[Nexus] Home 16 - Home is Where the Phylactery is

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace grimaces.
"Well, yes, but laying in dirt sounds unpleasant even when it isn't freezing outside, nor do I think it'd be pleasant to cover you in mud or something. Well, I suppose there are places that do that, but my house isn't one of those places."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place, Kell

"True. But... hey, why wasn't I in some kind of earth mode when I woke up? I was buried before." Kell idly leaves the ground again and hovers around a bit.

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace thinks for a moment.
"Well, you just looked like the human version of you, maybe with slightly more pointed ears? Do you think you just look human with Earth? Dust to dust and all that?"

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place, Kell

"Maybe? The ears didn't really change from ice to wind," Kell says, "Huh... you said I looked mostly human? Maybe it needed time to activate or something."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace nods.
"Yeah, maybe it didn't start because you weren't conscious, or maybe you were teleported there and therefore weren't actually underground for very long.
Either way, we know you don't mimic anything, else you would have turned into a plant or something from the cotton clothes. If we have time we should figure out what counts and what doesn't.
But I believe there was a meeting called on the Wall for mages and such to discuss theories and research and such. If you'd like I can go and ask around if any of them specializes in elemental beings."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place, Kell

"Well, that certainly might be useful. I'll trust you to not trust anyone that might be... you know, crazy. I could use the time to look for jobs or something." She nods, a smile on her face. "And if you want to go, even just to enjoy yourself, I'm not going to stop you!"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace nods and goes over to the table where he left his satchel and fetches his coin purse, and removes a few gold coins.
"Here. Take these. While you're away you'll need to eat, immune to cold or not you're going to want an appropriate set of clothes sized for you, and you should probably get a cheap mobile phone while you're at it. Really, it's not a big deal." he says, anticipating a protest.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place, Kell

Kell opens her mouth to protest, but simply sighs instead. She then lands and takes the money; she can't really afford to turn down charity right now. "Thanks. I'll pay you back."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace nods as Zebes flaps onto his shoulder, presenting him with the sheet of paper. He smiles and turns it over, revealing a rather detailed black-ink drawing of her as she was when she came in, along with a smaller headshot for Wind Mode.
"Whaddaya think? I get if you don't want to show it to the people we ask about, but I was bored enough to do it anyway."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place, Kell

Kell looks at it. "It's really good. Yeah, not sure I want to spread my face around, there's another me out there, but that's a really good sketch. I wouldn't think you'd be able to do so well with claws."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Zebes straightens himself proudly. If he wasn't under a foot tall, it'd be quite the noble image. As it is, it probably ends up being cute at best.
"My full-sized cousins have whole libraries they've written together, and that's with claws big enough to carry cows.
And don't worry, if we show it to anyone it'll just be one or two people who we think have a really good chance of knowing and are trustworthy enough for confidentiality. Trust me, I'm part Gold, we make good judges of character."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"I'll take your word for it," Kell says. She successfully does not comment on how cute Zebes is. "I suppose I should go shopping now."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace smiles and scratches his familiar under the chin, who makes a soft clicking sound in his throat, the kind which on a full-sized dragon would be the low rumble that makes low-level adventurers wet themselves. He curls up around Jace's neck as the sorcerer sticks the sheet in a little round case in his satchel. The two have a very brotherly feel between them, if she's a person who recognizes that sort of thing.
"Good luck. I'll clean up around here. And try to get that phone first, just in case."
he says, handing her a little scrap of paper with his number on it. Yes, Jace has a phone. It's rather simple, but he has one.
Then he'll go to start getting all the ice in the water bucket before it melts all over the floor.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell takes the number and nods. "Later. Thanks again." With that, she will turn around and leave.

[Arkhosia]

Jace's Place, Cel

Actually, she sounds more like me when I said I'd pass Calc 2. Draw your own conclusions.
"Those are your goals, maybe, but I'm still not hearing any plans, ideas, or acknowledgement of what the problem was in the first place."
he says, clearly not convinced, although his expression has softened slightly.

Jace's Place, Kell

Jace would have brought Kell to this part of the building through the back door. He's kept it actually rather free of dust thanks to frequent work at doing so. It's not very decorated, but he's put a few things too heavy to put upstairs here, including his wooden workbench and a well-used but clean and repaired couch that some fool had been throwing away just because the fabric was ripping (pff. Mundanes). Jace's not-quite-patented magic lamps are strewn around the room (they turn on when you poke the orb) and provide some nice light.
"You can take the couch upstairs if this is a bit stuffy, but at least this is a private place for us to take a look at you. Where and how would you like to start?"

Well, compared to usual Celica...
First, I'm going to divide my waking hours between taking care of Cheasadh, working (which I plan to do more of), and job searching.
Well, taking care of Cheasadh will pretty much be full-time, but I'm going to start spending a lot more time with her.
Celica replies, drinking her coffee.

[Murkus]

Maxwell's Office

"Yeah, what could I be worried about?" Shark says, letting himself grin a little. "Thanks."

"Oh, and now I suppose you expect me to turn around?" Max says, shortly before he does just that. He won't even peek!

Fettinna's Place

At Tina's insistence Sebastian adds his voice to the drunken quartet, warbling along with the chorus in a surprisingly strong tenor. At least until the tower swings into view. That, well, it quite manages to take his breath away.

"It's entirely wonderful. I could spend all day admiring the architecture.." Sebastian says, laughingly slightly.".. If there weren't far better things to ogle."

