Trog's Tavern CLV

[Ironsmith]

Instead of answering Arkant, Arthfael dives behind the bar and hides there, coming up next to Magtok and oh hey Gabrielle is here, that's nice. He grimaces and puts his fingers to his temples, mumbling to himself. "Get out of my head, get out of my head, getouttamyhead, getouttamyhe-"

Then Prime's compulsion goes off.

Arthfael obeys, kneeling to this mechanical abomination, the cries for Arkant and now Prime to get out of his head intensifying, the psyhcic strain forcing him to tears. Lords, this was a bad day to visit Trog's.


On the other end of things, Miranda feels Prime's power wash over her, something she clearly recognized as mind-affecting. She feels the compulsion to kneel and recalls her anti-interrogation training. She'd experienced this before; a sort of targeted form of OCD which would turn her brain against her and compel her to act a certain way. Terahns found it extremely useful for gathering information from uncooperative enemy agents, like herself. But she knew too much to have secrets peeled from her so easily, and wielded too much internal power to let herself be compromised.

So this bug that called himself a god? He could go de-screw himself.

That aside, Miranda refuses to be demoralized by Prime's response. Sure, he didn't seem put off by their attempts at injuring him. But they were injuring him; her bullet she'd expected to do nothing had taken off a whole section of leg (implying the others would come off just as easily), and this mysterious swordsman had shown not only that his fleshy bits could be injured, but that he apparently had a functioning circulatory system, as well. As far as she could tell, ordinary steel and plastic were sufficient to make this god bleed.

She circles around behind Prime and prints off a few gas canisters on her Hotbox, deciding to have them ready early in case he gets the bright idea to try his disassembly trick on her second-best asset. While she's behind him and out of view, she decides to test his tactile senses and shoots at his back; if he didn't respond to that, she'd conclude he couldn't feel it and therefore had an exploitable blind spot.

[bc56]

Selekhael is just a normal waitress and the machine guy isn't paying attention to her. That's exactly what she wants. But then he starts talking and she feels the need to kneel. Her face becomes a grimace, a snarl, as she struggles to resist. But emotion manipulation is her specialty she steps up next to the millipede man's armored, many-legged abdomen and loudly says "Whoops!" as she pours her mug of beer out onto it.
Just what was she hoping to accomplish here? She's not really sure. It's all happening in the moment with little opportunity to think things through. But at least she has more of an idea than just "get this guy all sticky where it's hard for him to reach."
Growth.
Time.
Entropy.
Id.
Like a time-lapse film, mold blossoms from the spilled beer. This isn't normal mold though. It's been infused with eldritch power. It feeds not just by consuming organic matter, but by decaying any matter at all. And thanks to an infusion of emotion, it hungers.
Selekhael may have accidentally created a ravenous mold monster. But it's probably less of a threat than the weird cyborg self-proclaimed god that it's currently on top of.

[5a Violista]

Ear muffs would be really convenient to the slimegirl!
/If she actually used her ears to hear.
Her whole body hears.

In spite of that, she still tries to grab some ear muffs.
It's really hard for her to grip onto anything, because the harder or longer she squeezes, the less strength she has to actually hold it.
The slimegirl manages to get one to fall out of the box, and then just lies her head inside it and pretends that she's not here.



June decides she'll probably have to finish this conversation with Zee later.

Pretty much the first thing June encountered when she came to the Nexus was essentially mind control.
And the second thing.
And the third thing.
And the fourth thing.
Just the idea that someone else could just feel like making her do whatever and she'd have no choice terrified her so much that she's spent pretty much the whole past year trying to find ways to get around mind control.
She has...
...made a little progress. Memory manipulation, she has a way to spot the false memories, with enough time. If something's trying to control her, she knows people who, with enough time, are willing to snap her out of it. When she's distracted enough, her 'sister' can take over some of her thinking for her. If it's sufficiently weak mind control, then it gets subsumed by the vampire's voice that's already talking in her head telling her to treat it like a mother. And, thanks to her probably-very-useful ability to easily get sensory overload, she's been getting training of a martial art to block out external influences.
. . .
She's still not very good at it.
Besides, kneeling before someone who is just pretending to be her god is a really awful thing to do.

June struggles to not obey, it cranks her headache up to 'ohmygosh i feel like my brain's going to explode if i don't get out of here' levels, and she decides just for a moment to let someone she already completely trusts to control her a little because it's better than letting a false god control her...
Just as June's halfway to kneeling down, her teeth dig in to her lip so hard that it's all bleeding.
Ow.
The intense pain lets her focus on something else for now, and she changes her breathing to help her channel qi a bit better and block out some of the influence.
Okay. That's good enough.
She wipes some blood from her chin, and starts crouch-walking around the bar counter, to get to the one-legged Magtok.
"Put your arm around me," she whispers, getting next to Magtok. She tries to put an arm around him, too, and start crouch-walking (to keep cover behind the counter for as long as possible) towards the kitchen. "There's a door to the alley that way."

