Skyside 7: The Big Pizza in the Sky

[Ironsmith]

[Temple of Lead]

Damn. He was hoping the guard would fall for the diversion, but apparently he was paying enough attention to deduce where Klaus had went. He sighs and rolls his eyes; he could always print off another jacket, but learning he'd given it away pointlessly was annoying nonetheless.

Having done that, Klaus grabs the machine gun and heads away from the edge of the roof, breaking line-of-sight with the guard. While he's doing that, he sets his Hotbox one more time, this time to print off some anticonvulsants; something to take if and/or when the poison in his system started taking a toll. He didn't have any ammo for the gun, naturally, but at least now he had a weapon. If nothing else, it might make for a decent bluff later on.

While he's up there, Klaus looks around for smoke; if the fire had spread beyond the Sanctum, this whole place could go up in flames, and that would be something he'd rather know about sooner than later. If not... well, it'd be good to know that, too, for most of the same reasons.

[5a Violista]

[Noose & Shackle]

Gharol shakes her head: "Infighting and a succession crisis happened. Half of them died in that ensuing conflict. Only see three of them semi-regularly anymore: one retired, and one that started his own shipping business," she says. "And also the one that took over, sometimes does business dealings with us."

The orclady looks over at the fighting arena.
She puts down her drink.
She then looks closer. "What kind of creature is that?" she asks, having never seen one. They don't have them out there.


[Guild Warehouse 2B]

The batgirl leaves the room. She still has to find a way out and to a high place that hopefully has a guard blind-spot. She's getting slightly better at moving around without legs, but it's still a little hard. She figures she might need a lot more practice, actually.

Besides the way she came in, there looks to be two other exits. Going back is an obvious 'no' because the only other path that way seemed well-trafficked. Likewise, the rails...if she follows them, she presumes there's going to be people over that way checking to make sure all the mermaids turned out okay. Which just leaves that wooden door, which she makes her way towards.

Gosh, doors are going to be a little hard, aren't they?

After using her weight and the wall to get herself high enough, she reaches up and grabs the handle. Yes! Score! Taking away her legs won't stop her!
She tries to open the door, then, hoping it's unlocked, and goes through it to the next chamber.

[Earl of Purple]

Temple of Lead

There's some smoke appearing, but if the fire spreads out of the sanctum to the bullet factory, there's likely to be an explosion as the gunpowder and bullets go off. And the warehouse was built to direct the blast upwards, so this is probably not the safest place right now. Nothing stops Klaus liberating the rather bulky gun, and he could maybe use his HotBox to print out some bullets for it? It might take a while to get enough, however.

The bodyguard on the ground launches a grenade onto the roof. It bounces, clatters and spins before coming to rest, but doesn't explode immediately. The grenade is a plain cylinder marked with strange symbols that vaguely resemble eyes, and seem to move if Klaus catches them from the corner of his eye. If he looks straight at them, he might get a headache. Getting into cover is probably a good idea; this grenade is deliberately a dud, as it functions as a clairvoyancy aid and the bodyguard is using it to see if anyone is on the roof.

Noose & Shackle

"A nasty one. Killer children, they're found mostly in the sewers and Groundtown, anywhere it's dark. They look helpless so people lower their guards, then lure them somewhere dark and secluded, where some more pounce and try to kill and eat them. They're hard to catch, since they like cramped places with lots of places to hide and they can run up walls to escape if things go bad, and you need to kill most of the pack before they even try. They don't like fire or light, though. If you've got either, they'll break and run sooner." Thadd's managed to fight them before, and he doesn't seem to know about how they reproduce; if the Guild did, they likely wouldn't have one on the stage to fight.

The half-elf doesn't seem to know what to make about it, so circles around to see what it does. It grabs a fistful of sand before backing away to the rear wall of the stage-arena, the half-elf cautiously following. It leans against the back wall before turning and climbing up it on all fours, head twisted as far as it goes- it bends no further than a normal child's- to keep an eye on the half-elf. She's getting closer to the wall, keeping the point of her spear between them. It stands, crouches, and jumps, without descending like one would expect; it stays as close to perpendicular to the wall as possible, catching the half-elf by surprise. She was expecting it to fall onto the spear point, but it just misses before reaching out and falling onto her. She shrieks and curses, bringing the knife in her other hand and hacking at the thing as it bites into her head and shoulders.

