Outside 52: Touch grass

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

Today's weapon seems to be a fairly mundane looking one.
It's just a plain, dark-metal broadsword. No fancy lights, runes, or jagged edges.

G'nichi may recognize it, depending on how thoroughly trauma has smeared his memories of the night he acquired the bracelet.
This was the weapon wielded by that librarian who seemed weirdly hard to actually kill.

There's the impression of a greeting grunt, that sounds like a tired barkeeper being reluctantly forced to acknowledge a customer.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Castle]

Yezekiel is in flight.

Seeing something the size of a bus or a whale in flight is absolutely an amazing experience, especially when it is clearly a living thing instead of a fixed wing aircraft. A dragon, certainly. In shades of reds and greens, a thing of bark and scales and needles and antlers and eyes of cosmic dark. She moves with a graceful elegance through the sky, as though swimming weightlessly, leaving a shimmering iridescent wake in her path. The finger of the heavens touching the world.

She's careful, of course.

Being too close to mortal folk for too long can be unhealthy for them, by her reckoning. But usually being way up in the sky like this is a good way to avoid that problem.

There aren't many people up here.

And when there ARE people you can see them from afar off.

Speaking of! There's what she had spotted not too long ago.

A castle in the sky.

One she hadn't ever encountered before!

Which means, maybe, new people!

Which means they need greetings and brownies.

The dragon folds in on herself, careful what motifs she stows away. De-emphasize all the alien aspects. A thing of roots and eyes. Emphasis the flesh and blood. Allow only dragon to the surface with the barest hint of deer and tree. The change is subtle, but absolute. A huge dragon, still. But a dragon of more traditional stock. A dragon with fine, tiny scales of rusty red rimed in green. Great wings with darker green membrane. And pair of antlers stretching from the frown of her head. Two large, dark, black eyes that sparkle with life and mirth.

Dragon dragon dragon dragon.
Dragon alone. A dragon of flesh a blood. A dragon of the woods.
Guardian, protector, mother, encourager.
Dragon dragon dragon dragon.

"Okay Kara," Zee calls out to her daughter. "Just like we practiced. Fold in on yourself, but keep the dragon motif in your grip. Once we land and make it clear we're friendly we can start saying hello to our new neighbors."

[Shadowcaller]

[Cloud Castle]

There are a couple of things G'nichi will notice as he lands on the bottom level of the castle. First of all, just how tall the grass is here. While it certainly won't be a problem for someone his height its clear that this area haven't been mowed for a long time.
It makes it hard to see anything within it though which might be unsettling for someone approaching an ominous castle such as this. All he can see emerging from it is what seems to be the remains of a stone wall or building at the very edge of this floating island.
The smaller houses he has to pass tell a similar story of abandonment as they're all in a decrepit state of repair with walls leaning too much to one side as if they were about to collapse and rotten boards that look about to give in.

One house he passes even seem to have fully collapsed with nature quickly reclaiming it as there's vegetation growing over its ruins.

Yet all these houses, no matter how bad state they're in, are marked with with the eye symbols which has been burned into the wood. They're not recent, as even the collapsed building has one, but probably more so than the buildings themselves.

But as he comes closer to the fort the grass is getting shorter and he will soon see why as he finds himself locked in a staring contest with a black cow.

Perhaps not the first creature he expected to encounter in a castle. Though to be fair, the cow probably didn't expect to see a 7 foot tall kobolt invading her home either.
She isn't alone either as there seem to be an entire herd here living off the land and now staring at him as much as the eye symbols on the houses seem to be.
Unlike the eyes the cows quickly seem to lose interest though once its clear he isn't a threat to them and go back to their lunch.

The fort itself looks to be in slightly better condition than the other buildings but that isn't saying much. More notably however is that both doors and the entire doorway has eye symbol burned into it.
They all seem to stare at him as he knocks on the door.

Yet there's no response.

All he can hear are the cows chewing on grass nearby.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
Another barrage of missiles (and more lasers and cannon rounds) blasts into the thing. It's hard to tell if it will stay down, it doesn't have any normal signs of being damaged and already recovered from being splattered across the battlefield once.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem armed, so as long as the mechs keep out of its reach they should be fine.

[Deathkeeper]

Cloud Castle

G'nichi is not a kobold! He is a bipedal dragon/qilin hybrid! Kobolds have longer snouts and are a fraction of his mighty size!
Had you seen him a week ago the mistake would have been understandable.

