Outside 45

[Deathkeeper]

"Oh yes," Ark replies, with a toothy grin. "All the birds I could eat. Partridges, turkeys, owls, quails, starlings, penguins and loons and ducks..."
"I understand why you didn't want to stay long, Prince. "

The Forest of Owls

"Eep!" says the Squire, though she quickly gains her composure. "You can't have done that! Polar bears and penguins aren't in the same hemisphere!" she insists, which leaves Mist blinking in surprise. He hasn't seen many beings here with any real knowledge of Eath.

[Recaiden]

"I have traveled a very great deal, little one, and a very long way."
Ark tosses her head and laughs.
"What makes this place work as it does?"

[Lazorath]

[The Dark Tower]

"Sounds easy enough," Devero chuckles as he looks to the rest of the group, "the sooner he's dealt with the sooner we can move onwards," he states, neither siding for or against killing Harold, but instead focusing on what would come next.
His gold aura surrounding him has dispersed for the mean time, now that his entire upper body is covered by golden dragon scales, but his determination to fight the powerful beast ahead still remains.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Forest of Owls]

"It works because it does, and because of the grace of the Court. This is the tree, your Highness. My Lord says your friend can keep the coat if she wishes." says the Squire innocently. Mist groans and fishes his dirk out of his coat, going to the tree to cut them a portal.

[Devixer]

The Dark Tower

"Good, great. Now, if sanity is restored, shall we make our way to the actual threats?" Despite Cherie looking to just move on from this... whatever this was, she can't help but scoff at "deadliest monster." Did this man think she was new to this?

[Recaiden]

"It works because it does, and because of the grace of the Court. This is the tree, your Highness. My Lord says your friend can keep the coat if she wishes." says the Squire innocently. Mist groans and fishes his dirk out of his coat, going to the tree to cut them a portal.

"Don't get yourself eaten, now."
Ark hurries through the portal, in case it depends on Mist to stay open. She doesn't really think about the comment about the coat.
And on the other side...

[Deathkeeper]

Forest

The pair will be spit back out in the forest with the DFI in sight, in their "natural" forms. Ark might find a cozy polar bear coat at her feet. "Don't put that on." Mist advises, though perhaps Ark will be back to her Nexus Translate-less self.

[Recaiden]

Ark blinks a few times to clear her eyes and looks this way and that at the forest.
"I...can understand you?"
Oh, she's back to normal, she finally notices! With arms and thumbs and hair, all her weapons and gear! She picks up the bearskin coat and holds it at arm's length.
"I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. What would it do?"

[Deathkeeper]

Forest

"Well, either nothing besides look gaudy, or it would stick to you and you'd be fuzzy like me. Just...bear. Figure you wouldn't want that." Mist says with a shrug. He sticks his dirk back in his coat. The circlet he bore on his forehead is suspiciously absent.

[Recaiden]

"Interesting."
Ark slings the coat over her shoulder. Not worn.
"Uhm, where are we? This doesn't look like the fish pond."

[Deathkeeper]

Forest

"This is where I live. My inn, the Dancing Fox. There's also a town nearby if you want to snoop around and see if you can figure out how to get home." Mist suggests, pointing as he speaks to give Ark directions.

[Recaiden]

Ark looks up at the sky, tracking the placement of the sun.
"I think I can figure out the way. Thank you."
And she starts walking away, not heading for the inn or the town, but just off the road, on through the forest.

[DoomITP]

Grant nods, apparently satisfied... Right before the chain sword revs again and he whips it across the man, attempting to sever his head at the neck in an effortless motion when considering how heavy the weapon must be. Should the blow kill Harold Grant heaves a sigh.

Right. That takes care of that. Let's get on with this.

[Celticbear]

The Tower

It is a clean cut, but as the head falls the body doesn't. The body instead reaches for the head, and puts it back on again.

How did I know you would do that. says Harold in a sarcastic tone. As I said before, me dying would be laughable. Look, I can tell I'm wasting your time, and I really need to go so if we can cut to the chase... cut was a poor choice of words. I want to leave, so goodbye.

Harold starts to walk off again.

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention, the paladin's detect evil (since we've been talking about it for a long time) shows his alignment to not be evil.

[8BitNinja]

The Dark Tower

Steve says to Naku "That's only one of his titles. Our temple scholars say that he has over 1,000 names, but not even clerics learn all of those. Instead, we stick to about 12. He has never told us his real name, or even appeared to us in the flesh. The only visits we have had from him is the rare appearances where he shows up as a bright light, and usually has some prophecy or task to tell us, and out of respect we don't really have long conversations with him." He then sees Grant decapitate Harold and yells "Why did you kill him!? He wasn't posing any threat! He wasn't even evil."

