Inside 73: Holiday Rush

[bc56]

Sewers
Vikk has never seen a scout with such fancy clothes or so few scars before. That's weird. Crawling through muddy tunnels is of course muddy. No wonder Vikk is so brown. The kobolds crawl out of the crack into another sewer tunnel... And Vikk suddenly looks distraught. "This not right at all! Vikk came from warren, but Vikk not know this tunnel! Vikk lost!" Being lost is a Very Bad Thing for a kobold.

[Rebonack]

[Sewers]

Regiji would freely admit that he must seem really weird to any Person who was living before his ancestors figured out how to overcome medieval stasis.

In the Bad Old Days kobolds had two mains tools to survive. Their numbers, and their cleverness with traps.

When the realization dawned that cleverness could be used to create mechanical tools other than traps? Well, that had been something of a watershed moment.

At that point it didn't matter anymore that kobolds were so puny compared to the other races. They didn't fight them with their muscles. They fought them with their minds.

So!

Crawling out into a new tunnel. Looks like more sewer. Exciting!

But now Vikk is panicking, which isn't great. Regiji is now suspecting really hard that both he and Vikk just so happened to stumble into the Nexus at the same time from completely different starting points. The fact that two lost People just so happened to encounter each other like this has the mark of the Shepherds all over it. This kind of providential support is exactly their style. Regiji offers up a silent prayer of thanks.

"Okay, Vikk may be lost but Regiji isn't."

Great.

Now she's got me doing it, too.

"I've been here before, a little over ten years ago. Not these tunnels, specifically, but this Town. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we both ended up in the same place. We might not be of the same tribe, but we're both People and we can look out for each other, right?" Regiji says, trying to reassure Vikk.

[bc56]

Sewers
"Regiji knows? He knows!" Vikk is excited about this. "We work together, yes! Kobolds must protect each other from big bad world!" Vikk dances around and hums a little. "Okay, which way out? To surface.

[Shadowcaller]

[Midnight Park]

The secretary dutifully jots down Artie's reply.

As for the letter, that's taken and filed away. "I'll see that the letter is passed to the Princess' majordomo. She'll determine if it needs to be addressed by the Princess directly."

After all, the Princess is very busy.

She has other ponies who take care of things for her.

"I'm uncertain if Lady Hesperos is in at the moment," the secretary says as she levitates out a map and quickly traces a path on it with his pen. "You're here. Follow these directions and that will take you to Lady Hesperos' quarters. Don't stray into these areas marked in red, they're off-limits for visitors. I hope you have a pleasant time at Hometree."

Artie has acquired a map!

Midnight Park

Artie bows.
"In that case I wish you and the Majordomo a very pleasant afternoon." Which does imply that the complaint won't get past the Majordomo, doesn't it?
And of course it won't. That Artie is sure of. Jaahlyn should never have been bound in the first place. And even if the sapient bonds were only following orders placed on them, she's fairly sure the leader of an Intersection partner would not have done more than threaten them.
Regardless Artie goes slithering off to find Jaahlyn.

Midnight Park

She will find the indicated room.

But she will also find a larger swarm of rats outside of it. All staring at her as she approaches.
They don't seem too keen on her presence here.

[Morty]

[Fox Pox Outbreak]

Jade tries and fails to climb out of the slippery sink. She looks and smells like a wet fox. She nods. She hopes Dorota realizes she can't speak in this form without magic.

Well, this is awkward. But presumably Jade can still understand her in this shape, even if she can't communicate.

"I'm going to draw some of your blood again and take a sample of your fur. I need to check if anything has changed after you were exposed to water."

[bc56]

Fox Pox Outbreak
Jade nods again, but also paws at the sink drain. She's trying to send a message that she doesn't want to be half submerged in water. She doesn't like being wet, especially when she's all furry.

