Vigil 8: Try jumping

[Morty]

[Training Grounds]

Kothar will be able to keep up this tactic for some time, but the recruits will press him pretty hard. Wenomir, meanwhile, rubs his chin, then smiles.

"That's a good idea. Turn into a bear or a bird and try to snatch the dummy away. I want to see how Kothar and the recruits will react."

[After the Storm]

"It's true that I wouldn't trust the demons to uphold any deal," Wenomir admits. Which really isn't what Ambrosia was talking about. "So we may be at an impasse. And the best we can do might be stopping its plans to bring its world to the Nexus for now. Like dealing with mice."

[Shadowcaller]

[After the Storm]

Ambrosia frowns but seems to consider this a good time to move on. "Well... considering the demons plans I figured it might be a good idea to finally talk to Geneva. She's your expert on planar travel, yes?"

[Training Grounds]

Oh, they were whispering now?
Okay, this was a secret bear operation then.
In this spirit Anika will casually, like any observer might once they get bored, start to wander away from the training grounds.
But in reality she's actually positioning herself behind Kothar.

Or as much as she can as he's moving around a lot.

Either way, once he seems particularly preoccupied she suddenly changes into her bear form and charges directly towards the dummy to snap it up with her jaws.

[Gullara]

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

"You must travel far and wide then." Ambrosia remarks if only to make conversation. She had never heard of anything like it before and her own readings of the device were inconclusive so she didn't really have anything to add.

It was something she would have to investigate further when she wasn't overcome by such an overwhelming hunger.

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

"You could say it's a passion of mine." Utayo replies. She focuses on her tablet for a moment. "Let me focus for a moment, I need to interpret some of these readings." She then puts all her attention onto the screen. Ambrosia and Thariza will have to wait patiently for a little bit.

After the wait, Utayo looks up, a furrow in her brow. "Bizarre. I've never gotten results quite like this. They're difficult to parse."

[Shadowcaller]

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

Ambrosia can't help but to fold her hands as they wait. Getting this hungry was dangerous if only for her immediate surroundings. While she had eaten plenty of ghosts before, and in some cases even made them, the idea of devouring a friend or an ally that way was outright disgusting to her.
Dragons killed, dragons devoured, that was their way, but they were not mere beasts like the Rag King's pet. She was far more than that.

She walks a short distance, trying to focus on the environment around her. Was there something she could sketch perhaps? The skybase did look pretty impressive from this distance and drawing it would be far better than thinking about her hunger.
The scholar takes up her tome and it turns itself to an empty page and as a featherpen appears in her hand she starts to make a sketch of the skybase.

Then finally Utayo declares that she's done and Ambrosia immediately turns to her. "What are you getting?" She inquires, unable to keep eagerness out of her tone. "Is it nearby?"

[bc56]

Training Grounds
A good warrior maintains awareness of his surroundings. Kothar is a good warrior. He registers Anika moving away, but doesn't act on it until he notices her suddenly getting bigger out of the corner of his eye.
She did say she was a druid, and he'd heard druids could turn into animals, but it still is a surprise.
He shoves his current opponent back and moves to intercept the bear before it can reach the dummy. Outsized strength will be handy here, most people wouldn't stand a chance of stopping a charging bear with their bare hands, but Kothar is not most people.

[Rebonack]

[Bird Hunting]

Time is especially weird in the Nexus.

Geneva checks her computer and discovers, "There's a hole in my logs. I have a backup in the main laboratory database, hopefully that hasn't been impacted."

They'll just have to go check, won't they?

Lapis frowns at all of this.

Had the boss bird hurt her friends?

"We were following around a bird that can disappear when no one is looking at it and it was hiding in a painting and so we brought the painting here and Miss Geneva turned on her machine so it couldn't get away and could you maybe turn the machine off it feels funny," Lapis rambles.

"Ah, haha, I suppose we don't really need it running anymore, do we?" Geneva admits as she shuts the machine down, allowing Lapis to fold back into little girl shape.

