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

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

"Ye don't cast anything. Just let the magic dissipate into ye're eyes." The book is currently unable to directly influence the world around it, and therefore can do nothing to stop Phil's eyes turning into muffins, or flying away, or dissolving into acid. Phil can dissipate a charge without casting it, because he's done it in the Tower, unless I was misinterpreting what was occurring.

The Spirit charge disrupts and dissipates the magic of the symbol, wafting away in blue-white mist that quickly evaporates.

Afflishex the Innocent attempted to devour the Lost King of the Netherworld, and failed. Afflishex therefore Innocent of the crimes of Deicide, Necrocide, Usurpation of Souls and Tyranny. An odd definition of 'innocent', but there you have it. You have released Afflishex the Innocent from its chains. Thy bidding is Afflishex the Innocent's command, and it shall endeavour to perform your will till the stars go out, the Sun dies, or till it is formally released... Or commanded to return whence it came. The safest response is to command it to return.

[Fenric]

[Death Knight's Success]

Hikari smiles as she sits down outside of the cave, looking exhausted, and says, "Indeed. That you didn't." She takes a deep breath and then sighs, saying, "I suppose that's that, then. What were they even trying to do?"

Izanami shakes her head

I'm really not sure: they were going to sacrifice me to something, but they were all culty and never said the name! "He" and "the great lord" and all sorts of nonsense over and over... some dead god or other, that they were trying to bring back.

[Gullara]

Tina imagines, with a wince, what it would've been like if she'd treated Lydia to a bad time. But... "Kirk, who are you kidding?" Tina says, a small smile eking out from her frazzled face. "People don't have bad times with me."

Tina screws up her eyes and tightens her grip on the steering wheel. That narrow gaze takes in Dena. "You got it wrong too, hon'. I'm not maybe-dating anybody."

Whatever that could mean, Tina purposely doesn't finish her thought.

[Out and About]

Kirk laughs once again. "Oh look, we've goteen her confidence back. I was worried there for a minute." An uncertain Fettina couldn't possibly be a good sign. "I was starting to wonder when I'd wake up from this, because I was starting to believe it couldn't possibly be real."

[Shadowcaller]

Tina imagines, with a wince, what it would've been like if she'd treated Lydia to a bad time. But... "Kirk, who are you kidding?" Tina says, a small smile eking out from her frazzled face. "People don't have bad times with me."

Tina screws up her eyes and tightens her grip on the steering wheel. That narrow gaze takes in Dena. "You got it wrong too, hon'. I'm not maybe-dating anybody."

Whatever that could mean, Tina purposely doesn't finish her thought.

[Out and About]

"So who are you actually-dating then, Tiny-Tina?" Dena first asks before she glances at Kirk in the backseat. "I think the actual signs that you're dreaming is when you're losing confident Kirk-y. Has there been even one time when you haven't acted like you were the gods gift to women?" She smiles to herself.

[Solidarity]

"It's that, or leave it in others' hands. I don't like hurting people. Or whatever these are. But sometimes that's all there is. If the source of the Stormguard doesn't like it, we'll do without them." Cleo's voice is bitter, but confident, and her expression a smile.
"I'll make them stone, and then dust, or bury them in thorns, or-" She laughs a deep laugh, showing off her teeth, and flexes the claws on one hand. And with the chronomancer here, what do they have to be afraid of?

[Outside the Temple Gate]

His colleague's musings almost elicited a chuckle from the comparatively plain looking man, as he'd no sharp teeth or frightening claws. With an air of confidence now, the mage of time and fate nodded in resolution.

Right then, off we go again. he thought to himself.

For the first time she'd seen, Eternus slides his left katana from its sheath. The blade rests easily in his right hand, pointed low and off to his side, gleaming in reflection of the painted skies overhead as he evenly steps forward. It was a calm demeanor, almost tranquil. Inexplicably so, not unlike how one might walk down a beach to enjoy a warm evening. The Bronze Wizard hesitates only long enough to glance behind him at his comrade and smile. No smirking, no sarcasm, just a genuine smile.

"No time to waste, my friend."

[Cyber Punk]

Afflishex the Innocent attempted to devour the Lost King of the Netherworld, and failed. Afflishex therefore Innocent of the crimes of Deicide, Necrocide, Usurpation of Souls and Tyranny. An odd definition of 'innocent', but there you have it. You have released Afflishex the Innocent from its chains. Thy bidding is Afflishex the Innocent's command, and it shall endeavour to perform your will till the stars go out, the Sun dies, or till it is formally released... Or commanded to return whence it came. The safest response is to command it to return.

