[Nexus] Inside 53

[Beans]

Erin looked around the apartment, considering it. It wasn't terrible, maybe it could even be nice with some fixing up. The windows didn't let in any natural light, but she already had a plan to fix that. But she was more worried about basic necessities, such as food and toiletries. She would need to get some food before nightfall, as she had barely eaten all day. But then, something occurred to her.

"Um, t-there's only one bedroom. Does it ... only have one bed?"

"I can take the couch, don't worry about it---I don't need to sleep every night either." N'lyzsa pipes up. "Execuloths like me prefer smallish spaces for our sleeping anyway."

[The Bushranger]

[Below the TV Tower]

Mikani looks a little slow in getting out of the way, and Hikari successfully tackles her, the red-headed Magical Girl gasping in surprise as they go rolling across the ground!

===

[Giant Robots 'n Stuff]

"Dunno." Red shrugs in answer to Alysha. "Hurry up and wait. There's a reason I prefer to work alone. More fun." And he grins impishly.

Harald's departurer merits a raised eyebrow, before he looks back to Teddy. "Well, as long as you don't freak out and start summoning antitech pixies again, you can hang around."

===

[Carousel Court - Peaceful Meadow]

Lydia, finally, pushes herself to her feet with a groan.
"...what happened?"
Very articulate of you, Lydia.

[Hawkflight]

"I can take the couch, don't worry about it---I don't need to sleep every night either." N'lyzsa pipes up. "Execuloths like me prefer smallish spaces for our sleeping anyway."

"A-Are you sure?" Erin asked. "I mean, I'm pretty small, I can probably fit better...."

This was, in fact, a blatant lie normally. Her bed was usually filled with stuffed animals, and she was a bit of a tosser, but N'lyzsa didn't need to know that.

[Lost_Deep]

Lots of Hope Hospital

Cedric nodded. "I should be able to soon. I at least need to finish off this first," he glanced down at the food he had been eating between sentences, "but I feel much better than I did earlier." He had to admit to wondering what kinds of things they were going to do here. Also, he glanced around to see where his stuff was, make sure it was nearby. If not he was going to have to find it quickly.

His stuff is right there. That's good.

"Good, for I bit there I was worried that you were going to up and die on me. Ooze your brain out through your ears or something. Unpleasant, but I'm told that it's not really painful." Why do you know that, Hae? "Anyway, couldn't just leave you alone to go into the nexus by yourself. There's a speech and everything. The good news is, your line of work is in high demand! The bad news is, your line of work is in high demand."

[Lycan 01]

[Carousel Court - Peaceful Meadow]

Dawn continues to sleep!

The bunny continues to look like he's close to going postal.

Meanwhile, Geneva picks up the box! It's... covered in some sort of wrapping paper? There's a note attached.

"Please deliver this to the address on the other side of the card.

A deal is a deal."

The address on the other side?

57B, Dunwich Avenue.
Arkham Street.

[Rebonack]

[Carousel Court - Peaceful Meadow]

Huh.

Apparently the really painful dream was a really painful reality.

Geneva idly wonders what is in the box, but she stomps down that curiosity. Someone has intrusted her to deliver a package and peeking at it would be a serious breach of trust.

The hippogriff pokes at Dawn a few times to wake her up before addressing both of her friends at once.

"So. I guess we need to make a package delivery as part of the payment for what the weird zebra did."

Small price to pay, really.

[Theater]

And thus Sebastian is graced with a ticket in exchange for two small silver coins.

Hazzah!

[The Mispelled Cemetary]

Two more skeletons go down in heaps of dust, leaving only three left!

But the final three don't attack, oh no.

They start dancing.

As in the Skeleton Dance sort of dancing.

Rebo has no idea why this is happening.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Robo Shenanigans

Alysha gives Red a smile. She likes him. He's funny.

Alysha watches Harald leave with raised eyebrows. I hope he feels happier soon. He seems a little upset.

[Chaotic Bob]

Spoiler

Show

[Carousel Court - Village Square]

The smiling filly's smiling doesn't waver.

No, she just trots along with a little spring to her step.

After a hundred feet or so she gets a thoughtful look and turns her innocent gaze up at her mysterious benefactor.