Guild Warehouse 2B

The next chamber is a large room, with a large warehouse door on the far side, currently open. A quad bike pulling five small caged carts behind it is parked in the centre of the room, whilst some guards work at pulling people out of the carts and separating them before moving them through one of three doors. There's quite a few people yet to sort, so the guards are far too busy to have noticed the batgirl, and nearby there's a ladder to an overhead gantry. Looking at the gantry, it's lined with sandbags and it looks like it's intended to give some guards an elevated firing position out over the chamber should there be trouble, but currently it's empty.

[Ironsmith]

[Temple of Lead Roof]

Klaus decides to get away from the grenade; he didn't know what it was supposed to do, but as a rule of thumb, grenades exploded and it wasn't a good idea to be near them when they did. He steps away from the edge of the roof, but keeps running along it, in a direction most of the Followers (other than the guard chasing him) would likely find unintuitive. There was every chance they'd be able to make a coordinated pursuit anyway, but at least this way the chaos worked a little in his favor. He has the hoverboard in hand, and the gun slung over his back, ready to jump.

[5a Violista]

[Noose & Shackle]

"Huh."
Gharol listens and leans forward, to get a better look. "So basically they act like animals that hunt people." That's....interesting. It seems to be fighting in a really interesting way, too. Looks more like it's by instinct, though, just like a magical animal or something. And it looks like the half-elf came here expecting to fight other people, not animals.

She breaks one of her rules of 'no work conversation' by asking, "Do you ever get one in a shipment? Seems like it could cause a serious problem if one does manage to get in."
Gharol doesn't know how they reproduce, either. It's the first she's heard of it, anyway.


[Guild Warehouse 2B]

The batgirl considers getting the quadbike, but brushes off that possibility, figuring she would absolutely need legs to keep balance on it, and there's no way she'd manage to get away with it. Besides, there's absolutely no way she can get to the center of the room while being unnoticed, especially with people around.

The ladder, on the other hand, seems like a great option. Brings her up, lets her fly. Plus, a ladder would be very easy to climb with just her hands.

She scoots over to the ladder, and (after doing a quick look-over to make sure nobody's paying attention over here), starts climbing the ladder.

At the top, she keeps her wings down and peers out between a couple sandbags to keep an eye on the place. She's trying to watch their movement patterns, see if she can pick out all obstacles, and map the safest way out. She's got one shot at this, and a time limit, because presumably they'll eventually close the warehouse door. So she wants to get this right.

[Earl of Purple]

Temple of Lead Roof

The bodyguard doesn't climb onto the roof. Either it didn't see Klaus' escape or it's running around the building to try and guess where Klaus will jump off. There's also a few bangs and some small round holes appear in the sheet metal roof surface; the fire has spread to some bullets, it seems. Or somebody's shooting through the roof for some reason.

Noose & Shackle

"Yep. Animals that prefer to prey on people, too. They ignore pigeons and stuff unless they're desperate." Thadd bites his lip and leans forward; this is the first time the half-elf has actually been injured so far, and if she's too badly injured to fight he's lost his bets.

The kylder bleeds thick black goo as the knife enters its side and the half-elf manages to hurl the thing away. It doesn't land on the floor, though; it heads the direction it was thrown, and then it stops and falls back towards the half-elf. She doesn't notice, she's bleeding from small bites to her shoulders, upper arms and face- it's bitten away part of her lip, but that's the largest injury. Kydren like tongues, though it hasn't gotten hers yet. She's also bending to pick the spear back up, so when it collides with her she wasn't expecting it and is knocked over. She keeps her hand on the knife and the spear, and using them in concert stabs the monster in the face and abdomen. More black goo oozes out, and the half-elf grimaces. Or maybe she doesn't, it's hard to tell with her missing lip. The thing shrieks and hisses as she stabs some more, thrusting into its chest and face, slicing a mouth-stalk off.

Guild Warehouse 2B

They would certainly notice her try to steal the quad. They don't notice her climb the ladder to the gantry. She's too high up to easily see out the door, but if she jumped off and started flying she could make it down and through the door very quickly, it's just hard to tell what's on the other side. Looking at the guards, though, the ones near the cages are too focused on the prisoners they've got whilst those near the door are bored and apathetic. She could make it outside before they react, if they even notice.

