The Temple of Inari 57: Life goes on

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

Plasma Torus thought.

What could they do?

She was merely an engineer who worked on the fusion reactors and was selected for experimentation due to her unusually high energy output. Could she be a revolutionary? Could she free those people? How could she start?

"What do you know of the facilities of these enslavers... Sekhmet?" Torus asked, using the queen's name uncertainly. It wasn't a familiar word to her. Nor was she familiar with this level of interaction with someone who wasn't her designated Master. Let alone taking this level of initiative by herself. But... if she wanted to ever free her people she needed to learn how to do these things. "For the purpose of entering them and freeing those slaved I'm capable of manifesting a wide variety of tools, mechanic, electronic, and thaumatic. I... I think I could, perhaps, make myself to appear as one of our enemies. Or one of their prey? It is forbidden to assume any likeness of the Masters; they stand upright so all servitors must crawl. But I'm no longer beholden to them, am I? I could build for myself a bipedal shape if that would make infiltrating this place more feasible."

Torus was beginning to feel like a Security servitor with all this talk of subterfuge.

It had a strange sort of intoxicating excitement to it.

"If you were to join me in this endeavor what skills would you offer?"

As she spoke, Torus reached out with her tail and plucked several pieces of fruit from the table. No reason to stop eating while they planned.

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
"Uh, I can change my appearance also. I can open portals to and from, uh, my kingdom. I have telepathy, and, uh, can control fire." Technically, Sekhmet has a lot more powers than that, but those are the ones she knows how to use.

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

While Torus had seen a wide variety of creatures during her time in Skyside she had seen very few that were at all similar to the forms she was accustomed to taking. If she were to try entering Skyside to disrupt the activities of slavers her preferred shapes would likely draw attention. And drawing attention was a great danger in an endeavor such as this, wasn't it? So... that meant that Torus needed to fashion some new shapes, ones that would better blend in with the bipeds that populated this strange world.

She had picked up many schematics thus far. Torus had quickly discovered that the bipeds shed their hair regularly and the root at the base contained a bounty of schematic data. It was a simple matter of spotting them as she walked with her chemosensors and absorbing them when she stepped on them. It was a tremendous amount of data and she had spent the last several dozen kiloseconds sequencing and cataloging it all. Physiologically the bipeds were not remarkable; quite similar to the biped pets some of the Masters kept. They were designed to be sturdy with high endurance, the sort of creature that might make a decent servitor for less dangerous tasks-

-wait, no.

No, Torus shouldn't think of people like that.

No one should be thought of as servitors. The Masters weren't the only people. ANYONE with a kami could be a person, as the one called Inari said. Torus wasn't fully sure what a kami was, maybe another word for her control core? But she understood the basic concept. Anyone aware of themselves should be treated with dignity. It was a difficult concept to make sense of, but Torus thought she might be able to manage.

"I will experiment with my shape," Torus said, looking at those gathered nearby. "I have noticed that... that people often ornament themselves? I can create approximations of such things but for the sake of genuineness I believe actual ornaments may be best."

Then?

Torus' body bubbled and frothed as she dissolved into protoplasmic form. Necessary to do if she is to wholly reshape herself. Slowly she would being building shape, but a ground-up rebuild like this took time.

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
Sekhmet watches as Torus dissolves into slime and begins to reshape. Her own shapechanging is much less visceral in appearance. Should she demonstrate too? Her own appearance warps and deforms like molten wax. Her horns give way to vulpine ears, her tail becomes fuzzy and then bushy, her wings shrink into her back, and she grows a layer of fur over her body, looking for all the world like a black werefox. She laughs. "This, uh, feels weird. But it's, uh, not the furthest from normal I've been." She was a salamandertaur like Rose once. That was very different. And when she thinks about it, it's weird that she could adapt to having four legs so easily.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary]

Caroline and Keiko both stop and freeze for a moment, staring at the bubbling mass. Finally, Caroline recovers enough to motion to an acolyte

Go fetch her a robe!

The acolyte scurries off and shortly after returns and tosses a red maintenance staff robe over the transforming shoggoth

She said she was an engineer...

And then Sekhmet transforms!

Keiko giggles

Well, I guess you fit in a little better that way!

