Inside 70: Surprisingly Pleasant

[bc56]

"Works for me." Jade heads down into the cavern, pistol at the ready. All she has to do is find the guy, knock him out, and drag him back to town.

[WindStruck]

Solstice nods, putting her wand back in her belt and instead unslinging the bow from her shoulder as she followed behind Jade. Luckily the lantern she carried was a brass, but Soltice definitely had to be on the lookout for stray tools in the area. Her robes and sandals were made of real materials and wouldn't be adversely affected by iron, but her skin would burn, and all her weapons were particularly vulnerable to the touch of iron and would unravel...

With a lantern in hand and bow in the other, she cautiously trailed behind Jade by about twenty-five feet.

[Rebonack]

[Deadwood Street]

The mouth of the cave isn't particularly impressive. Drab, rusty colored tan sandstone. Just like most of the rest of the monumental stones and arches in the park surrounding Deadwood street. But once they descend?

Quite abruptly the cavern becomes stark, glistening white. Crystals as big as Jade's arm protrude here and there, shimmering as light flashes off their facets. The floor is littered with such gems; it looks like the ice-clear crystals were merely smashed out of the way to reach the snowy white quartz they're growing from. The reason isn't readily obvious here, aside from the occasional glint of gold here and there. This cavern is rich enough with native gold deposits that minor flecks like those that seem to abound simply aren't worth the time to dig out.

It is, quite frankly, spectacular that this mine is in a natural cavern that's been widened out rather than a dark pit in the ground like mines often are. Such environments are cramped, dark, and incredibly hazardous. No place for a gunfight, surely. Our heroines will need to watch their footing, there are mine tracks leading deeper into the cave, branching off here and there. Thankfully the side branches aren't long, mere gouges a dozen feet at most into the cavern walls chasing gold veins through the depths. Solstice had best watch her step; the tracks are made of steel. The pitch-covered wooden ties, however, are safe.

Before long the sound of picks biting against stone and voices will be heard. Firelight flickers from deeper in the cavern. Venturing on, our heroes will find a deep pit of white stone surrounded by truly massive crystals. The tracks end near here, next to a pulley system for hauling buckets of gold out of the pit. And buckets are indeed what they need. Everywhere the firelight touches gold and silver are glistening, streaks of glinting yellow and white. Torches have been regularly placed around the walls and a large fire crackles in the middle of the pit. There's a strong breeze down here, a sign of excellent ventilation. As for the miners...

Four are working. One, a hulk of a man with fists nearly the size of mine carts and a comically tiny hat is working the pullies, hauling the heavy met up and loading it into mine carts. That's probably Tiny Tim, the gang's muscle. Currently wielding a pickaxe with his tail is a human-sized rattlesnake with an ominous black hat. Sidewinder Sam. His bite is deadly as his aim with that lever-action longarm slung across his back. A second pickaxe wielder working at the stone is a tall, black assassin droid with a head like a stovepipe draped in a poncho. Four little eyes on rotating disks turn this way and that as it works. The machine's four arms and four six-shooter speak to the danger it poses. Juan G-88, fastest draw this side of Tatooine. A fourth lacky is busy shoveling broken up rocks into the carts, a slight woman with almost comically long pigtails and a friggin minigun strapped to her back. No doubt that's Calamity Jane.

The fifth is reclined near a smaller fire at the lip of the pit overseeing the work while picking his fingernails with a knife. That rancid, sneering smile. That crooked nose. Those cruel, controlling eyes. Unmistakable from his wanted poster.

Simon Seyz.

As yet the villains haven't noticed our heroes.

[bc56]

The gold glitters in Jade's eyes. She's not thinking of its monetary value though. She could use it for something else. After all, gold is far better than copper for electronics. She flicks her flashlight off and quietly moves into the cave, keeping the gun trained on Simon. Well.
Sort of quietly. Her shoes may give her away. Heels are not exactly quiet.