Still, cows make sense. They have to have a food supply up here.
"Hello, new sword. No hard feelings, eh?" he asks the blade. Then he goes to see if he could pull those doors open. Unlikely given their size, but he is pretty strong.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

Shalomel is actually sort of difficult to see, flying in the sky. Without the reflected light of other surfaces, her glass transparency has almost an entirely free pass.
Occasionally there are glimmers of color, as the shifting curves of her form split rays of light, but that is the most obvious thing about her currently.

Having her Mother nearby draws away what little attention could go her way pretty easily, though.

Once they get close and it's time to try out her new trick, which should dissuade some of this unintentional invisibility nonsense.
Unless she grasps the wrong concept and simply falls out of the sky as a useless pane of glass.

Okay! The aspects that creep people out or are just way too weird have to go.
That means you, Glass and Hands. Especially Hands.
Withdrawal of the latter is almost entirely unnoticeable, while the withdrawal of the former is very much so noticeable.

There is proper color on her form again.
In a call-back to how she used to be, by and large her scales are a sleek metallic silver in color, though many of them have their edges rimmed in a char-like black primarily along the center of her back, head, and scattered around her legs. It almost seems like the scatterings of fur, from a distance.
Her head remains a vaguely lupine shape shape, completely hornless and with flared scales in the approximate shape of upward-tilted ears.

A rather significantly smaller dragon, not of the woods nor of motherhood, but of packs and unity, now flies at Yezekiel's side.
"That still feels very weird to do. So weird. Does it work in reverse? Can I just pull out specific ones, instead of keeping them out?"

Might as well keep asking questions until they land.

****

G'nichi's sword tries very hard to not audibly sigh into his brain.
No.

Well that's nice. If terse.

[Shadowcaller]

Cloud Castle

Attempting to opening the doors is quickly met with failure and it will be quite apparent why.
It isn't simply their size or a lock which is barring him entry. Someone has nailed these doors completely shut from the outside and he can recall catching glances of something similar being done to the other doors he's seen. So it seems clear that these buildings are not meant to be used or even entered. Perhaps since they're obviously falling apart? That would make sense.

---

The two dragons will have plenty of space to land on as most of the area on the first level of this cloud castle is pretty open. With the exception of the decrepit buildings and the cattle there's only tall grass to be found here.
Well, that and a fence encircling the area around the stairs leading up to the second level of the castle which they could see from the area. There's was also what seems to be a barn within this encircled area which looks to be in much better condition than the other buildings here.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Last time it was able to avoid most of the damage it would have suffered due to being able to communicate between its sub-units and modify itself to avoid as much harm as possible.

This time?

That EMP that Phoenix set off is preventing it from doing all of those things.

The missiles and bullets do a pretty great job of reducing it to a gross smear in the sand.

"Good friggin' riddance," Phoenix summarizes.

After she is QUITE CERTAIN this thing isn't going to start moving again (which may involve the judicious application of fire) she begins powering down the mech again and pops the cockpit.

Hopefully the other pilots forgot about having 'the talk'.

We'll find out!


[Cloud Castle]

"Yep! You can actually pull out motifs while you're in your elf shape, too," Zee informs the smaller dragon. "Just in case you're really in the need for some dragon wings. Or if you need to high five twenty seven people at the same time."

You never know when something like that might be helpful.

"Or if you want to wow someone by being a dragon all of a sudden. Or a big black wolf. It can be really helpful! Like if someone is talking to me and I really don't feel like listening then POW! Be a tree! No one is going to try talking about marginal tax rates with a tree."

That's simply unheard of.

Trees don't care about taxes!

So!

Touching down!

Right in the middle of that big field and hopefully not scaring all those cows too much.

"Hello!" Zee calls out across the grounds. "The Nexus welcome wagon has arrived! We brought brownies!"

Nothing.

The great big silvan dragon frowns slightly at the lack of response.

"Wow, this place is kind of a dump," she says, then sniffs at the air a few times. "And either packed with evil spirits or those cows have a deathly indigestion problem."

Does she have a good view of G'Nichi from here? Probably. G'Nichi probably noticed the ENORMOUS DRAGON show up. She still sounds recognizably like Zee. Just much, much bigger. And also a dragon.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

The werewolf nods.

