Inside 72: Halfway to a Gross

[Artemis97]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"Patronage?" The shopkeep echoes, blinking. "What sort of arrangement were you imagining? Would I work for you exclusively? I don't want to cave-in my caverns with Mistress Iridice" or burn his bridges, as a human might say. "I am interested in a working relationship however."

[Ironsmith]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"Oh, of course not." Rose replies. Dude's a little thick, isn't he? "Let me put it like this. You've probably got at least a dozen ideas you haven't committed to metal yet, yeah? I like what you've shown me you can do. Wouldn't it be nice if you had someone you knew, beyond a doubt, would be willing to buy a piece if you made it?" She gives a sly little smile. "Your mistress wouldn't object; she's still profiting off it as much as you are. Everybody wins."

[Artemis97]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"That would be... quite amicable, actually." The shopkeep decides. He bows to Rose and Miranda. "I am Wehlorvir. Might I know your names?"

[Ironsmith]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"My name's Rose. Rose Verdoyant. And this grumpy gal here is Miranda."

"Charmed." Miranda adds curtly. "Well, it was great meeting you, Wehlorvir, but we really have to go." She jabs her thumb toward the door, giving Rose a harsh glare that reminded her they had gone well past the five-minute mark and she wasn't going to tolerate any further insubordination.

"...Right." Rose sighs and heads for the door. "Nine tonight sound good?"

[Artemis97]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"The shop will be closed then." Wehlorvir says looking confused for a moment, but then. "However...you wanted coffee?" He says, questioningly hopeful. He didn't want to sour the relationship with his patroness so early.

[Ironsmith]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"That was exactly what I meant." Rose gestures over her shoulder. "There's a cafe right inside the gates here. I'll meet you there, unless you know a better place."

Miranda tugs Rose by the shoulder, all but dragging her toward the door. Wrap this up, Verdoyant. You and I are gonna have a talk about a little thing called 'ethics'. If Wehlorvir was paying much attention to her expression, he could probably tell that Rose was going to be getting an earful, minimum, as soon as they left the shop.

[Artemis97]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

Wehlorvir shakes his head. "No that will be fine. I'll see you then."

[Reinholdt]

[Street Sans Sign]

Reinholdt lets out a long laugh and grins. "As a cat, I'm free to look down on anyone and everyone," he replies in an equally not serious manner. He just needs to be on top of the cabinet.

"I'm a special species of cat. I don't much worry about the finger thing. I can handle most things a human can. I have to cheat when it comes to the heavier stuff though." Weight is still a factor. But Rein is very good at cheating.

Hmm... gold band. Cape. Hat? Oh. Maybe that hat he got from Zee would suffice.

Almost free. One step from retirement. "That's good. The last thing we need is a random encounter. That would be just devastating." Largely because the random encounters lately have been loot-less. What's even the point?

[Ironsmith]

[Delmah Phor - Rose and Miranda]

"Great! I'll see yo- whoop!" Rose is cut off as Miranda drags her bodily out of the shop, pausing only when they're out of earshot.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" Miranda scolds.

"Nothing I've never done before. You never seemed to object when I was going after Terahns."

"That was different. We were at war."

"Yeah, it was. When we were at war, this sort of thing had to end badly." Rose crosses her arms. "Look. I'll get to know the guy, and Delmah Phor itself a little better through him. Plus, if all goes well, we'll have a contact here in this city if we ever need it, and a little harmless fun besides. Why do you have to go and act like that's a bad thing?"

"Because it is. You don't know the way things work here very well. This could easily go wrong and someone's going to get hurt because you had to do recon this way instead of just looking around like a normal person. This is selfish and unprofessional and terrible representation for us as a group."

"Selfish. Right. Because that's what you call it when you drop twenty grand on someone's work to be nice." She frowns. "Did Vlad get this lecture when I wasn't looking?"

"Vlad doesn't get far enough along to scar someone."

The two of them keep bickering as they make their way back toward the main group, their argument slowly escalating as they go.

[Zefir]

[Looking for Jo]

"Yeah, that is weird. What kind of person kills everyone then cleans up afterwards? And not even in the 'hiding the evidence' kind of way." If the evidence was being hidden, the blood-stained papers would be missing, and the burials wouldn't all have the same date. "Not to mention burying everyone. If the bodies were just taken outside, the animals would have gotten rid of the evidence but they were buried instead."

