Inside 59

[Deathkeeper]

Hodge-Podge Street

"Well, you don't really have anything to lose, unless the Die lands on something solid and counts as rolling it." Jace responds.

[Rebonack]

[Hodgepodge Street]

"I'm not sure how solid lava would count as being. At worst I'll have to put up with some random effect and find the thing in my inventory again later. At best the volcano will work and I can forget about this whole mess. It'll be nice to get back to doing something important instead of worrying about some chaos spirit's nonsense," Geneva huffs. She walks toward the lil' volcano on three legs, the golden die of wonder clutched in her talons.

And then?

She gets bit on the ankle by a tiny dragon. The dragon in question is only about the size of a squirrel, but that's still enough to hurt!

"Oow!" the hippogriff cries. She turns an angry look upon the miniature monster and begins swatting at it until it leaves her alone. "Go away, tiny dragon! Shoo!" It's only after the dragon returns to breathing sheets of flame over the last alliance of men and elves that she realizes she isn't holding the die anymore. "Oh bugger, I dropped the stupid thing."

With a grumble, Geneva moves to retrieve the die and can't help but notice it's displaying a number rather than a set of dots.

Forty seven.

Geneva gives a squawk of alarm when she suddenly begins shrinking and abruptly explodes in a cloud of feathers and white smoke. Smoke and feathers alike are blown away in a sudden wind, revealing Geneva's clothing and equipment as well as the emptied contents of her inventory. Considering how much stuff she has collected that's a pretty big pile.

And sitting on top of the pile of loot?

A normal white Die of Wonder.

At precisely the same time, the Golden Die of Wonder begins to expand, rapidly growing into a rather distinct hippogriff shape before it too explodes! Not so much smoke, though. Mostly just a cloud of obscenely golden glitter. Golden glitter that goes rushing away from the epicenter of the blast, covering everyone and everything in an annoying dusting of sparkles. Golden glitter that gets all over everything. Golden glitter that people will still be finding in their hair for weeks. Glitter truly is the herpes of arts and crafts.

And sitting in the epicenter of the glitter-splosion?

A very confused looking Geneva.

For whatever weird reason the red dye in her mane and tail is gone, revealing its natural slate grey color. Her darker feathers have taken on a rather distinct golden iridescence when the light hits them just right. What a mystery!

She sums up the situation in a single word. "What."

[Deathkeeper]

Hodge-Podge Street

At this point all Jace heard was "Ow," "I dropped it," and then a whole bunch of explosions. So buzzing over the Pipcolt is simply his "Hello? Geneva? Are you there? Please tell me you're alive."

[Halae]

Ice Cream Parlor

"No," Kate says with a shake of hear head, "I turned him down, and we're still friends. Apparently. I don't remember who it was, or the event, or anything. Apparently I have the memories, but it's still my memory, and my brain isn't real sure what to do with them, so... there's a lot of 'Wait, why do I know that?' or 'Why do I recognize that person's face?' Overall, really awkward."

[Ice Cream Parlor]

Marley nods, "Yeah, I can imagine; that'd really screw with people." Se scratches her chin, "Well, do you at least know who he is? I imagine he had a lot to say when he heard you were back."

Well, that's not nice. Luckily for Certain, she's gotten rather good at aerial maneuvering and so she air-brakes mid leap with her wings, possibly buffeting Trick before landing as close as possible to the tiefling and trying to grab her throat with a supernaturally strong, clawed hand.

[Theatre of Masks]

Trick will be far enough away that the wings won't buffet her, be she won't be quick enough to dodge the hand reaching for her throat. however, that leaves another problem for Certain. It seems she forgot about the mimic that as recovering over by the wall; as I said, he was only stunned, and now it's quite possible that Certain will find her leg in its icy maw; those teeth are like rows of daggers cutting into the flesh of her lower leg.

