MERC XVI: Morality is Relative; Professional Standards Aren't!

[Morty]

[Incoming Customers]

Dipsnig's ears twitch. He recognizes Adir... a Vigil member. This might be tricky.

"I recognize one of them. The other one... he seems a bit familiar, but I can't place it. Still, we can accept a standard contract on finding and possibly delivering them."

[Zefir]

[Incoming Customers]

"Well, that should just make things easier. I assume they will both be close to eacht other. if you find one you will find the other one in no time." the man replies.
"That sounds good. Is there a paper to sign or anything alike?"

[Morty]

[Incoming Customers]

"Yes, and I will draw up a contract, but first we need to talk about payment," Dipsnig says. "What are you offering as a reward?"

[Zefir]

[Incoming Customers]

"Sure, sure." The man says. He had forgotten that part if Dipsnig didn't bring it up.
"We can offer [Standard amount of Money] or we can offer our service. We are all spellcaster. We know many different enchantments for different use. Weapon improvement, Teleportation fields or blockers. Just tell us what you want and we see if we can do it."

[Morty]

[Incoming Customers]

"Money will do, then," Dipsnig says. Taking services from people outside the Nexus can be risky.

Job Description: Brief description of the job to be performed.
Contract Type: MERC Member Contract or MERC Licensed Contract.
Hired by: Character or group name (Player name).
Target: Adir (Murkus), C4 (Zefir). Locate and possibly capture.
Payment: A standard bounty.
Notes: Adr is a Vigil member. Locate, then contact Dipsnig.

"I'll just need your name, and to decide whether you want it to be a member-only contract or open to licensees."

[Zefir]

[Incoming Customers]

The man just shrugs as Dipsnig mentions only to go for money. It's not like the enchantments will need them to be around all time.
"It's Sillus." The man replies. "We stay at Trog's if you need to contact us."

[Morty]

[Incoming Customers]

Job Description: Locate and capture Adir and C4.
Contract Type: MERC Licensed Contract.
Hired by: Silus (Zefir).
Target: Adir (Murkus), C4 (Zefir). Locate and possibly capture.
Payment: A standard bounty.
Notes: Adr is a Vigil member. Locate, then contact Dipsnig.

"That's it, then. Your official contract with us. I trust everything is in order," Dipsnig says.

[Zefir]

[Incoming Customers]

The man takes a nother look. He will remember the name 'Adir' since that seems to be the other person and hands it back.

"That's fine. i hope will hear from you soon."

So unless stopped they head away for Trog's.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Stopping In]

Grace shows up for a brief spell, following her successful theft of Reinholdt's energy in GLoG. A certain name on the contract board catches her eye as she passes, and she'll stop to read the contract over. Hmm. Amusing.

She doesn't linger, however, and heads straight towards her borrowed workshop.

[Morty]

[Stopping In]

Grace will be allowed in the labs and provided with materials, as agreed in the contract.

[Reinholdt]

{(TTTaTTT)}

Caroline waves goodbye to Amyria. "Who was that lizard girl, anyway?"

"Very time consuming." Caroline frowns, then off to MERC they go.

"The person we met down in the tunnels, remember?" Vincent is worried about Caroline's memory. Maybe she needs to upgrade her PC.

Vincent and Caroline return to MERC after a semi-successful mission! "Well it usually just means throwing on the clothes and backtracking through the game's locations. Not too long. Still annoying." Adds maybe a 1/4th time onto the game for treasures that usually aren't even worth the effort. A few hidden gems are fantastic though.

[Lex-Kat]

"The person we met down in the tunnels, remember?" Vincent is worried about Caroline's memory. Maybe she needs to upgrade her PC.

That, or take better notes.

"I know who she was, silly. I meant, where'd she come from? Where'd the other guy go?" Caroline frowns at him.

Once at MERC, Caroline begins to look for Dipsnig. "Mister Dipsnig! We're back!" she calls out.

[Morty]

[Main Base - Entry Hall]

Dipsnig emerges from the cellar of the base when he hears his name called.

"How did the scouting go?" he asks. Knowing those two, they probably found something, even if it's completely unrelated to the mission they were sent on. A definite upside of having a Main Character on your team.

[Reinholdt]

[Entry Hall]

Vincent and Caroline have some of the highest mission complete rates among Merc members.

"She came from that path in that cutscene. It's a complete dead end otherwise. The other guy didn't need a sprite once the cutscene was done."

Vincent stops and stares at Dipsnig in shock, eyes growing wide as he whispers to himself. "You're not dead." If ever there was proof this game was wholly illogical, this was it. He recovers himself shortly though.