This is...unusual, to say the least, Carmen thinks.

There are some keys, actually, hanging up on the wall. The keys are even labeled! Three keys. "Armory" "Residential" "Storage".
If they look for the armory, they'll find some definitely-valuable armor and weapons, plus a variety of expired and old potions (including healing potions, holy potions, and magic-recovery potions, plus some for specific diseases or for treating infections)

While the residential key works on the room they were searching, it also works on the barracks as well as it opens up to a mini-church room with pews and places to pray. Besides books, there's really nothing valuable in there.

And the storage key actually works on the room they originally came here for: the one with the crystals that they need.
There's enough there that they can now use it as a torch and go along the path, and they'd be safe enough from getting trapped in time. But, remember, Carmen earlier said it would be better to have more in case of ambush: like having a torch that reveals farther, having more crystals will give them more time to react to whatever shows up in the 'dark'.
"So we can go to the succubus village now," she says, "or we could look for more crystals elsewhere."

[Looking for Jo]

Fade observes things carefully. In the Armory he takes a set of the Paladins armor, could come in handy. He just drops them on the ground where his shadow is and instead of a loud noise as they touch the ground they just disapear into the shadow. He takes some poitions, not sure if they can still work or not. He heared that such things expire and can become poisonouse instead of healing.

I have a slight feeling it's better to get more stones.

"Will those be enougth to get us into the village and back out? I don't want them to run out on the spot. It's bad for the contract if one of us disapears." he says. "What places could offer more? The main base shouldn't be close by, but any other places you know?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Sewer System Purple]

That is an impressive effect, the silver crown. They should have Emef look into doing something similar with his crafts. His eyes though, why do they look that way?
"Pyrthon's group is an indication that talking may be worthwhile. Things have changed since your attack on Riverside, correct?"
"What are your goals, that brought your forces here to destroy our sentries?"

[Two Detectives]

"Aye. And I need to tell Ithuriel what I just roped her into," Michalson says as he starts walking back towards the station.

Pennilan's Tavern

Jim decides not to ask about what 'worse ways' means. Probably experimenting with weird bad things people can't normally do. Maybe hurting people. He just has to assume Jaahlyn could have been asked to do anything.
"Well, if you want to do it we can do that. Just give me a time. I have pretty predictable times for being asleep most of the time." He stays up late sometimes but not super often.

Pennilan's Tavern

"Erm, yeah. Not that we need to nessecarily wait for that. Remembering dreams is pretty exhausting and I wouldn't want to interrupt your normal sleep. We could just... I mean... I can put people to sleep with music. Usually for just a couple of minutes. But I understand if that would be... weird." Most things with her were honestly she had started to come to realize. Yet she still didn't seem to be able to stop going down this weirdness train.
She had wanted to know people on a deeper level than just casual conversations she had during work. Yet now that she was doing that she couldn't help but feel extremely nervous and say all these stupid things. She just hoped Jim wouldn't be unnerved by all of it.

[Two Detectives]

"Right. I do hope I get to meet her before you leave then." Ava comments as she follows Michalson back to the station.

[Sewer System Purple]

"There is little reason to try to dress it up now. We have many enemies and counted your people among them, queen Emef. Therefore, the plan was to get rid of one of them while we had the chance. We have known about you since the battle of Riverside and we knew that you would likely join whatever else great battle that would occur in the future." The demon king pauses for a moment, his eyes closed.
"But..." He starts again as his blue eyes once again open. "This wouldn't be the first time we make an ally. So tell me, what would you want to get out of any potential partnership? You have seen our might already. While the defenders might claim otherwise, we see the Riverside battle as a great sucess. Much has been gained since then."

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Street - Cat-hating Sewer Monster]

The magical girl manages to rip through the frail forms of the shadows, rending them like tissue paper and causing them to dissolve with a distressingly child-like shriek.

While this is happening, the puddle of black goop the little kirin filly just barfed up rapidly assembles itself, taking on texture and color until there stands a unicorn filly with a powder blue coat and sunny yellow mane. She looks a little shocked and confused, but otherwise fine.

She also just registered the shadows being destroyed.

"Oh no, the other girls!"

Arright!

The familiars are gone that's always step one, right? Now she just needs to deal with the 'witch'.

