[Nexus] The Black Dragon's Den IX

[Morty]

Michalson is lounging behind a table not far from where Magtok and Valente are. He's wondering how much his boss would mind if he re-wrote that leech into the dead-book. Probably not much, knowing Magtok.

[kitcatk8]

"I have been paying attention." Harnel says, leaning right on in to get face to face with Yusa.

"So let's make things very clear. I'm willing to listen and I don't and never have given a flying flip about your name. But I'm the one who has to risk everything I am up front to try and help fix your mistake. So if you want to make me out to be the bad guy because of it, go. Leave. The door is right there." Harnel says, motioning his claw at it.

Cessie frowns, these two simple couldn't get along.

She turns to the demoness, "Yusa, I might not know much about your kin, but this situation reminds me of a god I know of who loved making deals and this situation reminds me of him. You are to a degree bound by these deals aren't you?" The dragon mage asks.

No, they really couldn't.

With another snarl in answer to Harnel, Yusa then turned her eyes on Cessie. She took in a deep breath, reminding herself that the woman wasn't the reason she was pissed. Yusa tried to soften her glare and answered, though she was truly ready to drop the whole thing and leave at this point. "The name is the binding. There is nothing stronger to one such as I am."

[Reinholdt]

Harnel remains quiet, briefly wondering if Yusa still believed that Cessie did all of Harnel's talking for him, and finding it a bit ironic, since it's now on Cessie to talk.

But otherwise just stops and waits so as to avoid exacerbating the situation.

[Lady Serpentine]

Something around the size of a small panther, which looks like a cross between a flying squirrel and a dragon, with the wings of a pterodactyl replacing its front legs, enters, and begins to climb the wall next to the door; if nothing stops it from doing so, it then settles down in the rafters, at spot from which it can watch the door.

[Gullara]

Valente nods slowly. "Yeah, you're right. I'm just being dumb anyway." The vampire sits up a little straighter. Enough of this brooding. There's no good reason for it anyway. Clearly.

[Chaotic Bob]

"No, Morry, wait!"

As a rather down-on-his-luck merchant moves into the Den, to drown away his woes, a rather young wolf pup bounds through the door behind him chasing a feather.

Not one care in the world.

In the wake of the door, the feather slams into a wall and the puppy is immediately on it, pinning it down with a paw and looking extremely triumphant and proud.
Even does a happy, high-pitched bark to nothing in particular.

The hunter has captured his prey.

Not one moment later, the door flies open again, at the behest of a very alarmed looking girl.
Karaglen is a perfectly normal looking elf child, if you ignore the crown of horns on her head, and the silver hair, and the dragon wings, and the sword bigger than she is on her back...
But none of that matters! She's too busy rushing towards the puppy, to give him a gentle scolding.
"Morry! Don't run off like that!"

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok nods, and opens his mouth to say something to Valente, when he abruptly notices the yappy wolf pup that's just arrived.

"Anywaysgoodluckwiththatgottagobye!"

He opens a telewarp portal. Unless anyone has a damned good excuse to keep him from running away right through it, that's exactly what he's going to do.

[Rebonack]

A puppy?

Oh boy!

Everyone loves puppies!

They're the best.

Right about the time Magtok is making his hasty retreat Zee emerges from the back room! "Bye Maggy!" she calls after him conversationally. "Have fun fleeing in terror!"

That's the best way to flee!

Then the little dragon girl is flashed a cheerful grin! "Hiya Kara! I like your new dog! Not sure about the extra horns though."

They're... iffy.

[Gullara]

"...Alright. See you." Valente says, probably too late for the fleeing cyborg to hear. Well, the vampire isn't going to leave just yet. He still has another two free drinks. So unless someone decides to approach him, Valente will just it and enjoy his drink.

[Chaotic Bob]

The little wolf is picked up from the ground, to be held away from the clearly unclean and distasteful bar's...anything.
This is a bad place! Not supposed to be in here in the first place.

It makes the fog...excited.
Karaglen's pretty sure that's bad, but she doesn't remember.