[WindStruck]

Solstice continued to follow Jade in. The cave was pretty remarkable in the Fae's eyes. Of course, she'd imagine something like this would probably exist somewhere in Faerie. It was almost certainly so! The crystals would likely be even bigger and brighter, honestly... but regardless, it's still not really an environment she had ever spent much time in, if at all, so the sheer novelty was fascinating to her. Still, she couldn't gawk at the crystals. The mine tracks here were very clearly lined with steel. This made Solstice quite wary of her surroundings and, despite the pretty sights, she kept her eyes on the ground and the path immediately ahead of her, to ensure she didn't accidentally bump into anything. This caution looking down also served to help ensure her footsteps were quiet and well-placed.

However, Jane was still a couple dozen feet ahead. Soon it was confirmed that their target was here with the clanging of pickaxes and other sounds of labor and the fires up ahead. Up ahead, there was adequate lighting. Solstice set her lantern down at a convenient spot to provide some light within the tunnel they had traversed. Perhaps they could even fall back here and take cover behind this bend... Better be wary of the tracks, however.

Solstice spied Simon and four other of his henchmen. They looked quite dangerous, indeed. The more she thought about it, the more she thought it was a bad idea. But they had already come this far, hadn't they? And they had the element of surprise...

Solstice drew an arrow from her quiver and began to nock it into her bow, leaning up against a massive stalagmite. This bow shouldn't adversely affect Jade's weapon, she thought, though she wasn't absolutely sure. For now, she'd let Jade try to handle this and see if the woman's ability measured up to her talk. Though Solstice did have some doubts. Five against one? It seemed Jade's only chance was to threaten a lethal, point-blank shot at the ringleader, and hope his four lackeys also surrendered...

[Hattish Thing]

[Cormorant House]

Detective Bansford scowls as she looks towards the right.

Just as precarious as any other route, but what choice did she have? "Alright. Be right there," she mutters.

With a thoroughly displeased expression upon her face, Billie will carefully make her way along the edge of the pit. She's quite cautious, careful to look where she's walking and maintain her balance. This was not particularly difficult for her, given her level of bodily awareness. Still, the stakes are quite high, and she starts to sweat.

When she finally makes it across, she curses under her breath before squinting at the room before her. That cupboard called to her.

With a frown, she moves to it before opening the thing. ""You know what?"

"This place is not to my liking."

---

Jade's Lair

Naomi is clearly relieved by this news. She had been terribly worried, having imagined something terrible was wrong with her for some time now.

At this last bit, she becomes somewhat confused. "Thanks... Metaphysical?"

[Zefir]

[Grey Zone - Museum Street Backalley]

Throughout the officer's explanation, Detective Bansford is silent.

She retrieves a small notebook and starts to neatly take down notes, careful not to miss anything.

Anonymous tips regarding strange noises? Fairly standard stuff, especially around this part of the city. The officers arrived on the scene, and the deceased partner moved forward into the alleyway. This is when he encountered something, but was unable to convey what he had seen to his partner back at the patrol car. A strange sound, something like a wire being pulled taut. Major injuries were sustained.

This was baffling. A trap, perhaps? Or some sort of wire cord killer? What would it all point to?

Then, Jane starts to weep. Billie will simply reach an arm over her shoulder.

Quietly, she'll whisper, "It's alright. It's alright."

"It's not your fault."

[Grey Zone - Museum Street Backalley]

Oh Jane wasn't in the car at that point. She was right behind her partner, maybe 2 meter away, using her mobile radio to report to the station. She got a few drops of blood on her pants, but that's not really important right now.
Jane might feel better by Billies words but she can't stop crying. Maybe she isn't made for this job, especially working in Inside were random super villians can appear any time or apocalypses happen. Not that we had any recently.

While Billie might look for a way out of this unpleasant situation, another officer comes to the car and knocks at the window on Billies side.