Though that thing is probably not a witch.

"The Collector's champions I expected, but not the defiled nightmare. Truly this is a cursed realm," the gross black bug monster says, its voice a deep baritone. It regards Red Velvet is a look of absolute disgust, the magical girl with contempt. "I will be more prepared upon our next encounter. Tend to your soul, little champion. I would be disappointed to lose the opportunity to slay you myself."

Then it explodes.

Chunks of razor-sharp darkness are flung away from the monster, blasting Red out of her icy prison and sending her skidding across the ground. She looks wounded.

The two fillies and the magical girl are far enough away to avoid the worst of the blast, but flying shadow shrapnel might still give them a bad time.

"Oh come on!"
This isn't really that bad of an attack, under normal situations. But now there are two weak little children here that will probably definitely get killed by this.

With a frustrated yell, the gnome-girl slashes her paint-knife down at the ground, tearing the meadow-painting and kicking it up in front of the two fillies to create a little shield of dirt.
This does not benefit her, however, nor does she have a lot of time to do anything else.

So she just leaps to the ground to minimize her profile so her legs and back take the worst of the hit.
This undoubtedly isn't as bad as it could have been, but probably still would be a pretty gruesome wound on someone more mundane. In her case, it just seems mildly gruesome and she's probably not going to be walking right for awhile.
Ignore the not-childlike cursing.

[Recaiden]

[Sewer System Purple]

There is a moment before the voice answers.
"And when you defeat all your enemies, what then?"
"We have been aware that we would be in conflict since the incident at Watchtower. The indiscriminate nature of the destruction that 'demons' have caused spurred us to action."

"We also see Riverside as a success. Although most of our forces in the field were destroyed, we learned things worth far more than them, and cemented our relations. Perhaps it is only those living there that think otherwise. Still, we would hope for a sort of disarmament. Resources could be put to more productive use than preparing to fight you. And we are eager to learn about the living creatures amongst your forces."
This should be easy stuff. Not the real sticking points of an alliance.

[Rebonack]

[A Street - Cat-hating Sewer Monster]

The pair of fillies scream as they try shielding themselves from the blast only to discover that they've been protected by-

Paint?

Sure seems like they've been protected by paint.

Chunks of steel-hard black ice slam into the barrier and stick fast. Thankfully the magical girl and the two fillies were far enough away from the nightshade that it was only a few stray shards of evil shrapnel rather than a full face of it. Considering how resilient magical girls tend to be assuming their very important thing doesn't get damaged the gnome girl will likely be just fine if a little sore for a while. Just walk it off, right? This isn't any worse than some of the attacks witches use. No big deal!

"Oh no!"
"Are you okay?"

The two rescued children will immediately come galloping over to check on the magical girl. There will likely be hugs in the near future.

Meanwhile!

"Ugh..."

Red Velvet isn't having a great day.

Usually she has a number of defensive spells that would have prevented the worst of this explosion that went off right in her face. But thanks to the nightshade's dispelling trick she was bereft of her wards.

Lovely.

She's festooned with gashes and scrapes, but the unicorn is FAR less wounded that one would expect considering a bomb just went off next to her. Despite her slight frame Red Velvet is atypically resilient.

"What an inelegant way to end a dance..." Red huffs as she takes a few staggering steps toward the children. "Are you girls alright?"


[Abandoned Newspaper]

The blast briefly throws the blood-dragons off target, just long enough for our hero to bonk the cultist for a SECOND time!

CLONK!

Probably one of those squeaky hammer noises, too.

The cultist staggers briefly, wobbles, then topples over.

That wasn't so bad, right? Bell is doing a bunch of the heavy lifting but G'nichi has got this one!

Hmm...

That still leaves him in the dark with a bunch of very frightened prisoners and the rest of the cultists nearby. Two of them are already fighting with the fuse box. "They're ALL burned out? How many space heaters did that idiot plug in THIS TIME!?"

[bc56]

Abandoned Hospital

The room isn't very large. Not good for flying. But the breaker box also isn't far. It looks like if Carmen could find a way to safely touch it without being electrocuted, she could probably shut it off. Or if she found where it was drawing power from, she could shut that off instead.
Or maybe finding a way around the electrified puddle would be easier. It wouldn't let her get at that skeleton though.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Street - Cat-hating Sewer Monster]

"I. Am. Fine."
This is stated with the gritted teeth and scarcely-restrained anger of someone who doesn't feel great and deeply resents others worrying about it.