[Deathkeeper]

Midnight Park

Well. She doesn't think that the ponies would allow a veritable infestation in their home so these must be familiars.
"I need to warn your master of her compatriot. Please stand aside." she announces to the rats, just in case they understand speech.
If not she's going to have to synthesize something because she really didn't bring any weaponry for this situation. She didn't think that would go over well with Jaahlyn.

[Rebonack]

[Sewers]

Okay that's kind of adorable.

Adorable like how hatchlings behave.

Hatchlings, in this case, being People who are still inhabiting their original body and haven't been transferred over to their computronium casket yet.

Which, granted, makes sense given that without technological intervention everyone just dies on their own.

Shepherds... how long has it been since Regiji has interacted with hatchlings? A long time, certainly. Dealing with kiddos isn't exactly his job. And given how excitable hatchlings are there's a reason why they're kept in the warren worlds where they'll be safe.

But there's something to be said about the school of hard knocks. Certainly teaches a lesson or two. Mostly the lesson of 'you're small and weak and everything will eat you.'

"The surface, right, give me a moment to get my bearings," Regiji replies as Vikk dances a little circle around him.

I've established an uplink with the data-node. It's still actively producing micro-probes, so I have a real time map of the immediate surroundings for you.

SAL delivering the goods just in the nick of time.

A flicker of pale blue lights play across Regiji's eyes as the augmented reality display overlays his vision. He immediately points down a side tunnel.

"There's a ladder to the surface this way. It's night up there, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about the glare," Regiji informs Vikk.

That's a problem some clever genetic engineering took care of. Just a matter of darkening the nictitating membrane a bit to render it a natural pair of sunglasses. But he'll have to remember that Vikk will be easily dazzled by bright lights.

[Morty]

[Fox Pox Outbreak]

"Oh! Right. Sorry." Dorota reaches in and pulls Jade out. "I'll take your blood and fur and then Sizewell and Siana can work on drying you out. Is that alright? Nod if yes."

[bc56]

Sewers
Vikk is awfully happy-go-lucky for someone who for all rights should be terrified of being eaten or shot by angry dwarves. Look at her skipping along and humming to herself. "Let's go, let's go! Vikk needs to find warren again. Can do from surface!"

Fox Pox Outbreak
Jade nods, then proceeds to shake herself out, spraying drops of water all over. It helps a little. She stands still for the blood and hair sampling.

[Shadowcaller]

Midnight Park

Well. She doesn't think that the ponies would allow a veritable infestation in their home so these must be familiars.
"I need to warn your master of her compatriot. Please stand aside." she announces to the rats, just in case they understand speech.
If not she's going to have to synthesize something because she really didn't bring any weaponry for this situation. She didn't think that would go over well with Jaahlyn.

Midnight Park

Master? The rats didn't seem to know that word and don't seem to react well to it. They bare their teeth at her in an aggressive manner when there's suddenly a knock on the door from the inside. "Hello? Is everything okay out there?" Ah, that sounded like Jaahlyn. Though Artie might not a slight shift in her tone. Almost like her font color had changed slightly!

Some of the rats squeak in response and then the swarm moves out of the way of the door as it soon starts to glean open.
Jaahlyn peers out and frowns as she spots Artie.

She might need to explain herself as soon as possible.

[Deathkeeper]

Midnight Park

Jaahlyn is probably not expecting Artesia to break into a wide smile and nod excitedly.
"Jaahlyn! Congratulations!" Her smiles drops quickly though.
"Can we talk? I'm not here to set all those chains back on you, I promise. But things have developed that you should know about." She certainly seems sincere enough...

Skyway Zoo

Mina nods.
"Kinda? I'm the reincarnation of the girl I mentioned. Tarr, She Who Grapples the Sky. Don't ask me how they fit all that into 'Tarr;' it's Sai's native tongue.
Anyway the gods sent her off with Sai to fight demons when she was twelve. It went really well until she got killed. But she was destined to return, so here I am. Together again. Sai has promised to keep me alive longer this time." she pats the weapon gently. She's not going to let him live that one down for a while. She's still frankly horrified that Tarr was sent off to die before she was even a teenager. She was younger than some pokemon trainers!