"Detectiv? You might wanna see this. I think we found the murder weapon." his voice comes dull through the window. She migth not have noticed, but outside has been rather noisy. The police had to block half the street to secure the police car and the entrance of the alley. A traffic jam came up and many people have lined up near the tape out of curiosity. Should Billie get out the man will lead her into the alley.
"I should tell ya that's not a nice few over there. If your not ready it's okay. Even some of the forensic guy had to vomit." teh man says as a warning befor he holds up a clipboard he had under his arm. "So far we just try to find some evidence, but with the murder weapon found we have a clue who it was and this starts to get to a series. Right now we count at least 4 people who died all in a simular war, torn apart by some kind of metal strings. I already requested the files for you might be a bit befor we get them.

Then they will arrive at the scene. People are taking pictures of the police man who is in a pretty good shape taking into account his hands and head aren't attached to his body. The other victim is in a worst shape since he is torn into tiny little bits. Some policemen scare of rats who wanted to take a bite.

"John Doe was the policemens name. As you already know he was tring to stop his murderer. The other victim, we assume it was only one, was an adventurer named Steven Lookaway. We got that out of his papers in his bag." He points at a string on the ground. It's a thin silver string with a few drops of blood still on it. "This is the murder weapon. It appears the adventurer was able to damage it and it broke while Jhon was killed."

[bc56]

"Yeah, metaphysical. Extradimensional influence or some sort of incorporeal cosmic force or something. Something that can't yet be fully explained with our knowledge of physics," Jade explains. "I'm not super good at understanding that sort of stuff. I just know the basics." She's an electrical engineer, not a physicist.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Philip Memorial Library]

"That makes sense, I think," Leslie says. "A lot of cultures get new names with rites of passage and stuff, too. I've just never been very religious. Most people who are are polytheistic, I think." She's even heard that there are a few gods just hanging out in Nexus, but mentioning that would mean a conversation about what any given culture considers a god and it would just be a whole anthropological can of worms.

...but then, maybe that's what Minerva wants?

"It is a lot," she says. "Probably the easiest way is to just live your life and deal with strange things as they come up. But, if you're interested..."

She reaches into her bookbag under the table and pulls out a gold binder, fat with dog-eared pages and colored sticky notes. Leslie sweeps aside her laptop and everything she was working on and sets it on the desk before looking up at Minerva, her wide eyes betraying the hope and excitement she's trying to rein in. A cover sheet with blue lettering labels it Soul Science.

[Rebonack]

[Cormorant House]

"Yeah it's pretty bad," Magdalene agrees as she pulls open the oven and peers inside.

What?

You never know when there might be something cool stashed away somewhere.

She already knows what's probably in the cupboard.

More rotten meat.

She's keeping half an eye on what the detective is doing just in case she tries to eat the stuff. Half because she knows the rotting, disease ridden flesh would probably do something awful to the cop and half because she doesn't want to share.

Magdalene figures that's at least half magnanimous and the cop should be thankful to have her around.


[Slums]

Back to the vacuum shop they go! Y'know, assuming no one tries to chug the fizzy pink liquid. Probably don't do that.

Perhaps unshockingly, batgirl is sleeping with her head down on the counter again. The shop is exactly as crammed with random vacuums and vacuum parts as it was previously.

Hmm...

The back door to the shop is open this time around, flickering lights dancing. Maybe there's something going on back there? Our heroes could probably sneak a look while the owner of the shop is snoozing. But is that a good idea?


[Deadwood Street]

The sound of footsteps being heard over the sound of pickaxes smashes against quartz in an enclosed environment?

Incredibly unlikely.

Our heroes will have no difficulty getting into position. They would probably need to shout to catch the attention of the gang of desperadoes. But do they want to? The bounty IS dead or alive. They could shoot first and ask questions never. Or they could threaten violence and hope their foes surrender. After all, none of them are holding their weapons right now. But if Juan-G88's reputation is true, the fact it isn't holding its revolvers this very second means little.

Do they attack?

Or do they parley?

The choice stands before them.

[bc56]

Cormorant House

Billie probably shouldn't have done that. Because the cupboard is full of dead bodies. Human bodies. They've recently started to decay. It looks like three dead people were just stuffed in there not long ago. Yesterday maybe? Two humans, a man and a woman, and a grey. Looks like we found the missing prisoners. But wait? There were 2 missing prisoners. There are 3 bodies. Who's the other man?
The oven, on the other hand, is thankfully empty. No gruesome meal in there.

