Outside 52: Touch grass

[Shadowcaller]

Cloud Castle

"No. The master comes and goes as she pleases and sometimes she can be gone for dozens of seasons. I know that the group on the second level has means of contacting her however and she would very much be interested in talking to you, that I'm sure of." The crane explains and then shifts its gaze upwards. "But the master mostly stays in her library on the top level while she's her. Sometimes she comes down her to pay her respects though." The crane guardian almost sounds wishful as it mentions this.

"...but don't worry too much about the kuaro. In fact, you may feed on their souls if you like. It was a while the master was here so I'm afraid they might grow too strong in her absence."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

Kara was pretty onboard with how this particular portion of the adventure was going.
Spooked a crane, got spooked in turn by a crane, then made friends with a crane.
It was going so well.

But that final line puts a really disturbed look on the young dragon's face.
"I'm sorry, what? Feed on their souls?"

[Earl of Purple]

Rovering

Page can see the cyberman with the heavy weapon from where she's stood, though wresting it from the cyborg drone's grip will prove tricky; it's held in place with powerful electromagnets. She can interfere with the cyberman's fingers to make it let go, but trying to tug it away from its wielder will just drag the cyberman along as well. It's going to start firing the weapon, cycling several barrels to pepper the street with potent energy blasts. It's far less accurate now that Page is trying to wrest it from the cyberman's magnet-enhanced grip, and it wasn't super accurate to begin with. It strides forward, continuing to fire- one of the cybermen is hit in the chest, falling over with a large hole blasted in its torso and... it sounds like it's crying, the first human noise coming from the metal shelled monsters.

The officer recovers with Page's assistance and grabs the sword, picking it up and charging the gunner with an inarticulate scream. Hopefully the hazmat suit can take the improved power of the larger gun, since otherwise there's enough shots fired one might stop him despite Page's efforts.

[Gullara]

[Ritual Night]

"That's alright, I brought the ritual flowers for a reason so let's you get hooked up with that." She gestures at her satchel at the ground. "Just take them the usual way and we can get this thing started. I'll change into my swimming suit meanwhile." Astrana winks. "Unless you prefer if I go without one."

[Ritual Night]

"Right right." Valerie nods. She giggles at the question, her spirits lightening. "Well you know I always love to see you naked." She jokes.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Oh, the bad guys always do. Have never even gone a week without any of them showing up. Like this week we're fighting blood seal zombies. Like, how cool isn't that? Which is why I probably need to get back soon. I'm the only one with experience fighting them, see?" Anika nods, her experience was truly invaluable!

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

Mimi isn't sure what a blood seal zombie is, but it must be some sort of bad guy. "Hm, okay, but I still don't know where this Vigil place is. So you gotta call the number." It's a good thing she made the arrangement this way. Mimi wouldn't want to have to figure out how to contact this Vigil place. Sounds like a hassle.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Castle]

Yep!

This was going pretty well until that last bit.

Feed on their souls.

Great fun.

One of the major upsides to the Information sphere is that it can grant insights into what a creature means when it uses a particular word rather than just hearing the word itself. It gives insight into the information the creature is wishing to convey. And given what the word 'soul' is intended to mean here that is VITALLY important information.

"The way he understands that word is pretty different from how most of the Nexus thinks of it," Zee says to Kara, her voice gently reassuring. "It's more like a Name. Who and what someone is, but something that grows and changes over time, normally. I guess the sort of dragon this Master is can feed like some of the predatory faeries do, eating part of someone's Name. So long as there's something left a person with a faerie bite can recover. If it's minor they might not even notice."

Still really creepy!

There's a reason why baobhan sith are one of the spookiest types of wildling to deal with.

Then Zee offers a kind smile to the bird.

"Thank you for the offer, that's very kind. But Kara and I are a different sort of dragon, we don't eat souls. Hopes, dreams, and devotion are a balanced part of our diet."

Don't want to seem too rude and offend the bird by just utterly rejecting the offer as abhorrent, after all.

[Shadowcaller]

Cloud Castle- Skeleton Carriage

Benedict shushes his wife and doesn't say anything, walking slowly towards the door and trying to be as quiet as possible. He's hoping it can't actually see them, and just can sense the manservant and carriage now they're out of his wife's aura of Allomantic copper.

Cloud Castle- Skeleton Carriage

The griffin head repeats its question. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF. THE LIBRARY IS NOT OPEN FOR VISITORS AT THIS MOMENT. It declares as they sneak closer.

