[Nexus] Inside 49

[Zefir]

[Deus Mechanicus Church]

The gates of this building are closed for now, still the two guards watch over everyone comng close to the Gate. They won't do anything untill someone knocks on the door.

[Lost_Deep]

Tent of CHAOS!

Kate is quite suddenly facing the wrong direction. She turns around and goes to hug Amil!

Albeit it may be odd now that Kate is a somewhat feline robotic thing with thick burgandy fur on her chest, a bizarre kind of liquid metal for hair, digitrade feet, lacy and freakishly flexible wing things... Also she has an amazing build and is startlingly well-endowed for being a robot cat.

Also she's still nude. I don't know why.

And while that would probably be very distracting in and of itself, Hadlin has the added distraction of the physical forms of the voices. They are both somewhat skinny and distinctly female, but have no faces. One instead has a pink blur where her face should be, the other a blue blur. They also purely white, except for the colored blurred for their faces and a kind of poofy, misty fog suggestion of pink or blue hair.

The reason why this is so distracting is because they are in his personal space, curled around him like a pair of monkeys or something. Oddly, they don't touch him. They always stay at least 1mm away from his skin, hair or clothes.

The blue one is looking at Kate, but the pink one is looking straight at him, her "Face" almost touching his.

[Murkus]

Scheming in the Red Zone

"You wouldn't happen to have something of theirs?" Ashley says, an idea coming to her. "I might be able to scry for them. And if we find them, I can help them too if they need it."

"We shouldn't go to Remnant anyway. They might want your tech too, She says. "Maybe we should head somewhere lower-key, someone else might come for you."

"I don't, no. Sorry. Do you have any ideas for a safehouse? If we find them, we could send them there," Kailee asks.

Deus Mechanicus Church

Presumably Adir and Sakura show up here, their truck laden with plants of all kinds. If the dryad's there, Adir will jump down to request entry from the guards.

"Hey, um, Mia asked us to come? Something about a church garden?"

[Morcleon]

Spoiler

Show

[Generic Street]

Ignai cries out and starts full out running before Sayuri even starts to charge. If she wants to attack Ignai, she'll have to catch up to her first, and the homeless woman isn't particularly slow.

Generic Street

Imesah turns and draws her shield as soon as she notices the flash of light. It was clear to her that this woman was a danger to everyone nearby, and as a Warrior of Sunlight, she couldn't just walk away.

So as Sayuri charges, she'll probably find that Imesah is in her way, with her shield raised. Her other hand is till holding the piece of canvas, and is now starting to crackle with lightning.

[Generic Street]

Sayuri's radiant fist strikes the shield full force, sending rippling reverberations through the air, potentially knocking Imesah backward. Regardless of the result, she jumps back and slams her hands down on the ground, sending waves of golden light down the street, past Imesah and Ignai. Barriers of light appear around their small section of the street, blocking any entrance or exit, and their surroundings take on a golden sepia tint.

A high-pitched giggle emanates from the sleeping girl. "I can't very well let you run away now, can I?"

[Halae]

Tent of CHAOS!

Kate is quite suddenly facing the wrong direction. She turns around and goes to hug Amil!

Albeit it may be odd now that Kate is a somewhat feline robotic thing with thick burgandy fur on her chest, a bizarre kind of liquid metal for hair, digitrade feet, lacy and freakishly flexible wing things... Also she has an amazing build and is startlingly well-endowed for being a robot cat.

Also she's still nude. I don't know why.

And while that would probably be very distracting in and of itself, Hadlin has the added distraction of the physical forms of the voices. They are both somewhat skinny and distinctly female, but have no faces. One instead has a pink blur where her face should be, the other a blue blur. They also purely white, except for the colored blurred for their faces and a kind of poofy, misty fog suggestion of pink or blue hair.

The reason why this is so distracting is because they are in his personal space, curled around him like a pair of monkeys or something. Oddly, they don't touch him. They always stay at least 1mm away from his skin, hair or clothes.

