Outside 52: Touch grass

[Gullara]

This place is just as it sounds. It's Outside!
Want a change of scenery? Go Outside.
Always wanted to visit the beach? Come Outside.
Looking to have a climatic fight on clifftops? Attempt Outside.
Secret meetings being held where there's no cameras? Try Outside.
Want an ambush without nasty base defenses? Yep! Outside.

Any and all are welcome in the wild expanses beyond the reach of civilization. Who's going to keep you out? That's right, no one. You're already out!
Here lie vast expanses, dense forests, towering mountains, dizzying canyons, treacherous dungeons, encroaching jungles, roaring waterfalls, endless wastes, blistering deserts, mossy cliffs, illusionary oases, eldritch moors, flowering bosques, infested hills, cyclopean ruins, weed-tangled gardens, crumbling glaciers, peaceful glades, bubbling tar pits, rumbling volcanoes, teetering hoodoos, honeycombed caverns, dripping grottos, inland seas, grassy knolls, overgrown battlefields, creepy boneyards, guano-covered caves, and so much more!
The sky is truly the limit, and sometimes not even that. If you can imagine it, it's here, and something super cool is probably happening there.

And most importantly, enjoy Outside. That's what this is all about.

---

Rules and Guidelines

Spoiler

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There is very little you can't do Outside. However, like always, please follow the forum rules and general rules of conduct. Respect that a scene may be private or that a plot shouldn't be interrupted. When in doubt, ask someone involved in the OoC thread or by PM.

There are many areas Outside, and people can be in multiple places outside. In order to keep areas Outside separated so there's no confusion, consider bolding your outside location at the start of each of your posts, like so:

[An Epic Cliffside Battle]

The creepy eyed squirrel looks on at the raging battle with contempt! Contempt that only a squirrel with particularly creepy eyes can muster.

[The Beach!]

The menacing craps are not only menacing today, but frustrated. Their every attempt to menace the non-existent duck has met with failure. Some might ask why the crabs are trying to menace nothing, but those people would get viciously pinched.

Note the creepy eyed squirrel and the menacing crabs do not interact because they are in different areas Outside. They could interact, if the squirrel moved to the beach. Of course, various things like telepathy help bypass this.

Archive

Spoiler

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Outside 51: It's just a weather balloon
Outside 50: Meeting nature halfway
Outside 49: I don’t remember what it looks like either
Outside 48: Hotter than Inside
Outside 47: [Insert seasonal phrase that will be outdated when this thread ends]
Outside 46
Outside 45
Outside 44: Baby it's cold outside
Outside 43: Where the sun hurts your eyes and burns your skin
Outside 42
Outside 41: Inside Outside, outside Inside
Outside 40: It's all downhill from here
Outside XXXIX
Outside XXXVIII
Outside XXXVII
Outside XXXVI
Outside XXXV
Outside XXXIV
Outside XXXIII
Outside XXXII
Outside XXXI
Outside XXX
Outside XXIX
Outside XXVIII
Outside XXVII
Outside XXVI
Outside XXV
Outside XXIV
Outside XXIII
Outside XXII
Outside XXI
Outside XX
Outside XIX
Outside XVIII
Outside XVII
Outside XVI
Outside 15: There used to be a silly pun here, but it wouldn't fit
Outside XIV: More animals than you can shake a stick at. Yes the PCs.
Outside XIII: Spores of Corruption Dance in the Wind
Outside XII: We number things correctly.
Outside XI: Bugs are Eating the Landscape
Outside X: The Rotting Corpses are starting to Smell
Outside IX: There are Mosquitoes
Outside VIII: We cater birthday parties
Outside VII: Open longer than a 7-11
Outside VI: Now with Locations!
Outside V: More civilized than Inside
Outside IV: The Creepy Eyed Squirrel's Domain
Outside III: Beware the Non-Existant Duck
Outside II: Now with Menacing Crabs
Outside

This thread is managed by Gullara. I will create the new thread when this one reached 50 pages. Please contact me for updates to the OP.

---

Thinking about roleplaying in the Nexus? Come say hi in our Discord!

