Outside 44: Baby it's cold outside

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Tunnel]

Cleo slows and calms down at the voice, and goes to coil around the nearest pine tree to the rock dragon. Her eyes wander all over the dragon, clearly admiring.

"You can talk!"

Gives a quick shake of her head.

"No, no, we're not hunters. Are there many in these parts? We only jsut arrived from over the mountains."

[Fenric]

[Dragon... Prey?]

The dragoness nods

There is a simply dreadful village of exceedingly pale skinned, dark-haired elves who think that killing a dragon somehow proves they can sire children or some such nonsense.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Unhunt]

Cleo frowns, then looks back.

"Hey, Keiko, you'd best come over here. More of your favorite elves."

Then she looks back to this wonderful rock dragon.

"Just a village, you say? Silly thought, of course. If they want proof, they should be going out and seducing dragons. Anyway, no harm done. Turning stuff to stone is kind of my thing, so even if it had hit, I'd probably be okay."

[Nalix]

The Tower Floor Four

The return of Raikiri! "I'll leave you to it, hey I did make a promise, blah blah, but... let's cut it off!" Her red-eyed side of her face grins. She retracts herself just as Luna gives herself a shut-up slap.

"Sorry about that. Still working out kinks." Luna frowns, rubbing her face and staring at Nisha, who's staring back. She runs over to hug Luna and cling to her, hoping to make it alright somehow.

Luna sighs and continues, looking at Zither. "If you show it to me, I'll help fix your tail. Specialized nanobots could give you a tail again, or give you something that acts like one." She flashes an easy smile at her fiend-blooded friend. "You know I always want to help out, Zi."‎

The Tower - Floor Four

"That's going to take some getting used to," says Phil in response to Raikiri's sudden appearance. "And what are nanobots?" he asks Luna.

Phil begins to slowly stroll around the fourth floor, in part to see if there's anything interesting that he missed, in part to try out his new vision, and in part to get ready to leave, as he assumes that that's what they'll be doing shortly.

[Cyber Punk]

[Outside The Temple Gate]

(This long-ass post is typed during a brief respite from a mentally-exhausting week. I find the scene confusing, see.)
‎
Hei basks in this power. The kami of things obey him. HIM! As it should be. "More, I need more." He mutters to himself, scanning the battlefield. He concentrates on the razor wind, willing it to grow into a tornado storm and directing it to move thru the horde.

[Fenric]

[Dragon Meetup]

Keiko, Meena, and the water dragoness all come over.

Ooooh, pretty! But she's not an elf.

Meena blinks, and the wild dragoness shyly sticks close to her

She's a rock dragon?

The rock dragon giggles

We call ourselves mountain dragons, but thanks! And the elves are a fair distance east from here, actually.

But how did two inland sea dragons and ... yourself ... come to be on this side of the mountain?

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Meetup]

"No, but she(?) was telling me about them. Around here. Dragon hunters."

Cleo grins.

"We made a tunnel! Well, that dragon there just came along for the trip."

[Fenric]

[Dragon Meetup]

The mountain dragon grins broadly

A tunnel? That's great! There's a pack of really unruly ferals up in the pass, and it's just not reasonable to get through anymore. I haven't been down to the sea in ages!

Keiko nods

Well, there's a good way, now. By the way: I'm Keiko, this is my mate Cleo, this is Meena, and...

She blinks at the feral water dragoness. Meena speaks up

She's Dewdrop, my bestest friend ever!

The mountain dragon bobs her head politely

A pleasure to meet you all. My name is Claire.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Meetup]

"Yeah, I'd agree, except it's not going to be great if there's hunting parties of elves coming through to kill the ferals and enslave the natives."

Cleo looks to the wild dragon and smiles.

"Dewdrop! Nice to meet you, Claire. It's...something else entirely to met so many dragons."

She climbs down from the tree, a bit embarrassed.

[Fenric]

[Dragon Meetup]

Keiko tilts her head

Elves again. Could you describe them, please.

Claire does so. Cleo should remember the description well enough: it's the same group from the dream. Not that Keiko leaves anyone waiting...

Ugh! Miserable nasty Dark Elves! We outta just go in there and...

She stops and looks at Meena... suggesting genocide in front of the impressionable youngster is perhaps not the best choice.

No... nevermind, that's a bad idea.

But ya know what, Cleo: I think maybe the overall plan has found a pretty decent purpose after all. Resisting the Dark Elves will give our Sthiss buddies something to do, and help make sure they stay on the good side of things. It will also give them a solid way to help the dragons out, which is part of their religion and all.

Claire bends down and sniffs at Meena

What a fascinating child.

Meena grins

You're a pretty awesome dragon, too!

