[Nexus] Random Places and Plots 5

[Zefir]

Necanth Prison- Cavern

As Zefir notes the 'woman' he stops. It's best not to get noticed. He is sure that he can't hide since he has a source of light, but after all he don't needs to wake them. He will take his ime slowly reaching for the ground while still looking around.

[Earl of Purple]

Necanth Prison- To the Warden

There is no life immediately obvious, besides the criminals in the cells below and anything that might exist beyond the door.

There is another key, held by the dessicated corpse's fragile-looking hand. They may also have something interesting besides the broken sword; maybe some money or something. It seems they have been undisturbed since their death, as the door is locked and they are positioned as they were when they died.

Necanth Prison- Cavern

It is possible for Zefir to hide despite his light; the grimlock lady is blind. Also asleep; it's possible that if he's quiet enough that he can explore without waking her. There's the ornate dagger on the chest, with the plastic fork, and the fungi on the hub cap-plate are likely edible. Also the chest, but as the plastic fork, ornate dagger and hub cap plate are resting on it Zefir should be careful. Or he could just continue down, as there's another knotted rope leading down from the shelf.

[Zefir]

Necanth Prison- Cavern

Well it#s best to have some clear path back. Zefir tries to sneak to the chest and tends to take the dagger. hopefully this is the only weapon otherwise he will have a problem also since the robe would get cut.

[Earl of Purple]

Necanth Prison- Cavern

He can take the dagger easily, and the dragon-shaped pommel moves its head slightly. The dagger is enchanted; it's less effective on dragons, but capable of cutting through the scales of most armoured creatures.

The grimlock remains asleep.

[Murkus]

[Intro Party]

Bill smiles happily and retrieves several large bundles of plastic-wrapped sugary confections for Pinkie. "Those are on the house."

Tina, meanwhile, smiles at the newcomers. "Well? Who else is up for an adventure?" She certainly is. She intends to bring the gift of alcohol to Ponyville!

I don't expect this to end well, no.

[Chaotic Bob]

Spoiler

Show

Intro Party

Dio carefully sets the goat down, whereupon it immediately scrabbles to find purchase on the fine grains of sand with its pointy hooves. It doesn't seem to be having much luck there.

"I don't mean to use him as a party favor Eadin, I mean to use him as a blood hound. This little horse here has been separated from her friends, and the goat should be able to find them. He'd also be doing me a favor by delivering something to a friend of mine, so you have my promise I'll look out for him from now on." Favors are the currency of the gods after all. If this cousin of theirs helps Dio out, he'll keep the little thing safe, or risk running his good name through the mud.

He turns to Tina and Pinkie, his amused expression growing even larger, "Well, if you'd like to tag along with Ms. Pie to meet her other friends, there's nothing I can see wrong with that. You could even call it an adventure." Adventures are amazing after all. Almost as amazing as parties.

"Perhaps it could be an adventure party." And thus, the most amazing concept in the world was born.

The little goat just stands at Dio's feet on shaky legs, not daring to try to go anywhere. It does bleat a long, "MaaaaAAAaag!!" though.

[QUOTE=Eadin;13488673]Intro Party
Okay... Strange pony...
"Uhm, yeah. Hi. I'm Eadin."
She'll give a little wave with that.

"So... How would this goat help this pony find her friends again? It's not a dog.."
But adventures can be fun, yes.
If not involving dying because of scary monsters.

[Intro Party]

"Uh, hey. I'm Pavati." The selkie has no idea what's going on, but that's really no change from when she first left the sea. And now there's talk of adventure. She's not sure what to think.

For someone who is supposed to be fairly drunk, Pinkie Pie seems to be quite coordinated and still hyper.
Just...left.
She seems to be tilted left, her left legs both bent slightly and right legs stretched a bit.
Maybe her gaze is wandering slightly more too, but that's difficult to tell with her.

"Wee! Thank you Mister Sing Songy Bill!"
The little pony quite happily snares the offered bags of cotton candy, almost as if she's hugging them, before lithely tossing them up onto her back.

That is to say, they're all tossed directly at everyone else present, except for one caught in her teeth.
That one is being torn open and devoured.

Somehow, while she breaking into the sugar-substance, she seems to be loudly humming and sneaking out words that sound suspiciously like a song about "adventuring", "party bonanza spectacular", "newest friends", and "tea cozies".

