odds of blindly selecting two out of over ten are not good. Especially not when missing is a dead innocent." G'nichi cuts quite the figure, golden eyes glaring from behind those spectacles and on top that massive frame. His tail thumps against the floor for effect.

Jeb doesn't look as intimidated as the people directly next to G'nichi do, who lean away from him a bit with wide eyes.
He looks equally furious, but is taking a moment to contemplate the words rather than jump straight into a shouting match.

While he does that, the priestess looks back and forth between the two, fidgeting in her robes.

"Mm. Big mouth and big words. Does the demons a favor to get an uncontested day.
Still think we should get rid of you. Stranger, no credibility to speak of, no real social ties to us."
Mari is definitely going to say something about that, but stops herself at a glare from Jeb.
"No social ties with anyone who isn't just about a stranger."
It's a cruel comment and she only looks a little stricken by it.

"But I can't force anyone else to choose, but I am gonna hold you responsible for the bodies that pile up."

[Deathkeeper]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2, Banquet]

G'nichi looks undisturbed. That is one advantage to a reptilian countenance. He does hope that someone gives themselves away to avoid this farce of a conversation.
"If you struck me down for any of those reasons it would be a lynching and a murder. And you know that. You cannot kill someone for so petty a set of reasons. And frankly, I'm appalled that someone of your stature would ever suggest such a thing.
Besides, what purpose would there be to having a lethal saboteur who knows no one in town?" Of course G'nichi could point out how suspicious it is for two men to simply arrive in town from the graveyard having immediately found a pair of bloody corpses. But he doesn't want to play that card just yet. Right now Jeb has proven himself to be stubborn and xenophobic, but nothing to call him a murderer.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Linus stumbles off the square and-!

Nothing...

Happens?

Maybe stepping just sliiiiightly off the square wasn't enough to trigger the trap?

Or maybe there is no trap.

"Looks like nothing in here besides a gag," Jeanette says, glowering at the boxing glove as it zips back through the threshold and the door slams shut behind it, resetting the trap. "Guess we check the other door then?"

She points at the other door on the east wall of the room.

May as well.

It's the last one, right?


[Found a Fortress]

The chanting probably isn't more clowns.

Why?

Because those sound like they might be words in some other language instead of honking.

So far the demon clowns have only made honking noises.

"You should probably make sure the clowns have been all kicked out before trying to claim this place," Pepper reasons. Then? Notices the chanting! "Oh! It's a word wall! I guess we're doing things out of order."

Good chance no one will have any idea what she's talking about here.

As June approaches the stone wall the glow from the sigils grows brighter and all the world around her grows darker. The chanting picks up steadily in intensity.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Well, that’s good. It would have been pretty awful if it dropped a bunch of enemies into the room or inflicted some terrible curse upon him.
Instead he just almost got punched in the face. How annoying.
”Yeah, guess so.” Linus shrugs, scratching at the side of his leg. This dungeon seems to have a lot of dead ends, but level two was supposed to be harder so that makes sense.
With their options exhausted, Linus heads the way they came to the final door.

Found Fortress

Spako squints at the wall.
”Yeah there sure are a lot of words on that wall all right. Not so sure about their grammar, though.”
It’s probably just a different dialect of draconic than his.

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

If it's not clowns, then that implies there's some other threat around here besides just the clowns. Well, potential threat. It's still unclear whether or not they're allied with the clowns.
All the more reason to investigate.

It's both too bright and too loud.
June needs to hurry up and...turn it off? Block it? Something, at the very least. "It's what?" she shouts back. "Sorry! Can't hear you!" She knows Pepper said something about what it was. Some kind of wall? Maybe? That might've been the word she heard her say. "Going to shut it off!" It's clearly coming from either the wall or behind the wall, so it might be some kind of recording. Or robot. There are definitely robots here, so that would make sense as an explanation. A robot-wall. And robots normally have off-switches. If the clownbot that she heard came here to investigate the noise or the light, it'd definitely leave them all at a disadvantage.

She goes right up to the wall. One arm shields the light with her eyes, while the other feels around (it's too dark and too bright to rely on her eyes) for any sign of an off switch.

