[Nexus] The Black Dragon's Den IX

[Morty]

Dipsnig nods.
A bit, yes. Like a trap. But it's worth following all the same. Let's see... I think I know where to start. Let's drive there in that truck and then we'll pinpoint the location with Kullervo's help.

[Hattish Thing]

Map of doooom!

[Earl of Purple]

The dwarf yelps rather loudly when the dragony thing pulls the thorn out of his foot. Or more accurately when the wound is cauterised. He starts up and glances around, looking for the source of the burn on his foot. He doesn't see the dragony thing, but he does spot his boot and so he pulls it back onto his foot before glancing around for other interesting people.

[LadyOfWar]

The tiny dragon breathes a teenie-tiny-dragony sigh of relief when the big insane dwarf does not promptly find it and try to squish it. Good deed of the day is done!

Oh! the dwarf is looking for others! Now is the prefect time to beat a hasty retreat.

The tiny thin scurries out from under the chair and starts looking for someone else to help, harass, or play with.

[kitcatk8]

Harnel considers mentioning how she opened up with nothing but a flippant attitude and unwanted rudeness.

Instead he somehow manages to hold down an impending eye roll and motions for her to sit at the table that they two dragons are already at.

Yusa's cultural baggage clearly don't go well with Cessie's cultural baggage.

The sorceress don't look very amused by the demoness comment but still replies in a relatively calm tone, "Yes, have a seat." After going this far she simply had to find out what all this was about even if it came from someone she considerate rather rude. "Let's try to start all this over again. I'm Cessie and this is Harnel Therishein. Yusa was it?" She asks.

Pulling her hair over a shoulder, Yusa has a seat with a nod to Cessie. "Hi...". She rests her hands on the table and stares at them a moment, then starts picking at her nails. Nervous habit. She was trying to figure out where to start.

The muscles in the demoness's neck stood out for a few seconds before she finally began, though she kept her eyes on the table in front of her. "I used to be human. Well..." She amended quickly, "...mostly human. My current Master made me into something more like my mother and father were... --are. One was. One is." A faint shrug, her voice dropped. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." Yusa paused again, lost somewhere back in that time span. It was with a deep breath through her nose and a blink that she started again, like snapping herself out of it. "My Master's first mission for me was an impossible one, but I wanted to please him. He sent me after a dragon's soul. Told me nothing more than his name...Zam." A genuine half-smile curled the corner of Yusa's lip, and her fingers paused in their motions of picking at one another. "Turns out that dragon was a half-dragon who had his soul sundered into 12 damned pieces spread across who knows where. Also turns out Zam was very...charming." It was Yusa's turn to fight off a blush. Unusual for her. But she carried on quickly, the frown once more hardening her otherwise usually lovely face. "My Master was impatient with me. Punished me, the longer I took. Zam--Well, Zam has this hero-complex." She waved a hand dismissively, though it meant more to her than that. Yusa's throat tightened on the last bit of the information, but she managed to keep her voice mostly steady. "He helped me find the pieces and went willingly because he saw how much pain I was being put through." The demoness shrugged again, like it meant nothing, and stayed focused very hard on her fingertips. "I told him I would help get him out."

And though she wasn't done, she paused in her story to see if they had any questions at this half-way point.

[Reinholdt]

Zam sounds like someone Harnel knows all too well.

"Go on." He says, having no questions at this time.

[Shadowcaller]

The dragon-sorceress refrains from questions as the answers might just confuse her more at this point, better to just letting Yusa finish her story.

"Yes, go on. I'll save my questions for later."

[kitcatk8]

Yusa nodded, still not looking at either one of them. The pause made it difficult for her to start again, but she managed it, albeit slowly. "Zam's soul is being kept deep in the Hells, which, it seems is open to spirits of all the worlds, whether you come from the Nexus or Tortuga or Pandora. At least, I've not heard of anyone being rejected from there..." She smirked a bit, but not like it was funny. Her tone was wry. "It's heavily restricted. There's no way for me, personally, to break through those defenses." Yusa made a gesture, as if to say, therefore. "However, if I had a dragon's soul in tow, I'd have a reason to be there. You asked me earlier why it needs to be a dragon..." Finally, she raised her eyes to look at the pair who had invited her, albeit begrudgingly, to sit at their table. "...That's my Master's role for me, currently. It saw I brought It one. It wants more. Biggest problem here is, as you can see," The demoness gestured with a bit of a sigh to Cessie and Harnel, "dragons have a difficult time trusting, let alone trusting someone like me. I don't blame you. I would feel the same in your shoes. But I can't think of a better way to get him out, and I won't leave him there." There was a fierceness to her voice as she spoke the last.

