VIGIL 4: Swordfights!!! on Air

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

When Anika comes closer, her keen bear nose will likely pick up that three of the mannequins smell different than the others. Someone seems to have put some sharp, chemical smell on them. Moreover, as she gets closer, several tubes emerge from the floor and begin firing tennis balls at her.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Little yellow balls, how undignified!
Anika wasn't sure if she was supposed to hit or avoid the chemical smelling mannequins, but she was guessing yes. That was not a good smell.
She turns back into her humanoid form and narrowly manages to avoid a tennis ball and fires off a ray of yellow arcane fire at one of the mannequins that didn't smell. It was either that or exploding the ones that did.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[VIGIL Skybase]

The field shimmers and fades after a moment, and Quin stands, then turns to face Kayla. His eyes seem to smile.

"Thank you, I would like that very much," he says, gesturing for her to lead the way with a slight, yet polite, bow.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

The mannequin explodes in a burst of magic fire, but nothing happens beyond that. It appears to have been hollow on the inside, but nothing was there.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

So she was supposed to target the chemical smelling ones then? It looked like they would explode either way.
Ducking under another barrage of tennis balls and with a gesture at a chemical smelling mannequins she fires off another sun-beam.
Then she had to change her position to not get hit.

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Another mannequin is destroyed. This time, there's an unmistakeable gleam of a key falling down among its remains.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Aha!

Anika just notices the key as she dodges another tennis ball. It was a bit difficult to keep up, but she could manage.

She fires off another sun-blast at one of the other chemical-smelling Mannequins, moves to the right, and then fires another one at the last and just keeps moving. Stopping would cause her to be hit!

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Another mannequin is blasted apart and the key clatters to the ground. Now Anika just has to grab them and open the barrier.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Great, as long as she keeps moving and times when the tubes were shooting, she could do this.
She took a moment to get a sense of how long it took for the tubes to fire a ball, but she couldn't take too long as she would exhaust herself at this rate.
Finally feeling confident enough with the pattern, she dashes to get each key in succession. It would take three runs, but this way she would be sure she wouldn't get hit.
Then it was just the padlocks themselves...

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

The gate is out in the open, but there are two chest-high barriers near it. Anika can open it by dashing in and out of cover, if she's quick enough.

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Okay, cover was good as she need a few moments to rest. She had dashed around so much it was wearing her down.

Going for the cover, she sits down and takes a short break. After a brief spell, she sees her opportunity and dashes out to unlock the first lock. She then repeats this process two more times until each lock is unlocked. Finally!
She will push the door open and quickly slide inside behind the door, success!

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Once the gate is unlocked, the tennis balls stop firing and a jaunty tune plays. Wenomir leaps off his vantage point and lands in front of Anika in a single bound, then claps slowly as he looks her over.

"Well done. I'm glad my course managed to give you pause now and then."

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

"Phew." Anika puts her hands on her knees and takes a deep breath, "It's the puzzles, not my strong suit." She claims with a grin as she looks up at Wenomir. "But I did excellent, didn't I? You seem impressed with me in action."

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

"I am impressed, certainly," Wenomir says, smiling back. His eyes travel downwards briefly, before returning to Anika's face. "And the puzzles were there on purpose, to give you something you can't just overpower... well, except for the bottled key puzzle. I was wondering how you'd get through that one."

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

"The simplest solution is usually the best one. Some people like to think others like to act. Both ways have their advantages." Anika nods. "So do I get a prize now or something? Is there perhaps a scoreboard somewhere?" She raises to her full height and stretches. "I'd like to know how I compare."

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

"I do remember how everyone does on my obstacle courses, but it's difficult to compare a fully-trained druid with apprentice warriors," Wenomir says. "But you're not my student, so perhaps a prize might be in order... though I'm not sure what you'd expect."

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

Anika seem to consider for a moment. "Actually, I have an idea. I'm on a quest of sort you see. A number of moon wells, important places for my people, have appeared in the nexus and I'm making sure they aren't falling in the wrong hands. There is one not too far away from here. Just by the little grove to the north of the base. Why don't you meet me there?"

[Morty]

[Obstacle Course]

Wenomir takes a few paces to the right, his eyes still focused on Anika. He's not sure what to think about this offer, but... well, this sounds like something Vigil should be interested in. No harm in taking a look.

"Moon wells? Can't say I've heard of one of those before. I'll be there soon."

[Shadowcaller]

[Obstacle Course]

"You can't miss them, they're literary wells of glowing arcane power. Things you don't want bad guys to get their hands on." She smiles and raises her hand in a wave. "See you there then."

The next moment, she is gone in a swirl of green and is carried away on a falcons wings.

Seems like she intend to get there first.

[Reinholdt]

[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.

[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.

[Inside CIC]

No mouth?! That definitely destroys a lot of good conversation potential. Shame. It looked a little familiar to him and Reinholdt would have liked to ask it why. Alas.