And then her armor begins disassembling itself as her werewolf body begins dissolving into black mist.

Seems kind of weird that the process of transforming INTO a werewolf is a horrible bone crunching process and the transformation back is far more obviously magical in nature.

It's almost as if some animator didn't want to spend the time creating a reversion animation.

Regardless of the deep, mystical reasons Fenris is a Nord again here in short order and busy shoving her suit of werewolf fitted armor pack into that little white hole in reality she keeps all of her junk in. She clenches both fists, causing flares of green geometric shapes to begin swirling around her fingers as she initiates the conjuring sequence. One bright flash later and standing before our heroes is a small grey stone obelisk with shifting arcane shapes hovering above it.

She offers one hand to Yuvan.

"This will feel rather like be transported into Oblivion," Fenris says as she touches the stone with her other hand. "More properly, if Oblivion were a river we are now skipping a stone across its surface."

Should he take her hand there will be a wrenching feeling shortly followed by appearing next to an identical stone a good half mile away from the entrance to the ruins. Our heroes will have a pretty good view of a dragon receding into the distance with a figure riding on its back. A second dragon is crouched atop the ruins, watching the entrance. A rather... gross, drippy, undead looking dragon that should be familiar to both our heroes.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

"...Is that Durnehviir?" Yuvan squints at the dragon in question, watching the creature from where they stand, a comfortable distance away. He doesn't want to assume it is, but the circumstances around the undead dragon's creation are somewhat unique, and he doubts there can even be another one that isn't him.

"...Regardless, it seems we've hit a wall in the moves we can make against the vampire today." Yuvan adds, stowing his mace back onto his belt. "I'm sure even you can't track a dragon in flight. And if that is Durnehviir up there, he will be back in the Soul Cairn within the hour, which means he presents minimal threat to the surrounding landscape. Our best move now is to return to Inside and regroup."

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Hold it right there." Cynic fires a shot from her cannon in front of Selekhael, who's trying to sneak away. "Eek!" "Let's all get out of the mechs and have a talk, the three of us and... whatever that is."

[5a Violista]

[Into the Woods]

She shakes her head.
No, the only one combat-trained who went went with the first group before they thought anything was wrong.

"Just remember, if it comes down to it, escaping is better than getting over your head." At least if he escapes, he'll be able to come back and give them info on what happened.
Yeah, that's the worst part, not knowing what's happening.

The little girl starts peeking around the bar to get a better look at Domhnall now, just because she thinks he looks interesting and everything.


Anyway.
If he wants to stick around a bit before leaving, that's probably fine.
It's not late, regardless, so it's probably fine to stick around. The woods seem fine from here, with nothing particularly out of the ordinary about them from here. Birds tweeting, a mix of light and shadow, and so on.

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

"I believe so, yes," Fenris says, squinting off into the distance. "I suspect he was summoned by our foe to provide another distraction once our ascent was over."

Just one more problem to deal with.

At the suggestion to regroup Fenris signs.

"I am afraid so. There is little else we can do at this point. My nose will be little help in tracking a flying foe and he will be able to easily out-pace us easily. However, I do find it fascinating that this plane is similar enough to Nirn that it was possible to summon Durnehviir at all," Fenris comments curiously. "But you're right. I believe that may be our best course of action. Unfortunately a Milestone will be of little use in that respect. I tried setting one there and found that the underlying fabric of reality was too... thin. For lack of a better word."

Which means the would have to take the long way ho-

There's a sound of a ringing bell behind them.

Should our heroes turn around they'll find themselves standing a good twenty feet from a Riftline station, the train just pulling up.

"Ah! I've seen this machine operating in and around Inside again. Linked carriages, of a sort. They use some form of magnetic principle to float above their tracks, it's quite fascinating."


[Crystal Crags]

Just a nice little chat around the fire-pit with that fried, exploded pink and black mass nearby.

Smelling horrible.

What a lovely way to spend the evening.

Gene hops down out of her mech and ambles over to get the fire going for the collection of mercs and whatever the hell the lady in the blue dress is.

"Gunna guess this is where the yelling about me spilling my secrets happens?" Gene asks, pulling off her helmet and putting it on top of a rock nearby.

[Geopol4r]

[Crystal Crags]

You hear footsteps. An old crucian(tortoisefolk) in sackcloth is approaching. He seems intent on the burning mass.

