Outside 47: [Insert seasonal phrase that will be outdated when this thread ends]

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

The weapon doesn't respond to Morne in any noticeable fashion. Just looking at it doesn't appear to be doing anything.

And Khannie?

She hastily dons the cape! It is quite a bit too large for her.

But it does look adorable.

"I'm not little!" she says, very petulantly. The cape trailing on the floor behind her seems to suggest otherwise. "Show me how to use it, then! The boss bad guy isn't going anywhere and I don't wanna just stand around while you blast it." She goes to set the sword down, only for the weapon's tines to collapse into the ring-guard and claps itself onto a belt-loop on her jeans. She doesn't seem to notice as she makes 'gemmie!' motions at Morne. "C'mon! Please? Pretty please?"

She takes a deep breath, clasps her fingers together, and then lets her human shape slip off.

There's now a pouting juvenile kangaskhan staring up at Morn with great big watery eyes, her lower lip quivering slightly.

[Slii Arhem]

Spongy Pond

Rea gives Dustin a small, subdued smile and laughs softly, "Mystical maiden? Mmm, I like that. But I'm nothing so dire as you put it. My species doesn't naturally inhabit the same set of dimensions as yours, and our origins were lost so well no one can say for certain what we came from." She holds out a hand and tries to set it over his, her skin as warm as the noonday sun, "I was made mostly solid, to better survive living here on a world, so close to gravity and sunlight where an insubstantial from has too many stresses put on it. I can't claim to be as mundane as you, but I feel like we're all only as mundane as we allow ourselves to be."

"I don't have words for what my sires were, but maybe... space-herds might be the best analogy. They nudged and directed things using subtle force, adding spin and curve and momentum where needed and putting the right things in the right places. They were... are, very good at predicting what needed to be done to achieve the correct result. I don't know what their purpose was in sending me along in your care, but even trapped as they are I suspect that they do. I just hope you'll take good care of me, and I can help in some way to pay you back for all of this." She smiles more serenely, not hiding how happy she is to be out in the air and sharing a camp with this professed pillar of mundanity.

"I'd be delighted to try your cooking. I don't need much to eat to sustain me, just a few mouthfuls, but I can't think of a better way to test a new tongue." Her first ever meal!

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon Facility]

Morne rolls his eyes, except he knows she can't see that so he adds a head motion just to be overdramatic.
"Light and Void, now you're just cheating. Fine, but if you shoot me in the back it's coming out of your paycheck, Missy." he says, dropping the gun into her capable(?) paws.

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

Weaponized cuteness.

This why Khannie only uses her pokemon form when absolutely necessary. It lets her catch people off guard with sheer adorable now and again.

"Yyyyyehs!" she gives a little cheer as she catches the pistol, already human again. She doesn't start this time around when the ring built into the weapon suddenly fills with a scintillating orb of kangaskhan colored light. She was expecting it this time around! She holds the weapon out at arms length, pointing it at some nearby storage crates. Given how little she is, the weapon looks more than a touch oversized for her. "So how do I make this work? It already gobbled up some of my PP. Maybe it's just like using a move? So I have to-"

The weapon gives a sharp CRACK! as a bolt of metal rending, stone shattering force leaps from its tines, sails across he room, and pulverizes the crate.

"Ah! Haha! It works!" she laughs, grinning up at Morne. "Okay! Teach me! What's the right way to use guns?"

Oh goodness.

She's got a cape, a sword, and a pistol. All she needs now is a neat hat and a floating robot to follow her around.

[UncleWolf]

Spongy Shore

"Don't worry about paying me back." Dustin insists as he starts picking up anything dry that he can make a fire with that's around his little campsite. Perhaps some of the dead tree he'd been anchored to. Eventually though, he'll get a small fire going and get a small pan sitting above it with a splash of oil and some of the tastier and more tender mushrooms pan-roasting. "Honestly, I'm probably a bore for the most part. I've got a small cabin, a truck, and just a list of handyman odd-jobs that I deal with for just enough money to get by with. Maybe that's exactly what they had in mind, but it isn't anything exciting." He explains as he tosses a bit of salt and pepper into the pan. It wasn't anything special but it at least smelled good.