[Terumitsu]

[Dimensional Troubles]

The woman briefly pauses as it watches the drone scan the beings. "Just what were you doing to them there? I saw you needing to get in closer." She inquires, soon starting to move again once she seems to have made sure those beings weren't being chased by anything. "Since I could use whatever information you might have gleaned." A pause. "What might I call you actually? You've yet given me a name."

[Dimensional Troubles]

A pause. A false moniker would be easy enough to provide but.. No, though a small chance, odds were that it would be more useful to use an honest designation. "Riss of Heln-Gelter Light Industries." came the reply. Plenty of information for the woman to look up further details if she were so inclined.

"I could give you the 'that information is proprietary' speech but the more accurate response is that the data from the scans are still collating." Riss said, hypotheses forming and altering as simulations began firing in mass parallel to explain the scan results. "They seem to possess of photosynthetic, pseudo-permeable integumentary system though a full investigation of the biology would necessitate a still subject or at least enough clean genetic material for 'generative studies.' There appeared to be a high degree of neuroelectric activity and there was some sort of inhibiting projection which necessitated getting close enough to acquire clean scans. Technologically speaking, Armor seems durable enough. There appear to be emergency systems around what seems likely to be some sort of rapid translocation module though there are chances that it could be something else. The alloys themselves are something I would greatly desire samples of. There are telltale signatures indicative of biomechanical interfaces but I do not have enough information to discern their specific nature nor if they are prosthetic or augmentative. I would have reason to believe that it would be the latter over the former, however." Quite a lot from only a few moments. "Unfortunately, background thaumatic contamination is higher than baseline and while the carpal emanations are clearly some fusion of mechanical and para-causal function in nature, I do not possess enough data to discern enough to generate a satisfactory hypothesis. It might only be for short-ranged engagements considering the focusing and output but this is nearing conjecture."

That was.. Probably more than the woman was expecting. Hopefully she understood all of that. The normally flat tones were now more reminiscent of something one would expect of a sentient mind engaging with a topic that was particularly interesting so at least one of them was enjoying themselves.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Steelbite Canyon]

Well.

That wasn't expected.

Atreyu just kind of stares, mouth agape, as all that happens to Magdalene. His hands automatically go for lighter and cigarette, putting it in his mouth and lighting it in the time it takes for him to grasp what just happened.

"Hey, uh, you...need any help there?" He awkwardly asks Magdalene, the wider picture being set aside for the moment. Presumably the badass monk lady can handle anyone else still running around. "I'm s'pposed to sorta be in touch with nature spirits and the like, not that I know if'n I can do much to help."

[Earl of Purple]

Steelbite Canyon

Fido's heart is ripped out in a messy and gory fashion. He dies with a smile on his face, eyes still crackling with otherworldly energies.

The driver is caught and held tight. He gasps and reaches for a knife at his waist, but he's trying to be subtle about it. "You'll just kill us after, won't you? I got family, I don't wanna die." He's lying about that, partly at least. He really doesn't want to die, but he doesn't have any family- at least, not so far as he knows about, anyway.

The peglegged man continues to struggle in his vine-y bindings, and still can't get free.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

Thariza considers this for a while. Does she need Ambrosia here? No, Ambrosia has done enough for her and she needs to confront this creature on her own.

"I'll go. You can look or wait for the... other you. When we separated, she looked like a human, pale, with long hair and small horns. Wearing armor. She's also a dragon sometimes, purple and with feathers. So look out for either of those."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

The dragon gives Thariza linger stare. "You're one crazy cat, you know that? Which I guess make you a bit like me... so it would be hypocritical to not let you go off on your own." The dragon makes a shooing motion with her claw. "So off you go then. I'll find this other version of myself and return here... and eat that demon if they have done anything to you, okay?"