Clearly, it's best to just grab Morsecuri and leave, as quickly as possible.
"Oh, um, thank you."
She aims to be quick, thank the compliment (ignore the horn thing), and then skitter out before something unpleasant happens.
So unclean.

Sort of gets kerfuffled when she turns around and sees who just complimented Morry though.
Karaglen knows Zee! They're good friends, just ones that haven't seen each other in awhile.
Which probably explains why the girl is speechless.

Doesn't really explain why she pales and looks a bit like she was just trapped.

[Rebonack]

More cheerful waving from Zee!

Just in case Kara didn't catch it the first time. And it should be noted that Zee still looks like Zee. Though with two notable differences. First, she seems... smaller. Physically she's the same size. But she just doesn't have the same weird sense of vastness that she did before.

Second?

She probably looks a little more phoenix-ish than Kara recalls. Comes from using a modified starspawn of her sibling as a puppet. Just a temporary fix of course. Until she can get some clueless rube to summon up one of her own.

"I've been keeping any eye on you Kara," Zee comments in a tone that has turned from silly to somewhat concerned. "For a while all I could do was watch everyone. How... are you feeling?"

[Chaotic Bob]

The sense of diminishedness doesn't really surprise Karaglen at all.
Zee died after all.
It makes sense that she'd be...less, if alive in the first place.

Phoenix-bit is kinda weird, but the girl doesn't seem to be too worked up about that at the moment.
Other problems!
"Uh. Um. Um."

What does she say?
What does she do?
She should escape, this is a bad place, and a bad situation.

Morry, for his part, squirms a bit, bothered by his young owner's apparent distress.
But Karaglen just tightens her grip slightly, not willing to let him run off here.
"I'm okay. You're okay. Okay. Um. Oh no.
I...um, shouldn't be here."
She is definitely inching back towards the door.

[Rebonack]

And Zee is without a doubt inching closer.

Closer.

Though in a totally non-threatening sort of way. Who knows what Kara would think of as threatening right now, though.

Zee wrinkles her nose a bit. "I know you were told all about that ugly sword of yours. And you were told that you could use it to your ruin, to let it master you. Or you could master it."

Still scooting closer!

"And I know you felt terrible because you thought you had hurt me. Had... killed me. But you didn't Kara. I was fine. And everyone worked together to make sure the Nexus wasn't devoured by the Old Ones," she offers a small smile. "And you helped too. Even if you might not have realized it."

[Reinholdt]

Flaming Hawt Human Sniper Reinholdt enters here and... closes the umbrella he was carrying. Huh. It seems pretty sunny out.

All the same, he looks around with a something between a frown and a scowl before taking a seat and ordering some rum.

[Chaotic Bob]

Karaglen flinches once or twice during Zee's talking, as she hits marks.
Mostly about the killing her part.
Definitely mostly that part.

And all of its implications.

But you didn't. I was fine.
No! Definitely died, she was there, she...did it. And it wasn't one of those weird clone deaths, Zee got all locked up in her big body.
Then the world fell apart. She killed her, and then everything got really bad.
Sure, people banded together to save the world...but not before so many people died and suffered. It wouldn't have happened if Zee had still been alive to keep everything out, right?

You helped too.
All she did was open the door for the bad things, for Zee's evil relatives to break everything. Didn't stop anything, herself...
That isn't helping at all! She just trying to make Kara feel better, to get closer...


Suddenly Reinholdt entrance.
The girl yelps and leaps up, having been near the door and startled out of her thoughts.
Without thinking, she quickly skitters in the opposite direction of the door, realizing too late that this foils her plan to escape.
Cru-
Wait.
You helped.

Did Zee want the Old Ones released?
That's all Kara did, that's all Zee could mean. What she said doesn't work, otherwise...
If the Far-maid hadn't actually died, that just means the clone death was just an excuse to look away while everything came in!
Zee used her!


Backed against a wall, further from her exit, Karaglen seems to be shifting from terrified, to confused.
"No...that isn't...right.
But...why did that have to happen?"