The blue one is looking at Kate, but the pink one is looking straight at him, her "Face" almost touching his.

[CHAOS Tent]

Well, that poses a problem, doesn't it?

Mainly because Hadlin was about to move forward again, but now there's someone directly in front of him, close enough that a wrong movement would make their faces collide. He certainly doesn't have enough time to stop himself when he makes that wrong move.

[Rebonack]

[Chaos Tent]

That sounds like a BONK! in the making.

So...

Yeah. Amil is getting hugged. All those nasty looking spines turn out to be just that. Nasty looking. And quite soft. Which is good for Kate since she didn't just poke herself full of holes.

"This is wrong," Amil says firmly as her ethereal form begins crawling its way out of the back of the body she had most recently been stuck in. "I'm not going to wear some doll created by those things."

Several spectral brambles once again reach into the roof, tearing stone free. Where before it had been crude and cobbled together the rock this time around is eroded into things that look almost like fingers wreathed in delicate vines.

Amil will then seize the doll by an arm and a leg before hurling it end over end off the side of the building. Ostensibly after Kate lets go.

A vaguely head-shaped tangle of ethereal vines watches the body plummet toward the floor below (above?) before glancing back at Kate. "Can... can you get your old form back? Or are you trapped?"

Amil doesn't seem to have registered the two figures yet. Or at least not who they are.

[Lost_Deep]

Chaos Tent

The pair has remarkable ability to not touch Hadlin. There is no bonk. They do not seem to respect gravity or momentum, have reflexes and flexibility enough to compensate for his movements, and remain very close to him. These things could have been all over Amil and Kate, but they would never have known. Not except for when they wanted to touch...


"Let me check," Kate replies. She shifts... into her normal, nonodd form. She's very normal. Also naked.

"EEEK!"

She quickly changes back, looking very uncomfortable. "I can, but... this form at least has some covering. Can't get to my clothes."

The blue thing giggles at this. It seems that the now-bodied voices are unaware of their bodiedness. Or if they are they aren't reacting to it.

[Gullara]

[Generic Street]

Ignai almost slams headlong into the barrier. She shouts as she hammers her fists against it. "No no no no no..." The elf goes on like that. She crouches and puts her hands over her head. "Please just let me go."

[Deus Mechanicus Church]

Sakura is indeed here, and she's looking around curiously. She doesn't really know much about Mia, and she's as curious as she looks.

[Halae]

[Chaos Tent]

Hadlin frowns. What are these creatures? Whatever just happened gave them bodies...

"Would you two stop surrounding me like that? It's rather disconcerting."

[Devixer]

Plotting in the Red Zone

Ashley considers any possible places for a moment. "I live in a warehouse in the Grey Zone. It won't exactly be a permanent solution, but I think it'll do until we can find your friends and get them somewhere safer." Normally, she wouldn't let strangers into her place, but this was a bit different.

Generic Street

Imesah is barely pushed back at all by Sayuri's blow. It'll take a lot more than that to knock her down. "If you will not relent, then I will bring you down." As she says these words, a shockwave of divine magic explodes from her body. It won't do any actual damage, but it should push Sayuri back a fair distance and buy Imesah time to draw her sword.

[Rebonack]

[Tent of CHAOS!]

"...right," Amil replies somewhat hesitantly. "Well. We can get out of here and find an outfit for you? Assuming we can get out of here..."

Hmmm...

Her wings are gone along with that disgusting Tyranid. Good riddance. Hopefully those things vaporized it or something. The only reason she had ever needed it was because it held her memories. And now with her soul intact what does she need the grotesque flesh puppet for?

She begins loping toward the fire escape with a rather awkward gait as ethereal vines snake into the roof and pluck out large chunks of wood. Seems she's being a bit more selective now, taking only the lumber and allowing the steel and stone to drop away.

The wood is already beginning to flex and shape and sprout new growth. Once at the edge of the building she glances back at Kate. "I'm... fine. Really I am. I haven't felt so much like myself in months. That... thing's murderous instincts are screeching inside my head anymore. Please don't worry about me."