[Dimensional Troubles]

The woman tilts her head as she listens to this explanation and raises her hand as if to asking Riss to stop. "I'm afraid I'm not educated in most of these technical terms that you're using but it sounds like you're a physicist of some kind. Multiple branches of it, correct? I am Ambrosia Ithil, I major in aetherial sciences, spirits, fey... dragons." She gestures at the drone. "But despite our different expertises I do belive we could help one another once we find out more about what's going on here. Agreed?" Ambrosia gestures in the direction of the temple.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"I doubt I could find the right seasoning for it," Thariza says as she heads deeper into the complex. Here goes nothing. She has no comment as to whether or not she's crazy, if only because she can't really deny it.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2, Banquet]

G'nichi looks undisturbed. That is one advantage to a reptilian countenance. He does hope that someone gives themselves away to avoid this farce of a conversation.
"If you struck me down for any of those reasons it would be a lynching and a murder. And you know that. You cannot kill someone for so petty a set of reasons. And frankly, I'm appalled that someone of your stature would ever suggest such a thing.
Besides, what purpose would there be to having a lethal saboteur who knows no one in town?" Of course G'nichi could point out how suspicious it is for two men to simply arrive in town from the graveyard having immediately found a pair of bloody corpses. But he doesn't want to play that card just yet. Right now Jeb has proven himself to be stubborn and xenophobic, but nothing to call him a murderer.

There's a beat of quiet here, while Jeb narrows his eyes and appears to debate how entirely worth going further into this argument is.

Atsushi, who has remained largely quiet up to this point, finally speaks up.
"If the situation is as dire as it sounds, then divine mandate itself would technically absolve the killing in the usual execution way of laws. Though...I guess we don't have proof that that's the situation at all."

"You're welcome to go look at the bodies after this. We need to clean them up anyway."
Jeb seems to be sliding into a slightly cooler shade of angry, now that the trajectory of this particularly meeting seems to be settling. No one but him is currently interested in choosing someone to die.
Fudo, at the mention of the bodies, looks at his hands and quietly shudders.

Another beat of quiet and Lady Eiko cautiously breaches it.
"Perhaps...we should cast a vote towards the idea of voting today? It would be a most decisive way to direct things."

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog- Day 2, Banquet

G'nichi nods.
"Sounds like a capital idea. I've already made my case on the matter."
He doesn't comment on Atsushi's idea since it seems to have missed his point entirely.
G'nichi leans back in his seat and lets things unfold for now.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2, Banquet]

Lady Eiko calls around the circle to get votes, with the ultimate result being as one would expect. No one will die this morning.
Jeb, unsurprisingly, votes for a death. Perhaps surprisingly, so does the older Kawa and that quiet elf Nemeth. The former looks solemn in the process, whereas the latter has a clinically flat expression.
Additionally, Lady Eiko abstains from voting, citing that she will simply bow to the will of the majority regardless, as does the small boy seated next to her.
Which leaves the final tally at 7 to 3.

"So be it...none are to be returned to Lord Shinomo this morning and this Banquet may be resolved."

There's a "tsk" from Jeb, before he rises and heads to the door, where he's going to take a position just outside.
It will be a few more awkward moments, before the rest of the group starts to stand to leave.

There will be some scattering to various points around the village, if G'nichi has anything/anyone important to deal with subsequent to this.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog, Day 2

G’nichi shakes his head. He knows he is helping the Cursed by doing this. But he cannot pull the trigger and end a life when he has nothing to go on.
And some small part of him acknowledges his head could easily have been on the chopping block had he not stopped it as well.
”I only pray that the Cursed among us make the same decision if it is within their power to do so. This will not happen twice.” he growls.
Someone will die tonight and it will be his fault. But someone would have died just now otherwise.
Well? Anything? Any of them seem suspicious? Please tell me you noticed something. G’nichi is flying in the dark here. He just wants something to punch.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

It's a good plan. No Cursed/Demons kill anyone, continued lack of reasons to not kill anyone in the mornings...everyone lives.
Very bright potential outcome.

The spirit of his chakram seems doubtful that it'll happen.
The sword just seems annoyed at how much thinking is required here. It really did just want to fight a troll.

Most of the group glances at G'nichi as he says this, though there's minimal commentary. Mari has a sort of sad smile that implies she agrees with the idea, but has doubts.

The chakram takes a moment to give a brief summary of its immediate thoughts on "things it noticed".
Hmm, Jeb seems more angry at the situation than at you, if that helps. Clearly just wants the fastest conclusion possible. Most everyone else just seemed scared...not sure about Mari and Eiko, they seemed less scared than the others.

Atsushi waits for the others to scoot along towards the door a bit further before approaching our hero.
"Hey, mind talking for a minute?"