[Rebonack]

Magtok Prime.

Okay Zee figured it was probably something like that.

Though she's still curious about whether this guy is original Town Magtok or AMEN Magtok. Hadn't the second one been stabbed to death by cheese or something like that? Zee isn't totally sure. But there's probably a way that she could find out, maybe? Hmm... While she's pondering her next course of action many important things happen.

Like things with swords and things with gas canisters. Someone finds some ear muffs and someone doesn't think she should be hearing things. A bird gal talks with a wolf guy but Zee is pretty sure that happened... days ago? Weeks? Keeping track of the relative time of everything that happens in the tavern is always a pain but usually she does pretty good!

June doesn't seem like she's feeling great but she's still able to help sneak Magtok out the back.

That's probably good. And June is really good at crouch walking and as everyone knows that makes it really hard to notice a person so she'll probably be fine.

Then Selekhael spills some beer on Magtok. And invokes her Path. And then an awful arcane mold monster happens. That's pretty cool. The tavern hasn't had any mushroom things happen in it for a while. It might be kind of a pain to clean up, though. Sort of like that acid blood eating away at the hardwood floor. And she had JUST gotten the floors varnished, too. Ah well. Such is life at Trog's.

An infinite kaleidoscope of possibilities unfolds before Yezekiel as she considers her best, most Correct course of action. How could she help disarm the threat of Magtok Prime while making clear her contempt for this creature trying to bend her Will to his own? Does the mountain bow to the howling wind? As if. Ah! Yes. That's perfect. Zee stoops down behind the counter, opens up a little mini-fridge, and pulls out a wedge of finely aged mimolette. An absolutely delectable cheese with the fun distinction of having cheese mites contribute to its unique flavor and texture.

Matter
Shape
Information

She then pops back up from behind the counter and tosses the wedge of cheese at Millitok with unerring accuracy! Should it splat against the cyborg the cheese will begin melting and growing and getting into every single little nook and cranny, gumming up joints, fouling hydraulics, and seeping into arteries. Because eating that much cheese in one sitting is bad for you. The cheese mites, meanwhile, are growing quite a bit bigger than mites have any business being and whether the cheese projectile hits or misses, they'll begin swarming the cyborg due to their mistaken impression that he smells strong of their favorite cheese.

"Hey Magtok!" Zee shouts from behind the counter. "You know attacking a guy at Trog's paints you as a two-bit villain of the week, right? This definitely isn't the way to do a dramatic villainous return. But hey hopefully death by cheese is suitably AMENy for your tastes?"

[Zefir]

Magtok Prime. Has picked a bad time to get into Trog's and make his mental attack. It seems most people are at least able to withstand it. Arkant is no exception. After all he is specialized in mind controlling and mind reading, so he has counter measures prepared all time. Poor boy, he thinks, he just had to be here.

In the boys mind he says. "Stop the chanting. That won't do any good. Have I done anything else other then talking kid? This guy is far worst then me as you see. If you want I can help you out."


The real Arkant stands up and turns to Magtok prime.
"Excuse me, but can you PLEASE shut up?" as he sais that he waves with his hands, throwing a spell at him. The spell should silence him, creating a magical mask over his mouth to represent this. He might tear the mask apart to speak freely again. " Some people here try to have a decent conversation and your action isn't doing you any good."

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok Prime scowls, looking around the room with his sightless orbs, sniffing at the air confusedly. The air should be rich with the scent of fresh sacrifices. Even if the stronger patrons had the willpower to resist, the weak, guileless masses around them should still be empowering him with their blood and cardiac tissue. Something is amiss here, something is muffling his divine will. Something like...ah, yes, of course, the barmaid. Zee, as his worthless bastard child's files would indicate. Embarrassingly little information in those files on her, but of course that comes as no great surprise. The lesser Magtok entity is nothing but disappointments. It's why we needed to come here and disinfect our legacy in the first place.

"Hey Magtok! You know attacking a guy at Trog's paints you as a two-bit villain of the week, right? This definitely isn't the way to do a dramatic villainous return."

"I thought it would be nostalgic," he answers, thinking back to Regiji as he licks some boiling blood from the corner of his mouth, ignoring the way it burns his own tongue. Jeez, this thing just doesn't register any kind of pain at all, does it? The beer, cheese, stabbing, and bullets all seem to go without any sort of reaction from that withered old bastard, aside from the rapidly increasing leaks of that acidic blood-like substance all over the floor. His return volley of attacks does seem to lessen in intensity, however. He twists and contorts, reaching up to cling to the ceiling of the tavern, to shake off whatever mites, bits of cheese, impaling swords, or mold fail to resist the pull of gravity. This likely cuts down on the number of assailants capable of striking anything but his armored exoskeleton, but it also keeps all his many limbs focused on hanging up there, instead of something more destructive, like tearing that swordsman's flesh apart.

