Serious Plots 9: Srsr and srsr

[5a Violista]

"Maybe," Marin says. She's not entirely sure, though. Magtok was right there. The situation is probably a lot more complicated than it seems, since he didn't appear. There's probably something stopping him from helping, and - although she doesn't know the other two who left the room first - she assumes if Magtok couldn't do it then it would be pretty hard for them to do it.

Trusting these unknowable eyes is probably a bad idea.
No, it's definitely a bad decision. Probably comparably as bad as being stuck here for ages, hoping someone is able to figure out what went wrong and get them back.
But...
Marin looks over at Honeysuckle.
Definitely worth making a bad decision.
And she looks back at the eyes. Not entirely sure how to let them in, but she tries her best. If it'll get them back safely then it'll be worth it.

[Recaiden]

Honeysuckle is slightly leaning out over the edge of the platform, facing out into the dark, trying to notice some clue.

Looking back at the eyes- They are pleased. Things are going well -Marin sees a catgirl and a foxgirl on a platform in a vast void.
Around Marin appear more of those symbols that had formed the sparking transport receiver on the platform, a swirling eleven-part design. For a moment the air feels feverishly warm. They fade quickly, leaving no trace.
And then the eyes are are gone. The space beyond the platform is dark, and empty as well.

A glance at the platform shows where the marks should be made to complete the transportation diagram. Just carve them into the platform with a nail, and everyone will leave this place.

[5a Violista]

Oh! Yes! That's great!
Just like touching the symbols earlier, Marin suddenly knows what'll work next.

She looks down at the platform again.
"Hey. Y'know how touching the symbols on the ground made us realize what they did? I suddenly know the rest of the symbols that'll bring us back."

"..."
"There is, of course, one problem:" she says. "I don't think my fingernails are strong enough to scratch them out, and the only other thing I have is a sonic screwdriver." It's in her bra, where it usually is.
And sonic screwdrivers are used to screw in things, not scratch out things.

[Terumitsu]

Mountain Temple

Arty is definitely not pear-shaped. He has a very good runner's build and he knows what the voice means but still!
And he just woke up here. And he's dressed warm because it's cold out. Or at least it was where he was last he remembers. It's a lot more temperate here despite being high up.
But he doesn't know the first thing about fashion. Lots of centaurs just eschew shirts but if he did that he'd look like one of those arrogant men who think they can get dates just by flexing a little. He's not that shallow.

Still, survival first. Arty takes a while to wander around and finds some paths, though it will be difficult to navigate them with his delicate equine legs. He'll likely want to scout them out before he commits to trying to take one down. After a while he manages to find some dead wood and a piece of flint. He only has a tiny knife on him, but it'll do for now. Within the hour he has what he needs for a decent little fire for the night and can set it up in one of the ruined buildings with a convenient hole in the ceiling for the smoke to get out through. Luckily it doesn't look like it'll rain anytime soon.
Arty feels...better? He almost feels like he's had a huge meal, and yet not at all like that. He feels...fuller. Maybe it's just that the drug is wearing off? He's not sure about any of this. And he'd probably like to know more about the voice in his head. He's had far too many people talk to him this way over the years.

Mountain Temple

Yeeesss. Now, those two stones over- Left. More left. There. Yes. They should make a good spark to get the thing going unless you've got stuff in your pockets to bypass pretending to be a neander-.. Well, wait. What would the neolithic version of a centaur be called, anyway? Dinohippus? Merychippus? ...Troys? That last one might land a bit flat. The lack of hunger, though, could well be just an affect of adrenaline. Or maybe the drug just had a lot of leptin-equivelent in it. Maybe that's tipping the hand too much? Well, he did ask nicely enough, in his own way. That bit was only one faucet of the gem, however. A fun one, though. Chemistry was so very interesting. Especially between people. Arty might feel a leering grin in a mouth behind his mouth at that.

Still, while he did ask, he didn't ask.. Quite right. Indefinites and undefineds are so boringly easy to exploit. Why not something more.. [The feeling of compressed stone underhoof; the striking of foot against it clattering with obstinate solidarity that it would stand unmarred, unweathered, and unchanged for ten-thousand years after his passing. An obelisk immobile]? It wasn't a memory, per-say but it might feel like one? A day-dream that broke the rules. Hopefully he could at least understand the more esoteric talk, else it would take absolute ages before anything could be explained.

