Outside 43: Where the sun hurts your eyes and burns your skin

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

Oooh. It's a bad day to be a tree.

"Wow"
"I think I see how you could work on that. The more you're able to do yourself, the less of a change is needed to give you the power. So as you improve personally, it'll get easier. And, you could mix in little capabilities from other means, that might count."

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

"Oh, so if I get some other thing to help me do stuff I won't have so much trouble? That's great! Getting new stuff is real exciting! You know any 'other means' I could use?" she asks excitedly.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

"Do I?"

That sounds like an affirmative. The lion-tail girl rubs her hands together, brimming over with excitement.
The forest and waterline spin around them, and settle back into place with the girl holding a red ribbon out to Mara.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara blinks, shakes her head, and goes to take the ribbon.
"What's this for? My hair? My waist? Not really big on these sorts of accessories, usually." she says, looking it over and this angle and that angle.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

The ribbon is two-dimensional. No thickness, just length and width. Lots of length. And it happens to match its holder's speech color at all times.

"Wherever you want to wear it. I don't know exactly what it'll do...but something great, I'm pretty sure!"
Lion-tail girl smiles in a winning, toothless fashion.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara shrugs and ties it around her neck, not seeing a better place to put it besides maybe around her waist. She's not really good at fancy knots to put it into her hair.
"Now what?"

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

"Now you do something with it! I think it's good for disguises."
The lion-tail girl looks very dizzy.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

"But how do I do something with it? How am I supposed to use a ribbon?" she asks, looking at it and considers tying it around her forehead instead.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

So to keep from falling over, she leans against the last tree of the forest, looking out at the rocky slope leading down to the water.

"It'll be, a, woah, a combination of wearing the ribbon and doing the right thing. Like saying magic words or trying the right task. Maybe it works differently depending on where you wear it? That might happen. Ooh, or I bet you could find the answers up in space!"

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara stares out at the water in the direction the girl is.
"I don't have a way to get to space! So I guess I'll just have to guess until something happens, then." she says with a sigh. She never gets explanations.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

"Use a power~!"

C'mon, Mara, this is really obvious. How will you learn if not through dangerous magical experimentation?

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara sighs and goes over to a large chunk of sandstone nearby and attempts to use her power to smash it with a kick. Simple, right?

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

She kicks the rock. It shatters into pieces.
But that might not be the foot she expected to be kicking with. Rather, it's the clawed foot of a large bird, which she seems to have become. Feels a lot like being a hyena.
And oddly enough, her head doesn't hurt at all.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara gives an indignant squawk, looking at the unnamed Student with the frustrated gaze of someone who hadn't planned on being an emu-sort-of-thing today.
Hopefully she understands bird.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Forest]

The Student chirps back at her.
Come on, it's not bad being a moa. It's just like being a hyena, only completely different!
Which does suggest how she might turn back.

[Deathkeeper]

Forest Shore

But when I be a hyena I'm like that for a while! I think! I don't know how any of this works all that well, still. She insists with a series of squawks.

[Recaiden]

[Surest Fore]

But you'll uh, you'll get to know! Can't you talk something not bird?

The Student isn't very good at bird.

Oh, but! It's much working!

Then chirps and whistles of general excitement.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

What? No, I can't talk when I'm a hyena, so I can't talk when I'm anything else! Why would I be able to- oof.

Mara plops onto the ground, more or less human, though depending on if the ribbon made her clothes poof, might not be wearing anything. She hadn't been expecting to change, after all.

[Nalix]

[The Tower- Floor Four]

Hotaru's sword disperses into a cloud of nanobots in order to avoid being destroyed, then returns back to form.

"Oh, crap! Dash!" She summons up a burst of electricity and dashes away from the path of the sword's slash arc. The blood on the tip of the Champion's sword should prove that she was only mostly successful in dodging the blow.

"Cold blade." She mutters, putting a hand to her thigh, where the blade ended up hitting. Gritting her teeth, she sends a blast of delicious electricity at The Champion. "Take this, you f***er!"

The Tower - Floor Four

"Freeze, and explain yourself," says Phil, at the same time discharging the mid-grade charge. "We're reclaiming this tower. Will you be more reasonable than your lackeys?" Assuming nothing interrupts him, Phil will cast "ants" on the centipedes, as his experience in the desert tells him that ants don't feel fear.

