Vigil VII: Strife Amidst the Clouds

[bc56]

Arrivals
A lizardman arrives upon the island. Carrying an axe and shield and laden with adventuring gear, he looks over the surface with curiosity, then sets out in no particular direction. He's looking for someone, anyone, to speak to who might point him in the right direction.

[Ironsmith]

[Eun's Lab]

Wenomir heads to Eun's laboratory promptly when he receives the message. He looks much the same as he did before, but instead of the sword at his hip, there's now a bearded axe on his back. It looks as mundane and unremarkable as the sword, but it does seem to share the same black-and-silver color scheme. And there are three runes on its edge.

"Here I am. It's good to see you more lucid," he says when he arrives.

[Eun's Lab]

Eun lets out a little eep as Wenomir announces himself, her hand going to her chest, as though moving to stop her heart from jumping out of her rib cage. She quickly breathes a sigh of relief when she sees him, though. She called him here, of course he turned up. She just didn't anticipate the exact moment of his arrival.

Right. Eun quickly pushes up her glasses and recomposes herself. She tries for a more appropriate response.

"Lucid. Yes. I, ah, had a good night's sleep." She begins, blushing slightly. "That's, um... that's good for the brain."

Of course it is. That's why he told her to do it.

"Right. So. Um..." She quickly gathera her notes and stands behind her console. "Before we begin, did you have any general questions about the drone?"

[Shrubomancy]

Lapis Lazuli is very busy.

She's always very busy, you see. The topiary here at VIGIL isn't going to trim itself after all! Oh no, definitely not. It needs someone who's brave and fearsome and capable like Lapis to keep it in line. Because if Lapis didn't make sure it was all neat and pretty then what would happen?

Chaos!

That's what!

Branches growing all willy nilly everywhere!

Order is important.

That's what VIGIL is for after all. To make sure the present order endures. To be certain that the cosmos continues humming along.

And to that end!

Lapis trims bushes while other heroes do the fun stuff.

"Ugh!" Lapis complains wordlessly as she finishes her work on the last shrub on this side of the island. The island so big that now she'll have to start over on the other side again since it'll be overgrown by now. "How come I only get to fight bushes and not bad guys?"

Her grumbling inquiry is left unanswered, for the shrub is but a shrub.

"I don't mind fighting bushes and chasing birds but I could do other things too! You know its not because I don't like you, right bush?"

The evergreen bush rustles in a biting winter breeze blowing across the island.

"I don't think the Commanders think I'm bad. I've done quests and things! I think they just don't want someone so little to do missions."

The wind snatches a yellowing leaf and gingerly places it in Lapis' raven-dark hair.

"I thought of that! I learned how to look like a grown up from my sister but no one fell for it."

The bush doesn't seem to have any better ideas, so Lapis begins trudging through the dusting of snow toward the far end of the island.

The cold really doesn't bother her.

That's how things go when you have a star for a heart.

Now, if only she could find a way to better utilize her burning passions.

[Shrubomancy]

Of course, there are benefits to Lapis spending her days trimming shrubbery. For instance, it means she's occasionally conveniently out of sight or beneath notice and can hear conversations that were intended to be private (and yet held in a public place, go figure).

Not that she'd ever do that, right?

But every now and then, some people get to be careless.

"...they believed you, then?"

"I can't say for certain." Comes the cold, emotionless voice of a relatively new member of Vigil's staff. Lapis might have heard rumors about this lady; people saying she has an uncanny way of just "knowing things". That's the version that's sanitized enough for her innocent ears, at least; the terms "psychic voyeur" and "creepy little [doggo]" have also been thrown around.

"...but the evidence suggests that, yes, they do indeed believe our cover story." Dr Khafir says curtly. "We can begin our scans immediately."

"Thank goodness." The second voice replies; this one belongs to one of the waitresses at The Battered Shield; Lapis might still know her from different contexts. Angela's been known to wander the base every now and then, taking walks with her android... husband? Boyfriend? It was something like that. The visor on her face facilitates some above-average sensory abilities of her own, but those tend to be much better-recieved, as she requires line of sight to glean anything about the subject of her vision... and she tends to be a little more polite about it anyway.

"Indeed." Dr. Khafir stiffens. "Though I still do not understand the need for secrecy. Wouldn't it have been simpler to requisition the equipment yourself?"

"Oh, please. You scientist types get a lot more leeway with your toys. There's no way command would have cleared it for a lowly bartender."

[Vahnavoi]

[Felicity's lab]

"Huh. A plant that not just eats meat, but actively hunts for it", the holographic girl recounts, blinking in amazement. "Do you think it's light sensitive too? Maybe it has some primitive form of sight? Hello, weird plant thing. Do you see me?" The little robot drives as close to the triffid fence as it can, with the hologram projected so that it almos touches the plants.

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Now, Lapis can't read worldlines.

She isn't powerful enough to do that like her Mother has.

Nor has she ever observed the Game from the outside.

But she does still have a sense when something off. Especially when her journal makes a little ding! in her mind to inform her that a new quest just became available.

>Rumor Requisition
Find out what Khafir and Angela's cover story is hiding

The definitely normal and not at all strange half-elf child sets down her tools and takes a casual jaunt perpendicular to reality so she can better spy on what's going on. Drifting for an extended period of time is definitely tough for her but she's pretty sure she can pull it off. Just gotta scoot closer so she can listen in without being seen.

There's a downside to this that Lapis is wholly unaware of since she doesn't use her Drifting trick around people that often.

An empyrean lurking nearby tends to trigger some primal jitters in mortals; a feeling of being watched.

Will that make them reconsider having their conversation?

This remains to be seen.

[Ironsmith]

[Felicity's Lab]

Eun nods slowly as Felicity explains how triffids hunt. Conceptually, it's not that different from what a Venus Fly Trap does; that plant wasn't particularly high on the list of fantastic things in this room.

Part of the benefit of working at a research laboratory. Everything's so thoroughly analyzed that it seems grounded in reality, even when it's pointedly not.

Still, when Felicity goes to water the plants, she can't help but feel just a little wary of them. Despite her assurances, she doesn't actually have any garauntee that they're not going to try to sting Felicity. So she hangs out close enough to pull her back... just in case.

