Riverside 20: Another day, another disaster

[Gullara]

Weird William’s

Anastasia looks briefly a little confused, but quickly realized why Kitty asked. ”Oh, uh, I do now! A friend’s family helped me find a foster home. I just, um, started busking before all that and really liked it, so I kinda, like, made it a bit of a hobby?” it also means that her foster parents don’t have to worry about something like an allowance, so that’s a plus.

“But, yeah, uh, I don’t really have much in terms of info heritage-wise? They left me the family sword, but other than that it’s not like I have anything?”

Weird William's

The barman is approaching Kitty and Ana! And one of the wererats from the high stakes gambling is loitering nearby.

"Ah, hello miss guitarist. I enjoyed your playing, and... Well, we don't get live music very often. Would you like a gig? Say, next Friday, seven till midnight? I'll pay. Six gold coins an hour, plus tips and all the soft drink you can, uh, drink." Gives him a week to spread the word, and with the people who heard her today to spread it too. Should make his Friday a little more popular, even with the expense of paying her. Unless she's got a bottomless bladder and drinks all his lemonade.

The wererat has sat nearby, just out of human earshot- though given this is a lycanthrope bar, he's probably eavesdropping anyway.

[Weird William’s]

"Oh, good. Gl-" Kitsuki is interrupted by William's approach. She just sits back and listens.

Descending into Darkness
Archera & Flicker

Flicker watches the rats disappear, and zips over to Archera. "You want to head back to the others, now? Taking this thing with us, obviously. Better idea, come here and stand on my feet and hold me tight. If you're not touching the ground I can take us back there quicker." She zips over to Archera and will spread her arms wide.

Descending into Darkness - Flicker & Archera

As the rats leave all that Archera and Flicker can eventually hear is the faint groans and curses coming from the mutants they left behind and the river still softly running down in the chasm.

[Descending into Darkness - Flicker & Archera]

Archera looks around the room and listens down the tunnels. The immediate threat has been stalled at the very least. No use moving through a group of possibly violent individuals that have likely recovered their weapons. "Alright." She nods and follows Flicker's instructions.

[Arik's Place]

Arik shakes his head. "Afraid that's not the right question. The real question you should be asking is, 'what would Helios gain from appearing trustworthy to you'?" The sorcerer shrugs. "Thus, I would need more context to properly answer a question like that." He makes a dismissive gesture while still continuing. "A long-term relationship would suggest that he needs you for more than just this one deal while a short term one could mean that he might just need this one thing before cutting your relationship off. See, to Helios all relationships are investments, like cattle. He raises them, he milks them, and sometimes he slaughters a few to cash in. So how valuable do you imagine whoever you're doing this for is to him? What long-term benefits could he get from the relationship?"

[Arik's Place]

Kirk contemplates that for a moment. "Then let me ask you a question first. What do dragons mean to Helios?"

[Arkhosia]

Weird William’s

The kitsune startles as the barman speaks up, clearly not having noticed him approach. She certainly doesn’t notice the nearby gambler either. “Oh! Um...” She does some quick maths in her head to convert that price to whatever form of currency she’s usually used to handling. Not sure what it might be, but it’s surely a skill the Nexus makes you develop. Makes math class feel a little less bs to take, at least!

“I-I’m honored, but I’ve, uh, never performed, like, formally before? Iiii’d also have to check with my parents?” she rubs a hand against the back of her head nervously.

[Zefir]

Spoiler: Peviously on....

Show

Tracking Rats- Spewer & Karl

The rats are not having a great time. There's really just a few of them, a little more than a dozen, so the two are more than able to kill every one of them in just a few seconds with all that effort.

So soon they all lay dead. Either by freezing cold or by acid belch.

But that's the moment when Spewer's shadowy 'friend' shows up. They melt out of the shadows right next to the hole, staring at Spewer. "I'm going down." Is the only thing they say before melting back into the shadows once more.

Descending Into Darkness- Flicker & Archera

The wires are cut.

...

They're both still here.

Something went horribly wrong or right just now.

Either way, the rats are still here too but as nothing explodes after Archera cut the wires they simply seem to lose all the will to fight and starts to scurry back deeper into the tunnel.
Looks like they managed to disarm the bomb.

[Arik's Place]

Arik expression softens. "Ah, not you but someone else. I can accept that." He waves his hand dissmissively. "So ask away then."