Deadwood Street

Jade sets her pistol on a moderate power level and takes careful aim at Simon. She fires, discharging a bolt of bright light that will hit with the force of a knockout punch. She's not trying to kill anyone here, just to knock them out so they can go back to town and stand trial.

[WindStruck]

Oh. So she was just shooting the man in the back, huh?

Solstice would suppose she didn't have any qualms with this tactic, seeing how.. mean and dangerous the man was made out to be. And she didn't have reason to doubt the wanted poster either. She probably just assumed Jade would try saying something first. After all, that's probably what Solstice would have done.

Hoping to take advantage of the surprise while she still can, Solstice aims her arrow at what seemed to be the most opportune or dangerous target, the snake man. The arrow glows as Solstice releases it, flying towards Sidewinder Sam, and she quickly goes back to taking cover behind her rock formation. If hit, the arrow almost feels like being hit by a ballista. The arrow would clearly feel as though it was heavier and there was much more force behind it than a conventional arrow. Such is the effect of a magically-imbued arrow fired from its bow. On top of that, the tip was razor sharp fantasy metal from Solstice's world. It was going to get stuck horribly and not come out.

Shooting at the robot-looking thing was probably a bad idea. A man or machine made of metal? If he was made of iron, that arrow would be completely ineffective and disintegrate as it touched him. But she had no idea how dangerous the assassin droid would prove to be in the first place.

[5a Violista]

[Philip Memorial Library]

Minerva nods.
Oh, polytheism.
He's already had a bunch of conversations with polytheists at home about what exactly counts as a god, so...he's not sure if going into this conversation with someone who is self-admittedly not very religious would even be a helpful conversation. Maybe when he finds someone who's very religious, he'll ask them what they think.

"Well, I did come here to find out a lot of different things, so..."
He moves over right next to Leslie, to get a better view of the binder and all its things. Soul Science is definitely an interesting name, holding a lot of promise for what it might be about. "Did you write this?" he asks.

Since, after all, it's in a binder. Usually things in binders were written by the person with the binder. "It looks really interesting."

[Earl of Purple]

Sunlight Gardens

"Then let's go to mine! Come this way. Um, I don't think I have any silver lying around, but... I can't promise it." And there's probably a holy symbol or two, but he can put those away no problem! Soon as they get there.

[Hattish Thing]

Cormorant House

Detective Bansford grimaces as the cupboard creaks open.

Her eyes water, and though she fights them, tears begin to stream down her face.

Not out of sadness, though she of course devastated by what she's found, but as a base reaction to the terrible stench which wafts forth. She stumbles back several steps, trying to brace herself! Her attempts are futile, her stomach contracts violently and she cannot help but turn away and vomit. She heaves for several seconds until the contents of her stomach have purged.

She sinks to her knees and remains there for a moment. Her throat feels sore, and her mouth tastes of it. It fills her nostrils. Such a tragedy.

With watery eyes, she drinks from her canteen only to spit it out. "Gods. I can't even..."

"That poor man," she whispers.

---

[Naomi's Lair]

Naomi frowns. This all sounded very complicated to her.

She starts attempting to put two and two together. "Cosmic force, uhh... so what do I do?!"

---

[Grey Zone - Museum Street Backalley]

Billie will nod once more in Jane's direction before squeezing her thigh.

It should help bring her back to reality. At this point, Detective Bansford will whisper, "It's not your fault. Get some rest."

She'll step out of the car and begin taking notes on the case at hand. It was all very strange, this 'killer string' business. When the second policeman points the string out to her, she raises a brow. "Do we know what it is? Where it come from, anything unique?" That'd be the first step in hunting down its owner. After a second, she'll continue, "Don't worry about me. I'm ready to see him."

She'd seen worse. Recently, too.

---

[Slums - Patton Publications]

The cabaret playhouse is an old theatre in the heart of town.

It is, perhaps, the most successful business venture in this area, nestled between a cafe and a long closed boutique.