[Slii Arhem]

Spongy Shore

"I should at least earn my keep, if I'm going to be staying with you for any length of time." She frowns minutely, and glances at the pan for several moments as she listens to him and carefully watches what he's doing, "You seem very hard on yourself. I know you will probably say you're just being realistic, but a man like you is what was needed to prevent calamity just now. You had a real effect on the path the world takes, and it didn't require anything but what you knew and had on you. I could not have lit that fire, nor could my sires. Several beings that could have come here might not be able to scrounge together as you did to make it."

She rubs her hands together and holds them out, warming them at the fire, "Or someone with explosives, or magic that might have done the job perfectly well. But that much force was not needed. Just a single, small spark. My kind know that it is rarely necessary to be overwhelmingly powerful to achieve good ends. Just small forces, pressures on the right parts of the scales to keep them balanced."

"It's only speculation, but perhaps I was sent along to remind you of your own spectacular qualities. It's a task I will take to with all gusto." She smiles cheerfully and reaches up to squeeze his upper arm, "Like your muscles. They're quite firm."

[Deathkeeper]

Neon Facility

Morne has a floating robot, but he’s dead. And Morne wouldn’t give him up if he wasn’t.
”Okay. So. Two hands. Second hand over the first. Not under; don’t cup it. Close your non-dominant eye. Look down the sights. Bend your arms a little, but don’t hold it too loose or you might hit yourself in the face. Middle of the last part of your finger on the trigger. Don’t shoot your teammates. That’s the long and short of it since it’s a magic gun. Got it?”
Morne demonstrates each movement as he talks with the movements of an expert. Except that doesn’t mean he’s actually good at explaining it. Then he just sort of...stands there like he’s looking into the distance.

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

Khannie decides to try shooting at several smaller objects. Little boxes and the like instead of giant crates that are, frankly, pretty hard to miss.

Turns out the high accuracy of the moves she's testing translates well into the pistol! The weird weapon apparently channels her attacks! Which is handy, since her attacks all require her to get close.

"But what if I want to hit something with my sword and shoot something else at the same time?" Khannie inquires. "All the cool people in video games and in the movie hold two guns at once. Or a gun and a sword! Are they doing it wrong?"

Could it be?

Has media lead Khannie astray?

Could action films have been misleading her this whole time?

How will she ever know who to trust now?

[UncleWolf]

Spongy Shore

"Hard on myself? Nah, not really. Realistic, yes, but I'm quite happy with what I can and cannot do. And I know it would be foolish for me to run headfirst into some great calamity expecting to be able to make much of a difference." Dustin points out, turning over the fungi in the pan to get a good sear on the other side as well. When she touches him though, he freezes a bit and he falls silent after she compliments him. Just for a moment though.

"...are you hitting on me?" He asks, sounding like he was in disbelief. "That...raises far too many questions about the why and how, but mostly I wonder how you would know how to or what you want to accomplish if I'm the first person out of the time loop you've met." Did she get access to romance movies or books down there somehow? The question runs through his mind as he tries to not feel utterly flattered by it.

[Slii Arhem]

Spongy Camp

"My kind would always prefer to be there long before the calamity took place and give it a small nudge to prevent or delay it. Maybe that gives you some idea of our limitations." Rea pauses as she considers his... accusation? Well his question in any case. It wasn't something she'd been planning on dealing with this early.

Which was good. Very good indeed.

"I suppose you could call it that? Flirting with you maybe, complimenting you certainly. As to how I can, how can I speak your language? Why did I know what shape to take to look like a female human? The answer is long, but not complicated. At least I hope it isn't."

She settles somewhat demurely, crossing her legs in a tight circle as she inhales the inviting aroma from the pan and leans closer to Dustin.

"I am a creature of extrapolation. My kind knows the consequences of our actions and the things that likely led to the events that we see. It's not perfect, and we cannot predict the consequences of another's actions at all well, but it suffices for our purpose of shuffling cosmic matter around the void. I could certainly catch any baseball if you threw it at me, unless it was moving so fast and from so close I could not move a limb in time." Her fingers close around a pebble and, eyes closed, she tosses it into the air. Several seconds later it comes down on a direct collision course with a spark that had leapt from the campfire, knocking the chunk of cinder back into the flames.

