VIGIL 4: Swordfights!!! on Air

[Morty]

[Lesson]

Wenomir goes to get his practice swords and starts instructing Koshal. It's going to be a long and arduous exercise, which will likely test the ambitious young fighter's endurance. His teacher will drill him through evading attacks, striking from unexpected directions, redirecting blows and keeping his enemy on their toes all the time. He holds back noticeably less than in previous sessions, and Koshal will get a better look at his how fast Wenomir can be.

[Shadowcaller]

[Outside CIC]

The door is locked, who would have though? If Rein would put his ear against it, he can hear something moving around on the other side however. Its making a odd sound which doesn't sound like footsteps...

[Reinholdt]

[Outside CIC]

Well now! His plans of taking up the role of communications officer will have to be put on hold. There's someone... Something already in there? Did they not hear the all hands on deck call? Or was there another intruder also taking advantage of Vigil's absence?

There seemed to be a number of ways to find out, but the polite way was to knock on the door and ask, so Rein does that first step and raps on the door.

[Shadowcaller]

[Outside CIC]

It takes a few moments, but finally the door opens by what appear to be a vaguely feminine figure that appears to be made out of stagnant magma. The being stares at him without saying anything, and Rein may or may not realize that the being actually vaguely resemble Cessie, though without clothes (not that any sexual feature are that distinct).
It seems to be waiting for him to speak... or something.

[Reinholdt]

[Outside CIC]

Who the heck was this person? "HiI'mReinholdtTreasureHunterExtraordinaire." Rein says fairly quickly as he equally quickly tries to slip on by into the room. He is awfully fast and slippery. Cats.

"Who are you? Why aren't you with the attack teams?" He's not sure if it can even reply. It seems a little too vague. Like some sort of butler golem or something.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

At a different time than the invasion is happening, so he's not busy fighting in Riverside, Wenomir is fiddling with an obstacle course. The warrior seems to have outdone himself this time, as the thing looks hopelessly intricate. He appears to be putting the last finishing touches on it and waiting for someone.

[Shadowcaller]

[Outside CIC]

The being stares down at Reinholdt in complete silence, showing no sign that it understood him at all. Indeed, it has no mouth, so it probably can't speak at all.
Finally, it gestures to come inside.

But if he does enter, it goes back to what appears to be cleaning. Not showing any further recognition of Reinholdt's presence.

[Obstacle Course]

A falcon lands just behind Wenomir and in a flurry of green energy, it turns into a person. Anika is for change not wearing her usual patched up red dress. Instead she is wearing a more loose outfit which is supposedly easier to move in. Casually sauntering up to the Warrior, she suddenly slaps his back firmly twice. "Wenomir! Buddy! Getting everything ready, are you?" She grins widely at him. "Looks awesome."

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Wenomir turns around when Anika claps him on the back. He takes an oddly long moment to look up.

"Yes, everything's set up here. Try to get through it, using whatever forms you want. Let's see if I can design a course to stump a shape-shifter."

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

She grins wolfishly as he finally meets her gaze. "Just show me where I start. I'll do the rest."

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

"Go through there," Wenomir says, pointing to a length of wooden plank, which ends in a set of steep ladders. It appears the first task is simply to climb them. Anika might notice a lot of holes in the wall to her right, but so far they're not doing anything.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

"Right, and flying over them would be too easy, correct?" Anika remarks as she walks to the wooden plank. Now, she didn't actually have a animal shape that was better at climbing than her humanoid form, those opposable thumbs came in handy a lot when it came to climbing. Therefore, Anika will simply attempt to scale the wall as she is, expecting some traps on the way.

Just how did Wenomir make these things anyway?

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

When Anika starts climbing, she'll find that the holes in the wall are blowing strong air in her direction. She needs to hold fast, or it'll push her off the ladder. Needless to say, Wenomir put it there to discourage any bird forms. There seem to be pauses in the air's push, so if Anika times it well, she'll find it easier to go up.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

She could have flown over the entire course!
Anika once climbed up a ancient of war as a child, some strong wind won't deter her from scaling this wall. Timing some wind is nothing compared to trying to dodge a giant tree hand from catching you.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Once she's up the ladder, Anika will find herself faced with a lot of water. Seems that she just climbed a water tank, and the only way to traverse above the water is a set of planks, that keep moving and changing direction. There seems to be an order to it, and some planks simply never seem to line up to allow a good jump.

[Ashen Lilies]

VIGIL Skybase

((No worries, not like I have any room to talk.))

Iamar draws her shamshir, and makes a couple of practice swings before taking her stance. She holds her blade above her head, pointed at Kal, with her free arm raised in a defensive position. She holds the sword in a curious way, with a couple of fingers placed over the crossguard, rather than only holding the grip.

She looks at Kal, expression unreadable. Seems she's waiting for him to make a move. She's light on her feet, making tiny steps back and forth.

Kal picks for himself a less dramatically curved mameluke sword and a small buckler, settling into a cautious stance of his own. He advances, buckler forward, with the tip of his sword poking out from the side, looking for a way to pierce Iamar's defense while presenting as little of himself as possible.