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party - Sanctuary]

*plep*

The robe flopped on top of Torus as she began rebuilding her body after breaking it down. She felt that. And she heard them speaking, too, though mostly through vibrations felt across her whole body rather than any discrete ears. She's glad that they were kind enough to provide her with some ornamentation. It was like watching a giant embryo grow, looking from the outside. A large headed thing that rapidly became more human shaped. Paddle like limbs splitting and spreading into fingers. Child-like proportions rapidly filling out into adult form as Torus struggles to get the robe on straight. This wasn't a shape she was familiar with, so the safest route was to follow the assembly instructions in the schematics rather than trying to do an ad-hoc approximation.

Torus took longer than Sekhmet, certainly. Her shape shifting is primarily biologically based. And while there ARE thaumatic components, those are merely meant to accelerate the process and minimize waste. When she's finished Torus stood on her hind legs, tottering slightly and grasping the nearby table for support. Her center of gravity was so high and she had so little contact with the ground. This mode of locomotion was certainly going to require some growing accustomed to. Her appearance is... well. She had shuffled a large database of schematics together to create this shape. Torus had made certain that each of the species were reproductively compatible with each other just to be certain that she wasn't creating some sort of untenable hybrid. The end result was... humanoid. But perhaps not readily identifiable with any specific species. Her skin tone was a middle brown, black hair and black eyes. Somehow simultaneously she combines the appearance of humans, elves, dwarves, vulcans, klingons, orcs, and many, many others.

Almost as if someone took Skyside's diversity and condensed it down into a single woman.

Only one featured particularly stood out. Her eyes still had the subtlest blue-green glow to them.

"Is this shape acceptable?" Torus asked- oh. Where did Sekhmet go? It took her a moment to realize, "Oh. You said you can alter your shape as well. You are very fast."

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
"Uh, ha, thanks." Sekhmet looks a little embarrassed at the compliments. "Uh, this, uh, demon dragon lord, uh, he's your father?" she asks Keiko. "Uh, is he friendly? How can he, uh, help me?"

[Deathkeeper]

FMP - Sanctuary

Steven nods multiple times in one. "Well, I do think that this is something you won't be able to do simply with Inari's gifts. But I'm sure we could find you some equivalent if you wished. We'd have to keep our colors consistent." Maybe they could find her some way to be a blue dragon. He got to match his own robes, after all! But Inari isn't known for any large, scaly shapes like Tamamo is.

Gardens

Domhnall grins widely.
"Aye, I think we could do that. Let's be about it, then!." he starts trotting off to the stage.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary]

Keiko gives Cleo a grin and then detaches from Braeg and sets her daughter down

Ok, I'll at least do mine correctly.

She bows with a flourish

Royal Princess Keiko no Mae, daughter of King Yamata no Orochi of the Shadows, Messenger and youngest sister of Her Dark Holiness Tamamo no Mae: goddess of the Shadow Vulpans and Nogitsune.

She grins

Inari thinks Dad can help 'cause he's the king of a reasonable chunk of territory on the Plane of Shadows not too far from Shadow-Inside and has been for a really long time, so he knows a little bit about ruling the unruly.

-

Caroline can't help but roll her eyes just a bit at Keiko's self-introduction, but then she smiles at Steven

No, you're right: it would take burning a Miracle which would be completely inappropriate... but Grandmother is sitting out by the pond waiting for people to offer poems to her, and if you remember, her real power is her arcane magic: in life she only ever made it to be a fifth rank priestess. I imagine if I participate in her contest and ask nicely, she will help me out.

looks like things are gently trending toward the pond outside...

---

[Garden]

Celeste nods and they both trot over to the ...

[Stage]

Celeste has absolutely no psychic ability whatsoever, so Fay is completely invisible to her.

The band tonight is rather different from the last few, with the sign now reading

Coming Soon: Of Monsters and Elves

Celeste tilts her head

Never heard of them

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

Torus decided that she would, for now, occupy herself with two things.

The first was growing accustomed to how bipeds moved. She was clever and this wouldn't take a great deal of time. The second was her continued sampling of the buffet items. These were still delicious and well worth the effort it took to taste each. As she slowly made her lap around the table she was busy thinking.

How?

It was an enormous task that sat in front of them.

How many were held captive?

What was the best way to free them?

Where should they be taken once they were freed from their masters?

All these questions needed answers.

"Would it be wise if I were to examine the compounds used by the slavers first?" Torus wondered aloud. "I believe I would be able to enter them undetected by utilizing an unassuming shape."

