[Nexus] Inside 54

[Gnrlshrimp]

(Okay, seriously, GrandDM, enough is enough. Could you please have a little respect for other players and let everyone in the scene be involved? Posting order exists, you know. Think of it like rounds of combat, if you want. Everyone gets an action every round. Right now your robot is acting about three times as often as anyone else, which is blatantly unfair.)

[An Alley]

"Hmm...this is inconvenient." Felix is quite the skilled mage. He's well aware of what's going on, namely that everyone else has taken a little trip to the shadow plane, but he's incapable of following them.

Hopefully his allies in this battle will come back to this plane soon enough, so he can continue assisting them.

The ominous rumbling from before continues to grow in volume, and moments later a large humanoid creature with a body seemingly formed entirely from rubies bursts from the ground. Felix had been hoping to catch the robot by surprise when it landed, but...no such luck. In the meantime he digs through his bag of bones, preparing for when everyone else returns from the shadows.

[happyturtle]

Outside the Rubble Zone

"Have the what?" Hekta asks in confusion. She had no idea what that word meant. "I dunno really. I just saw it in a trashcan and jumped it. If you don't want it I can eat it alone."

"Hydrophoby. It's a disease that raccoons and bats and stuff can get, and if you eat them, you might get it too. Was it foaming in the mouth?" Elias asks. He's talking about rabies, which was sometimes known as hydrophobia because rabies victims avoid water.

[Slii Arhem]

[Inside Docks]

Becca sighs and plops down on the ground. She pulls her legs up against her chest and settles her chin on her knees. Phanish nuzzles against her leg and sits down next to her. She scritches behind his ears as they wait.

Inside Docks

Ken almost immediately surfaces with one ball, while Polly shows off by coming up a short while later with three more. One of them is held firmly between her lips, with the button sticking out. Polly onl surfaces by the time Ken has swam back to shore, and he's caught his breath enough as he sets the ball down to say something, "I saw one more down there, but I thought I only saw four go flying. How many did you have?" He turns back to Polly, mentally counting how many she fished up.

[Rebonack]

[Inside Docks]

Huh...

One of those balls totally isn't Becca's.

It's a scuffed up, dented old ultra ball. Looks like it has been through hell and back. Considering the sort of crazy stuff that happens in the Nexus maybe it has been through hell and back.

Who knows what it might contain!

A rare pokemon?

Or maybe a neat item!

Why would someone shove an item inside a pokeball, anyway?

[Shadowcaller]

"Hydrophoby. It's a disease that raccoons and bats and stuff can get, and if you eat them, you might get it too. Was it foaming in the mouth?" Elias asks. He's talking about rabies, which was sometimes known as hydrophobia because rabies victims avoid water.

Outside the Rubble Zone

"Um, I don't think so? I think I'd noticed that." Hekta replies hesitantly, now not sure she want to eat it either. She had eaten parts of a human body once so perhaps she will be resistant, it doesn't look like she'd be willing to take that chance now though.

"Whatever, we could just eat the rats I guess." Though she could really have with something more than a few rats. She didn't eat as little as Elias.

[Darkcomet]

[Goin' Somewhere]

"Don't flatter yourself, ambassador. I pay attention to everyone. Well, everyone who matters, and given who you represent..."

Well, it'll depend on where they go and such. He might, but I'd need to know more. Definitely not going to stop talking, though.

"You're not really my type, anyways. Sorry."

Magtok says all of that with a perfectly straight face, not allowing himself to let N'alae in on the joke for even a moment. Better to let her think he's being entirely serious and heartfelt about gently letting her down, that mistaking her words for sign of interest wasn't a deliberate gag, but an accidental misunderstanding.

N'alae just sighs. "I also know that if you were paying attention, you would most likely see this sort of thing as an opportunity to get a rise out of me. I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed."

Mostly, they'll be going to a little precinct office, not even the Spire, to do a bunch of paperwork. There will be some guards there, plus standard teleblocks, but otherwise nothing especially notable.