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog- Day 2

He’ll have to question Mari; she hasn’t seemed bothered by a lot of this.
Then again she might just be hungover.
”Hello. Atsushi, right? How can I help you?” G’nichi answers pleasantly to the woman. He might as well ingratiate himself a little. He thinks he overstepped his bounds back there. His plan to act like dumb muscle is already in pieces. At least most of his cards are still held against his chest.

[Morty]

[Steelbite Canyon]

"We might kill you. It is therefore in your best interest to cooperate and stay on our good side."

Calm Reed begins to lead the driver back towards the rest of the group, rather firmly. If it means dragging him along the ground because he resists, she's entirely fine with that.

[bc56]

Rivergreen
Open Scene

The village of Rivergreen is out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't be notable except for two things.
First, a new factory and a railroad have been built here recently, connecting the former farming village to the Nexus at large and bringing an unprecedented windfall to the townspeople.
Second, the peace has been disrupted by a pair of figures fighting. A stone wrapped in purple energy knocks the first into a vegetable stall in the town market, sending turnips cascading everywhere. She's a tall woman whose body is covered in thick black fur, matching her long hair. She has pointy ears and large antlers on her head and a strange, vital energy about her. She has a scythe with a jagged metal blade strapped to her back, but she doesn't seem interested in using it, instead leaping to her feet to strike at her adversary with superhuman force.
The other combatant is a smaller, slimmer woman with short hair floating above her head and crackling with purple energy. Her lower body is covered in a mechanical powered exoskeleton of grey and green metal rising up to a rocket pack on her back, and she has a similar cybernetic prosthetic for her left arm. Several more stones surrounded by purple energy are floating like a shield before her, only to scatter when she's struck and sent reeling.
By the state of the market, these two have been at it for a while and caused a lot of collateral damage. Someone should maybe intervene before someone gets seriously hurt.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

Thariza then heads deeper into the temple, or lab as the voice called it, and finds herself in a seemingly endless series of small square-shaped rooms with a door for each direction. All of them are closed except the ones leading her in the direction she is supposed to be going.

She might get the feeling of getting corralled but there is really nothing she can do about it. The only thing she can tell of her path is that she's going downwards which makes sense as from the outside it looked like the temple had somehow sunken into the bedrock of the mountain which it rested on top of.

Eventually she will find herself before a pair of significantly larger doors that open up into a large bunker-like space. She have likely seen something similar back home as it's basically a large garage or storage space for larger vehicles or machines and that's indeed what it seems to be used for now.

In here dozens of constructs are housed that seem to be of a similar tech-level of the asura. But not all the constructs are whole as it seems some of the machines down here are simply parts of much larger constructs that couldn't even fit in here in one piece. Though if they're actually war-constructs, like the asuran golems, could be debated however as they for the most part look relatively simple, like conveyor belts.

More humanoid-sized golems can be seen climbing over or walking between the larger machines, it appearing like they're doing maintenance work on them as quite a few seem at least partly damaged.
Four of these vaguely humanoid golems walk up to her and once again she can hear the demons voice but now coming from all four of them in perfect unison.

"You're here. It's been a while since we saw you in person." A short pause before the golems continue. "Now, as we imagine you want to get out of this place as soon as possible we must warn you that cutting the link involves some pretty invasive surgery. You would have to be put to sleep before we being." At least they're to the point.
These golems appear to be more than the simple workers that they appeared to be from afar. Their "hands", and even their "feet", appears to be modular to some degree so they could likely switch into other instruments than gripping claws hidden within their arms and legs.

[Fort Aegis Resort]

An armored woman comes wandering out from the wilderness and onto the road leading up to the resort. Seeing the place it was odd to think it as such but that's what all the information she had found about aegis claimed it was indeed a resort...

[Deathkeeper]

Fort Aegis Resort

The outer wall of the fort is neither incredibly tall nor particularly well fortified. It is in very good repair at the very least. It is likely merely a remnant from the time the fort was an actual fort for a military group and its paladin leader.
Still, the place is still outside the city, so there's no reason to take it down when you might still have to deal with troll attacks.
In front of the gate is a single little guard box, currently occupied by a small reptilian person with dark scales and a thick cotton gambeson. He waves, having clearly seen her coming before she got close.
"Hello guest! We bid you...we bid you welcome to Fort Aegis Resort and Ssspa. Are you come to seek our services?" he chirps, though he's clearly reading from a script given how he appears to be staring at the top of the guard-post's doorframe.