[Ritual Night]

"Not getting enough of it, huh?" Astrana remarks as she puts away the bottle and starts to undress. "Clearly I've left you starved. Perhaps I should start sleeping in the nude from now on. Would that be enough to feed your hungry gaze, Val?" Her eyebrows raise as she pulls down her dress and starts working on her bra.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Okay sure, and that leads to your... tiny phonimobajig?" She had a hard time picturing Mimi with one of those things considering that she was using a spear.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Rovering]

Well, unfortunately for that officer, while the hazmat suit seems to be impervious to damage itself, it still isn't very thick or firm, so any of the kinetic energy from that gun's shots that hit him will still pass through.
Hopefully it's not enough to do more than make him stumble and bruise, but...

Just in case, Page tries to jerk the weapon upwards to force the cyberman's shots up into the sky.
Maybe towards their aircraft or something instead.

She gives up on trying to seize the weapon entirely, trying to figure out how the robots work on that level sounds like too much effort when she's trying to observe how her toys are holding up in the officer's use.

[Deathkeeper]

Cloud Castle

Yeah G'nichi was pretty shocked by the casual mention of eating souls but given he's friends with Gladius it's probably not as surprising for him to hear that sort of thing than Kara.
"Yeah I'll just...get a burger or something when we're done here." That will suit him just fine. He scoots a little towards the stairs. Maybe it's best if they go visit these people before they get offered to eat someone's head or something.

[Gullara]

[Ritual Night]

"Not getting enough of it, huh?" Astrana remarks as she puts away the bottle and starts to undress. "Clearly I've left you starved. Perhaps I should start sleeping in the nude from now on. Would that be enough to feed your hungry gaze, Val?" Her eyebrows raise as she pulls down her dress and starts working on her bra.

[Ritual Night]

"Is there such thing as enough?" Valerie asks, her grim spreading. "I wouldn't so no to that. If that's what you want." She giggles. Her eyes wander down over her fiancée's body. The anticipation!

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Okay sure, and that leads to your... tiny phonimobajig?" She had a hard time picturing Mimi with one of those things considering that she was using a spear.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Pfft, no. My girlfriend has the phone. But she can get me." Mimi explains, confirming Anika's stereotyping.

[Shadowcaller]

[Ritual Night]

Astrana smirks. "Are you sure you're actually a vampire, Val? Since it doesn't seem to be blood that you're thirsting for."
Then she slowly removes the rest of her clothes for Val's benefit before starting to step into the river. "But you can't stare on me all day, get those those flowers now." She remarks with a wiggle of her butt which really is counterproductive.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Oh, okay-" Hold on a minute! "Wait, so you have your girlfriends code but you can't actually contact her since you don't have the phonamajig too? You just have it so others can't contact you through her but you would have to get to her to even- actually, never mind. That's cool." She gives Mimi the thumbs up.
Let's not question this.

[Cloud Castle]

The crane tilts its head in confusion at Kara's little outburst, showing almost dog-like mannerisms.
Zee's explanation doesn't seem to make it any less confused but if it makes Kara less distressed...
"The kuaro are kept here for the master to feed on. They can be dangerous otherwise." It attempts to clarify as if thinking that's the issue. "We do not know much about souls except that the master needs them." Zee might recall that the shield she ate had signs of being fed upon so that would probably align with her explanation. "But... you do not. I see." A beat.
"Nonetheless, you should leave this place now unless you came to pay your respects too."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

So the weird angry weapons (Kara is assuming that's what the kuaro are. Context clues!) are functionally cattle for their master, a peculiar souls-but-not eating dragon.
Hmm. This is making her feel a lot more nervous about potentially meeting said master.
This doesn't really sound like a Good diet.

"Umm, thanks for the offer anyway?"
Always be polite.
"But okay, yeah, we're gonna go now..."
Time to sidle after G'nichi. Which is...actually kind of inconvenient as a big dragon.

There is now a wolf trailing after the Hero again.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Castle]

At least the Master doesn't eat brains.

Or hearts.

Or people's sense of self-worth.

Zee waves farewell to the cLoud Bird and makes her way back out into the courtyard! Apparently the weapons are doing being threatening?

Okay!

So!

Next step!

Give Kara an encouraging head-pat and also maybe pet G'Nichi's tail while he isn't paying attention.

"It sounds like all the people are up at the next level?" Zee says, looking if there are any handy means of getting up there. Like stairs. Or is this one of those places where if you can't fly you're out of luck? Sure they can all do that (it's how they got up here after all) but sometimes just walking is nice, too! "So we can head up there and say hello? Maybe get a better idea of who our new neighbors are."