[Ironsmith]

[Temple of Lead Roof]

Well. Definitely time to go, then. After a long and illustrious career of espionage, Klaus did not want his obituary to read "shot dead by a warehouse fire". That would be just embarrassing.

With that, Klaus gets a running start and jumps off the roof, mounting the hoverboard midair, ready to go as soon as he hits the ground (so to speak). He didn't want to be anywhere near this hunk of metal when it blew up.

[5a Violista]

[Noose & Shackle]

After watching a little more, Gharol turns aside back to her drink and to Thadd. "I would be happy if I never ran into one of those," she concludes.
"A cage match like this is probably altering how it would behave, though. I imagine it would run if it got this injured normally, but there's nowhere for it to run."
Hopefully there's nowhere for it to run.
It would be unfortunate if it escaped the arena.


[Guild Warehouse 2B]

Well, it's now or never.
The batgirl considers picking up a sandbag to drop on her way out or something, but decides it's most likely to get in her way and slow her down more than it could possibly be useful.

She gets up, flops her tail/fin over the sandbag, and then - after a deep breath - pushes herself off. Her wings start flapping, and luckily she's high enough to start flying before the ground.

She goes around the room for as long as she doesn't think she's noticed, and then when she has no other choice, she darts straight to and through the door.
And, after through the door, she just goes away as fast as she can. She doesn't know what any of them are armed with, but if any of them have guns the best thing to do is just go away as fast as possible.

[Earl of Purple]

Fleeing the Temple of Lead

Off goes Klaus, apparently not being chased. Nobody is visible, anyway, not from the Followers of Joy. Although they didn't have much of a uniform, so it's tricky to identify them; no one colour or style united them, which is quite unusual for a gang. There's lots of armed people on the roads, and a fair few vehicles as well. Given this is a warehouse district close to a spaceport, most of the vehicles are large lorries, quite a few crudely up-armoured or bearing signs of repair, but there's other vehicles too. Motorcycles seem pretty popular, of various styles and designs, and most of the cars are small. Not all are as antique as the ones the Followers favoured; quite a few are electric, but some are more... esoteric. There's a wagon pulled by a long-legged bipedal walking machine, over there a floating platform is pulled by a pair of dromedary camels, and there an old woman is borne aloft in a palanquin held by four near-naked young men. The well-dressed man on the hoverboard really doesn't stand out too much.

Noose & Shackle

"Not always. They usually work in packs, and of a pack only one will actually attempt to flee. This one was probably the runner." Easier to trap a runner trying to escape than a fighter willing to die so the runner gets away.

The child-thing has died and slumps on the ground, the half-elf backing off and keeping her spear levelled at it. It rots quickly, or seems to; a mass of white maggots eat their way out and start to writhe across the stage floor. At this point the attendents come out again, shining ultraviolet torches at the floor and spreading sawdust over the black goo. They sweep afterwards, to dispose of as much of the corpse, goo and maggots as possible. The half-elf also has her wounds washed during this time, and she's given a minor healing potion; enough to stop the bleeding, but the injuries will scar and there's no chance of replacing the chunk bitten out of her lip and cheek.

Guild Warehouse 2B

The batgirl isn't noticed as she dives off the gantry and swoops up again, and she's not noticed on her first circuit of the room. Afterwards the quad's rider spots her and raises the alarm, but they aren't able to close the door fast enough to stop her flying out of the building. A weighted net is thrown at her as she flies off, from a guard on the roof, but he's not able to hurl it very far and it's likely to miss. Others throw bolas and fire tasers at her, but mostly the Guild are armed with weapons that are either short-ranged or designed to be less-than-lethal, meaning they're slow. Somebody fires a beanbag at her from a shotgun, which will hurt if it hits.

[Ironsmith]

[Fleeing the Temple of Lead]

Klaus keeps fleeing for another five minites, periodically checking over his shoulder for pursuers and/or signs the Temple has finally gone up in a cloud of smoke and debris.

If nobody chases him, he'll make his way to the nearest unoccupied building and hide inside, taking the anticonvulsants. Tonight's events had given him a lot to think about. At some point, he was going to have to contact this Axe person. She was going to want to know Plumbum was dead, and he might be able to get a job with her. The coins and teeth would both provide clues about the extent to which the Followers of Joy ran in this city; where they did business and whom they did it with.