[Shrubomancy]

Lapis might be surprised to learn that jaunting itself causes new information to appear; viewed from this angle, she'll see a transparent disk floating around the area that wasn't visible when she was trimming the bushes. It glows a soft purple color, the same sort of aura that's now congregating around the back of Dr. Khafir's head. It also doesn't seem to be entirely stable; it keeps drifting back and forth, growing and shrinking lazily, spinning slowly along various unseen axes.

Looking even more closely, Lapis will likely see a similar cloud of indescribable energy building up on the back of Angela's head, a sort of vague yellow color. And if Lapis's understanding of the Game extends far enough to give her helpful stelath indicators, she'll note the conical projection around Angela's eyes that tells her what she can see continues well past when it should, slicing through every obstacle in the way as though it weren't there.

Fortunately, since Lapis isn't there, when the cone turns on her as Angela looks around, onset by paranoia, she won't see the child, ordinary half-elf or otherwise. "Something's not right. I can feel someone watching us."

"Ahem." Dr. Khafir stiffens.

"...Sorry, that's you, isn't it? I keep forgetting."

"Apology accepted." Dr. Khafir gives Angela a little smile. But even as she does so, the saucer springs to life, winking in and out around the shrubs, before going back to drifting around after a few minutes. "We're alone, I can guarantee it."

"Yeah, you're right. I don't see anyone, either."

"Perhaps you should do a self-scan before we continue. Your glitch may be getting worse."

"It's not a-!" Angela sighs and forces herself to calm down. "It's not a glitch. Emet treats me like a queen. It's perfectly sane to see him the way he sees me."

"Excessive personification is a well-known symptom of many psychological disorders, Miss Quire. I would be more wary of this if I were you."

"Well, between the options of loving a robot and being one-"

slap!

Angela holds her hand over her mouth, nursing a rapidly-swelling lip, while Dr. Khafir lowers her hand slowly, remaining stony-faced throughout.

"...I'm sorry. That was an inappropriate response."

"Gee, you think?" Angela scowls, tapping her finger to her busted lip. "...But I owe you an apology, too. I was out of line."

"I concur. We lab brats need to treat each other better. Nobody else will."

"...Tell you what. I'll submit to a self-scan if you do the same. You might be losing stability, too."

"...Agreed." Dr. Khafir straightens. "Report to my lab in an hour. Bring Tau. And make sure you aren't seen."

"Okay. And, Sara... thanks for agreeing to do this. I know it's a big ask."

"Like I said; nobody else will."

With that, the two women part ways; Dr. Khafir is heading back toward the laboratory building, while Angela is going towards the place new arrivals typically turn up. If Lapis wants to follow or confront one of them, she's going to need to choose quickly.

[Shadowcaller]

[Library]

In Anika's experience, most demons were out to either conquer or corrupt the world so if this was different than that it had to be very different from what she was used to.

Alright, Cass-demons, what were they like?
Anika puts her long ears at high alert. Let's hear it.

"They're much simpler beings in general, actually. They're... fragmentary beings, from the realm of Chaos. Some people think they're all the leftovers and little shards of spiritstuff that didn't get born in our world as the soul of a mortal person, and most of it just floats around, formless and everchanging in the eternal flow of Chaos. Some of these little fragments drift close to our world, where they come into contact with echoes from our world, thoughts and feelings and emotions that bleed from our world into theirs. The stronger the emotion, the more likely it is to bleed through from our world - particularly intense emotions like wrath, passion, terror, desire, grief, despair, joy - these attract the little spirit fragments and causes them to develop into the kinds of spirits that people commonly refer to as 'demons'."

Fragmented beings, from chaos. Kay', kay'.

Leftovers from people... like souls? Sounded more like spirits. But obsessed with emotions... she guessed that kinda made sense with demons. She had never heard of one that feed on joy though. Those would be way better.

"Over time, these demons feed more and more on these emotional echoes that come from our own world, and they become more complicated and more individual. At some point they stop being content with just feeding off the echoes of the really intense emotions that can drift from our world to theirs, they want to come into our world to experience and feed off them in all their varieties. They don't experience these emotions-

Wait, Cass did definitively look different! Anika could just tell by looking at how her lips moved. The more she looked at her talk the more it became clear how different she was.

Did this mean that she was actually a demonic infiltrator that was attempting to deceive her? No, this was definitely Cass. In fact, in might be too much of Cass considering how she just kept talk-

****.

She had stopped paying attention hadn't she?

-are useful to mages because they are connected to the Chaos they come from. Chaos is a powerful source of magic, but for many mages it's difficult to control or channel safely. Demons are more attuned to it than we are, and that's why mages form pacts with them and take them as familiars, so we can access Chaos through them-"

Crap, she had missed so much already.
So chaos was demon energy and a powerful source of magic... so fel energy? Hopefully it wasn't corruptive. Like, why would you even call it 'chaos energy' in the first place? She had never seen 'chaos' being used in a positive sense. Especially when people accused her of causing it. So it really felt like there were some major negative vibes here.

But maybe she had misunderstood something? She had just missed quite a lot since she...

hadn't
been
listening.

Gaaah!

Anika quickly focused back on Cass who she now noticed was blushing!
Oh no! She was the worst listener ever!

"Uh... so I guess the point was, demons can be dangerous, but they also have predictable wants and urges, and can be controlled and used as well, the same way fire is dangerous, but can also be controlled and used. And most of the time when demons cause problems, it's because the mage that summoned them wasn't able to control them, or worse, intentionally uses them to achieve evil and self-serving goals. A demon that feeds off rage and wrath has a natural urge to kill and destroy, but if let loose to do so then the responsibility surely lies with the mage that summoned it for that purpose, the same way the responsibility for a fire that burns down a building and kills a lot of people belongs to the arsonist that lit the match."

So demons were like fire? Was that the short of it?
Did that mean they were like... emotion elementals?

Anika raises a hand as if she was a student in a class. Dutifully waiting for Cass to gesture for her or call her name. Resorting to even waving her hand if Cass didn't do it right away.

"Okay, uh, question..." She speaks as soon as the mage has pointed her out. "Can I call your demons 'cemons'? Since you start with an C and it probably would make me less confused."

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Okay there is definitely something strange going on.

These people are both pretty new to VIGIL and they're both pretty strange. There are lots of strange people at VIGIL, Lapis should know she talks to lots of them, but that feels like a different sort of strange. This is more suspicious sort of strange. Especially that funny floating disc thingy it kind of reminds Lapis of the sorts of things a Seer gets but a mortal has got it? That's weird.