"But if you're so dissatisfied, we can move onto the next phase. Is there a major landmark you're not fond of? A city of sin and vice you'd appreciate me swarming? After I relocate to my other shell, perhaps I may wear your husband's skin as a cape? Drow do come in such a lovely array of gray and violet hues," Magtok Prime taunts, his voice carrying with it a horrific tactile hallucination for all engaging him in battle (as well as June and the other Mag), one of ghastly torment visited upon their skin by a surgical tool as cold and precise as it is without mercy. As awful as this is, it probably won't permanently take anyone out of the fight, but it may just give Prime the time and space needed to plot out his next move. He can see the lesser cyborg trying to slip away with June, after all. There's too many people between himself and his prey, but if he can just find a weak spot, terminate one of the weaker combatants so gruesomely that the rest are too aghast in horror to fight...yes, yes, that's what we'll do. The swordsman is just about perfect for our next strike, isn't he? He will do nicely.


Meanwhile, the smaller Magtok does a much better job shaking off this mental attack, since there's no forced compulsion accompanying it. He's faced worse torture before, had things like that actually done to him, instead of his skin just imagining it happening. It's just pain, after all, and pain isn't so intimidating after the first hundred or so violent deaths. It still bothers Mag, of course, but the only way to get away from the hallucination is to keep running, so that's what he does, hoping June proves just as mentally sturdy. If not, hell, he can always just crawl his way out of here, right? They have to be coming up on the outer limits of Prime's psychic range, surely, since he (probably?) can't even see them right now. Just have to keep moving and pray the tavern-goers keep doing the adventurey hero thing. They won't be enough to solve this problem, not for good, but we can't worry about that right now. We can figure out how we're going to stay alive in the long term after we've resolved the matter in the short term.

[Vahnavoi]

At first, the swordsman thinks he has gone mad, with the sudden appearance of cheese and all-devouring mold on his opponent. Did resisting the psychic compulsion confuse his senses?

But no, those things were genuine. His senses are fine, it's reality itself that's going out to lunch. But it's not his enemy's doing, which is... odd. Who in this place is doing all this?

The swordsman's confusion slows down his motions and he misses the opportunity to punish his opponent more as the cybernetic millipede jumps to the ceiling, dislodging his sword from his body. The swordsman leaps to the side to avoid too much of the acidic blood raining on him, but it's sort of a lost cause - his blade and right arm are drenched with the substance, it's eaten away half of his shirt and steam is rising from his skin where the acid covers it.

Then comes the next psychic onslaught. Okay, now he's hallucinating, the swordsman notes to himself. But through the hallucination of blades cutting through his skin, another sensation comes to him clear like a flash of lightning against a night sky: a warning of ill intent, a premonition of a coming attack. His eyes whip up towards the face of the millipede. "Bring it!", he snarls, assuming a defensive stance. "Path of Destruction: White Lightning" Smell of ozone fills the air as an electric arc alights between the tips of his weapons. When the millipede attacks, he's going to turn his countering stab into a thunderbolt. But what will the malicious cyborg do?

[Ironsmith]

If Arkant was expecting a coherent response from Arthfael, he was going to be disappointed. The boy's mind is in a state of absolute chaos; he's had no experience dealing with psychics before, and Prime's influence was probably the worst possible learning experince. Something like trying to learn to swim by being dropped into the middle of the ocean. Arthfael's thoughts aren't even made up of proper words anymore; just formless, non-stop terror and pain. He's curled up in a ball behind the bar, shaking uncontrollably, and- oh god, what was happening to his skin?! He screams at the sensation, which is far more than he can handle.


Miranda fares a little better. While she, personally, wasn't going to be badly affected by the hallucination, especially since she'd specifically trained to resist that particular form of torture, the other patrons were another story. Hearing the screams of the other people in the bar, and knowing exactly what they were going through, brought back memories. Bad, bad memories. Prime was making her relive the experience of witnessing one her partners be skinned alive by some Terahn sadist, only scaled a hundred times over.

He really shouldn't have done that.

Miranda sheathes her pistol and decides to go for a more direct approach. Prime seemed to need to speak to make these mind games happen; she needed to disable that. With that in mind, she shrugs off her jacket and puts a pair of gas canisters in it; one containing helium, the other a nerve agent. Getting a running start, she jumps onto the millipede monster's back and throws her jacket over his face, using the sleeves to hold it securely there. This will cause the canisters to rupture, filling the small area between Prime's head and her jacket with the makeshift cocktail of a non-reactive gas he wouldn't really be able to breathe and a chemical substance designed to knock out a small room's worth of enemy agents, concentrated entirely on him. That should do something, if it works.