[Deathkeeper]

Sanctuary

"Well, I'd offer to give you a ride but I think you'd slip." Steven says with a chuckle. It's true though: he's far too sleek to safely give anyone a ride without a proper saddle. You'd slip off and hurt yourself.
"If you want to try it, though." Myobi would certainly be the person to ask for all things aquatic.
He also does his best not to blink at Myobi "only" reaching the rank he currently has. She knows entirely what Caroline meant; Myobi lived significantly longer than he has been at this. But still!

Garden

"Well that's fine. I don't really think I've heard of anyone!" Dom says as he sits down on the grass. Bands are kind of a new thing to him. He's mostly used to the one or two traveling minstrels at best.

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
"I've been, uh, briefly, but not to the main compound." She rescued a sister-in-law who was a taken as a slave. "Uh, it feels, uh, distasteful to me, but I could masquerade as a, uh, client and get inside." It wouldn't be especially strange for a powerful demon to purchase slaves; especially if she changes her shape to be unrecognizable as herself. Just some other succubus looking for slaves for... Reasons. Ugh. That's a gross thought.

"Uh, I guess I can pay him a visit. Uh, I'll be back, okay?" Sekhmet adds to Torus. Then she looks to Keiko. Obviously, Sekhmet doesn't know how to get to the shadow realm on her own.
It would be a lie to say the young demon queen isn't nervous. But if she's introduced by this dragon lord's daughter, she'll be okay, right? Right?

[Recaiden]

Who Cleo is, is the only person here who's dealt with Orochi as an outsider. So she was once an unbiased source about how trustworthy he is.

Cleo nods to Keiko.
"It's a huge, complicated problem, and it's only gotten worse over the years."

And with a smile, adds "I'm not going through a whole introduction here at a party." She supposes she could use more of her name, though, since Keiko did shorten it. "Cleosepha, Archwizard of the Stormguard. Pleased to meet you, Braeg."

Ayako hops onto the floor and bounds over to try to get a snack.

[Garden]

Fay hasn't heard of them either; but that's not a surprise. There's an endless confusion of musical groups in the Nexus, and she mostly only knows the ones that Sophia knew years ago.
She looks curiously at Dom and Celeste. What are these people? Like Striders, but tiny?
But for the moment, she stays hidden.

[Ironsmith]

[Full Moon Party - Sanctuary]

"You could say that, yes." Braeg smirks and gives Cleo an affectionate side-hug, apparently not much caring for any personal boundaries. "Alas, as much as I've enjoyed meeting you, I'm afraid I have other business to attend to." He turns his attention back to Keiko. "I was told Inari herself was going to be at this party, and I need to speak with her as soon as it's... bloody hell, I missed her by minutes, didn't I?"

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary]

Of course it will be alright! Keiko's father is a perfect gentleman and takes his royal duties very seriously: he's almost completely unlike Keiko.
Keiko feels briefly annoyed but isn't sure why. She shakes it off quickly

Yah! Come see me after the party.

Then Braeg mentions wanting to see Inari

Yeah, she doesn't stick around. And the party has got to be the hardest possible time to catch an Avatar. If Sekhmet hadn't been sporting a new fancy greater-level title she'd have just been talking to Caroline. If you want an audience, it's best to just come back during the day and ask since she pays a lot more attention to the Nexus than most places. 'course, depending on what it is you actually need, you might be better off with my sister anyway.

She looks over at Caroline

But regardless, I think things are moving out to the pond right now anyway!

-

Caroline laughs

Yes, you do look a bit slippery! I think I'll take my chances with the walk to the far side of the pond.
Shall we?

She turns to the nearby acolyte

If more guests need assistance, please go find Felina or Arlem or someone, hm? I will be at Myobi's poetry contest should anything suitably important arise.

The acolyte nods

---

[Concert]

The band starts off playing King and Lionheart

Celeste smiles and taps a hoof to the music, enjoying the vivid imagry of the song.

[Ironsmith]

[Full Moon Party - Sanctuary]

Greater ti- he was a freaking Lord, how much greater a title should he need to get Inari's attention?

For the first time since he arrived, Braeg's smile falters, an indignant furrow working its way into his brow. His fists clench, spattering the unidentified blue goop between his fingers as he shakes with increasingly-less-restrained rage at this perceived slight.

Fortunately, his attendants get to him before he can do anything rash.

"Boss, boss, boss... I'm sure she didn't mean it."
"Adea's influence is at its lowest here."
"And therefore yours, as well."
"We'll simply go to Inari in the morning."

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

The first step was getting inside the compound without being suspected.

They had several means of accomplishing that task, Torus was sure.