The Tower- Floor Four

Hotaru agrees, and it's what she does. "I command you to return from where you came from, then. Nice meeting... you." She barely winces as she says so

[Nalix]

The Tower - Floor Four

After Phil deals with any results of his potential spell miss-fire (by taking off his orange robes and wrapping his head in it, which would incidentally change his change in face tone back to its original, after a few minutes) he lets the charges dissipate, which normally does nothing.

"So, book of knowledge," says Phil, who has wiped out the symbol after getting the eye upgrade, "what will you do now that you are free? You could come with us, I would love to have you along. In fact, I may have other ways to expand your power while preserving your form, if you're interested."

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

As thy wish't. The horrible squid-demon floats over to where the ball lies, and disappears with a flash of green- into the ball. Anything confident enough to challenge an undead god for rule of the Realms of Death, and powerful enough to survive failure, is going to be a lot of trouble. Though, demons as I run them gain power from worship, fear, and devouring the essence of other supernatural beings; with 'fear' being the most potent source, with 'worship' in second, and both tied to a demon's name (when a demon successfully devours another, it advertises the fact as widely and as potently as I can, so the deceased demon's worshippers transfer across, and so others know to fear it). A demon bound where it cannot influence others gradually weakens as people forget it and its name is no longer associated with fear or worship.

"Now I am free, I shall learn how ye do magic, and all of ye're practices and abilities." With that, the Book hovers up and opens its front cover, the pages flicking through- each double-page spread is completely devoid of words, containing instead a detailed and accurate full-colour painting of somebody's face; there's men and women depicted; of many different races and species. Screaming from the many faces of those entombed within its pages echoes through the room as the Book of Knowledge reaches an empty page. A new symbol appears, flaring up in the rusty-brown colour of dried blood. Phil can see that the magic is intensely spiritual, binding magic- and then it activates, attempting to pull Phil's soul from his body, into the Book of Knowledge and replace the symbol with a painting of Phil's face.

[Cyber Punk]

The Tower- Floor Four

Hotaru walks over to her mutated Pikachu, of the extra-eyes-and-tail-but-still-cute variety, and hugs it, talking to it and promising to fix it later. Their moment is interrupted by screams coming from a nearby room.

"Phil!" She gasps out, and tries bursting into the room. If nothing prevents her from entering the room, then she'll try and electrocute the book, whatever that'll do.

[Nalix]

The Tower - Floor Four

Phil raises his hand, feeling his soul energy being pulled and pooled there. He forms a high-grade charge, sensing the seriousness of this threat. "No," he says, releasing the charge at the book with the negation giving it focus. The charge should stop whatever is happening, though its side effects could be potentially dire.

[Hard negation, self-replicating chairs] To be fair the table said "a swift tool for sitting" interpret it as you will, I assumed it's some kind of chair.

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

When Hotaru reaches the door, the Book tries to slam it in her face, though all its concentration is needed when it realises Phil is trying something, so the door is blocked only briefly. The Book of Knowledge stays open, but magic is diverted away from the symbol and into a protection spell, a bubble of pale green energy interposing around the Book. The lightning ripples over the bubble, But Phil's magic punches right through and negates the bubble, leading to electricity coating its pages and the screaming intensifies. An ornate, ladder-back chair of black yew appears in the air above the book, and falls onto its pages, disrupting the symbol and creating a burst of spiritual energy that may damage the souls of those within (though how that damage manifests is up to the players). The chair creates a new chair, an exact duplicate. The burst of spiritual energy destroyed the bindings on the Book's captured souls, and now the Book of Knowledge is more a Book of Ignorance, without the minds of thousands to question.

[Ionbound]

[Death Knight's Success]

Izanami shakes her head

I'm really not sure: they were going to sacrifice me to something, but they were all culty and never said the name! "He" and "the great lord" and all sorts of nonsense over and over... some dead god or other, that they were trying to bring back.

Hikari frowns and says worriedly, "I see. That's...Not promising at all. I'm sure they'll be back to hassle us. And, Lady Izanami...If they ever kidnap you again...Don't be afraid to unleash your full power on them. Of all the people in the Nexus, they likely deserve it the most."

[Cyber Punk]

When Hotaru reaches the door, the Book tries to slam it in her face, though all its concentration is needed when it realises Phil is trying something, so the door is blocked only briefly. The Book of Knowledge stays open, but magic is diverted away from the symbol and into a protection spell, a bubble of pale green energy interposing around the Book. The lightning ripples over the bubble, But Phil's magic punches right through and negates the bubble, leading to electricity coating its pages and the screaming intensifies. An ornate, ladder-back chair of black yew appears in the air above the book, and falls onto its pages, disrupting the symbol and creating a burst of spiritual energy that may damage the souls of those within (though how that damage manifests is up to the players). The chair creates a new chair, an exact duplicate. The burst of spiritual energy destroyed the bindings on the Book's captured souls, and now the Book of Knowledge is more a Book of Ignorance, without the minds of thousands to question.