[bc56]

Oh, ugh.
That knife on Selekhael's skin feels so gross! She does what any normal waitress might do in response: she unfolds out of her skin. In an indescribable motion, the barmaid becomes a celestial being, something like a powerful lioness, like a tawny eagle, like a ridged brain coral, like a ring spinning through the air. Something like a talon and like a paw crashes into the cyborg from behind as a second paw draws a flaming khopesh out of thin air. Over time, her appearance will stabilize, but for now, Selekhael is an incomprehensible tangle of parts and concepts.

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[Fenric]

A once familiar figure in a navy blue robe quietly comes up to the bar and glances over the menu to see if anything familiar might still be offered.

[5a Violista]

Unlike some of the other people in this tavern, June can't just unfold her skin (because that's weird) or think back on all the times she got tortured (because it has never happened before) or anything else like that.

Luckily!
This might be one of the situations where her 'probably-very-useful ability to easily get sensory overload' comes in handy.
Probably.
Actually, all it does is distract her from channeling qi, which makes it harder to block out the sensory information, which just makes every little thing super-sensitive: the touch of her clothes on her skin, the sound of everything, the shape of the notebook on the other side of the room, the way that that npc over there is feeling, the feel of blood running down her neck and how it makes her shirt damp, the way her heart is beating faster, the screams of other patrons, the ghosts and spirits, the brightness of the lights...everything.

Possibly to the lesser Magtok's horror and the Prime Magtok's pleasure, it causes her to freeze because there is way too much going on and she can feel pretty much all of it. There's so much going on that it even feels like time's going slower, to June, as her brain has no way of processing it all at once.

After what feels like several eternities (but in reality was only five or maybe ten seconds), that mental connection from earlier (that let her bite her lip) kicks in.

Once again, she starts moving forward again, though quite a bit slower. They're almost there, though! So close. The adventures just need to buy more time so they can get to the kitchen and then the door to the alley! Probably.
For the delay, June apologizes: "Sorry about that. Do these types of things always happen because I'm around, or am I just the worst at scheduling?" she asks, trying to ground herself in reality, and not really wanting an answer.

[Fenric]

Oh... did I manage to come back on bar-fight day? My calendar just isn't up to date anymore, I'm afraid.

[Purple Eagle]

Jade and Mirai
High five!
Jade's shoes are strappy high-heeled sandals. "I just feel short without them, you know?" She considers the suggestion. "That's a good idea, but I might already have too many shoes." Is there such a thing as too many shoes? Is there? She shrugs at Mirai's talk about voices. "I've never had to deal with that. I always talked masculine until I was suddenly a woman."

[Jade and Mirai]

"Yeah, I know... I can relate. With them on, you feel a bit more... statuesque." Mirai responds, looking down at her black stilettos.

Too many shoes? "Blasphemy, there's no such thing." She quickly retorts. "We could at least window-shop! Since we're both technologically-inclined, we can perhaps shop for parts instead, or return to your lab for some tinkering."

At the voice thing, Mirai shrugs as well. "Me too, and my body transforms enough that I don't even have to try sounding like a girl... but once you learn to talk that way, it becomes easier regardless... y'know?"

[Recaiden]

Well, Honeysuckle had been just going to enjoy her drink, brood about how hopeless things felt, and ignore the Magtoks.
But Long Magtok is proving pretty difficult to ignore. Just listening to him, she's found herself out of her seat and fallen to her knees in deference to their master, their god, their-
Wait, that's not quite right. This is familiar. She keeps running into cool new gods and goddesses and weirder, but she can't follow them because she already has a god. And changing your mind is for things like your name, and your plans, and little things, not for gods and destinies.
She must have gotten a little carried away there. Long Magtok is just an inspiring, impressive mechanical millipede monstrosity, not the god for her.

"Landmark? Tha statue of the emperor with the sightseeing bits."
"Skyside for the city."
Wearing a drow as a cape, though? That's so tacky, why would someone as great as Magtok do that?

And you know, it really doesn't seem fair that so many people have gotten involved, and they're all fighting the same Magtok, does it? So Honeysuckle straightens up, and turns, and her visor shifts so that she can look at Magtok. Feeble nearly-human Magtok, to be specific. Now, ordinarily when she looks at people, they burst into flames, at least a little bit.

[Rebonack]

Depending on how Prime's mental assault works this may be tempered by the barmaid's earlier intervention. If it's telekinetic stimulation of nerves? Zee is helping! If it is spooky space magic brain wizardry? Not so helpful.

So.

Lots of pain.

Just oodles of it, gosh.

It hurts a whole lot but Zee grits her teeth and relies on sheer good old fashioned tenacity and determination to keep going. She WAS going to pull out a pretty hefty firearm and just shoot this roof-clinging jerk but then one of the patrons jumped up there to toss a jacket over his face and she would prefer not getting into a friendly fire situation if she can avoid it. That said, she really doesn't need to keep up the offensive to keep up the offensive, so to speak. Melted cheese is sticky and those awful giant mites are a tad bit clingy. The acid blood does a good job of dissolving them but until that happens they'll be diligently nibbling away at important bits of machinery.