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
The two jumpy mechs continue jumping away from the worms. Cynic tears into one of them with fire from her mech's autocannon. Herringbone does the same with missiles, but she has a problem. "Between the lava, the jumping, and the constant shooting, it's getting hot in here! I'm going to need to fall back and cool down!"

[Meowmai]

[The Ossuary]

With a nod, Pania followed Dena and Cantata onwards to the pyramid. She did not move as stealthily as her Empath counterpart, but it was nonetheless still enough to dodge all the skeletons on the way.

Pania looks back and forth between the battle and her companions. It was truly a sight to someone still adjusting to the Nexus. Weapons and powers she barely understood being used in a battlefield littered with walking skeletons. Not so long ago, she would have believed you insane if you told her about any of this. And now, there were just so many of them all before her eyes. Still, despite its strangeness to her, her mind quickly kicked into combat mode. "Taking them out will be easy. Even if they see us coming, they've can't take their attention off the skeletons without risk. If we strike too early though, we might be overwhelmed ourselves. Or we'll get them killed, which won't be good for the mission."

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

The vampire gets torched pretty well, sending him flopping to the ground lifelessly and reverting to the form of a-

Wood elf.

Fenris clomps over inside her armor and sniffs at the dead mer, puzzled by this revelation.

"Didn't the villagers say he was a Breton?" she growls aloud. Is this some kind of ruse? On closer inspection it looks like the elf's skull has been cut open and then sealed back together with brass staples. This is likely not a great discovery. It also possibly explains what the vampire was doing with the Dragonborn he had captured.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Yuvan scowls and kicks the corpse aside, taking the implications rather poorly. "He had a body double. Of course he had a body double." The altmer grumbles. "And he probably has more than one. If he intended to use them to overwhelm us with a show of force, he probably only would not have sent only one. Which means our bosmer friend here is nothing but a distraction and our true enemy is escaping as we speak." He turns his attention back up to the cathedral. "Did you destroy the factory? If we can't find him back, we should still have gained something today."

[Rebonack]

[Apocalypse Junction]

Victor considers all that.

Sounds to him like this place Sian came from sounds like a real piece of work.

"If you were askin' me I would say gettin' your leg turned to stone is impossible, too, but here we are," he retorts, eyeing the leg in question. "Tell you what. How 'bout I pop back up top and try it out? Open one of them boxes while thinkin' about a thing to fix yer leg and we see what it does. It can't hurt, can it?"

As he speaks he stands up to walk across the invisible platform and, thankfully, pokes at it where it ought to be his foot.

There isn't anything there.

And one of the cables strikes at him.

"Tarnation!"

Thankfully he's quite enough to stumble away.

"Them invisible floor things went away."

Which is a problem.


[Crystal Crags]

Thankfully our heroes don't have to go too much further until the pair of magma wurms burrow back into the ground and apparently move away.

Maybe.

Looks like they managed to drive them off.

Or maybe they just moved far enough out of their territory that they wurms decided the mechs weren't a threat anymore?

Phoenix heaves a sigh. "Damn this place has got weird wildlife."

That's a pretty big understatement.


[Dragonborn Hunting]

"Less a body double and more vampire lords all looking more or less the same," Fenris growls back in a ghastly example of vampire racism. She wraps one huge armor-clad paw around the wood elf and grips his skull with the crystalline claws of the other. Then she digs in and just pops the skull-cap right off.

Now, given Yuvan's preferred melee weapon he has seen many brains in his days.

What's inside the wood elf's skull is not brains.

It's a delicate mechanism of brass, aetherium, and a single black soul gem.

"I was able to destroy the factory. It was shortly after I exited its ruins that the vampire attacked me," she says, reaching in to scoop the clockwork brain out, tearing away several nerve fibers connecting it to the spine and eyes in the process.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Yuvan watches curiously until he realizes exactly what Fenris is doing, then hastily looks away, his stomach lurching. As an alchemist, he's dealt with his fair share of unseemly reagents, including disembodied organs, but something about the mix of mechanical devices inside of an elf's head still made him gag.