A beat.

"Umm... that man was the friend you mentioned, right?"

[Lost_Deep]

Tent of CHAOS!

"He sees us?" The voice doesn't come from the body itself, but from nowhere in particular like the voices did before.

The two of them kind of jump off of him and then look at each other.

"Bodies?"
"Bodies?"
"3-d anchors."
"So cute!"
"Let's play dress-up!"

No wait- gah. They disappeared. They still have Kate's other body!

And her phone and holy symbol. Oh- and her backpack. That has her laptop in it. Kate will be very upset when she finds out.

"Yeah. Hadlin!" Kate waves him over.

[Halae]

[Tent of Chaos]

"Kate, that's you, right?" Hadlin says, frowning. He adjusts his eyepatch slightly, as it's a bit uncomfortable. He also still has ethereal wings sprouting from his back.

He also, unfortunately, can't help but glance down at Kate's body and blush. He quickly looks back up towards her face, however and swallows. If nothing else, he has tact. "We can't leave you like this. Do you know where those beings went?"

[Rebonack]

[Tent of CHAOS]

Oh.

Well.

Isn't that great. Come to think of it they have Amil's phone as well. And the keys to her apartment. And a number of other important odds and ends.

One of the problems with living an adventury life style.

You lose a lot of personal items.

Amil is still slowly building up mass, her body becoming more and more defined with each passing moment. Chunks of petrified wood with emerald patches of opal wound and bound together by a vast variety of vines and creepers. Before it had just been a body and four limbs. But now a tail and what look like they might be the beginnings of wings are starting to grow into place.

Anywho! Amil glances back and forth bewteen the two with her still incomplete head and makes a coughing sound. "Amil Wightson. And you are...?"

Introduction time!

[Lost_Deep]

Tent of CHAOS

Kate, beginning to feel self-concious, shifts awkwardly. "I don't know where they went. I've never met anything like the- okay, there are a lot of things in the Nexus that can mess with people like that. But each one is different, and I don't know what those things are. Oh, Amil, meet Hadlin. Hadlin, meet Amil."

Now you aren't allowed to eat each other.

Amil, if you ever need help, you know, someone to talk to or something, feel free to-they took my phone." There she goes. "THEY TOOK MY LAPTOP!" Kate panics for all of a few moments before calming back down. Panic only causes trouble. Really, panic kind of caused this whole circus tent, since she panicked and fled instead of dealing with the situation. Or at least fleeing more efficiently.

Don't dwell on that, Kate.

[Halae]

[Tent of CHAOS]

Hadlin will bow towards Amil when introduced, but when Kate panics and subsequently calms down, he says, "Kate,I think I know how to get your things back and get you and Amil back to normal. I may be able to summon them, but I need a calm work space."

The albino summoner, though he's still blushing, will take off his robe; he's wearing pants and a black silk shirt underneath this, so no worries about him being indecent, and he'll attempt to hand the robe to Kate, for the sake of her decency.

[Morcleon]

Spoiler

Show

[Generic Street]

Ignai almost slams headlong into the barrier. She shouts as she hammers her fists against it. "No no no no no..." The elf goes on like that. She crouches and puts her hands over her head. "Please just let me go."

Generic Street

Imesah is barely pushed back at all by Sayuri's blow. It'll take a lot more than that to knock her down. "If you will not relent, then I will bring you down." As she says these words, a shockwave of divine magic explodes from her body. It won't do any actual damage, but it should push Sayuri back a fair distance and buy Imesah time to draw her sword.

[Generic Street]

Sayuri's voice rings out from the sleeping girl's body with a laugh. "Oh, I can't let you go yet. I haven't even begun with you!"

As the divine power strikes her, she flips backward, landing parallel to the ground on her wall of light. The voice of Sayuri seems amused, almost curious, as she replies, "And how? Do you propose to fight fire with fire? It doesn't work, y'know."

With a slight pause as she crouches, Sayuri leaps toward Imesah, who by now would have had time to draw her blade. She charges again, this time through the air, with her fist covered in streamers of light. If Imesah blocks her strike again, they will wrap around whatever blocking implement is used.