"And maybe as compensation for having no origin or substance of our own, backtracing the origins of other races is a gift. A bit of a party trick as well, but useful. When my sires met you they determined how your language would be constructed, what the dimorph equivalent mate would be, all the syllables and reasonably constructed words and subtle queues, emotions, hormones, needs... Not perfectly, though with all the variance that humans can provide on their own it wouldn't matter if I was perfect. I imagine that some of my organs work differently to yours, and I'll have wrong assumptions about how things work sometimes. But I can adjust small things as I learn what's wrong, if it's even necessary to do so. Meddling for the sake of anything but good health and survival seems petty." Her nose wrinkles at the thought, "Once your own form is no longer sacred, it would be so easy to make small changes to others that you think would make them better. It's a scary direction to go." And if even the eldritch thing parading around in a mockery of human flesh is afraid of it, Dustin can probably take it as gospel.

"My sires had an infinite number of repetitions to study you compared to your one meeting with them, as well, all of which they remembered. They got human quite well, I think. And as for why... because I like you, and I feel like you should like you too. It's alright if you want to be realistic, but realistically I believe you're special. You might not be the one to save the world in the heat of the very last possible moment, but your level-headedness and perfectly serviceable knowledge of basic survival skills saved it years before that last minute ever needed to happen."

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon Facility]

Morne groans.
”One. Shooting any gun one handed is hard. Two, shooting two guns at once does t work because you can’t reload them without extremely specialized equipment. Three, you can’t look down two sets of sights without multiple pairs of eyes and the right brains, so you could only spray anyway. And four, you could only do sword and pistol if you were entirely ambidextrous because you need strength for the sword and coordination for the pistol. Spraying really doesn’t work.”
Remember to ADS, kids!

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

"But shooting two guns at once looks cool!" Khannie objects. How could media have lied to her?

Honestly, people love the look of dual wielding but it's largely impractical. Even most two-weapon styles used the offhand to block primarily and a shield was almost always preferable, just unwieldy to carry around all the time.

Khannie gives a dejected sigh. "Oooohkay. Just the pistol OR just the sword. But if something gets close I'll still punch them!"

See?

There.

That's a good compromise.

"And since we're gunna fight the boss now I can use my super-secret power that I've been saving!" she says, reaching up and putting a hand on the little necklace she's wearing. With a FLASH ribbons of light swirl around her, waves of radiance pouring from between the gaps. And when they part?

She's older. Somewhere in the high-school age, probably. Her cape seems to have been incorporated into her outfit, a body suit of dusky grey with light armor plates. The cape itself has gotten a bit smaller, looking more akin to a hooded mantel that goes down to her shoulder blades. Both weapons no longer look hilariously over-sized on her. Her facial structure, eyes, hair, she looks almost exactly like Jace if he were a teen-aged girl. Which honestly shouldn't be too shocking considering that Jace is both of her parents.

Experimentally her body briefly becomes purple and misty as she passes one hand through a nearby crate. Yep. Immaterial form is working just fine! Just as quickly she's solid again.

"Okay. I'm ready," older Khannie says. "Let's go kick that jerk's butt."

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon Facility]

Somewhere, Zebes cries out, and he does not know why.

Morne though, looks- well you can’t really tell.
”Not bad, Miss. You be careful with mojo like that though. Losing years is a serious thing.” Oh Morne it’s not like you’d know. Or would you?

At least he makes a dramatic show of pulling his gun out.
”Let’s do it.”

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

"I didn't age, it's just a mega evolution," Khannie corrects in that pffff *eyeroll* tone that only teen girls can pull off properly. "It only lasts a little while. So let's smoke this jerk before it wears out."

Then she hits the control pillar.

And with a mechanical clunk the doors unlock and ease open.

The room on the other side is dimly lit, a lab of some sort suspended atop a steel catwalk with a menagerie of equipment set up along the wall. Over the edge of the landing loom massive pillars occupied by cybernetic abominations. Things that would probably be a major threat if they were ever finished. Or even awoke when half done.

Khannie frowns as she stalks inside.

"Where the heck is he?" she mutters, glancing around.

The foe she seeks... doesn't appear to be here?

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon Facility]

Morne walks in, gun swinging, checking corners.
”Nothing. Could be we need to stand on plates first. Or knock something over first.”

He also checks the ceiling because Morne is smarter than a horror movie character.

[Rebonack]

[Neon Facility]

Always a good plan to check the ceiling first.

There are lights up there!

The flickering sort. Also? The ceiling. Not much going on.

Then the lights go out.

And when they flicker back on, there's a figure standing between Morne and Khannie. Humanoid, dressed in flowing robes and limbs wrapped in bandages. A large conical farmer's hat completely obscures the figure's face. In a flash it lashes out with its staff, smashing into Khanne and sending her sprawling while possibly catching Morne straight in the chest with a thrust.

