[Nexus] AMEN XLV: The Zoo

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

"Um...can't remember how much she's said about you right now, sorry." Isabelle says as she works away. The door's glowing in all different kinds of colours. Seems Isabelle's being rather thorough.

There also seems to be no gap around the edge of it for poison to seep in through now either, though Cin will manage to tuck his shirt under the door before it that happens.

Eventually the door starts pulsing through different colours. It's like a totally sweet rave party door...without any music.

While this is happening...Cin sits down on a bed!

There's a growl from Alfred's bed.

And Cin may suddenly feel a lot of pressure on his lap as a fully grown tiger attempts to flop on him and start purring, rather suddenly becoming visible. Alfred's fur is rather unusual. The black stripes remain black, but what would normally be orange, or white, or yellow depending on the species, are in this case a rather dark red.

Hi Cin! Alfred wants pets!

"I like to think of Alfred as a stealth-tiger. I'm not sure if he's truly invisible or just really good at camouflage stuff. Either way, I can't see him if he doesn't want to. And by the sound of it, yes he would like to be petted."

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

Cin raises an eyebrow at Shayan and opens his mouth to mention a concern, but it turns into an "Oomph" when the tiger appears on his lap. He's strong enough not to worry about the weight, but it was a surprise. With a small sigh he begins to scratch Alfred between the ears if he'll let him. "It's alright if you don't know much about me. I tend to keep to myself except for when I'm with Shayan." He admits.

[Zefir]

Main Room

"Well as I expected. The best never dies on a rocket."

He sights, but he doesn't do much. The Mecho Panthers as far as I see it should now attack the beast and Thendir, since they are the intruders. He doesn't want to have them against him, by accidently damage them. It's just good that he is a member and doesn't need to worry.

[BladeofObliviom]

Magtok's Office - Corridor

Flailing tentacles are quite dangerous, indeed!

Cyrus manages to back out of their casualty radius before he gets overwhelmed by the quickly moving dangers, though a few strikes manage to put solid tears in his robe that liquid blood leaks from.

Seeing his chance to strike, he attempts to weaken both the wards and the creature with a targeted dispel before following up with a second strike of Blightning at the exposed section, hoping to break through entirely.

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

Shayan 'squees' a little as she starts rubbing her hands down Alfred's flanks, being careful not to pet his belly unless he presents it to her, "You never told me you had a kitty. Of course, I probably should have assumed, or asked, but you still never told me. Such a handsome one as well." The oracle is perfectly content with running her hands through Alfred's fur from now until the poison is gone it seems.

She does detect a bit of Cin's discomfort though, and turns her head to him, "My apologies, but until now Isabelle and I have been mostly talking shop about our own fields and trying to give each other new ideas as to how to better our methods. I should have anticipated that you would enjoy the chance to do the same and introduced you sooner, but it seems I forgot."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

Wallace flops onto his bed...which is just a ridiculously oversized dog bed. With a giant bone to chew on, beside it.

Like...a really, really big bone.

Alfred is petted and enjoys it, purring loudly. It's a very deep, throaty purr of course. One suiting such a big cat.

"As I've said to Shayan, I think I'm quite out of my depth talking about this stuff," Isabelle says as she makes her way over. "There's no science to what I do. I just throw magic at creatures." She flops onto her own bed, idly reaching out with one hand to assist in the tiger-petting.

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

Cin reaches out to try and take Shayan's actual hand to give it a squeeze as he smiles to her. "I don't mind, you don't need to apologize." He whispers before nodding to Isabelle. "I don't do anything magic with what I do, but I don't pretend to fully understand it either. See, when I dissect a humanoid creature that has remarkable abilities and I find the actual source of such, I can change myself and gain those things. My first was a Troll." He says before he stops petting Alfred to take a scalpel from his pocket. With a quick flick, he severs his other thumb and holds up the stub for her to watch as it grows back with extraordinary speed.

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

Shayan's hand quickly turns palm up as the severed thumb falls into it, and she idly holds it up for inspection as her other hand strokes Alfred's side.