And their sort of vision is different!

One's floating around and looking for things but the other is just a great big cone seeing all the things.

But it isn't seeing Lapis. Even though she can see them?

Then the two women talk about things Lapis doesn't know about and one of them hits the other but she doesn't really look mad. What's going on? Something about scans and instability? Oh! Oh, now they're going to other places! But they're going to different places. Lapis should follow one of them, but which? Probably the yellow cloud lady her seer-y thing seems like it'll be easier to avoid. Lapis waits for the purple cloud lady to leave then doop!s back to reality, quickly gathering her tools.

Yellow lady is heading toward the end of the island Lapis was going to clean up next anyway so probably she won't notice.

Lapis does her best to follow the yellow lady while being inconspicuous but she isn't exactly great at that so maybe she might make a few mistakes. Maybe if the lady looks at her she should work on the bushes?

[Morty]

[Eun's Lab]

Eun is very nervous, that much is clear. Wenomir can't recall an occasion when she wasn't twitchy about something.

"I don't think I do," he says. "Begin your presentation and I'll ask if I feel like something is missing from it."

[Earl of Purple]

Felicity's Lab

"Yes, but no more so than sunflowers, for example. They'll move to brighter positions out of the shade, but don't seem able to use it for hunting. Not that these ones can hunt; I bought seedlings, because the seeds are... Really inefficient. Only one in a thousand seeds is actually fertile, for some reason." Felicity, despite her normally rather bold approach to science and scientific advancement, is very careful with watering the triffids. None react to the hologram, either.

One of the triffids moves its 'head' as Felicity waters it, and there's a very, very quick slap as the stinger lashes out and hits Felicity's goggles and splatters them with venom. The stinger moved incredibly quickly; Eun probably didn't see it, and Felicity certainly didn't. The flammable scientist yelps and falls over backwards, landing on her bum and dropping the watering can. She's gasping and breathing heavily, green fluid splattered on her goggles. She's OK, just a little stunned. If it had broken her skin, she would most likely now be on fire, and she isn't.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrubomancy]

Okay there is definitely something strange going on.

These people are both pretty new to VIGIL and they're both pretty strange. There are lots of strange people at VIGIL, Lapis should know she talks to lots of them, but that feels like a different sort of strange. This is more suspicious sort of strange. Especially that funny floating disc thingy it kind of reminds Lapis of the sorts of things a Seer gets but a mortal has got it? That's weird.

And their sort of vision is different!

One's floating around and looking for things but the other is just a great big cone seeing all the things.

But it isn't seeing Lapis. Even though she can see them?

Then the two women talk about things Lapis doesn't know about and one of them hits the other but she doesn't really look mad. What's going on? Something about scans and instability? Oh! Oh, now they're going to other places! But they're going to different places. Lapis should follow one of them, but which? Probably the yellow cloud lady her seer-y thing seems like it'll be easier to avoid. Lapis waits for the purple cloud lady to leave then doop!s back to reality, quickly gathering her tools.

Yellow lady is heading toward the end of the island Lapis was going to clean up next anyway so probably she won't notice.

Lapis does her best to follow the yellow lady while being inconspicuous but she isn't exactly great at that so maybe she might make a few mistakes. Maybe if the lady looks at her she should work on the bushes?

[Shrubomancy]

Following Angela turns out to be much harder than it looks. Every time she rounds a corner, she looks back the way she came, through both of the walls that make up said corner, so that she can look back for any pursuers without looking too much like she's paying attention. She might be willing to dismiss catching Lapis behind her once this way, as a mere coincidence, but if the perfectly ordinary half-elf child keeps showing up in her line of sight, she's going to get suspicious and be waiting as a nasty surprise for Lapis, hands on her hips and giving the little angel a formidable glare, despite her eyes not being even a little visible.

But then, maybe she's clever enough to avoid being summarily busted.

What will Lapis do?

[Eun's Lab]

Eun is very nervous, that much is clear. Wenomir can't recall an occasion when she wasn't twitchy about something.

"I don't think I do," he says. "Begin your presentation and I'll ask if I feel like something is missing from it."

[Eun's Lab]

"Right. Of course. Yes." Eun clears her throat and steps into position, so that the mock-up of the drone is standing right over her shoulder. "Right. The, um... the drone. The, um..."

"The, uh... the drone, it's... it's for, um... it's a drone, and..."

Eun blushes profusely, by now painfully aware of how ridiculous she looks. She takes a deep breath and attempts to calm herself down enough to do her presentation. All she really needs to do is think of Wenomir in a less stressful context. How does that trick go again? Picture the audience naked?

...Oh my.

That didn't help at all.

Eun straightens and goes back up to her console, turning away from her boss and rummaging through her virtual notes in an attempt to get a hook back on the subject and away from what Wenomir looks like without the armor. "Deep breaths, Doctor Bu, deep breaths..."

Okay, so what she should do is just...

Read it.

Out loud.

That's it. She's not even presenting this to anyone. She's just reading her own notes, to herself, out loud, to help internalize what she's written. Nobody here at all ("Yeah there is," interrupts her brain, "and you're making an ass of yourself in front of him"), nobody at all, shut up, shut up and read the [hecking] notes.

"The Achilles is a modified version of Applesoft's TALOS line of military antipersonnel drones." Eun reads off in a monotone voice, a little quietly, with her back still turned to Wenomir. "As the original TALOS was designed as a weapon of interplanetary warfare and dedicated much of its functionality to Beyond Visual Range combat, several modifications have had to be made in order to facilitate its use as a training aid."

"The lower arms have been completely reworked, with the integrated weaponry removed. The high-caliber sniper rifle has been replaced with a snow gun, which fires bursts of cooled atmospheric gasses to simulate short-range weapons fire. The intent is to create a projectile which can be decisively felt, but which is neither harmful to the recipient nor likely to result in any ruined equipment, such as might occur with a paintball round. Similarly, the missile rack has been completely removed, in favor of a chest-mounted snow cannon, which may be used during long-range engagements to simulate artillery fire or long-range missiles to similar effect."