[Xar'cha Telephone]

"I've actually run a similar experiment already without much result." Cessie replies on the other end. "All the diseases I tested out had no effect on them. They're adapted to thrive in blood after all and the demonic essence doesn't seem to be similar enough for any disease to really stick. But what sort of diseases are you planning to test out?"

[Court of the Rat King - Amalungak]

((I will post here tomorrow. Delaying it slightly to make stuff line up a bit better.))

[Tracking Rats - Tarin & MERC Holly]

Holly can hear Tarim calling after her but his voice seems to be quickly swallowed up by the tunnel system she suddenly finds herself in. But as his voice fade so does the rest of the world seemingly as Holly too in a way is consumed by the tunnels.

She won't be able to recall much of her journey, simply seemingly endless passages which she won't be able to recall much of besides behind dark and occasionally claustrophobic. It's like wandering through a dream where the perception of time has lost all meaning.

By the time she simply walks out in a large cavern somewhere far below the point where she entered the tunnels it could have been either just been an hour or several.
She is now in the scene just below this one.

[Tracking Rats - Ruby and Fade & Holly]

"Of course, ma'am." The satyr replies with a bow before taking Ruby's hand.
She then walks through one of the passages, difficult to tell which one at this point, and for the first time for what must be an fairly long amount of time, they're somewhere different.

A huge cavern have opened up before them as they step out of the passage, one which they had no vision of before. Indeed, considering how much nose the constantly dripping ceiling stalacitites are making it seems impossible they wouldn't have at least heard it when they must have just been a few meters away.

In the distance a large underground lake can be seen, likely formed from centuries of water dripping down into this cavern.
But they are not alone to arrive here as a woman (Holly the half-elf!) almost arrive into the cavern at the same time as them, coming out from a nearby passage.
"More guests..." Jaahlyn mutters, seemingly talking more to herself than Ruby.

[Tracking Rats -- -Ruby, Fade, Holly]

The half-human Holly goes through the tunnel.
It's really frustrating.
Almost makes her want to just turn around and go take a shower then go back to bed.

She sees the lake first: Oh, hey! She can finally wash off those useless male rat pheromones from her.
Then, she notices the other people. She kind-of recognizes them! "Hi! It's you guys!" Holly is, of course, wearing a completely different outfit from what she was wearing when they last saw each other at the MERC base. She's now got black fingerless opera gloves and matching tall boots, a black--and-white shoulderless dress-and-corset with metallic patterns, and a black tiara that looks almost like horns. And a shotgun.
...
Completely different from what she was wearing earlier, and very likely inappropriate for a sewer expedition.


She describes Amalungak..."Have you seen him go this way?" She walks towards them.

[Court of the Rat King - Amalungak]

The King reaches out with his hand to take the cloak. Much like the "wings" on his back, it's made out of gnarled, dead black wood.

"I will give it to one of my knights who fight against this beast."

[Tracking Rats -- -Ruby, Fade, Holly]

The group's already difficult position deep in the tunnels is about to get worse. Something seems to be emerging from the deeper tunnels. It's... cat-people? Ghosts of cat-people, more like, with glowing red eyes, carrying guns and knives. There seems to be eight of them, with three carrying guns, two carrying knives and three relying on sharp claws. Once they spot the four people, they take off in their direction with wordless malice. The cat-people carrying guns stop and start firing inaccurate bursts of bullets in their direction. While the ammunition is as spectral as they are, being hit with it is still about as pleasant as a real bullet.

[Tracking Rats - Ruby and Fade & Holly]



"How far under the city must we be?" Ruby wonders aloud, looking out at the grand cave.
Do they have any evidence that this is the right place?

But they're interrupted!
"Holly? What is that costume you-no, the only things we've seen is Jaahlyn here and rat corpses."
"How did you find this place?"

Descending into Darkness
Archera & Flicker

Flicker watches the rats disappear, and zips over to Archera. "You want to head back to the others, now? Taking this thing with us, obviously. Better idea, come here and stand on my feet and hold me tight. If you're not touching the ground I can take us back there quicker." She zips over to Archera and will spread her arms wide.

Karl & Spewer

"What- Oh. Hey, wait! Where'd you go? Oh, this is... frustrating." Spewer really doesn't trust the shadow-lady, and now she's disappeared again and probably getting in trouble and he's left up here with the creepy necromancer.

Weird William's

The barman is approaching Kitty and Ana! And one of the wererats from the high stakes gambling is loitering nearby.