The second step was finding those in bondage and freeing them. The third was departing and bringing those freed to somewhere safe. The first step would be relatively simple. The second and third steps would be much more difficult. The last particularly so. Torus considered a number of options.

"If we purchased the slaves and then freed them that would only continue to fund these activities. The slaves must be stolen," Torus eventually concluded. "Do you have a means of quickly removing the slaves from the compound? Do you have a safe location they could be moved to? Should we be discovered do you have a means to defend yourself as well as others? I must admit that I am not rated for combat. I have tools that could be used to cause significant harm, but they are not meant for that purpose."

The fusion beam was the most obvious tool that could be repurposed as a weapon.

But aside from that Torus had other, simpler, more visceral options. Hooks, claws, teeth, harpoons, hammers, and the like. Simple structures that she could reinforce with durable composites and hone them deadly sharpness. She knew how many of the creatures in this strange planet were constructed. After all, she had been collecting their schematics at every opportunity. Even relatively small forces when applied correctly could cause potentially catastrophic structural damage to them. Unlike shoggoths it is clear that they were not engineered for maximum resilience.

[Deathkeeper]

Sanctuary

Steven follows beside Caroline, tail swinging. At least he only has one of those.
Hopefully he doesn't earn any remarks from Myobi. She has always been rather kind to him when marrying her granddaughter but there's limits and he admits visiting her as a dragon might be one of them.

Garden

Dom listens thoughtfully.
"All these genres are so new to me. Never really knew they made things that sound like that." It continues to baffle him even though he's heard these instruments for months since coming to the Nexus. But it continues to sound a little otherworldly. Which to some extent it is.

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
Sekhmet nods to Keiko. "I, uh, guess we're not going yet," she comments to Torus. "Uh, you're right, of course. If I, uh, buy
them, then the slavers are better equipped. She thinks. "But if I just go in there to look, I can, uh, open a portal back there later." Sekhmet has to think about the other questions. "My kingdom is, uh, marginally safe. As long as, uh, no one leaves my palace. And I can, uh, protect myself, but, uh, I don't like hurting people."

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary -> Pond]

Keiko looks at (and smells) Braeg getting angry and hasn't the slightest clue what she said (this time) to cause it.

Let's go to the contest... before I say anything else dumb...

She turns and starts for the door.

But another power tugs at Braeg: inviting him, calling him... elsewhere. I suppose he would hardly call the power "familiar", but it's hard to miss that it's the same essence that permeates the entire facility. But it is an offer, not a demand...

Does he go with Keiko, or let himself be moved?

Caroline heads out and toward the pond as well.

[Ironsmith]

[Sanctuary -> Elsewhere]

Oh.

Now that. That is interesting.

He said he wanted to meet with Inari, and now she (seemingly) was extending an invitation to meet... possibly. It was still a little ambiguous.

Still, between that and the option of staying near these peons who clearly did not appreciate the significance of his presence, the former sounded far more enticing.

Besides, he's nothing if not curious.

pop

[Recaiden]

"It's not you, Keiko. It's the Nexus. Whatever things were like in your old world, here..." Well, things aren't really the same for Keiko, with the temple being so active.
"And even in the Nexus, few places have such dizzying gulfs of power as this very temple."
Anyway, off to the pond.

Meanwhile, a newly-released baby dragon runs up to Torus.
"Are you a fox? It looked like you were, but then you transformed! How'd you do that?!"

[Concert]

Fay ... does not know how to feel about this music. It's certainly very ... different.
Not different from itself, there are simple repetition and scales happening. And quieter than it could be, that's nice.

[Rebonack]

[Full Moon Party]

Torus listened to Sekhmet's reply and a particular point stuck out to her as useful information.

It was shocking information, really. A complete surprise to the shoggoth.

"You're capable of discontinuous motion?" Torus asked, mildly shocked. "Is this a technological, thaumatological, or sorcerous effect?"

Torus imagined she would be able to copy the first. Possibly. It depended on many things. Mostly how easy it would be to replicates the components biomechanically. The second would depend largely on whether the spell matrix Sekhmet is using is compatible with the crystalline structures that Torus is able to grow. The third, however, would likely be impossible to mimic. The Masters had never learned the secret of how to convert mi-go sorcery into proper thaumatological equipment.

"The more information we can acquire, the safer this labor will be. I believe that if you find harming other people to be distasteful you should find a way to incapacitate hostile people without causing them great physical damage," Torus suggested.

It was about then that the very smell creature approached her and began speaking. It wasn't a species she recognized, but that was hardly surprising given the nature of this strange hub world.