"The basic architecture and software has been left mostly the same, with a few exceptions. The basic drone is designed to swap between two combat modes on the fly; a hand-to-hand model, for close-range engagements, and an in-flight variant for aerial combat." As she describes the concept, the drone folds in on itself, going from a humanoid shape to something resembling a miniature fighter plane. "Most of the combat software has been left unaltered, except for the introduction of a kill switch, which will cause the Achilles to self-disassemble." Eun taps a palm-sized piece of metal next to her for emphasis. "Each of the pieces used are approximately this size. A damaged or destroyed drone can be repaired or replaced with the use of a single Hotbox and a reasonable amount of technical skill."

And then she just sort of stops talking. She doesn't have any idea how to close the presentation.

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Oh.

She got spotted the first time.

That's kind of hard to avoid, isn't it?

Lapis can't really hide behind anything, can she? Though she's pretty sure she isn't busted just yet, the lady just saw her walking down one of the paths with her arms full of gardening tools. Most people around VIGIL know at least a little about Lapis. She's practically a mascot. Just that cute kid who always wants to hear stories about past adventures and exciting missions. Everyone knows she works on the grounds keeping things all trim and tidy.

But!

She's going to have to think fast.

And since Lapis is so great at thinking on her toes she's got a solution!

See, Lapis has done a few team quests already. And when you pick a team quest you need to pick a role. There are five of them, of course. Fisher, Lancer, Digger, Blaster, and Seer.

Nobody ever wants to be the Seer because the guns they get are the least exciting. They're the support class.

But that suits Lapis just fine. She doesn't care about guns anyway. Swords are way cooler. The Seer, though, they're really good at tagging things! That's good for highlighting a target for their team, exposing weaknesses, and revealing some useful information on them! But the most important thing for Lapis' quest right now is that a tagged target is outlined and highlighted even through objects that are in the way.

And so?

Lapis will tag Angela and then turn on her little heels to walk toward the part of the island she was originally planning to head toward. She's got some tools to put away, anyway. Once that's done she'll begin trailing Angela again, but THIS time won't be following behind her. If she keeps a good distance and is keeping pace laterally she probably won't be as likely to notice! Especially if Angela tends to look over a particular shoulder.

There, see?

Lapis is really clever! She's good at solving these tricky problems!

She's hoping the two people with the weird clouds aren't doing anything bad or dangerous, but if they have cover stories and need to do secret scans maybe they're up to something?

Really, this is exactly the sort of unusual behavior Lapis was created to notice. She was originally made to sniff out evil body snatchers that had been lurking around the Nexus at the time.

[Vahnavoi]

[Felicity's lab]

"It's a good thing they aren't very fertile, I imagine it would be b-", the holographic girl begins, but doesn't get to the end before Felicity gets stung. Maybe the robot would've been fast enough to react, but it didn't know what to do or expect and would've been unable to prevent it in any case. The hologram hurries next to Felicity. "Are you okay?"

[Ironsmith]

Felicity's Lab

"Yes, but no more so than sunflowers, for example. They'll move to brighter positions out of the shade, but don't seem able to use it for hunting. Not that these ones can hunt; I bought seedlings, because the seeds are... Really inefficient. Only one in a thousand seeds is actually fertile, for some reason." Felicity, despite her normally rather bold approach to science and scientific advancement, is very careful with watering the triffids. None react to the hologram, either.

One of the triffids moves its 'head' as Felicity waters it, and there's a very, very quick slap as the stinger lashes out and hits Felicity's goggles and splatters them with venom. The stinger moved incredibly quickly; Eun probably didn't see it, and Felicity certainly didn't. The flammable scientist yelps and falls over backwards, landing on her bum and dropping the watering can. She's gasping and breathing heavily, green fluid splattered on her goggles. She's OK, just a little stunned. If it had broken her skin, she would most likely now be on fire, and she isn't.

[Felicity's lab]

"It's a good thing they aren't very fertile, I imagine it would be b-", the holographic girl begins, but doesn't get to the end before Felicity gets stung. Maybe the robot would've been fast enough to react, but it didn't know what to do or expect and would've been unable to prevent it in any case. The hologram hurries next to Felicity. "Are you okay?"

[Felicity's Lab]

Eun has much the same reaction, but unlike LB2, she has the medical knowledge needed to help if Felicity got stung properly. And also hands, she has hands.

She grabs Felicity under the arms and drags her away from the overactive triffid, so that she has space to sit in front of Felicity and examine her without getting stung herself. She lets out a little sigh of relief when she sees that the sting only hit Felicity's goggles; her friend isn't hurt, just startled, and Eun can't really blame her. But just to be on the safe side, she'll prod around the exposed areas of skin around her goggles, just to make sure she didn't get hit with a secondary sting or something.

"Does anything hurt? Are you experiencing any nausea, dizziness or disorientation?" Eun asks, checking for any symptoms of rapid-onset poisoning.

[Shrubomancy]

Oh.

She got spotted the first time.

That's kind of hard to avoid, isn't it?

Lapis can't really hide behind anything, can she? Though she's pretty sure she isn't busted just yet, the lady just saw her walking down one of the paths with her arms full of gardening tools. Most people around VIGIL know at least a little about Lapis. She's practically a mascot. Just that cute kid who always wants to hear stories about past adventures and exciting missions. Everyone knows she works on the grounds keeping things all trim and tidy.

But!

She's going to have to think fast.

And since Lapis is so great at thinking on her toes she's got a solution!

See, Lapis has done a few team quests already. And when you pick a team quest you need to pick a role. There are five of them, of course. Fisher, Lancer, Digger, Blaster, and Seer.

Nobody ever wants to be the Seer because the guns they get are the least exciting. They're the support class.

But that suits Lapis just fine. She doesn't care about guns anyway. Swords are way cooler. The Seer, though, they're really good at tagging things! That's good for highlighting a target for their team, exposing weaknesses, and revealing some useful information on them! But the most important thing for Lapis' quest right now is that a tagged target is outlined and highlighted even through objects that are in the way.

And so?

Lapis will tag Angela and then turn on her little heels to walk toward the part of the island she was originally planning to head toward. She's got some tools to put away, anyway. Once that's done she'll begin trailing Angela again, but THIS time won't be following behind her. If she keeps a good distance and is keeping pace laterally she probably won't be as likely to notice! Especially if Angela tends to look over a particular shoulder.

There, see?

Lapis is really clever! She's good at solving these tricky problems!