Regardless of whether Luggage is successful, however, Trick will finish pulling the two things from her coat; in her right hand, taken from a shoulder holster, is a Colt Anaconda, which is a .44 magnum revolver. In her left hand is a vial of holy water mixed with silver. A pretty simple anti-fiend concoction, really, purchasable from just about anywhere with a holy presence.

Trick is a quick shot once her gun is actually out, and Certain my find a very large, very painful bullet in the shoulder of the arm that she's attempting to grab Trick with. It's your ordinary bullet, given Trick wasn't expecting to fight a demon today, but that doesn't make much difference when a thick piece of metal is traveling at sonic speeds through bone, ligament, and muscle. And then Trick will crush the vial of holy water and silver in her left hand over the wound, to get it right into Certain's blood stream.

[Lost_Deep]

Ice Cream Parlor

"I haven't met him yet," Kate admits, "I think Copi is specifically spacing things out to keep me from getting overwhelmed, which I appreciate, given how much I have to get used to. However, a lot of it is taking... a surprisingly short time to get used to."

Kate sighs before eating a good amount of ice cream.

[Rebonack]

[Hodgepodge Street]

The War of the Last Alliance looks pretty silly covered in glitter.

By now people are booing in earnest.

Geneva sputters and fluffs her wings, doing her best to dislodge all the glitter and generally failing. It's going to take some pretty serious wind magic to get her clean, but that's going to have to wait. The sound of a concerned friend is far more important! The hippogriff hurries over to her (now removed) wrist computer and speaks into it.

"I'm fine Jace. Even though I exploded twice. ...I think," she says as she runs her talons through her hair, pulling it to a respectable distance so she can peer at it. "And for some reason it removed my mane dye."

It was all really disorienting. The fact that there's glitter and feathers everywhere doesn't help.

She begins digging through her heap of belongings, shoving random junk aside and making neat little organized columns of objects until she finds what she's looking for! The tools for opening a PIPcolt. Geneva goes to work unlocking the device so she can put it back on.

"Near as I can tell I just swapped positions with the die in a really flash, messy sort of way. There's glitter and feathers all over everything. It also dumped all of my gear where I was standing," Geneva reports as she locks the PIPcolt back onto her wrist. That done, she boots up her inventory program and begins collecting her things. She's pretty sure her jacket is buried under that heap somewhere... Then she spots it!

The Die of Wonder!

However, something is different...

"Hey! I found the die. It isn't golden anymore. Maybe whatever it did turned it into a normal one?" she muses aloud as she snatches it up. "I bet that'll make it easier to dispose of."

[Deathkeeper]

Hodge-Podge Street

It dumped her stuff and a Die where she'd been? Erm...
There's a pause.
"Maybe you shouldn't. An ordinary Die isn't a danger since it's easy to contain, although contain it you should. Zebes says it might have substituted you with the die or something. Says he saw that in an anime once. You feel fine, right?" he asks.

[Rebonack]

[Hodgepodge Street]

Geneva pauses when Jace suggests that she wait, the Die of Wonder and hand alike hovering over the smouldering mouth of Tiny Mount Doom. "Substituted me with the die?" she repeats. "Like... I'm not really Geneva, I'm actually the Golden Die of Wonder who thinks its Geneva?"

There's a brief stab of panic as she glances back at her cutie mark. Some small part of her was terrified that her own symbol would be gone and replaced with a picture of a pair of dice or something. Much to her relief it hadn't changed at all. It was still the same purple hurricane symbol set into a circle of partly red and partly blue with the little triangles and half-circles running along the edge.

Geneva lets out the breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"No, no I feel fine. And I still have my cutie mark. The magic of one's cutie mark is linked to the very spirit. It's our destiny. If I wasn't really... me... then the symbol would be gone. Or it would have changed."

She feels better just speaking it aloud.

That crisis averted, she turns her attention back to the die in her grip. "We don't know if it'll turn golden again and start jumping out of my inventory at the worst times," she reasons. "This might just be a temporary vulnerability. I think casting it into the lava is probably the safest thing to do."