"Umm... miss? What's your name?"

That!

Right there?

Is a very reasonable question to ask.

[Carousel Court - Village Square]

It is indeed a rather reasonable question.
From a normal individual.

"Hmmm, I suppose you can call me Tinny for now."
Yay nicknames?

But she keeps smiling through it, so it's just a silly thing it seems.

"The place we want is just down the street there. The one with the white canopy."
A gesture towards KASGEN's is supplied!
"The owners are a little weird, but they're nice."

[Shadowcaller]

Abandoned Factory

"Home plane? Sheesh, I'm not even sure if she has one. She likes to make planes just for kicks and giggles. Can't make life, though. That's why she has to steal souls. As for accomplices... well, she's not real fond of people that are of a similar power to her. Well, not real fond of people in general, but really powerful things? She'd much prefer pretending that they didn't exist." She crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes. "She's got an ego the size of a universe. Probably literally, too."

Abandoned Factory

"She can't be all that powerful. The way she uses her minions suggests she have limits. I don't suppose you can go into more details what she can and can't do? Finding her will be a problem, but we have to know how we could fight her as well once we get to that." Cessie says, sounding rather annoyed. She was quite sick on these beings that constantly decided to butt in and play god all the time, first the oni, then Libra and now this.

[Lost_Deep]

Abandoned Factory

"She does have trouble influencing planes she doesn't make, which is why she uses agents. But beyond that, she's really predictable. Well, okay, kind of. Most things she thinks of as 'not worth attention,' which she won't pay attention to them. That's probably how she thinks of you two. The trick is, this means that you can run around in her affairs all you want, and she won't care. The trick is, once she does notice you, she starts tying to stall you, like that thing she put me in." She looks over at the ring. "Stupid thing. The other trick about her not giving two whits about you is that for some reason she can only be hurt by people she thinks can hurt her. Some kind of subconscious god powers or something, I don't know. So... yeah. Either she doesn't care about you and will underestimate you, or she find you annoying and will try to keep you out of her stuff, or she thinks of you as a threat and will try to end you. any way, she's really predictable... well, her plans aren't. she keeps changing her MO."

"...kind of? She tries to patch holes she sees in her plan, but she can't think like others (she's kind of like a six-year-old that way) and so there are always big holes in her plan. And she has a thing for overly fancy things. Like, you know the crazy people that believe there is no overkill? She's like that for ostentatious art."

[Morty]

[Abandoned Factory]

"She must have been churned out of the Predictable Villain Factory," Wenomir says dryly. "They make ones like her in bulk. I'm sure she won't expect me to crack her skull in half and I expect her expression will be priceless when I do. We just need to reach her first."

[Tsuvara]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"High in demand, huh?" Cedric sighs a little. "Of course it would be... Who knows what all's around here..." The thing was, though, that he didn't necessarily want to stay. "I don't suppose there's a sure-fire way home, is there?" He tried to be optimistic in times like this... A lot of good that ever did him.

[Lost_Deep]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Not one that I'm aware of for you," Hae says with a frown. "I've heard there are ways for some, but apparently not a lot. It's possible that the barriers between realities were weakened where we were placed, but I wouldn't bet that you could use that, or that it would be easy to make useful."

[Tsuvara]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Oh... Okay." So... it was possible, but nothing was for certain. There could be a few he couldn't use.

He rubbed his face with his hands a bit, trying to let that sink in. He was stuck pretty bad. Stuck here in the Nexus with who knows what else. At least there'd be work for him... Now he wished he'd gotten a lot better at the whole monster-hunting thing though. Maybe then he'd know more of what to do now.

Then again, anyone else in his position would be pretty overwhelmed too. He had his gear, that was good! ...Just keep thinking that, Cedric. Swords are good things. And he had Hae! Thankfully Hae wasn't just going to throw him into all this, unlike some other people. Still, he wondered for how long, she probably had things to be doing too, she couldn't babysit him all the time. He'd have to figure it out for himself sooner or later.

About then his head started to hurt, and he realized that all this thinking could probably wait until he was a bit more awake and not sitting in a hospital bed. "So what do we do now?"