[Rebonack]

[Sewers]

Hopefully being lost in a strange place (even if there are other kobolds around) doesn't crush Vikk's spirit too much.

"Finding the warren again might be rough, but I'll help if I can," Regiji promises as he climbs up a ladder, braces himself against a man-hole cover that blocks the exit, and heaves the cover aside.

Which should be pretty impressive, given that it weighs approximately ten times as much as he does. The augments in his body certainly helps on that front, otherwise that feat should have been impossible by all accounts. It probably won't be immediately obvious to Vikk how much the cover weighs. Maybe if she examined it and noticed the thing is made of cast iron and is several inches thick?

Regardless!

This takes our pair of scaly scavengers up to-!

Well.

Somewhere Inside, certainly.

But where?


[Skyway Zoo]

"Oh. Huh," Khannie replies, eyes downcast a bit.

Wow.

That makes the story way less inspiring.

Once upon a time there was a fantastically brave girl and she was a hero and then she died.

Khannie is doing her best to avoid that sort of fate. Clearly Tarr didn't have any nice fox priests to bring her back to life.

"What sort of demons was she fighting? How did she die?"

Khannie is wondering if they're anything like Witches.

"Was she a cow person, too?"

Khannie also isn't sue if there's an official name for cow people. She's pretty sure minotaur doesn't count since the minotaur was just one guy, right?

[bc56]

Sewers -> Arkham Street
The two kobolds poke their heads out into a foggy evening. The air is cold and damp on their scales. The ominous shapes of venerable but decrepit houses loom over them. In short, they've arrived on Arkham Street.
Vikk presses close to Regiji. It's an instinctual response to danger. "Where are we?.. Vikk not like this place."

[Deathkeeper]

Skyway Zoo

Mina nods.
"Yeah that was basically my reaction."
She was excited to learn that she was the reincarnation of a great hero! Less so to find out that she got killed as a preteen.
"Don't know the exact kind that's from their world, but according to the tomb engravings she died in a double-KO with a big demon leader. He had a sword so the humanoid kind."
Mina points to herself.
"And yeah, she looked exactly like me, just younger. There was magic involved, don't worry about it."

[Rebonack]

[Arkham Street]

Okay, yeah, Regiji will admit this is pretty spooky.

Not even just regular sort of spooky.

Like the sort of spooky that seeps out of wounds between universes.

It makes him wish his over-frame wasn't busy repairing itself right now and instead protecting him from any hostile paracausal anomalies that feel like filling him full of holes.

Granted, he's not helpless at the moment but this frame is mostly unarmed. Just a side-arm, really. He should probably make for the depot he left behind after his mission was over. He should be able to use the armory there to restock and get some raw materials for repairing his frame.

SAL if any tears in space start opening up I want to be the first to hear about it. This place has got my scales on edge and I don't remember anything like this in Town.
Will do, Regiji. There is an anomaly, but it's about two kilometers to the east in a wooded area.
Swell, we'll steer clear of that. I like my insides remaining on the inside.

"I doesn't look too friendly, does it? The way those Giant houses are looming strikes me as distinctly unwholesome," Regiji admits as he glowers at a nearby sagging gambreled roof that no doubt hides at least three witches. "The Giants who live here didn't have any specific problems with People the last time I visited. At least none that I noticed. So I don't think we'll have to worry about them too much about being mistreated. This area, though, something is definitely off."

Regiji sets off down the, following his ARD toward the little flashing icon indicating where he left the depot. That's definitely the safest place to start. His old scouting frame is probably still there, too. Really wasn't any reason to wear a gumby body back home after all. He's keeping one hand on Vikk and other other on the handle of his sidearm just in case something unpleasant decides to leap out at them.


[Skyway Zoo]

Time to move on.

Next exhibit?

Uuuh...

Things?