She seems to be relying on the part where pulling some stunt is going to make the charges they can hit him with worse, here.

[Slii Arhem]

Temple Heist

As her heist partner is afflicted with deadtime, Merideth decides to leave her trap instead of waiting to set it off manually. It's time to try to finish this heist herself.

Abandoning the wall, which remains standing even without her influence and could stand up to a few blows at any rate, she assume the form of wind and swiftly slips past the deadtimed cat burglar into the hallways. It's time to stop fooling around.

The first thing she'll try as she enters the building is slipping her hand into one of the walls, to see if she can merge with and manipulate the building's materials or if it's warded against it. If it's the former then this would be a lot easier, but she's not particularly picky.

[Terumitsu]

Temple Heist

There were no wards that strictly prevented it but there was some magic in place to keep the temple walls and supports sturdy and unyeilding so it may be rather harder than normal to move through the medium. Not impossible by any means but likely a bit annoying to the elemental.

In any case, this would allow her to move more or less unbothered through the temple although it would be a problem of just where to go, now. There was an upwards direction that seemed to be mostly smaller rooms, laterally where there were large rooms with a sizable circular hole in the center of the temple, and lower down where the rooms became more like a museum of sorts. At least, that is what one would assume could be detected by just a bit of 'looking around' with Merideth's particular brand of 'sight.'

If not, well, then she could just pick a random place to start exploring! Exploration was always fun.

[Slii Arhem]

Temple Heist

Like moving through molasses then, or so she's heard. She'll stick to the hallways simply because moving as air is always faster than going through rock, especially enchanted rock, but she lets out small vibrations as she goes to guide her way. Likely they'll be mistaken for wind coming from the now open back door.

She'll head towards the museum-like rooms firstly. If she knows anything about storing artifacts, it's that they'll be on display or packed away, and either one would be near a museum.

[Gullara]

Inside Docks

Ken almost immediately surfaces with one ball, while Polly shows off by coming up a short while later with three more. One of them is held firmly between her lips, with the button sticking out. Polly onl surfaces by the time Ken has swam back to shore, and he's caught his breath enough as he sets the ball down to say something, "I saw one more down there, but I thought I only saw four go flying. How many did you have?" He turns back to Polly, mentally counting how many she fished up.

[Inside Docks]

Huh...

One of those balls totally isn't Becca's.

It's a scuffed up, dented old ultra ball. Looks like it has been through hell and back. Considering the sort of crazy stuff that happens in the Nexus maybe it has been through hell and back.

Who knows what it might contain!

A rare pokemon?

Or maybe a neat item!

Why would someone shove an item inside a pokeball, anyway?

[Inside Docks]

Becca hurries over to Ken and Polly, Phanish hot on her heels. "There were four. Thank you so much, Ken." Becca tries to throw her arms around him to give him a big hug.

Time to make sure her pokemon are alright, though. She examines the gathered balls, and frowns when she sees the ultraball. "This one isn't mine. Phanish's is missing." That's not nearly so panic worthy, though. "I wonder what's inside." And without really considering the consequences, Becca presses the button on the ultraball.

[Rebonack]

[Inside Docks]

And here it is.

The moment of truth.

Becca pushes the button on the ultraball and the dock is consumed in a brilliant flash of white light!

Slowly, oh so slowly, the light fades.

When our heroes can see again they'll be met with what is no doubt a surprising sight!

A little... lavender blob? With silly snail-like tentacles on his head and big green cheeks! The critter looks adorable! And may or may not be oozing all over Becca's hands.

It makes a shrill, warbling noise at her.

[Terumitsu]

[Temple Heist]

The temple had some other modern amenities which meant that it was quite likely Merideth could use the ventilation for quick transportation. Easier than looking around for the stairs at least. It seems like the rooms down here were indeed for display although it was likely that itwould appear as if it were a lot of boxes on pedistals. The boxes were glass and looked to be easily enhough removed if care was taken but there didn't appear to be anything inside them, for some reason... At least to Merideth's style of 'vision.'