"Thank you Miss Geneva that feels nicer so then the bird disappeared again but then no one could remember it and I don't know why?" Lapis concludes.

[Morty]

[After the Storm]

"She is, yes." Wenomir nods. "She helped us develop some tools against the demons. Among other things. You can probably find her in the laboratory if you want to speak with her."

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

"That's the Nexus for you," Thariza remarks off-handedly, her focus on Ambrosia. The hunger must be getting to her. Hopefully Utayo can find something quickly... "It'll mess with any expectations you have."

[Training Grounds]

The recruits know about Anika, but the sudden appearance of a bear still startles them. The wizard shows the most composure and releases a quick cantrip at the dummy. It won't do anything but knock it over, but it would nonetheless be a hit.

[Shadowcaller]

[After the Storm]

The scholar nods. "Right." She pauses as she looks away. "...yes, one last thing before I go, Wenomir. What about a rematch some day? It was years since we had that duel in front of trog's and neither of us came out on top back then."

[Training Grounds]

Damn it dude, you can't put any focus on the onlookers. That's a receipt for disaster. D=

Anyway, Khotar might not be like most people but Anika wasn't like most bears either and in a moment people might find out what happens when the unusual bear met the impressive paladin. Since Anika isn't stopping and will throw all her weight into the paladin as she comes at him. She was sure he could take it!

[Earl of Purple]

Bird Hunting

"You were tracking it, weren't you? Can you still feel it anywhere?" The answer- unless the tag wore off- is no. The hoopoe no longer exists; when it vanished, it 'died'. Howevermuch that counts for Lapis' abilities. "Wait, hang on. Did I take samples?" Felicity looks at the sealed, but empty, vial in her hand. It used to have 'blood' in it.

Bird Baiting

Sat in a tree near the commander's village is a large bird, with orange underside and belly but blue-black on top with small white tips on some of its upper feathers. Its head is blue, and it has a spiky orange crest tipped with black, the feathers resembling spikes. Nobody, if they saw the hoatzin, would be able to recall it flying into the tree; yet, it is in the tree.

[bc56]

Training Grounds
Bears are strong and heavy. Kothar is only one of those things, but he's as strong as a giant. He could bench press the bear if he tried. Here, however, the bear has momentum and leverage. He can't stop it easily.

And he can hear the words of a spell being cast.
This is a tough spot.

He can't stop Anika fast enough to stop the spell from being cast. If he stops the spell, Anika will barrel through the target. It's a lose-lose situation.
Unless...
He grabs Anika's shoulder and wrenches, to pull the bear off course and send her between the spell and the dummy.
Hopefully that works.

[Morty]

[Training Grounds]

If the spell hits Anika, there's a good chance she won't feel anything at all. It's just strong enough to knock of the dummy and wouldn't hurt anyone, certainly not Anika in her bear-form.

[After the Storm]

Wenomir smiles, his countenance brightening for the first time in a while.

"I'd like that. I've been practicing and refining my style since then, so it might go differently this time."

[Reinholdt]

[Outside Riverside - Great Bear Escape]

Sweet!

Anika will let Ava get off before she switches back into her humanoid form. and gestures in a direction. "Okay, you know the direction to VIGIL right, Ilpholin? Well, the place we're going to is not far from it so just drive there if you somehow lose sight of me, 'kay?" Not waiting for an answer, Anika turns into a falcon and starts to head straight for VIGIL.
Since Ilpholin is bound by things by roads and such the druid will occasionally wait for her before continuing onward. She just hoped this cleansing ritual worked...

[Moonwell]

Ilpholin shows no trouble keeping up with the falcon, engine of her hovercycle roaring loudly unnecessarily as it drives over road and rock alike. Seems one benefit of flipping off gravity is that she doesn't need to stay to any set path, breaking all the traffic rules and ignoring the pavement in favor of a direct line to her objective. Anika seems to underestimate the raw potential of technology. Someday nanobots will perform the 'cleansing rituals' without the need of all these extra steps.