"Do either of you mind if I give him a treat? I know some people can be quite picky about what they feed their animals." Some people don't like their stealth-tigers eating random thumbs, but that's just silly.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

The severed thumb and its subsequent regrowth gets a raised eyebrow from Isabelle, but nothing more than that. She's used to making animals do weird things. People are just smart animals.

...or something like that.

"Doesn't it make you hungry doing stuff like that? All the extra stuff to make a new thumb has to come from somewhere, surely." S'logical, right? Isabelle then glances at Shayan and shakes her head, "If you mean that thumb, then no. Big cats tend to get addicted to the taste of people if they ever eat them. Nothing else becomes good enough for them. Alfred is trained to attack people, but he's not allowed to eat them...or bits of them."

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

"The regeneration does take calories, yes. But it's off-set by the toughness I gained from both the troll and werewolf." He admits before he gets back to scratching the kitty. "That said, I can also eat enough for a dozen people because of it. It's constantly making me to be in my physical prime. I was about seventy when this started."

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

"Oh well." Shayan mumbles, sticking the non-bloody end of the thumb into the corner of her mouth so she can start petting Alfred with both hands again. She makes sure to wipe the blood off of her palm on Cin's lab coat before resuming pets.

"Are your legs fine Professor? He would be rather heavy, being such a muscular cat."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

"You know, if you don't know what to do with the thumb, there's better places to put it than in your mouth." Isabelle sighs and lies back on her bed, "Hopefully the door should make a noise when the poison has cleared. Oh and if Alfred is starting to get uncomfortable on your legs, I can make him move for you."

...

"Oh, um, I only keep little things to nibble on in here. I guess that's going to become a problem if you eat as much as a dozen people, Cin."

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

"Oh, it's okay. The Yeti was a bit rare for me but otherwise fine." He admits to their host before smiling wryly at Shayan. "If it comes to it that he breaks my legs, I can always just ask you to implant vines in me too." He says with a grin.

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

"You don't fool me for a moment, your bones will knit just as fast even without my help, flatterer." Shayan says blithely around the thumbnail sticking out of the side of her mouth.

"It's alright, it's not like I haven't had other appendages of his in my mouth. I know where he's been most of the time. As for food, everyone knows I only eat the brains of delicate young girls who think I'm a creepy plant lady so the truth never gets out, so I suppose I'll just have to go hungry for a while. The psychopaths that make up the vast majority of AMEN's population should either deal with the situation or die horribly fairly soon, so we won't have to wait long." That was fairly animated for the normally distant symbiont. Wonder what's gotten into her?

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

The problem of tiger and legs solves itself, as Alfred decides to roll off and go poke at Wallace.

...well not actually poke, because razor-fur, but apparently the stealth-tiger has decided to have a chat with the gargantuan bear.

"...brains, uhuh. I'm sure they taste nice." Isabelle mumbles, soundly vaguely disturbed. She hops off the bed and wanders over to her stash of nibbly-things. Which happens to be located by the ferret-food.

So in other words she's wandering right over to the other end o' the room, perhaps to give her a moment to calm down and remember that the creepy plant lady is a nice creepy plant lady and wouldn't actually eat her brain.

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

"Appendages huh?" Cin asks with an amused smirk before he sticks his tongue out at her playfully. "You're certainly in a mood today." He says quietly, not quite asking what's up with her today. Either way, he'll try to reach out and grab her body to pull her close. "Don't worry Isabelle, she's just joking. I'm the cannibal."

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

"I wouldn't know, I've never eaten one." She admits to Isabelle with a shrug. She spits out the thumb into her hand before allowing herself to be pulled into Cin's lap.

"I could say the same about you, but it's probably more true for me. Looks like you can't get by without something warm and purring in your lap lately. You'd be a fool to think that I'm any less likely to break your legs though."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

Isabelle obtained nibbles!

It's a cheesy...thing. Like a bar...of cheese...and cheesy stuff.

Something like that.

"I know she's just joking, plants are just-"

And then she turns round.

"-huh. I'd prefer it if you could control yourself enough to keep your appendage out of her while you're here, if you don't mind" She flops back onto her own bed and munches on her snack.