This leaves Zee some time to do something else.

Name?

Grabbing Arthfael, scooping him up, and sprinting toward the mirror portal to Inari's temple nearby. She's planning on tossing him through to get him out of Magtok's zone of mental reach.

"Hey Fenric!" Zee calls out. In spite of the psychic agony the cyborg is blasting her with she still manages to sound (mostly) chipper. "OG Magtok decided to pay the tavern a visit and he's doing evil overlord stuff."

[Fenric]

Fenric visibly brightens (as does his holy symbol, glowing away and shielding him from mental shennigans).

Hiya, Zee. Magtok, eh? It's been a while... I wonder if MagCorp's flea powder has improved any over the last three years.

then he frowns

My pendant is getting unpleasantly warm, and that usually means somebody's doing psychic stuff.

[bc56]

Jade and Mirai

That's a tempting offer. "Another time maybe. I've got a busy day today." Her tail is starting to fall asleep, so she adjusts her sitting position. "I don't really get why it matters. I'm a girl, so I sound like a girl. If I were a guy, I'd sound like a guy. I don't see why practicing it should matter?"

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok Prime has a lot to contend with all at once. This one wants to mute him. That one is trying to halt his lunge with lightning, and another is forcing helium and a nerve agent into his biomechanical respiratory system. His mold, mite, and cheese problems never left, either. The tide of the battle seems to be turning, and the giant cybernetic millipede can't hope to turn it around without devoting considerably more resources to this conflict, so he just


dies.

Magtok Prime's lunge towards the swordsman ends prematurely, his long, segmented body twitching and involuntarily curling around itself on the tavern floor. The light goes out in his eye, the body's death throes come to an end, and it lies uselessly on the ground, getting slowly dissolved by a puddle of its own acidic fluids.

"A single shell has proven insufficient," a synthesized voice from his body's speaker system bristles, disappointment and frustration leaking into its radio bark. "In the long term, you have won nothing, wretches. I'll factor these results into plans for my next foray, make the necessary corrections, and finish what we started. Make the best of what time you have left," Prime warns, as a chill fills the room and a cloud of black, malevolent energy vacates the body, an amorphous, shifting mass of hatred that occasionally resembles the robed, bipedal Magtok we know. Magtok Prime's spirit, the postmortem entity that had been possessing that insectoid body, swiftly launches itself out of the tavern, passing right through the ceiling to get out as quickly as it can.


Of course, as sweet as the results of this triumph of tavern-goer over terrible bug monster man might be, Magtok the Lesser might not live long enough to join in the celebration, because some huge jerk decided to set him on fire. It's not as bad as it could be; his robe is mostly fireproof, but his body isn't, nor is June's (I think?). At least he doesn't need that missing arm and leg to roll on the floor to try to smother the flames. Rolling on the floor won't instantaneously solve his new problem, I know, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

[Ironsmith]

Arthfael initially goes through with Zee's plan, moving toward the mirror that leads to the temple, but a couple of things stop him from going through. The first is that he has no idea that the mirror actually does anything; his initial assumption is that she's moving him toward a hidden exit somewhere in that general direction.

The second is that Prime rather quickly stops being much of an immediate problem, which sort of reduces the need to evacuate. He looks to Zee for confirmation that the encounter really is over, before Prime's ominous message plays; no, that thing isn't dead, it's just picking an elaborate way to retreat. Instinctively, Arthfael grabs ahold of Zee around the waist and buries his face wherever it ends up reaching; maybe she was more or less a stranger to him, but she was trying to help and his freshly-traumatized brain latched onto that. He shakes uncontrollably, and Zee will be able to feel twin wet spots developing in the fabric of her clothes as well as hear/feel muffled, choked sobs coming from him; he was not taking this well in the slightest.


Miranda lets go of the gooified remains of her jacket, stepping back from the putrefying carcass and taking stock of the other combatants, her hands shaking from now-directionless adrenaline. Her entire body feels numb and tingly, thanks to being in contact with Prime's metal body when the lightning bolt hit, but the rubber in her boots seems to have insulated her from what might have otherwise been potentially fatal friendly fire. She was, after all, not a seraph or a demigod or anything more powerful than a mere mortal woman; she was lucky to have survived this encounter at all, much less more-or-less unscathed.

Not that she was worried about that. Blocking out the perturbed murmurings of the other tavern-goers, she notes the status of the other fighters. Most of them also seemed to be fine, but her eyes settle on her fellow front-liner, who seems to have gotten sprayed by Prime's arterial acids. He was going to need medical care, probably.

"Are you all right?" Miranda asks, flushing her Hotbox in preparation to fabricate the needed first aid materials. "You got gooped, didn't you? Let me have a look at that."