[Green Elf]

[The Dark Tower]

"As I said, there's no communication. Stop trying to torture and kill everyone. If he's not evil, he was hired or captured. Let's go and kill this...'strongest monster' that he talks about. It can't be too hard." Says the elf.

[Murkus]

[Lonely Tower]

"Not very good, I guess," Iknika admits, trying to pull herself together. "I didn't know you could animate skeletons."

[Lonely Tower]

"I can work a little bit of magic, when it suits. Though it isn't easy. And the spirit in that thing is anything but malovelent," She points at the skeleton. "At a sign of real combat he'd fall all to pieces."

[Morty]

[Lonely Tower]

"Yeah, I guess I dealt with it easily," Iknika admits. "Will you teach me how to animate skeletons, too? Because I don't think I want to."

[Lazorath]

[The Dark Tower]

Devero releases a simple sigh, his face showing the slightest hint of the grim pain that he suppresses as he watches Harold's head roll to the ground. He feels the tiniest ounce of sorrow for the victim, but the sight of his decapitation doesn't seem to hold any traumatic effect on him, perhaps because he'd seen far worse as a slave growing up.

"What's done is d-" Devero freezes as he watches Harold pick his head back up and reattach it, "well that's a useful ability to have," he chuckles before smiling as he walks off.

Despite the minor conflict as to what would happen to Harold, it showed a glimpse of each member's true colors, and the information required would likely prove to be useful as they continued on their journey together.

Devero makes his way to the north east wall and holds out his palms, his back to the rest of the group as he grits his teeth at the discomfort of his hardened gold dragon scales emerging from his skin, "this better work," he releases a low and slightly inhuman growl before he gives the wall a firm push.

[Mee]

The Dark Tower

Steve says to Naku "That's only one of his titles. Our temple scholars say that he has over 1,000 names, but not even clerics learn all of those. Instead, we stick to about 12. He has never told us his real name, or even appeared to us in the flesh. The only visits we have had from him is the rare appearances where he shows up as a bright light, and usually has some prophecy or task to tell us, and out of respect we don't really have long conversations with him." He then sees Grant decapitate Harold and yells "Why did you kill him!? He wasn't posing any threat! He wasn't even evil."

"Oh, well. That. . . that sounds nice. My goddess comes to bug me every day. Usually demanding tea."

Grant nods, apparently satisfied... Right before the chain sword revs again and he whips it across the man, attempting to sever his head at the neck in an effortless motion when considering how heavy the weapon must be. Should the blow kill Harold Grant heaves a sigh.

Right. That takes care of that. Let's get on with this.

"Nani shi-te iru-" Naku starts to demand, instantly furious at Grant and inadvertently slipping back into her native Japanese. One hand instantly falls to the hilt of her katana, and the entire area around the party freezes over, the air temperature instantly dropping to well below freezing.

But then the following happens.

The Tower

It is a clean cut, but as the head falls the body doesn't. The body instead reaches for the head, and puts it back on again.

How did I know you would do that. says Harold in a sarcastic tone. As I said before, me dying would be laughable. Look, I can tell I'm wasting your time, and I really need to go so if we can cut to the chase... cut was a poor choice of words. I want to leave, so goodbye.

Harold starts to walk off again.

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention, the paladin's detect evil (since we've been talking about it for a long time) shows his alignment to not be evil.

And Naku just blinks a few times.
That was.
Well that was not what she had expected.

Huh.

Well, she lets go of her sword -- she never actually began to draw it --, and the air warms back up pretty quickly.
"Don't. Do that. Again." She says, slowly and forcefully. Not threateningly, but making sure that her words are understood.
With that, she proceeds to toss about a fist-sized lump of ice that she got from . . . somewhere. . . . off a bit past Harold, so hopefully he'd see it before he leaves, and then just stomps into the tower through the previously opened door.

[Celticbear]

The interior of the tower is dark, with the only features present are the barely visible staircase leading up. Once the entire party enters the tower however, the walls seem to come to life, and images across the walls shows the distinct image of the things that each party members holds dear set aflame. If said things held dear are living beings, the images also show brutal torture as they cry in pain.


