Silly Plots

[UncleWolf]

Temperance Teahouse

A place of peace was a perfect, if ironic, place for a King to send people on a possible suicide mission. Especially people he didn't know. Still, the King had to choose someplace safe to meet, and this was one of the few where violence was truly forbidden. Those who have come to meet him will find an older man, in his 50s waiting for them, dressed in a purple robe that must have cost thousands of gold coins to make and an extravagant crown sets on his gray brow. He sips from a cup of jasmine tea as he waits for those who'd rescue his daughter to come.

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Morgan frowns at the thing. Undead are so weird. Just...why are these things like this? Who ever thought such things would be good? Somehow it's even worse than normal monsters.
She sighs. "Don't gimme that look, you poor sap."

Morgan summons up her whip again, trying to wrap it around the bodak's torso. If she succeeds, she'll give it a mighty yank and lets go of the whip, flapping up with her wings and slamming her front hooves into the sides of the undead's head as it is pulled forward. Hey, it worked last time.

Temperance Teahouse

Spako Highclaws arrives, dressed in his finest clothes, which are really quite plain red pants and an equally red scarf that have been pressed and cleaned well. His sword, spellbook, and Deck are at his belt, but he chose not to come in his chain mail. He enters the place and after being directed to the table, walks up and bows deeply.
"Good afternoon, Sir. I understand that you're in need of some help?" he asks politely. It may or may not be obvious that his use of "Sir" is with the utmost respect. Spako's native tongue does not differentiate between different levels of superiority.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

Off goes Krayger. He may notice the swamp, well, continuing to be a swamp. Gnarled trees draped with oozing plants,crocodiles lurking with just the tips of their snout above water, piles of wood no doubt infested with snakes, turtles lines up on logs, a small house distant in the direction he's walking, perched on stilts above the muck and overgrown with plants like it's lain untended for a long while.

[Ruined League of Ruins]

Ashna has progressed to looking at Happy like she's crazy. Doesn't she get what's going on here?
...
...
Maybe she just has a thing for awkward bald cyborgs. No accounting for taste.

"Do you really expect us to believe that you of all people built cells without some silly escape mechanism? Admittedly, brute force is probably not the one, but maybe it's a subverted expectations thing. Back in the day these bars leaked like a sieve."

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

It really is awful, isn't it?

Whoever made these things in the first place has got to be a pretty terrible person. Because, seriously, locking someone into a state of eternal unliving agony? That just doesn't seem very nice.

Shadow snags the bodak and yanks it toward her before smashing her hooves into the monster! Its rubbery flesh deforms under the force of impact before springing back to its original shape. Seems the abomination is a fair bit more durable than the wights are. It decides to respond in kind, hauling back to smash Shadow across the face with one of its clammy limbs while spouting gibberish at her.

Not a very nice way to get to know someone.

Though at least Shadow's unliving body is resilient, too.

In spite of all this damage reduction getting thrown around, Shadow still has one huge advantage over the bodak. Her touch is steadily draining its awareness away. The bodak's life force drain, however, is quite useless against her.

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Morgan takes the hit, her head turning with the force. Her head then slowly turns back into forward position.
"Sorry. I'm out of your league." she says. Pumping her wings, she leaps over the monster, trying to wrap a foreleg around its rubbery neck.
If force doesn't work, she'll just let her drain-touch take it down slowly.

Swampside

Krayger feels a little bit better with some semblance of civilization, even be it one solitary place. Krayger carefully steps towards the house and up to the door, knocking gently on it.

[Lord Magtok]

Ruined League of Ruins

Spoiler: Quotes

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[Ruined League of Ruins]

Ashna has progressed to looking at Happy like she's crazy. Doesn't she get what's going on here?
...
...
Maybe she just has a thing for awkward bald cyborgs. No accounting for taste.

"Do you really expect us to believe that you of all people built cells without some silly escape mechanism? Admittedly, brute force is probably not the one, but maybe it's a subverted expectations thing. Back in the day these bars leaked like a sieve."

Ruined League of Ruins

Krystal stops beating on her cell for a moment so she can glare at Malice.

What, you expect me to just sit here and wait for you to rip my brain out and shove it into one of those things? Seriously? I figured you'd know me better than that.

Unless stopped, she's gonna go right back to it.

Ruinous League of Ruin

"Did you just sputter?" Happy says, incredulous and rather insulted. "How dare you sputter when I'm trying to kiss you!"