[Rebonack]

There's something wrong with Kara. Zee's pretty sure of that. While magic totally isn't her forte she can tell that sword is something pretty terrible and it's eating at the poor girl's mind.

"With the stars as they were trying to keep myself crammed into one little puppet was making me... well... lose focus. If you hadn't done what you had done Kara I wouldn't have been able to point the Nexus' heroes toward the tombs of the Old Ones," Zee explains. "They wouldn't have been sealed. And then we all would have been doomed."

A beat.

"And... well... I hadn't planned on someone blowing me up right before Ol' Squidbeard got sealed... I'm still not sure who did that."

And then smiles back at Kara again.

"But in the end everything worked out!"

[Reinholdt]

Reinholdt takes an interest in the yelp.
It's Kara and... Zee?

But... Kara seems terrified of Zee. Maybe it was just someone who looked like Zee.

The sniper isn't ready to interfere quite yet though. Instead choosing to watch more closely.

[Chaotic Bob]

Karaglen hangs her head slightly, hiding her face behind hair and squirming wolf-pup fur, as she thinks this all through.
At some point, Morry realizes escape is a thing that won't be happening, so he just yawns and settles down. At least he was being held by the nice girl who feeds and pets him.

Meanwhile, off in the confused mind of the daemon-tainted girl, facts, reassurances, and suspicions bounce across each other, spiraling out and in from the fog that seems more present every day.

Zee died. She killed her.
Her death made the Old Ones' assault worse, because she was the...guard?
But, if she was the guard, keeping them out, then they wouldn't need to be sealed. The heroes could just fend off the monsters until the stars fixed themselves, right?
That's what she thought...
So then she shouldn't have needed to die. To tell the heroes how to seal things that wouldn't be true threats isn't a valid excuse.

Something is wrong in this story, somewhere.
Why is Zee misleading her?
Her body is different...maybe this isn't her? Or the real her and she'd been disguised the whole time?

Silence for a moment, while she thinks, before she peers over Morry and through her hair.
Still confused.
"Why...do you look like that?"

[Rebonack]

So much internal thoughts and turmoil!

Too bad Zee can't read brains. That would make answering some of those nagging doubts easier. But then if she could read brains that would probably make the daemon tainted girl even more paranoid.

Zee laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck in a very Zee-like way.

"I had to borrow a puppet from one of my siblings. I'll have to use it until I can get someone to summon of of my own. Whoever blew me up did a lot of damage and I can't just slip into the material world the way I usually do."

Or in other words she can't use her usual form of cheatery.

So she has to use the preferred method of tip-toeing around the position of the stars that her other kin use.

[Chaotic Bob]

Somehow, this admission isn't helping Karaglen feel less paranoid.
Mostly because she has the nagging suspicion that the brother she's borrowing from was one of the bad guys trying to destroy the world. If Zee's chummy enough to exchange puppets...

What if Zee tries to do all of this again?
The seals were a trick, and she's just preparing for a surprise-release of everyone, once her body is back in order from that explosion (maybe with that summons she mentioned)?
Biding her time, trying to smooth over relations with everyone who could get in the way?
Karaglen killed her once, maybe she's on the "get in the way" list?

This is a bad situation...
Zee can be scary, she's not sure if she can take her in a fighthahaha!.
No, that's not true...she can.

But...
Blasted fog is making it hard to think.
Maybe she should make sure first. That nothing else is happening. Something less world-ending.
Play along for awhile? Or at least keep an eye on her...maybe she'll show a better way to fixcleanse everything.

Yes. That'll do.
A little plan is settling up nicely.

"Oh...okay. That makes sense...I guess..."
Karaglen stares back down at her wolf for a moment, seeking some anchor in his fuzzy warmth.
She takes a deep breath and does her best to expel the cloudy look on her face, something more normal.
"Um...Zee? I'm sorry..."

[Rebonack]

God darn it!

This is one of those times when being able to read mortal emotions would be really useful! Sadly that isn't K'rax' best skill. She's working on it! But there's still a lot of work to do!

Zee smiles reassuringly.

And then gets down on one knee to hug Kara.