When they arrive at the spot and the hovercycle slows enough, Ava gets off as quickly as she can, trembling from the high stakes doom machine she just escaped from, a hair's width away from kissing the dirt on the ground.

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

There's a woman in a white robe waiting for as Ilpholin drives up to the grove which the moon well is located in.
As the nymph gets off the hoover bike she gets a better look at her. Despite being a bit shorter, more slender and with a black facial marking and hair dye, she can probably see the family resemblance to her partner in (bear) crime.

"You must be Ilpholin." She greets the nymph as her eyes seems to lock in on her. "I am Shantarial, Anika's big sister. Though you may call me 'Shanti'. Everyone else does." She smiles though it doesn't quite reach the eyes.

Ava is given a quick glance though is then seemingly dismissed for now.
It seems like Anika is still busy landing.

[After the Storm]

"Perhaps so." Is Ambrosia's subdued answer, contrasted by her own confident smile. "It will certainly beat breathing lighting at you from afar, I will say that much. Perhaps we could even do it tomorrow morning if you're feeling so eager?"

Training Grounds

((Waiting on some clarifications.))

[Rebonack]

[Bird Hunting]

"Yeah! I was trying to track the Boss Bird because it was spying on people and so you and Miss Geneva could do science at it!" Lapis informs the pair of somewhat confused scientists.

Geneva frowns slightly because 'do science' isn't the proper verbiage at all but she decides to let that slide because Lapis is an excitable child regardless of whatever else she is.

"But no the bird is gone now it's like what happens when something I've tagged dies I don't think the bird exists anymore and all the bits of it went away too like the blood sample you took," Lapis continues, pointing at the now empty vial.

"This is all quite strange," Geneva admits. "I'll go check my backups. I suppose you both can... return to whatever you were doing before?"

"Miss Felicity was doing a bad job of barbecuing sausages," Lapis helpfully informs Geneva.

Which results in Felicity getting an eyebrow quirk from the pink-haired engineer.

"...was there a goal there? I'm sure the cafeteria has passable sausages," Geneva points out.

She wouldn't know.

Geneva brings all her food from home.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird Hunted

"Yes, several actually. I wanted to go outside because I've spent a lot of time indoors recently, and I wanted to get better at cooking but I'm not safe to be inside a kitchen, and I wanted to see if I could be used to produce fuel oil for cooking because I burn a lot of... well, sweat, tears, and so on, because I can't store it all and it might as well have some purpose." Although possibly an engine or generator could be built to use Felicity's byproducts instead.

[5a Violista]

[CATastrophe]

Oh.
Oh no.
The foxes are starting to try to get away.
Headpatting is no longer working.
And it seems Lapis has found their mother and is back and has messaged, so that is a sign that it's time to just grab them all and take them somewhere.

Luckily, Awen figures she can probably carry four, tops, so she'll trust Lapis to get the last one. Two with her hair, and the other two in an arm each. And one's already being held by her hair, so she splits it up and the hair moves to grab another.
And, sure, if she grabs the other two with her arms she'll get blood on them but she promises she'll wash them later.

The witch tries to scoop the other two by her up, into her arms and hold onto them snugly and tightly.
"Okay, that's enough," she says, "we're getting you guys to your home." Wherever that is, wherever Lapis would say where to bring them, whether that's Eun's place or...Sara's? Or whatever.

"Hey, one got away," she makes sure to inform Lapis in case she didn't notice...not that Awen can look to see if Lapis noticed or not. Too busy paying attention to the four by her and too busy trying to not look directly at people or animals in an effort to not mess up their minds.
Looking at Lapis, of course, would work contrary to her goal of 'not looking directly at people'.

[Ironsmith]

[CATastrophe]

Lapis is still holding the kitty that may or may not be licking her.