Malice sighs in exasperation, and pulls his red hood over his head, hiding the blossoming crimson coloring his cheek. Oh gods, this is a disaster. The sooner VIGIL gets here, the better; he doesn't know how much more of this mayhem and humiliation he can stand.

"Oh gods...FY-54, provide Krystal with a disincentive. JT-85, stare at Ashna until she's uncomfortable, and then continue staring. UI-97, do the same to Happy, and keep the disincentive at the ready," he orders, before retreating towards a doorway out of the room. Looks like he's going to leave them to talk amongst themselves for a moment, while he tries to get back into character elsewhere.

Well, talk amongst themselves and get electrocuted, in Krystal's case. A MalBot with what appears to be a pool cleaner with a taser taped to the end advances on her, turning the pole to fit the thing between the bars and poke at her. It's not the best way to zap someone, but for a villain on a budget, it'll have to do. Should keep Krystal from bludgeoning the bars of her cell, if nothing else.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Ruined League of Ruins

FY-54 comes up from behind Krystal and jabs her with the taser. The mutant gives a short cry of pain as her body tenses up. She drops the crystal and drops to her hands and knees.

This also makes her a bit upset.

After a deep breath, Krystal quickly rises up and swings her arm, sending crystals from her knuckles flying right for the head of FY-54.

[Devixer]

Ruined League of Ruins

Aiden's ditched that party, changed out of his costume, and gone after Malice. He decided that this would be a lot more fun than being at a party that couldn't even get a decent soda. He has his sword and pistols, and his other weapons have been stored away in his very own hammerspace. He grins at the former League site. "Well, Doc Ock, let's hope you're gonna give me some fun," he says.

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

Bodaks are just as resistant to physical harm as Shadow is.

Unfortunately they aren't as resistant to being drained by nightmæres.

The rubbery creature flails its arms erratically, trying its best to dislodge the thestral. However, it lacks the inhuman strength that Shadow has by a fairly wide margin and its making little headway. Before long it will slump to the ground and dissolve into a cloud of black mist.

Hoo boy.

Here's the 'fun' part!

Fun with giant fingers quotes.

The actual fun part will be riding the emotional high once the new shadeling is up and trotting around.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

There's a shuffling sound, and a high warbling voice comes from within the house.
"Hello! Who iiiiiiiis it?"

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Well. I don't think I need to describe what happens next. Suffice to say, Morgan's going to be dealing with that awful taste in her mouth for a while.
"Ugh. Welcome to the Team." she says, trying to sound bright but kinda failing due to the awfulness of the situation.

Swampside

"Pardon me, but I've recently found myself in this side of the swamp and I've been in need of information. Partly on how to get back and partly on the swamp itself. Do you think you could help me?" answers Krayger through the door.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

"Where did you say you came from? Here, some in, have some bread and tea."
The door swings open to reveal a smiling little old man balanced with a cane.

"You have trouble crossing the swamp, I hear? My, it looks like you've been walking the whole way."

The house is cramped and curved, hardly suitable for a minotaur to even stand up in.

[Deathkeeper]

Swampside

Krayger steps in, needing to bow his head a bit to fit, but not wholly unused to it.
"I'm from a city a ways off, but today I came to the swamp from the city of Skyside. I can't see the city from this place, and the wisps said that the swamp had different sides. I wasn't really too sure what they meant. It all seems very magic to me, and I have never really understood magic." he says politely to the small man. He wishes the place wasn't so tiny, but it's not like the man could help it.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

"Oh ho! That other side. You know usually people fall the other way, just vanishing for good. I'm not sure there is another way back. Hmmm. Hmmm."
He totters about the house, returning to offer Krayger a tiny china teacup, no handle, steam still rising from it.
"I'm afraid it is magic, yes. Skyside, you say? Never heard of the place, I'm afraiiiiid. Would you like a biscuit?"

[Deathkeeper]

Swampside

Krayger sighs, raising the little teacup to his mouth and sipping at it. His mouth is very big for such a tiny cup, but he manages. The skin on his fingers is very thick, so the heat doesn't bother him much.
"Well, anything at all would help, I suppose. Erm, yes, sure I'll take one."
He'd better eat something if he's going to be here a while...

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

Ugh is right!

Thankfully liquid gloom doesn't actually taste like gross bile. Or... anything, really.