"Good. If you want to study anything else, come back for it." Yuvan hefts his mace. "It's possible he hasn't managed to slip away entirely yet and we might still be able to catch him. The bosmer isn't going anywhere."

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

As it happens Fenris took apart a couple of the necrotic constructs during her rampage and, well, it probably shouldn't come as a great shock that a werewolf isn't very squeamish.

Fenris eats people.

Mostly very unpleasant people.

But still people.

That's just one of those facts of life when it comes to werewolfing.

Sometimes someone is going to get ate.

The tricky part is making sure you don't eat people on accident.

Because that's the way all the fears about werewolves devouring villagers get started.

Fenris stows the mechanic brain in her inventory and, "This is the only component which I believe will be immediately relevant," she rumbles back. "I assume you confronted our foe before he escaped? Show me were you saw him, I may be able to track his trail."

Oh.

Right.

Werewolf.

She can just follow his scent, can't she?

[Gullara]

[Ritual Night]

Valerie stands by the bank of the river, looking up at the full moon on the clear, cloudless night. She shivers a bit in the thin, white shift she's wearing. Hopefully the water won't be too cold. She looks back to Astrana. "So, are we ready?" There's a trill of nerves in her voice. The being they're trying to contact is supposed to be quite the powerful spirit. It wouldn't be a trifle.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

That was a good question.

Actually, Anika knew an even better question. "Umm, well, what do you want? I would owe you a favor for sure but I dunno what I could even help you with. I can do a couple of druid things like healing, shapeshifting, general magic stuff. I'm also a member of an organization of epic warriors called VIGIL if you want something from them." She was pretty sure Mimi couldn't carry around money so she couldn't give her that.

So what did tiny winged women like? She wasn't even sure what Mimi ate.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

Mimi gives Anika a skeptical look up and down. "Ehh... Can you turn into other animals?"

[Earl of Purple]

Apocalypse Junction

"Well, mebbe then. But... I grew up near a forest turned t' stone by the same curse what hit me leg, later. Stepped on a fragment o' the object what did it all, and the magics hadn't fully dissipated." This may conflict with earlier information. This is because Earl didn't write it down and can't remember if any earlier information was, in fact, given.

Sian frowns at the revelation that the floors have worn off, and pulls out the wand she used before to make them and creates another to bridge the pit. She'll test it with her crutch to ensure that the pit is, in fact, bridged before making her way across, and stops at the next pit to create another invisible floor. But when she tests this one with her crutch, there's no resistance and she nearly falls over, saving herself by falling backwards and wincing as she lands heavily on her tailbone. "Wand's out of charge. Most of 'em recharge at dusk or dawn, hopefully this is one of 'em. Some need somethin' a bit weirder, moonlight or whatever. Hopefully it's not one of those." Since there's no moonlight down here, or sunlight. And they don't have much in the way of supplies, either, unless they go back and fight their way past the statue-guy.

Rovering

A small traction-town named Rovering has come into a bit of a pickle. The town's based around a large caterpillar track going through the centre of the town, with two large wheels for steering on the rear corners. It has two sets of jaws, one on each side of the central track-unit, neither especially large for a community of its size. The main issue is that it has gotten bogged down, and its caterpillar track is only barely able to drag itself forward whilst the steering wheels drag uselessly, barely turning and unable to rotate. A second issue is the gunfight going on in the streets of the surface; a zeppelin hovers over the upper deck, and metallic figures have teleported onto the streets of the town. The zeppelin is marked with a logo consisting of two circles, a smaller one below and to the left of a larger one marked with a large C-like shape. There's only ten of the metallic figures, against Rovering's population of several hundred, but the metal-men with handlebars on their heads are apparently bulletproof, or at least heavily resistant to the rifles, shotguns and pistols used by the people of Rovering.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"No kidding." That's an understatement. "Where are we headed? Do you two actually have a plan, or..."
"...No idea. We don't have any idea where anything important is. The couple villages I went to mentioned a city, but then they said something about it being "inside" and I'm not sure what they mean."