She's hoping the two people with the weird clouds aren't doing anything bad or dangerous, but if they have cover stories and need to do secret scans maybe they're up to something?

Really, this is exactly the sort of unusual behavior Lapis was created to notice. She was originally made to sniff out evil body snatchers that had been lurking around the Nexus at the time.

[Shrubomancy]

Clever Lapis. Fighting wallhacks with wallhacks.

As expected, Angela doesn't notice Lapis continuing to follow her, owing to the fact that she's no longer obviously following her; of course she's going to see Lapis around some more, but then, she's going to see a lot of people, most of whom are clearly going about their own business. Lapis blends right in.

Thirty minutes later, Angela will finally stop moving, at the skydock where cargo gets unloaded. She has a brief but animated conversation with someone there, which apparently ends in a friendly hug, before grabbing a cart or dolly or something (her hand positions don't make it incredibly obvious which) and heading into the lift to the laboratory wing.

Context says she's probably going to Khafir's laboratory with a crate or barrel of something. Lapis could intercept her to find out what, at the risk of getting caught herself, or she could head her off at the lab, where the risk is even higher but she's more likely to get a straight answer.

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Okay so Angela is going to a lab. Lapis doesn't know what sorts of lab things Miss Khafir does since she really hasn't ever talked to her before and she doesn't know where that lab is but Angela probably does. If she's down in the labs she can probably figure things out but she needs a good reason to be in the labs. What could she-

Oh!

Oh that's a good idea!

Once all her tools are put away she gets to work on something VERY important. She's not really good at this sort of thing like her sister Karaglen. Maybe she COULD be, but she would have to practice a whole bunch. Most of Lapis' practice is in grounds keeping and swords. Those are the things that are most important to her because one's her job and the other's cool! But if it's something simple like this Lapis is pretty sure she can do it. Just make a little tall rectangle thingy and then make the inside hollow. There! Easy!

Then Lapis gathers up cold earth and some snowdrop flowers (since they're nearby and pretty and blossom during the winter) and puts them in her improvised vase.

There!

Perfect!

Lapis stows the vase in her inventory and vanishes into the ground like a tangle of serpentine roots. A few minutes later she'll be popping out of the wall in-


[Shrubomancy in Eun's Lab]

"Miss Eun?" Lapis calls out as she materializes in the lab and withdraws her gift. "Are you here?"

[Ironsmith]

[Eun's Lab - Shrubomancy]

"AAH!" Eun shrieks as a small child materializes in front of her without warning. Her hand goes straight to her chest as she stares at Lapis wide-eyed, breathing heavily and fighting back the urge to swear prolifically; Lapis didn't really know any better, it wouldn't be fair to get too mad at her.

"...Promise me you won't do that again," pants the startled scientist, "because I don't think my heart can take it." Her overreliance on caffeine probably wasn't helping, either.

Eun closes out the drone project files and pulls up a pair of chairs, offering one to Lapis. "So, um... I don't think I saw you since that thing with the star you made." She gives Lapis a little smile. "So why are you here today?"

[Rebonack]

[Eun's Lab - Shrubomancy]

Okay that startled Lapis.

She gives a little squeak of alarm and just manages to avoid dropping the gift she brought.

Whew! That was close!

She had worked so hard on-

Okay, well, no, she hadn't worked super hard on it. It only took a few minutes to make. But! She gave it all the effort she could!

"Promise not to do what?" Lapis asks, a bit puzzled about that demand. "Put I guess I promise, I don't want to kill you on accident."

Lapis still feels really badly about maybe having killed Miss Eun the other day. Or maybe not. She really isn't sure. But she's mostly sure that 'my heart can't take it' means that if she scares Miss Eun too badly then her heart will stop and she'll die.

But! That's not why she's here! Or not the only reason. Part of the reason, anyway. She holds out the vase she made. It's pretty! Like a lattice work of silver over an inner layer of blue glass. Soft golden light exudes from networks of fissures and pits in the glass. It's filled with soil and some delicate white bell-shaped flowers are planted within.

"I wanted to say sorry for scaring you. So I made this pot and put some flowers in it," Lapis says.

Also?

She's keeping an eye on the tag she set on the person she's following. Lapis will keep half an eye on their movements and chat with Eun until they stop at whatever lab they're going to.

[Ironsmith]

[Eun's Lab - Shrubomancy]

Eun's expression disolves like a lump of sugar in boiling water. "You brought me... oh." She gives Lapis a nervous smile and accepts the flowers, cradling the vase in her arm.

Aw. That's so sweet! Lapis bringing her flowers because she felt bad about something that happened months ago. At least, that's what she assumes Lapis is talking about. It'd be a little suspect if she meant startling her just now.

Eun smiles and sets the vase on one of her tables, taking a moment to straighten them up. She turns back to Lapis and gives a little bow. "Thank you so much!" She says finally. It really was nice of Lapis to do this. She's only gotten flowers a few times in her life before today, and even then, only on special occasions... the randomness of this particular act of kindness made it all the sweeter.

Meanwhile, outside, Angela seems to have settled at a lab... or five at once, if Lapis's vision is to be believed. The spatial anomaly that forms the basis of Eun's lab seems to be playing havoc with her wallhacking tag ability. It'll probably clear up once she steps outside.

[Rebonack]

[Eun's Lab - Shrubomancy]

Lapis doesn't have access to the Sphere of Time, so bringing flowers to apologize for something she hadn't done yet is a little outside her wheelhouse.

Things that are more her speed would be something like changing the phase on a bunch of fire.

Which is how she made the artificial 'star' not too long ago.

She hasn't done that since. She felt really bad about it.

"You're welcome! I'm glad you like them they're snowdrops those are one of my big favorites," Lapis replies in that breathless rambley way of hers. "I meant to bring you something and say sorry earlier but I kept getting really busy and forgetting but this time I remembered so sorry I scared you."

Oh!

Angela got to somewhere!

Lapis begins scooting in that direction. "I need to go, okay? I hope you like the flowers Miss Eun."

She'll give the scientist time to reply before heading out through the door like a normal person. Once she's out of the lab she'll begin zeroing in on her quarry. She would rather wait until she gets close before she Drifts. Lapis can only remain elsewhere for relatively short periods of time and she wants to save that for spying on whatever the pair of color cloud-people are doing. Hopefully she's wrong and this is all an okay thing that they're up to but Lapis' gut is telling her that something fishy is happening.

