Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[Deathkeeper]

Follow Your Nose

"I mean it would be hard to convince anyone that a short, skinny human was actually their tall'n'fat wolf neighbor the whole time. And no, I haven't a clue where the guy's actual body is. I just know that he's dead, and I am physically exactly like him before he died to the most exact detail." Codebreaker leans back, floating in the water facing the ceiling.
"I mean it's all very inconvenient but so far pretty worth it. Have you seen this place? And it's not like I can't see my real family anymore. It's not like I died or gone made a fairy or something." All distinct possibilities when you live in Inside.

[Ironsmith]

Shrine

"Rock salt is at least a theoretically naturally-occurring crystal! But uh, well I guess you can just tell us what your preferred crystals are, Boss."
Unless talking would drain a that much.

Shrine

Red and blue light briefly flickers around the candy. This compound is not useful for Me-us in its present state. a replies.

[Shrine]

Arthfael gives off an exasperated sigh. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. Why would it? "All right, fine. I guess I'm fetching you some salt or something." He grumbles. "I don't suppose you've got any outside the house proper? Like, road salt in the garage or something?" He really didn't want to go in there if it could be helped. Not so much because it was dangerous so much as because it was annoying. His sisters weren't fun to be around on a blood moon.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker shakes his head.
”Dude. You don’t have to go out there if you don’t want to. The boss isn’t going to die if they wait a few hours for the shops to open. Sit down, stay a while.” there’s only a little folding chair in the corner but still.
”Why are you fine when your sisters aren’t, anyway?”

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

Arthfael shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe it's an age thing? Siana only started feeling the effects last month, and she has a couple years on me." He taps his chin in thought. "Or maybe it's a lady thing? I don't think uncle Kyrie has ever had to worry about it, but then, he's much older than any of the three of us, and Owena says it gets easier to control with age, so maybe he is and it just doesn't make a difference?" And he would've been at that age before he became a strigoi anyway, so he might have just skipped over it. "Well, in either case, I'm not old enough and I'm not a lady, so... yeah. Count your blessings, I guess; at least there's one Ty-Maldwyn here who isn't going to try to drain your veins."

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

CB graciously decides not to make the inappropriate joke that springs to mind from this description.
"So...you nocturnal or should I expect to get some sleep at some point?" You might think that he wouldn't be able to sleep at all in this simple wooden structure.
But necessity has long taught Allen how to sleep on the floor. Not that it taught him how to wake up comfortably afterwards.

[Morty]

[First Date Night]

Olvisin grins. Chidi's excitement is adorable, coming from someone normally so smooth and composed.

"Lady? That's a first. But by all means, let's take the scenic route. It sounds charming. I haven't exactly done much stargazing, coming from where I do."

[Ironsmith]

Shrine

CB graciously decides not to make the inappropriate joke that springs to mind from this description.
"So...you nocturnal or should I expect to get some sleep at some point?" You might think that he wouldn't be able to sleep at all in this simple wooden structure.
But necessity has long taught Allen how to sleep on the floor. Not that it taught him how to wake up comfortably afterwards.

[Shrine]

"Both." Arthfael replies with a shrug. "I'm not hungry, and even if I were, you're about as appetizing as a set of month-old gym socks. You don't have to worry about getting got, at least not where I'm concerned." He holds up his pen and paper. "On a more mundane level, I tend to be pretty quiet anyway. I won't keep you up."

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker chuckles.
”See? And people think everyone wants to be immortal pretty teenagers. There’s an advantage to looking like this after all.”
He pulls off his shirt to ball up and use as a pillow. And also because it will probably make Arthfael a little uncomfortable and he wants to get a little laugh at that. He’s had a long night.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

Arthfael is, indeed, rather uncomfortable at the sight of the shirtless wolfen. Not only is his build rather... unflattering, Arthfael had also only seen one other wolf-man this way, and that was his uncle. His twisty-spined, horribly-mutated uncle. When it becomes apparent what Codebreaker is doing, Arthfael quickly averts his gaze and sets to work on his pad, trying to ignore Codebreaker for the sake of his poor eyes.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker does indeed get a small chuckle out of Arthfael's discomfort.
He lays there for a while, staring up at the ceiling.
"Oh right. I promised Kyrie that if he wanted to give it a try my patron could maybe take a look since medicine isn't working.
Hey Boss, if I brought them here would you be able to help someone whose geometry is faulty?" he asks.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Mm. Not sure how you managed to talk him into that." Arthfael mumbles, drawing on his sketchpad. "My uncle's kind of the religious type. Really devoted to this 'Absum' character. I doubt he'd be willing to accept patronage from anyone else." His hand moves with a certain practiced grace as he draws. "Your best shot would be to convince him a isn't a god, but you'd have a time of that with this shrine, I think."