But before any of that, tonight had shown him that he needed a partner. Coming to Skyside without backup was probably the stupidest thing he could have done; even an incompetent idiot would have been able to provide him with key distractions and misdirection.

The search would begin in the morning. For now, he had some poison and bullet wounds to sleep off.

[Shadowcaller]

SPAAAAAACE!

The Gunners will cover Zee's approach to the Hullghast. The degenerate abhuman hisses again as Zee gets close enough for it to smell her clearly and raises its spear higher, ready to thrust. It survived because its considerable nose is filled with fine hairs and mucous glands, secreting a thick sludge that drips from its nose occasionally, taking a host of vile and toxic pollutants with it. This thing, whilst less hardy than a purestrain genestealer, has a far more robust physiology than a human; it's even able to survive without breathable air for most of a day, and the chemical that murdered the ship's crew by clogging their ability to take up oxygen did not last that long before denaturing and disappearing into the standard atmospheric makeup of a human-crewed space vessel. Its lungs are large, its mucous thick and able to absorb most air-borne toxins before they enter the bloodstream, its liver is large and it has developed a third kidney to help filter its blood of anything that would kill it. Despite all these adaptations, this particular hullghast has not been thriving until recently, and it's not healthy. Not diseased; there's few diseases that can harm one of these, but it's suffering from pollutant build up and radiation sickness as well as hunger. The amount of pollutants and radiation in its body, however, is enough to kill nearly all the Gunners behind Zee.

[SPAAAAAACE!]

Zee snorts.

Then laughs, taking a few steps back away from the creature.

"Snot. It's face is full of snot, that's why the toxin didn't kill it," she says. "Which really won't do us much good. But ostensibly that means the right filter should be able to remove it. Too bad there isn't any of the toxin left to study."

That's a real shame.

"Sorry to startle you, Mister Hullghast. You can go back to what you were doing," Zee says, raising both of her hands in a 'I'm backing off' sort of way.

Zee's words and scent will carry additional meaning for the ghast.

Safe. Not danger. Not food.

No reason to worry about these people.

Everything is fine.

After backing off, she'll turn her attention to her companions. "This creature... its ancestors were human?"

It reminds her of the morlocks from The Time Machine. Definitely shudder-worthy.

[SPAAAAAACE!]

"Most mutants were. Does it matter? It's going to die with the rest of the foul creatures on board on the ship anyway. Unless we fail of course." She gestures ahead. "Forward!" At least she assumes they are supposed to go forward here. The techpriest is the one doing the mapping after all, Minerva was just doing the leading and the muscles.

[Earl of Purple]

Fleeing the Temple of Lead

If he ducks into an alleyway he might find shelter, but most of the warehouses are obviously being used or else have been taken over by a supervillain to use as a lair. There's one actually that isn't in use, and is clearly abandoned- the roof sags, the doors are rusty, and the windows are cracked and broken, but... It's been boarded up rather thoroughly from the outside, and there's large dents on the warehouse shutter door from something pounding on it from inside. Otherwise, there's an alleyway with a small abandoned shack in it, leaning against one of the warehouse walls and made from pallets, a blue tarpaulin and corrugated steel. It doesn't have a door, so maybe isn't very secure. Or there's a broken down minibus with broken windows, all four wheels and the engine having been stolen.

Or somebody else could have a structure for Klaus to find.

SPAAAAACE!

"Once, yes. Not for millennia, however. Most ships have at least a small population in the bilge. It is unusual to see one so far up the ship. I suppose the toxin is responsible for that, whatever method was used." The techpriestess and the Gunners all continue onwards. There's nothing notable to stop them until they reach the engineerium, where a large door marked with the cog-and-skull symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The techpriestess plugs her mechadendrite into it and after a moment it soundlessly slides into the floor. Beyond lies a spartan corridor of polished chrome walls, exposed pipes and cables, and a dead weapons servitor plugged into the floor, both arms replaced by six shotgun barrels fed from a large box on its back. Were it alive, and if the team were invaders, it would probably be trying to shred them with continued and relentless fire from all twelve guns. The tech-priestess absent-mindedly pats its head on her way past.

The hullghast is not related to the crew of the ship, except as far as all humans from one setting are related to one another. The hullghast's ancestors have been on the ship longer than the crew's, as some of the hullghasts survived the vessel when it was wrecked and salvaged. The Warp has had a mild impact on their evolution; more important was the environmental factors and sheer deprivation of the ship's bilges and forgotten maintenance corridors.