In the grand scheme of things she's going to be fine. Doesn't mean any of that felt good and that there isn't an unhealthy amount of blood involved in the current situation.

The gnome-girl wobbles her way to her feet on legs that would prefer she didn't do that right now, but grimaces and ignores their protests. Red is over there asking the same stupid question, have to look somewhat competent for that.
"We're fine. Just. Fine."

She looks around for a minute, to confirm that the monster actually is gone, before releasing whatever magic is holding the meadow painting together.
Just like the paint it always was, the scenery will begin to smear and run down the sewer walls.
"Could have killed it if there weren't bystanders to keep alive."

[Deathkeeper]

Pennilan's Tavern

Jim considers this. Would it be exhausting? Would it matter if she did it when he was asleep naturally? He quickly deduces that he has absolutely no way of knowing.
"Well, not here of course! But I suppose we could try it in a more controlled environment. But I should warn you that if this was all a long con to put me to sleep so you could rob my apartment blind that Barbabas is an extremely accomplished martial artist." he grins down at the tiny homonculus who is making a show of baring his knuckles in an old-fashioned boxer's stance.

Abandoned Newspapers

G'nichi really doesn't know how none of the cultists heard that. But he really isn't going to complain. He waves his staff to put a little tie on the unconscious cultist's hands/claw whatever. Then he sneaks up on the nearest cultists fighting with the fuse box. Just like before, he's going to use their ribbon-tying trick to tie up the cultists before they can get the lights back on.
Obviously he makes a note to cover their mouths so they don't call their buddies. Being able to do this ad nauseum would be very simple and easy.

[5a Violista]

[Abandoned Hospital]

She wouldn't have to fly around, she'd just have to get across the pool.
Regardless, Carmen recognizes that it's probably easier to reach it from this side than that side.

The totally-is-a-half-elf gets as close as she can to the breaker box without touching the electricity. All she has to do is shut it down, right? Converting the electricity to lust energy would probably be the best option.

Sure, she's weak to elemental lust, but for a short period of time it's probably better to touch it than to touch live electricity.

She looks at it and starts mentally going through the steps to do it. Even tracing out things in the air to help better visualize it.

Carmen bites her lip, and reaches for the wall, and starts tracing out things on the wall and in the air - tracing out using magic, which is okay because she can see it.


After long enough, it should be ready. She double-checks it, and...okay!
She reaches towards the electricity and...as soon as the electricity zaps out at her, all of the loose electric energy is converted into elemental energy, specifically elemental lust. It can still 'zap' her, obviously, but it's no longer electricity so it doesn't burn or anything. Her face quickly turns flush.

Feeling herself heat up, she quickly runs out towards the breaker box. She gets 'zapped' more, especially from the water conducting it, but she can push through it for now.
She reaches the breaker box, and tries to shut off the breaker box.


[Street Sans Sign]

"Oh, that's pretty handy," Venus says as she tries to imagine what a paw capable of moving more like fingers would be like. "Cheating, that's code-word for...magic? Or physics? or something?" How would you even cheat at that kind of thing?

She continues towards the way out of the city. "In this circumstance, the most likely random encounter would either be another one of those memory-things, or maybe someone else who's a victim of one of them and...I don't know, went mad from the memories or something? Maybe they got some kind of forbidden knowledge or something from it."

Venus quickly glances around, making sure there isn't someone like that around.
"I'm not sure what somebody who fits that description would look like, but I don't think I see anybody like that."

They can leave the city pretty easily.

Then, after leaving, Chekhov's gun fires.
Also, an actual gun fires. Luckily, its bullet doesn't hit anybody, but it's still pretty loud and dangerous.

Looking back, it's pretty clear who fired. There's two people, with one who has a pistol pointing in Rein and Venus's direction. They both have a similar cloak.
The one with the gun has a pretty strange right eye and a burn-scar over half his face. His eye is also red and yellow, with a pretty weird slit.
The other one has, in addition to her normal arms, also has a muscled red arm, an energy-crackling left arm, and a lobster claw-arm.