"I am not a fox. My previous shape was a composite; I wasn't attempting to appear to be any specific species," Torus admited a bit uncertainly. "My kind are called shoggoths. We are an artificial species that was created to serve the Masters. My physiology is plastic; I can take many shapes to help me do many types of labor."

[bc56]

Full Moon Party
"Uh," Those categories are meaningless to Sekhmet. "It's a type of sorcery, I think." Hard to say if that means the same thing to both of them. "I can, uh, open a gateway between my home realm and, uh, anywhere else I've been." With some restrictions, of course. She can't do it here because of both the wards on the temple and the fact that it's holy ground, for instance. And the better she can see a place in her mind's eye, the easier it is to open a portal there.

[Fenric]

[Pond]

Keiko nods: that must be it.

Sitting serenely on a stone bench near the watter is the eldest of vixens (well.. Vulpan vixens, anyway). She is not quite along: a sand fox is there tonight, trying her luck at winning the contest and doing well so far by being the only one.

Lentils and chillies are best by far
We grow them where we live
It never matters where we are
we always freely give!

Caroline winces in symapthy for her poor 14-times-great grandmother

---

[Concert]

The band moves on to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCHUw7ACS8o

(( My favorite of theirs... can't imagine why ))

[Ironsmith]

[Pond]

Braeg's attendants arrive shortly thereafter, gasping and panting for breath, having sprinted the whole way over here.

"Our apologies for our... our tardiness!"
"Lord Braeg has been... *wheeze* Called away, rather urgently."
"We've come to... *gasp, gasp* to fill in for him."
"We just had to... *pant* had to go back to his quarters..."
"To pick up the poems he wrote for tonight."
"Again, a thousand pardons!"

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary]

"They're a shoggoths!" The dragon cries triumphantly.
"Oh, like a, uhm, if you're plastic how do you talk? Plastic is just-" She waves a claw vaguely, hoping to indicate that she's thinking of a rigid hard plastic.

[Pond]

"Well, you've got the rhymes all figured out." Cleo tells the sand vixen in her most sincere tone of voice.

When her turn comes, she inclines her head to the judge of the contest. "With apologies, Myobi, I'm not much of a poet, but a contest does need contestants."
'Deafened by the cicada cries,
This last night as the season dies,
All the joys we have seen today,
The world returns / they fade away.'

She turns curiously to the gaggle of attendants.
"Surely it'll be more fun to make up your own poems, while Braeg is busy?"

[Concert]

Oh, this one is better. Listen to those strings!
Definitely worth hearing.

Although the words don't make a lot of sense.
Is it about grief? But then why the extra layer of framing?
The inner parable abut diplomacy is obvious enough. But how does it relate the son?
What a mystery.

[5a Violista]

[Full Moon Party]

Sirena waits around a bit, then heads towards the entrance again to leave because neither she nor her player can think of anything interesting for her to do at the moment and it'll probably be better to have one fewer fast-moving thread to keep track of.

[Fenric]

[Pond]

Myobi smiles and nods

A worthy submission, Cleo. Thank you.

Keiko smiles and perks up. Called away? So maybe that whole angry-face clenched fist thing wasn't about her at all? That would be a relief.

Oh, that's ok: I know how that can be.

Myobi looks thoughtfully at the attendants

Fiendling minions? You have outdone yourself in bringing odd visitors, Keiko. Very well... as attendance is generally quite sparse, I will allow you to submit your lord's entries on one condition: at least one of you must also put forth an original offering.

Caroline (and presumably Steven) arrive just as this is happening. Myobi smiles and nods to them, then looks over the newly enlarged group of contestants

Who will go next?

----

[Concert]

The esoteric band from a small, remote, cold, heavily volcanic island does not stop to explain their songs.

Next up, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAI5GSyXMjA

[Ironsmith]

[Pond]

The pair of fiendlings turn to face each other, both quietly horrified by what Myobi had said. If they threw in a poem of their own... well, it'd be terrible, and they'd probably receive a great deal of flack from Braeg if they somehow outperformed him. At the same time, if they refused, and his poem was disqualified... that would most assuredly tick him off, to put it lightly. They were caught between a rock and a hard place, with public humiliation on one side and their master's wrath on the other.

And to top it all off, Myobi seemed to have a low opinion of them regardless.

This just was not their night.

"...We accept."
"With reluctance, we might say."
"Would you permit us further time to compose our submission?"
"And, for that matter, ourselves?"