"Ah, hello miss guitarist. I enjoyed your playing, and... Well, we don't get live music very often. Would you like a gig? Say, next Friday, seven till midnight? I'll pay. Six gold coins an hour, plus tips and all the soft drink you can, uh, drink." Gives him a week to spread the word, and with the people who heard her today to spread it too. Should make his Friday a little more popular, even with the expense of paying her. Unless she's got a bottomless bladder and drinks all his lemonade.

The wererat has sat nearby, just out of human earshot- though given this is a lycanthrope bar, he's probably eavesdropping anyway.

[Tracking Rats -- -Ruby, Fade, Holly]

Fade is still hiding in the shadows so neither should see him or know he is there other then Ruby. Thought as the spectral cats come forth he slides over to the gunners in his shadow form waiting for the others to get in the fight. If they do he just slips out of the shadow swinging his sword at the guns these creatures wield. He's not sure if his sword can harm the spectral beeings, but of course their weapon.

Should Jaahlyn stops them from attacking Fade won't jump in.

Tracking Rats- Spewer & Karl


"What now?" Karl asks only watching her disapear. He then looks at his summon likly telling her to be quiet for now, whcih she will be.

[5a Violista]

[Tracking Rats - Ruby, Fade, & Holly]

Holly gets hit by a couple bullets. Nowhere serious, but...
Ow.
That draws her attention to them.

There is, of course, no time to talk about her outfit. She's not really interested in talking about it, anyway. So, instead, she spins. Her dress fans out, and three swords appear to fall out and get stuck in the ground. "Something happened in Eastside so I went there," she says, assuming that they're no longer in Eastside - Ruby entered the sewers in Westside, correct? With some other MERC guy, if she remembers correctly.

Carlie is pretty sure her swords can work against ghosts - they have worked against other spiritual beings, so it makes sense they'd work against these spectral beings, right? Her shotgun definitely won't work, though. No chance; and besides, it's possible the bullets will bounce around and come back. So...swords.

With her left hand (the right hand is occupied with the gun), she grabs a sword and - continuing to spin, she throws that sword at one of the cat-people. It flies point-first, towards one with a knife. She does the same with a second sword, also throwing it in the direction of a knife-cat.
And then, she picks up the third one and, after stopping spinning, starts to close in towards the catpeople.

[Reinholdt]

[Xar'cha Telephone]

"Nano-machines." Cessie repeats thoughtfully. "I can't say I know much about that form of technology but it gives me an idea. We're establishing a technological branch of VIGIL where these samples would be stored. Perhaps he could come over and collect them while at the same time explain to the people there how he's planning to use them? I think they could benefit a lot from it as they're going to start manufacturing weapons we could use against these creatures. The scientists working there are still fairly new to the organization and don't know a lot about our struggle against the demons so you and Mr. Squiggles bringing them up to date would be perfect."

[Xar'cha Telephone]

"Uhh... Do they speak spider?" Ilpholin asks, already guessing the answer. "I guess I'll just come with and translate, but if Squiggles goes deep into the technobabble, I have no idea what he's saying. But I can tell them everything I know about the demons at the very least. And stumble through the rest I suppose, sure." There can sometimes be a language barrier between Ilpholin and Mister Squiggles that comes from highly technical concepts and verbiage.

[Earl of Purple]

Weird William's

"Ah, well, of course. The offer will remain open, though the sooner you get back would be better for me. Advertising, you see. Helps you and me, since there could be more tips." Weird William has no idea if there's usually tips at live music venues. There will probably be some here, anyway, as a lot of the patrons are similarly clueless about the difference between a busker and a house musician.

The gambler won't approach until William has left, so possibly next post... Though he might not want Kitty to overhear much, either.

Descending Into Darkness
Archera and Flicker

Once Archera's standing on Flicker's feet- the easiest way to 'lift' the heroine- Flicker hugs Archera quite tight to ensure she doesn't fall off before using her power to head back down the tunnel to the entrance they used- or until they bump into Irena, whichever happens first.

Archera might note a few things about Flicker's power- she's moving fast enough that Archera probably can't see what's going on very well, since the short-ranged teleportation is very stop-start and jerky. Flicker seems to be unaffected by that, somehow. There's also no sensation of moving or acceleration; if she closes her eyes she can't tell she moving, except if Archera moves herself. Moving would be tricky, as every teleport- and there's several every second- loses the momentum gained by moving.