[Shadowcaller]

Spoiler: Quotes

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[Ritual Night]

Valerie stands by the bank of the river, looking up at the full moon on the clear, cloudless night. She shivers a bit in the thin, white shift she's wearing. Hopefully the water won't be too cold. She looks back to Astrana. "So, are we ready?" There's a trill of nerves in her voice. The being they're trying to contact is supposed to be quite the powerful spirit. It wouldn't be a trifle.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

Mimi gives Anika a skeptical look up and down. "Ehh... Can you turn into other animals?"

[Pepo's Hollow]

The cube looks kind of like the inside of bone. That odd porous look. Except all the gaps are filled in with a warm golden glow.

Lapis is very pleased when Anika is impressed! There are few things more important to Lapis than her friends thinking that she's done a good job.

"Umm... I have to do... a thing with it?" Lapis replies vaguely as she puts her hands on the cube. "It was in the tutorial I wasn't very good at it. They wanted me to do it with a dead thing first but I really didn't like that I thought it was gross. But dead things are supposed to be easier since they already have parts that are supposed to move."

That sounds like necromancy.

Is Lapis able to make zombies.

"I have to fill it with intent."

And so she does! She fills it with her purpose until its over flowing!

...the cube kind of...

Shakes to one side a little. Like there's something inside it that just whacked into the interior and made it lurch slightly toward the dead pumpkin giant. Lapis frowns. "I left a hole inside of it with a big ball in the hole like in the tutorial but it doesn't move very good."

Also it isn't on fire yet.

"Can you help me scoot it over to the dead monsters, Anika?" Lapis asks since the cube is significantly larger than she is.

[The Ossuary]

The necromancer looks even more dazed after the command sinks into her head. She just kind of... sits there... staring blankly off into space.

Anyway!

Off our definitely not heroes probably go!

They don't encounter any traps along the way, though they DO bump into a few skeletons with no tactical gear milling around. Judging by their ancient weapons they probably didn't accompany the necromancers here. Just 'native' undead of this forlorn place. They patrol back and forth endlessly and if the MERCs get too close to them they'll be attacked. But otherwise it really isn't terribly difficult to just avoid them altogether. As they approach the pyramid they'll find a pitched battle under-way. Skeletons are pouring out of the pyramid doing their best to hack the necromancers to bits. Their own tactical skeletons are trying to hold the line, but they're badly out-numbered. The necromancers seem to be able to usurp control of the enemy skeletons, but the numbers seem overwhelming.

For the time being the necromancers are holding their ground, but any disruption would probably cause them to be over-run in a hurry.

The Ossuary

Cantata blinks and looks between Pania and the necromancer. Well, it did indeed work. And if Dena was happy with it, then she would be too.

- - -

As the group moves towards the pyramid, Cantata sticks to the shadows as much as she can. She watches the battle unfolding, studying the fight. Perhaps there's a few key members where a brief stagger might cause their defense to fold, or anyone in the rear guard who would be easy to disappear.

[Ritual Night]

Astrana is looking over her notes. She's dressed in a robe as even in this relative cold it would take something far chillier to make her wear any kind of pants.

"We should be." The warlock declares as she turns to Val. "So once I get guided what are you going to ask of her? Since you need to considering the wording a bit. To clarify, I don't think there's a great cause of concern here but it will be easier for you to repeat something that you said a few moments ago than once she's with us. You're going to be nervous, that's natural, but having it on your lips rather than in your head makes it easier to parse since your thoughts are probably going all over the place right now." Astrana liked to use these rituals as opportunities to give Val the right warlock mindset. The more unlikely it was for something to go wrong.

The Ossuary

Dena stops and looks over the battlefield before she makes any moves. "This must be the recovery team one." The ones that came to provide backup to team two. Quite a bit larger than the team they encountered. "Don't engage unless you think you can do so undetected." She orders. "We're going to attempt to sneak past." Then she is going to activate her camouflage and attempt to get around the skirmish unseen.