"It was delayed and expedited by a kidnapping." Vincent goes on to explain the adventure utilizing a fade out screen to cut through the story before fading back in, the recounting complete. "And that's when we decided to come back here."

[Lex-Kat]

{Entry Hall}

Caroline smiles as she sees Mister Dipsnig approach. She waits impatiently until he gets closer, her arms behind her back as she rocks to and fro on her feet. Then she spins in delight. "Weeeee! It was so exciting, Mister Dipsnig. I mean, at first it was scary, but I knew my Vincent would rescue me. Though, I didn't just wait for him to rescue me. I'm not a damsel in distress, you know." she says with a frown, finally breathing. "I just couldn't believe the mayor was involved in slavery like that. They didn't even want us for..." she pauses, looking at Vincent, then leans closer to Dipsnig. "... for S-E-X." she whispers in his ear.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Stopping In]

Well, time to get to business. Grace's long task of constructing a new body is complete, thanks to MERC's resources. Unfortunately, that was in many ways also the easiest part.

The body, a doll-like construct crafted out of pure adamantine, lays on a wide bench. True to Grace's historic expertise, it's a masterwork of craftsmanship, finely tooled with adamantine plates seamlessly fitting together over a precise skeleton of the same metal.

Transferring Grace's consciousness from her current body to the new one would be simple enough. It's a trait inherent to her current demonic form, that it could incorporate new material into its mass with ease. Abandoning said mass would be just as simple. Of course, she doesn't want to take all of her with her. There's that unfortunate situation with the demonic corruption that she wants to get rid of. That's where the staff comes in. And the sword, if she still had it. She can still perform the spell without it, just with significantly more risk, since the catalyst and repository for the demonic corruption are all the same item, not two different items.

Grace abandons her clothes and her illusory form. Not gonna need those. A cloud of marbles black marbles hangs in the air, shape amorphous and drifting randomly as Grace focuses her attention to the starting her spell. The temperature in the room drops as both the staff and the puppet-construct float up into the air, the construct's limbs and head dangling limply as it's pulled up by the chest. Lights flicker as the marbles begin to orbit around the staff, drawing slowly closer to it. Eventually, marbles towards the periphery of the orbiting cloud begin to fall, dropping to the ground and shattering as the staff itself begins to change, rods beginning to twist and snake around each other as the metal is invaded by veins of inky black corruption. The rate of the corruption seems to accelerate as marbles begin falling like hail, peppering the ground with metallic shards. Finally, the last of the marbles falls to the ground, and the now pure black staff hangs in the air, twisting and turning as energy seems to build around it. Suddenly, with a tremendous bang that breaks most of the lights in the room, a bolt of energy arcs out of the end of the staff, striking the construct square in the chest.

Spell complete.

Grace stands slowly, tentatively flexing her joints. Everything running smoothly? No snags or minor construction errors? All seems to be fine.

And the demonic corruption safely sealed away inside the reservoir? Grace turns her head to face the staff laying on the ground. Ah. That's unfortunate. I mean, what happens when you take an artifact based on order magic and attempt to store a bunch of demonic corruption in it? Bad things, that's what.

So it happens that a tall, feminine doll-construct wearing no clothes and holding a long bundle of writhing metal rods oozing black sludge and corruption exits the lab and immediately tries to locate someone who looks like they know their way around.

"Excuse me, this base wouldn't happen to have an incinerator, would it? Blast chamber? Convenient black hole?"

[Morty]

[Entry Hall]

Dipsnig listens carefully, even though the news surprise him more than once. His ears twitch.

"A slavery ring in Eastside? That's a whopper. Do you have proof the mayor is involved, though? It might be run by his people under his nose."

[Reinholdt]

Entry Hall

Vincent peers at Caroline as she whispers. What's the point of being a half-elf if they're just going blur the text boxes anyways and make them unreadable?

"Even if that's true, that should still be enough to qualify as dirt right?" A slave ring run under the mayor's nose can't be good for re-election attempts.

"We have the tunnels themselves and the witnesses. Speaking of which, didn't Olivette show up yet?"

[Zefir]

[Stopping In]

She/It may run into Fade who takes a walk around in the base from time to time. He doesn't seem to wonder about the view the feminine doll-construct offer or the things she carries around.

"Not that I know. You may use the hearth in the main room to burn something and maybe there is something to blast something away in the training Ground." he says in a soundless voice.
"What's up with your body and those things in your hand anyway?"