Hopefully they'll be a little more personable than cloud birds and animated weapons.

Oh, wait.

Stairs!

There they are, G'Nichi is walking up them. Hah!

Hah.

How does she manage to miss stuff like this sometimes?

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
It takes a little bit before the next comment comes over the radio. "How the **** did that get there!?" Sounds like Herringbone is awake and just as surprised. "Hmmwhuh... Aaaaa!" Now Cynic is too.
"We should get out of here. I don't like that thing." Herringbone states the obvious.

[Earl of Purple]

Cloud Castle- Skeleton Carriage

Oh, a library? Well, that's really interested Benedict. He looks up at the carving and draws a symbol of curves and spirals in the air, blue light following his finger. When he takes his finger away, the symbol complete, it flares up and expands outward, the curves and spirals extending and curving towards the grotesque. Unless the carving has some defences, the effect is on a collision course with it, and the magic should deaden the statue's senses and remove its more recent memory; however, it's not the most reliable technique and might not work properly. There's so many different ways to imbuing a statue with sentience and it doesn't work on all of them. If it does work, Benedict and his wife will try the door, and she will pull out a professional set of lockpicks and try breaking in.

Rovering

The officer is still alive, but the glancing hit has injured him and knocked him over. It hit the side of his ribcage, and whilst most of the force was deflected by the angle and also the fact he fell over he's at least bruised some ribs and possibly broken some. He'll stand up and swings the sword at the cyberman's arm, leaving the gun in Page's telekinetic grip- though still attached to the cyber-arm, the sword passed through above the elbow, continuing through the upper torso and the opposite arm. The cyberman's legs and lower torso remains standing, though slump backwards; the upper torso and head and arms fall to the floor behind it and make no noise.

The zeppelin the cybermen arrived on is too far for the kinetic blasts of the cyber-gun to reach, so shooting the vessel from here proves ineffective.

Another cyberman approaches Page, moving faster than the others though not running- and it's the same design as the others. It's got a hand stretched out, aiming to give the unicorn a potent electrical shock since the cyber-controller observing the battle noted their earlier neurological disruptors did nothing. The gauntlet is going to give the most powerful shock it's capable of, which would be almost certainly lethal for a human.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

"I read you on that. If this thing is what I'm thinkin' it is then we don't wanna be anywhere near it," Phoenix replies over the coms.

Just need to...

Get her mech up and running and turn around and-

She rotates her mech to move away.

Her field of view doesn't change.

At all.

"What the ****..." she mutters before popping her cockpit, climbing out of her mech, and looking around.

Same deal.

Her field of view doesn't change.

Left, right, over her shoulder, even straight up.

In all directions all she can see is a smooth black surface gradually sloping away from her perspective and filling her whole field of view.

[Deathkeeper]

Cloud Castle

"Thank you for your guidance." G'nichi says simply to the crane as he moves up the stairs. And he does appreciate that they didn't have to fight. This poor guardian just seemed ill equipped to deal with the weirdness that is a Nexus welcome wagon.

[Gullara]

[Ritual Night]

Astrana smirks. "Are you sure you're actually a vampire, Val? Since it doesn't seem to be blood that you're thirsting for."
Then she slowly removes the rest of her clothes for Val's benefit before starting to step into the river. "But you can't stare on me all day, get those those flowers now." She remarks with a wiggle of her butt which really is counterproductive.

[Ritual Night]

Oh, she's actually going without clothes. That probably is counterproductive, but Val's not going to protest. Her will is too weak. "Right right." She tears her eyes away and grabs the flowers. Right, she remembers how these are supposed to be prepared. She starts to do just that, despite Astrana being so attention grabbing.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Oh, okay-" Hold on a minute! "Wait, so you have your girlfriends code but you can't actually contact her since you don't have the phonamajig too? You just have it so others can't contact you through her but you would have to get to her to even- actually, never mind. That's cool." She gives Mimi the thumbs up.
Let's not question this.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

Mimi shrugs but accepts Anika's babbling. "Yeah." She answers unhelpfully. "Okay so you just call when you want me to help with your girl-cat-friend."

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Well, ****." The pyramid doesn't seem to let them look away. "Plan B? Blow it up?" Cynic suggests. It looks pretty big though. They probably don't have enough explosives for that.
They're mercenaries, not scientists. Their interaction with things is focused on guns and bombs.