There comes a SNAPhiss as a purple scythe blade of crackling energy ignites at the end of the weapon.

Cue boss music!

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon Facility]

Well, he's certainly bigger than Morne thought he'd be. Morne holsters his revolver and draws out something...wait.
Morne that's a rifle.
Where were you keeping that?

Morne leaps into the air! Not only does he clear five feet easy, he continues to slowly ascend as he drifts over the figure. Meanwhile, the rifle slowly hisses and crackles before-
VOOP!

It fires a scattering burst of fiery pellets!
nnnnnnnVOOP!

[Rebonack]

[Neon BOSS BATTLE!]

Khannie skids across the ground, aiming her pistol at the reaper (with both hands) and fires!

A shot which he effortlessly dodges, allowing it to go sizzling off through the air and smashing into the far wall of the chamber with a twang.

"Darn!" Khannie not-quite-swears.

Then the reaper hurls his scythe at her.

"Heck!" Khannie not-quite-swears again as she rolls to one side, the blade slamming into the wall right next to her, embedding the whole length of its blade.

The Morne opens fire! In a blur of motion the reaper totally avoids the first shot and scarcely gets clipped by the second, the pellets ablating away some armor but otherwise causing little in the way of damage. There's a sudden whooshing noise as the reaper briefly pinwheels something in one hand-

"The knife, look out!" Khannie yells!

-and then the reaper hurls a rather nasty looking energy harpoon with an almost piano-wire thin thread attached to it straight at Morne's sternum! Getting hit by that would be highly ill advised.

[Deathkeeper]

[Neon BOSS BATTLE]

Morne twists in midair, the fusion rifle plummeting to the floor as he drops it. The harpoon sails past him harmless-
wait no there goes one of his fingers, that is notably not harmless at all. Ouch. Looks like his blood is mostly clear.
Not registering the loss in the slightest, Morne whips out his sword and brings it down on the thread, which is easier since one end of it is passing through part of his hand.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Dragon Mountain]

Damon lets out a quiet hiss as he considers the muddy foggy path ahead of him. A more heroic sort might feel the need to dash bravely into the fog to try and aid whoever is under attack, but Damon unfortunately isn't the right Zern for that job. He crouches down at the edge of the mud, eyes remaining focused on the fog ahead of him in case he can maybe catch sight of something coming towards him, or perhaps catch the glow of magic to try and get a fix on where these other people being attacked are.

He pokes at the mud curiously with one hand, reaching in to see how deep it is and how viscous it is. Why expose himself to whatever horrors lie in this fog at all? If he's lucky, maybe he can swim right under all of it.

[Dragon Mountain]

The mud is, unfortunately, quite thick and maybe up to the knees of an adult human. He will see a flash of lightning in the fog in front of him, briefly illuminating four short, stocky humanoid figures and something larger, but gangly and wretched. There's a hideous shriek and smell of burning flesh.

Cass and Marshall will see much the same, most likely, as they come into the fog and the mud. Cass will also recognize the telltale feeling of sorcery discharging. Raum seems content to stay in the petrified grove for now, but he also creeps closer to the exit, with trepidation but also determination.

Dragon Mountain

Marshall draws the crowbar from his jacket, holding it firmly in one hand as he approaches Damon. Don't believe your senses here. He cautions him, before motioning to the little earth spirit still trundling along behind him. Earn your keep, harden this up. He adds quietly, and the little spirit will try and use its innate connection to the earth to solidify the mud in a path in front of them.

Is what you sensed coming from any of those? He asks Cass as the spirit works. Hey, he was paying attention.

[Dragon Mountain]

Cass nods, and throws a hand forward, summoning a small gust of wind to try and dislodge some of the fog in front of them. It's not much of an exertion, just a little tester spell to see if the fog is capable of being shifted, or if it's some sort of annoyingly persistent magical fog.

[Morty]

[Dragon Mountain]

The fog is thick and oddly heavy, but Cass's spell parts it for a moment. It reveals four dwarves and a creature.

Two of the dwarves are directly engaged with their enemy. One of them is a man with a long, braided black beard, wearing a lamellar armor and wielding a long spear and a round shield, trying to keep the monster at bay. The other is a woman, likewise black of hair but wearing a light breastplate and wielding only a short, broad sword, while her other hand is wreathed in a soft light.