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

"That does look cool." Mishnehel waves her own arm and builds a pillar of her own. It resembles a series of bubbles, all rising out of the ground, with an oily rainbow colouration on the surface. They aren't quite translucent, it looks as though it should be possible to see through them but it's not actually possible. "I don't know anyone. Well, I know a lot of people. But I don't know anyone like us, so I don't think I can help." Mishnehel thinks a moment. "How do I get my gun out? Like my sword, or different?"

[bc56]

Shrine

"I-We are capable of such action once I-We have recovered energy-potentiality, as I-We altered your Geometries." a replies to Codebreaker.

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

"Yeah! We can make a castle that could be fun!" Sappeerel replies with a headbob. She jogs a little further away and begins digging her sword into the sand, slowly creating a furrow as she stocks up on raw materials. "It sounds like we might have two more people who could join if we both invite one, Selekhael. Do you want to do that?"

It's a plan, at least.

Right?

If Eao and Arukhael both agree to join them then they'll have five players!

And that's just perfect.

Should our heroes decide to start digging with the goal of making a castle (just don't build a fort or there might be legal trouble) something rather interesting will be discovered.

Mishnehel will dig up a relic fragment! Just a tiny little one. Not enough to do a great deal with, but it does go toward helping to fill up her reliquary.

"You can get stuff JUST FOR DIGGING!?" Sappeerel gasps at the sight of it.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"Well, gods generally don't need crystals to recharge their strength. The boss is just a good guy. I might have forgotten to make that distinction to your uncle. But you're free to tell him that the offer stands in the morning as a show of good faith. I'd rather him not start a crusade for my head and maybe the favor will help if the girls can't calm him down on their own."
He does his best to not address a's comment because he doesn't want to explain what they did to him in front of Arthfael.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

Arthfael nods slowly, a look of comprehension dawning on his face. Then he frounds, realizing something a said didn't quite line up. "Altering your geometry" could just mean teleporting him, maybe, but it was a stretch. "Hold up. What exactly do you mean by that, red-and-blue dude?"

[bc56]

Team Quest

Selekhael digs up another cube with her sword and then connects the two pillars into a wall. "I, uh, guess I can call Arukael if you call Eao?" She thinks about Arukael. How does she send him a message?
She might manage it by accident though.

[Purple Eagle]

[First Date Night]

Olvisin grins. Chidi's excitement is adorable, coming from someone normally so smooth and composed.

"Lady? That's a first. But by all means, let's take the scenic route. It sounds charming. I haven't exactly done much stargazing, coming from where I do."

[First Date Night]

"You'll love this, then." Chidi grins back, and excitedly leads her back to the car! He first helps open the door for her side, then walks over to his side and gets in, flashing one last grin in the direction of the greeter outside. If Olvisin looks outside, she might see the greeter smiling back and shooting a thumbs-up.

"We're off, then. I hope you're having fun." He grins at her, gazing into her eyes a little.

[Morty]

[First Date Night]

Olvisin looks back into Chidi's eyes with a mischievous expression. Her ears perk up.

"Oh, I am. It's been a long time since anyone pulled all the stops for me like this. I appreciate it."

[Earl of Purple]

Team Quest

"Apparently so. Cool, I've not found one of these before." She feels a bit more full, now she has it. That's quite handy. She'll keep digging, and building. She's trying to find out what she can do with building, adding bubbly walls and pillars and occasionally Drifting onto a wall or pillar to add more height. "Hey, it this all goes well, want to figure out how to send messages with each other? So if we do another of these things we can get each other involved, I mean." But maybe afterwards Mishnehel will ask one of the others how to access the tutorial so she can give that a go.

[Rebonack]

[Team Quest]

"You can get them for lots of different things but I didn't know that digging was one of those things," Sappeerel says, now eyeing the ground curiously. Could she scan for them? Go treasure hunting? Or is it like defeating things and it just appears sometimes? This is a question that deserves further investigation.

"And yeah! I'll try?" she says and...

Tries?

Let's see.

Team quest.