[Pepo's Hollow]

Anika gives the cube a curious look. So it was less a pet and more of a... companion.
"Oh, like death knights kinda." Anika remarks on the subject of animating dead things. Shewas neutral on death knights. They weren't the most likable of people usually but at least they were better than warlocks who were just the worst.

"But let's, uh, give Lapcubus some help then!" Lapcubus was a fun name even if it was dangerously close to a certain kind of demon.
That was totally what she was going to call the great fire cube from now on.
She pushes her back into it and then attempts to shove it with all her might towards the fallen giant.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Oh, absolutely!" Anika exclaims and then start to count up her animal forms on her fingers. "I can turn into plenty of stuff besides a bear. Like falcon which I showed off earlier, a saber which you saw too, an anaconda and a shark. Pretty impressive, huh?"

[Rebonack]

[Apocalypse Junction]

Pretty sure it was described as stepping on a basilisk mine the first time around.

Maybe the basilisk mine was leaking?

Or something?

Anyway!

It appears as though they're out of bridge, to which Victor frowns. This definitely isn't going to be helpful. At all.

The scavenger heaves a sigh.

"I'm gunna... try somethin'. It'll be a mite odd, but don't you worry yourself none, alright? Gunna head back up top and grab some of those boxes. See if we can't get somethin' else to cover those gaps. Just don't yell or smack me, got it?"

And then?

There's an odd, almost mechanic sound as Victor de-rezzes into a mass of squares, shrinks down, and falls back into visibility as!

A little blue cat thing? The creature immediately floats up into the air with a petite "Mew", completely oblivious to the objections of gravity. A telepathic voice brushes against Sian's mind.

~Tarnation I hate doing this. I'll be right back with those boxes. Can explain this if you're curious, too.~

And then?

He'll go zipping off across the gaps near the ceiling and flies right up the shaft without any difficulty.

Sien will be left alone for a few minutes.

Victor is actually coming back, right?

Sure enough, he'll soon return with a constellation of four of the building boxes floating around him. He's sagging noticeably lower in the air.


[Crystal Crags]

"Maybe the city is called Inside?" Phoenix ventures. "But yeah we were basically just stumbling around blindly. We ran into you, though, so we must be doing something right, yeah?"

Makes sense to Phoenix at least.

"I mean, what are the chances that I get dumped near Fishy while that dragon was kicking her ass? What are the chances that we just so happen to walk up on your mech? If I didn't know better I would say something's messing with coincidences to get a five-man band rolling."

But for what purpose?

Just to bring about cool mech battles?

That's a pretty solid justification, actually.


[Pepo's Hollow]

"I don't know what death knights are," Lapis admits as she and Anika successfully scoot the cube. It's pretty clear that it's trying to move but like Lapis said it isn't very good at it. "Do they reanimate things? Mother says reanimating things is rude and not respectful because people get mad about skeletons of people they loved walking around."

That's certainly a way to describe it.

There!

Cube positioned!

"Okay!" Lapis says, backing away from the cube a little. Then she Invokes Matter and Energy! Matter to supply the cube with fuel and Energy to ignite it!

The cube promptly bursts into flames and begins hosing down the pumpkins with liquid fire. This would probably be a pretty okay way to create a defensive turret?

[Earl of Purple]

Apocalypse Junction

It'd take a big basilisk mine to turn a whole forest to stone. Might've been a basilisk cluster munition.

Sian doesn't speak immediately, not even responding to the voice in her mind. She'll stand back from the edge of the pit, putting the wand back in her duffle bag and pulling out a bottle of water and taking a gulp and grimacing. She'll speak when he returns, though. "You ain't a mageblood. You're... what, a familiar? I've heard some o' them survived. But... you ain't familiar with a lot o' stuff I'd expect, an' this place is downright weird. So... what're you, an' is it normal where you're from?" Sian's stone leg isn't normal, but people affected by old spells and rituals discharging late and malfunctioning artefacts are reasonably common.

[Rebonack]

[Apocalypse Junction]

Sounds like a bad time one way or the other.

Victor sets down his collection of boxes around Sian and immediately changes back once he's on solid ground.

He feels...

Exposed.

When he's like that.