[Rebonack]

[At the Foot of WUDJAT]

It looks stupid big.

If they were trying to blow it up how would they even start?

They're standing right next to the thing, within arm's reach if they climbed out of their mechs, which means they would be blasting it point blank if they opened fire. That might not be great given the catapult's proclivity toward missiles.

"Damn it. I was hoping we would be able to avoid this things. Places like this are great big tombs full of magical space-wizard bull****," Phoenix swears over the coms. "It won't let us go around, so the only option is to go through the damn thing."

It really, really doesn't sound like she's looking forward to this eventuality.

Of course, going through it would mean finding a way in, right?

Like that huge square door flanked by white marble doorposts and lentel in the side of the structure right in front of them, for example? It doesn't grow into existence. It's just there. It was always there, a gaping maw standing before them like the mouth of some great beast waiting to devour.

[5a Violista]

Into the Woods

Well, Dom's experiment has proven his invisibility charm works, so getting out will be easy if it's a trap.
Not that he's going to go advertise himself.
He slowly makes his way to the back of the cottage, checking for a back entrance. If there is none he'll have to go through the front door, but he'd rather have some tact about it.

[Into the Woods]

Dom is pretty lucky he has such a useful ability. Many people would find themself helpless at the hands of whatever's causing this, in this kind of situation.

There's a back entrance to the cabin.
Well, not exactly. It's more of a 'window' than an entrance, but it's a window that could slide open and, with a little difficulty, he could climb in.

Or, before he decides to climb in, he could look in through the window first. Leads to a kitchen. There's nobody inside the kitchen itself, but it's clear that it's been used recently.
The kitchen connects to a larger room. Listening at the window (especially if he opens the window first) will let him overhear a discussion, coming from the connected room. The discussion sounds like it's one of those that has been had dozens of times, and there's no chance anyone will change their minds, and involves multiple participants.
"– while you're just sitting around! We need to do something!"
"I agree" "But what"
"And you think we haven't tried doing anything? What would you suggest? The forest won't let us leave!"
"Must be easy for you, you don't have someone you care about to get back to."
"How dare you?"
"I'm just saying–"

The conversation gets heated, it sounds like there's posturing, something wooden gets smacked, some stomping, there's the sound of fist meeting face, someone exhausted tries intervening, one of the more heated participants moves farther into the cabin...

[Shadowcaller]

[Cloud Castle]

So the weird angry weapons (Kara is assuming that's what the kuaro are. Context clues!) are functionally cattle for their master, a peculiar souls-but-not eating dragon.
Hmm. This is making her feel a lot more nervous about potentially meeting said master.
This doesn't really sound like a Good diet.

"Umm, thanks for the offer anyway?"
Always be polite.
"But okay, yeah, we're gonna go now..."
Time to sidle after G'nichi. Which is...actually kind of inconvenient as a big dragon.

There is now a wolf trailing after the Hero again.

[Cloud Castle]

At least the Master doesn't eat brains.

Or hearts.

Or people's sense of self-worth.

Zee waves farewell to the cLoud Bird and makes her way back out into the courtyard! Apparently the weapons are doing being threatening?

Okay!

So!

Next step!

Give Kara an encouraging head-pat and also maybe pet G'Nichi's tail while he isn't paying attention.

"It sounds like all the people are up at the next level?" Zee says, looking if there are any handy means of getting up there. Like stairs. Or is this one of those places where if you can't fly you're out of luck? Sure they can all do that (it's how they got up here after all) but sometimes just walking is nice, too! "So we can head up there and say hello? Maybe get a better idea of who our new neighbors are."

Hopefully they'll be a little more personable than cloud birds and animated weapons.

Oh, wait.

Stairs!

There they are, G'Nichi is walking up them. Hah!

Hah.

How does she manage to miss stuff like this sometimes?

Cloud Castle

"Thank you for your guidance." G'nichi says simply to the crane as he moves up the stairs. And he does appreciate that they didn't have to fight. This poor guardian just seemed ill equipped to deal with the weirdness that is a Nexus welcome wagon.

[Ritual Night]

Oh, she's actually going without clothes. That probably is counterproductive, but Val's not going to protest. Her will is too weak. "Right right." She tears her eyes away and grabs the flowers. Right, she remembers how these are supposed to be prepared. She starts to do just that, despite Astrana being so attention grabbing.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

Mimi shrugs but accepts Anika's babbling. "Yeah." She answers unhelpfully. "Okay so you just call when you want me to help with your girl-cat-friend."

