[Nexus] Harnel's Plots

[Lord Magtok]

Eric's Rebirth

"The Nexus is full of advantaged people. Elves, with their sorcery, orcs, with their strength, angels and demons, their divinity and unholy magicks. Countless individuals with countless fancy birthrights and gifts and superpowers."

Magtok scowls, trying his best to keep his gaze on the representative and not let it wander to the elven nudist over there. Gods know he's trying his best, but every few seconds or so, his best isn't anywhere near enough. The humongous black wolf is pretty distracting too, come to think of it, seeing as Magtok hates wolves just as much as he does elves. It's all very odd, really. As if this guy was going out of his way to gather things that make Magtok squirm.

"Y'know what I was born with? Nothing. Even by human standards, my biology is entirely entirely unremarkable. Brown eyes, matching hair before I shaved it all out, a scrawny physique...hell, I wasn't even ambidextrous before the cybborg bits came along. The original Magtok was the sort of person who could easily have been overlooked by anyone, another insignificant face in a crowd. He had nothing, except for one thing."

He floats forward, trying to get right in the figure's face. At least this way it'll be easier to not look at the elf lady.

"I am is a genius. An ambitious, morally ambiguous, affably goddamned evil genius. I have singlehandedly clawed my way to the top of this Nexus with little more than my own mind and stubborn refusal to give up because most everyone was born bigger or stronger or magicker. My pathetic human body is not my weakness, it is my signature, my pride and glory, living and breathing proof that even the lowest can make angels cry out in jealousy. Every day I spend as a human is another day spent mocking the dragons, drow, devils, gods, and everyone else who thought they were better than me. I killed Eric because he thought he had the right to play with my form, so stay the **** away from my goddamned body."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Eric's Rebirth]

Magtok almost makes it to Yog's face.
Almost. And then the "world" they're in lurches turn-ways a bit.
A perspective shift.


Hey, where did that tree go?
He had just hidden away the best acorn he'd ever found.

What's this about an Eric?
Resurrecting things? A funny argument about being a human?
...since when was he a human?
Magtok has always been a squirrel.

"You will be what you will be.
As for the one you sought, they will be returned to life presently.
Behold, the fruits of your success."
The four little bits of soul expand their circle outwards, lowering until they circulate around both the wolf and elf.

They continue to look dead ahead, for a moment, before a flash of light obscures both of them.
At least, for a moment.
After that moment, the wolf seems to have disappeared. Somewhat.

There now stands a still-naked elf woman, albeit one now equipped with a black fur tail and two black fur ears in place of her prior ones.
This one also seems to be much more...alive and aware, unlike the other two.
A soul exists within it, compiled from broken pieces and united once again, within a vessel of its very own.


Mission accomplished, Magtok.
The soul is brought back.

[Halae]

[Eric's Rebirth]

And so Eric is brought back.

Not exactly in the form he... she left in.

Her tail swishes in agitation as hands move to cover crotch and breasts, "What the hell is this?"

[Lord Magtok]

Eric's Rebirth

Magtok shoots Needs Food Badly a look, and promptly gets handed a humongous sombrero, a very fancy one with all sorts of little rhinestone along its brim. He shoots Needs Food Badly an even nastier look, but the mage isn't even close to cooperative this time. His job done, he teleports back to the MagCave, and leaves Mag with the naked wolf/elf girl.

"Ugh, that stupid lazy burnout, why do I even keep him around..."

He looks away, before thrusting the large hat out towards the new Eric.

"Here. I did the best I could, but Yog-Sothoth apparently has a sense of humor, and didn't want to use your old body. I'll give you a minute or two to get over being alive again in a new body and to calm down and stop strangling me, which I have no doubt you're probably going to do, but then once you're done, we need to chat and I need to get you caught up on everything again. Oh, and Blobby says hi. I met him in the void while I was out collecting fragments of your shattered soul, and he just sorta grew on me."

[Halae]

[Eric's Rebirth]

Eric looks over her body again as she places the sombrero as a screen in front of her. Of course, Eric has been female before, so it's not that much of a shock. The tail, smooth skin, and wolf ears are completely new, though. Eric has a willowy body similar to most elves.

She's also shivering from the cold air, but doesn't mention that.