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

Cin laughs a bit at Isabelle as he pulls Shayan a bit closer and firmer in his lap. "Don't worry, I'm quite in control. Even if the fact that I have raging werewolf hormones in a 20 something body when I haven't felt such hormones for a couple decades makes it difficult." He says, trying to reassure Isabelle while explaining to Shayan what's up at the same time. "It's like being a teenager again. Just twice as rough."

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

"You mean we're not allowed to kiss? Well pooh, there goes one potential avenue of entertainment." Oh, so that's the appendage she was referring to. Well then.

"Have any board games or a deck of cards? Or maybe I could give some fortune readings. It doesn't really seem to be the time to talk about our professions, but I suppose in lieu of all else we could at least do that."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

"Of course you're not allowed to kiss. You'd make all kinds of icky noises!" Isabelle manages to keep a srs face for about .3 seconds before grinning, "Hug and kiss and stuff all you want, just don't disturb me or the animals."

Mostly the animals. 18 angry ferrets can be surprisingly intimidating.

"Fortune readings sounds interesting. I'm in favour of that."

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

"Good, because that's what I plan to do to her inbetween her fortune readings." Professor Cin says with a grin before trying to give Shayan a long heated kiss before he'll let her do the fortune readings.

[Jacklu]

Main Room

Spoiler

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BioLab
Main Room
Oh dear...
You see, when fighting or an intruder is in AMEN, Megan's Mechano-Panthers are hanging around to put a stop to it.
This is unfortunate for the people in the Main Room.
Anyone who isn't an AMEN member or being accompanied by an AMEN member and is in the Main Room will find themselves being set upon by Mechano-Panthers. 5 right now, but more are coming.
They breath fire, among other things, but that's what they'll be using here. Along with their razor sharp claws. Their flames will make short work of any non-AMEN thing.

Mechano panthers and ferret bites!

The mechano panthers find the beast to be a challenge. As they arrive, it hunkers down and the spikes along its back erupt upwards, revealing them to be on long tentacle tethers. They stab viciously at the panthers, with enough force to shatter stone. The flames don't seem to be doing much more than angering it either.

The ferret's bites, however, appear to be devastating. Each one gushes with blood and has the beast howling in pain. Strange....

Nephrim

Spoiler

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Corridor- Nephrim

The Fallen Angel looks at the teddy suspiciously. She's sure she didn't leave it there, and she trusts literally nobody. Those that she can't control are too unpredictable to be trusted, and those she can control are too easy to manipulate- if she can do it, what's to stop somebody else from doing the same?

Her first response is to extend a blade of red light from her wrist and gently poke it.

The blade pokes the teddy and it lets out a pain mew and squirms. And squirms and squirms and squirms. It's seams start to come apart and flesh writhes within its tiny stuffed body. Tendrils slip from teddy, tipped with wicked scythe claws that drip with poison.

Everywhere

The panthers make short work of whatever undead beasties are still out and about. But they don't do much about the poison that is growing ever thicker by the moment.

Magtok's office

Spoiler

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Magtok's Office - Corridor

Well that's a jarring experience, even for something like him. Jack is forced into existence outside the office, his hand still clutched tight around the writhing wraith's gullet. He turns in time to see the door attack him, and tosses the wraith forward to give it something else to swipe at.

When the arms come round again, he'll try to seize one mid-swing, and with a titanic pull attempt to rip it right off the door. Hopefully that'll give Cyrus another opening.

All this physical exertion is beginning to show Jack's true colors. Things not of the Nexus writhe underneath his skin, probing for weakness so that they might escape.

Magtok's Office - Corridor

Flailing tentacles are quite dangerous, indeed!

Cyrus manages to back out of their casualty radius before he gets overwhelmed by the quickly moving dangers, though a few strikes manage to put solid tears in his robe that liquid blood leaks from.

Seeing his chance to strike, he attempts to weaken both the wards and the creature with a targeted dispel before following up with a second strike of Blightning at the exposed section, hoping to break through entirely.