[Earl of Purple]

Apocalypse Junction

"Yep, that's about right. Shapeshifters masqueradin' as men is... I guess not impossible where I'm from, but I've not heard of anythin' like it." The people who knew what was truly possible and impossible using magic all died in the Mage Wars, after all. The people that are left are scrabbling around with the remains.

She's a bit surprised by the platform, but manages to stand up and hobble over to it. She'll try to get onto it without help, which she should be able to do so long as it's not hovering too far up or out from the edge of the pit.

Rovering

There's a spot where the cybermen quite clearly appeared, a viewing platform on the edge of the traction-town that has been scorched and blistered by their transmat technology. One is striding back there with a civilian slung over its shoulder, a young woman wearing a skirt cut at an angle so it's halfway up her shin on the left and at her knee on the right and a black plastic jacket. She's alive, but unconscious, as are most of the shocked individuals.

"Yeah, I would. We gotta protect the town, and there's nothing we can do right now. Our bullets bounce off them, and they just appeared. Never seen anything like it." The possible officer keeps glancing away from the unicorn as he speaks, glancing at the havoc being unleashed upon his town.

Cloud Castle

Something else approaches the castle, though not aiming for the bottom. It's a berline carriage, black-painted wood and polished brass fittings, red velvet curtains pulled tight over the doors. It's apparently pulled by a pair of skeletal horses, their bones covered in delicate scrimshaw carvings. They're galloping, anyway, though the wheels don't turn since the vehicle is flying through the air. It's being directed towards the top of the castle, aiming to bypass the outer walls and land in a courtyard of some kind. The coachman sat on top and at the front is a large, bulky man wearing a black suit and stovepipe hat, with a plain bronze mask bolted to their face. Inside, not visible from outside the carriage, are two people. One is a man wearing a finely tailored burgundy suit, a steel breastplate over the top and a bowler hat on his head. He's got dark skin and green eyes, and he's got a belt across his lap with a bone-hilted sabre and a large revolver hanging from it. Sat opposite him is his wife, a paler woman with brown hair and dark eyes, wearing a pair of jeans and a buff coat, holding a sturdy cudgel. She's also providing some mystical coverage; metabolising copper, she's making it harder to use detection magic to find the carriage and its occupants, and especially shield any active magics they might use.

[Recaiden]

Bone Hills- Maw of Arkhentkhats

The further along the corridor they go, the more it smells. Something sour, and rotten- like old, curdled milk, or something along those lines. The corridor twists several times, eventually ending at a rusty iron door. It's stuck, but a good shove or two will push it open, the hinges squealing in protest. It's not going to be quiet. Beyond the door, there's a small square chamber which has partially collapsed. The floor's littered with rubble, battered shields, and bones. The bones shake and shiver, slowly reassembling into a pair of humanoid skeletons. One stoops to pick up a broken spear, whilst the other adopts a rough boxer's stance. Both advance on the door, snapping their jaws as they do so.

Honeysuckle tries to push the rusty door open anyway.
But she's not very strong.

So the manticore has to come up, set her paws against the door, and break through the rust that's causing it to seize up.

Honeysuckle moves smoothly from 'sheepishly running a hand through her hair' to 'adjusting her gaze to start vaporizing the hand-bones of the spear-wielding skeleton'.

The manticore lurks just next to her. "I'll get the other one once it's close."

[Deathkeeper]

[Into the Woods]

She shakes her head.
No, the only one combat-trained who went went with the first group before they thought anything was wrong.

"Just remember, if it comes down to it, escaping is better than getting over your head." At least if he escapes, he'll be able to come back and give them info on what happened.
Yeah, that's the worst part, not knowing what's happening.

The little girl starts peeking around the bar to get a better look at Domhnall now, just because she thinks he looks interesting and everything.


Anyway.
If he wants to stick around a bit before leaving, that's probably fine.
It's not late, regardless, so it's probably fine to stick around. The woods seem fine from here, with nothing particularly out of the ordinary about them from here. Birds tweeting, a mix of light and shadow, and so on.

Into the Woods

On the contrary, Domhnall would rather investigate the woods when there's light rather than go in at night where he's more likely to get through alive or see an important clue.
Dom waits about fifteen minutes to rest his legs (and winks at the little girl). But after that? He's back on the road, whistling calmly the whole time.

Cloud Castle

G'nichi turns at the sound of voices. And somehow he is looking at someone he recognizes completely and also look completely different than the last he saw them.
"Zee?" he calls to the dragon, waving a hand.