[Slii Arhem]

Intro Party Adventure

Dio just gives a shrug, "The Fates decreed it so. I do not question the tangled web they weave, but if I'm going to take advantage of it you'll need to all get going before they head off on the move to somewhere else." With that, the party god reaches behind his back and pulls a small parcel and a bit of rope out from nowhere before bending down and expertly looping the rope around the scaredy-goat's midsection.

"Is everyone who's going along ready to leave? Good! Then here. We. Go!" He gives the goat a light slap on the flank, and contrary to its earlier freezing when startled, it bleats out a short, "Maaaa-aaag!" and runs off down the beach.

Looks like it's heading to the Magcave! Although how anyone could tell from here, so far away, is anyone's guess. Better hurry if you want to catch it Pinkie and Co.

If anyone looks at Dionysus after he's done arranging the adventure, they'll see he's settled down onto the beach with a pole and a "Gone Fishin'." sign planted next to him. Maybe he'll be willing to share his catch with Pavati, or Bill if he's sticking around.

[Eadin]

Intro Party Adventure

"Right. The fates..."
Those nutty old women? Totally trustworthy!

And then goat is running somewhere!
Eadin will run after it, not wanting to leave the poor thing alone.

[Gullara]

[Intro Party Adventure]

Pavati looks after the departing group. Well, she's not all that keen on following them seeing as she can't even run that fast. So instead she moves over to Dio. She actually knows what he's doing since she's seen people fish before. Fish. Her stomach rumbles at the thought. "That's not a very good way of getting fish, you know?"

[Murkus]

[Intro Party --> Adventure!]

Tina gets a bundle of cotton candy in the chest, just barely managing to catch it before it falls. She laughs, watching their 'guide' scurry off. "C'mon, Pinkie, we gotta go!" And with that, she takes off after the Magoat, wine and cotton candy in hand.

[Intro Party]

Bill, meanwhile, sticks around to man his stand. He smiles after Tina and Pinkie, then turns to his remaining customers. Being a fish man - strange orange-blue scales and large lips and fins and whatnot - Bill says, "Um, I can just get you guys some fish if you want." He's quite the natural!

[Chaotic Bob]

[Exciting Adventure Fun Extravaganza!]

Suddenly everyone is leaving, chasing after that silly goat over there.

Pinkie Pie glances up from her alarmingly-empty bag of cotton candy and manages to look faintly alarmed.
"Hey, wait for meeeeee!"
Although the alarm only lasts until the end of "wait", as she's once again giggling and bouncing away like a pony-shaped rubber ball towards everyone else.

Although her pattern is mildly zig-zaggy...not that that seems to impede her progress at all.

[Zefir]

Necanth Prison- Cavern

He can take the dagger easily, and the dragon-shaped pommel moves its head slightly. The dagger is enchanted; it's less effective on dragons, but capable of cutting through the scales of most armoured creatures.

The grimlock remains asleep.

Necanth Prison- Cavern

In that case he will continue his way down the rope. He still tries to be silent and now is even more carefull. This could only be the edge of a camp/city of these creatures and Zefir barly clams himself down.

((Just in case Zefir has a sense for magic which means he can detect magic easy, he just can't use any kind of magic unless it's an Item or comes from an artifact. I assumed the gromlock is a magical creature if not ignore my last sentence.))

[Slii Arhem]

Intro Party

"Oh I know, but it's not about catching anything, it's about relaxing. Even someone like I needs a hobby to relax with between parties and requests." Contrary to his words, Dionysus flicks the line up over his head and a mackerel flies out of the water, landing on the sand with a thump. Surprisingly, there's no hook in its mouth. At this point, it's worth mentioning that anyone who looks closes will see that Dio's fishing line is simply a length of thin vine tied to the end of a pole. He casts it back out into the water idly.

[Earl of Purple]

Necanth Prison

Grimlocks, despite having their evolution sped up by magic, are not inherently magical. All of their abilities are completely natural.

The rope will lead Zefir downwards, through an environment the same as the one that he went through on his way to the platform. There is a difference, however, as one of the mushrooms he descends past whips out and tries to wrap him with one of its stalks.

Did Zefir take the dagger?

[Gullara]

[Intro Party]

Pavati looks over at Bill. "I could probably do it myself if I wanted to." She says with a silly little grin. Her natural state is in the water, which is obvious seeing as she has the lower half of a sea lion. Webbed fingers too.

And then there's a fish. The selkie eyes it hungrily. "Are you gonna eat that?"

[Murkus]

Intro Party!

Bill can see that, he was merely being polite. The candy-man just starts making some cotton-sugar-blobs at this point - perhaps he'll trade it to Dio for some fish.