[Deathkeeper]

Mountain Temple

Arty sets the stuff down. He realizes how much he’s sweating. Looking up, the sun is actually getting higher, so it must be morning, not afternoon. That would explain why it’s only getting hotter and hotter. Arty frowns and strips off his sweater, laying it over his lower back. He’s only wearing a thin sleeveless undershirt under it. Something he would never usually wear in front of a lady! But he isn’t really in front of a lady now he is? Merely listening to a voice in his head that seems feminine despite the wordlessness.
So. She broke the rules, huh? She can claim that she is unchanging for the eons and yet here she is, mumbling into the brain of this particular centaur. What use is he to her anyway?
He doubts he’ll get any straight answer out of her, so he lets himself get distracted by the fruit tree outside the window. The fruits are small and half green which is why he only noticed it now when the buzzing of insects drew his attention. He can’t climb things, but a good kick might loosen things up...

[Shadowcaller]

[Telly's Garden --> Telly's Bedroom]

"A meeting with whom?" Maiel asks as he carries her. When it's softened this way, his deep timbre is really quite pleasant to the ear. He nudges through her door with his shoulder and carries her through. She'll soon find herself lying on her bed.

[Telly's Bedroom Chamber]

"Mmm? Oh, just some... executives. Can't recall their names at this very moment. It's nothing you need to be concerned about though, just a tiny fraction of my grand plan!" Telly giggles and kicks her feet in the air as he carries her up the grandstaircase which leads into the large chamber which is where she sleeps. Even the bed is huge, fitting far more than just her. "I will save Skyside you know? Save it from itself."

[Arkhosia]

Spoiler

Show

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

"Shhh! Don't let it hear you!" calls out a young girl hiding behind a couch, popping her head out for just a moment, long enough to gesture with a shift of her neck for the two wanderers to take cover behind the furniture before she vanishes once more. If they follow along, they'll find that she's roughly half the height of Jenette, with similarly tiny armor concealing her features, but her zweihander is as large as Saint Lazarus's has ever been, the brutish sword towering over the small child.

"It ate Mommy and Daddy. It'll eat you too, if you're not careful. I think I saw it go into the basement earlier, but the lights are out, and it's very quiet when it's hunting, so it could be anywhere," Smol Jenette warns the dream duo, pointing towards a spooky wooden door barely hanging on its hinges, marking the path to a spiral staircase into a shadowy abyss. Smol Jen's armor shifts into a pale green nightgown a moment later, soaked in fresh, sticky blood and viscera clinging to her body. She doesn't seem to notice or care though, her eyes darting wildly around the room, too fixated on finding this murderous creature to fret over her own appearance.

...wait, hold on, weren't Fidelia and Jaahlyn trying to open the door just a second ago? How are they already in the living room without so much as a single step forward? How stable is this dream, exactly, if geographic spaces just vanish in an instant like that?

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

Jaahlyn nods and crotches down behind the couch, gesturing for Fidelia to do the same thing as she hides the glowing bauble by pressing her tail against the couch. She seems to take all of this in stride, perhaps not even noticing the discrepancies within the dream. Fidelia certainly will however and she might also need to be the one that breaks whatever narrative this bad dream have.

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

Fidelia doesn't quite take the sudden shift as well as her companion, staggering a little as she looks around the room. She stares at the young girl with a brief flash of confused recognition before nodding, crouching down with Jaahlyn. "Should- should I be worried about which one's Jenette and which one's just the dream?" she whispers to her guide, moving towards the knife that she presumes is on her hip. Though it might not be thanks to the status of the dream.

[Recaiden]

Oh! Yes! That's great!
Just like touching the symbols earlier, Marin suddenly knows what'll work next.

She looks down at the platform again.
"Hey. Y'know how touching the symbols on the ground made us realize what they did? I suddenly know the rest of the symbols that'll bring us back."

"..."
"There is, of course, one problem:" she says. "I don't think my fingernails are strong enough to scratch them out, and the only other thing I have is a sonic screwdriver." It's in her bra, where it usually is.
And sonic screwdrivers are used to screw in things, not scratch out things.

"Great work!" What would she do without Marin here?
"Can make the symbols, if'n show me." Honeysuckle offers, inching closer to the catgirl.

"So if has instructions for getting back, that you discovered, probably only supposed to delay us - till whatever's going at the base over?" Or what if there's no HALO to get back to?