[Deathkeeper]

Hodge-Podge Street

"That's not really what he meant, but alright. If that's the case at worst it just made itself into a body and transferred your spirit appropriately. In which case there would be no real issue as it's the same thing. Do what you feel is best, Geneva. With these stupid things there's no real right answer most of the time." Jace says.

[Rebonack]

[Hodgepodge Street]

So the other possibility is that her old body turned into a Dice of Wonder and the Golden Dice of Wonder turned into a copy of her body and she was metaphysically transferred to said body. That seems... really weird and pointless. Simply swapping positions made more sense. It was certainly simpler. But how could one ever expect to be able to apply rational thought to a chaos artifact?

Even if that was true a copy of her body was still her. And her cutie mark attested to the fact that neither her magic nor her destiny had changed at all. She still remembered everything she had remembered previously. At least, she was pretty sure that she remembered everything.

"This is so ridiculous. I would really rather not risk getting turned into a kangaroo," the hippogriff grumbles whilst glowering at the Dice in her hand. "You've caused enough trouble, mister chaos artifact. Into the fiery chasm you go."

And with that she drops the thing into the volcano.

A plume of burning ash begins erupting along with a whole bunch of lava! That stuff is hot! Geneva hops away from the side of the mountain and quickly begins gathering up the rest of junk, slips on her jacket, and slings her rifle onto her back. The hippogriff spreads her wings, gives her haunches a good shake, and then springs into the air just in time to avoid the streams of molten rock!

She does not, however, notice that her rear made the unmistakable sound of dice being shaken. Nor did she notice that when she stopped there came the sound of dice bouncing across a table. Nor did she notice that the image of a golden dice appear briefly on her haunches, bearing the number three hundred eighty four.

She did, however, notice a storm of cotton candy clouds that suddenly swirled into existence above the plaza and began inundating the area in a deluge of chocolate milk rain. Mostly because she's all sticky and gross now.

"Hey Jace? Do you have a shower at your house? I think the Dice had one last gasp before it burned. It's raining chocolate milk."

[Deathkeeper]

Hodge-Podge Street

Jace sighs.
"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Just try not to get my carpet sticky, okay?" he says.

[Rebonack]

[Hodgepodge Street]

"I will do my best not to drip all over your carpet," Geneva replies with a wry grin.

Her HUD updates with a new quest marker while the Mallside quest is abandoned.

Scrub a Dub Dub: Locate Jace's house and take a shower.
Bonus: Complete this quest without dripping chocolate milk on Jace's carpet.

With that, Geneva takes a sharp turn to zero in on the new navigation icon and begins closing in on it!

"So, what exactly did you do with the Dice of Wonder you found? Just locked it up somewhere?" Geneva asks as she goes sailing past a sailing ship that apparently isn't aware that it shouldn't be floating in the sky. The crew of Age of Exploration navy folks wave at her as she passes, to which she waves back.

It's only friendly!

Anywho, on to Home!

[Ionbound]

[Theatre of Masks]

Trick will be far enough away that the wings won't buffet her, be she won't be quick enough to dodge the hand reaching for her throat. however, that leaves another problem for Certain. It seems she forgot about the mimic that as recovering over by the wall; as I said, he was only stunned, and now it's quite possible that Certain will find her leg in its icy maw; those teeth are like rows of daggers cutting into the flesh of her lower leg.

Regardless of whether Luggage is successful, however, Trick will finish pulling the two things from her coat; in her right hand, taken from a shoulder holster, is a Colt Anaconda, which is a .44 magnum revolver. In her left hand is a vial of holy water mixed with silver. A pretty simple anti-fiend concoction, really, purchasable from just about anywhere with a holy presence.

Trick is a quick shot once her gun is actually out, and Certain my find a very large, very painful bullet in the shoulder of the arm that she's attempting to grab Trick with. It's your ordinary bullet, given Trick wasn't expecting to fight a demon today, but that doesn't make much difference when a thick piece of metal is traveling at sonic speeds through bone, ligament, and muscle. And then Trick will crush the vial of holy water and silver in her left hand over the wound, to get it right into Certain's blood stream.