The arms dice the wraith to pieces, indiscriminate of their targets. The one that Jack grabs struggles angrily against him. But he holds it long enough for Cyrus to do his thing. The dispel hits hard and causes the door to quiver slightly. A few dozen more and it would be over with. Luckily, the blightling takes care of it first.

The door splinters and bursts as the blast hits dead-on. Magic pulses through the corridor and the flesh on the wall grows faster and stronger. Mouths form across the wall and scream in hideous harmony. There is a moment of stillness before the air in the hallways begins rushing into Magtok's office, pulled in by a tremendous negative pressure. If Jack and Cyrus don't brace themselves fast, they will likely be sucked violently into Magtok's office.

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

When Shayan comes up for air, she's actually a bit flushed, "I wouldn't advise you keep that up if you want to hear me tell the future. I'll end up foretelling a steamy romance best set on the shores of Inside, and then we'll all inevitably have to act it out. And that would be just dreadful of course, because I'm apparently not Isabelle's type, so a love triangle between us all could end only in tragedy."

"Alright, which of you wants to go first, and what would you like to know? No guarantees of course, but there's always at least some nugget of truth in a true telling, and I swear I won't make anything up."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

Isabelle sighs, "Well maybe plants wouldn't be so off-putting to me if your plants hadn't tried to kill me!" She shouts, getting rather fed up.

"You go first, Cin. I can't think of anything to ask at the moment."

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

"Really? Damn, there goes that fantasy." Cin says with a fake pout before he appears thoughtful, pondering his question. After a moment, he shifts to get more comfortable with his arms around Shayan's hips as he leans back slightly. "Alright Shayan. I have one. What will happen between us?" He asks, looking her in the eyes and appearing quite serious, wanting her to know that he'd like to know, good or bad.

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

Shayan frowns and doesn't answer Cin for a moment, "It's in everything's nature to search for nutrients to survive and propagate itself further. If one of your animals had decided to eat me I wouldn't blame it. Even more than that, I wouldn't blame you for being their tender, or let it change how I think of you." It seems this has really gotten to her, despite how much she's been making light of it to Isabelle.

"But then, I'm just one creepy plant girl who wound up killing everyone in her village for being used, abused, and ultimately judged as a monster for something she couldn't control. What would I know? As for you and I Cin? You will continue pointedly not asking me to curtain even though it's driving you mad with hormones because you think doing so would be selfish. I will prune my plants, and occasionally kiss you until we both see stars, and wait until you finally crack and do something, or not."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Isabelle's Room]

Isabelle falls silent, facing away from the two of them, arms wrapped round her knees.

Both Alfred and Wallace turn to look at her, somehow managing to look concerned.

Cedric scampers over and hops onto Isabelle's bed, nudging her foot. But she doesn't really react.

And after a moment or two, there's the quiet sound of sobbing. Shayan done made Isabelle cry.

[UncleWolf]

Isabelle's Room

Cin absorbs his fortune silently before smiling at her gently and leaning in for a quick kiss. "We'll talk more about me being driven insane later, I think there's something more important to do at the moment." He supposes before he runs his fingers along her spine. "Whatever she says, you're not a monster." He swears before looking at the sobbing Isabelle. "Isabelle, we all have sore subjects. And even if something happened between the two of you, I very much doubt it'll happen again."

[Slii Arhem]

Isabelle's Room

"I am truly very sorry for allowing you to nearly come to harm Isabelle, and I will understand if you hate me for it. I will just be very sad, because I consider you a friend, and I have too few friends to lose one again. I will still work with you on your missions, and you don't ever have to come near my lab again if you don't want to, but I don't know if I can be both your friend and your scary plant lady. Knowing that someone I enjoy the company of thinks of me that way makes me feel worse than if I knew you hated me outright." Shayan doesn't know how to deal with this situation, even now when she's at her most emotional, but obviously touching Isabelle when she's the one causing all this duress would be a very bad move.

She uses her vines to lift herself off Cin's lap and set herself down next to him. She doesn't feel like being held at the moment, "Whatever you decide though, what happened then in my lab will not happen again. I've already made sure of it."