The one with the arms starts running towards both Rein and Venus, trying to close the distance. "Don't you dare take her while she's still incomplete!" the one with the arms shouts.
She's far enough away it'll take at least thirty seconds to get close enough to do anything. Honestly, they probably should have waited to get closer before firing, because the distance is also why the bullet missed.

"Oh, those cloaks. They're the cultists...but I don't remember any with arms like that," she says to Rein.


[Looking for Jo]

Carmen had picked up a map of the area when they passed one, since it shows all of the outposts and such.

"It's enough to get there and back," Carmen says. "Maybe even enough that we could each carry half, in case we get separated then we won't get stuck."
She bites her lip, and looks down, thinks, and says, "More would be better, obviously. The more we get, the faster we can walk and the less we'll have to worry about danger suddenly showing up. It'll just give us more space. If all we have is this, then..." She walks across the room, and points at the distance between them. "We'll only be able to see about this far around us."

She goes back over to him, and opens up the map. "So we're right here. The next closest outpost is over here, which should have about the same amount. If we have all of this and the ones from that one, that'll give us a lot more space around us."


[Perfectly Normal Elopement]

Chrystalla smiles. "I see. That's good." Honestly, it makes her feel better that someone she helped has helped someone else, so. "Good to see."

She looks at the dress. Yes, green is absolutely the best color. "Okay!" She picks it up. "I'm going to pop open the bathroom lock, you take that awful shirt he has, and put this one in there instead." She then tries to hand it off to Vix.

And, she leaves the room, going towards where the shower is.
She presses against the door, lifts it to keep it from making noise, and...pop it's unlocked. "Okay," she whispers, "ready."


Inside the bathroom, there is a shower curtain but having a long snake tail takes up a lot of space. (That's probably why he's still in there, actually.)
The worn-and-terrible shirt is on the ground.


[Aimlessly Wandering Streets]
new and open scene

Having just left Trog's Tavern, June goes around the streets, trying to get used to how the Nexus works and seeing all the random things that are around.

June has short red hair (and freckles!), looks pretty androgynous, and is wearing some padded armor that probably glows with light when she wants it to.

First on her list of places to go is...
There!
Whatever that is.
She's not sure what it is, but she wants to find out.

[Earl of Purple]

Arkham Street Mansion

"As I recall, and I could be wrong, she chased a merchantman into a storm. The merchantman came out the other side, mast broken and rigging fouled, a sitting duck, but The Blackhearted Rogue was never seen again. Certainly didn't attack the merchantman." Which would certainly suggest she was wrecked, at least.

Meanwhile, a jackdaw has just landed on the railings nearby, though it's an odd bird- it has two pairs of wings folded over each other, and the outermost wings have eyes in the central joint, the 'elbow' that is actually a wrist. It tilts its head and looks at the Swordsman.

Delmah Phor

"Oh, I'd... better not touch it, then. I'm a shapeshifter, and stuff like alcohol affects me a lot more when I shift, because I get smaller." She gets less blood, so the alcohol content goes up. I think Eun and Miranda have seen Jack in her smaller, jackdaw shape, as that's how she spent the night in the room, but not the others. "I could probably drink some, if I remember not to fly later." Drunk flying is not fun, or rather it is, until she hits a window.

[Morty]

[Two Detectives]

Michalson leads the way back to the station and goes to find Ithuriel promptly. His limp seems to be more pronounced, probably because he walked faster than he should on the way back. He doesn't seem happy, but most of his frustration is directed towards himself.

[Recaiden]

Now Vix will have to help someone even newer, to continue the chain.
Or help out Chrystalla, to make a circle. That would work too.

Vix takes the green dress in hand, and nods right away, but it takes a moment to actually understand Talla's plan.
Once she manages that, she nods again, and carefully follows. Don't want to make too much noise.

She lifts two whips, moves them just so, and the worn-and-terrible shirt lifts itself from the floor and comes outside.
Then she tosses the green dress into its place. There. Now they just need to close the door, and June will have no choice but to be fashionable after the shower.

The worn-and-terrible shirt is picked up while she waits for Talla to close the door again - and relock it?
They can't let June get ahold of this again. What if he went back to wearing it for sentimental reasons or something?

[bc56]

Abandoned Hospital

The breaker box, thankfully, has a lever Carmen can pull to shut off the power.
So when she does, she stops getting zapped.
Hopefully nothing important was being run off that.
Now she can explore the room more thoroughly. There's the skeleton with the gun, and the metal desk with its drawers.