Meanwhile, I presume Tina, Eadin, and Pinkie are off to the MagCave!

[Zefir]

Necanth Prison

Grimlocks, despite having their evolution sped up by magic, are not inherently magical. All of their abilities are completely natural.

The rope will lead Zefir downwards, through an environment the same as the one that he went through on his way to the platform. There is a difference, however, as one of the mushrooms he descends past whips out and tries to wrap him with one of its stalks.

Did Zefir take the dagger?

Necanth Prison

Yes he did and he will try to use it to cut the tentacle of the mushroom while he warps the rope around his other arm. Hopefully that works he doesn't want to burn all.

[Earl of Purple]

Necanth Prison- Pipe

After a few cuts by the dagger, the mushroom withdraws and gives up. However, its wounds leak a thick, viscous fluid that is quite acidic, and if any gets of Zefir it will likely start to burn its way through his clothing and/or flesh, though magical items like the dagger might have an enhanced durability and thus be immune or even resistant to the effect.

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

Though often unmentioned, the Nexus did in fact posses an element dedicated toward the sharing of information. Made of equal parts metal and mysticism, wires and wyrd, the Wired, as it was colloquially called, was nevertheless a strange marvel of data storage and communication.

Which means that, of course, anyone with the ability to connect to it had access to all the cute feline images they would ever really need. And of course information as well.

Information of things arcane was what a certain muse was currently seeking, using the short bouts of time she had when she wasn't in the middle of a particularly large project. Really, anything that might help a complete novice at all things magical were under scrutiny although anything that could help a person understand would definitely be valuable. Whether she found something useful or not, however, remained to be seen...

[Halae]

[The Wired]

Some, of course, Refer to it as the NexNet, but that doesn't come up much.

Regardless of names, in one of her browsing sessions, Riss will stumble across an odd little blog called Daily Demonic Dealings. It's a simple, standard blog, about a tiefling mage named Sora. Evidently, Sora is the sort of individual to draw on the power of their bloodline in order to use it for magic; a self titled warlock.

Sora is an oddball. Nobody knows the gender of the tiefling, at least over the internet, and Sora casually teases them about that all the time. even in images, the warlock is entirely too androgynous to tell a gender.

One image of particular note is Sora standing with their back to the camera, showing off a birthmark. this is both teasing, as being topless but with back to the came sent the blog's followers into a hilarious frenzy since they still couldn't tell the gender of the author, but the birthmark itself is stunning, and Riss will likely recognize it as Song-Tongue, even if she doesn't know what that is. Sora Can;t seem to find anybody capable of deciphering it, which was part of the reason for that particular post.

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

Riss quite nearly passed the blog in question by after giving it a cursory glance. Though the information on magic was interesting, it was that teasing that caused the muse to initially write them off as one of the too many attention and audience hungry sorts that infested the networks. There were quite a few unkind names for them but Riss never felt it was worth spending the time and effort to call them such.

However... That marking was definitely an attention getter. Though the muse attempted to read it several times, it simply looked to be gibberish. After a moment's deliberation, however, she wound up making an anonymous reply of the phonetic translation with a small statement of it simply being a jumble of syllables. Or at least it was no word that the muse had come across. It was rather lucky that this was an online format, though, as the additional anonymity made it just that much easier to submit suggestions and the like. At the very least, it wasn't as difficult as it would have been in person.

[Halae]

[The Wired]

It'll be a short while before Riss gets a response email, detailing how Sora hadn't been able to find someone who was even able to read the thing, much less speak it, and that the tiefling is interested in pursuing that. Any help at all was better than stewing and wondering what it meant, after all, and the reply ends with something simple

"Maybe we can help each other out. I know a good bit about magic and demonology, and anybody here in the Nexus should know something or other about that, whether they use it or not."

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

Riss' reply would be considerably longer as she both needed time to think about this suggestion as well as take a somewhat longer break designated for a bit of sleep. It would be a handful of hours until Sora received a message that was written rather formally that effectively stated a tentative sort of agreement. Riss knew the language she used was a bit stuffy but at the same time it was just easier that way.

'[...] In short, it would heavily depend on what sort of help I would be to you in this endeavor but I do not think I would be negative toward your request of exploring more about this subject. However, as I lack a greater portion of knowledge as to what subjects you specialize in, I am unsure as to just what potential aid I would be able to provide.' the message ended. It was true, though. The muse's lack of knowledge would be a bit of a determent in this case although she was willing to learn more.