[Geopol4r]

[Crystal Crags]
The tortoise walks up to the slag, scoops a portion into his cloth, which dissolves. He then simply holds it and enters a hole in the wall. Carry on.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
The turtle is ignored for now, the three pilots have more important business (and Selekhael is stuck there until she's not worried about getting shot for trying to sneak off).
"Yeah. You'd better start talking. I heard the gist. You've got a machine stuck in your back controlling you. That nanobot guy hinted at it, and whatever that is confirmed it." She gestures roughly at the uncomfortable-looking lion-eagle-coral-ring girl who's trying to sidle away.
Herringbone says nothing, but it's clear she's feeling deceived as well.

Cynic's hand is on her pistol. It would be very dangerous to anger her right now.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Nooo, turtle guy!

Why!

You were the perfect distraction!

"Ugh, listen I doubt any of this **** is going to make sense to you. I sure as hell don't understand it. Probably about as well as you understand how your brain works," Gene huffs. "It- the thing isn't a machine controlling me. It's..."

Her eyes briefly flick to her mech and back. She could have just stayed in there and legged it. Why is she even helping these strangers, anyway?

"Machine minds, true AI, they're illegal back home. The First Contact Accords outlawed them. So we've got, like, comp-cons but they aren't actually aware, right? No subjectivity. No real mind. Good at crunching numbers but they can't think if you get my drift. For that kinda stuff they use shackled deimosians. Deismosians are these... things from blinkspace. I don't think anyone has any idea what the hell they are. They don't think like humans do. They're alien. So Union figured out how to make caskets to hold 'em. A way to force a human perspective on them. A way to control the bastards so they don't, hell I don't know, delete someone just to see what happens or whatever paracausal space magic bull**** they can do when they're free. So that's what the thing in my back is. A casket. My casket. The thing that stops me from being a friggin' insane blink daemon or whatever the **** I am, because I sure as hell don't know either."

She reaches up and taps on her side of her skull with a finger.

"Got a real human brain, though. That's what I do my thinking with, mostly. The thing in the casket is ****in' scary and it can stay in the cage as far as I'm concerned. This body, it was grown for me. Assassination gig that went sideways. I got damaged and slipped my handler's reins. And I've been tryin' pretty ****ing hard to make sure I don't get caught again. Because every time they weren't using me they would yank me out of whatever body I was in and shove me in a little box in the dark until they needed me again and let me tell you that wasn't great."

No one likes getting shoved into boxes in the dark.

"So I guess our hot-topic friend there was looking to rip me open and pull the spook out," Gene says, glowering at the dead(?) nanocomposite entity. "No friggin' clue why. Seriously, your guess is good as mine on that one. I-"

She gives a sigh, leaning forward to bury her face in her hands.

"I... remember what is was like before I was bound. But none of the things I remember make any sense. Like... I don't even have ****in' context for the sorts of thoughts that other thing had. It isn't me. Wasn't me. If it exists again then I'm dead and there's no way I'm just going to roll over and let some pink and black ****-pile force me to be something else because it thinks bottling blink daemons is wrong or some ****. I like being human and that isn't going to stop."

Then she glares at Cynic.

Just for good measure.

"There. You friggin' happy now?"


[Apocalypse Junction]

Two impossible things climb onto a disk.

It hovers across the gaps, over to the drop off, then back up to the ground floor.

Huh.

Looks like they got some kind of mobile elevator?

Or maybe a flying carpet would be a better comparison.

"Huh. Well, I reckon that worked better than I thought it might," Victor wonders aloud.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
Cynic does not look happy. She's definitely still angry about all of this.

But she's not drawing her pistol. "Fine. You're some science experiment gone awry or whatever. But we're not done here. You!" She points at Selekhael accusingly, "What the **** even are you, and why are you messing in our stuff? And you!" Now she points at the turtleman that seems to be just passing through. "Are you spying on us? What is even going on here?"

The response from Selekhael moments later doesn't help. "I'm a goddess." "Bull. Keep mouthing off like that and you'll get a bullet in your brain for the trouble." "What are you doing? She's a kid!" Herringbone protests. "Shut up, I am protecting our asses!"

It's clear Cynic really doesn't like being misled, or feeling like she's not in control, and everything is spiraling into chaos right now.