The section of the wall that Harold mentioned is pushable, and reveals a staircase leading down. If one were to follow the staircase then they would have a long stair hike ahead of them. Eventually they would leave the dreary dark tower, and come to a large expansive green forest with a dark night sky above. Through the trees you can all clearly see a large dark orb that appears to draw the ambient light into itself. Pacing next to this orb are three of these things:

Spoiler: What the creatures look like

Show

[DoomITP]

Grant just glares at Naku with absolute death in his eyes. There was something else there, not painfully clear but absolutely unpleasant. The room reaching a sweltering temperature as he speaks.

He was an active impediment that wasted time on what may or may not lead to a wild goose chase and there was no guarantee that whatever he is was not capable of fooling the paladin's "morality check". If you think for even a minute that I'm going to take needless risks in order to make those of weak stomach comfortable you have me gravely misunderstood. It speaks of a grossly amature and dangerously inexperienced attitude towards these kinds of things. If you do not treat every single thing in this unknown territory as ready, willing and able to kill you. You. Will. Die. No resets, no revives. Nothing.

The room returns to ambient levels and Grant points the chain sword away, revving the blade apparently to flick the blood free from the weapon before it coagulated.

Take it from someone who has done exactly this kind of thing as his only method of employment since his beginning.

With that he starts looking around the room, looking for the passage to the next section, inspecting for traps, all in all going through his standard behavior for combing a tower.

[Devixer]

Cherie pulls her hat over her eyes and shakes her head. Maybe joining this group wasn't such a great idea, they were all too happy to bicker. But, she hadn't had a decent fight in a while, and if this served as a good exercise, then she supposes it won't be all bad.

"Congratulations, you've proven your sword is the biggest in all the realm. Now if there's nothing else, I shall be moving onward. Feel free to follow. Or don't, I'm not your employer." She moves towards the indicated section of wall, and draws her rapier as Devero pushes it. At the same time, the crystal at her hip floats up near her shoulder, seemingly of its own will.

[8BitNinja]

Steve says to Naku "What diety worthy of reverence needs tea? The god I worship only requires offerings, tithes, and donations to help those who need it. He can get whatever he wants up on the Celestial Mountain." After Grant speaks, he says "And how many civilian casualties have you caused? I know that you might not believe me when I say that I can literally see evil, but it has stopped several deaths from happening."

[Green Elf]

[The Dark Tower]

The ranger speaks up. "Can everybody be quiet and have self control for just a second! We need to figure out where we're going next and how we're going to complete our missions. I say we go carefully up the tower because that's where our lich was." Then he speaks to Grant. "Everyone can see that the only thing you know is brutality and death. Stop trying to be a leader, you're not a good one."

[Mee]

Grant just glares at Naku with absolute death in his eyes. There was something else there, not painfully clear but absolutely unpleasant. The room reaching a sweltering temperature as he speaks.
[/COLOR]

With that he starts looking around the room, looking for the passage to the next section, inspecting for traps, all in all going through his standard behavior for combing a tower.

Naku, for her part?
Naku just kind of ignores him, and shakes her head.
"Sure, sure. You win. Sure." She says with a bit of a sarcastic clap. She's done arguing. It's not worth it, and it's not fun.
"Thouuuugh," She does continue, biting at her lip a bit in thought. "If you want to go upstairs and nuke the boss, we'll go downstairs and nuke the thing respawning him, and if we do it at about the same time then he can neither escape, nor respawn, and should be gone for good."

The interior of the tower is dark, with the only features present are the barely visible staircase leading up. Once the entire party enters the tower however, the walls seem to come to life, and images across the walls shows the distinct image of the things that each party members holds dear set aflame. If said things held dear are living beings, the images also show brutal torture as they cry in pain.

The section of the wall that Harold mentioned is pushable, and reveals a staircase leading down. If one were to follow the staircase then they would have a long stair hike ahead of them. Eventually they would leave the dreary dark tower, and come to a large expansive green forest with a dark night sky above. Through the trees you can all clearly see a large dark orb that appears to draw the ambient light into itself. Pacing next to this orb are three of these things:

Spoiler: What the creatures look like

Show

Unfortunately for the tower, it runs into the same problem that Steve ran into: Naku doesn't really seem to count as a target for mental manipulations. As though even trying to target her with spells to draw from memories, or mentally manipulate her, or even most illusions, just . . . don't see her as a potential target, so just flow off of her like water off of a duck. Though it might not affect Naku aaaanyway, as she's planning to go down the stairs through the indicated wall.