[5a Violista]

[Someplace Right]

Without Marin here, Honeysuckle would probably just take a look at all the eyes that were around and catch them all on fire.

The catgirl says 'yeah,' she can show her. "If everyone tried to evacuate at once, then it would get pretty dangerous here on this platform," Marin says. "We were fine because there were only the two of us, but, remember, the intercom said for everyone to evacuate." Maybe they didn't expect that most the people would go investigate. Or that two of the people would double-check the teleporters.

So, she describes the symbols and where they go, pointing in case that helps - but she presumes it doesn't help very much - "So this one, like this, it goes there, in front of you. About...yeah, that far." And the harder-to-describe symbols, she traces them out, on Honeysuckle's arm if she has to.



[A Certain Place]

There's a certain place they should go, several streets away, into an empty building past a ruined fountain, and through a secret passage - she shows the wolf the way.

A brand-new creature pads along a pathway, going this way and then into an empty building and so on.
The creature is a plant, shaped like a wolf. There's thorns in its mouth, its body is made of twisting branches and leaves. And the creature very much feels like it runs on fairy magic. It's not entirely sure why it's going this way, just that it wants to go this way and it was told the directions to go here.

It's also currently receiving a message through the plants that it passes, instructing it how to differentiate between its own thoughts and someone else's, by coding its thoughts and including markers and tags saying how the thoughts originated.

It enters the secret passageway.


Meanwhile,
a third plant-wolf, accompanied by a woman, is tailing the same pathway. Someone hijacked one of her toys! And she's curious about where this is going.

The woman is a succubus-dryad, with wings and a spade tail, and eyes the color of redcurrants (which match the redcurrant bush flowers/berries in her blonde hair. She also has fox ears, but those seem completely unrelated to her aesthetic.
...
She also has more tails, but they're not there when looked at.

[Recaiden]

[Someplace Right]

Catching everything around you on fire is almost never helpful.
"Doesn't make sense then, does it?" Fake explosions, fake messages leading into fake traps...
Honeysuckle follows along with Marin's instructions, trying to catch what she's pointing at, feeling the shapes drawn on her arm, and then using the controls on her visor to burn the marks into the platform. It's slow, but it's working. "Got it."

[A Certain Place - The County of Art]

The certain building used to be a museum. But almost all the exhibits are gone ,and the ones that aren't are broken. Lots of graffiti, no window panes left intact. A faint warm breeze runs through the halls no matter the weather outside.
Past the entrance to the secret passage, there stop being plants nearby. There are things kind of like plants, but they're not quite the same, and they don't use the same messages.
There's just the passageway leading down, under the city, towards the red zones, and faint blue luminescence from patches of, well, it's not quite moss, nor quite skin, nor quite any other normal living thing.

Along the pathway, watching from the corner of the room, there's someone else, well hidden. Normally they can't be seen or heard (or scented, tasted, or felt), but one might notice that the air flows around them, or detect them with heat-vision or some esoteric sense that only succubus-dyrads have. Then you might be aware of an alien-bug-person, holding a notepad and pencil in their hands as they watch patiently.

[5a Violista]

[Someplace Right]

During brief pauses, Marin looks back over it all, to make sure it was all good. Having it wrong would be pretty awful, probably. Gotta double-check your work, after all.

"So, why, then?" she asks. Between talking and double-checking and everything, she keeps on giving instructions on what comes next. "Seems too elaborate to just be a prank or a drill."

"Okay, so the next one looks like..."


[The County of Art]

The plant-wolf who went alone, once there are no longer any plants around, loses contact with the network, so it's just...alone. It keeps on trying to communicate, but it's pretty futile. It keeps on going.

Sadly, the succubus-dryad-??? is very much not accustomed to the limits of everything she can do, so even with the capability to detect the alien-bug-person, the succubus-dryad-foxears doesn't even consider using them. When she stops receiving signals from the lonely plant-wolf, she considers sending the one with her ahead, and make it plant things, but...figures it's too much effort, and there's little point in doing it anyway.

Rather than doing anything interesting that would warrant writing about, she just keeps on going.

[Lord Magtok]

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

Jaahlyn nods and crotches down behind the couch, gesturing for Fidelia to do the same thing as she hides the glowing bauble by pressing her tail against the couch. She seems to take all of this in stride, perhaps not even noticing the discrepancies within the dream. Fidelia certainly will however and she might also need to be the one that breaks whatever narrative this bad dream have.