The same went for the display cases and stands as all had that glass box around them but apparently nothing inside.

What might be extra odd was that the rooms were clearly set up to be viewed by visitors so the curious thing would be... Just where was everything?

[Slii Arhem]

[Inside Docks]

Becca hurries over to Ken and Polly, Phanish hot on her heels. "There were four. Thank you so much, Ken." Becca tries to throw her arms around him to give him a big hug.

Time to make sure her pokemon are alright, though. She examines the gathered balls, and frowns when she sees the ultraball. "This one isn't mine. Phanish's is missing." That's not nearly so panic worthy, though. "I wonder what's inside." And without really considering the consequences, Becca presses the button on the ultraball.

[Inside Docks]

And here it is.

The moment of truth.

Becca pushes the button on the ultraball and the dock is consumed in a brilliant flash of white light!

Slowly, oh so slowly, the light fades.

When our heroes can see again they'll be met with what is no doubt a surprising sight!

A little... lavender blob? With silly snail-like tentacles on his head and big green cheeks! The critter looks adorable! And may or may not be oozing all over Becca's hands.

It makes a shrill, warbling noise at her.

Inside Docks

The hug catches Ken off guard, especially because he's soaking ringing wet and Becca doesn't seem to mind. He raises his hands to his face, rubbing salt water from his eyes and totally not hiding a bashful blush.

When Becca steps back and releases what's in the ultraball, Ken blinks at the... "It kind of looks like a grimer and a tentacool got together with a ditto, doesn't it?" Well that's certainly a pokemon, and an abandoned one by the looks of it. And Becca opened its ball.

"I'll go get Phanish's ball. Be right back." He goes back into the water for a quick dip. Maybe the cool liquid will calm his treacherous facial capillaries!

He'll resurface with the ball next posting round, since he remembers where it was.

[Temple Heist]

The temple had some other modern amenities which meant that it was quite likely Merideth could use the ventilation for quick transportation. Easier than looking around for the stairs at least. It seems like the rooms down here were indeed for display although it was likely that itwould appear as if it were a lot of boxes on pedistals. The boxes were glass and looked to be easily enhough removed if care was taken but there didn't appear to be anything inside them, for some reason... At least to Merideth's style of 'vision.'

The same went for the display cases and stands as all had that glass box around them but apparently nothing inside.

What might be extra odd was that the rooms were clearly set up to be viewed by visitors so the curious thing would be... Just where was everything?

Temple Heist

Well the obvious, and therefore stupid, thing to do would be to tamper with the glass cases, possibly even breaking them. Merideth leaves that option aside until she runs out of other ones. First though, she'll consider what the cases being empty, especially to her vibro-sight, means.

It's not a simple invisibility spell activated by an alarm. It could easily be an enchantment based on keeping the objects inside preserved by keeping them completely still and undisturbed. Which would mean in order to verify that, she'd need to get past the case.

Sliding through the air to one of the stands, Merideth tries to slip her arm into the stand, rather than the glass case on it, and then to manipulate the stand to form an arm and hand up through the top of it, hoping to bypass the case entirely and feel around inside it for anything that might be hidden inside.

[Gullara]

[Inside Docks]

"Okay. Thanks, Ken." Becca gives him a smile, but her attention is drawn back to the weird pokemon. She moves toward it and crouches down just in front of it. "You're kinda funny looking, aren't you?" She says, though in an endearing tone. She takes her Pokedex from her bag and flips it open. Nope, nothing on whatever this pokemon is. Weird.

Of course, the goomy doesn't reply. She has no idea what Becca said! But she is excited to see someone finally! So first thing she does is slide on over to Becca and start crawling up her leg. "Oh, ick! You're so slimey!" Becca protests.