"Wellllll. I guess I'll be going first?" She asks, looking down the stairs.
Before she notices the effects the walls have on at least a few other people.
"Guys, just, um," All right. Her time is now! She could say something inspiring, and prove her goddess' faith in her was not misplaced! She could rally everyone from this trap, and inspire them to carry on!
"It's not real. Just, uh, just ignore it."
Naku's really not good at this.

Steve says to Naku "What diety worthy of reverence needs tea? The god I worship only requires offerings, tithes, and donations to help those who need it. He can get whatever he wants up on the Celestial Mountain."

"Well. Some have called my goddess the, uh, the Queen of Vampires. But she doesn't strictly need. . . you know. She is a goddess. She doesn't require tea. Wait, I know. I'll answer your question with your own question: What deity worthy of reverence doesn't attempt to get to know their followers?" Naku asks, head tilting to the side slightly as she looks at Steve, parasol still up, even though they're in the tower.

[Lazorath]

[The Dark Tower]

We need to figure out where we're going next and how we're going to complete our missions. I say we go carefully up the tower because that's where our lich was." Then he speaks to Grant. "Everyone can see that the only thing you know is brutality and death. Stop trying to be a leader, you're not a good one."

"The lich isn't going to die unless we destroy the dark orb that it's fond of," Devero counters as his eyes pay brief attention to Cherie, noticing her floating crystal, "if you guys want to go further into the tower, and fight a creature that won't die that's up to you, but I'm going to go down the staircase to destroy this first."

When Devero first begun his quests as a young adult he was always against the idea of splitting from his group, but now that he could hold his own he didn't have a problem with doing so, especially since he could notice the tension of disapproval and conflict within the members he'd been venturing with, and the idea of potentially facing beasts below was an opportunity he couldn't miss.

The interior of the tower is dark, with the only features present are the barely visible staircase leading up. Once the entire party enters the tower however, the walls seem to come to life, and images across the walls shows the distinct image of the things that each party members holds dear set aflame. If said things held dear are living beings, the images also show brutal torture as they cry in pain.

The first image Devero sees on the wall are a helpless old man and woman being whipped endlessly with vicious bloodied scars running all along their bodies. The man appears to be half-human, but the origin of his other race is unknown while the woman is fully human.
Seeing them being tortured causes Devero's face to grow hard with rage before his eyes catch sight of the second image on the wall.
Ten people, five men and five women from different corners of the world, not only being tortured but experimented on as well and if the others take notice of the image displayed for Devero, they might notice that Devero is among those that were being tortured.

"Devero, you can't let this affect you. This is an illusion," a man's voice cries out within his mind before the voice of a woman follows.
"An illusion?" Devero speaks as his scaled fingers slowly transform into dangerously sharp claws.
"We're fine Devero, we all made it out, remember?"
"You're right," Devero replies aloud, "this isn't happening...we already went through all of this," he speaks with relief before he starts laughing as he watches the eight of them being tortured before his eyes, screaming and begging for the pain to stop, "this was right before all ten of us we were linked," he smiles, "we're lucky we even made it out alive."

Devero watches for a few moments more before his head turns to Cherie, ignoring the fact that the rest of the group might have been listening in on his strange conversation, "you ready to go down the staircase?"

[Fendrick]

Gaelin says "I guess the first thing to do is see how powerful this curse is." He holds out his hand with his palm up and starts moving his arm in small circles. He then says "abiicias exeratione maledicta congessit" (Remove Curse). Gaelin pulls a white cloth out of his pocket. He says "Can you please touch this cloth? If the curse was a normal and weak curse like the one usually on items, you should be good. But if it's a more powerful curse, we may need to do some more work and possibly run some more tests. If it's strong enough it might require nothing short of a miracle to remove it. In that case, you may need a cleric, not a wizard."

Fel makes a noise of intrigue when the armor starts to grow, and she is about to try and put it on, when she hears the noise of awakedness from the wizard, she takes the armor with her as she heads over to see what's going on.

Fendrick, what happened?

You fall in something?

Wizard's Cottage

Arthur the wizard touches the cloth; it immediately goes simultaneously crispy and mouldy. It is stained, and is closer to brown-green in colour than its original white. It is apparent the curse is still strong.

Fendrick shivers in disgust at his condition. He is super itchy. Small black dots continue to jump around his fur.

'Yucky! What if there is something in this cottage that could provide a clue? We don't know what that glowing orb thing in the living room does; maybe it is magicky enough to break this curse, or cause it?
Is there any artefact here that could help? Ugh, it was less dirty that time I went into the sewers to visit the molemen.'