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

Fidelia doesn't quite take the sudden shift as well as her companion, staggering a little as she looks around the room. She stares at the young girl with a brief flash of confused recognition before nodding, crouching down with Jaahlyn. "Should- should I be worried about which one's Jenette and which one's just the dream?" she whispers to her guide, moving towards the knife that she presumes is on her hip. Though it might not be thanks to the status of the dream.

The knife is still there, as is anything Fidelia may have taken with her the last time she was in Jenette's childhood home. Oh, and speaking of childhood, the little Lazarus runs out from behind the couch, brandishing her zweihander confidently as she darts out to the center of the room.

"Come on out now, you disgusting animal! I know you're out there, listening to everything we say!" the girl calls out into the darkness, answered only by the distant rattling of chains. "Your friends went to a lot of trouble to come here and watch me kill you, so crawl out of that filthy basement and don't keep them waiting!"

[Recaiden]

[Someplace Right]

Good thinking, Marin. If the symbols are incorrect, not only will it not get them out of here, it might do something completely wrong.
But it seems like her instructions are working.
"Maybe didn't go to plan. If everyone tries evacuate, comes here, base is empty except Magtok, yeah? Who'd want that?"

[The County of Art]

The plant-wolf keeps going. It encounters little different except the tunnel widening and more of the alien not-plants appearing as it continues.

The hidden bug person scurries ahead.

Elsewhere in the building, not on the path the wolf took, one might hear distant, heavy footfalls, floorboards creaking, and something slithering.

In following the lead plant-wolf, the dryad will come to a door that leads down into a maintenance stairwell.
But the door has been closed behind the plant-wolf, and there's a note stuck to it.

Hi! Did you make these plant-rovers? We like them. (Talk, we can hear you)

[5a Violista]

[The County of Art]

The lone plant-wolf can't remember why, exactly, it wanted to come here. Something about joining a family, it thinks.
And,
since it feels alone, it starts to think that maybe it should think for itself.
Should it keep on trying to communicate? Yes? There are definitely other things around here. It can tell that much. It just doesn't know how to communicate with them yet. So, obviously, it needs to keep on trying, because eventually it will learn. Just by itself, though, it's hard to learn. So maybe it should stop outputting so many scents and hormones and toxins and everything, and instead 'listen' to its surroundings.

And it keeps on walking, of course.

---

The dryad Redcurrant stops and looks at the door.
She frowns. This was definitely the direction.
She pulls off the note, and looks at it.

She turns back around and leans against the door, and the plant-wolf with her walks away a little - looking for a place with more light, to be more comfortable.
"Hi?" she responds. "Yes, I created them." She looks around, looking for the person that she's talking to. Her singular tail runs against the door. "They're just my first attempt at it. Hoping to test them and see how they can be improved."




[Someplace Right]

Definitely don't want anything to go wrong.
They might all be stuck here if it goes wrong.

"Oh!"

Marin has a realization.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"You're right!" Why didn't Marin think of this?

"There was a fake Magtok, right?" she says. "And then the real one showed up. Everything was set up to make everyone evacuate, disappear for a short while, and then come back." And it all makes perfect sense now! "What if this fake Magtok was going to use the confusion to swap places with the real one? Since everyone just saw him, they wouldn't question it. And then, just like that, this fake has taken the place of the most influential man in the Nexus. People would eventually notice, but that'd give enough time to do something."

It's really the only explanation for why all these things happened at once.

[Shadowcaller]

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

Fidelia doesn't quite take the sudden shift as well as her companion, staggering a little as she looks around the room. She stares at the young girl with a brief flash of confused recognition before nodding, crouching down with Jaahlyn. "Should- should I be worried about which one's Jenette and which one's just the dream?" she whispers to her guide, moving towards the knife that she presumes is on her hip. Though it might not be thanks to the status of the dream.

The knife is still there, as is anything Fidelia may have taken with her the last time she was in Jenette's childhood home. Oh, and speaking of childhood, the little Lazarus runs out from behind the couch, brandishing her zweihander confidently as she darts out to the center of the room.