"I need to take the kitty back to Miss Eun's room but I don't know what we're going to do with four-"
Oh wait.
"-five foxes?"

Yep.

They're multiplying really fast.

"Um... I'm going to ask Miss Sara because I think it's her job to do things with these animals maybe?" Lapis suggests. She drapes the cat over her shoulder so her hands are free so she can more easily send a message to Miss Sara.

[CATastrophe]

Oh.
Oh no.
The foxes are starting to try to get away.
Headpatting is no longer working.
And it seems Lapis has found their mother and is back and has messaged, so that is a sign that it's time to just grab them all and take them somewhere.

Luckily, Awen figures she can probably carry four, tops, so she'll trust Lapis to get the last one. Two with her hair, and the other two in an arm each. And one's already being held by her hair, so she splits it up and the hair moves to grab another.
And, sure, if she grabs the other two with her arms she'll get blood on them but she promises she'll wash them later.

The witch tries to scoop the other two by her up, into her arms and hold onto them snugly and tightly.
"Okay, that's enough," she says, "we're getting you guys to your home." Wherever that is, wherever Lapis would say where to bring them, whether that's Eun's place or...Sara's? Or whatever.

"Hey, one got away," she makes sure to inform Lapis in case she didn't notice...not that Awen can look to see if Lapis noticed or not. Too busy paying attention to the four by her and too busy trying to not look directly at people or animals in an effort to not mess up their minds.
Looking at Lapis, of course, would work contrary to her goal of 'not looking directly at people'.

[CATastrophe]

Awen need not worry; fox number one isn't going very far. It doesn't want to run the risk of losing track of the witch and therefore its primary source of sustenance. As soon as she shows some amount of concern for the fox possibly running away, it comes back and starts rubbing her legs, letting out a series of reassuring yips.

Yup. It's not going anywhere without her.

The other foxes are all happy to be handled, it seems; the two Awen holds in her arms get there by practically leaping into them, depending on just how quickly she goes to pick them up. They also don't seem to mind the blood; either they've picked up on Awen's mental promise to wash them, or they simply don't care in the first place. More evidence, if it was needed, that the half-dozen foxes in her proximity are not of the ordinary sort.

Meanwhile, Lapis will receive an immediate reply.

Princess_Khafir: In a meeting with HALO at the moment. Will not be immediately available to take them off your hands.
Princess_Khafir: There are tools in my lab which may help with your situation. Contain them there and await further instructions.
Princess_Khafir: I've texted Max to evacuate the cognimorphs currently occupying my lab. If the two sets interact, we could have an explosive breeding session on our hands.
Princess_Khafir: We do NOT want that.
Princess_Khafir: They may be adorable, but they are still an invasive species with no natural enemies. That has the potential to produce a hazard very quickly if we are not careful. Better to not risk it.

The cat in Lapis's arms continues to just lay there and snooze.

Well... snooze and purr.

Mostly snooze.

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

"That's correct," Ilpholin replies, taking a moment to look Shanti over. Anika doesn't mention her sister all that much so Ilpholin knows exceptionally little about her. Just what she can gather by looking really. Shanti doesn't work out as much as Anika. No surprise there. Anika sets a high bar.

She's sure she could ask Shanti all sorts of embarrassing questions about Anika, but Ilpholin sticks to business today and nods towards Ava. "This is the victim. Have you purified a demon before?"

[Rebonack]

[Bird Hunted]

Cooking sausages with sweat.

That's...

An endeavor, certainly.

"I see, well, I'll let you two get back to that and go check on those backup logs," Geneva says, not quite sure what to make of the sausage cooking experiments. Awaaay!

Lapis, meanwhile, gives a little huff.

"Do you think the Boss Bird maker will make a new Boss Bird? Or do you think it'll leave VIGIL alone now?" Lapis wonders aloud.

Definitely the first one.


[CATastrophe]

Oh good!

Miss Sara got right back to Lapis! Now she knows what to do!