[Artemis97]

[Delmah Phor]

"Hmm... maybe we should skip the mushroom wine." Raril considers. "Oh hey, I think your friends are back!" The drow waves to Rose and Miranda as they come up the street. He frowns a bit as he realizes they're arguing. And what was Rose wearing? Wow. "Oh dear..."

[Rebonack]

[A Street - Cat-hating Sewer Monster]

Fine.

Totally fine?

Just dandy?

In spite of all those puncture wounds?

Because typically when someone is full of puncture wounds that means that they are not, in fact, fine.

The unicorn filly is deeply concerned, here. She doesn't know exactly what's going on, just that she had been talking to a weird kitty about wishes and then all of a sudden she was slaved to the nightskitterer. She had... died? Maybe? And that nice pony over there had rescued her. But then this magical girl had helped rescue her, too! And now she's hurt! Because she was protecting!

"But-" the filly begins, only to start when the kirin puts a hoof on her shoulder. The other equestrian gives her head a little shake.

"Thanks for helping us. I'm Emerald Wishes," the kirin says.

"Oh, um, I'm Wandering Star," the unicorn mumbles, glancing over at Red Velvet. Red looks pretty hurt, too.

"I will be fine enough, thank you for your concern," Red Velvet says as she makes a point of limping over. Then? Flicks one of her ears. "Switchboard, darling, please patch me in to Ardent Heart. A nightskitterer has been about targeting children.
...
No, unfortunately not. It beat a hasty retreat no sooner had it realized our little sourie was growing out of hoof.
...
Ardent Heart! Just the stallion I wished to speak to.
...
Alas, no! Not for personal reasons today, I'm afraid. Though it is lovely to hear your voice.
...
Well, a long tale short a nightskitterer has been preying on little girls here on the dayside. I managed to unshackle two of them before it bowed out of our dance in a dreadfully untoward manner. No doubt it's skulking about the Gloom waiting for a chance to return.
...
Could you? Oh Ardent Heart you never case to amaze. If you can manage to destroy the brute before it can come creeping back dayside that would be just heavenly.
...
Mm, of course! Tahtah for now! And please find some time to enjoy yourself dayside. You spend far too much time in the Gloom, darling, it does dreadful things to one's luster."

Another flick of the ear and Red Velvet turns back to those gathered. As soon as the sunlight goes away it looks like Red is beginning to regenerate at a rather impressive clip.

"Well! Wasn't that an adventure? Our newest 'friend' will be at least a day before it can return to our world. And knowing how cautious the dreadful brutes are it likely won't begin hunting for another day after that. Assuming, of course, that my good friend Ardent Heart doesn't find it first and burn it to cinders. One way or another, that means we have a reprieve from its predations," Red Velvet says as she begins moving toward a ladder leading up to the surface. "In the mean time I believe we had best get you two fillies back to your parents and appraise them of the situation, such as it is."


[Abandoned Newspaper]

Now.

One would expect that after the third or so person heads off toward the fuse box and never returns the cultists would begin to expect something is up.

They do not.

This is possibly because deranged cultists are, typically, not that bright.

If they were then they probably wouldn't be devoting themselves to dead gods that are going to kill everyone if they ever wake up.

Is G'Nichi really just going to stand there in the shadows and bop every single one of these rubes as they walk up to the fuse box?

[Ironsmith]

[Delmah Phor]

"Maybe for now." Vlad concedes. "It's still a curious concoction, and I..." He stops when he sees Miranda and Rose, apparently noticing the latter's attire around the same time Raril did. "...Wow. Would you look at that."

Eun notices too, of course, but she's a little more concerned with the amount of attention the two of them are drawing. Between Rose's new corset and the sheer disruptiveness of their argument, there were bound to be a few heads turned in their general direction... and hers, by extension. She tacitly steps behind Raril, Vlad, and Jack, trying to get some cover from all the staring.

[Zefir]

[Looking for Jo]

Carmen had picked up a map of the area when they passed one, since it shows all of the outposts and such.