Amusingly, she doesn't seem to have noticed Magtok's current fiery state, but she's far enough away from him that someone else would probably get to him first. Most likely that lady he'd been leaning on, Miranda would bet.

[Vahnavoi]

There's a sound akin to a gunshot as the thunderbolt leaves the swordsman's blades and strikes the lunging millipede, though such violence may have been overkill after the red-head woman suffocating the monster. The swordsman jumps back to avoid being crushed by its falling body. He remains on guard next to it as its body begins dissolving like a bad dream. As it stops moving, he relaxes a bit and pokes it with his swords.

Then the voice comes from the hidden speaker. The swordsman's first instict is to find and destroy it, but before he manages to do that, Magtok Prime's spirit leaps out of the ruined millipede and escapes through the ceiling.

The swordsman's about to give chase, but the red-haired woman's words stop him. He looks at her, then at his own arms. "I'm... not really sure how bad this is. It doesn't feel like much." His shirt has been ruined beyond repair and remnants of his cloak are hanging from his left shoulder only, revealing most of his chest. His right arm is completely black with the goo and still steaming. His face has some splatters of the acid as well, in addition to many shallow cuts. Curiously, their bleeding seems to have stopped almost instantly.

"I could use some water... lots of water... to wash this off. And maybe a mirror." His brow furrows as the stench of something burning reaches his nose. As he turns his head, Miranda can notice some of his hair on the right side of his head is gone, eaten away by the acid. "Hey... what's burning?"

[bc56]

The... Lion-eagle-coral-ring thing puts a wing on Miranda's shoulder. "I can heal. Let me help." Light shines from her paws towards the swordsman, regrowing wounded tissue where it touches it. It's not comfortable, but it will be effective, if it's allowed to be used.

[5a Violista]

While June can grab some things out of oven fine (as long as it's neither metallic nor oily) as long as she's quick enough, she's not fireproof.

When she starts feeling the burning sensation on her arm, her first thought is that it's another illusion and that the best thing to do is ignore it.
But, she quickly realizes the source of the flame wasn't the bug-cyborg, but instead someone else? Why?

June quickly lets go of Magtok and tries to pull away from her, and does her best to put out the fire on her arm (easy enough) and her back (oh gosh why did she choose to wear a flammable clothes today?) and hair (why did she let her hair grow out to her shoulders? She regrets not leaving it short). Not to mention, Magtok is even worse off.

Luckily, she wore a sports bra today so even taking off the offending shirt, she's still very much decent.

M-maybe she could punch the fire out?
No, she's nowhere near that good.

June balls up the burning shirt to put out its flame. "W-water?" she says, looking around. Nope, just alcohol immediately around.

Using the balled cloth to try help smother the flames as Magtok rolls around, June looks up and down the bar's counter, looking for a fire extinguisher. Bars usually keep fire extinguishers behind the counter, right? Yeah, they should.

[Rebonack]

Cosmo comes to the rescue of Magtok and June with a loud PWOOOSH of a fire extinguisher!

Turns out the answer is yes, the bar keeps a fire extinguisher around for exactly this sort of situation. People seem to catch on fire a whole bunch around here for some reason. Weird.

Meanwhile!

Zee scowls at the departing ghost. While she's pretty loath to look to faeries for help maybe she should see if she can find a suitable ghost eater to be hanging around the next time they kick MagGhost's butt. Too bad Jade went and got herself cured (maybe?) otherwise that would be a shoe-in.

But for now?

For now she's just going to hug her arms around poor Arthfael, rocking back and forth gently as she begins humming a wordless melody to him. The song conveys comfort and peace, but also an unshakable will to endure. It's a gentle, tender, loving, motherly embrace. Exactly the sort of hug the lad probably needs right now. If only Zee could comfort everyone. But alas, she's only blessed with two arms at the moment.

You can do it, Arthfael. You can make it through this.

Zee believes in you.

She's got quite the job, hasn't she? Never a dull day in Trog's Tavern.

[Ironsmith]

There's a sound akin to a gunshot as the thunderbolt leaves the swordsman's blades and strikes the lunging millipede, though such violence may have been overkill after the red-head woman suffocating the monster. The swordsman jumps back to avoid being crushed by its falling body. He remains on guard next to it as its body begins dissolving like a bad dream. As it stops moving, he relaxes a bit and pokes it with his swords.

Then the voice comes from the hidden speaker. The swordsman's first instict is to find and destroy it, but before he manages to do that, Magtok Prime's spirit leaps out of the ruined millipede and escapes through the ceiling.

The swordsman's about to give chase, but the red-haired woman's words stop him. He looks at her, then at his own arms. "I'm... not really sure how bad this is. It doesn't feel like much." His shirt has been ruined beyond repair and remnants of his cloak are hanging from his left shoulder only, revealing most of his chest. His right arm is completely black with the goo and still steaming. His face has some splatters of the acid as well, in addition to many shallow cuts. Curiously, their bleeding seems to have stopped almost instantly.