[Terumitsu]

[Temple Heist]

It wouldn't feel like there was anything to touch on the inside for the first few centimeters of reaching until, quite suddenly, there was very much something inside there that would feel very much like a wooden mask encased in gold foil. Maybe there simply was nothing inside the case to vibrate which was causing the problem? Would make sense from a preservation standpoint at least. Plus suspending it in air would keep any shocks from potentially knocking it off some rest where it might then fall and become damage as well. That and it was easier to see all sides of the thing as it felt like there may be a small bit of torque to whatever force was keeping it aloft. Although that quickly stopped once it was touched.

In any case, this didn't seem to be the mask that was being looked after although it certainly might feel like a semi-ornate thing with the crude serifs to the design. It wasn't apparently magical either so that might be a plus. Or not depending on what was considered valuable by the elemental.

[McBish]

Ship-Thing

"Welllll, the planet is Scintila, it's in the Calixis secotr, and it's in orbit of," and she tells him the star it's orbiting here, since I couldn't find it in my Dark Heresy rulebook . "I don't have any star charts but if you show me one I can probably point it out to you? I think?" Star charts aren't really Alley's thing, but she's spent more time on ships than she has off, so she's probably learned at least enough through osmosis to point at one of the major planets in the Calixis sector.

"Well I don't have any on me... I think mine are buried under some other papers back at my place. Though it might be harder then you think to point out the right spot, honestly I would be surprised if I had a chart with stars you would recgonize. Have you seen the night sky here?" Nort says grinning like a little a kid. Charting stars in the Nexus is a lot like trying to make a road map of Inside, confusing and futile.

[happyturtle]

Outside the Rubble Zone

"I guess just cook it really well. That should keep it from making you sick," Elias says. He helps gut the vermin and puts the meat on the fire, ready to pull it out with a stick when he thinks it's cooked.

[Lord Magtok]

[Goin' Somewhere]

N'alae just sighs. "I also know that if you were paying attention, you would most likely see this sort of thing as an opportunity to get a rise out of me. I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed."

Mostly, they'll be going to a little precinct office, not even the Spire, to do a bunch of paperwork. There will be some guards there, plus standard teleblocks, but otherwise nothing especially notable.

She seems to be relying on the part where pulling some stunt is going to make the charges they can hit him with worse, here.

Magtok shrugs. "So you keep vaguely alluding to consequences if I cause trouble. If you don't mind my asking, exactly what do the Altarans have over my head, or believe that they do? So I have something to weigh against the bills as a possible consequence of this afternoon?"

[Darkcomet]

[Goin' Somewhere]

"Resisting and refusing to pay would be seen as a worse crime than what you have already done, and continuing this escalation would eventually give Commander Altaran reason to ban you from the city by force. Unless Remnant wants to give you authorization to commit crimes like that freely, they will not intervene on your behalf," N'alae explains. "And it would all be perfectly legitimate in the eyes of the law. You could try to push your luck with Remnant," she admits, "But I'm guessing Commander Vasquez has limits too."

[Lord Magtok]

Arriving Somewhere

"So it's not a bluff then," Magtok says with a sigh. "Oh well, not like I really expected you to bluff here, or use the wrong threat."

He goes along with things.

"You know things are just going to get worse from here on out, right? I mean, the status quo is good for now, but eventually someone is going to think they've built up enough to fight their way through whatever consequences would come from taking serious action. Your side is notoriously reactive, too."

[Hattish Thing]

Garn's face is a lovely shade of purple, and as his windpipe is rather shut, he doesn't reply.
Instead, he kicks Trucido again! Remember, Kubo is about 5'5"...

Well, that kick continues to bother Trucido, his strong legs pumping as once more, a combat boot connects with Trucido's already broken fingers. Calamity is in even greater pain as his fingers bend right back at the sith. But, Trucido cannot stop, for he knows if he stopped, he'd accept loss. Which the Sith could not accept. Instead, he weakly raises his other hand, and channels one of his more rare powers. He begins to blast Garn with a hand of force lightning, continuing to choke him with the other, as Trucido begins to groan and grit his teeth from the pain, and from the amount of concentration required to do this.