[Geopol4r]

The tortoiseman looks at you. He blinks. He blinks. He opens his mouth. I do not have any need, nor any interest in whatever you are squabbling about. Have we met?

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Everything spiraling into chaos?

Wow, welcome to the Nexus right?

"Excuse you, I'm a walking science crime, thanks," Gene shoots back. "And what the hell is turtle dude's deal?"

Everything has been so utterly weird that Gene isn't going to blink at this point if giant turtle people walk around collecting blobs of nano-composite entities.

Like, really, so what?

They fought a dragon. And giant lava worms. And two crazy nanite mechs.

Turtle dude is pretty tame, honestly.

The yelling at the li-wait.

When did she start being a lion? Somehow Gene had missed that. "To be fair to blue-dress she DID do some sort of crazy blink-jump **** to yank me out of me mech for a chat earlier. Unless she's got short ranged blink-drive under her skirt somewhere I'm gunna guess she's got some weird **** going on, goddess or no. HEY LADY! You know Ra? Like you but with a bird-head instead of a cat."

The Ra Gene is familiar with is utterly unrelated (probably?) to the Old-Earth god but she thinks it's funny so she's going for it.

Oh ha ha the turtle dude can talk? Of course he can talk who is Gene kidding?

"Aside from you ambling out here earlier to snag some pink goop no I'm not thinking so," Gene retorts. "I woulda remembered someone with your haircut."

[Geopol4r]

The crucian nods to you, the beckons for you to follow. He walks into his tunnel in the wall.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Uh..." Oh no, how did Gene see through Selekhael's disguise? "No?" She doesn't know that name, but at least it sounds vaguely familiar. Something about a story someone told her a while back... Oh right. "But I've, uh, heard of him." That's probably more than Gene was expecting. "I, uh, need to get going. Prayers to answer, uh, a visit from my sister to prepare for, uh, normal goddess stuff." She moves to leave. Cynic's attention is elsewhere, on the tortoise. "No the **** way! I'm not going anywhere!" Her comrade tries to be more peaceful about it. "What she means is, we can't come with you, we have to stay with our mechs."

[Geopol4r]

I will bring food out here to nourish you then. You should have a meal together. It increases trust in each other.
With that, he takes the burning glob into his tunnel. A few minutes later, he comes with a couple peaches, strawberries, and mushrooms. Appetizers.
He returns to his cave and pleasant odors waft out.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Gene saw through your clever disguise because you're still wearing the same blue dress, Selekhael.

Aaaand it looks like she's trying to scoot off to do...

Stuff?

Goddess stuff.

Sure, that makes sense.

And the turtle dude is offering them midnight snacks?

Awesome. Gene will snag a strawberry.

"Just to repeat, I have no idea why Pinkie there had such a hard-on for me," Gene says as she takes a bite out of the strawberry. "I mean, I get the 'wants to smash the bottle the blink-daemon is in' but I'm not too clear on the why part. There are some dudes back home who think shackling is, like, slavery or something? Range for sign-wavers to friggin' terrorists. Every now and again they do manage to free a deimosian and the result is typically not great for anyone involved."

[Geopol4r]

[Crystal Crags]
"Turtle dude" comes from his home in the wall carrying three sheets of solid aluminum, serving as plates. On each is a bed of rice, with a pile of orange goo embedded with mushrooms of some sort, and strips of meat on top. He hands one to each of you, along with a spoon.

[Shadowcaller]

Cloud Castle

Something else approaches the castle, though not aiming for the bottom. It's a berline carriage, black-painted wood and polished brass fittings, red velvet curtains pulled tight over the doors. It's apparently pulled by a pair of skeletal horses, their bones covered in delicate scrimshaw carvings. They're galloping, anyway, though the wheels don't turn since the vehicle is flying through the air. It's being directed towards the top of the castle, aiming to bypass the outer walls and land in a courtyard of some kind. The coachman sat on top and at the front is a large, bulky man wearing a black suit and stovepipe hat, with a plain bronze mask bolted to their face. Inside, not visible from outside the carriage, are two people. One is a man wearing a finely tailored burgundy suit, a steel breastplate over the top and a bowler hat on his head. He's got dark skin and green eyes, and he's got a belt across his lap with a bone-hilted sabre and a large revolver hanging from it. Sat opposite him is his wife, a paler woman with brown hair and dark eyes, wearing a pair of jeans and a buff coat, holding a sturdy cudgel. She's also providing some mystical coverage; metabolising copper, she's making it harder to use detection magic to find the carriage and its occupants, and especially shield any active magics they might use.