"I could use some water... lots of water... to wash this off. And maybe a mirror." His brow furrows as the stench of something burning reaches his nose. As he turns his head, Miranda can notice some of his hair on the right side of his head is gone, eaten away by the acid. "Hey... what's burning?"

The... Lion-eagle-coral-ring thing puts a wing on Miranda's shoulder. "I can heal. Let me help." Light shines from her paws towards the swordsman, regrowing wounded tissue where it touches it. It's not comfortable, but it will be effective, if it's allowed to be used.

Miranda frowns. "That looks pretty serious to me. Let me get some ointment an-" She stops when the eldritch being taps her on the shoulder and nods, taking a step back and deciding to leave the healing duties to the people who were supernaturally good at it.

That just left... well, pyschological damage to everyone else in the tavern. Miranda finally sees the on-fire Magtok, but it looks like the staff's already taken care of that.

So, with nothing else in particular to do, she kneels down to examine the dead mechapede. "This thing called itself 'Magtok Prime'..." she muses out loud, to herself. "...Implying more than one. A lot more than one. Hm." And while she wasn't exactly an expert in the supernatural, she suspected that fleeing apparition meant this one wasn't properly dead, either. That was concerning. "Sounds like one hell of a threat to the peace. The others are going to want to know about this." She produces a phone from one of the many pockets on her cargo pants and starts tapping out a message to her colleagues.

<ARC-Delta1> We've got a problem. Mechanical monster called Magtok Prime broke into Trog's today. Temporarily neutralized. Will provide details as situation develops.

She gets replies almost immediately:

<GIN-Tau99> When it rains, it pours. Busy with situation in Skyside. You're on your own, sorry.

<Rararaspootin> I'll ask around here at HALO. Talking to robotics expert right now; maybe she's heard of him. I'll get back to you.

<KittyKatG4l> Just ran a search. "Bad news" is underselling it. Will send what files I can find when I get back to my room.

<KittyKatG4l> Be careful, boss. This thing is way out of our usual league.

<cakeeater68> don't know what you expect me to do. ill let someone at merc know, but i dont think robocreep is anywhere in my wheelhouse.

Cosmo comes to the rescue of Magtok and June with a loud PWOOOSH of a fire extinguisher!

Turns out the answer is yes, the bar keeps a fire extinguisher around for exactly this sort of situation. People seem to catch on fire a whole bunch around here for some reason. Weird.

Meanwhile!

Zee scowls at the departing ghost. While she's pretty loath to look to faeries for help maybe she should see if she can find a suitable ghost eater to be hanging around the next time they kick MagGhost's butt. Too bad Jade went and got herself cured (maybe?) otherwise that would be a shoe-in.

But for now?

For now she's just going to hug her arms around poor Arthfael, rocking back and forth gently as she begins humming a wordless melody to him. The song conveys comfort and peace, but also an unshakable will to endure. It's a gentle, tender, loving, motherly embrace. Exactly the sort of hug the lad probably needs right now. If only Zee could comfort everyone. But alas, she's only blessed with two arms at the moment.

You can do it, Arthfael. You can make it through this.

Zee believes in you.

She's got quite the job, hasn't she? Never a dull day in Trog's Tavern.

(Ten Minutes Ago)

Kyrie lets out a little sigh as he steps outside. The girls were in bed for the day, or at least settled down enough that they might as well be. Now he just had the unenviable task of finding out where his nephew had gone.

That boy was always wandering off. He didn't seem to really want to have any part in... well, whatever the family was doing at the moment. Kyrie remembered when he was that age; he had to go out and get a little peace and quiet every now and then. Maybe it was time he talked with Arthfael about this and worked out somewhere he could hang out during the daylight hours. Get him his own room or something. He could clear out a space in the basement.

For now, Kyrie would just have to track him down. If he knew Arthfael, he'd say he'd probably gone someplace Kyrie had expressly forbidden. Nowhere all that dangerous, though. Possibly Trog's?

And with that, he sets out into the city, taking a casual pace and nodding greetings to various passersby.

(Now)

Kyrie stops in his tracks when he sees the broken window out the front of Trog's. That wasn't right. There must've been a barfight inside or something.

He'd picked a bad night to take off, that was certain. Hopefully, Arthfael had stayed out of the conflict.

Somewhat apprehensively, Kyrie draws his sword and opens the door to the tavern. He's immediately greeted by a noticeably dour atmosphere, and various empyreans in full force, some standing over the corpse of this mechanical thing that...

By Absum, what was that?

Kyrie's mind races as he takes in the scene before him. This wasn't an ordinary barfight. Something big had just...

Oh, gods, no.