[Gullara]

Weird William’s

The kitsune startles as the barman speaks up, clearly not having noticed him approach. She certainly doesn’t notice the nearby gambler either. “Oh! Um...” She does some quick maths in her head to convert that price to whatever form of currency she’s usually used to handling. Not sure what it might be, but it’s surely a skill the Nexus makes you develop. Makes math class feel a little less bs to take, at least!

“I-I’m honored, but I’ve, uh, never performed, like, formally before? Iiii’d also have to check with my parents?” she rubs a hand against the back of her head nervously.

Weird William's

"Ah, well, of course. The offer will remain open, though the sooner you get back would be better for me. Advertising, you see. Helps you and me, since there could be more tips." Weird William has no idea if there's usually tips at live music venues. There will probably be some here, anyway, as a lot of the patrons are similarly clueless about the difference between a busker and a house musician.

The gambler won't approach until William has left, so possibly next post... Though he might not want Kitty to overhear much, either.

[Weird William's]

Kitsuki gives William a smile, but waits until he leaves before addressing Ana again. "Looks like you impressed people. How long have you been playing anyway?" She watches Ana to guage how she's feeling after that offer. Nervous about it maybe? She didn't seem to know what to think of it at least.

[Arkhosia]

Weird William’s

”Of course!” Anastasia assures the owner, turning back to Kitsuki when he leaves. “Heh, I guess so!” she smiles a tad bashfully pausing to think as she muses, “Gosh, I’m not really sure. Maybe since I was, like, nine or ten? A few years for sure, I guess. I’ve, uh, never really thought about how long I’ve been playing before, to be honest.”

[Earl of Purple]

Weird William's

Once the barman is far enough away, the wererat reaches down and stokes a real rat. It's a large one, with soft brown fur and pink eyes. On its back is a little bag, and there's a note peeking out of it. The rat is set down upon the ground and scampers towards Ana's table, where it will try to attract the younger kitsune's attention. First by hopping onto her foot and licking her ankle, if her socks are short enough. If that doesn't work, it will try scaling her trousers and sitting in her lap.

[Gullara]

[Weird William's]

"So about... three or four years then? Not bad at all." Kitsuki doesn't notice the rat, or she'd definitely be saying something about it. "The only instrument I ever handled at your age were drums. Nothing fun, I promise."

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

In the distance the water wheel still turns. In the distance the torrents still rage as the flood ever downward. In the distance the electric lights glimmer dimly.

And here, now?

The water continues to drip on Mister Slash's head.

*drip drip drip...*

"Upward is a lie," the hunched nightmare replies. "No matter how high you climb, there is no escape from this forsaken place. Some try, but they are broken by it. There are those who, like me, sit and rot and contemplate death. And there are some who give up and give in. Those who drink deep and descend."

It may be telling the truth.

Or it may be a liar.

Either way, it's full of centipedes.

Another scurries out of its robe.

"The village is full of fools who believe they can banish the nightmares with their feeble light," the boogie rasps, a voice of a thousand brushing, papery wings. "They don't understand yet. They do not grasp that they are nightmares, too. As you are. As I am. There are only nightmares in this pit. Some just haven't accepted it yet."

[Earl of Purple]

Doom Door

"People said that of the Tenements, as well. Yet there are ways to leave it and find reality again. I know, I found one." It took a while, though, and Mister Slash lost a lot of things finding that route. "If you did not sit here to ponder mortality, where would you go? Up, down or to the village?" Full of fools? They might be something worth investigating, and it's got light. Mister Slash is a creature of the dark, but more accurately he's a creature of shadows. He prefers areas with a mix of light and darkness, where creatures of dark and those of light are not wholly comfortable. Especially if there's lots of windows.

[Arkhosia]

White Rose Health Clinic

"Er, not entirely," Caelynn responds candidly. "I'm not sure how much I can help, I'm not exactly a licensed psychiatrist and your problems seem a bit more severe, but I can look into some to recommend for you, if you want," she offers.

Weird William's

"About five, actually- !!" Anastasia jumps in her seat as she feels something crawl up her jeans, possibly jolting the rat off of her, and moves to investigate it quizzically once her shock and panic has died down, either lifting it up or staring at it in confusion before withdrawing the note. "The heck?"

[Shadowcaller]

[EVENT: The Nexuswide Story]

Every character in the thread will (if their players allow it) suddenly know a story, or perhaps several versions of one story, as if they’ve learned of it long ago.
Do you remember where you learned of Red Riding Hood, Snowwhite or Goldilocks for the first time? Since the characters won’t exactly remember where they learned of this story. Though the story and its many versions won’t only exist inside the characters heads as it's being added to storybooks and other media across the multiverse at the same time.
It’s just a story however.It has no special mental influences or compulsions connected to it. The story just exists as a simple narrative within a characters memory and sometimes such a mundane thing can have the greatest effect.