[Morty]

[Eun's Lab]

Wenomir continues to note Eun's nervousness, but (thankfully) not the latest reason for it. He decides to do his best to alleviate it by sticking to the topic.

"How durable is it? Our members use a great variety of weapons and powers, so it needs to be able to stand up to them."

[Ironsmith]

[Eun's Lab - Shrubomancy]

Lapis doesn't have access to the Sphere of Time, so bringing flowers to apologize for something she hadn't done yet is a little outside her wheelhouse.

Things that are more her speed would be something like changing the phase on a bunch of fire.

Which is how she made the artificial 'star' not too long ago.

She hasn't done that since. She felt really bad about it.

"You're welcome! I'm glad you like them they're snowdrops those are one of my big favorites," Lapis replies in that breathless rambley way of hers. "I meant to bring you something and say sorry earlier but I kept getting really busy and forgetting but this time I remembered so sorry I scared you."

Oh!

Angela got to somewhere!

Lapis begins scooting in that direction. "I need to go, okay? I hope you like the flowers Miss Eun."

She'll give the scientist time to reply before heading out through the door like a normal person. Once she's out of the lab she'll begin zeroing in on her quarry. She would rather wait until she gets close before she Drifts. Lapis can only remain elsewhere for relatively short periods of time and she wants to save that for spying on whatever the pair of color cloud-people are doing. Hopefully she's wrong and this is all an okay thing that they're up to but Lapis' gut is telling her that something fishy is happening.

[Shrubomancy]

Eun beams at the little half-elf. "They're very nice. Thank you again, Lapis." She'll courteously hold open the lab door for her so she doesn't need to wait any energy trying to phase through it or teleport or however she feels the need to get around. "Stay safe out there, okay?"

Probably the worst advice she could give an Empyrean, but eh.

As Lapis approaches the lab Angela stopped in, she's going to notice some weird behavior on the part of that outline; namely, that she seems to be pressed against a wall, away from the door to the lab.

If Lapis chooses now to shift, she's going to find out that the floating disc she saw earlier is now hovering right over her... or at least it was, until she shifted. Now it's flicking around up and down the hall, apparently trying to find a trace of her.

Meanwhile, inside the lab:

"You were careless, Miss Quire. Someone followed you here."

"How?! Nobody saw me put on the disguise! I'm sure of it!"

"Apparently, the groundskeeper did. She's just outside the door."

"Is there any chance she's here for something else?"

"The odds are slim to none. She never comes by here otherwise. And even if she were, we're still trying to keep this secret, remember?"

"Then what do we do?"

"Wait for her to go away. There's not much more we can do without drawing attention."

[Eun's Lab]

Wenomir continues to note Eun's nervousness, but (thankfully) not the latest reason for it. He decides to do his best to alleviate it by sticking to the topic.

"How durable is it? Our members use a great variety of weapons and powers, so it needs to be able to stand up to them."

[Eun's Lab]

"Extremely." Eun replies monotonously. "The original TALOS model was designed to survive falls from orbit. That should hold up nicely among our trainees."

To demonstrate her point, Eun pulls up footage of one of the drones attempting a kamikaze strike on a modern-day battleship. The drone survives the impact; the ship does not.

Wenomir will also be able to see that the footage is date-marked, showing that this event took place sometime around 2110 AD. She cuts away from it before the aftermath of the event is shown, with navy personnel scrambling to evacuate the ship or being gunned down afterwards; the point was to show that it could be done, not the atrocities that told them so.

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Oh no!

They noticed her!

Lapis has to think fast how can she get them to think she left? Could she... Oh! Oh oh oh a decoy! She's used those before to draw fire in team quests before. If the decoy is convincing enough to trick other Aspirants maybe it'll trick the lady's purple cloud too?

Grabbing some random junk from her inventory Lapis calls on the power of all four of her Spheres. Matter and Shape and Information and Will. Matter to form, Shape to bind, Information to inspire, Will to motivate.

The copy of Lapis' half elf form flickers into existence a scant few seconds after the girl vanished and continues on her way, following the story Lapis had hastily written for her. Just leaving Eun's lab and heading to that lift over there. Nothing unusual.

Eventually the double will make its way back to the equipment shed and just... stop. There story doesn't extend beyond that point. But it'll take a while to get there and hopefully the purple thing will have stopped watching by then.

Lapis, meanwhile, is definitely watching. She scoots just 'above' the lab to watch and listen. Well, not above really. She usually calls that direction outways but regular people mostly don't know what that means. Lapis is definitely glad it doesn't look like those clouds know how to peer at things perpendicular to reality.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrubomancy]

"...Is she gone?"

"...No. She stopped in front of the door, disappeared, then reappeared and walked away. There was no reason to do that except for misdirection."

"Then she's still..."

"Yes. More importantly, she can see us, she knows we saw her, and we both know the other knows about each other.

Which means we can stop playing games and have this out face-to-face, Lapis."

Dr. Khafir pulls up a chair by the door and takes a seat, staring into the center of the room blankly. The transparent purple disc floats around the room lazily, drifting in a wide circle.

Meanwhile, Angela's emerged from hiding and is cautiously looking around the room, as though she'll be able to catch a glimpse of the groundskeeper if she just looks hard enough. She's wearing chrome-plated harness around her chest, with a conspicuous orbular device in the center; her hand is still on it, thumbing a switch in the center, currently set to the off position.

She's also standing over a wooden crate on a cargo dolly, about the size of a small bathtub, carefully sealed, with the "THIS SIDE UP" markers unquestioningly obeyed. The crate is held shut by a series of latches, which are in turn held closed by a series of identical padlocks. No other hint is given as to its contents, other than a warning that it's "FRAGILE".

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Floofer.

The decoy didn't work.

Maybe if Lapis had known she was being watched to begin with she could have done it differently and stayed hidden! What should she do now?

Well...

She isn't sure if it'll even work or not, but she tries tagging the purple floaty thing. Lapis is pretty sure that's how the doctor lady is able to see things from a distance. If she's able to tell where it is even when she isn't drifting then she should be able to avoid it if she's really careful.

Also?

No way she's just going to reveal herself.

These people might be pretty sure that she's still around, but they're only pretty sure she's still around. Whatever they were up to they can't actually do if they think she's watching, right? And it must be something bad if they're trying to be so secret about it.