"A mew. A shape-changer. I don't rightly know how many of us are out there. My whole family is 'em, on my pa's side. Mostly we just pose as regular folk and mind our own business like anyone else," he says, sitting down on the stone next to Sian. "Any of our kids can be the same. Provided y'do this... ritual? Sorta? With 'em. You gotta show 'em how to Transform or they'll never figure it out on their own. And if they never change they're just another human with a mite more psychic acuity than most."

He eyes the collection of boxes.

"I guess, before the war, some folk used to hunt for us. Not so much of that, now. All the old slave-balls from before the war don't work no more. Still, some mighty old instincts about not lettin' regular folk see us."

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Suspicious. If someone is manipulating us, I want to know why. That's all too much of a coincidence." Cynic could never believe it would be for a good reason. When mercenaries are being manipulated, it's usually because they're being used as disposable, deniable assets, and the life expectancy of such assets is pretty limited.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

"I know, right? Like someone's maneuvering us around to... hell I dunno. Usually when people are trying to maneuver me it's to set **** on fire," Phoenix admits. "That would mean they knew about Fishy getting blasted by the dragon and dumped me nearby somehow. Not sure how they would have figured out how to point us at you, though..."

That's definitely a question.

"Honestly this sounds like MONIST bull****."

Which is a thing that Gene has some experience with.

Sadly.

"Can't think of anything else that would be able to point a fouled blink jump like that."

This of course raises the reasonable question of what MONIST is.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"MONIST?" Cynic asks. It seems like a good question. The name sounds like an acronym. Nobody names their things nonsense words like that. Either that, or it's a religion called Mon so its followers are monists.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

"MONIST entities, yeah. NHPs that are totally singular and unique. Crazy powerful. Things like RA and METAT AUN and APEP. They get up to shinanagins," Gene replies.

Hah.

Shenanigans is definitely a word for it.

"Some wackos worship them as gods but they're wackos."

You don't want to be a wacko.

Even though Gene has a wacko as a Lance-mate.

A nice enough wacko, but still a wacko.

"Can't think of anything else that would be able to screw with causality like that."

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"You lost me there." Too much jargon.
"Over there, there's a good campsite. We can get food and water out of those cacti," Herringbone interrupts. "Sun's getting low, let's shut down for the night."

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Gene, being an extremely stubborn person, will keep trying.

She may or may not succeed in explaining what a MONIST entity is by the time they manage to set up camp.

To be fair to her, she isn't totally clear on what they are either.

And the ship they were flying around on had one chilling inside of it.

Or, well.

A big bottle in the center of the thing.

Which they were expressly forbidden from poking at.

Which makes quite a bit of sense, in retrospect.

[Shadowcaller]

[Pepo's Hollow]

"I don't know what death knights are," Lapis admits as she and Anika successfully scoot the cube. It's pretty clear that it's trying to move but like Lapis said it isn't very good at it. "Do they reanimate things? Mother says reanimating things is rude and not respectful because people get mad about skeletons of people they loved walking around."

That's certainly a way to describe it.

There!

Cube positioned!

"Okay!" Lapis says, backing away from the cube a little. Then she Invokes Matter and Energy! Matter to supply the cube with fuel and Energy to ignite it!

The cube promptly bursts into flames and begins hosing down the pumpkins with liquid fire. This would probably be a pretty okay way to create a defensive turret?

[Pepo's Hollow]

"Yep, they make all sort of nasty things with dead bodies. It's rude but so is punching people and sometimes you just have to punch people. Like orcs for instance. Though obviously not that family we met earlier." No, Anika was talking about the rude orcs that raided and burned down people's homes. Those were the worst kind of orcs.

Then she backs away as Lapcubus was about to do its magic.
Anika claps her hands as she sees it pouring fire over the dead golem. "Ha! Take that you stupid gourd!"

But now comes a question that they probably should have considered earlier. How do they control the fire?

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

As it happens Fenris took apart a couple of the necrotic constructs during her rampage and, well, it probably shouldn't come as a great shock that a werewolf isn't very squeamish.

Fenris eats people.

Mostly very unpleasant people.