"It's okay," she'll say, sounding as compassionate and reassuring as she can muster. "You didn't know what would happen and you were sure you were helping. And you even did help! Even if it didn't look like you did! My kin were put back to sleep and the end of the world didn't happen. And that's great!"

It sure is!

[Chaotic Bob]

Put to sleep...
Sleeping is not "locked away forever, to never trouble the world again".
That's just "briefly out of sight, out of mind".

But not out of her mind.
No.
Karaglen knows better.
She's going to keep an eye on this. Protect the world like she couldn't last time.
Make everything right again.

Sword in hand, she will bring order to this chaos.


Buried away in the hug, the girl does a good job of shielding a briefly broody look behind her hair and Zee's shoulder.
Have to look...better.
"I'm...glad. I thought I broke everything..."
But she sees better now, who really did.
"I don't want to add to the world's chaos.
I want it to get better."

[Eadin]

The door opens and a figure in a red hooded cloak stumbles into the Den, leaving behind a trail of blood smeared out by the long cloack.
The hand that holds open the door is covered in dirt and tattoos.

[Gullara]

Valente tenses when the smell of (presumably) fresh blood wafts into the room. The vampire looks over his shoulder at the figure. He faces forward again, his suddenly clawed fingers digging into the wood of the bar. Bringing his drink close to his nose and taking a few deep breathes does little to drive off the urge for fresh blood.

[Eadin]

Oh, it's fresh alright. As fresh as can be.
The figure stumbles deeper into the Den, looking up.
One could catch a glimpse of the figure's golden eyes before it falls to the ground.
It tries to get up again but seems to fail.
It groans and coughs, creating a pool of blood on the floor. The owner won't be happy with this.

[Reinholdt]

Reinholdt sniffs and his attention is drawn away from Kara and Zee. His grip tightens around his drink. It wasn't fair. All that... delicious, pounding, succulent blo...

Reinholdt scowls and takes a large gulp of rum, holding it there and trying to wash out the scent. But in time he has to swallow, because there's another pressing question and need.

"Are you alright?" He calls out to the hooded cloaked figure.

Or the forums could be mean and he could get ninja'd a little.
Reinholdt darts forward out of his seat to go check on the fallen person and their injuries. He has a fair bit of experience in first aid and some field medicine.

[Eadin]

Well, the figure is obviously not okay.
Another cough attack and a glob of blood drops on the floor(ew!), coming from their mouth. That's not good.
Internal bleeding is always bad.

The cloak covers most of their body, but the figure's hands seem very dirty, covered in wounds and making it hard for the fine tattoo's on it's hands to see.
"Help .."
The voice sounds odd, feminine but almost like a growl.

[Reinholdt]

Reinholdt looks over his shoulder and shouts. "We need help over here." Internal bleeding is very bad and rather beyond Reinholdt's abilities.

"Can you tell me what happened? Keep it basic. Shot, stabbed, fell from somewhere...?" He asks as he checks her external injuries, pulling out bandages from his hammerspace and going to remove any obscuring articles of clothing that'd prevent treatment.

[Eadin]

The fgure will roll on it's back, revealing a young girl of about 16.
Her dress will once have been white, but is now ripped, dirty and bloodied.
All sorts of wounds can be found all over her body, along with thin tattoo's that decorate the whole of her body. It's hard to see what they are with all the wounds and dirt. The hood is still covering her face.
The thing that will probably need the most attention is the knife sticking out of her stomach. It's no ordinairy blade, the handle is a wolf's head made out of some sort of bone.
She yelps and growls like a wounded animal.
"Help me.."

[Reinholdt]

Great. Some sort of ritual to become a werewolf maybe? On an unwilling victim? Wouldn't it be easier to just find an actual werewolf and get bit? Who knows. Might not even be that.

Well at least it's the stomach. There's a chance it's not as bad as it looks. Depends on what else got hit.

"Ok. Ok. I can stitch you up a bit and try to stop the bleeding, but I'm going to have to take this knife out, ok?" Reinholdt informs the girl, going to check her pulse in the meantime to see how weak it is.