Cloud Castle

"You should probably leave the same way that you came only the bell stops tolling. You'll find an exit up there but the kuaro know that you're in here so they will likely be covering it too. They know this place like the back of their hand and are ready to defend it even beyond death." The crane states simply as they start walking upwards. But as they come close to one of the windows Kara can hear something faint through the sound of the bell.

It's a persons voice.

And they're calling for help.

It's likely they're outside the wall somewhere judging by its faintness.

[A Hunter must Herd Kows?]

"Okay, cool. I'll call you uh, soon then!" Anika looks around. "Erm... so do you or I take care of the kows or do we just... leave them here?" Seemed like a jerk move now that they had freed them.

[Ritual Night]

Tsk, Val should grow a stronger will.

Of course, its not terribly warm in the river so she can hear Astrana yelp as she goes in.
"Dear spirits above, you better hurry with those flowers Val or I'm going to freeze to death." She's probably being over-dramatic Astrana was used to it being a lot hotter than it was in the nexus.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cloud Castle]

Kara was just going to follow G'nichi up the stairs, quietly humming to herself until she stopped thinking about soul-eating nonsense. And possibly also occasionally "accidentally" pattering his tail.
But then one of her ears swivels towards a window as they begin to pass it and she pauses.

Someone crying for help.
Possibly a weird trap by the floaty weapon things? Maybe.
But also possibly someone who needs help.

The possibility of that will always be more important than the possibility of a trap, to her.
Always.

"Someone's calling for help! Mom, G'nichi, letsgogogogogog!"
The wolf gives a pretty hurried explanation of the sudden tense alarm that runs over her body, before she promptly leaps out the window (presuming it's actually a breakable substance, otherwise she'll have to cheat around it).
Once she clears the window, she's going to promptly yank on another one of her motifs and sprout some dragon wings.

Now, this is a horribly clumsy maneuver, given that she has literally never practiced it and it's in a rush, so she's also going to spend a harrowing couple of moments falling/flailing.
But she'll pick herself back up and then actually fly towards the voice.

[Rebonack]

[Cloud Castle]

"Oh, is it heroically leaping out windows time already?" Zee comments as Kara goes diving through the window in question and into what is almost without question an obvious trap.

Sadly it is the sort of obvious trap that Kara is pretty much always going to go for. The kiddo is just kind and selfless that way and the chance that someone really does need help is going to out-weigh the chance that someone is trying to hurt her.

Probably even more so now.

Empyreans aren't exactly fragile creatures.

Zee leans out the window and expects to see one of two things.

One?

A bunch of pointy weapons making people noises getting ready to stab Kara.

Two?

Someone actually in danger.

Of those two the first one is probably more likely and either way Zee is going to be vaulting through the window as well to provide Karaglen with a little bit of backup. She'll probably do a slick Mega Man X wall-side to get down to the ground without crashing.

[bc56]

WUDJAT
"We've got no choice." "Fine. We're going in. Weapons free." The two mechs point into the darkness and begin to enter.

[Rebonack]

[WUDJAT]

Three mechs step into the vault.
Three mechs step into the tomb.
Three mechs step into the body.
Three visions step into their minds.

An eye, burning, turned upon them which belongs to [me].
A lioness with a falcon in her jaws.
A promise buried in dust and violence.

There is no way out.
There was no way in.

Yet here they are, surrounded by walls erected by the flayed skin of a mind and the broken bones of an ego.

Three war machines stand in a room which is ill defined, boxed in by ruminations. There is a great deal of space here [a gift from me, little ones, am i not kind?] but it is difficult to apprehend it. Three paths unfold, the motion lost to the observers. The path of violence. The path of dust. The path of promise. But these ways can not be explored for the space is choked with locusts which are serpents which are vultures which are machines of war. They skitter and fly and touch the mechs with the eye of the sun, melting armor into slag.

"I really friggin' hate these places," Phoenix complains as she moves her mech to intercept as many of the enemy directed energy weapon blasts as she can, lashing out with volleys of super-heated spikes.

[bc56]

WUDJAT
"You come to places like this often?" Cynic quips. "Contacts! Lots of them!" And the swarm descends.
Missiles and green and red lasers light up the space in flashes of heat and flame. The dragon's reinforced actuators propel limbs to crush and smash. In such a target rich environment, it's hard to miss, but the sheer volume of hostiles means plenty survive long enough to land hits.
It's a fierce battle where no blood is shed, but wreckage litters the floor.