Well, depending on how fleshy the inside of the Luggage is, it might be in for a nasty surprise as Certain's feet are have talons and, lacking a better option, she pushes down hard into the mimic's mouth, though the experience is definitely painful, and Trick might notice black ichor running down the demon mage's leg. That said, despite the pain, Certain is able to try to catch Trick's gun arm and try to slam it against the wall, theoritcally disarming the Tiefling. And when the holy water and silver concoction smashes into her shoulder, Certain glares at Trick and says, "You will pay for that, Warlock," as she tightens her grasp and the her black tendrils snake towards Trick again, probing at her soul for any weakness.

[Halae]

[Theatre of Masks]

The same defenses as before protect Trick's soul from the probing tendrils, but with Trick subdued, Certain may have enough time to begin boring into them.

Certain will also find something off; there's no inside to the mimic or... there's an empty space where an inside should be. That's just strange. And since the talons aren't digging into any fleshy bits, the mimic merrily continues to chomp away at Certain's leg; if she doesn't deal with that soon, the mimic is going to chew straight through her bone, supernatural toughness or no.

Trick, Meanwhile, is mostly subdued. with her right hand held against the wall and a clawed hand at her neck, Trick only has her left hand out, which she seems to be flailing wildly with. Despite all this, she's staring defiantly at Certain, unable to speak due to the hand at her throat.

[Murkus]

Red Zone - Trash

Aiden steps toward Susurrus, repeatedly tossing his sword up a few feet and catching it. That doesn't seem like it'd be a safe thing to do, but whatever. He tosses the sword again just when he gets within Sus's reach, but when he catches it that time, he immediately rushes forward to stab at the creature. This action is fast enough to make him look like a blur, until the end of it when he thrusts his sword forward.

The lengthy blade buries itself in the flesh of Susurrus's neck, and can continue up to the hilt if Aiden pushes it that far. The thrusting attack seems to have no immediate effect - Susurrus remains upright, glaring and terrible and miserable.

The great beast's claws flash outward, embedding themselves in the walls of the condemned buildings on either side of him. With a pair of mighty crashes and the crumble of shoddy masonry, Susurrus brings portions of the walls down on Aiden, a tumble of mortar and brick meant to bury him alive. A cloud of dust descends upon the pair of them as well, though not enough to be totally obscuring.

False Garden

Garrett looks in awe at the holographic garden around him and Varienne, the light reflected and glittering in his eyes. He reaches a hand out tentatively at a plant, never quite making contact, almost afraid to dispel the awe it instills.

"How...how do you do all of this?"

"This is the cheap stuff," Varienne says with a snort, paying no more attention to their environs than she would to a piece of tinfoil. "Something me and the holo-techs cook up every other day or so. I mean, look at this crappy resolution. The visual bugs alone..." She shoots him a look. "What, you really like it?"

[Ionbound]

[Theatre of Masks]

Well. That is a problem. With the mimic chewing through her leg showing no signs of stopping, Certain heats her legs to incredible heat to try to do two things; Cauterize the injury, stopping the bleeding, and also discourage the Luggage from chomping on her leg. She also maintains the hold on Trick, and the black tendrils continue probing at her spiritual defenses.

[Darkcomet]

[Radiation Pit]

"They are stable," the stalker replies. "A transport is being sent to retrieve them and a crew will be left to salvage or repair the damaged dropship as possible. Moving the lackeys on foot would be hazardous. The Radiation Pit is not safe for unshielded beings."

It isn't safe for shielded beings, either. But that's beside the point.

"Doctor Diabolical has been informed of your request for correspondence."

N'alae pauses briefly to consider a response before replying. "I'll take what I can get. Should I expect a response at the public address, or a loud dropship making a scene at the Spire? I mean no offense, but the Doctor has a certain fondness of the dramatic, and I'd prefer the former."

