Random Plots and Places 12: More pseudorandom than we care to admit

[Recaiden]

Leah is following along after Mist, looking around at everything. For all the time she spends at the Inn, the forest currently surrounding it remains mostly unknown to her. She's always been drawn to the cities instead.

[Deathkeeper]

Forest

Mist walks cheerily beside Leah, carrying a picnic bag with food from the DFI's kitchen as he leads Leah in a roundabout tour of the forest towards a small, greenery-covered ruin. The granite walls and pillars once enclosed a cloister, but now they simply stand as a place for ivy to grow.
"Neat, huh? I know that you like places like this. What do you think?" he asks as they approach.

[Recaiden]

Leah hurries forward to the ruin, running a hand up a pillar, between the strands of ivy. Then she bounds back to Mist with a grin.
"Yeah! What a pretty little place this is. Do you know how long it's been empty?"

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

Mist shrugs, placing the bag down on a fallen pillar.
"No idea. Found it a while ago. It looks centuries old but I'm not an archaeologist." he says casually, looking up at the sky visible between the trees.

[Recaiden]

"I think centuries old is usually completely swallowed by plants. Maybe one hundred-year."
Leah shrugs. That's not important.
She comes over near the picnic-pillar and gets out the dye-potions.
"Ready to complete these new looks?"

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

Mist smiles and nods, taking whichever potion(s) Leah wants him to take.
He trusts her to not mix them up. He'd look silly with orange legs.
"Okay. Count of three?" he proposes.

[Recaiden]

It's just the fur-color one. This is not the right time to transform anyone, and there's no need for antitoxin or healing right now.
Mist gets the correct potion.
"Three...two...one..."
Leah drinks it down. For a moment it won't seem like much has happened, but then color spirals down her legs where you might see it, orange, black, and a little white.

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

Mist isn't so good at chugging but he gets it down a little after Leah. The potions taste surprisingly bland, almost like mineral water. After a similar delay, Mist slowly turns the dark red that Leah selected, with a black tail-tip.
"You look good, Leah." he says with a laugh.

[Shadowcaller]

"I think we should probably stick together." Alice replies, with a little shake of her head.

[Cold Slopes]

The worn-out path continues, but the two will need to do some serious climbing eventually. Whoever came through here was very large. They can see rocks and trees pushed aside with massive hands and feet.

[Cold Slopes]

Anika gazes longingly up at the top as she pulls herself up. "This really isn't like the trees in ashenvale. We're pretty vulnerable while we climb, those harpies could attack us from behind at any moment." She really didn't like the idea of climbing all the way up there.

[Recaiden]

[Cold Slopes]

Serious climbing! One of Alice's many weaknesses! She scowls at the steeper path ahead.

"I think this is the time for you to fly and scout ahead. There might be another way up around the sides."

[Ruins]

Leah looks Mist over, especially at the tip of his tail.
"As do you. Very cute, that."
And then goes to open the picnic bag.

[Deathkeeper]

Ruins

"You think so? I guess it's a pretty nice color. And not too different from normal me." he says, not stopping her from looking at their dinner. Inside the bag is one whole roasted chicken in a plastic box to keep it from getting completely cold, a bag of chips, and a large thermos of tea and some cups.

[Recaiden]

"I do. Just like I'd hoped." Leah affirms with a smile.
She isn't very hungry - she isn't ever hungry, after all - so she leave the bag be and strolls among the pillars.

[HaltTheSlayer]

[Ruins]

"...Stasis Lock Disengaging. Rebooting primary functions." A monotone female voice says not to far away from where Leah and Mist were having their picnic. A pile of rubble that had collapsed in a corner begins to stir as a mechanical figure that had been completely buried in it emerges. It look severely damaged with a bit of rust here and there, it was a wonder how it was moving at all.
"Primary functions status; critical. Memory core: Damaged. Continuing start up of Pawn Unit 109."

(Is it ok if i join?)

[Deathkeeper]

Ruins

"Oh, geez. Uhh..." Mist warily takes a few steps towards the robot, hand not gripping but not terribly far from his dirk.
"Leah, you know more about robotics than me. Thoughts?" he asks. He never really knew much about Kestrel's workings despite how long it's worked there.

[Recaiden]

((Welcome!))

"Oh!"
Leah jumps over and starts quickly moving away bits of fallen stone from the robot.

"I don't know. This doesn't look anything like Kestrel or my angels. But it must still have some working sensors if we woke it. Oh, look at the etchings beneath the rust - it's some kind of magitek. But it sounds like it's in a POST mode - that's pretty common when a system powers up. It usually just takes a second. Like, unless they've been buried under a fallen temple for years. It's kind of a reflex - if it's not too broken, it should properly wake up in a moment."
She sounds pretty excited, although the machine could be meant to do anything. With that much damage, it would be no surprise if it went into an endless loop.

[HaltTheSlayer]

[Ruins]

It's head light turns on but is flickering a little as it takes in it's surroundings. It's eyeless gaze fixes on Leah and Mist and it tries to move forward. However one of it legs fall in on itself and it crashes to the floor.
"T-That's not g-good." It stutters as it tries to engage it's repair mode but all its tools seem to be broken.