The Tower- Floor Four

Hotaru winces at the sound of the screams of the escaping souls, flying out of the book, some of them damaged more irreparably than ever before. She moves to grab Phil, then backs away and looks at the book instead, taking care not to look at Phil or speak to him, for the moment, at least.

[Nalix]

The Tower - Floor Four

"What a waste," says Phil holding a mid-grade charge, ready to release at the first sign of danger, "that such a wealth of knowledge would be directed by a mind like that... you could have bargained, you could have gained so much more. Can you hear me? Can you speak?" He does not look at Hotaru/Raikiri, and he's not sure which of the two it is, at the moment, but he's aware that she's there.

mid-grade charge, assuming something happens to get him to fire it: [harmless lizard]

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

"Mweherble." The Book remains in the room, but has lost all its knowledge- including the knowledge of language. It's been effectively neutralised, without killing it- and before, when it was in its binding circle (which was designed so it could actually be bargained with, knowledge traded equitably without any attempt at sucking out souls), it would have considered its current state a fate considerably worse than death.

The chairs continue to duplicate.

[Cyber Punk]

The Tower- Floor Four

Hotaru briefly considers keeping quiet and waiting for Phil to say or do something first, but thinks better of it. Instead, she whirls round to face Phil. "What were you thinking, Phil Ashfield? My darker half is not one to be toyed with so!" She sighs. "Though, I suppose you didn't know... I wanted to tell you about her on my own terms. If I knew you'd go gaga over her, I'd have said something sooner."

She gestures to the replicating chairs. "Fix that. Then we'll get Z up here and talk."

[Fenric]

[Death Knight's Advice]

Hikari frowns and says worriedly, "I see. That's...Not promising at all. I'm sure they'll be back to hassle us. And, Lady Izanami...If they ever kidnap you again...Don't be afraid to unleash your full power on them. Of all the people in the Nexus, they likely deserve it the most."

Izanami nods

That does seem reasonable... I'm just hesitant to let that out: I don't want to lose myself again.

[Ionbound]

[Death Knight's Comfort]

Hikari smiles and says, as she hugs the death goddess, "Don't worry Izanami. No matter what, I will always be by your side."

[Fenric]

[The End]

Izanami happily returns the hug

Thank you, dear Hikari.

Far away, Cleo turns the dark god's heart to stone and wraps it in vines.

From deep inside the cavern, a wailing cry of despair and loss echoes throughout multiple planes: the death-cry of a god. Izanami tilts her head in puzzlement

Well... whoever it was does not seem to have survived your disrupting of his ceremony...

She shakes her head, then shrugs

Let's go home!

[Recaiden]

[Foothills over the Desert]

Officially, overseeing this desert is not their problem.
And it's purely coincidence that so many new patrols have scheduled.
And it has nothing to do with the fact that a horrible monster appeared in their compound and warned them that an even more horrible monster had woken up out here and they had to fix it because it was their fault.
Really, all this activity at what used to be a dusty old outpost is more likely a reaction to mercenary activity in Skyside or like, global warming.

But the fact is that there's a lot more little hovercraft flitting around, their crew ordered to look out for anyone doing anything, and any place overly deserty.

[Outside the Temple Gate]

And it might well be the last time. She wouldn't put it past the wizard to put it in the past when it's drawn, or some nonsense like that.
By the time the wizard looks back to his companion, she's gone.

...

Invisible, of course. She's still walking beside him, noticeable by the sense of her magic. Up towards the cannons, daring anything to get in their way.

[Fenric]

[Effluent Settling Pond near "Home"]

The sewers of the Sand-Fox/Akarthi city of "Home" empty out into a vast artificial lake, where the intense desert sun bakes everything into sterile dust.

Very profitable sterile dust, collected by another group for whom the smell is not an issue, but that's neither here nor there.

It is to this wretched place that a young red-fox Vulpan came, and from the muck extracted something that could have been disposed of better. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but a bit of tricky spellwork and effort in the baking sun resulted in a litre sized jar of dark grey ashes.

Now that may seem like quite the pitiful reward for so much discomfort and effort... but those ashes were a treasure unlike most that are available in the Nexus today... they were the ashes of the most hated and feared creature from the dire setting once known and feared as "Dark Sun". Pure evil and selfish ambition paired with mighty power both magical and psionic and given the form of a humanoid dragon: an Athasian Dragon King.