Dewdrop still isn't sure about the whole thing, and squeaks softly

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Meetup]

"And...yeah, that was my thought too. But it isn't really our place. Now, finding that demon they believe in, and killing him? That would do."

Cleo whirls her eyes about.
Something is really set on this plan occurring.

"No, Dewdrop. She's nice."

[Fenric]

[Dragon Meetup]

Keiko nods
Meena and the other two dragons watch the conversation without understanding much of it.

Yeah! That's a good point.

Dewdrop warms to Claire after Cleo's reassurance, and Keiko remembers the point to this whole outing

Oh! So Meena's village is having trouble with a young bull feral forest dragon. We were kinda hoping to find him a girlfriend so he'll settle down.

Meena grins

And we can have more friends!

Claire hmms

This is mountain dragon territory, so there aren't many of those around here. There might be some west, away from the Elves and as the mountains taper down...

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Meetup]

Cleo shakes her head.

"That's totally unimportant now. They can deal with the bull dragon for however long it takes another to come into the same territory. The village is about to have a problem with this vilalge of elves - we need to go get more information."

She looks to Claire. Not wanting to trouble the rock dragon, but certainly needing her help.

"Can you show us the way? Or at least give us directions?"

[Fenric]

[Dragon Reconnaissance]

Keiko slumps down

Oh.

Claire nods

It's not hard to find: just follow the mountain ridge east - obviously it's not perfectly straight, just follow it along. Their nasty little village is right at the tree-line, you can't possibly miss it.

Keiko looks at Meena and Dewdrop

I don't think we want to have the young ones tagging along...

Meena scowls at that

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Meetup]

"Well, of course they can't tag along. They have to head west and find a forest dragon to befriend."

Right Keiko? This was definitely the plan for at least a few seconds longer than this.

"Thank you Claire. You might care to go see their village by the sea. Quite friendly to dragons. Meena, we'll meet up with you and Dewdrop after we've seen the elves. I can put a spell on you so you won't get lost from us, before you go."

[Fenric]

[Dragon Reconnaissance]

Meena brightens up

Oh, why didn't you say so the first time, Keiko? And yeah, that's a good idea Cleo: we don't need any of us getting lost, right Dewdrop?

Dewdrop nods

DrrrrrDrah!

Clarie grins

I think I will do that. It will be very pleasant to see the sea again, and friendly neighbors would certainly be welcome.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Reconnaissance]

"Okay, come here."
Cleo waits a moment, then stretches out to put a claw on Meena's head and whistle a short bit of her own song. Some part of the sthiss's scales should turn 'Cleo's hat pink'. Probably just a little bit, but maybe as much as a fancy striped pattern if something unexpected happens.

"Good luck, you two. Claire, nice to meet you, enjoy the water. If you ever accidentally turn someone to stone and need them fixed, let me know. Come on, Keiko, let's go find some elves!"

[Earl of Purple]

The Tower- Floor Four

Zither looks sharply at Hotaru when offered a proper tail, her face lighting up with a smile. "Really? Thank you!" She starts by putting her morion helm down, and then removes her belt and the mace-rifle hanging off it. Once that's done, she'll pull her chainmail shirt up and over her head, fold it neatly and stack it in the same pile. She's standing in her green summer dress, and turns around to pull the back of her dress up, revealing her knickers, the bottom of her spine and the line of scales down it, and at the base of her spine, an inch of tail. It's not very pretty, covered in the same dark red triangular scales as the ones along her spine, and ending suddenly with a flat scar or reddish-pink tissue. "I don't know what it looked like; Mum never told me, just told me what she'd done and why. I've already got tells about my heritage; I can't blend in completely. And in the Nexus, I don't need to."

[Fenric]

[Dragon Reconnaissance]

Meena gets a fetching pink ring around her neck!

Ok, see you soon!

And together with Dewdrop, heads west. Claire heads south and across the tunnel (which she decides to walk along the top of rather than brave the dark interior)

Keiko heads east with Cleo, waiting until they're out of range of being overheard before saying anything

Nasty wretched manipulative Dark Elves. Figures that they'd make dragon hunting some stupid rite of passage.

[Murkus]

[Out and About]

Kirk chuckles. He does, doesn't he. "You'd be surprised how small that number is. Then again, I always preferred women with a bit of experience."

[Out and About]

"Considering most of them are like children to him. I am not surprised." Dena muses. "Even I am like a teenager to this guy."

"Like a teenager?" Fettina looks appalled. She flashes Kirk a wicked grin. "Kirk, you're such a freak. What does that make me, to you?"

[Cyber Punk]

[‎The Tower - Floor Four]‎
‎
Luna smiles back. "Anytime, sis. Now, go ahead..."‎

"Nanobots, short for nano robots. Robots that are minuscule, and can be programmed to do a lot of things. The kinks have mostly been worked out... but then most people aren't me." She tells Phil.