She scoops up the extra fox and the other extra fox so now she's got a kitty AND two foxes. That's SIX foxes and one kitty.

"We should take Miss Eun's kitty back to her room first then we need to take all these foxes to Miss Sara's lab. I think Mister Max is going to help us he knows what to do with the animals."

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Lapis will head off toward Eun's room with cat in hand and foxes draped across her! Hopefully they don't leap off and try crawling around on Awen instead.

[Morty]

[After the Storm]

"I should be able to make some time tomorrow morning, yes. It might be a learning experience for our recruits, anyway." Wenomir rubs his chin. "I am honestly not sure how I deflected your lightning. I was just suddenly certain that I could."

[Shadowcaller]

[After the Storm]

"Yes, I can tell you that was new to me as well. But so was getting stabbed in the tail, which was also quite peculiar. Though I suppose I did deserve that." She pauses for a moment. "Say, I didn't want to ask this earlier as I assumed that you would have told me but... did anyone get injured during the fight? Since there was a lot of lighting and thunder coming down at you."

- - - Updated - - -

[Moonwell]

"That's correct," Ilpholin replies, taking a moment to look Shanti over. Anika doesn't mention her sister all that much so Ilpholin knows exceptionally little about her. Just what she can gather by looking really. Shanti doesn't work out as much as Anika. No surprise there. Anika sets a high bar.

She's sure she could ask Shanti all sorts of embarrassing questions about Anika, but Ilpholin sticks to business today and nods towards Ava. "This is the victim. Have you purified a demon before?"

[Moonwell]

"People? No. Animals, a couple." Shanti remarks. "Of course, I think I'd benefit if I knew a little more about how she was corrupted exactly. Something about attempting to blow up a concert?" Neither her tone nor her expression is making any judgement, like she's carefully calculating her responses.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird Hunted

...Sure, sweat.

"I don't know, I mean... we didn't really learn much about its motives, did we? Just that it didn't like what we were doing and found a way to neutralise our efforts. It depends on if whatever sent it, or whatever it is, thinks Vigil and us are still worth keeping an eye on or not. I'm leaning towards the first, though. And it might have new ways to try and evading capture or detection; a smaller, less colourful bird, maybe." It's certainly not gone the other way, a larger and more distinctive bird such as the leaf-eating hoatzin of South America; that would be foolish, this isn't the right habitat or climate for such a bird. Well, probably.

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

Ava stands at this point. "I was protecting Riverside from invaders and disrupted them rallying fresh recruits, but one of the demons caught me and forced me to eat their flesh and turned me into... into this," the girl says, nearly retching in the process.

[Morty]

[After the Storm]

Wenomir opts not to tell Ambrosia that Lapis was injured. It'd make her feel even worse about the event and Lapis seems to have recovered fine.

"Some broken windows and assorted damage, but no one was seriously hurt. I think your focus on me served to limit the collateral damage a little."

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

"Of course." Shanti remarks without any conviction. She didn't really care either but it did sound like the usual delusions people convinced themselves with.
Though at this point Anika arrives, coming crashing through the foliage of the grove and lands right next to her sister.

"Hey sis, what's up?!"

"Aiding you with crimes apparently." Shanti remarks as she gestures for them to follow her. "Come on, the 'patient' will need to be in the pool for this."

"Wh- crimes?! Uh- could I speak to you in private again about that?"

Shanti stops and gives her sister a skeptical look. "...you may have my counsel, yes."

Anika turns to Ilpholin. "Just gonna talk to my sis in private for a couple of minutes, okay?"

[After the Storm]

Ambrosia nods. "That's good to hear. I had already assumed so it felt like one of the first things you would have told me otherwise but I had to make sure." She does seem relived.

"But that should be everything then unless you want introduce me to Geneva?"

[Morty]

[After the Storm]

"I can introduce you if you want, but I think you two are going to get on just fine without me," Wenomir says. What he doesn't say is that he's unlikely to contribute much to the resulting conversation.