The front is carved of grimy stone and, once through the doorway, the walls are a faded beige color. Graffiti has been painted upon its front, though numerous posters featuring half-nude performers have been put up in an attempt to cover up the worst of it. An trash bin has toppled over in the street, spilling its contents just before the entrance. It's filthy, but it's not fresh. The garbage has been there for some time, it's just that no one has bothered to clean it up.

Why should anyone? It's not like this was a particularly reputable area.

[bc56]

Sunlight Gardens

"That's, uh, okay. As long as I don't, uh, touch it, I'll be, uh, fine." Same goes for holy symbols. They aren't going to harm Sekhmet by their presence, just by contact. And even then, there are exemptions. She's wearing a holy symbol right now, even.

Naomi's Flat

"I don't know. You'll need to find someone who does." Jade looks genuinely sorry about it. In fact, she'd totally be willing to hug the younger superheroine again. This must be really tough for her.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Slums Vacuums]

That's a great idea! Beth has to be careful not to step on tiny parts in her bare feet, though.

"If the pixies came here thinking the watchers took it..."

--

[Philip Memorial Library]

"Okay, so, this is basically everything I remembered about about souls back on Planet," she says excitedly. "I almost just left it there, but since I've been here I've been trying to put it in the wider context of everything else that's out there."

Here we go. Minerva just purchased herself a first-class ticket aboard the SS Leslie's Nonsense.

"So, Planet basically had two kinds of creatures on it. Humans - MUNDANE humans, specifically - and monsters. Originally, monsters were pretty basic life forms made of dust and magic, but when humans arrived, they rapidly began to change in response to our subconscious powers of cognition..."

A few tabs stand out in the binder. Earth, Magic, Souls and Cognition are in the front, and a couple of recent additions are in the back: Physical Monsters and Blood Determination.

[Deathkeeper]

[Slums Vacuums]

Hector can't help himself. Of course he HAS to look!
Luckily being part faerie predator, Hector is good at sneaking around being quiet as he snoops around the back door, trying hard not to step on anything or any loose tiles.

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

If the pixie came here thinking the Watchers took it there's a pretty high chance that they would have a really bad time.

She might look kind of derpy but batgirl there is a major threat to any outsider.

Regardless!

While are heroes are busy whispering to each other in the front room of the shop shadow doggo slips through the open door.

Beyond it he'll find-!

Huh.

A pair of rather cobbled together looking machines. Like... pods? Some kind of of chamber. They're connected to each other via a series of flexible pipes which are in turn connect to a computer. It looks like the machines are impossibly made mostly of vacuum parts. There's a work desk nearby with a set of blueprints laid across them and several yellow sticky notes stuck on here and there.

Wonder what that thing is for?


[Cormorant House]

Nothing in the oven.

Darn.

Magdalene was half way expecting a fire wraith or something to leap out at her when she opened it. Instead it's just kind of dusty and greasy. Big disappointment. Maybe she'll check-

And then she hears the sound of Billie retching and whirls around just in time to see the cop puke all over the floor.

"What?" she asks, a slight hint of concern in her tone. "Something wrong?"

Oh hey!

A cupboard fulla corpses!

Magdalene walks over for a closer inspection. Lessee. Dude. Lady. Weird little hairless pale guy? Mags isn't sure what that thing is supposed to be.

"So... uh... you have to keep these bodies for, like, evidence or something right?" Magdalene asks Billie. The followup is left unspoken but it is pretty obvious. She will totally eat those corpses otherwise.


[Deadwood Street]

Pew.

Simon is beaned straight between the eyes, the force flinging him out of his chair and onto the stone cavern floor. If he isn't dazed he's at least knocked out.

The rest of the gang doesn't notice straight away, mostly because they're all busy working.

They DO, however, notice when an arrow skewers the giant snake and pins him to the wall of the pit, writhing like a worm on the end of a hook. Geeze... That was pretty gruesome. The remaining three lackies quickly dive for cover!

"We're under attack!" Jane yells as she unslings her gattling gun.

"Is boss okay?" asks Tim as he blinks around the room dully.