Gilded Shadow may be somewhat surprised when the shady unicorn mare who just formed from the puddle of darkness immediately throws her front legs around her neck in an embrace and begins crying. None of the usual confusion, no. Just weeping.

They aren't tears of sadness.

Not tears of despair or mourning.

No, these are tears of joy.

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you..." the mare keeps whispering over and over again.

Remember when Opal said that being a bodak is super-awful?

Well, she wasn't kidding.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

The food is small, but fine. Better than nothing. Kinda dry.
"Sometimes, people slip from one world to another. If you could find a place where the swamp is thin, maybe you could get back to where you came from. No one's come back for, oh, well, it's just stories, you know?"

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Shadow returns the hug, a simple smile coming over her face. Just doing good feels so...good.
"No problem at all, kiddo. What's your name?" she asks quietly.

Swampside

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'thin.' Please, any bit helps. I'm very much walking blind here. Stories might have a hint or two.
And erm, if you don't mind me asking sir, who are you living out here? You certainly seem to know what's going on better than the wisps do, but I can't exactly see what makes living here desirable to you." says the minotaur politely as he eats tiny human food in a tiny house. It probably looks pretty silly.

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

It does, doesn't it?

It's a wonderful thing, helping people. Especially helping people in such a clear, obvious fashion. There's nothing quite like immediate feedback that you just made a difference in the world.

"I'm Silver Needle," she replies quietly. "Thank you so much for saving me. You have no idea how... how terrible that was..." The unicorn takes a deep breath, doing her best to calm herself. "Sorry about knocking you in the head... Oh! And that other person? The one that I... hurt... is he okay too?"

Should the two of them glance back toward they others they'll spot a new shady qilin stallion trying to make sense of his hooves. Yay hooves?

"I heard the ghouls talking about you... eerr... us, I guess. About the tiny magical horses who are turning undead into more tiny magical horses," Needle reports. "They're calling us a 'living plague'."

Then she laughs, a rather horse-y sounding laugh. "If I had known this was what it was like, I would have caught the plague sooner."

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Morgan stares for a moment.
"I...well...I guess we'll take that as a compliment? Undead can have decent people. There's plenty of stories about nicer vampires who beat up the evil ones, but most undead are pretty nasty, and we're doing them a service by pulling them out of that hole."
Yep, just let the programming do the talking.
"Well, trust me, it'll take some getting used to to get a hang of yourself. One of our friends here used to be a bodak, so you'll have something in common. Oh, are there any other bodaks around? She said that if she wasn't the only victim she'd need to track down her brother." she asks.

[Recaiden]

[Swampside]

"Oh, I like the quiet here."

The man sips his tea across from the minotaur.
"It's most often in moments of excitement and violence that things or people vanish, in the middle of a hunt or a battle. As for thin, well, imagine reality, like you see and hear, is a cloak. Pair of pants, maybe. You need to look for the knees of the universe, where it often has to bend, and it wears out."

[Deathkeeper]

Swampside

Krayger's ears flick, and he can't help but to reach up and scratch at one for a moment. This is all very abstract to him, even if that last analogy makes some degree of sense.
"Well, alright. I guess that sort of makes sense. Is there any advice or help you can offer, living here for so long? I'll have to go out and look if that's the case. And going blind doesn't sound very pleasant at all. "

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

Some undead are pretty okay. Bodach Glas are about as far from okay as you can get. Horrible tormented unliving omens of death are not good to have around. Vampires who wear shades and swing swords around to slay even vampires? We're okay with those ones. But otherwise? You just stick with your behavioral programming, Shadow. It probably won't lead you astray.

Needle takes a few shaky first steps, "Heh... no kidding... I'll take four hooves over what I had before though, thanks." She giggles a bit when her legs go all akimbo and she ends up dropping flat on her belly. "Whoops! Try that again... Uuh, more bodaks? No... bodaks usually avoided each other. We just reminded each other of how awful and miserable we were. Mostly it was the ghouls that would talk to us."

Ghouls are a pretty varied lot, really.

Some of them only eat rotten, fermented, and/or cured flesh and can actually be pretty congenial.

Others will happily devour the living given the chance.

Which is probably why ghouls, like vampires, are on the 'do not eat on sight' list for Team Nightmære. But if they show signs of being dangerous to the living? Then it's open season.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Temperance Teahouse]

Jazirian arrives at the Teahouse. He had heard the buzz/announcement/whatever of the king who had needed help evicting an unfortunate dragon, and thought he might lend his aid. Kings tend to have rather large sums of gold, after all, and Jazirian happens to be quite fond of gold.