[Deathkeeper]

Ruins

Mist frowns.
"No, it definitely isn't. Can you send him to the Fort, Leah? You guys have a workshop there where you fix up the mechanical bodies. Unless you think you could do it with just tools from your shadows." He's never seen her make a screwdriver out of shadows but since she made a minigun out of one it's probably doable.

[Recaiden]

That's a remarkably self-aware comment.

"Hey, can you hear us? Uh, and understand us too."
Leah looks back to Mist.
"Yeah, but she looks pretty heavy. I'd like to see if we can fix it up enough to walk to the workshop. There's some little maintenance tools back at the Inn, right? With the cleaning supplies? I think with some oil and a rasp we could do a lot right here."
She takes a closer look at the Pawn's legs to see how damaged they are. If it's just rust and dust building up, that's one thing, but if moving parts have broken away over time, that's a lot worse.

[HaltTheSlayer]

"I u-undertand, i c-can hear. Identify y-yourselves?" The machine ask as it sits still to let you examine it.
The machine's leg was in fact covered in rust but nothing seemed to be missing. The rust was effectively jamming it's motors and preventing it from working properly.

[Deathkeeper]

Ruins

Mist nods, and quickly moves to a corner to phone Kestrel to bring them the stuff. Ketrel probably knows where to get that stuff off-hand anyway.

[Recaiden]

"I am 'Leah Danir'." She replies truthfully. Doesn't identify Mist - that would be a little rude.

"Stay still. I'm going to clear off the rusted parts of your joints so you can move." A black metal file appears in Leah's hand, and she gets to work.

In just a few moments the robot janitor Kestrel shows up and delivers the requested tools, with which Leah will finish the job of smoothing and oiling the rusted parts of the Pawn.

[HaltTheSlayer]

Pawn starts to get up once the job is finished and manages to stand albeit with a little difficulty.
"T-thank you Miss Danir, I-I am Pawn Unit 109. My primary f-function is t-to serve as a m-mage protector, b-but my memory b-bank seems to missing most of i-its data. What is the current date?"

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

"Uh, it's January. Sorta. You're not really going to get much better than that. Mist Anders." Says Mist, quickly adding his name at the end since he forgot to do so earlier.

[HaltTheSlayer]

"J-January..." She looks at the ruined temple and seems confused. "...i s-see, do either of you have t-training in the a-arcane arts?"

[Recaiden]

Leah straightens up and dusts off her hands.
"January. There are a lot of different calendars in use here. Under mine, for example, it's Cycle Y, Year 4, Day 78. It looks like this place has been in its present state, uh, with you buried, for about fifty-thousand twenty-four hour days."

"Nice to meet you, 109. Uh, not exactly. I do magic, of a sort. But it's probably not what you're thinking of. My father and sister do, if you need help from a proper mage. And there's Frederick back at the Inn..."

((Usually, you should wait for each of the other players involved to respond before you post a second time. It didn't really make a difference here, but be aware of it. ))

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

Mist nods, looking at Leah. "Yeah, Frederick might work. Or just the folks at GLoG. They have magic defenses, I hear. Don't know too much about 'em though." he admits.

[HaltTheSlayer]

109 observes you both closely. "...no y-you don't meet the r-requirement's for attuning. T-the reason for my activation is d-due to my link to my m-master being severed. Likely c-cause for his abrupt severing is m-most likely do his timely d-death. W-with some help, i w-would like to find a n-new arcane mage to a-attune with.""

(Ok sorry.)

[Recaiden]

((You typed 'do meet', but the rest of the words seem to say that you meant "don't meet", so that's what I'm going to assume, unless you correct me.))

Leah has some capacity with what you'd probably call 'divine magic' if you made a distinction, and is perfectly at ease with unearthing and repairing a strange old machine.
"I'm sorry for your master. I think we can probably help. We'll need someone who wants to be attuned with, right? Whatever that exactly entails."

She looks over to Mist.
"There's all sorts of people at GLoG. It was mostly healers and nature magic when I saw there last, but it's quite possible they've come by someone.""

And back to 109.
"It might be wise for you to get some more repairs first. Some of the corrosion was pretty bad. Oh, do you have enough power to keep operating? Do you need fuel or a charge or something?"

[Deathkeeper]

Ruin

Mist considers their options.
"Well, Kestrel could probably take him if he needs to get taken to someone. Once he's all shiny we can find a mage. Frederick would probably enjoy a bodyguard but I don't know how much his wife would like it." he adds with a grin.

[HaltTheSlayer]

(sorry was busy, also 109 is a "She")


[Ruin]

109 bows politely. "I-I am grateful for the help, if it w-weren't for you two i p-probably would not have made i-it far from this ruin."

Turns to Leah.

"My core is f-fully operational, if it w-were not i would not have g-gotten up to begin with." 109 opens her chest and a brightly glowing core can be seen that seem to be a made out of some high concentration of solid mana.