[freeze target]
secondary events [guarding cold yellow soup of the city]
and [offer to join the enemy to the first party member to kill the others] !!
[orange shadow moth ants]

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

The Champion of Tzeentch is frozen, cold yellow parsnip and dog soup seizing up around the joints of his armour-plated skin. It cracks and flakes off as he laughs. It's a deep, rumbling sound, and overlaid with it are some high-pitched, girlish giggles for a confusing mix. "You have destroyed my shield, little man, but first blood is mine. Convert to Tzeentch, join me, and when His armies breach the walls of this reality you shall be as gods, and cities will bow to your rule or burn." He hawks up another gob of mutating flames and spits it at Phil. The mutations are of the tentacles-and-extra-eyes variety rather than the more realistic cancer-and-radiation-poisoning type.

[Cyber Punk]

[The Tower- Floor Four]

"First blood, fugly. Not last." Hotaru retorts as she goes to pick up her mutated Pikachu and examine it. When she sees the Hulking Heretic hocking up more flames, her eyes widen. "Phil, no!" She yells, and aims and throws the Pikachu in the path of the oncoming flames, then dives for Phil's legs, intending to push him away from any remnant blasts.

[Recaiden]

[Shorest]

Whatever clothes were being worn on her lower body probably aren't intact.
The Student grins that toothy grin again.
"Thanks I really appreciate that never was a very good bird-whistler. Basically I think it lets you turn into new animals and be good at the things they're good at without a problem. Isn't that neat?!"

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Forest

Mara hastily adjusts her torn pants, face reddening with frustration. The ribbon around her neck reminds her too much of the horrible shape she was just wearing, and she pulls it off to tie it around her head where she might not notice it as much.
"So how am I supposed to decide what these new things are? You said before it might depend on where I wear it, but that sounds really complicated."

[Fenric]

[Heavy Ordinance and a Death Knight]

Hikari glares at the dots, then curses as she sees the crosshair and attempts to dodge around it, hoping to get by it and up to whatever might be casting it without crossing it and risking getting blown out of the water by whatever unpleasant thing it indicates.

Dodging was a good plan, as it makes the dots have a much harder time finding her. But getting closer to the building also makes the job of those folks aiming at her easier and soon a dot lines up on her hip. Half a moment later, there is a thunderous roar and a .60 caliber round screams her way at just over four times the speed of sound.

But Hikari isn't human.

[Recaiden]

[Shore Rock Garden]

"You'll know when the time is right. Just don't let yourself consider anything impossible."

The Student looks away.

"It's quite something to be AWAKE, you know."

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Garden

Mara groans and leans against a big rock next to her, giving her a head a small thunk against it for dramatic effect (she has super-powers, it's not like it could actually hurt her. Cranial damage resistance is a power, right?)
"Could you be a little less cryptic, please? I am so damned tired of all these cryptic messages."

[Recaiden]

[Shore Garden]

"If I must. You have powers. I have powers too, but I don't know exactly what they are. I think you don't quite know yours either. That ribbon can, apparently, turn you into animals. Depends where you're wearing it. But I don't know the details, because it's running off your magic."

The Student stretches and then slumps against an adjacent face of the same big rock.

[Deathkeeper]

Shore Garden

"So, what? I should just try all my powers wearing it different places until things click? If I don't guess the right thing I'll probably give myself more mental trauma than my brain can take. How is that supposed to be helpful? Why don't things ever come with a manual?" she moans, thumping her head on the rock some more.

[Nalix]

[The Tower- Floor Four]

"First blood, fugly. Not last." Hotaru retorts as she goes to pick up her mutated Pikachu and examine it. When she sees the Hulking Heretic hocking up more flames, her eyes widen. "Phil, no!" She yells, and aims and throws the Pikachu in the path of the oncoming flames, then dives for Phil's legs, intending to push him away from any remnant blasts.

The Tower - Floor Four

Phil attempts to discharge an unfocused mid-grade at the flaming blob, thus turning it into anything else, but Hotaru reaches him at the same time, sending both of them tumbling to one side, away from the stairs, and possibly throwing off his aim. ((can I do that, or is it overstepping my character limits?))

mid-grade charge [chaos sling]

[Recaiden]

[Shore Garden]

"Do you want to write the manual? People don't write stuff down, and then they forget it."

The Student sighs.

"So much, nobody knows yet. Really, I think we should go into space. Get a ticket in the big city. Or you can just wait. Not worry about it. Wear it one place, go about your normal weird life until you find out how one part works, then move it. You know?"