"Sus signos vitales son estables," drones Juan as it drops its pickaxe and draws all four revolvers in the blink of an eye, its optical sensors whirring this way and that looking for any sign of hostilities.

"Uhh..." replies Tim.

"He said the boss is fine!" Jane yells as she begins spinning up her absolutely absurdly sized gun.

[bc56]

Deadwood Street

Jade smiles. Perfect. Unconscious and stable. On the other hand, she winces as the snake is impaled. She does not care for using lethal force. She twists the beam aperture wider and fires at the big guy. "The droid! Er, metal man! Use magic on him!" That should knock him out a little while.

Cormorant House

Yeah.
Those are some nasty corpses.
And Maggie, cannibalism isn't cool.

[WindStruck]

Solstice nodded to herself. Well, if this is what she wanted...

"Alright, Jade!" Solstice said. Hm. If simply using magic was the key to defeating him...

Solstice emerged from behind the stalagmite she hid behind, though instead of taking some measure of offense directly at Juan-G88, she immediately raises her hands in front of her defensively to throw up a protective shield in front of herself. Clearly in view of the other lackeys, and hoping to draw their attention, Solstice made her way over toward Jade, also hoping to eventually block attacks directed at her.

The shield should hold. It was a barrier of pure force and capable of deflecting, if not outright stopping bullets completely with ease. What was questionable was how much fire Solstice could block at once. More bullets meant more of her will being channeled into it to make the shield hold. But this also meant more magic being used/released. Solstice figured that if this was the case, Jade's idea to use magic against the metal man could work here. (And surely lots of magic power being used would fry delicate electronics currently being used). Or if not, perhaps a more direct means would be needed later.

What Solstice was not expecting, however, would be the sheer deafening, cacophony of noise that would soon explode all throughout the caverns. The sound would be frightening. Her ears were going to hurt and maybe go temporarily deaf. And she would be liable to lose her concentration just from that.

[Rebonack]

[Deadwood Street]

Jade blasts Tim with her pistol!

"Ow," says Tim in a dull tone as he picks up one of the heavy, gold-filled mine carts, and just tosses the thing as if it were nothing more than a beach ball. It's now hurtling toward Jade at a pretty dangerous clip and it probably doesn't need to be described how undesirable getting clobbered by the projectile would be.

"Error," says Juan as smoke begins leaking out of its joints, little sparks leaping from its body. "Error. Error."

Jane curses, points her gattling gun at Solstice, and begins cranking its handle.

Many, many bullets begin crashing into Solstice's shield.

It is incredibly loud.

"GET SOME!" Jane shouts, somehow audible over the roar of her rotary gun.

[WindStruck]

Hah, it was working! And as expected, attacks started coming Solstice's way. But... THIS WAS LOUD.

It was so loud and deafening, it hurt. Solstice cringed horribly, trying to channel more of her will into her shield, but she knew she was losing control. She had to cover her ears!

She fell down near the lip of the pit, hands over her head and wishing for all this to stop. Damn it! Just this experience alone wasn't worth the bounty! Aaaaah, why did she ever think this was a good idea! Especially working together with a stranger!

It might have looked like Solstice was hit, but luckily she wasn't. Still, she was on the ground, prone, and looking to be quite in pain. It might have looked like she got shot to Jade. Or maybe even to some of the bad guys below. Who knows? Seasoned killers would probably know the difference. Either way, Solstice was also out of this fight, for the time being.

[bc56]

Jade yelps and dives for cover as the mine cart crashes into where she was just standing. Her pistol too sparks and and sputters. She's not going to fire it while the shield is up. That could be dangerous. She ducks behind a stalagmite for now.

[Rebonack]

[Deadwood Street]

"IMMA SMUSH YOU!" Tiny Tim thunders as he charges down the tunnel toward Jade's hiding spot, drawing out his smushin' stick as he goes.

The smushin' stick, as it happens, is just part of a telegraph pole with a few bands of iron binding it together. Judging from the gouges and stains in the wood, Tim has used it to smush more than a few people. Jade should probably avoid being smushed if she really wants to collect the bounty today.