Join? She already did that. Oh! Invite! Yeah! That's what she wants! A ping will be sent off to her sister Eao which should manifest as a new quest lighting up in her log. Join your sister! Defeat some pirates! Make some new friends!

While she waits Lapis tries sticking a few slabs of silvery glowing metal just kind of... floating in mid air. The resulting structure is casually ignorant of gravity.

"Oh neat they don't have to be touching anything!" she observes. "This is probably good for making stuff to climb on!"

She begins assembling the slabs in a slow rising spiral to build stairs upwards.

[bc56]

Team Quest

There's a fourth pop as yet another Aspirant appears on the island, followed by an immediate call of "Lancer or feed!"

Batsael
Spheres: Matter, Shape, Information (Upgrades: Tracker, Sniper's Mark), Will (Upgrades: Directed Fire 2, Unshaking Conviction)
Class: Lancer
Primary: Diamond Apex (Upgrades: Increased Penetration 2, Increased Firerate 1, Explosive Rounds, Silencer)
Secondary: Nerve Scrambler (Upgrades: Lesser Control, Increased Range 1)
Melee: Perfected Machine Sword

She looks like a young half-drow girl, but with a human skin tone and bright white hair. "Hi sis. Who're these floofers?"

At the same time, Selekhael's finally figured out how invites work, so she sends one to Arukael.

Shrine
"Alteration of Geometries." a unhelpfully elaborates. It seems incapable of thinking about it in terms mortals would understand. It's such a simple concept it's hard to make it non self-explanatory.

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

"The boss has done some magic to help me out in the past. Don't worry about it." Codebreaker tries to wave Arthfael off. He clearly doesn't think this is that big a deal.
Well he does but he's at least a decent liar.

[Ironsmith]

Shrine
"Alteration of Geometries." a unhelpfully elaborates. It seems incapable of thinking about it in terms mortals would understand. It's such a simple concept it's hard to make it non self-explanatory.

Shrine

"The boss has done some magic to help me out in the past. Don't worry about it." Codebreaker tries to wave Arthfael off. He clearly doesn't think this is that big a deal.
Well he does but he's at least a decent liar.

[Shrine]

Unfortunately, Arthfael is smart enough to put two and two together. "He... she? They. They're talking about your geometries, aren't they, mister Codebreaker?" Arthfael smirks. "What was it, some kind of rapid weight gain thing?"

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker stands up properly so he can fold his arms across his chest. Ah, so Arthfael is looking at him now, huh?
"Arthfael. What advantage could I possibly gain by asking a higher-plane being to make me fat? Aside from being less appetizing to vampires, I guess. But clearly that doesn't work that well anyway." He actually has no idea what the younger strigoi would find appetizing when there isn't a blood moon around to make them want anything.
"And I say They and they haven't corrected me yet." he adds.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"Well, obviously I was being facetious." Arthfael snarks. "That would have to be, like, the second stupidest way you could choose to have your 'geometry' altered. Unless maybe you were really fat before and this constitutes an improvement." He doubted that was it, though. "Come on. What happened, exactly?"

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

CB looks down at himself.
”I think much bigger would kill me, to be honest. What would the stupidest thing be? Just going full slime or something?”
He shakes his head.
”What happened is our business. It was just a little something to make me a better agent for Them.”

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

"All right then, keep your secrets." Arthfael shrugs. "But I'm warning you now, if there are any drawbacks to what you're suggesting doing to my uncle, especially predictable drawbacks that you didn't bother to tell him about, he's going to be pissed. And likely on a much more permanent basis. Just some food for thought."

[Deathkeeper]

Shrine

Codebreaker shakes his head.
”I already told him the only one there is. I’m only the Boss’ second priest. And my predecessor got himself killed pretty young. It’s hard to phrase things in a way they totally understand, which is one reason I would never suggest asking Them to cure you of the blood thing. They could do it but it would be brute force.” that is to say it would probably just be to give them the treatment he got and become an exact copy of someone else with your mind slotted in.

[Ironsmith]

[Shrine]

Arthfael shrugs. "If you're certain, you've got nothing to worry about." He sets his pad down, and Codebreaker will be able to see that he's drawn an octogram; an eight-pointed star with all the endpoints connected to each other, contained inside a runed circle. It's a simple pattern in theory, but appears quite intricate from a distance.

"At any rate, it'll be a hot minute before anything will come of the offer. I'd suggest going to sleep now; I'll wake you if an angry werewolf comes knocking."