[Terumitsu]

[Dimensional Troubles]

The woman tilts her head as she listens to this explanation and raises her hand as if to asking Riss to stop. "I'm afraid I'm not educated in most of these technical terms that you're using but it sounds like you're a physicist of some kind. Multiple branches of it, correct? I am Ambrosia Ithil, I major in aetherial sciences, spirits, fey... dragons." She gestures at the drone. "But despite our different expertises I do believe we could help one another once we find out more about what's going on here. Agreed?" Ambrosia gestures in the direction of the temple.

[Dimensional Troubles]

Ah, a fellow scholar? Maybe she had been too quick to judge this one's utility. "Not entirely correct but semantics can wait. I agree there is mutual gain for each of us." came the reply, casting her terminal's surveillance instruments towards the temple. "Though I suppose it's just as well. Every time I've come across ambrosia in the past has been quite momentous. I don't see any reason so far that would prevent the pattern from holding so far." Of course, it was more likely that it would be momentous in a different way than previously.

...

Elsewhere, Riss was pouring herself a half-glass of feywine while a process relived the memory of the last time she'd had the chance to taste the substance. Ah, well. Divine euphoria was still out of reach but the wine was certainly a delightful experience even if it's peaks fell so very short in this entirely unfair comparison. At any rate, she was already drawing up boundary conditions to test concepts behind those strange morphologies while her test-body remained afield. Today was a good day.

[Recaiden]

Rivergreen

The village of Rivergreen is out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't be notable except for two things.
First, a new factory and a railroad have been built here recently, connecting the former farming village to the Nexus at large and bringing an unprecedented windfall to the townspeople.
Second, the peace has been disrupted by a pair of figures fighting. A stone wrapped in purple energy knocks the first into a vegetable stall in the town market, sending turnips cascading everywhere. She's a tall woman whose body is covered in thick black fur, matching her long hair. She has pointy ears and large antlers on her head and a strange, vital energy about her. She has a scythe with a jagged metal blade strapped to her back, but she doesn't seem interested in using it, instead leaping to her feet to strike at her adversary with superhuman force.
The other combatant is a smaller, slimmer woman with short hair floating above her head and crackling with purple energy. Her lower body is covered in a mechanical powered exoskeleton of grey and green metal rising up to a rocket pack on her back, and she has a similar cybernetic prosthetic for her left arm. Several more stones surrounded by purple energy are floating like a shield before her, only to scatter when she's struck and sent reeling.
By the state of the market, these two have been at it for a while and caused a lot of collateral damage. Someone should maybe intervene before someone gets seriously hurt.

A train pulls into the station, and one of the people who disembarks is an adventurer who's here to see the newly accessible village as a tourist. The place should be an interesting mix of local village, modern industry, old tradition, cultural change, economic opportunity.
Shes a human woman a little on the short side, in a red cloak and wraparound sunglasses, with a spellbook on one hip and a pistol on the other. The air around her occasionally shimmers with magical auras, and where she casts a shadow, well, it doesn't look much like her.
There's an announcement at the station to avoid the town market, which she totally ignores as she heads into town.

The crack of superhuman strength against stone shields and the roar of rockets gets Anchor's attention pretty quickly, and she picks up the pace and arrives just as one or the other goes flying.
"Hey, what's the problem? I mean, this market is totally wrecked, and for what?" There's something to her voice that makes it easy to hear through the fight.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

Thariza sighs deeply. She's disappointed, but not surprised. She is also above all creeped out by this place and these golems and the voice coming out from all of them. But she has no other choice at this point.

"It was too much to hope for that this would be quick and painless. But I have to play along. I expected to see your body here, but... you don't actually have one, do you?"

[Fort Aegis Resort]

Behind the armored woman is walking a very large cat-person. Thariza isn't sure what a "spa" is but decided to tag along with Ambrosia to find out. So far it seems it involves Asura-sized lizard-people. Who don't seem to be very familiar with running the place.