[Lost_Deep]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"I haven't the foggiest idea," Hae admits simply, with a shrug. "I really don't. I can safely ignore some of the things necessary for humans, so I don't really know how to go about setting up a life."

[Tsuvara]

Lots of Hope Hospital

Okay...

"Well, we need shelter- a place to live, food- or a place to acquire it, and you know, water and warmth and other stuff that keeps living beings alive. And probably also money at this point, because in most realms that kind of lends itself to getting the other things." He thought. "So.... I need to figure out where I can stay temporarily until I get enough money to stay somewhere I can actually live. I don't really have much money as it is, I wasn't expecting to be doing... anything like this..... soon. Oh, and how to get money, I need to figure out that too. The Nexus has... some form or other of currency, right?" Cedric was really starting to get ahead of himself, but usually planning far ahead was a good thing in his field.

[Lost_Deep]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Um, sort of. The Nexus accepts most any kind of currency, and the exchange rates are more or less properly done, so any money can be used. And I'm willing to be that if you know what you're doing and have time to figure out the relevant part of the local economy, you can make a good amount of money from hunting. Wizards looking for obscure spell components, crafters looking for raw materials, video game-style shops where they will buy literally anything and give you money for it." Anything not necessary to the plot, that is, but yes.

[Shadowcaller]

Abandoned Factory

"She does have trouble influencing planes she doesn't make, which is why she uses agents. But beyond that, she's really predictable. Well, okay, kind of. Most things she thinks of as 'not worth attention,' which she won't pay attention to them. That's probably how she thinks of you two. The trick is, this means that you can run around in her affairs all you want, and she won't care. The trick is, once she does notice you, she starts tying to stall you, like that thing she put me in." She looks over at the ring. "Stupid thing. The other trick about her not giving two whits about you is that for some reason she can only be hurt by people she thinks can hurt her. Some kind of subconscious god powers or something, I don't know. So... yeah. Either she doesn't care about you and will underestimate you, or she find you annoying and will try to keep you out of her stuff, or she thinks of you as a threat and will try to end you. any way, she's really predictable... well, her plans aren't. she keeps changing her MO."

"...kind of? She tries to patch holes she sees in her plan, but she can't think like others (she's kind of like a six-year-old that way) and so there are always big holes in her plan. And she has a thing for overly fancy things. Like, you know the crazy people that believe there is no overkill? She's like that for ostentatious art."

[Abandoned Factory]

"She must have been churned out of the Predictable Villain Factory," Wenomir says dryly. "They make ones like her in bulk. I'm sure she won't expect me to crack her skull in half and I expect her expression will be priceless when I do. We just need to reach her first."

Abandoned Factory

"Wenomir, let me remind you that our priority is saving Harnel, not killing this woman and that's what we should be focusing on doing." Cessie says befefore turning back to the giant woman. "In any case, she doesn't like killing people? Considering what she did to you I'm surprised she went through such efforts to just temporarily dispose of you. Normally these kind of people don't mind walking over corpses, but from how you explain it she only kill people she consider really dangerous to her, is that right?"

[Lost_Deep]

Abandoned Factory

The girl (who shrunk down to normal size a bit back) shrugs. "Yeah, I don't claim to get into her head. But she doesn't mind collateral damage deaths. She's like an enigma wrapped in some contradictions and an insufferably haughty attitude."

[Tsuvara]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Alright." Well, at least that was somewhat reassuring. "So it sounds like I need to go find work or something." This is the point where he puts the empty food tray aside and gets up, and it turns out that he is feeling much better and can walk around just fine.

Also, if the doctor is still there Cedric will definitely thank her for the care... He makes it a habit to be polite like that.

He gets his gear on again, pulling his swords onto his back again where they belong. This seems to comfort him a little, as he's the smallest bit desperate for comfort.... But he'll probably get over it in a little while. Probably.

[ThirdEmperor]

Goblin Market

"Oh?" The ogre quirks an eyebrow like a hairy catterpillar, trying to look nonchallant. "So.. Whatcha looking for? If you like flowers, I know a guy. Pretty good prices. Not like this rubbish." "Hey, you!" One of the pixies leans over the edge. "Don't listen to him. I know a guy with even better prices!"