[Ironsmith]

[Fleeing the Temple of Lead]

The bus would have to do. It'd be cramped, but it's been so obviously picked-over that nobody was going to mess with it. That, and the fact that it was at least up to code, made it the obvious choice.

He gets to work building a sleeping tank inside the bus. If nobody stops him, he'll be in stasis, recovering from his injuries, in about an hour.

[5a Violista]

[Noose & Shackle]

"If this one's a runner," Gharol says, "I have a little morbid curiosity on seeing how the other type fights."

"Well. That was definitely an interesting fight."


[Guild Warehouse 2B]

The batgirl is getting away!
She's pretty lucky that she didn't bring a sandbag as a weapon, because that would have slowed her down enough to get hit by the weighted net. The tasers miss, and the bolas largely hit her big fishy tail and so largely have very little effect in impeding her movement.

Unfortunately,
it's the beanbag shotgun that finally gets her before she gets far enough.
It hits her wing, which causes her to spin out and lose control of her flying, which causes her to crash into a building wall, which causes her to fall to the ground...which, upon hitting the ground, causes one of her wings to break.
Ouch.

She tries to keep on going, but can't go very fast at all.
She's caught like a mermaid out of water, if said mermaid had a broken wing.

[Earl of Purple]

Alleyway Away From the Temple of Lead

There is a boom as Klaus gets ready, but due to the fact he's in an alleyway he likely can't see much. If he tries, he might see a large plume of smoke in the direction of the Temple of Lead. Some smaller bits of detritus may reach this far, but only small things, rivets or bullet casings. Otherwise he's not disturbed as he constructs the tank and goes to sleep.

Noose & Shackle

"Had nowhere to run, this time. So it fought like the ones that don't run." Thadd really doesn't like them. And considering how tricky the half-elf found this one, it's probably understandable.

She had been injured before, actually. I forgot the barbarian lady broke the half-elf's nose with a headbutt in the first match. It's all stopped bleeding, but her nose is still crooked. She's not as pretty now as when she started. The next challenger is also directed onto the stage, a female grimlock with pale skin, white hair and smooth skin over where her eyes should be, wearing a loincloth and nothing else. Her long nose twitches and she grimaces at the smell on the stage. She carries a length of chain with a broken shackle on the end, a crude flail.

Guild Warehouse 2B

The guards go up to the batgirl now she's crashed and roughly haul her up, one grabbing her by the tail and two more going under her armpits, and they'll attempt to carry her inside. They aren't very gentle, and whilst they try not to touch her broken wing, they don't particularly care if it's jolted.

[5a Violista]

Noose & Shackle

"i was imagining something more akin to a worker and a soldier ant," Gharol says. Or more specifically, she was expecting that if you could take out the runner then all the rest would fall apart. But it seems like it's more interchangeable than she thought.

She looks at the new challenger. "So, you think this one will be easier or harder than the last match?" Probably more intelligent, but overall not as difficult, she thinks.


Guild Warehouse 2B

The batgirl understands why they would make you feel pain, but it feels too...accurate. Bad game design, she thinks. Well...maybe neutral game design, but it's bad in other ways. If she ever figured out how to log out...she would still play it but she would at the very least consider stopping.

As she's carried, the batgirl groans in pain.

It doesn't seem like struggling will help right now, and there goes her best chance to escape.

It hurts, though. Broken wings suck.

[Rebonack]

[SPAAAAAACE!]

"I like to imagine everyone matters," Zee says as she sets off again. "Even mutants."

She files away the DNA sequence of the ghast for perusing. She knows how humans are typically put together. Really, the amount of difference between any two human beings is minuscule to say the least. So comparing with the hull ghast Zee can guess at which portions of the genome were changed. Honestly she's surprised. This level of difference in such a short span of time (geologically speaking) is unusual. Unless, of course, there's intent behind it. With the presence of the Warp thicker down in the bilge perhaps that might have had something to do with it. After all, isn't change one of the chaos gods' whole thing?

Then to the engineering zone!

With another dead servitor.

Zee can't help but frown at the site.

So many people dead.

Senselessly.

"I'll admit machines really aren't my forte," Zee says. "What do we do down here to get the ball rolling?"