They look kind of like big fleshy jellyfish. Except floating in the air. It's sort of an aviary to keep them from just drifting away.

Khannie begins reading the informational sign outside the enclosure. "It says here they photosynthesize because of symbyotes that live in their skin. I guess that's why they're all green and frilly?"

They ARE quite green and frilly.

"So are you going to keep beating up demons? Or just fight super villains?" Khannie asks, never considering that demons can be super villains, too.

[bc56]

Arkham Street
If Regiji is scared, imagine how Vikk feels with only a knife to protect her. She has her hand on her own weapon, just in case. "Vikk thought Regiji had been here?" At least he's making the motions of protecting her, whether or not he can protect her from potential horrors that might be lurking in the mists.

[Deathkeeper]

Skyway Zoo

Mina looks at the jellyfish in question. They're kind of freaky but they're a nice shade of green.
"Yeah, green can be a photosynthesis thing." she recalls.
"And both, probably. Maybe at the same time, but I'm not quite ready for a demon supervillain yet." That sounds like nemesis territory and she's too green to have a nemesis just yet.

[5a Violista]

[Silent Night]

It's okay.
June forgives Yuvan for judging her.

"It's weird," she says about the city. "People are nice. Like, the tree ladies and the dog things and little dragon people and everyone else are pretty nice. But it's weird." A pixie interjects, saying, "Yeah, all the fat people are pretty nice."
In order to warm up, most of the pixies get closer to the fire and land on June's arms. They then spread out their wings. She then lowers her hands so they can get more radiative heat from the fire.

The black drippy stuff seems to, now, (instead of following gravity) drips upwards her eye.

June looks at his guitar, and (with her left hand) tries to copy his finger movements from the guitar neck. However, instead of talking about that she returns his question: "And what do you think of the city? You like the parks? The parks are very fun."


[Abandoned Hospital]

Carmen's player had forgotten that it was accessible without tearing open the chest compartment with something like a saw or gun to blast/cut it open.

Carmen, meanwhile, didn't forget that.
So she removes the cursed statue.
. . .
She 'pockets' it just like she did the first one, just in case the first one she grabbed somehow runs out of energy. Gotta have a backup battery, after all.


In the new room, Carmen looks around. Okay, it's big. Double doors seem interesting. And...probably? inactive? robots? But they likely have their own evil magic battery already in them.
She freezes in place after she sees the robots and waits to see if they move.

Since it doesn't seem like they're immediately moving, she starts again, trying to take as quiet of steps as possible.

She doesn't go straight down the middle of the room, though. That would put her in the middle of it all.
Instead, she goes around one side of the wall - whichever direction has fewer robots. With five robots on the walls, there's got to be three on one side and two on the other (assuming they're spread around the room) and minimizing how many she has to go past is the best option, in her opinion.
Following a wall (and creeping and trying to not make any noise), she tries to get to the double-doors.

[Ironsmith]

[Silent Night]

It's okay.
June forgives Yuvan for judging her.

"It's weird," she says about the city. "People are nice. Like, the tree ladies and the dog things and little dragon people and everyone else are pretty nice. But it's weird." A pixie interjects, saying, "Yeah, all the fat people are pretty nice."
In order to warm up, most of the pixies get closer to the fire and land on June's arms. They then spread out their wings. She then lowers her hands so they can get more radiative heat from the fire.

The black drippy stuff seems to, now, (instead of following gravity) drips upwards her eye.

June looks at his guitar, and (with her left hand) tries to copy his finger movements from the guitar neck. However, instead of talking about that she returns his question: "And what do you think of the city? You like the parks? The parks are very fun."

[Silent Night]

"I haven't had the pleasure." Yuvan replies, hiding a little smirk when he sees June following the movements of his hands. "I am, after all, still new here as well. Though I'm told the adventurong scene in Inside is quite robust, for the most part, I am here as a merchant. A purveyor of enchanted jewelry, in particular." He smiles. "I was planning on opening my own shop down in the business district, though I'm still working out the name... and the staff." He gives her a meaningful nod as he says this, not-quite-subtly extending an invitation. "I've been thinking something along the lines of The Gilded Lily, but nothing has stuck yet so far. Any ideas?"