But still people.

That's just one of those facts of life when it comes to werewolfing.

Sometimes someone is going to get ate.

The tricky part is making sure you don't eat people on accident.

Because that's the way all the fears about werewolves devouring villagers get started.

Fenris stows the mechanic brain in her inventory and, "This is the only component which I believe will be immediately relevant," she rumbles back. "I assume you confronted our foe before he escaped? Show me were you saw him, I may be able to track his trail."

Oh.

Right.

Werewolf.

She can just follow his scent, can't she?

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Yuvan opens his mouth to object, but quickly closes it again when he remembers he's dealing with a werewolf. Right. Just because he couldn't track worth a rusted septim didn't mean no Dragonborn could. "...Right this way." He gestures towards the cathedral and takes the lead himself.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
There's very little understanding. What Gene is trying to describe sounds like something out of a bad horror holovid to the other pilots.
In the meantime, Mechs are powered down, and a campfire springs up. Pilots swap war stories which are hopefully more comprehensible than the last conversation.

After everyone has returned to their cockpits to sleep, a shadowy figure slips furtively into the center of the campsite and looks around.

[Rebonack]

[Pepo's Hollow]

Any sorts of people who raid and burn down homes are rude, let's be honest.

It doesn't really matter what species they are.

Seriously, has anyone every politely set fire to someone's thatched-roof cottage?

Probably not.

Anywho!

Lapis also thrusts her fists skyward! "Yeah! You stupid pumpkin! That's for being mean to all those people!"

Several seconds pass.

The fire continues to spread.

"...Umm... I know how to make Lapcubus stop throwing fire on things but I don't know how to make all the fire it already threw go away?" Lapis admits. "I think I can use an Invocation to put it out but the light's too far away to use again yet."

Oh no!

Lapis is waiting on cooldowns!

Thankfully the fire isn't spreading too quickly! Just burning away at that dead pumpkin golem and it hasn't gotten to any of those vines and squash growing all over the ground that are full of volatile eldritch magic yet.

The wind gracefully plucks a single ember from the golem and gently places it on a nearby pumpkin-
-which promptly explodes in an oily green-black blast of chaotic magic.


[Dragonborn Hunting]

It's okay, Yuvan.

You don't have to be the best at everything.

That's why having allies is handy! They can be good at things you aren't good at.

So, back to the cathedral. Fenris will head over to the research table and folds her helmet open so she can start sniffing around more easily. Almost immediately she wrinkles her nose.

"Quite the pungent melody," the werewolf growls with no small amount of disdain. She hasn't made any comments on how Yuvan smells yet but suffice to say she finds his hobbies a bit on the overpowering side. And not just because of that fortification loop, either. "At least four vampires. One of which was our wood elf friend. Also an orc and a khjiit. Ah, there's our breton friend."

Fenris drops to all fours and begins pacing around the room, nose to the floor.

It looks...

Admittedly kind of silly.


[Crystal Crags]

Normally Gene leaves her mech powered up, which would mean this mysterious figure would get spotted by Set right away.

But!

Thanks to their good buddy Legion that isn't the case.

Which means?

Gene is snuggled up in her cockpit snuggling one of her potted plants.

Wow is she ever a weirdo.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

It's okay, Yuvan.

You don't have to be the best at everything.

That's why having allies is handy! They can be good at things you aren't good at.

So, back to the cathedral. Fenris will head over to the research table and folds her helmet open so she can start sniffing around more easily. Almost immediately she wrinkles her nose.

"Quite the pungent melody," the werewolf growls with no small amount of disdain. She hasn't made any comments on how Yuvan smells yet but suffice to say she finds his hobbies a bit on the overpowering side. And not just because of that fortification loop, either. "At least four vampires. One of which was our wood elf friend. Also an orc and a khjiit. Ah, there's our breton friend."

Fenris drops to all fours and begins pacing around the room, nose to the floor.

It looks...

Admittedly kind of silly.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

snrk!

Despite his face already being hidden by the helmet, Yuvan covers the area where his mouth would be with his hand, in an effort to further stifle a rebellious chuckle. "...Strangely dusty down here, isn't it?" He offers as an excuse.