"It's enough to get there and back," Carmen says. "Maybe even enough that we could each carry half, in case we get separated then we won't get stuck."
She bites her lip, and looks down, thinks, and says, "More would be better, obviously. The more we get, the faster we can walk and the less we'll have to worry about danger suddenly showing up. It'll just give us more space. If all we have is this, then..." She walks across the room, and points at the distance between them. "We'll only be able to see about this far around us."

She goes back over to him, and opens up the map. "So we're right here. The next closest outpost is over here, which should have about the same amount. If we have all of this and the ones from that one, that'll give us a lot more space around us."

[Looking for Jo]

This whole time fog thing sounds dangerouse with every step. What can wait in it that can move freely through it?

"What can lurk in this time thing? I understood it as dangerouse itself, but not that there are also living things inside it.
Let us check the outposts then. If not for the gems we might find out a little more about this clean killer. If you are right we either met them on our way or at the village."

[BDD]

It has been seom time sinc ehe last went out for a drink. last time he met his friend. Things went bad since that time. AMEn isn't really active and his secret identety also got into bad times. Nothing life threatening, but it just get's around well. For now he is out for a drink. letting things be things and such.

Zefir appears like a common human, wearing jenas and a T-Shirt. Only the shoulderbacg with a bomb on it is unusual. Someone with magic ability could see one thing clearly. There is no magic around him, not even the amount you usually have.

[Reinholdt]

[Outside Sans Inside]

"Magic. My species has an inherently low capacity for most magical feats, but opening a door without touching the handle is one of my most useful tricks." Surprisingly powerful too. Now if only forensics had gotten their hands on him.

Reinholdt shakes his head. "I'm not saying we should have one. It might be cool if we get a pile of loot and get to choose one and it randomly has an unknown effect until you pick it up, but that only happens in Trog's and hasn't happened in years. Trust me, we're better off..."

Yikes!

Rein instinctively ducks, though it would only help if they kept firing. He whips his blindfold up so one eye can peek out. The first guy with the gun might be most dangerous, but that's only until the woman with five arms catches up. By Eve, what kind of cultists are these? Well, Venus says she doesn't know. But that could easily be a lie.

"Yeah, ok! I'll give her back, one second!" Rein tears the blindfold off and before Venus, his body shifts and shrinks, clothes melding away until only a small blue cat remains. Small even by adult cat standards. Pretty cute by any cat standards. Still, it sounded like shifting like that hurt. "Sorry," Reinholdt says, as he tries to hop onto her back. "Run," he suggests.

He's pretty sure they won't shoot at him if he's on the back of their goddess.
...
Probably.
...
Unless they think she's impossible to hurt on account of being a goddess. Hmm. This could be considered a scientific experiment?

"Unless you want to talk to them now so you don't have to come back to ask those questions we discussed." A little bit of a spooky prospect. With the guns. And the arms. And the insanity.

[Ironsmith]

[Black Dragon Den]

There is, of course, someone in the room who notices this conspicuous lack of magic.

Shortly after ordering his drink, Zefir is joined by a wiry young man, dressed similarly casually, in a grey t-shirt and black sweat pants. He's pale-looking, with hollow blue eyes and no hair whatsoever, a tiny cross-shaped scar puckering around the back of his head. If Zefir meets his gaze, he'll notice something off about it, though it'll be difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, at this point.

"You've made yourself a rather difficult man to find." He says, with a small, twisted smile.

[Zefir]

[BDD]

Zefir looks up from his place. He does meet his eyes but doesn't mind more. Zefir, thought he has no magic around him trained to feel magic. Like a detect magic but he can only say if it's strong or not.

"Not difficult enougth." he says with a bit of annoyence. He has a few ideas why this guy looked out for him and most include his enemies. So one hand wanders down to his bag, just in case.
"Since you knew me I don't have to introduce myself. If you don't mind just tell me what this is about and who send you?"

[Earl of Purple]

Delmah Phor

"You guys can go ahead, I just won't drink any. It's fine." Jack hangs around in bars and pubs, it's how she met this bunch. She doesn't have a problem with other people drinking alcohol- or even a problem with drinking alcohol herself. Her problem is forgetting she's had alcohol, turning into a bird, finding herself drunk and then flying into windows.

"That looks nice." Jack looks at Eun, and when she realises the scientist is trying to hide, she stretches her wings out to give her a little more cover. She doesn't know what they're arguing about, though. It looks to be quite a vicious one, but until she can hear what's being said there's not much she can do about it.