[Shadowcaller]

Midnight Park

Jaahlyn is probably not expecting Artesia to break into a wide smile and nod excitedly.
"Jaahlyn! Congratulations!" Her smiles drops quickly though.
"Can we talk? I'm not here to set all those chains back on you, I promise. But things have developed that you should know about." She certainly seems sincere enough...

Midnight Park

"What should I know about?" Jaahlyn demands but then seems to realize that they were attempting to have a conversation in a hallway and let's out a small sigh.

"Come on in." She remarks as she opens the door fully for Artie, inviting her inside.

At this point she will notice that Jaahlyn is dressed in the same style and color scheme as the gloom-ponies though adopted for her different physique. Probably not a surprise but she have never seen her in anything both her brown coat so it might seem a bit weird.

The satyr doesn't sit down. Instead she remains standing by the door once she closes it when Artie have slithered inside. "So tell me."

[Rebonack]

[Arkham Street]

Scared?

Not so much scared.

His core is resilient as heck, though granted various types of paracausal entities might not care about that a great deal. He's mostly worried about Vikk getting eaten by a surly fish-man or something.

"I've been to this Town before, just not this part of it specifically. I know how to get to somewhere safe, though," Regiji reassures Vikk, hurrying along as quickly as his little feet can carry him. "Just keep moving. If something seems threatening we hide and skirt around it. We'll be fine."

Standard kobold tactics, really.

It is, of course, at this very moment that they're confronted by something threatening.

With a splat a horrid protoplasmic mass of eyes and mouths and ghostly green phosphorescence lands in front of them gnashing its teeth and gibbering incoherently! A shoggoth! The doom of the elder things! A sanity warping horror that our heroes have no hope of overcoming!

...the monster is about the size of a shoe.

It burbles at them menacingly, like a tiny dog upset that someone got too close to its kibble bowl.


[Skyway Zoo]

"Getting practice as a super hero can be hard," Khannie says as she watches one of the floating jellyfish things fanning its sails in the breeze. "Because it's hard to guess if the super villain you're going up against is in your league or not. That's why Paragon is so great! It's got archives of all the super villains everyone knows about with known powers and stuff. That way if you obsessively memorize all of it you'll know what to expect from bad guys!"

That sounds like lots of work.

[Morty]

[Fox Pox Outbreak]

Jade nods, then proceeds to shake herself out, spraying drops of water all over. It helps a little. She stands still for the blood and hair sampling.

Dorota proceeds to take the samples and run them through the same tests. Are they affected by the same magic as before? Has anything else changed? Meanwhile, Sizewell will approach with a towel. However, given his size, Siana might need to do the bulk of the work.

[Ironsmith]

[Fox Pox Outbreak]

She's certainly enthusiastic about it. Siana croons as she helps towel off her vulpine friend, quite taken in by Jade's adorableness. Of course, with as vigorous as she is, and therefore as gentle as she isn't, she's only marginally preferable to Sizewell, really.

[Recaiden]

[Fenric's Quest]

Yeah, it's not that the portion was too large; they're just not good food.
But now they're out of the way, and the teeth will grow back before you know it.

"Do you have any more of those guns?"
Dissolving them into particles should be good for just about any danger down here.
Except all the poisons.

"Uh, just the two, and, uh, I can't give them away. They just return to me." The sword too, but Omiko didn't ask about it.

Noope: not good food at all.

The pair are once again alone and all is quiet but for the occasional echoing drip into the oddly satisfyingly painful water.

There are now three directions to go, though if a certain somewhat cheaty device is used it will say to go to the left.