Tim doesn't even pause to consider that Solstice might still be alive. In his experience nothing that gets shot by Calamity Jane's gattling gun lives long, if at all. And given that Solstice fell over after getting shot he's pretty sure she didn't survive.

As for Jane?

Well!

She's swearing while starting to climb out of the pit. She hasn't got a clean line of sight on anyone down there. It LOOKED like that elf girl was using some kinda witchery, so she isn't sure if she's dead or not. But she reckons that she'll make sure one way or the other.

Juan, meanwhile, seems to have stabilized and is shaking the bugs out of its vision. It stoops down to pick up the four six-shooters it had dropped. What WAS that, anyway? Probably a force user. Juan really doesn't like force users. They cheat.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

[Slums Vacuums]

Beth goes along with the investigation plan and gets a load of the gizmo. "Huh... it's not really my department, but it looks kind of like a cell separator? Did she seriously build this for you since we left?"

...well, it's not like she's just going to press buttons. She heads back out of the office to wake the watcher up. "Hey. You awake? We're back with the stolen mirth juice."

[bc56]

Jade just stands her ground against Tim. She fires a single shot at him as he approaches, then just in the nick of time jumps to one side, narrowly avoiding the stick. One great thing about this body is that it's pretty nimble. She tries to get around behind him, and if possible, onto his back.

[5a Violista]

[Philip Memorial Library]

Ooh, a first-class ticket.
Nice.

Minerva listens. 'Everything I remembered' - Leslie must have been here for a long time, to have forgotten. "Oh, cool," she says. "So how did they end up changing? Any way in particular, or just they changed in all sorts of different days?"

She looks at the binder and spots the tabs. Magic sounds interesting, and Souls may be informative, so. "And it sounds like humans changed, too?"
she guesses. Because Leslie had to specify mundane.


[Tiffany]

Tiffany,
a teenager,
is
living her life.

More specifically, she's going to a nightclub. She's all dressed up, gets in easily, and unfortunately arrived a little too early because the music hasn't started yet.

[WindStruck]

The noise had stopped! Calamity Jane, the one that was giving Solstice the most trouble, was too busy climbing rather than shooting. The metal man was.. dealing with some glitches. Tiny Tim was going to be using his smusher rather than a gun. Sidewinder Sam was currently a shish-ka-bob. And Simon Seyz, their boss, still seemed to be dead as well. At least to Solstice. She didn't know any better.

For now, Tiny Tim was preoccupied trying to smash Jade. His Smusher looked like it would really hurt Solstice. Even without the iron bands around it. That upgraded the weapon from merely being extremely hurtful in his huge, meaty hands to extremely lethal. Thankfully it seemed he was ignoring the prone Fae for now.

That was his mistake!

Solstice's ears were ringing, and still hurt, but she had an idea. The bow in her hand might have also helped her come to this idea, for it was an effective augment to one of her evocation spells: Soul Arrow. This was a spell that attacked the mind and soul of its victim. It wasn't lethal or anything, generally, unless used to excess, but what it did do was jar the target's senses and clouds their mind, in addition to depleting mental and magical reserves. Of course, that sort of effect was generally bad enough to anyone of strong will who used their mana, chi, or whatever regularly. But to a guy that was about as dimwitted as a sack o' suds? It could very well knock him out cold...

Still relatively prone on her back, Solstice raised her bow, channeling some of her own energy into it. Utilizing her bow, the spell manifested a neat, sharp-looking, luminescent arrow of pale green light. As if pulling back an imaginary string, she aimed the soul arrow and fired at the lumbering brute. She hoped this would work, or.. at least give Tiny Tim a really bad day.

[Deathkeeper]

[Slums- Vacuums]

Hector doesn’t have the technical knowledge to piece together any of what the notes say about the machine. Especially since her handwriting is awful.
And obviously as a dog he can’t see colors well so blue ink on a yellow sticky note is just annoying to read.
He slinks back to his Other, who is setting the jar of Happiness in front of the batgirl.