Spoiler: The Story: Once upon a time...

Show

...there was a king that ruled over the fairest of lands. There were many beasts and villains threatening the lands but he always managed to best them with the aid of his noble knights. But one day those who he had fought so hard to protect rebelled against him.
They took his title, they took his crown and threw him out of the fairest of lands to be forgotten.
But learning of the king’s banishment, the beasts saw their opportunity and attacked.
Without their hero king the inhabitants of the fairest lands could not protect themselves and without his title and crown the king could not protect them.

Thus the king was forced to watch on his forgotten throne as the beasts rampaged through not only his former home but also the kingdoms outside the fairest of lands. The inhabitants fought valiantly but against the beast's sheer numbers they could not win.
But finally the king had enough and dubbed new knights that would unite the kingdoms against the beasts. Along with his new knights the king returned to the fairest of lands and freed it from the beasts which had taken it over.

Only then could he reclaim his rightful title and crown and used them to once and for all end the threat of the beasts. Once the beasts had been defeated the king would grant many gifts to those loyal knights who had helped him retake fairest of lands and freed the kingdoms from the beasts. Then he would take the greatest among them as his queen and they would live happily ever after as rulers of the fairest land.

This is the “prime story” but it’s likely not the version your character knows. The version or versions they’ve heard of is likely specific to their homeworld with the actors and elements being unique to it. So their players can feel free to invent their own versions of the story that can be wildly different as long as it have these elements:

1. A being/person is a figure of great importance in a fantastical place.
2. They are banished from it for some reason.
3. A great threat emerges which not only threatens the fantasy land but ALL the lands.
4. The banished is helped by a group of people to regain their former glory and with it they end the threat and save the day.

Again, knowing the story has no special effect in itself. It's up to the players if:
A: The characters learn it at all.
B: If they do anything with it.
The story is connected to the King of Rags (who is controlled by the player Morty) so that's where they would have a chance to do anything with the knowledge.

Descending Into Darkness

As they are preparing to use Flicker's abilities to teleport they can hear a shout and a gunshot back at where they left the mutants. Sounds like a fight.

[Arik's Place]

Arik looks puzzled. "Afraid you have to give me some more context than that as right now I have no idea what to tell you. I've never heard that Helios have had some special connection or interest in dragons. Not more than any other subject at least. Might be one of his 'secret projects' as he has plenty of those. But as the name suggests, knowledge of those are for a select few."

[Xar'cha Telephone]

"That should be fine. Perhaps they might even have some way to translate Mr. Squiggles words. Either way, I'd be really grateful if you gave them the heads up on the demonic threat. I know you and Mr. Squiggles would be the right people for this job. I think if we can just put all the brilliant people together we can come up with a way to end this once and for all eventually."

[Tracking Rats - Ruby and Fade & Holly]

Jaahlyn first freezes in place as gunshots are fired but quickly gets over it as she is forced to duck behind a stalagmite formation.
"The king you seek is past that lake!" She declares while peeking out from behind her cover while gesturing at the lake in the distance. "I don't know what these are, but I think they're were conjured by their guest."

There are more such formations in the area that both the catfolk shades and the group could seek cover behind.

[Court of the Rat King - Amalungak]

Gunshots can be heard in the distance now and all the children beside the girl standing in front of the king of rags turn in the direction of the sounds.
"Just in time, the time of the hunters is fast approaching."
"Indeed. But with the pact sealed, what will our fledgling king do now?"
"We suspect our vessels time are reaching their end."
"Unless we cross the lake and escape further down into the dark where they cannot reach."
"So a choice must be made."
"To leave..."
"...or to stay."
"Fight for us or leave it be. Either way we'll meet again."
The girl before him just smiles and looks at him in silence once the others have spoken their piece.

[Reinholdt]

[Xar'cha Telephone]

"Y-yeah. I guess." She doesn't know about the right people for handing out information. Ilpholin always figured Cessie knew just as much about demons as the nymph did. Maybe that was just an assumption. "Anyways, we'll be right over. See you soon."