[Rebonack]

[The Radiation Pit]

"Doctor Diabolical intends to interrupt the public address with a swarm of several hundred thousand minions forming a giant talking skull while playing the song We're Not Gunna to Take it over a distributed speaker system," the stalker replies in a completely straight faced tone.

Not that the thing can make facial expressions, really.

But you can certainly tell that the thing is absolutely serious.

...

If they're going to do that...

Then what's the point of announcing that they'll be doing so?

That seems a little silly.

[Darkcomet]

[Radiation Pit]

"...The public contact address for the Office of the Vice Commander, not a speech," N'alae points out, also with a completely deadpan tone. Like the stalker, it helps that one can't really see her face right now.

[Rebonack]

[Radiation Pit]

The robot quirks its head to the side slightly.

"You wish to speak with Doctor Diabolical yourself, rather than as a faction?" it inquires. Looks like it is going to wait for a reply before it does anything else.

[Halae]

[Theatre of Masks]

Well. That is a problem. With the mimic chewing through her leg showing no signs of stopping, Certain heats her legs to incredible heat to try to do two things; Cauterize the injury, stopping the bleeding, and also discourage the Luggage from chomping on her leg. She also maintains the hold on Trick, and the black tendrils continue probing at her spiritual defenses.

[theatre of Masks]

Luggage indeed backs off, afraid of the flames. he sets to growling, waiting for a chance to act.

Trick, however, just finished doing something that Certain is almost certainly not expecting. That flailing with her left arm? That wasn't simply flailing. That was the pattern for the stupidest, single most impractical spell that Trick knows. It was, in fact, one of the first spells she learned for herself, which explains the impracticality; it's a simple banishment. Incredibly direct, and requires a few seconds to cast while touching the outsider that you're trying to banish, because it's such a heaving of blunt force into a single effect. A flick of her fingers brings her pact blade back out of the storage ring on her right hand, and into her waiting palm, struggling as it is against Certain's hold. The pact blade will become embroiled in green fire, blazing like a torch.

Now, most banishments take a pair of instants to cast, because any longer and whatever you're banishing might eat your face. Because of this, banishments favor precision to eliminate the threat, attempting to bypass whatever defenses the creature has and send them back to where they belong. Trick, while she was still learning, didn't understand this; her practice was with her familiar, Xrilbibth, a little imp who sat still while she was preparing her spells. He later instructed her on how to make more effective banishments, but for the moment, with her low power, this could theoretically overpower even strong defenses, though good luck ever getting it off.

Trick is now far, far more powerful than she was as a novice. Where before it'd be like throwing a brick at the outsider, this was more like collapsing a house on top of them; a simple suit of armor won't save you from the crushing weight of the effect.

This won't kill her, no. But if she's possessed, whatever demon is possessing her will likely be tossed like a ragdoll to the howling winds of the abyss. If she's so far gone that she may as well be a demon herself, it's going to be her that goes.

"Have fun getting back." Trick croaks past the hand holding her throat.

Ice Cream Parlor

"I haven't met him yet," Kate admits, "I think Copi is specifically spacing things out to keep me from getting overwhelmed, which I appreciate, given how much I have to get used to. However, a lot of it is taking... a surprisingly short time to get used to."

Kate sighs before eating a good amount of ice cream.

[Ice Cream Parlor]

"Well, we lived in a few different odd places. Walking into a multiracial bar was no different than ending up here, really." aliens all in once place, various colors of humans and non-humans, bar brawls... really, it wasn't that different. Marley seems to be failing to grasp the difference in Kate's intent, however.

[TechnoScrabble]

????

Jakkal shrugs and continues to look around. Cameras, mirrors, windows, all these things would be useful for the next part of his 'plan'. He tries to keep up a dangerous air, something he's pretty good at despite the pink shirt.

False Garden

"I love it," Garrett says, his excitement awkwardly dying down as Varienne dismisses the plants as nothing big, "I've just...never seen anything like it, sorry."