[Lex-Kat]

{{Entry Hall}}

As if on cue, Olivette appears. "Why hello, sir. May I assume you are the Mister Dipsnig, Caroline and Vincent have told me of?"

She's wearing an olive green dress, with an extreme high-collar, with only two buttons at the neck. The cuffs, neck, and hemline are all lined in a grey lace, about two inches in length beyond the rest of the garment. On her feet, just within sight under the skirt, she wears black point-toed boots, and she somehow found kid-gloves that match the color of the dress near-perfectly. Her face is pretty, for a human, except for the slightly elongated nose, that hooks slightly upward at the end.

Caroline jumps in surprise. She had not heard the woman come in, and she certainly wasn't here before them, was she?

[Ashen Lilies]

[Stopping In]

"What this is, is an immensely powerful artifact that I have used to contain a considerable amount of demonic corruption. Unfortunately, the magic of the staff and the demonic corruption seem to disagree with each other, and it's leaking. Given the lengths I went to in order to get it out of me in the first place, I'd rather it not find its way into anybody else. And I don't think setting it on fire in an open hearth is exactly my favorite plan for containment." Explains Grace. She wonders what this man means by "what's up with your body". What is up with her body? It's a perfectly good body!

She does notice that it's currently unclothed, however, and as she's talking conjures up a simple blue long-sleeved tunic that falls from her shoulders, enrobing her to the ankles. Not the most fashionable of outfits, but suitable for the moment.

[Zefir]

[Stopping In]

"In that case you should head for Vigil." he says soundless. he doesn't seem to mind the new clothes at all.
"They had to deal with demons recently and should have something you need. I currently don't posess the power to help you out, maybe I should search for it again."

[Morty]

[Entry Hall]

"None other," Dipsnig says. If he's surprised by the woman's appearance, he's not showing it. "And you would be the witness to what they discovered, I presume."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Stopping In]

Grace laughs. Once. It's a curious sound coming from a doll. Her voice is deep and authoritative, befitting her size (2.5m exactly) though possessing a slightly harsh, didactic tone reminiscent of your least favorite university lecturer.
"Suffice to say that while Vigil would certainly have the means to dispose of this, the following conversation between them and myself would be quite awkward and not entirely to my liking. In any case, I doubt I would be able to get far carrying this. Teleporting with the staff would cause what remains of my containment spell to collapse instantly."
The staff begins to warp more violently now, and seems to start drawing in light around it, sucking the color out of the surrounding space.
"I see that the deterioration of the staff's containment wards is accelerating rapidly. I suppose I could merely fly this thing away as far as I can before it collapse fully, if you truly have no means of helping me. I myself am probably immune to the staff's demonic influence, but the fallout to the surrounding area could be rather severe."

[Reinholdt]

[Entry Hall]

If Vincent's lucky he'll hear a door open. Maybe sometimes a series of footsteps when the game wants him to know enemies are moving nearby in some semi-active scene. Otherwise people are usually quite quiet.

Vincent nods in affirmation. "Yeah, that's her."

[Halae]

[Stopping In]

"Perhaps Fade could let the actual on-base magitechnician handle it," comes a voice from nearby. Oh hey, it's Rilla! Shorter in stature than even Dipsnig, with large ears and blue hair, she has moss green skin and dark chocolate spots all over her body. she's wearing a white labcoat and fiddling with holographic device on her left arm, "I'm having a golem prep a containment suite right now. Follow me down to the lab"

The asura waves for Grace to follow her and heads down to the lab, where, true to her word, a golem is currently holding open what appears to be a tube made of energy, "Drop it in. It should contain it."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Stopping In]

"My thanks." Says Grace, doing as asked. As the staff falls into containment vessel the effects of the corruption do seem to be contained for the moment, restoring proper vision to anyone nearby. "Apologies for the disruption."

[Zefir]

[Stopping In]

Fade just shrugs. He was just about to offer his power, but then the magitechnician comes to do the job.
"I did not even know there is a magitechnician." he just says as they head of.

[Nova_Eclipse]

Riverside Office

Electra wanders into the Riverside office, carrying the damaged pieces of her armor under her right arm. She stops to check the job board, and notes the bounties on Adir and C4, before heading up to the counter to inquire about the possibility of smith services being offered.

[Shadowcaller]

Riverside Office

"Well, well, well, we got the new gal visiting us. What graces our humble office with your presence, Electra?" Dena seems to have taken residence in the local office, leaning back on a chair while playing around with some sort of game console. She isn't even looking at Electra, but her snakes appear to be, watching her silently with their red glowing eyes.