[Halae]

[The Wired]

Sora's own reply takes a bit of concideration and planning before the Tiefling puts it into motion, so it'll be some hours.

"My magical type is borne of drawing normally volatile power from outer realms and focusing it into desired effects. This also means that I'm well versed in the forms of denizens of these planes and have a good understanding of the sorts of things related to a given power source. for example, the Abyss is a largely destructive and corruptive force, and that'sthe form of magic you will be able to draw from it with the most ease.Launching a fireball at someone is very much an abyssal aligned sort of magic because it relies on destructive implementation of the power. I'd be much less capable of the magic that I wield if I were to say heal someone. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I could do that at all."

"So believe me when I say this; Someone who can read the marking on my back is beyond rare. I've discussed it with demons, angels, slaad, a farspawn, and even an eldritch rabbit, and you are the first person to ever even scratch the surface of what it means. Well, the Farspawn knew, most likely, but he didn't talk straight, you know? In any case, This makes you the foremost expert on the subject that I know of."

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

If I am an expert then I have to wonder just what sort of expert I would be given that I understood perhaps a sentence or so at most. Content-wise, I should say. said the first part of a rather quick reply. If it helps, consider me ignorant of even the most basic things as one could say I am still relatively new and attempting to adjust to my new surroundings. And that's putting it lightly. I have no idea what the hell even half of that is aside from what is possible a collection of nouns and maybe suggestions of medical and pyrotechnic procedures. The hell do they mean 'corruptive' anyway?

But if my native language is helpful, would it be possible to arrange a trade of knowledge in this case? If it would not be too much of a bother to have a sort of instructional correspondence, I mean.

[Halae]

[The Wired]

"Absolutely! I'm always willing to share what I've learned, especially if it means I'm getting something in return, as happens to be the case here. Though, if you live in the general area of Inside, it might end up being easier for me to meet you in person after we set a date and time rather than just tossing these emails at each other and hoping to get a response within the next few hours."

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

The suggestion of an offline interaction was not entirely unexpected but it would still encounter heavy resistance. To be honest with you, I am unsure as to where my actual location is in reference to the nearest urban setting. Also, I do not think my employer would look upon me kindly if I were to give out the information of my location so freely either due to my personal mistakes of a similar manner recently. While Magtok hadn't said anything specifically, given the recent events, Riss felt it was best to err on the side of caution from now on.

That aside... My duties would inhibit any sort of meeting like that for now. Perhaps we could continue in this manner for the time being and wait for a better opportunity? the muse asked. While it wasn't exactly false that she couldn't simply just skip off to a meeting, it was only a temporary situation. Really, Riss didn't feel quite ready to simply go out and meet someone like that. At least not without a lot of help.

Of course, if Sora was obstinate enough, they would probably be able to get her to arrange something at the very least.

[Halae]

[The Wired]

Time off tends to be a thing, you know. You must have break points; we can meet up then. Maybe I can even help you with your work, if it comes down to it. If nothing else, I'm sure I can ward your workspace against excess magical energy, which is something I'm sure your boss will appreciate. At this point the tiefling is just contemplating how to convince this girl to give extra help on the birthmark, and Sora isn't going to let her back down.

[Terumitsu]

[The Wired]

I'm fairly certain that you and I would be in positions opposite to what we are now when it comes to my work. came the reply after a minute or two. It was rather nice that these things could be done during short lulls or else the messages would be coming much more sparsely. As for breaks... I did come off of a three day break only just recently so I'm not sure that I could take another on-WEk@%fehhie*ls&s The message would arrive with what appeared to be a broken image where everything was pixelated and generally indecipherable.

A few moments later, a follow-up message would arrive. I am so sorry about that. I was startled by someone coming in while I in the middle of something and that broke my focus. I mean, I know there are safeguards in place to keep that from happening but I keep those off because it runs quicker and this normally doesn't happen at all. I don't think my employer has much use for magical wards, though. At least I don't think so. Maybe.. Well, what sort of thing would be good for you? I mean, I'm fine with this sort of correspondence for now. There really isn't any need for me to be 'on site' is there?

[Halae]

[The Wired]

It'll be a while before a response picks up, Please. I've been looking for answers for years and you're the first real lead I've ever gotten. I don't want to lose my grip on something like that after so long.

It's a simple and concise post, but it's full of feeling. Really, Sora has nowhere else to turn for this information, and it feels like it'll slip away if a person-to-person meeting isn't arranged.