Of course, being a dragon himself, he can't imagine the King would be favorable to him should he appear in his true form. Thankfully, his preferred human form happens to be ideal for disguising himself as a young heroic peasant boy, the type of which always appears in the fantasy romances Jazirian hides and would never admit to reading if found.

Yes, his youthful features, pale complexion, and carelessly tousled golden locks go so wonderfully with the rustic outfit he managed to assemble, accentuated with the dented armor pieces at his shoulders and limbs - likely hand-me-downs from an ancient military tradition he never knew existed until dire circumstances forced him to leave his quaint little country village. Dire circumstances that are likely also responsible for the sword he wears slightly uncomfortably at his hip - a masterpiece work likely found deep in the woods, or gifted by a mysterious stranger, or found amongst the possessions of his grandfather, who once left the village and returned under mysterious circumstances, never to talk about his strange departure.

Add in the unique charm of his differently colored eyes - the right one gold and the left one sky blue - and he's almost certainly a boy destined to fulfill any number of prophecies, slay countless dragons (these are always Jazirian's least favorite parts - the dragons never get a happily ever after in his books :c), and woo any number of princesses... not that that's what Jazirian's after, of course. Certainly not. Completely in it for the shiny metals. Of course.

[Ruined League of Ruins]

Hey look! It's Kal! He's here! Approaching from a rather different direction than any heroes, we'll say for convenience's sake. He's also not dressed in his Spooktober costume anymore, having replaced his revealing Union uniform for a slightly more plain black one, with purple linings, suitable for any senior underling that a respectable villain might have. He's also got his gauntlets.

He makes a rather direct beeline for where his dramatic instincts are telling him a trap or guard might be, in an attempt to address it and ask where its boss is, hopefully before it kills him.

[Darkcomet]

[Ruined League of Ruins]

A familiar presence may make itself known in the mind of one present, seeing as the two once knew each other well. Unless it's blocked or something, in which case this doesn't happen.

Isn't this just poetic? A dead Magtok, hiding in the blasted remains of a zombie of an organization, waiting to draw in other relics of his time via kidnappings. Yes, very poetic.

I don't like poetry, can you tell? But I don't quite see what I should be doing here exactly either, considering what I've been hearing, not that I place too much stock in wall gossip. On one hand, it would certainly be a great idea to stop this relic-Magtok and his plans, whatever they are, or...actually, that's an important consideration before I go on, what DO you know about what he's planning?

Oh, and hi. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

One gets the impression DC was going to say something way more inflammatory before his train of thought derailed into more practical things. Poor, poor Happy.

[happyturtle]

Ruined League of Ruins

I don't know what you've been hearing. I don't really follow Wall, Happy says, completely oblivious to DC's hints. I'm not sure what he's doing, besides acting in questionable taste and pissing me off. He's not a dead Magtok at any rate - very much alive.

[FireFox]

Ruined League of Ruins

A transport helicopter comes flying overhead, taking a cautiously wide loop around the site while the occupants strain to examine the structure below, looking for defenses, hostiles, and potential landing zones. It is painted entirely white, with gold letters on the sides of the fuselage spelling out HALO. One of the side doors is open and from it a man in combat gear looks at anybody he can see through the scope of a sniper rifle.

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Morgan shrugs.
"Well, okay then." she turns.
"Hey everyone! We need a welcome party here!" she calls with a laugh.

[Rebonack]

[Adventure Sewers!]

Well look at that.

Here comes a gaggle of shadelings. Introductions and smiles all around! Needle apologizes to the newly named Beach Glass for scouring his soul with her evil gaze.

Silver Needle is busy glowering at her legs and trying to figure out how to get them to all work right. Usually recent converts pick things up a little faster than she does. Honestly, though, there are notable differences with the learning rate of every new shadelings. Some latch onto things instantly. Others take a bit more time.

"We might be able to ask the ghouls, though," Silver points out. "There are a few of them that live near here, the scavenger type. Not the ones that lure living people into dark places and then eat them. They've been down here a long time and might know something about your friend's brother?"

Huh.

Well!

That's worth checking out, right?

[Deathkeeper]

Adventure Sewers

Shadow frowns and looks at Opal. "Well, it's your family. Do you want to give it a shot, Opal?" she asks her qilin friend.