Unless Cessie needed to add any more over the phone, Ilpholin will hang up. Before heading out, she leaves a note with HALlelujah to give to Cerebella in the event the bird angel thing gets back before Ilpholin and Mister Squiggles do.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[White Rose Health Clinic]

"****. Caelynn, I'm sorry. This was a mistake, to let you get all involved in my- in this." Ithuriel sighs, rubbing her forehead. "I guess- if you had someone in mind to refer me too, maybe that's not a bad idea. And hey, I suppose I owe you thanks for keeping Magtok from blowing up Inside or something."

[Recaiden]

And suddenly bullets start flying by. Ruby doesn't think they'd have much chance of hurting her scales even if they weren't ghostly, but they can still be painful.
So this is the part where Jaahyln leads them into an ambush.
Finally.
Ruby turns to make a smaller target and returns fire, bolts of energy leaping from her gun towards the catpeople, and then as they get closer and the MERC members get in close, just swinging with her claws.

[Earl of Purple]

Weird William's

The rat keeps its grip, and starts to wash itself after it's picked up into her lap- or scuttles the rest of the way there. The note is a job offer, of sorts. It says that, if she were to busk opposite Peter & Percy's Pawnshop, at about five o'clock of an evening and played the song she played tonight if the police come by, she'd find it a particularly lucrative spot.

Descending into Darkness
Flicker & Archera

"Probably them mutants killing each other over their failure to blow us up. I wanna get outta here." But if Archera wants to investigate, then Flicker will sigh and head that way instead, still carrying Archera on her feet.

Spewer & Karl

"We could go down there, if you think you can survive the drop without being harmed." Spewer doesn't think he can. His power isn't really great at manoeuvrability. "Or we wait up here for the others to come back, that shadow-person, Flicker and the water hero. Hopefully they come back. If they don't, the bombs haven't been stopped and we're going to die." Spewer isn't too worried about that- he trusts Flicker to have fixed it, and if she can't or doesn't, he trusts her to come back and save him with her teleportation-speed.

[Morty]

[Court of the Rat King - Amalungak]

"This body of mine is not built for fighting," the King admits. "And will crumble easily if struck. But it also means little if it's destroyed and I can abandon it quickly. My servant and I can remain to hold the so-called heroes a while longer, but he cannot escape as easily as I."

"I will be ready when they come, my King," Amalungak simply says. He knows well how much he risks for his lord.

[Tracking Rats - Ruby & Fade & Holly]

One of the ghostly cat-people (armed only with claws) is incinerated by the energy, while another is skewered by a sword. The other one nimbly ducks to avoid the second sword, however. The survivors close in with Ruby and Holly, trying to tackle them to the ground, slash and stab. They're not very strong and tangible, but they are quick. Their forms are vulnerable to physical attack, but resilient - however, Holly's swords will make quick work of dispersing them.

The gun-using catfolk keep firing, seemingly having no need to reload and their bullets having no effect on the other ghosts. Fade's sword damages the guns of the two of them, at which point they will try to attack him with their claws.

[Rebonack]

[Doom Door]

"If I were to do something else? There is nothing to do but sit and rot. There is no hope here," the figure replies. "There is nothing but to drink deep and descend when you have grown tired of it."

The sack of centipedes is either lying or deceived.

It's possible to get out of the Pit. People have done it before. They'll probably do it again.

Most likely it's trying to convince Mister Slash to give in to despair and hurl himself downward-

-where the rest of the huge antlion-like body of this thing is waiting in a jumbled heap of limbs, bristles, and jaws.

Mister Slash may have caught a glimpse of it through the mealy wood of the scaffolding.

So all things considered maybe don't listen to it?

Unless getting eaten by the centipede termite antlion person is high on his list of priorities.

[5a Violista]

[Tracking Rats - Ruby and Fade & Holly]

Holly does a Sparta kick at the first one to get to her, and then follows it up with a downward thrust with one of her swords, into the ground, intending to either kill or pin a ghostly catfolk to the ground by way of sword-through-center-of-mass. (killing or pinning...at this stage of the fight, it doesn't matter to her which happens. It's the same thing, either way.) This leaves her with one sword left.

Since Holly can heal herself, and pretty much naturally recovers anyway, she figures it's best to draw the attention of most of them to herself, instead of letting them go after Ruby or Jaahlyn or anyone else. So she has to get as many of them stuck at her as possible.

"That makes it easier, then," she says in response to Jaahlyn.