"Come on out now, you disgusting animal! I know you're out there, listening to everything we say!" the girl calls out into the darkness, answered only by the distant rattling of chains. "Your friends went to a lot of trouble to come here and watch me kill you, so crawl out of that filthy basement and don't keep them waiting!"

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

"Everything is a dream here, lady Fidelia." Jaahlyn replies with a nod. "So treat everything the same, unless it feels different." Well, that was vague.
No time for further explanations though as mini-Laz rushes forward and Jaahlyn motions for Fidelia to follow. "You should be at her side."

[Recaiden]

[Someplace Right]

"Need to warn the real Magtok when back - if it's not too late."
But Honeysuckle doesn't rush with the symbols. If she messes one up they probably have to start all over.

"You can tell real from fake, right?"
Since they're the only ones who know the plot for sure, and they're stuck here for the moment, Marin's Magtok-expertise could be the only thing to foil the fake's plans!

[The County of Art]

The plant-wolf with Redcurrant can find some light back the way they came, by a window. Just mind a few bits of glass on the ground.

There's no one here. At least, no one who can be found just by looking around for them.

The bug-person, the stalker-class hive alien Ein, scampers about, keeping out of Redcurrant's way while scrawling out a response and hiding another paper just out of the dyrad's view, where it can be found a moment later.

We wanted to catch them and improve them too! Let's work together. Then we'll both have improved plant-rovers.

---

When the wolf stops outputting so much, the ground beneath its paws(?) seems to get steadier, helping it to walk.
There are plenty of strange pheromones that the living things here use to communicate, and other things too. Wavering electric field messages, and the occasional thought being shared directly. Just as a human and a plant-wolf think and communicate differently, so too are the strange glowing fronds and living ground different from a plant wolf. Never moving, never thinking, there's still a sense where they're considering: is the plant-wolf dying? Sneaking? Or does it belong here?

[Murkus]

[Telly's Bedroom Chamber]

"Mmm? Oh, just some... executives. Can't recall their names at this very moment. It's nothing you need to be concerned about though, just a tiny fraction of my grand plan!" Telly giggles and kicks her feet in the air as he carries her up the grandstaircase which leads into the large chamber which is where she sleeps. Even the bed is huge, fitting far more than just her. "I will save Skyside you know? Save it from itself."

[Telly's Chamber!]

"I believe you," Maiel says, and honestly, but he doesn't really care if Skyside is 'saved' one way or the other. Not quite tenderly, he adds, "Rest, now."

The old miner slowly lowers Tellysandra to her bed and, after one last look around, turns to go unless she says anything more to him directly.

[5a Violista]

[Someplace Right]

Rushing and starting all over would take longer than just getting it right the first time. So, in order to get back as fast as possible, they can't go too fast.

"Yup, I can," the catgirl claims. "And even if not, I could always just ask to verify things like where we first met or who was the person we both hooked up with, or something like that." Of course, she doesn't give the answer to those, in case whoever set up this whole teleport trap thing has a bug here, because it could be used to foil those questions.


[The County of Art]

The plant-wolf that's left above doesn't mind the glass. It just lies down in the sun.

The plant-wolf that went down is rather curious. Yeah, it can definitely tell that there's some communication. But it can't understand any of it! They're hardly anything it can recognize as speech. It presumes that if it goes far enough, it'll eventually get some clue about what's being said and how to understand them and use them to send and receive signals back.

---

The lady with fox ears, Redcurrant, finds the note.

She reads it.
Working with others to improve creations is not something new to her. In fact, stealing and improving the creations of others is something she's used to, too.
Her tails swish behind her.
"I'm interested," she says. "What do you need? What are your ideas?"

[Recaiden]

[Someplace Right]

"So, first thing get out, find Magtok, check if real." Honeysuckle confirms, glad to have a plan of some sort.
Whoever set the teleport trap up, they shouldn't interfere

[The County of Art]

A few moments later, there's another note.

We need a few of them to look at. And to know how you made them! Well, they only communicate through plants. And they're vulnerable to people pretending to be them, because they don't know themselves. And maybe they could have more legs?!

---

The plant walking down the secret passage, it starts to get some thoughts projected towards it, making it feel welcome here, nothing to worry about. And it gets the idea of a particular planty scent, something to respond with.

The plant in the sun just gets to relax in the sun.

[Rebonack]

[ICONQUEST]

So.