VIGIL Skybase

Quin nods, and raises a hand, turning to face the targets. A yellow-white beam of destructive energy lances from his open palm at the first target. The beam's similar to any number of other energy beam effects, and most likely drills a hole through the target. He lowers his hand, and turns his torso slightly, before a pair of larger, blue beams fire from the orifices on his chestplate, almost converging as they reach the second target. These are large enough to cut a man-sized object in half. Finally, he turns his head towards a third target, and the odd structure on his back flips up, as several tiny weapons deploy, floating around him for a moment, before opening fire. The blasts they emit are tiny, though they each pack roughly the power of a small caliber pistol. It's probably hard to tell if they damage the target, a question made moot when the gem in the middle of the v-shaped crest on Quin's helmet glows blood-red for an instant and unleashes a massive crimson beam as tall as he is, at it. When the beam fades, he looks to Kayla as the tiny weapons all stream back into the structure on his back and it flips down into its resting position once more.

"Was that adequate? I do have some defensive and melee capabilities as well."

[VIGIL Skybase]

Kalya watches the weapons demonstration silently, though her lack of comment may owe more to anxiety than to anything else. That sure is some destruction.

"I'd like to see what you can do to protect others."

[Outside CIC -> Inside CIC?]

Besides the Cessiegolem doing some cleaning, it does look like there's a couple of operators working in here in their snazzy VIGIL uniforms, doing appropriately informationy looking things with glowing screens and panels with blinking lights. A middle-aged man has his back to the door looking over the central table, poring over a map of Riverside.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

And... there was a shark or something in the water?
She could dive into the water as an orca, fly over it as a falcon, or try to walk over it in her humanoid form.
But screw that.

In a blur of green energy she changes into the form of a bear and attempts to jump right into the water. Let's see what sort of thing Wenomir had used to discourage swimming.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

It seems the rotating platforms extend into the water, which is less deep than it looked. The underwater parts are wider, which means swimming between them will require timing as they rotate. Nothing will stop Anika from resurfacing at any time, though...

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

So she could have flown over.

Crashing through these as a bear might be a tad time-consuming and she wanted to make a good time too, without actually cheating. Therefore she takes on the challenge to move in between the rotating platforms, but not as a bear however.

Suddenly, she turns into a large snake which won't have too much difficulty moving in-between those rotating platforms.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

The next section in front of Anika is... a simple room with four walls, ceiling and floor, all made out of simple wooden planks. In the middle of it is a bottle with a key in it, while there's a door on the other end. The bottle has a "DO NOT BREAK" sticker on it.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Wait a obstacle she needed to be careful on? Lame.
Changing back into her humanoid form she gently presses her hand against one of the wooden planks to feel just how steady it really was. She suspected she would need to use some of her non-shapeshifting skills for this one...

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

The planks appear to be of common quality, like those you'd build a shed with. The entire room is simple but sturdy and steady.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Are they actually attached with nails, or are they loose?
Assuming the first one, Anika feels like she is overthinking this one and simply carefully walks over to the bottle to gently open it up.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

When Anika examines the bottle, the problem becomes clear: the key is too big to fit through the upper end of the bottle.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[VIGIL Skybase]

Quin nods, and steps over to Kayla, positioning himself directly in front of her, before kneeling, his back facing her. He's very close, but not on top of her. He looks back and nods at her before speaking.

"Don't move, now."

An energy field shimmers into place around both of them, expanding from the structures on his shoulders to cover them both in an iridescent pink dome.

"This is the radius for my shield program. If I'm carrying someone who's injured, or helping evacuate people in a battle zone, and they're riding on my shoulders or whathaveyou, I can use it to protect them. It can redirect most forms of ranged attacks, so even if people aren't in it, as long as I'm in front of them, they won't be hurt."

[Zefir]

[Training cord]

mia goes back here in the early hours. She didn't got any lessons recently, but she knows that Wenomir is a busy man so she doesn't bother him. Today she will go and treat her weapon. She looksfor a good place to sit. A box she got with her contains most of the tools she will need and a small Touchpad will allow her to watch some videos on NexusTube. She will then go on and watch them befor doing anything.

[Ashen Lilies]

[VIGIL Skybase]

Kalya nods at the demonstration. It seems like the protective equipment impressed her more than the offensive weaponry - or maybe she's just able to appreciate it more.

"Thank you. I think you will be an excellent addition to our company. Would you like me to show you around?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

When Anika examines the bottle, the problem becomes clear: the key is too big to fit through the upper end of the bottle.

[Obstacle Course]

...

Seriously?
Alright, lets rule out the obvious things first. Anika moves up to the door and attempts to open it. She was not good with puzzles, but she knew that the most straight forward solution was usually the most effective one.
Failing that, she will place the bottle gently away from her, turn into a bear, and the slam the door with all her bear-might to force it open.

It said not to break the bottle, but there were no rules against breaking the door.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Anika breaks down the door, though it's not as easy as it might look. Regardless, nothing seems to stop her from passing onto the fourth and final stage of the course. Once there, she might spot Wenomir, observing her progress from a vantage point.

The final part takes place on a large, wide stage, with a bright red railroad barrier at the end. There are three padlocks to open it. Between Anika and the barrier, there are six mannequins, standing in a random pattern among a variety of boxes, fences and barriers.

[Devixer]

VIGIL Skybase

Iamar will have to fight carefully - Kal's buckler gives him a distinct advantage, as Iamar only has the sword, but she'd fought on more uneven grounds before.

She steps forward, but before she commits to a swing, she feints to Kal's left, and swings at his midsection.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

The bear stops and looks around. This looked awfully complicated...
Was shesupposed to hit the mannequins...?
Anika approaches the mannequins slowly, maybe something would happen? Otherwise she could hit them with some arcane fire.