In order to keep as many of them busy with Holly as possible, Holly runs forward at the advancing cat-people, trying to intercept all of them before they have the choice to go after Ruby.
They're trying to tackle her? Ha. Laughable, that they'd try to do exactly what she wants to do to them. With her free right hand, Carlie reaches out while running to grab any she can reach by the throat and use her momentum to throw them to ground.
With her sword hand, she just swings at any that try to overwhelm her by ganging up or flanking her. Again, aiming at the neck - it's an easy target.

Of course, this means she gets slashed and stabbed a lot, especially on her right arm and her right side. If this fight goes on for much longer then this might matter a lot, but Holly's hoping they can get this over with really quickly.

[Earl of Purple]

Doom Door

"That I choose not to believe. I think hope always exists, even when it shouldn't. Even when it's more trouble than it's worth. Perhaps especially then, in fact." Mister Slash shakes his head and glances down at the floor. "I am not such easy prey that you will catch me without a fight, sir. I shall be leaving now, headed upwards I think." The bogeyman grips his shard of glass quite tightly, though it doesn't cut his skin.

He tries to walk past the sack of centipedes, having spotted the mass of invertebrates part of it lower down and deciding to give it all a wide berth, though he has his glass dagger, should he need it.

[Gullara]

[Arik's Place]

Arik looks puzzled. "Afraid you have to give me some more context than that as right now I have no idea what to tell you. I've never heard that Helios have had some special connection or interest in dragons. Not more than any other subject at least. Might be one of his 'secret projects' as he has plenty of those. But as the name suggests, knowledge of those are for a select few."

[Arik's Place]

Kirk rubs the bridge of his nose. This is frustrating, and not half as productive as he hoped. "He wants to acquire a dragon, and he wants us to help him do it. Nothing so dramatic as capturing some dangerous being, but it's costly in its own way. You don't know anything about this?"

Descending Into Darkness

As they are preparing to use Flicker's abilities to teleport they can hear a shout and a gunshot back at where they left the mutants. Sounds like a fight.

Descending into Darkness
Flicker & Archera

"Probably them mutants killing each other over their failure to blow us up. I wanna get outta here." But if Archera wants to investigate, then Flicker will sigh and head that way instead, still carrying Archera on her feet.

[Descending into Darkness]

"Let's not linger." Archera agrees. Part of her wants to more concretely resolve the situation here, but there's only so much risk she can justify. So out they go, speedily exiting with the assistance of Flicker's power. Archera steps away when they reach the bottom of the pit. She scopes out the area quickly, making sure there's no immediate threat. Then she casts her eyes upward. She reaches out with an empathetic link to Irena. She needs her. "It's going to be a bit more trickier to get up than down." She admits.

Weird William's

"About five, actually- !!" Anastasia jumps in her seat as she feels something crawl up her jeans, possibly jolting the rat off of her, and moves to investigate it quizzically once her shock and panic has died down, either lifting it up or staring at it in confusion before withdrawing the note. "The heck?"

Weird William's

The rat keeps its grip, and starts to wash itself after it's picked up into her lap- or scuttles the rest of the way there. The note is a job offer, of sorts. It says that, if she were to busk opposite Peter & Percy's Pawnshop, at about five o'clock of an evening and played the song she played tonight if the police come by, she'd find it a particularly lucrative spot.

[Weird William's]

"Um, what's going on?" Kitsuki gives Ana and the note that materialized a confused look. She can't see the rat from her perspective.

[Arkhosia]

Weird Williams

Anastasia squirms a little as the creature climbs into her lap, clearly not in the least comfortable with its presence there but also too timid, nervous or simply just too softhearted to act on instinct and attempt to push it off. As well as too worried and distracted to think of any gentler options beyond simply waving her hands and telling it to shoo and that's definitely dumb no way would it work I mean it just barged in and also oh god what if it bites me.

"There's- there's a rat in my lap and it gave me a message." She tries her best not to sound exactly like every character in an old Watchforce rerun where some large, imposing monster looms over the gang and they tell everyone that maybe if we all stay still it won't notice we're here.

[Gullara]

[Weird William's]

Kitsuki gives Ana a look. "You're kidding me." She stands up to get a look. That's a rat alright. Not a dirty sewer rat, mind. It looks like it could be someone's pet Still though. "Um, and the note?"

[Arkhosia]

Weird William's

"Um, I think it's some sort of, like... job offer?" Anastasia seems to hesitate about divulging any more. I mean, she's probably not going to go do it, it's not like she's starved for cash and struggling to afford food or anything, but maybe her new family might need it? And it wouldn't be *that* big of a risk, right?