Jade's got the map. The one Zee gave her. With that, she should be able to find her way to the site Zee had described where she had been feeding. The place that has since become a shrine full of uncanny, otherworldly things. Because Zee is weird. That's just what happens when you get mixed up with all this Eternal Game nonsense. Weird things happen.

Plan is simple.

Meet at the City gate. Quick meet and greet. Head off toward the Shrine site. Crawl through the dungeon. Collect the Icon. Get someone cured.

Easy, right?

Right.

Jade will find the three Plum Sisters waiting.

Dandelion looks impatient, her arms crossed over her chest and one of her hooves tapping. Snapdragon is busy carrying on an animated conversation with a merchant at the gate selling colorful glass beads. Lambslaural is keeping an eye out for Jade and begins waving as soon as she spots her friend. All three of the siblings are dressed for adventure! Getting bronze armor fitted for their cervine lower bodies was a bit tricky but they managed to figure it out!

Hopefully Heather and Hector will show up pretty soon, too, then it'll be time to go!

[bc56]

Iconquest

Jade shows up pretty early. She's in her armor, except her helmet, letting her red hair hang free. Lambslaural should recognize the more streamlined, skintight armor that is her new metamorphic design. "Hey! You ready?" She waves and runs up to Lambslaural.

[Deathkeeper]

Iconquest

The other twins are pretty punctual despite the long trip here. Hector looks like he always does, since he’s just an illusion over a fox anyway. Heather is dressed in a cozy-looking gambeson with some leather pads across her chest and shoulder. More notably she seems to be carrying an absurdly thick longbow.
”Hi guys! What’s up?” Heather calls cheerily as the pair walk/bound over.

[5a Violista]

[Someplace Right]

"Yeah. That's what we'll do," the catgirl says.

She moves on to the next symbol. And the next. And so on.



[The County of Art]

"I've only made four so far," Redcurrant says. It's a little annoying speaking to someone you can't see, she thinks. "But, yes, I could make more. Not a lot at a time."

She thinks about the suggestions. "I feel those are limitations they have to learn to overcome on their own," she says. "It's their job to learn how to communicate better, either by discovering it themselves or finding someone else to learn from. And if they want to know themselves, it's their own job."
Redcurrant is a very hands-off creator. If they learn and adapt, great. If they die because they had a fatal flaw, that's how the world works.

And, of course, 'more legs'. She takes a deep breath before answering. "The problem with 'more legs' is that, as plants, each of their legs grow at different rates depending on how much shade it gets, and their joints don't give enough range of motion to allow six different-length legs. With only four, they can adjust but with six, two would get in the way." She considers it more. "If they had six limbs, where two of them were specialized to be something other than legs, then it could work out." However, as before, she won't change them herself. "But things that solely depend on their creator to survive and adapt hardly deserve to exist." This does not contradict her idea that love brings the strong and weak together to strengthen the weak, because she says so.

---

The wandering plantwolf receives the thoughts, and, more importantly, the plant scents. Definitely more familiar. Its receptors recognize their shape.

It creates more of a similar scent, to see if that causes some sort of feedback loop or that it can modulate that scent.

[Rebonack]

[Iconquest]

Lambslaural is doing her best not to hunch in on herself.

Good posture, remember?

It helps quite a bit!

"Oh, um, hello Jade! I'm glad you made it! N-not that I was doubting that you were coming or anything," Lambslaural replies a bit hesitantly, as she oft does. "I'm ready! We did some, um, practice adventuring to make sure we're all still ready. It... um... it went okay."

It went great but LL is too modest.

"How's it hanging, little dude?" Dandelion calls out to Hector. Aside from her hoplite style armor she's also carrying a long spear with a heavy, lead head. Weird. "Ready to kick some butt?"

"Geared up and ready to go!" Snap says, bouncing over to the others now with addition of several strings of colorful glass beads around her neck because why not? "Everyone ready? Which way are we heading?"

All eyes turn toward Jade. She's got the map after all.

[Recaiden]

[Someplace Right]

It should be obvious to Marin when the last symbol is done, as they all light up, and rings of projected symbols will the air around the platform.
In just a moment, the two should be returned to HALO, right where they left.

[The County of Art]

The invisible writer is offended by this hands-off attitude. The next note practically flies into the dryad's face.

You made them. If they can't survive, you didn't make them good enough.

There's a second note, less hastily scrawled.