"Alright Magtok, I'm not going to strangle you. Say your piece, and then I'm going to find Julie."

Blobby just sort of follows Magtok's Commands as much as he wants, so Magtok has blanket godmode permission whenever the far thing is covering Magtok.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Eric's Rebirth]

Somewhere behind them, the indistinct figure of Yog-Sothoth's representative makes a small "noise".
"I shall assume there is no further need for my presence."
As far as "need" goes, this is less an assumption than a certainty.

[Lord Magtok]

Eric's Rebirth

Magtok shakes his head, dismissing Yoggy's rep without a word.

"It's about a month since I shot you. Julie agreed to give me custody of your body in exchange for me dropping all charges. I was hoping we could arrange something similar for my whole murdering you bit, since bringing you back was a lot harder than getting rid of you, but I don't really have much hope of getting anywhere with that."

Mag crouches, picking up a piece of chalk left over from the earlier Yoggy rituals that he and NFB performed.

"She's in GLoG now, and pregnant. Pretty sure the kid is yours. She had an empty casket funeral for you a while back, I don't think she was expecting me to resurrect you. Honestly, neither did I, but she's been hanging out with Reinholdt later, and...well the idea of you and her teaming up and going after me isn't anywhere near as bad as her hooking up with Rudolph to do the same. Consider this preemptive relationship ruining or whatever."

Magtok tosses the chalk into the air, catching it with the flat end of the Blobby-blade. He doesn't look at Eric, far too busy playing with the chalk to dignify the silly nudist with his gaze. He idly wonders why Eric hasn't transformed back yet, but it doesn't bother him terribly. The boy's free to indulge in whatever creepy transformation fetishes his little heart desires.

"Oh, and despite the casual tone and bringing you back from the dead and whatever, I still don't forgive you, Eric. Not for what you did to me, not what you allowed to happen to Kirk Locke at your last show...none of it. If you're going to go after Julie in GLoG, I highly recommend that you get off your high horse and humbly consider enrolling in their program while you're there, because from where I'm standing, you look just as selfish and amoral as I do."

[Halae]

[Eric's Rebirth]

Something happened to Kirk? She'd have to approach Julie about that, but Eric certainly didn't have anything to do with it. But Julie Pregnant? Eric didn't think Julie could get pregnant

"That's a good outlook Magtok. As far as it goes? I'm not going to press charges for your murdering me, but don't think for a second that I've forgiven you either. Glad to see we're at least in agreement about that."

As a matter of fact, Eric can't turn back. She doesn't have starspawn powers in this form; it was tied to the body.

[Lord Magtok]

Eric's Rebirth

"Duly noted. Of course, not that it really matters what you feel anymore. You have a kid on the way now, Eric. You're no longer in a position to go revenge-seeking against anyone."

Magtok offers Eric a vicious, toothy grin, taking that implied threat against his/her progeny, and ripping all the subtlety right out.

"Tell Julie I said hi, and good luck with the kiddies."

With that said, he tries to rip open a telewarp portal, abandoning Eric, leaving the poor wolf-elf lost and stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

[Halae]

[Eric's Rebirth]

Eric glowers at the telewarp portal as Magtok leaves, but then, with nowhere left to go, she scans around the area. wait... is that a forest nearby? GloG is surrounded by a forest, isn't it? Of course, there's an equally likely chance that it'll be the weald and, without her powers as a starspawn, Eric will be unable to defend herself.

Well, whatever. Eric heads off towards the forest, as that's the only direction to go at the moment, holding the sombrero in front of herself to keep any prying eyes from seeing her front.

[Halae]

[Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave]

Nestled into the base of a mountain is a cave, half hidden and difficult to find for those that don't know how to locate it. A few feet inside is a rock wall, however, that seems to be made of of... planks? They're reminiscent of wooden planks, but instead they are made of granite.

The group of treasure seekers from Trog's should arrive here about half an hour before noon.

[Slii Arhem]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

Jack, always one for punctuality, shows up exactly then, ready to face whatever impossibly intricate and functional traps the old wizard that protected this place could have dreamt up.

"Bit of a wait before the slip that the old man gave me has to be read. Why don't we get acquainted with each other in the meantime?" He is, of course, talking to Copi, Jamie and Dena, the three who agreed to help the old man Inar along with him.