Behind them stand two more. One is a woman with darker skin and blond hair, wearing worn leather and cloth and aiming a short recurve bow. The other is a bald man whose skin is covered in intricate tattoos and whose plain robes are adorned with similar symbols. His hands are smoking and Cass will be able to tell that he's the one who unleashed some destructive sorcery.

Their opponent is a lanky figure with a grotesquely large head and long arms. The head ends with a round mouth full of teeth, like that of a lamprey, and bulging, bloodshot eyes. The hands seem to have two joints each and the creature sweeps them about trying to grasp the dwarves. One or two times they should be caught on the dwarf's spear, but somehow they're not. The foglet is clearly weakened and there's a charred, web-like mark on its side.

After revealing this scene, the mist starts closing in again.

[billtodamax]

Well fine for you then. I'm not so certain of my swimming through mud as to chance it just yet. Marshall whispers to Damon. I'd much prefer to be able to move swiftly.

And then the scene in front of them becomes clear. As soon as Cass clears enough fog for Marshall to comprehend what's happening he'll quickly turn to his earth spirit. Ruin the beast's footing as best you can. He says, and the earth spirit will reach into the ground beneath the beast and start trying to disrupt its footing in any way possible - ground shifting below stable feet, suddenly rising to meet falling ones, falling away from others as it tries to compensate its balance. Hopefully this will buy enough time for the dwarves to press their attack. Whatever that thing was, Marshall doesn't like it.

[Rebonack]

[Neon BOSS BATTLE]

With a sharp TWANG! the wire is cut and the harpoon goes sailing off, embedding in the wall. Good! Because that stab-yank-scythe combo has been what did Khannie in on nearly every encounter with this guy.

The reaper flickers, suddenly standing next to its scythe and, by extension, Khannie. The reaper rips its weapon out of the wall and heaves it toward Khannie in a single devastating motion.

"Balls!" she exclaims, bringing up her sword to block the attack, the force of which sends her tumbling across the floor again. Another flicker and the reaper is retriving its harpoon, a new wire snaking it out of its and snapping into place on the haft of the weapon. "Double balls."

Khannie was really hoping that stupid knife on a rope was out of commission.

Buuuuut...

It looks like that isn't the case.

With a flourish of its cloak, the reaper releases a small cloud of whirling sickle blades crackling with purple energy. They rotate around the assassin cyborg for a moment before it makes a 'go forth!' gesture with one arm, sending the blades careening toward out heroes!

"Triple balls!"

[UncleWolf]

Spoiler

Show

Spongy Camp

"My kind would always prefer to be there long before the calamity took place and give it a small nudge to prevent or delay it. Maybe that gives you some idea of our limitations." Rea pauses as she considers his... accusation? Well his question in any case. It wasn't something she'd been planning on dealing with this early.

Which was good. Very good indeed.

"I suppose you could call it that? Flirting with you maybe, complimenting you certainly. As to how I can, how can I speak your language? Why did I know what shape to take to look like a female human? The answer is long, but not complicated. At least I hope it isn't."

She settles somewhat demurely, crossing her legs in a tight circle as she inhales the inviting aroma from the pan and leans closer to Dustin.

"I am a creature of extrapolation. My kind knows the consequences of our actions and the things that likely led to the events that we see. It's not perfect, and we cannot predict the consequences of another's actions at all well, but it suffices for our purpose of shuffling cosmic matter around the void. I could certainly catch any baseball if you threw it at me, unless it was moving so fast and from so close I could not move a limb in time." Her fingers close around a pebble and, eyes closed, she tosses it into the air. Several seconds later it comes down on a direct collision course with a spark that had leapt from the campfire, knocking the chunk of cinder back into the flames.

"And maybe as compensation for having no origin or substance of our own, backtracing the origins of other races is a gift. A bit of a party trick as well, but useful. When my sires met you they determined how your language would be constructed, what the dimorph equivalent mate would be, all the syllables and reasonably constructed words and subtle queues, emotions, hormones, needs... Not perfectly, though with all the variance that humans can provide on their own it wouldn't matter if I was perfect. I imagine that some of my organs work differently to yours, and I'll have wrong assumptions about how things work sometimes. But I can adjust small things as I learn what's wrong, if it's even necessary to do so. Meddling for the sake of anything but good health and survival seems petty." Her nose wrinkles at the thought, "Once your own form is no longer sacred, it would be so easy to make small changes to others that you think would make them better. It's a scary direction to go." And if even the eldritch thing parading around in a mockery of human flesh is afraid of it, Dustin can probably take it as gospel.