[Recaiden]

[Bombed Out Zone]

Okay. That was probably some sort of code. One that the Intruder does not understand.
Reluctantly, they hand over the cylinder. That part of the request is obvious enough.

[Lost_Deep]

Ice Cream Parlor

"My roommate has the lower half of a spider. Literally, like... centaur. But a spider. And that only seems odd to me when I think about it. Living with a 6-inch-tall spider lady is only odd if I think about it. That's not normal. I... remember getting used to her, but that wasn't this life!" Kate shakes her head. "I should really stop thinking about this. I'll lose sleep over it if I do."

[Ionbound]

[Theatre of Masks]

With an inhuman scream of rage, Certain collapses into a singularity and with a wooshing of air vanishes into the nether.

[Darkcomet]

[Radiation Pit]

The robot quirks its head to the side slightly.

"You wish to speak with Doctor Diabolical yourself, rather than as a faction?" it inquires. Looks like it is going to wait for a reply before it does anything else.

"I represent the interests of the Union, and my contact information is public. I was operating under the idea that, were I to set up a meeting, it would be coordinated through that. Unless he wants to talk to High Commander Altaran rather than me, but I do have the authority to act here," the Vice Commander explains. "I am the Vice Commander of the Union, and I speak for us until he overrides me. If the Doctor wishes to speak to him directly, he's free to forward this to the public contact address of the Office of the High Commander, but he is presently more focused on the problem of the Chimera Syndicate."

N'alae doesn't mention her more personal reasons for wishing to speak to him, like the implied involvement in the last case of holodeck nonsense, or the part where she's pretty sure these guys know about certain past affiliations.

[Halae]

[Theatre of Masks]

Trick breathes out, rubbing at her throat for a moment. Bloody woman, nearly strangling her, destroying some good enchanted equipment, and even hurting her poor mimic!

The first thing Trick does is kneel down to check Luggage's wounds. he broke one of his teeth, which will grow back, but the huge bruise on his right side probably has something broken inside. "Aw, poor boy. You did really well today, so you're getting a nice big treat!" Luggage snaps his lid open and closed happily several times. He knows that word!

Trick stands, and replaces her pact blade and gun back into their sheath and holster, respectively. during this, she realizes she's sprained her right wrist, so rather than fish her phone out with her right hand, she reaches into a right pocket with her left. She'll type in a number and... "Hello, taxi? I'm at the threatre of masks. How soon can you get someone down here?"

[Stream Corner Clinic]

Trick will get out of the taxi with luggage following behind her, however, the weight of her wounds have really hit her by this point. she has a bad headache, her throat is all kinds of sore, she twisted her foot coming out of that dodge roll, and she's fairly certain some kind of fracture or worse happened when her wrist was slammed up against a wall. Still, could have been worse. A lot worse.

So, Trick limps in, informs the receptionist that she needs to see the doctor, and finds a seat, Luggage choosing to sit quietly at her feet.

[Ice Cream Parlor]

"Kate, I have to ask... how is this any weirder than going to live on another planet?" Marley says. she acclimatized just fine herself, "I get the whole memory thing is wonky, but the Nexus is just another place, and the memories sound like they're quickly working themselves out."

[Deathkeeper]

Stream Corner Clinic

The dwarven receptionist takes her name.
There aren't many doctors in this little place, so there's a bit of a wait, but after about ten minutes she's called in to the second door on the left, and offered a hand getting there if she feels unsteady on her feet.

[Halae]

[Stream Corner Clinic]

Trick thanks them for the offer, but chooses to walk herself down to the second door, and inside, where she'll look for somewhere to take a seat. a whistled instruction has Luggage stay outside in the lobby to wait for her.

[Deathkeeper]

Stream Corner Clinic

There's a medical table to sit down on, and before long a brown-haired man comes in with a...black? labcoat and a tiny silver sword pin on his collar.
"Good afternoon, Miss. What can I do for you?" he says pleasantly.