[Rebonack]

[Tent of CHAOS!]

Amil wasn't going to eat him!

Not even a little bit!

Anywho, her body is still growing in definition. A rich, brown wood run through with glowing emerald veins of opal and splashed with creepers and crimson blossoms. By now the 'wings' have fully taken form. Powerful woody limbs ending in four thick, thorny vines twined in a helix around each other. Tail segmented between unyielding wood and pliable green growth bearing a thick covering of almost scale-like leaves. In fact, all of her body's joints are nit together with green growth.

She's generally humanoid in build, though longer and lither such that she would be equally comfortable on her hind legs or on all fours. And generically female in shape. Though thankfully not in an explicit fashion. The summoner has enough to be flustered about already.

Her head is still a mess of wood chunks and growing vines with a pair of bright green lights for eyes.

"I really don't care what happens to mine," she huffs. Then seems to think better of it. "Well... it does have my things I guess..."

[Lost_Deep]

Tent of CHAOS!

Kate takes the robe and puts in on eagerly. "Thank you very much... my voice sounds so weird."

She looks up (down) at the circus. "This is not the place for calm. We can find... I don't know, literally any other park? Most of them are nice and quiet if you know how to find the right places. The trick would be getting off of this roof and out of this place."

[Halae]

[Chaos under the Bigtop]

"I was only in the woods for Huginn and Muninn's ritual," Hadlin says, "I could even do the ritual indoors if you have a place for it, but I just got here. I don't know where anything is yet."

He gives Amil an odd look, but nods.

On Kate, the robe will, oddly, change to fit the definitions of her current form. It doesn't accentuate her current features, per se, but it's form fitting and comfortable due to the enchantment within.

[Lord Magtok]

Ice Rink

Spoiler

Show

Ice Rink

"Magtork? By the darkness, that's hilarious!" Tracey laughs. "Okay, now that you're skating forward, you want to try going backwards," she says, and demonstrates.

"Backwards," Needs echoes uncertainly. However, despite his evident misgivings about the frail, sickly husk you unenlightened fools would call his 'body', Needs seems to do alright. In fact, he's falling down a lot less than a beginner ought to, really. One could even say he has a sort of (un)natural gift for this.

"I see chaos and trickster gods on the other side of the city right now. Celestials, too. Also rainbows of ponies. Some sort of convention, maybe a carnival? Nobody invited or told me, probably just assumed I'd come running to them. Names are leaving my winter solstice card list."

Despite the obvious irritation in his words, Needs' tone suggests nothing but absolutely placid apathy towards the entire brouhaha. Human communication is hard when you're this far gone, even with the tortured soul of an English teacher forced to serve as your arcane translation device.

[Rebonack]

[Tent of Chaos!]

Woohoo!

Odd looks!

"The last body that I was riding in before I got shoved in that doll killed me," Amil explains as she stoops forward onto all fours and begins stalking down (up?) the fire escape. She has a build somewhere between humanoid, feline, and reptilian. Rather dragony looking thing seems to be the general theme. And her now completed face is consistent with that. A pair of thorny horns have grown out of her head and her 'hair' seems to consist of long crimson flower petals and delicate green vines. "That didn't endear me much toward it."

Well.

That makes sense. Maybe?

Sort of begs the question what Amil is, doesn't it?

Anyway, she's headed down the fire escape instead of sitting around chatting.

[Zefir]

Scheming in the Red Zone



"I don't, no. Sorry. Do you have any ideas for a safehouse? If we find them, we could send them there," Kailee asks.

Deus Mechanicus Church

Presumably Adir and Sakura show up here, their truck laden with plants of all kinds. If the dryad's there, Adir will jump down to request entry from the guards.

"Hey, um, Mia asked us to come? Something about a church garden?"

[Generic Street]

Ignai almost slams headlong into the barrier. She shouts as she hammers her fists against it. "No no no no no..." The elf goes on like that. She crouches and puts her hands over her head. "Please just let me go."