As Fenris sniffs out the trail, Yuvan considers the implications of what she said. Two other vampires. At least they know the Breton's stockpile of doubles is imminently exhaustible.

But beyond that, this new information tells him almost nothing. Except maybe to be wary of any Khajiit or Orcs they find down here. Which he would be anyway, since they're a distance away from the pleasantries of civilization.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
The figure looks at the mechs in concern. These familiar machines of war are awfully close to the lands under its protection. It thinks about the situation. It has power to spare. It decides it will start with the most elaborate machine. That's probably the commander...

There's something in the cockpit with Gene. A pair of hands grab her and twist, moving in directions indescribable to most mortals, attempting to unceremoniously dump her onto the dusty ground outside.

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

"I will admit the incongruousness of a wizard smelling the floor is at least somewhat humorous," Fenris admits, not buying Yuvan's excuse for a moment. "As I improved my control my siblings became more comfortable poking fun at any dog-like mannerisms I- AH!"

She SNORF!s strongly at the ground a few more times as her tail begins wagging animatedly.

"There you are, this way."

Then the werewolf sets off.

Running a short distance. Stopping. Smelling in a wide semi-circle. Setting off again.

If Yuvan has any experience with hunting hounds the behavior will strike him as quite familiar.

She gradually makes her way out of the cathedral and begins moving deeper into the city. This place is VERY large and normally finding someone in here would be quite difficult but given how abandoned it is this makes it so much easier for Fenris to follow the scent. All the things that would typically wash out the smell are a none issue in this forgotten realm. As our heroes round a corner they encounter something that is not great.

Imagine, for a moment, a steam centurion.

Then imagine it has had a half way dissected vampire lord inserted into it.

Then imagine it fires the massive crossbow on its left arm straight at Fenris.

All sorts of fun!


[Crystal Crags]

Gene responds to this with a very understandable, "AH WHAT THE HELL!?" as she is grabbed and-

Okay that wasn't blink space.

It was weird as heck, but not blink space.

She isn't even sure how to categorize that experience. Kind of reminded her of some of the nonsense she had to deal with in the meta-vault. Oh **** did something from that meta-vault come out to bug them? Because she sure as hell is hoping that isn't what's happening.

Gene scrambles back to her feet, trying to figure out where her attacker is, and goes to use her comes to-

Oh.

Right she took her helmet off before she went to sleep.

****.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
The world is silent and still save for the movements of Gene and the stranger.
Speaking of the stranger, they don't look like much. A girl, maybe 17, with black hair in a ponytail, a long, blue dress, and striking yellow eyes.
She speaks, her words cutting through the unnatural silence like a sword. "Why are you here?" Her voice is much larger than her body, carrying an authority and power well beyond her appearance. "I will not tolerate falsehood."

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

...okay.

That definitely wasn't what Gene was expecting.

Usually the sorts of stuff you find in a meta-vault is WAY more crazy than a girl in a blue dress who yells really loud.

"Uh."

Oh wait she's being asked a question isn't she?

Should she tell this person what they're doing here?

She has the uncanny feeling that not telling this person is going to end poorly for reasons that she's can't... quite put to words. Something deep down is telling her something is seriously off about this lady. She is dangerous despite being armed with nothing other than stern questions.

"The other two's boss got dumped here. They're looking for him and another dude from their squad," Gene replies after a few seconds of hesitation. No one told her the mission was secret or anything. "I just kinda ran across them. Got my mech dumped in a lake. Who-... what are you? Looking at you is making my teeth itch."

It kind of reminds her of those 'soul' things the Chrome Plated *******s used. Not... exactly the same. Not even close, honestly. But it's that same uncanny feeling that she's looking at something that isn't.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"I could ask you the same question." The stranger replies. She could see that weird machine thing jammed inside Gene, sticking out in all sorts of directions her body doesn't. "You can call me Sele. What I am is, uh, not important." Her facade of power and poise cracks just a little there, with just a hint of a scared girl peeking through.