There certainly seems to be plenty of other options though. Look at these people. When did VIGIL become so fashion forward? It's impressive. They're missing a real opportunity though. All those people who boarded the shuttles and went to fight could have been fighting in matching spandex outfits that designated teams based on colored stripes or something similarly eye catching. What a waste.

Rein moves to hop up onto the edge of the central table and look over the map along with the middle-aged man. "What have we got Lieutenant? Report," Reinholdt barks meows with a commanding tone.

[Morty]

[Returning]

A couple of hours after following Anika outside, Wenomir returns to the base. It seems he's run all the way there, and his air is damp. He stops on the ground near the island and looks around.

[Shadowcaller]

[Returning]

It seems like the druid is already there, standing leaning against one of the houses. She smirks at Wenomir as she saunters over to him. "I don't know who is cheating most, you or me, Weomir. Turns out turning into a literal animal isn't that much faster than 'the greatest warrior in the nexus'." She raises her eyebrows. "You sure you didn't want to 'ride' me?"

[Morty]

[Returning]

"More than I already had? I admit it'd have felt weird," Wenomir says, after he exits the shuttle and is met by Anika. "And I've only said 'one' of' the greatest. There's people out there who can match me. But I've trained my speed for a long time."

[Shadowcaller]

[Returning]

"I think they only call that riding if you're on the back. Like a saber." The druid feels like pointing out. "But if you're just one of the greatest, I'd hate to meet your matches. Do tell me they're on our side."

[Gullara]

[Cultist Interview]

Kirk arrives near the Vigil base in a (new) car with Electra and Anika in tow. Thankfully Anika actually has a seat this time. Kirk and Electra will rely on Anika toi guide them into the base proper, and to wherever they need to go for their goal here.

[Zefir]

[The Post]

It is really uncommon to get a letter in a world with magic and electronic communication. Yet one has been send, thought the address is hold simple:

At:
Vigil
Swordsman Wenomir

Nothing else is mentioned on the outside of the letter. Obviously someone wanted to avoid getting the letter back.

[Morty]

[Returning]

"On the back, yes... I like the sound of that," Wenomir says, pretty clearly meaning something else. "Two of them are on our side. One's an old friend of mine, another is friends with Cessie. The third one... well, I'm not so sure. She hates the Cuthun demons, which I can't argue with, but it clouds her judgement and spills over to anything and anyone remotely related. There may be more out there that I haven't met."

[The Post]

After checking for spells, curses and bombs, Wenomir will open the letter.

[Zefir]

[The Post]

There is no magic on it and the letter is to small for any kind of komplex bombs.. A scan also reveals no other objects other then paper are inside. (Not sure it it can note the ink, but it's a normal ink you get everywhere.

Inside is only a sheet of paper. The text on it is hand writen and judging by that, the person who wrote it has a bad handwriting.

"Dear Mr. Wenomir.

Words have reached me that you are a well known swordsman.
I have survived a wild land using a sword myself. Since I arrived
at the nexus, I experienced a lot of swordsman. As one of the
most know I assume your skills are high. I would like to challenge
you to a duell. we can make out the conditions in Trog's. I will be
there once a day at 19:00 o'clock with a nuke cola and my sword
on the table. If you refuse, please inform me.

Fade."

[Shadowcaller]

[Cultist Interview]

Anika will first direct them to the base, but after asking around, they're directed to the moon well outside of VIGIL by one of the VIGIL-employees. Apparently, Shanti, the cult-leader they're looking for has apparently gone there with the promise that she would wear a magical tracker around her neck.

So it looks like they will have to head over to the moon well. Apparently, it a lot of traffic these days.

"I got no clue what she wants to do there, but it isn't good, I can tell you that much." Anika remarks as she sits back into the car.
The moon well is located in a small grove of recently regrown trees that were burned down by some demons. The car is unlikely to be able to get far in it as the trees are standing densely together at certain locations.

[Returning]

"In my experience, there are a lot of fighters, but only a few true warriors." Even if D&D would argue the opposite. "Good to know they're fighting with us though. Fanatics are... not good though. Sometimes, they can be worse than the opponent you're fighting against. Take Shanti for instance, she is a druid like me that in theory will oppose the demons just like I do. But she got an another agenda and you can't trust her to watch your back. Is this third fighter of yours like that?"

[Morty]

[Returning]

"Fighters aren't warriors, that's true," Wenomir says, then shrugs. The topic of Ilpholin makes him uncomfortable, despite his overall cheerful mood. "I wouldn't compare them. The person I'm talking about used to be a schemer, but now she's only focused on destroying the Cuthun demons... and everything else called a 'demon', it seems. I don't know what happened to make her this way."

[The Post]

Wenomir reads the letter, puzzled. Who's this "Fade" person and why are they challenging him to a duel through a letter? He has to think about this...