[Deus Mechanicus Church]

Sakura is indeed here, and she's looking around curiously. She doesn't really know much about Mia, and she's as curious as she looks.

[Deus Mechanicus Church]

The robots need a moment to scan over Adir, the truck and Sakura. They were informed that they come. They make a short scan over the truck looking for any kind of weapon excpect garden tools. Assuming there aren't any they push the gate open. The gate is big enougth to let the truck pass. As they enter they might note a few more of the guard robots walking up and down the ways guarding people or just patrol. At the end of the way stands a high building simular to todays cathedrals. Left and right of that building stand two otherbuldings.

The area around the paths and the church buildings has the size of two football fields and appears brown. No plants seem to grow there right now, the same way you might see after most building site.

A man, standing in front of the cathedral building waves at Adir and Sakura to come over to him.

[Shadowcaller]

Milton Street Bakery

Aha! Kashi! Excellent!

Hekta smiles and turns to Vinny and Elaine, "Just carry him up the stairs and into his room and me and Kashi can take care of the rest. Master Silas should be home very soon." She says.

[Mindfreak]

Sewers
Kirlia wiped her brow. Putting out energy can be tiring sometimes, since it does draw from the power inside you.
But whatever.
Kirlia looks at her companion with a strange look.
"Do you want some help or do you got it under control?"

---

Outside DFI

Krystal walks out of the building, then turns and waits for her new companion to join her.

So, what do you want to do now, Lady?

Krystal and the Lady
The Lady shrugged.
"I dunno...you wanna go check out a park or something? A rest in the shade sounds nice after all that food..."
She ate a lot.

[Lost_Deep]

Chaos within the Bigtop

"I don't know of any indoor place to do it. Lots of places, doing a summoning ritual is grounds for eviction no matter what you're summoning."

Kate walks over to the fire escape... wait a second. When she looks "down" the fire escape, she sees the floor of the tent, but when she looks "up," she sees the freakshow performance. Which way is to the ground?

[happyturtle]

I meant to say Milson Street. Oops

Spoiler

Show

Towards Milton Street

Vinny plods along quietly, trying to be gentle with Elias' leg, but he's incapable of doing so too well because of an innate clumsiness.

Milton Street Bakery

As they approach the bakery, Vinny and Elaine might notice an unfortunately familiar face dozing in front of it, in the form of a twenty foot long bronze dragon, sans pirate hat and fake parrot, snoring out little puffs of black smoke and fire as he waits for his favorite bakery to open.

Looks like he wasn't able to follow them out of the vent after all, so he simply went out the front door and flew here once the lights came back on.

Milton Street Bakery

Aha! Kashi! Excellent!

Hekta smiles and turns to Vinny and Elaine, "Just carry him up the stairs and into his room and me and Kashi can take care of the rest. Master Silas should be home very soon." She says.

"Gah! Dragon!" Elaine yelps, and clings to Vinny's arm, jostling Elias and making him cry out in pain.

---

1

Ice Rink

Spoiler

Show

Ice Rink

"Backwards," Needs echoes uncertainly. However, despite his evident misgivings about the frail, sickly husk you unenlightened fools would call his 'body', Needs seems to do alright. In fact, he's falling down a lot less than a beginner ought to, really. One could even say he has a sort of (un)natural gift for this.

"I see chaos and trickster gods on the other side of the city right now. Celestials, too. Also rainbows of ponies. Some sort of convention, maybe a carnival? Nobody invited or told me, probably just assumed I'd come running to them. Names are leaving my winter solstice card list."

Despite the obvious irritation in his words, Needs' tone suggests nothing but absolutely placid apathy towards the entire brouhaha. Human communication is hard when you're this far gone, even with the tortured soul of an English teacher forced to serve as your arcane translation device.

"You worship the chaos gods?" Tracey asks. "I didn't peg you for the religious type."

[Slii Arhem]

[Tent of Chaos!]

Woohoo!

Odd looks!

