What's Left of the MagCave II: We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

[Lord Magtok]

Rat Assisted Tour

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Rat Assisted Tour

If Jaahlyn's weird goat eyes were capable of widening like humans do, they would do so now.
Killing gods? She knew this involved multiverse unmaking so that shouldn't be a surprise but it was more the casual way Magtok was talking about it that bothered her. These had to be lesser gods though, like the gods of her world.
But even so, he didn't seem to feel much guilt over killing these gods either.
Then again, most gods were *******s and it wasn't her job to care about that sort of thing anyway.

Right now it was her job to hold Magtok's hand apparently.

And so she complies without protest.

Once he's done explaining she slowly nods while trying to take in all this new information. "You really don't have to explain all this to me, sir. I'm being paid to assist you in any way to stop Feia so if you say don't contact VIGIL or HALO, I won't. Not even MERC will hear of it in case they might have a different opinion. The boss was very clear on that. To put it simple, I will follow your lead. You're the expert, I'm not. So if there is anything I can do to assist in your plans, I will. And to be clear, if you weren't already consider me completely disposable. I can't die the normal way. I just... come back a while later." Magtok didn't need to know all the weird details concerning that. It sounded like he had way more important things to worry about.

"Uh, also, can I let go off your hand now, or...?" She makes a gesture of offering it back to him.

[Rat Assisted Tour]

Gonna be honest here, a lot of this is going over Rattok's head.

And not just because being perched on Jaahlyn's shoulder means he's slightly below head-height.

Big scary dragon, Magtok was dumb, he's spinning a nonsense-story about even greater doom to hide the fact that he's completely obsessed with his beloved death goddess and would go to extreme lengths to try and get her back.

...even if that means risking doomsday rather than calling in the cavalry.

All just goes in one ratty ear and out the other.

He latches onto one other detail that does seem important to him, at least. "Wait, you can't die? Magtok, have you been selling knock-off copies of your cloning tech again?"

The Magtok replica shakes his head and suppresses the urge to glower at Rattok. It's literal vermin. We don't need to be getting in a huff over sass from a talking rat. "Reinholdt stole the tech, he didn't buy it. I'd never let anyone have-" Hold on, wait one second, slow down for a moment...Jaahyln can't die? Her? The weird goat-eyed stranger who commands rats and looks like she should smell a lot worse than she actually does? Suspiciously so, as if someone handed her a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap and demanded she learn how to use both just an hour before MERC got here.

"Really? You're not someone I would've expected to be deathless. Usually we're a bit less-" Faketok pauses mid-sentence, reaching out for his arm and brusquely shoving it back into its socket in an uncomfortably abrupt manner, as if he'd merely suffered from a dislocated bone, instead of the entire arm being disconnected only a few moments ago. I'm not sure if any of that is actually necessary, or if he just does that sort of thing to make people uncomfortable.

"-a bit less deferential than you've been so far. Are you new to immortality?" Working under MERC, instead of doing her own thing. Calling him lord, and putting her 'life' in his hands, instead of seizing her own destiny with both hands and carving out a place in the Nexus for herself. Are these the acts of someone who is truly free from the bonds of mortality? It's certainly not the sort of thing we were doing when we had clones everywhere, that's for sure. We owned the Nexus, inasmuch as one man (who isn't actually one man but shut up) could. Maybe that kind of ambition is just a Magtok thing and not an immortality thing, though. After all, if Lord Magtok is our standard to which all others must be compared, how could anyone ever hope to measure up?

"On second thought, never mind, forget it, not important. If you're really so eager to be involved in all of this, though, would you mind sneaking into her realm and acting as a distraction? You'd assemble a standard adventurer party, enter a spooky dungeon dimension, and get dibs on any magical loot you find. Feia probably won't go after you personally, but every goon and deathtrap and black ritual not pointed at me would go a long way towards improving our odds of actually having a Nexus when this is all over." A Nexus where Jaahlyn is substantially richer and more powerful than she was the day before. It's a simple enough plan, but how sure are we that Jaahlyn would never kill a Libitina fragment? Is her faith in the legendary cyborg really that strong, really worth that kind of a gamble?



Cargo Elevator B

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[Inside the Entrance]

Once Magtok mentions volunteers, the four goblins who were glared at earlier rush forward. As mentioned, two of them are men and two are women. Their skin is very dark grey, their hair is pale brown and their eyes are varying shades of yellow. One of the men is tall (for a goblin) and lanky (even for a goblin) while the other looks broad-shouldered and strong... again, for a goblin. The lanky goblin has long hair kept in a ponytail, while the muscular one wears an undercut. The two women are similarly contrasted. One is broad-hipped and large-chested, with prominent tusks and hair kept in a bun, while the other one is quite small and wears her hair in a pixie-cut. If anyone happens to be able to tell goblins apart, they are quite clearly siblings.

"Will four volunteers do?" the larger sister asks with a big grin. Alzup rolls his eyes.

"Ugh. I'm fine with it if our client is, but do try keep a lid on your weirdness down there."

[At the Entrance]

"Oh don't be so sour," Kathy says, "I might talk a good game, but you're the one that's going to be coming out of this with more than I will. I'm mostly just interested in the cybernetics and medical expertise you've got. Besides, I'm not asking for a discount or boon or whatever in exchange for helping out - I actually would really like it if you got up to full operational capacity again," Though, she doesn't actually explain why she wants him back in action.

She'll walk further into the cave, intending to proceed towards an elevator. Fifth floor, huh? Probably something down there preventing them from just taking it back. The circuits are likely going to need some light repairs - there should be plenty of scrap around for jury rigging until a more permanent solution can be found, though.

"Don't worry, Mr. Razortooth. I'm sure they won't be too much trouble. I practically invented weird, after all," Faketok boasts, hovering ahead of Kathy for a moment to lead the way towards the nearest cargo elevator. He's mostly sure the regular elevators can support her weight, but he really doesn't want to risk it. The last elevator repair took about three hours, and involved sitting alone in a dark elevator shaft, trying his best to work quietly and ignore the strange things chirping at him from within the walls. They were probably that leech infestation Rattok says he cleared out, I think. Yeah, genetically-modified leeches chirp like that, right? Definitely not anything we should be worrying about anymore.

"Medical expertise. So there is someone riding around in that Easy-Bake Oven I've been talking to this whole time," the puppet observes, giving the mech another cursory examination, as if a second glance might somehow reveal the Kathy within. Nope, nothing. He waits for the goblins to catch up with their scrawny little legs, and then starts the elevator's engine, starting a growling diagonal shift towards the fifth floor.

"My money was on chatty AI program at first, but even the really advanced, independent ones aren't so good at talking back. They might not all be doormats, but that 'built to serve' mentality is still buried in there, somewhere, putting decorum and civility above all else." I don't know how true that is, given that most of Magtok's experience with robots comes from interacting with ones he built himself. "Tell me, Kathy, are you new to the Nexus? You sound new. I think you would like the Hunting Grounds, if they're still a thing. Lots of opportunity for someone like you, if you came by that wolf pelt in the traditional fashion."