Meanwhile, the shopkeep shrugs it's wings. "Depends on who you are, what you bring to trade." It looks Rein over with beady little eyes black as inkblots, calculating, before speaking again. "Give you two for the hat."


Four-Oh-Four Snail Way

"We got a spare matress, some sheets if you want 'em." Riley offers, leaning against the doorway. "Pretty well insulated in here and we've got a big heater on the third floor, keeps things toasty in the winter. The water runs hot and cold now we got the boiler running right, and the electricity comes cheap from EI. Not a bad set up at all, 'cept the TV has a little static."

"So, yeah, this is the place. Company's friendly, rent's cheap. You guys like?

[Beans]

[404 Snail Way]
N'lyzsa nods, smiling. I'm quite happy with this apartment!
She glances down at Erin, tail swishing a little. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]And you, dear?[/COLOR]

[Lost_Deep]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Since you're an adventurey type, I would recommend trying one of the taverns. It's a tired trope, but this places uses tropes as reality fuel so it's just stupid enough to work." Uh... sure. Because that makes sense.

[Morty]

[Abandoned Factory]

"I rather doubt we'll manage to set Harnel free without at least fighting her," Wenomir says. "At any rate, do you know of any way to track her back to wherever she is?" He then asks the woman.

[Hawkflight]

[404 Snail Way]
N'lyzsa nods, smiling. I'm quite happy with this apartment!
She glances down at Erin, tail swishing a little. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]And you, dear?[/COLOR]

Erin paused to think for a moment. She could say no. Run away, find a nice high-rise apartment overlooking the Nexus. And ... and then what? Live on her own, without any help? Sure, she could maybe (maybe) manage to afford it if she got lucky looking for work. Or she could be caught and put into an orphanage, despite protests of her true age.

And then there was this N'lyzsa girl. She ... was nice. She'd known her for all of an hour, and the hoofed girl was already offering to help her until she got back on her feet. And despite her almost mothering attitude, Erin felt like maybe they could be friends. Making up her mind, she nodded to Riley.

"Y-Yeah," she said. "It's ... not perfect, but I can ... we can fix it up."

[Shadowcaller]

[Abandoned Factory]

"It's finding her that's the problem, yeah. How does she actually interact with the outside world? She must have some way of gathering information if she's out for her art. Do you know if we possibly could follow one of those chains back to her base possibly?" Cessie says.

[Tsuvara]

Lots of Hope Hospital

"Well, I've never really been a tavern type but I suppose I can try it..." Truth be told there was good money to be made at taverns, in the adventure-hunting style. "Do you know of any?" And until further notice, he had no knowledge of the surrounding area, or what he did was very limited.

[Gullara]

Goblin Market

"Oh?" The ogre quirks an eyebrow like a hairy catterpillar, trying to look nonchallant. "So.. Whatcha looking for? If you like flowers, I know a guy. Pretty good prices. Not like this rubbish." "Hey, you!" One of the pixies leans over the edge. "Don't listen to him. I know a guy with even better prices!"


Meanwhile, the shopkeep shrugs it's wings. "Depends on who you are, what you bring to trade." It looks Rein over with beady little eyes black as inkblots, calculating, before speaking again. "Give you two for the hat."

[Goblin Market]

Finally it seems that Arel is noticing the level of attention they're getting. Suddenly a lot of people are paying attention to them for some reason! "Oh, um..." She glances at Rein. Arel has no idea how to respond to all these people vying for their business. .-.

And on a semi related note, I made a new Arel avi!

[5a Violista]

Down the street from a church, and a graveyard

The pirate Alvilda Blood de _______ Victory returns from the forgotten land of my memories, and begins to walk down the street with her pet Evil Doll (a round ball, half white and half red; likely a robot from the future of some kind) attached to her belt, doing...nothing, really.

Just walking, and enjoying the heat of the day.

[Gullara]

[Down the street from a church, and a graveyard]

As Alvilda walks along, she's spotted by Becca! Becca is a young Pokemon trainer. She's riding along on top of a Crustle and has a Shroomish on her lap. "Hey! Hey you!" She directs the Crustle to carry her toward the woman. "Are you a Pokemon trainer?" Becca asks, looking at the ball on the woman's belt. She seems very eager for some reason.