Again, there is a wand that looks to be made of dried vine upstairs. There is the armour Felandria is holding, and a small bottle filled with liquid with a label with a picture of a lake on.

Arthur pipes up, 'I've been spending all my time studying magic to see if I can learn to remove this curse. I will reward you handsomely if you rid me of it, I have gold I will give you if you help.
I-I'm sorry I touched you, Fendrick. All I touch turns dirty, and you appear to now have fleas.'

Fendrick shudders again. He is super grossed out, and very keen to find a cure to the curse. In the meantime, he might go see if he can wash off some of the grime. He picks up the bottle with the lake on its label, and looks at it curiously while absentmindedly scratching at his itchiness.

Wizard's Cottage

Gaelin looks at the wand and says "Do you mind if I test fire this?" While sounding polite, he really doesn't care about Arthur's approval and picks it up anyway. He says to his hamster familiar "Could you stand about 5 feet in front of me." The hamster says, obviously annoyed "Fine, what terrib-" as he is interrupted by the firing of the wand.

Felandria will attempt to do a little Prestidigitation on Fendrick to clean him up a little, nut sure if it will help.

She will then go ahead and put on that armor she is holding because she doesn't wanna get yucked too.

Wizard's Cottage

The wand that is made of vine begins to glow in a weird way as Gaelin picks it up. As it is fired, a long bright green fresh looking vine shoots out of its end, connecting it to the ground in front of the hamster's feet. The hammy could easily have been hit in the face with the pointed end of the vine! But fortunately, it seems the wand isn't very accurate. A simple flick of the wand would disconnect the vine. Very useful for climbing or something, not so useful necessarily in the confines of a dirty cottage.....

Fendrick feels a little less itchy, but the Prestidigitation acts as more of a placebo effect rather than doing anything... The armour grows to the correct size to fit Felandria; it is a dull bronze colour, but feels very strong. If Gaelin had aimed his vine wand at Felandria, the armour would have protected her adequately from its forceful blow.

Fendrick absentmindedly picks a small black thing from his fur, flicking it across the room before he again suggests that they examine the glowing thing downstairs, or maybe they could continue looking through the trinkets to find someting to help? How about that little bottle of liquid, with just a picture on the label?

[Murkus]

[Lonely Tower]

"Yeah, I guess I dealt with it easily," Iknika admits. "Will you teach me how to animate skeletons, too? Because I don't think I want to."

[Lonely Tower]

"Not if you don't want to. I'll only show you what you have a use for. I'm really only a hand at ritual magic anyway, little one," Eschelle tells her. She looks up and flicks a finger, and the skeleton falls to pieces. "Now you know, unless you are a very certain kind of knight, it won't usually be skeletons you're toppling. You understand this, yes?"

[Lord Magtok]

At the Base of Mt. Enn

A strange chrome sphere drops from orbit, cutting through the night sky like a bullet from a gun, like a shooting star or meteorite in free-fall. It's briefly acknowledged by those who watch the heavens for such things, and then immediately ignored, for there are far stranger things in the Nexus's air, and this one isn't projected to land anywhere near civilization, anyways. It strikes a forest, burning the peaks of several pine trees, breaking the trunks of a few others, and finally carving a massive gash in the earth below, rending the grass and soil with ease. It's a gruesome, uncouth violation of what was otherwise a tranquil evening in an innocent forest beyond man's domain, and not just because the chrome projectile happened to crush an unlucky feral lasgoose that had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Smoke rises from the crater. Burnt grass smolders, as birds and other small animals wisely choose to flee the scene. There are better, safer places to forage, roost, and hunt, after all. A few minutes pass, and the fallen satellite shifts, no longer content to simply wallow in its pit of mutilated earth and gibbed goose. Panels open, internal mechanisms glow, and the whole area is bathed in a soft purple light, as an orbital telewarp array establishes a link with our peculiar foreign object. Satellite imagery is taken to ensure the region is secure, data is exchanged, and an unusual series of beeps and boops are made, to be heard by exactly no one.

When the lights and sounds and suborbital data transfers are over, a strange man with a familiar violet robe stands atop the grisly scene. Or rather, hovers over it, because such mortal frivolities as standing and walking upon the earth are beneath him, both literally and figuratively. He doesn't give the murder scene much thought, doesn't feel even the slightest twinge of conscience for the senseless destruction he's caused. There is only the brief raising of an eyebrow before he moves on, floating away without a second thought. Work to be done, he thinks. No time to be sightseeing in the woods. He journeys onward and upwards, towards the peak of Mount Enn.