[Gullara]

The door to the bar is thrown open and a goblin woman enters. She's rather short, as one would expect of a goblin, and her limbs are a tad long and wiry. Her skin is a dark brown and her messy, dark hair is roughly cut at shoulder length. Her clothing is a bit tattered and coloured in earthen tones.

She looks around briefly before heading toward the bar. Before the door closes behind her a few spiders scurry in, all around the size of a person's hand. They follow her to the bar and sit around where the bar meets the floor. The goblin takes a seat herself and orders a drink.

[Earl of Purple]

The goblin might not a dwarf sitting on his own in a corner. He's wearing chainmail spotted with rust, a battered helmet mounting a pair of shattered antlers, the remaining times tangled with vegetation. He has one boot, and his bare foot is covered in scratches, scabs and cuts. Around his waist is an axe-belt, but no axe. His hair and beard are long, brown, and matted with dirt and grime. A few dreadlocks are starting to form, too. His eyes are bright blue and lit with madness.

Alternately, there's a tall human sitting in a different corner. She's looking around with eyes a green too vivid to be purely human. Her long red hair cascades all the way down her back and she's wearing a dark blue, or maybe dark brown, or indeed any other dark colour, dress. When the dress is viewed from the corner of the eye, it seems to crawl with large iridescent black beetles yet lies still when viewed normally. Around her neck is a silver amulet depicting a two-tailed scorpion, and a baobab-wood staff is propped up nearby.

[Gullara]

The goblin doesn't pay the dwarf any mind. Wonder why that is. She does direct her attention toward Madame de la Moy (I presume), however. She picks up her drink when it arrives and makes her way over to the woman, the spiders trailing behind.

"Mind some company?" The goblin says with a toothy smile. She takes a seat before Gertrude can answer. The spiders crawl up the legs of the table and sit on the underside.

[Earl of Purple]

"Not at all. It's always good to meet new people. I'm Madame de la Moy. My given name is Gertrude, but I hate that, so please call me Madame." Of course it's Madame de la Moy. Nobody else wears a dress like hers, is 1/16th giant, or uses a baobab wood staff that I've seen.

The goblin might recognise the holy symbol around Gertrude's neck, shaped as the two-tailed scorpion of Dalachrech, Demon Lord of Invertebrates.

[Gullara]

It's been a while since I've seen her. =O

"Pleasure, Madame. You can call me Velka." The goblin takes a large swig of her drink and sets it down none too gently. Look at that, a couple small spiders are clinging to the glass. "Maybe it's just me, but you don't look like the type to frequent a dive like this."

[Earl of Purple]

I know; I'd nearly forgotten what text colour she uses. The good news though is that whilst I can't remember what IME she has, I haven't posted for her since before she got the IME so it doesn't matter because nobody's seen it .

Oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to admit that.

"No? Well, I go where I wish, though taverns are often full of those willing to listen to my brothers and sisters in faith. I admit that I'm partly here to find converts, though that is not the only reason, I assure you. So, Velka, what brings you here?"

[Shadowcaller]

Cessie waits a while to make sure Yusa don't have anything else to add before she speaks up. This was going to be complicated. "Right... so could you please clarify some of your terminology before I ask anything else? Just what are you and what is 'someone like you' exactly? I admit I haven't really encountered anything similar within my own world." She pauses and bits her lip, not being able to resist adding another question before the demoness can speak up again. "And how did you know I was a dragon?"

[Gullara]

Velka gives the holy symbol a second, more curious look. "Just came into the city. I usually stay away from places as big as this, but I figured I'd take a look see. Quite the place."

[Earl of Purple]

"Yes, it is. I have been here for, oh, a few years now, and believe me it never gets boring." Madame de la Moy is smiling. It's quite a pretty smile, though Gertrude never quite gets beyond 'handsome'.

[Reinholdt]

She was right. Letting someone lead them right into hell on the possible pretense of wanting to save someone who she previously... led right into hell? There was a serious trust thing right there that would have to be established. Or something else.

Harnel waits though. Let her answer Cessie's questions first.

[Gullara]

"Interesting place then?" Velka asks. She swirls the cheap liquor in her glass then downs most of it in one go. "Then maybe something interesting'll happen to me why I'm here, eh? So what were you saying about your faith?"

[Ashen Lilies]

A tall, thin creature seems to slither up beside Roy, smiling like they're old friends. He's dressed in a large beggar's cloak, patchy and thin.

"If you mean your meat-suit, friend, I would agree with you," He says, with a tinny Latin accent. "Though the thing inside is still alive and well. So who is to say you are dead?" The ragged cyborg smiles again. "Just how lost are you?"