Cloud Castle - SkelChariot

The top of the castle have no outer walls as far as the rider can see. But there are still two courtyard-ish areas where they could land. The first is in front of what could be considered the main building (or at least the largest one) of the castle and the greenhouse tower it's connected to.
There's only two houses here and they don't seem to be intended as dwellings though there doesn't seem to be anyone home at the moment. They're in good condition though so while they don't seem to be inhabited right now someone seems to be maintaining them.

The other is the platform that is connected to the main building by stairs, both which seem to have been carved out of the mountain itself which is a rather impressive architectural feat.
If the rider gets closer to this platform they can tell that the proportions are a bit off. The stairs, and indeed the back-gate it leads to, are far larger than they should need to be. Each step about three meter wide across and are also quite tall, making it a bit awkward for a regular humanoid to ascend them. It suggests that they were intended to be able to carry something larger. Perhaps whatever flying machine the platform is intended for.

They cannot sense any attempts to detect them or magic in the area so they seem to be safe from that at least.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

At the "tree" transformation, Kara is forced to thing of her two options on that front: a big hand or a big window?
Neither of these seem as immediately useful.

The more immediately useful information here is that she could still call on wings in her more humanoid state. Or being a big dog.
That part is very intriguing.
"I'll have to try that out soon!"

Probably within the hour, actually...

Anyway, time to land!
"Maybe they don't actually live down at this level and need to hire new landscapers."
Maybe the castle was forcefully ejected into the sky at some point and all the regularly citizenry moved upstairs?
"We should probably just go up there for the brownies-oh! Hi again G'nichi!"
We just saw you subjective minutes ago? Hours? Days?
Threads are so confusing.

Anyway, the much smaller dragon near the bigger one waves to the even smaller dragonguy.

[Rovering]

The unicorn could probably stand to be more concerned by the people being carried away, but she really isn't.

There's more important science to be done.

"Delightful. Put this on and take this."
Her horn glows a rather off-pink and pulls a rather thin-looking paper biohazard suit as well as a thin silver sword from a pouch at her side, which is far too small to contain either.
"One warning, do not cut the suit with the sword, as it turns out that starmetal and the nature of my invulnerability enchantment do not get along."

If the fellow wishes, he will be encouraged to try to stab the suit with his regular armaments.
It may, very very subtly wriggle in response, but does not suffering any of the expected damage.

"You and I should then go rescue your town, yes?"

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Castle]

A big hand would be utterly unstoppable in thumb wrestling.

And glass can come in many shapes aside from just window-panes! Strictly speaking that motif covers quite a few things other than just glass. Most any translucent or transparent solid, really. Karaglen's manifestation of it just happens to be the crystal clear sort. It's all a matter of imagination, really.

But...

Yeah.

Large glass object is probably not the most useful thing in the world unless Karaglen is wanting to go under-cover in an ice sculpting contest.

Big dog, though? Way more possibilities, there! And probably all of the ones Karaglen can imagine are better than the barghest. That was definitely a big dog but it was a big terrible dog. Would wolf friends have even more fun if she could dog around with them? That is definitely worth experimenting over.

Anywho!

Zee smiles at Kara when the younger of the two dragons affirms her desire to try something new. She has, after all, many new things to affirm. "It's definitely a mystery! The boarded up doors and funny eye symbols are definitely strange. Maybe this place is abandoned sans cows? Cows probably aren't going to be very interested in our welcome brownies."

The huge rusty red and green dragon cranes her neck to peer at the odd eye symbols, leaning a bit more heavily into her Information sphere. There is a meaning behind those symbols. As there is a meaning behind all symbols. And she's trying to unearth it. It should give her a bit better of an idea what's going on here.

G'Nichi is flashed an absolutely gigantic dragon-y smile. "Well howdy G'Nichi! This is the first time you've seen me out and about, isn't it? Hehe. I've put on a few pounds since you were chatting with those nice paladins but don't worry! Little outings like this are great exercise. Did you pop up here to say hello to the newcomers as well? I spotted the castle the other day and thought it might be a good time to share some Welcome to the Nexus brownies. Kara decided to come help."

And practice her origami while she's at it.