"My sires had an infinite number of repetitions to study you compared to your one meeting with them, as well, all of which they remembered. They got human quite well, I think. And as for why... because I like you, and I feel like you should like you too. It's alright if you want to be realistic, but realistically I believe you're special. You might not be the one to save the world in the heat of the very last possible moment, but your level-headedness and perfectly serviceable knowledge of basic survival skills saved it years before that last minute ever needed to happen."

Spongy Shore

Leaving the skillet alone for a moment, Dustin begins setting up his little mess kit. He didn't mind eating from the pan directly, but Rea could probably at least use the little aluminum tray and the utensils. He'd just use his fingers or a tiny stick instead. "So, what you're saying is that even if my "first" meeting with them hadn't gone too well then with each occurrence of the time loop our interactions got more and more refined and understandable until this "current" loop that I remember turned out like it has. And a different self in a "future" loop would find the interaction even more so. Do I have that right?" He asks, frowning a bit. He wasn't used to thinking so heavily.

"As for yourself, you learn through...well, it's all elementary." He adds, remembering some half read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as he dishes out a bit of food to pass over to her. "And while I don't mind the flirting, just...uh...be careful doin' that sort of thing. It might make people think you're coming onto them when you aren't." He explains, half hoping she was just teasing and half hoping she wasn't.

[Slii Arhem]

Spongy Campsite

Rea shakes her head, but not despairingly. She has a small smile of encouragement as Dustin tries to wrap his head around a difficult quantum mechanics problem, "Not really. This was your first meeting, they just... premembered all of the meetings. Because they were happening all at once from their perspective and only one time from yours." Her mouth quirks at the inventive use of a word she knows isn't quite a word, but will convey her meaning nonetheless.

"We're not natural time-walkers any more than you are, for all that we can see ahead." And delicately she accepts the mess tray, but uses the utensil to knock a few morsels back into the pan, a reminder that she needs only very little food. She also lays the utensils by for him and begins eating daintily with her fingers, completely unfazed by the heat. Which, with her obviously higher body temperature might not even occur to her as overly hot.

"This is... marvelous." She holds up a hand to forestall any protests of modesty, "Our senses, as they are, are so clinical and divorced of pleasure and desire. But this is astounding. The nerves and chemicals are each little minds of their own-" She cuts herself off with a deep sigh and a full-body shudder, her shoulders relaxing as she looks longingly at her empty tray and then at his pan. He might realize that at the corners of her eyes, a deepening shadow has begun to spread, starting as inky tears that soon lift off of her cheeks as wisps of twinkling, midnight smoke.

"It's so wonderful. Thank you, Dustin. I am content." Her body shakes again, looking vulnerable and overwhelmed in the early evening light.

[Earl of Purple]

Forlorn Family Farm

It's a pretty remote farm, consisting of four outbuildings and a single-storey farmhouse made of recycled bricks and masonry. The outbuildings consist of a cowshed with metre-high stone walls holding up a higher wooden structure of slats which allow plenty of airflow. A stone barn, sturdily built of hefty chunks of flint and other large lumps of rock. There's also a wooden chicken coop, low enough for an adult human to need to bend over to fit inside, barely counting as an outbuilding. Finally, the fourth outbuilding is a three-storey tower, built of well-fitted masonry blocks for the first one and a half storeys and wooden planks for the rest, with a door in the first floor accessed by ladder that can be pulled up after whomever is inside, if necessary. Surrounding the farm are fields, either fallow or harvested. The exception is a field of calabash gourds growing larger almost as they're watched. There's a trail smashed through the fences and stone walls to the farm, headed East to a low mound or maybe a barrow.

Sat in the middle of the farm yard is an old-fashioned covered wagon pulled by a not-so-old-fashioned mechanical elephant, one crafted by a master though one which has also seen a lot of work and wear. Sat in the doorway of the tower is the person who posted the job for MERC, a marshwiggle with long limbs for their body, webbed hands and feet (which are bare, with wide-splayed toes), grey-green dreadlocks and large ears, their leathery skin thick and brown. They hold a Brown Bess musket across their lap, and puff on a pipe that emits smoke that drifts gently down.