"Er... the thing... inside me?" Says Roy nervously, recoiling from the creature. He's not aware of any sort of entity dwelling inside him, nor is he wearing a 'meatsuit', and he's slightly unnerved by the cyborg.

[kitcatk8]

Cessie waits a while to make sure Yusa don't have anything else to add before she speaks up. This was going to be complicated. "Right... so could you please clarify some of your terminology before I ask anything else? Just what are you and what is 'someone like you' exactly? I admit I haven't really encountered anything similar within my own world." She pauses and bits her lip, not being able to resist adding another question before the demoness can speak up again. "And how did you know I was a dragon?"

She was right. Letting someone lead them right into hell on the possible pretense of wanting to save someone who she previously... led right into hell? There was a serious trust thing right there that would have to be established. Or something else.

Harnel waits though. Let her answer Cessie's questions first.

Yusa blinked and looked at Cessie with obvious surprise. Generally, she was not caught so off-guard, but she'd figured with what she'd just described along with the way they'd reacted to her that they'd known somehow -able to sense her as well as she was able to sense them.

The demoness blinked again and shook her head once, hard, as if to clear it. "Ahm..." Her brow creased. "Depends on where your from. In my world, I'm one of the Daemoenica, the higher daemons. I think most refer to us as 'demons', across a majority of worlds." It sounded so clinical, saying it like that. "This," she gestured to herself, "is the form I was born with. I was only recently given the powers of the Daemoenica." That was another long, complicated story.

The second answer was easier. "I knew you were a dragon because I could smell it. It's different from the ones in my world, but there are enough similarities. Theme and variation. I can also sense heat signatures. Dragons tend to be warmer than other creatures, but it's not a hard and fast rule."

[Murkus]

"Er... the thing... inside me?" Says Roy nervously, recoiling from the creature. He's not aware of any sort of entity dwelling inside him, nor is he wearing a 'meatsuit', and he's slightly unnerved by the cyborg.

"The soul, kid. Your soul. I apologize, trade lingo," Sticks leans forward and offers a needle-thin hand for Roy to shake, smiling without teeth. "I'm Sticks. Now, you needed some help?"

[Earl of Purple]

"Oh, yes. Very interesting indeed. As to something interesting occurring to you, well, it seems very few people avoid interesting events, though not all are as pleasant as one may hope for." Gertrude smiles some more. "I worship Dalachrech, the Lord of Invertebrates. He is quite widely worshipped here." As few other clerics sit in taverns talking to people and trying to convert them; not all become clerics, and most are but lay worshippers, but that's OK. Not everyone can be a cleric, but everyone can worship.

[Shadowcaller]

"I never heard of a 'demon' before you just mentioned it." Cessie admits. "It doesn't sound like anything that exists there either. Your souls seem to work different as well. How exactly can one lose a soul? And if they did, can they still function?"

[Gullara]

The goblin drums her fingers on the table. "Dalachrech... You know, I think the name almost sounds familiar. Can't say where I heard it, though. The Lord of Invertebrates seems like an odd choice if deities, if you don't mind me saying."

[Earl of Purple]

"Why should it seem so odd a choice when invertebrates are the most common life form in existence? Not only in terms of diversity but also in sheer numbers. As to why people would worship him, well. Fleas, mosquitoes, locusts, weevils, brainbeetles and other such pests are His domain. If He is worshipped properly, He ensures bountiful harvests. If He is angered, the harvest is devoured by locusts, whilst grain shipments are full of weevils. He has some influence on disease, as well, though only those spread by flying insects." Madame de la Moy has practised this speech many times, and uses it rather regularly. That fact shows in how easily it is said, and a mad dwarf on the other side of the bar who mutters the words along with her.

[Reinholdt]

"Your soul makes you who you are. Demons are creatures born of evil who look to corrupt souls and make more of them."

"For the most part from my understanding." Harnel adds afterwords, recognizing a slight possibility that there may be a difference here.

[Halae]

Dipsnig nods.
A bit, yes. Like a trap. But it's worth following all the same. Let's see... I think I know where to start. Let's drive there in that truck and then we'll pinpoint the location with Kullervo's help.

"Right" Jakus says, taking Furt's chain again to lead him back to the truck. Don't want to leave the bug rat to his own devices - Who knows what insanity he could get up to?

If Dipsnig gets in as well, he'll probably be feeling pretty small. It's sized for Jakus, after all, and he's not a small man.

[Morty]

Dipsnig indeed feels very small as he gets into the seat of the truck. Lord Below, that's a huge vehicle. He orders Kullervo to lie down between the seats.

[Hattish Thing]

The scent could be followed right into the mine. Marciano tends to smell rather bad.... (If they follow just post in Outside, Abandoned Mine.)