[Earl of Purple]

Noose & Shackle

"I don't know. She's new too. Flails are tricky weapons to face, though. We shall see if the half-elf has dealt with one before." Thadd leans forward, licking his lips. "The fights are until one can't fight any more, not death. Most of the time- that thing before was not going to obey the stricture, and accidents can happen. Sometimes there's volunteer nights, where a few of the more recent champions face off against anyone who think they're hard enough from the patrons and Guild's lower positions." Which explains why the barbarian lady didn't die- she was carried off unconscious, though missing enough fingers she likely won't fight again.

The grimlock starts to swing the crude flail as she approaches the half-elf. The half-elf doesn't know how keen a grimlock's other senses are, to make up for the blindness, but assumes they know where she is anyway. She ducks under the first swing, jabbing her spear at the grimlock's chest and leaving a cut against her ribs. The grimlock's response is to swing the flail lower before the half-elf can fully pull it back, and the head of her spear is knocked with a cracking sound.

Guild Warehouse 2B

They'll dump the merbatmaid into a tank filled with water and seal it, though there's a little device in the bottom sending a stream of bubbles up, keeping the water aerated. It'll be a while until she receives any medical attention, too. Wings are tricky; most injuries, a Guild sadomancer can take and inflict upon someone else, but the merbatmaid is currently the only being with wings in the warehouse.

[Shadowcaller]

[SPAAAAAACE!]

"If they didn't matter, I wouldn't be putting them down. In fact, I'd argue that they matter more to me than to any of you." Which was why she had to kill them all!

But as none of the dead were mutants or xenos she's going to simply move past them until there's a reason to stop. She figures the techpriest would give them instructions how to do this once it became relevant. Which was all the more reason to try to keep her alive.

[5a Violista]

Noose & Shackle

"Huh," Gharol says. "How many matches will she face, then?"

She drinks some more, and then remembers that they're not here just to watch fights.

She then leans closer to Thadd. "So other than drinking and watching fights, what do you do most nights?"


Guild Warehouse 2B

After entering the tank, the werebatmaid's gills open and she starts breathing water.

Moving around in the water sends shooting pain up her wing, because the water's resistance.

Eventually, though she figures out a way to close up her wings and hold them tighter against herself and together, so every movement doesn't hurt as much.

Then, she runs into the same problem as that mermaid from earlier: there's no way to get good leverage in here.
(Also, it's locked on the outside.)

Luckily for her, though, wings heal pretty quickly with minimal medical attention. Really, probably just need to splint the broken part and let it sit for two weeks.

[Ironsmith]

[En Route to Black Abyss Body Shop]

"...All right, I've got to admit; that's a good look for you." Rose says to Kraygor as the shuttle passes over Skyside. Said shuttle was on autopilot; both she and Kraygor would be able to move around freely without risking them crashing into the side of a building.

Rose herself was using this time to put the finishing touches on their lures; a shoddily-assembled go-kart, and herself. Little things mostly... bits of carbon scoring on the kart, a pheromone-laced perfume behind the ears on herself, that sort of thing.

[Earl of Purple]

SPAAAAAAAAACE!

"Hullghasts are abhumans, albeit not a sanctioned breed. They are less prone to significant anatomical abnormalities than baseline humans, psychic ability is- fortunately- nearly completely absent and they are surprisingly genetically stable, given the nature of their environment." Were they smarter and had degenerated less, perhaps they could be sanctioned and used as naval crews. Probably unlikely, though.

"We head to the atom furnace, where I initiate the prayers of self-destruction, with a maximal countdown of five thousand, four hundred seconds, then we run- or you do- to the monorail and hope it is still in optimum repair and travel to the hangar bay, where we re-embark upon the shuttle and depart as rapidly as we can. Hopefully our compatriots at the vessel are able to fend them off until we arrive." Which... well, the genestealers probably know they're here, yet this party haven't seen any since that initial individual in the hangar bay.

Noose & Shackle

"Probably three or four more, maybe more if there's another punishment needed. They don't count, see. Shouldn't be, though. And it depends on the landlord, what he's got in his stable for the night. Two less than the start of the evening." Because the halfling died when he was stabbed in the eye, and the kylder was also killed. The barbarian might also count, depending on her lack of fingers.