[Leostales]

Forlorn Family Farm

It's a pretty remote farm, consisting of four outbuildings and a single-storey farmhouse made of recycled bricks and masonry. The outbuildings consist of a cowshed with metre-high stone walls holding up a higher wooden structure of slats which allow plenty of airflow. A stone barn, sturdily built of hefty chunks of flint and other large lumps of rock. There's also a wooden chicken coop, low enough for an adult human to need to bend over to fit inside, barely counting as an outbuilding. Finally, the fourth outbuilding is a three-storey tower, built of well-fitted masonry blocks for the first one and a half storeys and wooden planks for the rest, with a door in the first floor accessed by ladder that can be pulled up after whomever is inside, if necessary. Surrounding the farm are fields, either fallow or harvested. The exception is a field of calabash gourds growing larger almost as they're watched. There's a trail smashed through the fences and stone walls to the farm, headed East to a low mound or maybe a barrow.

Sat in the middle of the farm yard is an old-fashioned covered wagon pulled by a not-so-old-fashioned mechanical elephant, one crafted by a master though one which has also seen a lot of work and wear. Sat in the doorway of the tower is the person who posted the job for MERC, a marshwiggle with long limbs for their body, webbed hands and feet (which are bare, with wide-splayed toes), grey-green dreadlocks and large ears, their leathery skin thick and brown. They hold a Brown Bess musket across their lap, and puff on a pipe that emits smoke that drifts gently down.

"Hello," says Metalhead. "I'm from MERC, what seems to be the trouble."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Dragon Mountain]

Damon shrugs, watching the scene unfold in front of them in that brief window through the fog. He doesn't really agree with Marshall's strategy - he'd rather just burn both sides than help the dwarves. Oh well, might as well try and be a team player. Now that he knows where the beastie is, Damon places a hand on the ground and sends a line of back fire streaming across the ground to a point just behind it.

And with a puff of black fire, he's gone, following the trail along the ground as a spark that erupts a moment later behind the creature, Damon emerging from the fire, leaping up and aiming to slice into the back of the creature's neck.

[Earl of Purple]

Forlorn Family Farm

"Din't y' read the job description Oi posted? Family's gone missin'. An' the animals. Cows, horses, chickens, even the spoiders from the rafters. Oi'd like you t'go 'ave a look fer me. Find 'em, bring 'em back if'n y'can, make sure it don't 'appen again, if y' can. Oi'd do it meself, but Oi've only got a musset, an' Pappa had one too. Oi reckon whatever it be came from thataway." The marsh-wiggle points east, along the squashed and smashed route through the fields and over the fences. "Tha's an old barrow, but Oi'm not sure if what took me family be the interred or if they be movin' in. Y'lookin' fer two old wiggles, me Pappa an' Mamma. One young wiggle, me sister. Well, younger. She's not a dibbun. Two cows an' a bull, an 'orse, ten chickens, an' a rooster. Don' care 'bout the spoiders, they can stay gone. New 'uns be movin' in soon, anyways." The marsh-wiggles accent is broad and rustic, and I didn't describe what they're wearing! They've got a broad-brimmed straw hat on their head, pushed up between their large ears, a green chequered shirt and denim dungarees.

[Leostales]

Forlorn Family Farm

"Din't y' read the job description Oi posted? Family's gone missin'. An' the animals. Cows, horses, chickens, even the spoiders from the rafters. Oi'd like you t'go 'ave a look fer me. Find 'em, bring 'em back if'n y'can, make sure it don't 'appen again, if y' can. Oi'd do it meself, but Oi've only got a musset, an' Pappa had one too. Oi reckon whatever it be came from thataway." The marsh-wiggle points east, along the squashed and smashed route through the fields and over the fences. "Tha's an old barrow, but Oi'm not sure if what took me family be the interred or if they be movin' in. Y'lookin' fer two old wiggles, me Pappa an' Mamma. One young wiggle, me sister. Well, younger. She's not a dibbun. Two cows an' a bull, an 'orse, ten chickens, an' a rooster. Don' care 'bout the spoiders, they can stay gone. New 'uns be movin' in soon, anyways." The marsh-wiggles accent is broad and rustic, and I didn't describe what they're wearing! They've got a broad-brimmed straw hat on their head, pushed up between their large ears, a green chequered shirt and denim dungarees.

"Just thought I'd get the mission from the horses mouth. Can you show me where the tracks are?"