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

"Terrorism, kidnapping, accessory to murder... is this accessory to murder?" Ilpholin half-teases, before waving Anika off. "Yeah, go for it. I don't think we're in a rush here."

Ava might disagree, but she's still feeling pretty disoriented about the whole day. She watches Anika go to get counsel from her sister before turning to study Ilpholin, spending some time before working up the courage to talk to the intimidating nymph. "So... what's your deal?"

Ilpholin studies Ava in turn, largely just deciding how to answer the question before settling on starting with the simple facts. "I kill demons..."

[Rebonack]

[Bird Hunted]

Back out of the lab and onto the grounds of VIGIL our brave bird hunting heroes go!

"We know it likes spying on people! And Miss Geneva's machine that makes me feel funny stops it from doing its thing where it goes away if someone isn't looking at it. And it can die and make people forget it?" Lapis summarizes.

Those all seem the sorts of things that someone who is wanting to spy on the organization without meeting too much interference would set up.

...right?

It also has some pretty impressive things to say about whoever created the bird.

Technology?

Magic?

Absolute nonsense?

Who knows!

Before they had a chance to really examine the bird in detail it had already vanished.

"Maybe we should tell other members to look out for weird birds?" Lapis suggests. "I'm really good at chasing birds away but I can't do it all on my own."

[Gullara]

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

Ambrosia can't help but to fold her hands as they wait. Getting this hungry was dangerous if only for her immediate surroundings. While she had eaten plenty of ghosts before, and in some cases even made them, the idea of devouring a friend or an ally that way was outright disgusting to her.
Dragons killed, dragons devoured, that was their way, but they were not mere beasts like the Rag King's pet. She was far more than that.

She walks a short distance, trying to focus on the environment around her. Was there something she could sketch perhaps? The skybase did look pretty impressive from this distance and drawing it would be far better than thinking about her hunger.
The scholar takes up her tome and it turns itself to an empty page and as a featherpen appears in her hand she starts to make a sketch of the skybase.

Then finally Utayo declares that she's done and Ambrosia immediately turns to her. "What are you getting?" She inquires, unable to keep eagerness out of her tone. "Is it nearby?"

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

"That's the Nexus for you," Thariza remarks off-handedly, her focus on Ambrosia. The hunger must be getting to her. Hopefully Utayo can find something quickly... "It'll mess with any expectations you have."

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

Utayo gives Thariza a quick glance, but masks her confusion. 'The Nexus'? Interesting.

"Well, one moment. I need to do further processing." She retrieves the device embedded in the ground and stows it in her bag. She stands now, referring to her tablet. "There appears to be some manner of concentration several kilometers from here. I don't have a map of the region, so I only have a relational direction." She explains.

[Shadowcaller]

Training Grounds

Kothar might be underestimating just how fast bears can move once they pick up speed. Imagine trying to grab a car moving about 50 km per hour (or 35 mph) and trying to pull it in any direction. Kotar might have the strength to do so but before he can really bring it to bear he will feel himself getting pulled along with her.

Nonetheless his plan succeeds in a way as he does seem to alter Anika's course but he can either let go of her, which likely will make him fall flat on the ground, or he could try to hang on and keep her from getting to the dummy. After all that spell isn't going to stop her regardless if it hits her or not.

[Dragon Storm - An Aside]

"That should be enough. Once we get close I should be able to tell where they are myself and I can take it from there." Ambrosia looks to Utoya, ready to start moving the instant she gives some indication of what direction they're going.

[Moonwell]

Eventually the two returns and Shanti motions for Ava to follow. "Don't worry, this won't take long. You have to submerge yourself within the energy of the well but its not dangerous. If you want either of us could follow you into the well, except for me as I need to perform the ritual."

Anika moves up to Ilpholin but as the group starts to head for the moonwell she starts to slow down, letting Ava and Shanti get further ahead. She motions for Ilpholin to do the same. "So, uh, we need to talk about Ava a bit. In private."