[Deathkeeper]

Cloud Castle

G’nichi is far too…G’nichi to judge Kara for her decisions. That said he is without question the most fragile person here at this point. And if Broadsword can’t defend against magic soul-possessed weapons he has not much defense here.
So of course he attempts to follow the two empryeans, unless the window is too small to fit his bulk through. He can’t use smaller shapes like Zee and Kara.

Into the Woods

Lacking any subtlety or tact, Domhnall somehow manages to climb through the window and walk into the conversation.
”Aye siwmae everyone. Your neighbors are looking for you.” he announces cheerily.
The presence of a pony-centaur with a sword (and a backpack) is likely very odd.

[Shadowcaller]

Cloud Castle

The window itself is made of paper but is reinforced by wooden beams. Kara should be able to throw herself through it if she puts all her weight into it. She isn't too far off the ground here so she will have to start flying pretty quickly before she hits the ground.

Same goes for Zee and G'nichi but in the latter's case while he can climb through the window without much difficulty he can't do so with his wings spread. So to fly after the mother-daughter duo he will have to spread them mid-air or he will do have to do a landing before doing any flying.

But regardless of his success Kara and Zee can quickly spot the source of the cries for help once she's flown over the wall.

There's a person that have climbed up on the top of the relatively newly constructed barn and they are standing waving in the direction of the second level of the castle. It seems like the weapons can only levitate a small distance off the ground as they seem to be stuck near the ground while jabbing themselves in the air towards the person.

Zee might recognize these particular weapons and tools as they were in the building where she destroyed one of the seals.

Another thing they might note even from here and with their back turned to them is that the person calling for aid isn't human. They have a tail for one, their clothing seemingly adjusted to support this, and their skin is of a dull red color. They're wearing a bonnet though so its hard to tell more details from here.

[Rebonack]

[WUDJAT]

"No I've been to one of these places once and it was a pain in the ass," Phoenix fires back as she continues... well. Firing.

These machines obviously aren't designed to be resilient. All it really takes is one solid hit to cripple them. Unfortunately they're pretty quick, so getting a solid hit is a little harder said than done. Also unfortunately they one and only weapon is a fairly potent plasma weapon. They are, for all practical purposes, a PPC mounted on top of some legs with just enough reactor to keep them running, just enough heat sink to prevent it from immediately cooking itself, and just enough armor that firing the weapon doesn't melt them all on its own.

In short?

Hard hitting cannon fodder.

Missiles and lasers and spikes and lightning and plasma beams whizz around the room, scoring craters and melted pools of slag into the ill-defined walls. This, strangely, makes the chamber easier to grasp since there are now fixed features to pay attention to. With this revelation comes the realization that the room is shaped like an inverted pyramid and now everything is sliding toward the bottom of the pit.

Phoenix has her mech dig its claws into the floor, carving molten furrows into the substrate and slowing her descent toward bottom as wrecked mini-mechs bounce off her machine like particularly aggressive hail. Finding herself looking away from the pit, she finds her descent slows further until she comes to a stop.

"The hell..."

And when she looks toward the center again she falls into an uncontrolled tumble.

"****! Don't look at the center of the room!"

[Chaotic Bob]

[Rovering]

Well, this sounds like a good opportunity for a bit of theater.

Suddenly having the big gun freed from the rest of the cyberman, the unicorn gives a clearly overacted, sprawling-backwards-after-pulling-too-hard motion.
It flops her back onto her side, conveniently just below the charging attempt to zap her again.
"Oops, silly me. How clumsy."

The reclining pose she has on the ground looks anything but clumsy.

"Oh officer, sir! I may require assistance over here."
Undoubtedly the cyberman is going to try to zap her again, but she is content to continue feigning helplessness while also lighting up her horn and using just enough telekinesis to keep nudging the hand off course.

She's taking this so seriously.

[Cloud Castle]

Don't faceplant, G'nichi! Kara almost did that and it probably wouldn't be a great time.

Meanwhile, she is a little gratified that this doesn't seem to be a trap, but also concerned that they somehow completely missed people being around, in an area filled with hostile weapon things.
How did that happen?

"Hold on a second, help is coming!"
Karaglen calls out to the person as she flies over, with the intent to land on the roof as well. Obviously not right up next to the person, in case they get intimidated, but still up there.
She's not as concerned about them being inhuman; most of the people she knows lately seem to be inhuman!
"Hello hello! Do you need to get back to the castle?"