Kyrie shoves his way past the various patrons (including the swordsman and that red-headed muscle lady) back toward the bar, where Zee was comforting his nephew.

Kyrie's sword clatters to the ground as he grabs Arthfael by shoulders. The boy tenses at the gesture, certain he was in for a lecture on top of everything else-

"Thank the Lords you're all right." Kyrie pants shakily. He turns his attention to Zee, silently grateful she'd prevented his nephew from coming to harm. "What happened?!"

[Vahnavoi]

The swordsman turns to look at the... lion... eagle... whatever it is that has wandered before his eyes. "I, uh, I would be fine with some water", he says warily, but doesn't otherwise protest the attempt at first-aid by the... creature. He watches curiously as the light sinks into his blackened arm. Slowly, it stops steaming. Then, the blackened parts begin to flake off, revealing pristine skin underneath. For a brief moment, the swordsman's veins glow blue as he flexes his muscles and looks at the end result. The wounds on his face close and fade away, not even leaving scars. Even his lost hair grows back slightly, leaving him with a side buzzcut.

"Well that was handy", he remarks, sheathing his swords. He gives the lion-eagle-thing a respectful bow. "Thank you." He slightly adjust his wrecked clothes and turns towards Miranda.

"It felt like an evil spirit to me", he says, pointing up to the ceiling, at the spot where Magtok Prime's ghost vanished. "I have some experience hunting down and exorcising such things. I can go after it if you need me to. Its tracks are still fresh, following such great malice ought to be easy."

At the corner of the bar, someone is clapping their hands. "Now THAT was some quality entertainment!", one of the patrons hoots. He turns out to be a man with his hands and face completely obscured by bandages, dressed in a black leather jacket and camo pants - the very same who recently renamed himself "Sandels". He gets up from his hiding place and walks closer to the dissolving remnants of the millipede.

Should someone pay very close attention, they might notice the Ouroboros symbol on the bandaged man's jacket is identical to the version on the swordsman's cloak - though the latter might only be partially visible due to the garment's overall sorry state.

[Fenric]

The violence having resolved itself in standard Trog's fashion, Fenric turns back to the bar.

Well! There it is. He accomplished about as much as he ever has. Um... Oh, you do still serve my soda! One fox cola, please.

[Recaiden]

As the ghost disappears, Honeysuckle stops trying to incinerate Short Magtok and mostly just seems disoriented and confused.
After a few moments, she sits back at the bar. "Hey, Zee, can I get another drink... a double, actually?"

Then she plucks her orb out of the air where it's been bobbing and holds it up in front of her, like she can get answers by glaring at it.

Are some people still on fire? Somehow it just doesn't seem that important.

[Rebonack]

Oh.

Hmm.

Customers need drinks and Zee is hugging a crying child right now. And unfortunately this is all ONE SCENE so the typical disynchronized nonsense would really be stretching things right now. So to that end she calls out, "Hey Selekhael? Would you mind getting some drinks for Fenric and Honeysuckle? Fox cola for Fenric, a Tipsy Fox for Honeysuckle. Double whisky on the tispy. I need to-"

She glances down and rubs the back of the poor traumatized child's head some more.

"-comfort this kiddo some more."

And then a guardian arrives!

"Hey Kyrie you missed the party," Zee says. "Robot possessed by an evil ghost showed up after tossing a guy in a purple dress through the front window."

Will Magtok shout that it isn't a dress? The answer to that mystery remains to be seen.

"He did a bunch of spooky stuff but thankfully physical injuries were pretty limited. But... it was traumatic."

[Purple Eagle]

Jade and Mirai

That's a tempting offer. "Another time maybe. I've got a busy day today." Her tail is starting to fall asleep, so she adjusts her sitting position. "I don't really get why it matters. I'm a girl, so I sound like a girl. If I were a guy, I'd sound like a guy. I don't see why practicing it should matter?"

Jade and Mirai

Mirai's face falls. "Oh... ok then, maybe another time." She was looking forward to doing some shopping with her new friend, but understands that duty calls.

At the other response, she sighs and scratches a currently nonexistent beard. "Thaaaat's probably to be expected, I dunno why I even brought it up. You'll probably only understand if you ever turn back to a guy, but still feel the desire to be girly at times. It only matters to me, is what I'm saying..." She trails off, realizing she might not be putting it in the best way. "I mean no offense, just so you know."

[bc56]

"Uh, you're welcome." Selekhael says to the swordsman. But duty calls. She nods to Zee, and in a reverse of her disturbing transformation a moment goes back to being a normal waitress. She smooths out her apron and pops behind the bar to mix up some drinks. "Uh, here you go, Fenric. And, uh, Honeysuckle." One fox cola, one tipsy fox. With twice the whisky.


Jade shakes her head in response to Mirai's defensiveness. "I didn't think you did. But... It's weird, I know, but I don't want to go back. I feel good how I am now." She takes another long sip of her beer.