[Shadowcaller]

[Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave]

The drow glances at Jack and nods, "Great idea, so unless you missed it I'm Dena." She says with a wave at the others. "I work as a rogue or a scoundrel which means I deal with traps, sneaking and or lock picking. Feel free to ask me to scout ahead or things like that." Dena holds out her cloak which reveals there are a lot of pockets sewn into it. "I'm also able to carry nearly anything with this enchanted cloak so just ask if you need anything or if you like me to carry your stuff."

[The Bushranger]

[Cave of the Mountain Key]

Jamie happens to be here, too!
And curtseys properly, like a princess should, in fact.
"I'm Jamie," she introduces herself. "Jamie Misaki Catherine Druid. I know some...unconventional druidic magic, and a few minor psionic tricks," she says proudly.

[Lost_Deep]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"I am Copi. I am intelligent, skilled with electronics, and have some psychic potential."

Copi examines the area, looking into the cave at the board/slab things. Clever what was done there. They probably slide into the floor or ceiling, maybe in an every-other pattern.

[Slii Arhem]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

Jack nods to each in turn, "Right then, Jack Leveret at your service, skilled with tools of all kinds, and the construction, disassembly and repair of all things mechanical and electronic. A more useful skill in these kinds of situations than you'd think." He's rather hasty to add that qualifier at the end. It seems he's had some issues with people doubting him before.

[Shadowcaller]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"Intelligent? Then what in the sands are you doing here?" Dena asks Copi jokingly. "The last intelligent person I saw coming to a place like this got blown up by an exploding zombie."

[The Bushranger]

[Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave]

"Zombies can explode?" Jamie asks, blinking in surprise. "I knew that some kinds catch fire in daylight, but not exploding..."

[Lost_Deep]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"I said I was intelligent. Not that I was sane."

Important distinction.

"And exploding zombies do come up in a few items of fiction I am aware of. The theory of infinite universes says that, somewhere, said works of fiction are non-fictional."

[Slii Arhem]

Key of the Dead - Mountain Cave

Trust me Jamie, on top of what they said. If there's one rule I've learned over my many stress-filled days is that absolutely everything can explode. You learn to live with it, and roll with the blast, after the first few. That or you lose a few fingers." Jack seems to be joking, but the lack of laughter and serious look on his face gives away how seriously he takes that advice.

"If there's nothing else, we should probably wait for noon to come around. Not far off now." Jack rolls up a sleeve and looks at his watch, just to be sure.

[Shadowcaller]

Key of the Dead - Mountain Cave

"It's actually a pretty amusing story." Dena smiles. "And as Jack here said, also an important lesson." She says in a more serious tone. "Like to hear it? It took place in a dungeon very much like this." The drow gestures the entrance.

[The Bushranger]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"Sure...cautionary tales are always good," Jamie says. "And I knew my dad could explode, but not zombies previously. Huh."

[Lost_Deep]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"Cautionary tales are worth hearing most times. And any interesting or entertaining story is worth hearing at least once." Copi gives Dena her attention.

[Shadowcaller]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"I'm not sure I like to know how you know that but anyway...." The drow replies to Jamie with a skeptical tone before she starts her story.

"Alright so back then it was me, Egon, two Drey, which are basically dragon people, called Baccata and Schesha and a halfing named Tri-ilara and we were going into this tomb to retrieve some ancient scrolls." She starts.

"Now, the reason I remember this is since Egon was our leader and when I asked what he was good at he claimed to be intelligent. I was like, 'and we aren't?' I just think he liked to order us around, screaming in the middle of the fights like a idiot." The drow rolls her eyes before she continues.

"We had descended into the dungeon and killed pretty much every undead in our way and opened the passage to the room where the scrolls were supposed to be. Of course, the room was filled with even more undead, some king that had passed his expiration date a few hundred years ago leading a whole horde of zombies.
So Egon's brilliant strategy was that our wizard dragged the king close to us with some sort of spell... and that backfired of course as the king used the very same spell on us once he were close enough. So we fought the king and his entire horde of zombies who were surprisingly vulnerable to knives." She smiles faintly."