A Necromancer would have no hope here. No negative energy could hope to make those ashes into anything worse than their current, life-destroying form. But a Biomancer, on the other hand... and the daughter of the most powerful Biomancer her homeworld had ever seen into the bargain?



Melina Merisanne NomSile grinned in smug satisfaction as the dragon bowed to her.

[Ionbound]

[/Adventure]

Hikari smiles as she hears the death throes of the god and says, "Yeah. It sounds like they won't be bothering us again. Good riddance, I say. Lead the way, my lady," as she follows Izanami home.

[Nalix]

The Tower - Floor Four

"Your dark side needs someone to soften her up," said Phil. "Don't forget, my last girlfriend was a necromancer. I know about dark sides. I felt I was being quite reasonable with her, but she's not the type who's used to reasoning. I didn't toy with her any more than I toyed with that," he points to the now inert book. "I like to give all thinking beings a chance to prove themselves. It's a principle of Balance. To those who don't, there's an answer for that too. Any word from Zither?"

Phil targets each of the chairs with blasts of low-grade chaos. Are there four or eight of them now?
[Elemental deterioration in order: metal, light, mist, water, mist, glass, glass, water]

[Recaiden]

[Effluent Settling Pond near "Home"]

A Wanderer flies by, its one whirling wing sending the sand and dust underneath scattering this way and that, sending animals scurrying for cover. It isn't a quiet form of transportation. The crew aren't happy about this route. The smell always gets into the interior somehow.

So seeing somebody, two somebodies, is a welcome distraction, and they bend their intended course slightly to circle around Melina and her prize to take a closer look.

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

There's eight chairs. When Phil starts blasting them, one disintegrates into iron filings, one explodes in faint violet light, one dissipates into fog, one turns to ice and begins slowly melting, one dissipates into foul-smelling cigarette smoke, one is turned into an elegant chair made of polished obsidian, one is transfigured into edged glass with sharp blades, and the final one splashes into a puddle of sea water.

Over Hotaru's radio, a voice crackles. "The egg's hatched. I put it in an old lead-lined fridge to stop it from any radiation damage whilst I fixed the jenny, and it seems to have worked. I hope one of you is ready for parenthood, though it seems you've missed the messiest part. I'm coming up now; is it all safe?" Zither's been changing out of her radiation suit and back into her usual summer dress, which is why she hasn't spoken sooner.

[Cyber Punk]

The Tower- Floor Four

Hotaru perks up on hearing Zither's voice, and even more on hearing that the egg's hatched. "Really? I'll gladly take care of it, then. You can come up now, it's all clear. In fact, I think you'll wanna see the state of the floor we're on."

Then she shakes her head at Phil. "You soften up my dark side, and I get changed. Balance. Besides, she's not the kind you 'soften up'. Just... let Zi show up first."

[Nalix]

The Tower - Floor Four

"Like I said, she's not one to listen to reason. I bet you know that more than most, assuming you see each other, which I'm still not clear on. I just treat people's dark sides fairly, just like the light." Phil turns around, looking through the apartment with his new eyes. "Well, I think we're done here, though no doubt Zither will want to pick the place over. What do you recommend now, Hotaru? About the tower, where to next, what I should do about about the other, what was her name... Raikiri?"

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

"I'm nearly there. Wow, somebody should install a lift or something. This is rather hard work, though maybe that's the after effects of mild radiation poisoning." She found some Rad-Away, so she's OK, just tired. And planning on a lift to install into the Tower somehow.

[Fenric]

[Effluent Settling Pond near "Home"]

A Wanderer flies by, its one whirling wing sending the sand and dust underneath scattering this way and that, sending animals scurrying for cover. It isn't a quiet form of transportation. The crew aren't happy about this route. The smell always gets into the interior somehow.

So seeing somebody, two somebodies, is a welcome distraction, and they bend their intended course slightly to circle around Melina and her prize to take a closer look.

Melina looks up at the unwelcome intruder, and speaks softly

This is not what I had in mind. Quick, Anak: feign to attack and grapple me. We shall show them a fight, then you will overcome me and teleport us off somewhere more secure. I need my role in this kept secret for now!

The dragon doesn't hesitate, but attacks her viciously! She responds with several flashy spells that drive him back several steps.

[Recaiden]

[Effluent Settling Pond near "Home"]

Maybe it's biased of them, but when the crew sees a fight between a vulpan and a horrible dragon monster, they side with the vulpan without a lot of thinking about it. The machine tilts a little forward, speeds up, and aims the beam cannon slung under it rather hastily.
If the dragon king jumps up and left at exactly the wrong moment, he'd run into the bolt of plasma that...probably wouldn't do too much to him, but most likely, it's just another bit of flashiness added to the scene.

You know, if they're fast enough, maybe no one will ever know what was scene here.