"The last body that I was riding in before I got shoved in that doll killed me," Amil explains as she stoops forward onto all fours and begins stalking down (up?) the fire escape. She has a build somewhere between humanoid, feline, and reptilian. Rather dragony looking thing seems to be the general theme. And her now completed face is consistent with that. A pair of thorny horns have grown out of her head and her 'hair' seems to consist of long crimson flower petals and delicate green vines. "That didn't endear me much toward it."

Well.

That makes sense. Maybe?

Sort of begs the question what Amil is, doesn't it?

Anyway, she's headed down the fire escape instead of sitting around chatting.

[Chaos under the Bigtop]

"I was only in the woods for Huginn and Muninn's ritual," Hadlin says, "I could even do the ritual indoors if you have a place for it, but I just got here. I don't know where anything is yet."

He gives Amil an odd look, but nods.

On Kate, the robe will, oddly, change to fit the definitions of her current form. It doesn't accentuate her current features, per se, but it's form fitting and comfortable due to the enchantment within.

Chaos within the Bigtop

"I don't know of any indoor place to do it. Lots of places, doing a summoning ritual is grounds for eviction no matter what you're summoning."

Kate walks over to the fire escape... wait a second. When she looks "down" the fire escape, she sees the floor of the tent, but when she looks "up," she sees the freakshow performance. Which way is to the ground?

Tent of Chaos

Well, since the floor of the tent is just a scaffolding surrounded by the stands, and the stands have netting over them now to keep people from falling down, and the trapeze acts are hanging down towards them, it looks like everything has been flipped upside down and only they didn't notice it because the floating rooftop they're on has its own gravity.

Whoever designed that floating rooftop obviously had safety in mind.

EEYIAAAAAAAAAAAAAASHZGH Goes reality, like an unhappy baby that has somehow learned shame. All the air in a massive sphere around the big top is replaced with a hyper-oxygenated hovering liquid substance, held up by generators that are pumping out a sort of levitating field in a ring around the base of the canopy. The stands remain where they were, but all the animals, trainers, clowns, and acrobats are now hovering in the goo, passing a hideous yellow and blue ball around to warm up for something.

Even the roof and its inhabitants are encompassed in the goop, though it's significantly closer to the bottom edge of the sphere than the performers now are, and all the scaffolding and swinging equipment has vanished. If Kate, Amil, or Hadlin look up through the goo they can see that all the animals and trainers are wearing red uniforms, while all the acrobats and clowns are wearing blue.

[Halae]

[Tent of Chaos]

Hadlin just looks around now, and frowns. if this kept going, he wasn't sure what would happen to him or those around him.

He will offer a hand to both Amil and and Kate, "Give me your hand," he says, the sound of his voice being distorted by the goop, "I may be able to get us out of here quickly."

[Rebonack]

[Tent of CHAOS]

Liquid you can breath?

Well. That's certainly out of left field. Ostensibly the fluid replaces all the air inside of one's lungs to prevent people from freaking out and thinking that they're going to drown. Amil still thrashes around a bit when the transition takes place until she realizes that she isn't dying.

Not dying is always a plus.

Anywho!

Amil's form continues to warp and grow. By this time little if any remains of the human shape have been erased. She's very clearly dragonish by now and the size of a large horse. Long leaves have grown from her wings pattered after the feathers of an eagle, leaves in a melody of greens from yellowish to bluish with the occasional crimson blossom among them.

A creature forged of luminous emerald opal, rich brown wood, fragrant red flowers, and twisting verdant vines. There are, of course, thorns. But what would a rose be without thorns?

She gives a slow blink and mutters "Naxfyrjot..." under her breath before giving her head a strong shake. And then opens her wings wide. "Doesn't matter which way is up now. Just swim toward the nearest wall and we'll cut through."

Amil winces a bit at how loud and strangely sounding her voice is. She didn't mean to yell! And then comes some more yelling in her ear! Or she could just hope that this guy can get them out of here. She reaches out gingerly with her 'hand' to take Hadlin's.