Her spear still intact, for now at least, the half-elf takes a few steps back before ducking down and aiming a thrust of the spear at the grimlock's legs. The grimlock didn't detect the blow until it was too late, and the spear slashes the grimlock's shin. In response, the grimlock growls and brings her crude flail down, crashing against the stage where the half-elf steps on it and lashes out with her knife, cutting the grimlock's arm badly enough that she drops her flail and lunges for the half-elf with teeth bared.

Guild Warehouse 2B

Every moment that the merbatmaid is in the warehouse recovering from the injury is a moment the Guild is losing money on her. So it's not long- an hour, maybe two- before a priestess arrives to use healing magic. The priestess is a woman in her thirties, wearing tight black leather trousers and a navy blue corset under a black leather jacket marked with a cat o' nine tails in silver. Her hair is short, a rather unappealing shade of brown, and the priestess' skin has several scars visible on it. She's accompanied by some Guildsmen, who will fish the merbatmaid out of the water and stretch her broken wing out. This is likely painful, and the priestess won't help by pressing it quite hard, channelling magic into it. The priestess serves Loviatar, Goddess of Torture, so whilst the wound will heal all the pain that it would generate between now and it healing naturally is instead pushed into the merbatmaid's nervous system all at once.

[5a Violista]

[Noose & Shackle]

Gharol nods, listening, while she watches the match. It's a good match, but at this point it's basically already over, so long as the half-elf doesn't blow it.

She leans on her hand, with an elbow on the table. "So let's say you win our bet. What is your plan?"


[Guild Warehouse 2B]

Over the period of the two hours, the merbatmaid manages to find a way to push the pain to the back of her mind.

At first, she basically ignores the priestess entering. It's not any different than everyone else so far.
It's only when they start to pull her out that she realizes this is something different and might be a chance. Well...not really, because everyone else could clearly go faster than her.
Also, pulling on her wing hurts.

They're probably already used to seeing people in pain, so they wouldn't be surprised to see her gasp in pain when they stretch out her wing. And she just got it in a position where it was comfortable and easy to ignore!

She manages to bite her lip really gently and control herself. Her claws are sharp, so she pushes her way through the pain and...

...

!

The broken wing heals, but the sudden rush of widespread pain distracts her from her thoughts and plans.

She curls up and accidentally pierces her lip in several places with her sharp teeth. She then cries out again and some of her muscles spasm. She can't follow through with any of her plans.

But! On the plus side, she's healed now.

[Earl of Purple]

Noose & Shackle

"Oh, I was going to invite you to my place, and ask for a massage." Thadd would also say cook a meal, but I seem to recall the two ordering food at some point.

The half-elf falls over with the grimlock on top, the blind cave-dweller snapping sharp teeth in her face and trying to get to her throat. The half-elf nearly panics before slamming her head forward and breaking the grimlock's nose and using the moment of stunning to roll over so she's on top, taking her knife and pressing it against the grimlock's throat until she stops struggling.

Guild Warehouse 2B

Now she's healed, the merbatmaid is dragged to a cart and put into another tank, one mounted on the back of a cart, and carted to another room, where she's left. A lot of other people are also here, in small travelling cages and tanks. There's no aerated water in this tank, unfortunately, but there's still air enough for her to be able to put her head above water and breathe. Might not be very safe to fall asleep like this, though. In another hour or so, some well-dressed slaves with collars about their necks go around and put food in all the cages and tanks. The merbatgirl gets a kipper and four carrots; most of those in cages get a bowl of gruel.

[Ironsmith]

[Guild Warehouse 2B - Exterior]

Klaus is back up and at work. So far, he's not doing anything particularly intrusive; he's staying a few hundred meters out, watching events unfold through a thermal visor. He has a rifle next to him that resembles a sort of cross between a paintball gun and a sniper rifle. In a way, it was sort of both; his Hotbox precluded the use of chemical propellants, so he had a tank of liquid helium which would work to launch the bullets through sheer pressure. In essence, he brought the world's most hardcore BB gun. Good for twenty shots before the tank would need to be replaced; hopefully, more than he would need.

For now, he just keeps tabs on the situation, looking for an opportunity to intervene and free some slaves. At least one of them was bound to be grateful, he thinks.

[5a Violista]

Noose & Shackle

"That's it?" Gharol says. She had expected a little more than that...maybe he's just downplaying it. "I should warn you, the only benefit of a regular massage from me is my strength."

She looks back over to make sure everything went as she thought. "Looks like she won pretty easily," she says. "If the rest of the matches are like this, you're going to win both our bet and your monetary bet, handily."