When Zither shows her tail, Nisha looks on in wonderment. "This is so cool!" She mutters, but doesn't interrupt Luna's attempts to investigate the tail-stump. "Alright, I'll inject something into it and it'll feel funny, but before the end of the day you'll have a functioning tail, one that can even be augmented if you wished!"

She pulls out her inventory and selects an injector and the particular strain of nanobots she's made for such a task, and loads up the cartridge. Without warning, it gets injected directly into Zither's tail stump.

She'll feel a pinprick of pain, along with a tingly feeling as the machines get to work reconstructing and regrowing her tail. "Give it a few hours. You might wanna avoid sitting down, or it might grow crooked."‎

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Dispersal]

Meena gets a fetching pink ring around her neck!

Ok, see you soon!

And together with Dewdrop, heads west. Claire heads south and across the tunnel (which she decides to walk along the top of rather than brave the dark interior)

Keiko heads east with Cleo, waiting until they're out of range of being overheard before saying anything

Nasty wretched manipulative Dark Elves. Figures that they'd make dragon hunting some stupid rite of passage.

"Maybe if we're really lucky, this will be the community of Dark Elves that are not absolutely horrible, and just too aggressive? Or even unaware that some dragons are people? They're not literally made of evil or anything, right?"

Cleo doesn't really expect anything better than what they were dreamed to be. She's heard enough about that world.

Off they go along the ridge.

[Fenric]

[Dragon Dispersal]

Keiko bobbles her head

You're right, of course... there's no such thing as a species that is really just plain evil. If they're just lurking around without a demon lord, they won't necessarily be all that bad. No worse than a random village of primitive humans would be.

Not that that is really all that reassuring, honestly.

What did you have in mind?

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Dispersal]

"You're right, even if sometimes it seems like they're that bad."

Cleo looks back and forth and scampers a little ahead along the rocks.

"I figured we might just go and try to talk to them?"

[Fenric]

[Dragon Dispersal]

Keiko looks unsure

I'll let you talk, then... I'm still tempted to employ a short sentence of things that all start with "Power Word".

Vicious Keiko is still vicious... but she can behave.

I think I see something!

It's a sizeable column of smoke rising into the air like an exclamation point. Given that they're looking for a village, the combined output of numerous cooking fires would easily account for it.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Dispersal]

"If it were the same elves, I'd be all for that."

Cleo pauses when they see the rising smoke and starts humming defensive spells. No reason not to take reasonable precautions. Protection from arrows. Lesser Invulnerability. Wizard Armor. Shield. Double time.

Okay. Down they go to the smoke. Grumbling about power words the whole way.

[Fenric]

[Dragon Diplomacy]

Keiko works her way through a set of protection spells of her own, giggling softly at some of the more outlandish ones the apprentices back at the temple have come up with.

Protection from Minnows? I wonder what inspired that... or what it even does. Protection from Papercuts! Probably not helpful right this instant, but an admirable thought. Protection from Bird Droppings... bet that was a bad day. Hm... hm... hm... WHAT?!?!

Keiko glowers angrily

Protection from KEIKO?!?! You need more than a piddly third-level spell to save yourself from me! Just you wait 'til I get back home you smug little jerkface, we'll see how well your spell manages then.

Two grumbling dragonesses approach the village. Of course, dragons purposely approaching the village is not something the elves expected at all, and it causes quite a stir even from a significant distance. As might be expected, a bit of a hunting party assembles and comes out... looking not at all confident but trying to be fearsome.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Diplomacy]

Cleo giggles a great deal at the last one.
"Hey now; Protection from Chaos is a perfectly valid spell."

She winds her way right up to the hunting party, trying to look fearless.

[Fenric]

[Dragon Diplomacy]

Keiko grumbles, not really having time right now to see what the spell actually does.

The elves are fairly tall, sturdily built, and extremely pale to the point they approach albino but their hair and eyes are ink-black. They're dressed for the most part in the sort of skin and leather clothes you'd expect a reasonably primitive tribe to be wearing, but their spear-points do look to be metal of some sort and they do have some metal accessories.

They glance at Keiko nervously, but are clearly intimidated by Cleo and stop short when she advances: pointing their spears at her.

[Recaiden]

[Dragon Diplomacy]

"Lower your weapons; we are not here to fight you. Is there anyone who can speak for your whole village?"

Cleo stops advancing and looks right at whichever elf is centermost. While it's not why they're here, she'll be happy to fight them if they insist. Shatter their spearpoints? Turn the shafts into trees rooted in the ground? Just start petrifying them?

Maybe they're not used to dragons who can speak.