The rogue suddenly takes a more dramatic stance. "But in the middle of the fight this huge umber-hulk emerges from from the floor! Rawrg! It was this huge!" She attempts to show with her hands just how large this monster was.

"Thankfully for the rest of my party I know all the umberhulks weak spots and jumped right up at it, killing it almost single handily." And judging by the fact Dena is smirking right now, it's pretty apparent she's just bragging now.

"But anyway, I killed the umberhulk by sneak attacking it in the brain while it was distracted and then there were just the zombies left. The problem was that the zombies exploded in great gas clouds when we killed them and since we all had been dragged into the room everyone (but me) took damage. So Egon fell to the floor as the final zombie came for him. Now here comes to moment of stupid, Baccata our drey comes intending to crush the zombies leg's with his hammer but misses at he swings way too high, crishing the head instead. It explodes in a spectacular gas cloud taking Egon with it. Not exactly the best way to go, especially not after we loot the tomb we find a scroll of resurrection, an item I might add, Egon was the only in our party who could understand. It was sad really yet so hilariously stupid."

[Slii Arhem]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"Alright folks, we're burning daylight here. Thanks for the cautionary tale there Dena." Jack manages to say the last part with the bare minimum required sarcasm. Why did he invite this braggart along again?

Oh right, the pretty song played and influenced his decision. Damn that bard!

"Time to read the magic words and get on with this.

*Ahem!* Nif wer idol ekess wer shaoyu-portam, ankhobgraft relgric!" Try saying that three times fast. Jack just barely manages to enunciate each word as correctly as he can, having read it over several times and practiced it in his head on the way here.

Well, it's high noon and he's said the code. Here goes nothing.

[Halae]

[Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave]

After Jack reads the note, the group can hear a click, followed by the sound of rock grinding against rock as the planks of stone reced into the roof and floor of the cave. It seems go the same way that Copi guessed, interestingly enough.

As it opens, a purplish mist seeps out along the ground, but gets burnt up by the sun. It's heavy enough that it doesn't lift into the air, but one has to wonder what gives it that purple color.

The inside of the cave dark and damp, lacking any sort of light source, but suddenly voices can be heard from within. Two or three, at least. there may be more further in, but they're too far away for anybody, including Jack, to hear properly.

[The Bushranger]

[KotD]

"It's a long story," Jamie tells Dena.
Then listens!

"...ouch. I'm sure my dad would say something along the lines of 'that's what you get for only having one person able to understand it', but that is kinda sad," the young redhead agrees, before she turns her attention to Jack and the door!

...and edges away from the purplish gas and frowns.
"Did anyone bring a gas mask?"

And she listens.
To see if the voices in the distance are saying "braiiiiiiiiiiiiiins".

[Lost_Deep]

KotD

"Does anyone here have the magic to identify the smoke? Perhaps additional safety measures are needed, like gas masks or some kind of magical protection."

Some kind of magic fog? Perhaps necroticly charged? It if was poisonous, it would only be effective against creatures prone (ideally) but if it magical it could very well do any number of things in skin contact... or breathed.

Someone ID it before Copi starts pondering potential effects!

[Slii Arhem]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"What do you think I'm here for, eye candy? I said I worked with mechanics, right? Well time to show you just what that means." Jack holds out a hand, ears twitching slightly as his eyes narrow. In his head, a mare's death-scream echoes softly.

He murmurs something inaudible under his breath, and then from one moment to the next things change. A small displacement of air, and four gasmasks dangle by the straps from his fingers, fresh canisters inserted into the slots and filled up with activated charcoal.

"If this doesn't keep our lungs safe, then not much will. Might want to find a bug or something to toss ahead of us though, and make sure this isn't acidic vapour we're dealing with. If so, we'll need some kind of suit before we go any further." Jack eyes the purple mist warily, holding out the remaining three masks to the girls while he grabs one for himself in his other hand.

[Shadowcaller]

Key of the Dead - A Mountain Cave

"Hold on, let me try to identify it. Could be a magical gas after all." Dena replies as she pulls out a pair of heavy-looking goggles which she straps on, turning to the gas.

If the gas is magical in nature and is caused by an enchantment or a spell she should learn it's exact effect.

She will accept Jack's gas-mask meanwhile.