Guild Warehouse 2B

Ugh, this is bad. She just lost her second chance.

The batmaid, after she gets better and all the pain passes, tries to reorient herself in her new situation.

She practices moving her wings to a good place underwater, actually swimming semi-decently, comparing breathing underwater with gills versus abovewater, and talking above and under, and most importantly, seeing if she can find that other mermaid she met earlier. She hopes she's still alright.

And, seriously? They're just going to toss food in the tank? That's going to make it really gross! The water especially, since she's going to have to be in here for who-knows-how-long.

...she eats them anyway, thankful that at least she doesn't have to eat that gross-loking gruel.

[Rebonack]

[SPAAAAAAAAACE!]

"It sounds like the just need a little bit of genetic encouragement," Zee says, her tone hopeful.

She's uplifted animals before.

It takes a bit out of her, but it should be possible right?

But then again...

They do sort of need to blow this ship up to make sure that the horrors lurking in it don't infect anyone else.

"Has anyone ever tried to help them before?" Zee asks. "How is your gene-editing technology? Do you guys know how to cut-and-insert sequences? Have you got any developmental biology modeling programs?"

Being able to fully model the growth and development of an organism is pretty vital if someone wants to do gene editing with more complex ends than 'this animal's bones glow under UV light now'.

Minerva is given a disapproving look. "I mean caring in a less killy sort of way."

[Shadowcaller]

SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Minerva ignores this mutant discussion as the only thing she could add to it would be fire. Besides, talking would mean not focusing on what was around them. Even the slightest of distraction could prove to be their end.

When the techpriest mentions the shuttle she stops and activates her microbead though. "This is Minerva, what's the status at the shuttle?" They must have left at least one person with a microbead back at the shuttle, right?

[Earl of Purple]

Noose & Shackle

"I'd like to do this again. If I take advantage of you doing what I say, even if you're OK with it, it might not happen again. And yeah, I'm... getting a little worried. The gambling is big here, and she's a favourite by now. They'll throw harder things at her soon, I think." More money for them if she fails, and also Earl has gotten attached to her. Which is bad, because she doesn't even have a name.

The grimlock's lead off the stage and more sawdust is spread over the stage.

Guild Warehouse 2B

It's why she was given solid food, to keep her water as clear as possible. The mermaid she saw earlier isn't here, but there's several others in other tanks. None of them are fitted with aerators, so it's just s well that first mermaid isn't- all the mermaids and mermen here can breathe air. It won't be too long before some slaves in denim dungarees arrive and load up some of the cages and tanks onto small wagons, including the merbatgirlmaid. There's five wagons, with two cages and a tank on each, that are in turn pulled by a utility task vehicle. Three guards join the wagon train, two sat in the front and one on the back. The guards are wearing kevlar vests over chainmail byrnies, and are carrying dart rifles. The two in the cab of the UTV are human, one male and one female, and the one on the back is a Gnome with disproportionately long limbs and a pug nose.

SPAAAAAAACE!

"We vat-grow our servitors, using sanctified templates. I... do not know the secrets of the Magi Biologis." And the Adeptus Astartes have their own secrets in gene-editing technology, which the Adeptus Mechanicus are not usually privy to. "What you propose is... likely tech-heresy, but do not worry. I do not think my superiors are alive to censure you." Although they might be, since they're probably more mechanical than man by now.

"We hear you, Mistress Minerva. Status is A-OK, some xenos scum turned up but the guns you left us are nasty in the corridors." The razorjacks launch circular blades that bounce off walls, the floor, and the ceiling, murdering anything in their way. "How're things your end, over?" The pilot sounds rather relaxed about things at the moment, which is hopefully a good sign.

[Ironsmith]

[Guild Warehouse 2B]

A transport. That was perfect. Klaus takes a moment to count up the personnel, three escorts that he could see, and at least fifteen prisoners. That's what he called light security. He wasn't going to need even a quarter of the clip for this.

Well, maybe. His shoulder still had a bullet in it, and while he was a good shot, sharpshooting wasn't his specialty. Having some margin for error would be a good thing.

Assuming the situation with the wagon train doesn't change radically in a few minutes, Klaus follows at a discrete distance, lining up a shot to take out one of the UTV's tires. He doesn't actually take it until they're far enough away to not reasonably expect to get help from the warehouse.

pyut