If they learned to regulate how much shade they were in. That would help all their legs be coordinated to each other. And let them have more. But you are correct. They don't need to be Legs for walking on. Could be climbing vines, or flytrap mouths, or whips or - do they like the waters?

---

The plant scent comes again, but faintly, just as a confirmation.
It's followed up with thoughts, questions, wonderings about what the plant-wolf wills and intends to do.

[bc56]

Iconquest

"Right." Jade taps her wrist and pulls up a holographic map of the destination. Where's the original crayon placemat map, you ask? Jade used it to figure out where to get this much more accurate satellite map of the area. "Neon geysers're here, so we go north of there to here, and there should be a pass through the mountains and into the valley here. From there, the terrain's going to get a lot more hazardous, and I don't know where our actual destination is, but we need to reach one of the shrines in the valley. Without being certain, I think likely locations might be here, here, and here, and there are purportedly dozens scattered throughout, so it shouldn't be too hard to find one. Questions?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Iconquest]

Hector waves cheerily. Heather grins and picks him up, depositing him onto her back. It looks as silly with his illusory self as it always does. Properly mounted the pair can approach their friends much more quickly!
"Uh yeah, all set. We've been practicing, you know?" It's sort of weird that Hector isn't really geared up. But he's a pokemon. Armor is basically redundant.
"It's really too bad that we can't grab more than one. But it sounds like it's out of our league to do more than one raid at a time." muses Heather at Jade's explanation.

[Arkhosia]

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

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The knife is still there, as is anything Fidelia may have taken with her the last time she was in Jenette's childhood home. Oh, and speaking of childhood, the little Lazarus runs out from behind the couch, brandishing her zweihander confidently as she darts out to the center of the room.

"Come on out now, you disgusting animal! I know you're out there, listening to everything we say!" the girl calls out into the darkness, answered only by the distant rattling of chains. "Your friends went to a lot of trouble to come here and watch me kill you, so crawl out of that filthy basement and don't keep them waiting!"

Avenue of Unpleasant Dreams

"Everything is a dream here, lady Fidelia." Jaahlyn replies with a nod. "So treat everything the same, unless it feels different." Well, that was vague.
No time for further explanations though as mini-Laz rushes forward and Jaahlyn motions for Fidelia to follow. "You should be at her side."

Fidelia follows Jaahlyn's guidance without comment or protest, moving to back Bab!Jenette up and make sure she doesn't get surprised from behind. Her knife isn't drawn quite yet - she wouldn't want her intentions to be mistaken - but she's ready to do so at a moment's notice. "Careful, you'll make mistakes if you get yourself riled up," she cautions, staring into the darkness around the room with a steely gaze.

[Rebonack]

[ICONQUEST]

Oh no Jade is using INTERNET THINGS to get more relevant and specific information!

More people need to do that, really. Too bad that most of the extremely esoteric information is all locked away in spooky libraries rather than existing in searchable databases.

"Neon geysers? That sounds pretty wild. Hope you've got a camera built into that suit, Jade because we should get some pictures of this stuff," Snapdragon says as she sets off through the gate.

"Umm... I guess we could try to collect more than one? We don't know how difficult getting to them will be, though. We might be too tired," Lambslaural says. They wouldn't want Hector to run out of PP of course. Unless of course Heather had the foresight to bring some elixirs with her.

And so our heroes set off!

Ten minutes of walking and the City has all but faded from behind them, smoothly transitioning to the rolling hills surrounding Mount Improbable. It is, of course, a huge mountain floating upside down in the sky, bound to the earth by chains of incomprehensible size. Given the way that the laws of probability are out of wack on its slopes most people tend to steer clear since they don't want to suffer extremely improbable fates like suddenly being a sofa.

"Okay, so, plan time. I think the idea was that we would be getting the first Icon?" Snapdragon says, cantering backwards to face the others. "We'll Voltron up and... touch it? Or whatever it is we have to do. POOF! Fae stuff gone. Who wants to be round two if we DO manage to get more than one of these things?"

[bc56]

Iconquest

Jade looks at Heather pointedly. This is pretty important. "I think, no offense, it should be me. Having one less predatory fae out there will be good, and I want to stop fighting those urges as soon as I can." She may look like a human, but she is decidedly not. She'd like to get back to being human though. "We don't know how dangerous the terrain will be or how well defended the shrines are, so we should only expect to get one on this trip."