[Darkcomet]

[Arriving At Some Precinct Office Somewhere]

That gets an odd smirk out of N'alae. That's probably not the reaction Magtok had in mind. "Why do you think he doesn't like you? You've run about everywhere with relatively miniscule consequences to your actions, however illegal or morally questionable they were, for quite some time. From his point of view, you always act like you think you can do whatever you want, consequences be damned. You put up a good facade of being powerful enough to pull it off, but he's seen the chinks in the armor before, when you made that deal with him years ago. He knows you are not the all-powerful mad cybernetic mastermind you like everyone to think you are, so he expects to be able to treat you like any other criminal, rather than some sort of foreign power with diplomatic immunity," she explains. "Nobody who fancies him-or-herself a keeper of order is ever going to be able to stand you if they do not buy into that facade."

"Now, you can think about that while you are doing your paperwork."

[Lord Magtok]

At Some Precinct Office Somewhere

"If he likes his order so much, he should know to pick his battles," Magtok retorts, holding the door open for N'alae after stepping inside.

"As it stands, the former emperor's just made a target of himself. So long as I stay behind the line in the sand, feeling out for weaknesses and holes in the wall, he can't really do anything about me, can he? Not unless I cross that line, or unless I'm similarly vulnerable once more. He can't strike again unless he's sure he can finish the job, or else his order will be in pieces. Meanwhile, I'm free to build, scheme, and-hey, are you familiar with the term dysarthria? There's a magical spell that can cause it, apparently. Something to research in your spare time, maybe."

Magtok smiles back, more likely just trying to unnerve and unsettle the space elf than actually making a point or offering any serious threats. I'm not even sure if Michalson knows such a spell, even if it sounds like someone put a permanent version of it on the ugly bastard sometimes.

[Morcleon]

[Below the TV Tower]

"No, but now that I know where you are...stay close to me!" Mikani shouts, concentrating more. "You get the second one!"

...and the tendrils of kudzu that had latched onto the one golem suddenly sprout two-inch thorns, hard as adamanite, as it becomes Dire Kudzu, attempting to slash into the captured skeleton!

[Below the TV Tower]

"Ah, alright! I got it!" With a sharp nod, Hikari turns to face the oncoming skeleton and raises her gun. She hesitates for a split second, then fires out a pulsating blast, knocking it back down, but having little other effect.

The slashing vines score the bones deeply, causing a few of them to break under stress. Roaring in anger, the undead warrior struggles to snap the binding tendrils.

[UncleWolf]

Shayan's Meeting Point

It'll be several hours after their appointed meeting time that Cin shows up, and he really doesn't look too good.

He limps into the area, literally dragging a broken foot behind him in the dust and cradling a ruined arm to his right side. Speaking that it's his left arm that's crushed, it tells just how badly he's been pulverized by the falling building. His clothes are in tatters and completely drenched in blood as well. His lower jaw is obviously dislocated as well, wrenched to the side so he's unable to move his mouth, and his nose is in the middle of trying to repair itself.

Issue is that because his regenerative abilities require a large amount of calories, it's literally eating him away slowly even as it attempts to repair his body. At the moment he couldn't be more than 120lbs from his previous 180, and he appears older as well with graying hair.

Even so, he didn't do too badly for having an apartment building dropped on him. But if he doesn't get some sort of calorie consumption soon, it's obvious he's going to waste away to nothingness.

[Reinholdt]

Bast's Animal Shelter

Fez Hat Rein returns. He looks tired because he is. He did pick up a second job after all. And was out practically all night. But he's back now.

[Otto's Manse]

Samona chuckles lightly and steps aside for him to come inside. "That's fair. Please, come inside." Once he does so, she leads the way inside. They don't go far.

He gets a view of the foyer with it's large staircase upstairs, arch to head into a living area, and thee other doors out, until she leads the way through one of those doors. There is one other guard aside from blue skin int his room, a smaller, nervous looking man. Otherwise, there doesn't appear to be any other security here.

They come into a small sitting room with a few comfortable chairs. They leave a guard standing outside the door. "So, what did you want to discuss?" She asks, taking a seat.