See, Lapis wasn't created to be a grounds keeper.

She was created to uncover infiltrators.

And that's something she thinks she's pretty good at.

The little seraph can't remain drifted forever, but she doesn't materialize in the middle of the room. That's what they want. Instead she finds a tiny interstitial space in the wall big enough to fit just the smallest of snakes and curls up inside. She can't hear what's going on as well like this. And she definitely can't see into the room. But she needs somewhere to rest for a little bit before she can drift again. Lapis isn't going to 'have this out face to face'.

She's going to wait.

Either they're going to give up and leave. Or they're going to assume she's gone. And more importantly they now know that Lapis can trail them and avoid their weird seeing clouds! That means paranoia. That means they'll never know if their secret plot isn't being observed.

Meanwhile!

Lapis' look-alike decoy is riding the elevator back to the surface.

[Morty]

[Eun's Lab]

"It's that hardy, isn't it? I think I'd like to test it. See if I can put a dent in it."

Wenomir... doesn't sound like he's bragging. By all appearances, it seems like cutting through the drone's armor with his axe or sword is something he believes he's fully capable of doing.

"But it does look like it will be a very useful training aid. The attrition rate of our target practice equipment is... considerable."

[Ironsmith]

[Shrubomancy]

Floofer.

The decoy didn't work.

Maybe if Lapis had known she was being watched to begin with she could have done it differently and stayed hidden! What should she do now?

Well...

She isn't sure if it'll even work or not, but she tries tagging the purple floaty thing. Lapis is pretty sure that's how the doctor lady is able to see things from a distance. If she's able to tell where it is even when she isn't drifting then she should be able to avoid it if she's really careful.

Also?

No way she's just going to reveal herself.

These people might be pretty sure that she's still around, but they're only pretty sure she's still around. Whatever they were up to they can't actually do if they think she's watching, right? And it must be something bad if they're trying to be so secret about it.

See, Lapis wasn't created to be a grounds keeper.

She was created to uncover infiltrators.

And that's something she thinks she's pretty good at.

The little seraph can't remain drifted forever, but she doesn't materialize in the middle of the room. That's what they want. Instead she finds a tiny interstitial space in the wall big enough to fit just the smallest of snakes and curls up inside. She can't hear what's going on as well like this. And she definitely can't see into the room. But she needs somewhere to rest for a little bit before she can drift again. Lapis isn't going to 'have this out face to face'.

She's going to wait.

Either they're going to give up and leave. Or they're going to assume she's gone. And more importantly they now know that Lapis can trail them and avoid their weird seeing clouds! That means paranoia. That means they'll never know if their secret plot isn't being observed.

Meanwhile!

Lapis' look-alike decoy is riding the elevator back to the surface.

[Shrubomancy]

Lapis's gambit works; even when she shifts back to reality, she can still see the disc drifting around. Its outline, at least. It doesn't glow anymore, but it's at least something she can keep track of fairly easily.

"...Think she's still there? It's been a while..."

"Difficult to say. There's no way to tell if she's watching us this moment or not."

"Wonder what that's like."

"Don't you start." Dr. Khafir stiffens. "...But you may have a point. Perhaps I should take my own advice on the matter." She gestures toward the back of the lab. "...Go and set yourself up. Whether Lapis is looking or not, this still needs to be done."

Angela nods and makes her way to the back of the laboratory, walking past a number of animals in cages, toward a device that resembles a cylindrical fish tank with an elaborate series of cables running down the side. She presses a little latch on the side, swinging open the front portion of the tank.

"One more thing." Dr. Khafir stops Angela just before she steps in, holding a clipboard and pen.

"...A waiver? What's that for? Aren't we trying to avoid leaving a paper trail?"

"Ideally, Wenomir and Cessie would never know about this. But if Lapis gets the information back to them, I'd rather they at least have documentation saying this was consensual activity. Better to only go behind their backs and not have a potential ethical violation on my hands; my position is tenuous enough as it is."

"...Fair enough." Angela quickly scribbles something down on the clipboard.

"And your visor."

"Right." Angela reaches up and taps the sides of the band running over her eyes, pulling it away slowly.

Underneath the visor, Angela's eyes are... something Lapis would probably rather not see. They're not really eyes at all, but she'll be able to see how they used to be. There's scarring along the sides of her eyelids where they'd been laser-sutured together, pursing just a little bit around the electrical hookups that now occupy the space where her pupils might have been.

"You'll get this back the moment the scan is complete." Dr. Khafir assures her. "Step inside."

Angela complies and steps into the tank, leaning back inside of it. "...It's not going to hurt, is it?"

"If you were compromised enough to worry about that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You'll feel a minor tingling in the back of your head. It won't hurt, but the scan will take around fifteen minutes to complete, and it may become irritating after a while." Dr. Khafir makes her way over to a nearby console and begins tapping at the controls. "Would you like some music?"

"Yes, please."

She nods and closes up the tank, pressing a few more buttons to conjure up an old, appropriately contemplative song. With that done, Khafir sets a time to let her know when the scan is meant to be done, and finally turns her attention back to the crate Angela brought in.

That might be enough for Lapis. Then again, it might not. In either case, she's probably not going to get a better time to confront Khafir (with her alone in her lab and unable to flee), or a better chance to get an up-close look at what the machine is doing (with it currently in action), or to examine the contents of the crate (with nobody there to stop her). What will Lapis do?

[Eun's Lab]

"It's that hardy, isn't it? I think I'd like to test it. See if I can put a dent in it."

Wenomir... doesn't sound like he's bragging. By all appearances, it seems like cutting through the drone's armor with his axe or sword is something he believes he's fully capable of doing.

"But it does look like it will be a very useful training aid. The attrition rate of our target practice equipment is... considerable."

[Eun's Lab]

"I'm... I'm certain you would, sir." Eun begins awkwardly. "But I don't have a prototype available for testing just yet. I was planning on sending the schematics over to my..." She pauses, not entirely certain what the appropriate term would be. "...counterpart, in HALO." She says finally. "He's agreed to volunteer his services for this project, including in assembling the prototype and up to the first twenty initial units. After that, we'll need to find the resources to handle it internally." She stiffens, expecting this news to not fly over well with him. "...If it's any consolation, spare parts won't be an issue. Just the labor of the actual repairs." Which, ironically, meant they probably could hand the job of fixing the drones to Lapis, if they went forward with using them on a regular basis.