She seems to be calming down to the rat in her lap, although still a little unnerved.

White Rose Health Clinic

"Let's see, I know there's one lady named Sophie who works at GLoG, I've heard some good things about her. I can also get you a few online sources for finding therapists and psychiatrists," Caelynn responds, moving over to her laptop and copying down both the former's business contact info and a few URLs on a piece of paper which she hands to Ithuriel. Surprisingly, her handwriting is actually legible.

At that last remark, she raises an eyebrow before chuckling. "Heh, well, I wouldn't say it's all me. He seems to have gotten fairly tired of trying to play the good ol' villain shtick in general, although I like to think having someone by his side makes not doing it easier." She bites back any comment about the heroics she knows he has planned against Feia; Ithuriel can probably be trusted, but it's not her general goal to divulge or let others in on.

[Zefir]

Weird William's

The rat keeps its grip, and starts to wash itself after it's picked up into her lap- or scuttles the rest of the way there. The note is a job offer, of sorts. It says that, if she were to busk opposite Peter & Percy's Pawnshop, at about five o'clock of an evening and played the song she played tonight if the police come by, she'd find it a particularly lucrative spot.

Descending into Darkness
Flicker & Archera

"Probably them mutants killing each other over their failure to blow us up. I wanna get outta here." But if Archera wants to investigate, then Flicker will sigh and head that way instead, still carrying Archera on her feet.

Spewer & Karl

"We could go down there, if you think you can survive the drop without being harmed." Spewer doesn't think he can. His power isn't really great at manoeuvrability. "Or we wait up here for the others to come back, that shadow-person, Flicker and the water hero. Hopefully they come back. If they don't, the bombs haven't been stopped and we're going to die." Spewer isn't too worried about that- he trusts Flicker to have fixed it, and if she can't or doesn't, he trusts her to come back and save him with her teleportation-speed.

Descending into Darkness
Spewer & Karl

Karl still breaths heavily instead of getting up he rather sits down.
"I just need a moment to recover." he says. "I can make up a ramp to slide down." He then has to take another breath. "I's rather go down and try to help then stay and die doing nothing."

[Tracking Rats - Ruby & Fade & Holly]

Fade already assumed that action, after all it is quiet common. He will turn his sword using it as a shield to block the cats attack. Since they are rather agile he will get a claw or two befor he changes to push his sword into them. when he manages to get both he whispers a word and the blade immediatly gets covered in lighting, hopefully shocking the ghosts if the blade itself doesn#t work.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[White Rose Health Clinic]

"Sounds promising. Worth getting in contact with her then, I guess." Ithuriel smiles, taking the note, quietly avoiding mentioning that she has no idea what urls are or how to use them.

Sophie might have just got herself another client by process of elimination.

"He's been on and off the villain train a few times. I'd just like to see him off it for good. And you're clearly much better suited to that task than me. I figure anyone who runs a place like this has gotta have some interest in keeping him from going on a rampage, right?"

Ithuriel sighs and rubs her forehead.

"...thanks. For everything. I really oughta go while I can pretend I'm keeping it together. But- I dunno, see you around, hopefully." She turns and hurriedly makes for the door.

[Gullara]

Weird William's

"Um, I think it's some sort of, like... job offer?" Anastasia seems to hesitate about divulging any more. I mean, she's probably not going to go do it, it's not like she's starved for cash and struggling to afford food or anything, but maybe her new family might need it? And it wouldn't be *that* big of a risk, right?

She seems to be calming down to the rat in her lap, although still a little unnerved.

[Weird William's]

Kitsuki sits back down, not looking any less confused. "I guess that's one way to send a message." A strange way, but whatever. "I guess you have a couple things to discuss with your foster parents then." It's not her place to meddle

She frowns and looks towards the door. "I should probably get home soon. This was a bit of a detour." She pulls a notepad and pen from a pocket of her uniform and scribbles a phone number on it. "If you ever need to talk about any of this kitsune stuff or anything else like that, you can call me." She offers, sliding the paper across the table. Honestly she can't let the first ever meeting with someone else like her be a one time encounter in passing. There's too many of her own gaps to fill.

[Arkhosia]

Weird William's

"Heh, I guess so." Anastasia smiles, eyes lighting up in joy and surprise as Kitsuki offers her number. She takes the offered slip and slides it into a pocket with the shady offer. "It was an honor to meet you," she responds sweetly, and will leave herself soon after - although probably not before excitedly texting Eliseo about the event.