Well, she doesn't think she needs a sword. She has her claws, and teeth, and clamp, and a magical knife somewhere too. A gun would be a much more convenient way to apply entropy to things.
"That's a neat trick. How do they do it?"
Omiko takes a moment to look around for any more oozes, during which little spider legs reach up through her fur and touch up the melted base of her mechanical arm.
Then she wades onward, taking the left path.

[Deathkeeper]

Skyway Zoo

Mina nods. "Yeah, that's the problem. There's a lot of risks involved. Sai and I spent weeks planning that raid, even if I lost progress right before going. Long story.
I don't really know if I have room in my brain to memorize everyone. Luckily I have a very good assistant." Mina smirks perniciously at Sai.
Oh no. She's giving him homework.

Midnight Park

As usual getting Artie through a door takes a while as she has to get all of her through before one can close it.
"There are nearly no Orobou in the Nexus. The only ones with jurisdiction here are my administrator and myself. As such, while some members of the Court are very unhappy with you slipping your bonds, there's nothing they can do unless they come out here themselves. Which they won't do. Thus your case is left entirely in my hands." Artie explains once she's in.
"Unfortunately, while that is the case for you, your actions have those fey panicking and they have taken another into custody in response. Um, I was not told your exact relationship but I was told that you two became fey together?"
Given that Artie has been figuring they were partners, friends, siblings, a couple, something like that. At least someone she'd remember.

[bc56]

Arkham Street
Vikk jumps in surprise... But it's just a little thing! Littler than her! "... Oh! Vikk not seen a gibbrer before! Just heard stories... Thought it would be bigger." She looks like she's about to do an extremely inadvisable thing... That is, if no one stops her, she's going to poke it with her finger.

Fenric's Quest
"I, uh, don't know. Some kind of magic " Selekhael couldn't be more wrong, but that doesn't really matter, does it? She follows Omiko down the left path.

Fox Pox Outbreak
If Siana thinks Jade is adorable now, she should see her when she's not drenched. She smells awful and all her hair is drooping and dripping.
Meanwhile the blood test shows that Jade is a completely normal fox with a normal cold (albeit one adapted to canines) Unlike the last time, the hair makes no attempt to transform the simulated body it's placed into.

[Rebonack]

[Arkham Street]

Huh.

Well.

Regiji has a pretty good idea of how Vikk got her various injuries now.

"Whoop," he grunts, aiming to yank Vikk away from the blob right as it snaps at where her hand was a moment ago. "First rule of blob monsters. Never touch them with something you care about losing."

He casts his gaze around where upon it falls on!

A stick!

He picks up the stick and pokes the blob.

It burbles indignantly, grabbing the wood with a goopy appendage. There's a sudden hiss and an acrid smell as the end of the stick rapidly begins dissolving.

"See? Don't touch blobs with your hands if you want to keep your hands."


[Skyway Zoo]

"Or you can stick to a particular area and do super hero stuff there," Khannie adds. "Bad guys have turf a lot of the time so if you're in a spot then you'll be pretty sure which bad guys you might run into."

Especially the super powered gangs.

They're really bad, but usually small fries compared to the SUPER villains.

"You should definitely join Paragon! It was set up by a tinkerer super hero to make it so no one can figure out your secret identity if you've got a normal account and your super hero account, too. It's really safe! But I guess maybe that might not be as important for you since there probably aren't that many supers who are giant cow people."

That does make it harder to protect her identity.

It's true that there are other bovine folks around the Nexus but how many of them are super heroes?

One that Khannie's aware of.

[bc56]

Arkham Street
"Yeep!" Vikk is pulled back. She stares as the blob eats the stick...
Then she seems even more determined to touch the slime, although not with her fingers. She pulls a grimy glass bottle out of her bag and if not stopped will try to coax the slime into it, possibly by using some dead cockroaches as bait.

[Morty]

[Fox Pox Outbreak]

Very interesting. Dorota will proceed to take hair samples from some infected people (or more specifically fox fur samples) and put them into clean water. Will any reaction occur?