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

Well it looks like Lapis has some choices!

She doesn't want to confront the doctor; that isn't her job. Lapis will gather as much information as she can (most notably WHY they don't want the commanders to know about what's going on here) before bringing that information to Cessie.

As such, yelling at the doctor is pointless.

Much better to let them live with the paranoia that Lapis may or may not be watching at any given moment.

Looking inside the crate really isn't a big priority, either. Lapis' point of view while she's Drifted is... different. To say the least. Like standing above a drawing and looking down at it , seeing inside all the drawn buildings and things. Except and things covers basically all three dimensional objects. So, for example, seeing inside people. People insides are pretty weird, Lapis thinks, but she's used to seeing that sort of thing. The view DID surprise her the first time she did it, though.

When she's drifted she should be able to see inside the crate just fine. But... she isn't sure if she would be able to tell what's in there. Especially if it's some sort of science thing. Lapis really doesn't know much about technology. Or about most things, for that matter. Knowing things is one of Lapis' big blind spots. She's very young, after all.

That just leaves spying on the tube.

Lapis will mostly miss the first few minutes of the process since she's still busy existing but as soon as her ability to Drift recharges she'll be jaunting perpendicular to reality again to see if she can't figure out what's going on with that weird tube thing. Maybe it has sometime to do with the color clouds?

[Morty]

[Eun's Lab]

"What are the resources required, exactly?" Wenomir asks this with the tone of a man who expects not to like what he's going to hear. "Given what it's meant to withstand, they can't be cheap or common."

[Ironsmith]

[Shrubomancy]

Well it looks like Lapis has some choices!

She doesn't want to confront the doctor; that isn't her job. Lapis will gather as much information as she can (most notably WHY they don't want the commanders to know about what's going on here) before bringing that information to Cessie.

As such, yelling at the doctor is pointless.

Much better to let them live with the paranoia that Lapis may or may not be watching at any given moment.

Looking inside the crate really isn't a big priority, either. Lapis' point of view while she's Drifted is... different. To say the least. Like standing above a drawing and looking down at it , seeing inside all the drawn buildings and things. Except and things covers basically all three dimensional objects. So, for example, seeing inside people. People insides are pretty weird, Lapis thinks, but she's used to seeing that sort of thing. The view DID surprise her the first time she did it, though.

When she's drifted she should be able to see inside the crate just fine. But... she isn't sure if she would be able to tell what's in there. Especially if it's some sort of science thing. Lapis really doesn't know much about technology. Or about most things, for that matter. Knowing things is one of Lapis' big blind spots. She's very young, after all.

That just leaves spying on the tube.

Lapis will mostly miss the first few minutes of the process since she's still busy existing but as soon as her ability to Drift recharges she'll be jaunting perpendicular to reality again to see if she can't figure out what's going on with that weird tube thing. Maybe it has sometime to do with the color clouds?

[Shrubomancy]

Drifting as she is, she'll be able to see Angela resting inside the tube, arms folded over her chest, laying back like she's sleeping; if not for the fact that her eyes can't properly open or close, she'd probably look exactly like that. There's a mechanism in the machine that's whirling around Angela's head, a series of blinking lights going off around her. With her outside view, Lapis will be able to see what exactly the lights are doing; they seem to be resonating with the hair, then skin, then bone, and finally nervous tissue in Angela's head, putting together a computer model of some sort. Lapis will also be able to see that the inside of Angela's head is... not quite what it should be. The back part of her brain is all wrong, looking almost nothing like a normal human being's brain should; it's like someone decided she'd be better off with a model sculpted from plastic than the standard grey matter most people get. A close look at Khafir will reveal she has a similar configuration going on; odds favor this is where those clouds are coming from.

If Lapis cares to look at the crate, she'll see its contents consist of styrofoam packing peanuts, a number of sealed capsules containing bits of some unidentified plant, and a big black box, about the size of someone's head, which Khafir quickly removes and sets on the table nearby. After that, she'll pick up another clipboard with another form and begin scribbling down information. "Delivered to wrong address... please deliver contents of package to..." She stops and taps her pen to her lips. "Hm. For the life of me, I just cannot remember that girl's name... but I know the lab number. I'm sure she'll have a use for these triffid clippings." She says to herself, scribbling down the details and slapping the notice onto the crate.

Meanwhile, Angela's sort of gotten lost in the music, and can be heard singing the song quietly to herself as Khafir works. "...dum duh, dum duh, dum da dee da... the first thing that I'd like to do~"

[Eun's Lab]

"What are the resources required, exactly?" Wenomir asks this with the tone of a man who expects not to like what he's going to hear. "Given what it's meant to withstand, they can't be cheap or common."

[Eun's Lab]

"Um... well..." Eun wrings her hands together nervously. "...Yes and no." She unhooks her Hotbox from its spot on her waist and taps the screen on the side, quickly scrolling through the resulting cavalcade of files. "The, um... the materials are trivial to produce... for me." She says finally, pulling out a distinctive piece of the drone's armor plating, still warm. "Unfortunately, to my knowledge, I'm the only person in the base with the necessary device. By contemporary technology, this sort of nanotech would be significantly more difficult. Not impossible, but difficult." She hands him the plate and shakes her head. "I would be willing to take on the responsibility of producing a backlog of parts if necessary."

[Rebonack]

[Shrubomancy]

It's just...

Scanning her robot brain part?

That's not very nefarious at all!

Or, at least, Lapis can't really think of any reason why they would need to be hiding this from the commanders while being all secretive about it.

Maybe she's just missing something?

That's definitely possible, Lapis doesn't know all sorts of things. And that crate is full of... weird... plants? And a box.

Maybe the box is important? A spooky black boxs with mysterious contents!

Really, Lapis isn't getting anything unusual here. This just seems like boring science stuff. Maybe they're not getting to the good parts because they think she might be watching still?

Obviously she's just going to have to watch even longer. At least until she figures out why they were trying to hide what they're doing from the Commanders.

[Morty]

[Eun's Lab]

Wenomir taps on the plate with his knuckle. He seems dubious.

"Relying on this one device for producing all the necessary materials is going to take a while. Not to mention that we might need it for something else. How long would it take to create one of those drones?"