Otto's Manse

Now that I'be properly thought up where this is going, I can continue.

"Perhaps I should start by introducing myself. I'm Reinholdt, Treasure Hunter Extraordinaire." Reinholdt gives his flourish. Introductions like this he might have skipped, but this time his name is needed to back up the validity of the product he's 'offering'.

7

[Darkcomet]

[Some Precinct Office Somewhere]

N'alae only shrugs as she enters, keeping the disruptor pointed at Magtok the entire time. "If making ourselves targets is what remotely enforcing laws is called nowadays, then yes, we most certainly are, but no more than usual. As for what we can do to you, that is merely a matter of when Vasquez's patience will run out, and if you can keep your operations running in the meantime. We know you have limits, and with the damages you've suffered and the bad PR from your activities with AMEN, well...I doubt this is a good time. It is not as much as he would like, but I've played the long game before, moreso than most know," she cryptically claims, "But we've run out of time for conversation. Guards," she addresses a couple generic guys with blasters, "Take him in for the paperwork on the sabotage charge, as planned. Conspiracy to kidnap charge ran into Remnant interference." She does not address the bit about dysarthria at all, apparently ignoring it.

The burly Generic Armored Goons will proceed to drag Magtok off to do...paperwork. Generally it's stuff like 'I acknowledge the charges and the price thereof', yadda yadda yadda. Basically it's paperwork that says he will pay it, so they can throw it at him later if he tries to back out. He can try to interrupt this, of course. N'alae probably hangs around just to be sure and all that.

[Aric Kale]

Well, that kick continues to bother Trucido, his strong legs pumping as once more, a combat boot connects with Trucido's already broken fingers. Calamity is in even greater pain as his fingers bend right back at the sith. But, Trucido cannot stop, for he knows if he stopped, he'd accept loss. Which the Sith could not accept. Instead, he weakly raises his other hand, and channels one of his more rare powers. He begins to blast Garn with a hand of force lightning, continuing to choke him with the other, as Trucido begins to groan and grit his teeth from the pain, and from the amount of concentration required to do this.

Garn will die if he can't break free.
Can he escape? His kicks seem to have done nothing...
Oh midiclorian deities...not again.
Kubo passes out. This would be good if his eyes weren't still open, and glowing. Trucido should recognize this as a Force-State, something the Jedi hasn't lapsed into since he saw his master killed. Garn Kubo does not possess an extremely high midiclorian count, however, it is entirely unstable and one of the reasons the Jedi master is not proficient in the Force.
Darth Calamity Trucido finds may find that the lightning being absorbed by Force!Garn, while his choking grip can no longer find purchase around his opponent's throat.

,And then! Nothing. That's all for now folks, because after a brief-yet highly volatile-shockwave, Garn has no more tricks. His body just can't handle it.

[Hattish Thing]

Garn will die if he can't break free.
Can he escape? His kicks seem to have done nothing...
Oh midiclorian deities...not again.
Kubo passes out. This would be good if his eyes weren't still open, and glowing. Trucido should recognize this as a Force-State, something the Jedi hasn't lapsed into since he saw his master killed. Garn Kubo does not possess an extremely high midiclorian count, however, it is entirely unstable and one of the reasons the Jedi master is not proficient in the Force.
Darth Calamity Trucido finds may find that the lightning being absorbed by Force!Garn, while his choking grip can no longer find purchase around his opponent's throat.

,And then! Nothing. That's all for now folks, because after a brief-yet highly volatile-shockwave, Garn has no more tricks. His body just can't handle it.

Trucido looks up and takes a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain that's about to occur. He couldn't do that weird Force thing. What was that, that just wasn't at all fair. How come Master never taught him how t- OH **** THAT HURTS OH GODS WHAT. Then TRucido is flung far back into a brick wall, head first, and he's out.

[Aric Kale]

Anyone who happens to pass by would see two men, completely passed out, lying outside of a little shop.