[Fettina's Place]

Shrike, for her part, sings along with gusto. And grins as she hops onto the balcony, looking around with interest. "Oh, yeah, I'd say this is a pretty swank set of digs you've got here, Tina babe. I just hope it cleans as good as it looks," she teases with a smirk.

"Oh, how much of a mess could we make?" Tina says, smirking back, before she glances at Sebastian. "Just gave up on subtle, huh? Aight. C'mon, Shrike, we got stuff to squeeze into."

Shrike gets pulled off towards Tina's room, where a big, round bed sits disheveled in the center of the richly decorated quarters. The neon-eyed girl swings open her closet, looking for outfits that match preferably. "Lucky for you, I've been practicing that shapeshifting Evan taught me." There do seem to be a lot of outfits Tina wouldn't, er, fill out.

((I'd find something, but I need sleep. Feel free to suggest things or maybe write something up, otherwise, I'll get it next post))

[FireFox]

Ashley's Warehouse

"Yeah, I guess I coud've," Ashley says. "Maybe I should lay off the magic for the night."

Ally nods and starts to return to the main room of the building. But then she stops as something occurs to her. Hey, if there was something wrong with my body, I'd go see a healer, you know? So... are there magic experts who, uh, diagnose spellcasters?

[Gullara]

Summit Springs

"Me too." Misha adds succinctly, reaching a hand below Riss' waistline while her other stretches across to grab Mimi intimately around the middle.

She'll attempt to draw the curtain then and there.

[Summit Springs]

Humming contentedly, Riss was debating between disentangling herself and getting up or just laying there for another while. Considering how long it's taken me to decde, any longer and I might as well just put it off. It was with a disappointed sigh that the muse began to pull away from her fey, although she was being as languid as she possibly could simply because she was quite reluctant to leave just yet despite her anticipation.

Picking up her wineglass with her tail, she made the transfer to her hands as she poured out the last of the wine in the open bottle into it; sitting on the raised edge of the pool as she took a small sip. "I just realized that despite how much thought I've put into nearly every aspect of this that I could think of, I neglected to think of what I would actually do before I went away..." she said with a nervous sort of laugh. She wasn't hiding the fact that she was nervous about her oncoming 'sleep' but she wasn't going to let that deterr her. At least not too much.. "I guess.. Well.. Just leaving now feels awkward but... Oh to hell with it." Swiftly drinking the entire glass, Riss left it upended on the side of the spring before diving back in and sliding up to her fey; moving to pull each of them into a right embrace and a long, deep kiss. "I love you. Both of you, you got it? No matter what." she whispered.

With a deep breath, she began to get out of the pool once more but this time she would attempt to take both fey by the hand and gently lead them towards the half-hidden elevator that lead to her lab; gently smiling on the short way there. "Well.. This is where we've got to part for a little while... But before I do.. Misha? I think you might make some extra headway with your tunneling project if you took a moment to maybe try digging a bit at your pool. And Mimi, promise me that you'll actually sleep tonight once you're in your own bed." the muse said with barely contained mirth. She wished she could be there to see her fey's reactions once they descovered what her clues were about but decided that she would simply need to be content with seeing them once she woke up.

She would give her neried and pixie one last hug each before stepping back with a slightly nervous smile into the elevator. "Well.. I guess it's off to sleep for me.. Though I don't think I need to tell either of you of whom I'll be dreaming of." she said, her tone of voice making it clear that she knew just how corny that sounded but that she couldn't care less.

With a last smile and an almost shy wave, Riss mentally triggered the doors to close. They opened again to show the domineering machine in the center of her lab, four closed capsules behind a thin, shimmering wall while a fifth stood open and empty. She had already made the final preperations earlier and all that was left was to get in. She remembered what felt like more than just a few short years ago when she had done something quite similar as she climbed into the capsule's confines, shivering slightly as she lay back against the cool metal. Of course, last time I was more of a wreck than the skeleton I was replacing. Now, though... Well.. I don't even think I could guess at how much has well since then. Feeling the chilly suspension fluid beguin to fill the tank, Riss simultaniously felt the slight nausia from the activation of the odd sort of temporal dialation field that she had developed with Sora. She felt nervous despite all of the failsafes and redundancies she had put in place. Her rational mind knew that it was because this was undeniably a big thing but it wasn't until she felt the faintest pricklings of her fingers from the micro-hypodermics that she began to relax. I suppose a chemically induced calm is good enough. With her tension quickly being replaced with fatigue, the muse closed her eyes and allowed herself one last thought before falling into a sort of suspended unconsciousness so her psyche could synch up to the cerebral core that her rebuilt form would use as it's mental hardware. I... Really am lucky for having the both of you..

[Summit Springs]

"We'll be waiting for you when you get out. Don't worry about us. Love you lots." Mimi says, giving Riss a little parting wave as the muse disappears behind the door.

Once she's gone, Mimi sighs quietly. "It's gonna be a long couple weeks, isn't it." She's already remembering what a pain it was the last time they were without Riss for a while. And that was way less time than this.

[Deathkeeper]

Well, compared to usual Celica...
First, I'm going to divide my waking hours between taking care of Cheasadh, working (which I plan to do more of), and job searching.
Well, taking care of Cheasadh will pretty much be full-time, but I'm going to start spending a lot more time with her.
Celica replies, drinking her coffee.

Jace's Place

She had coffee this whole time?!
"If you can't find anything wrong with what you just said, then I think our problems are not going to be solved any time soon.
And remember Cel that she is not your daughter. She will not respond if you pretend to be. Especially considering you're not even old enough to marry in most countries."

[Devixer]

Ashley's Warehouse

Ashley's face lights up in recognition. How hadn't she thought of that? "Yeah, there are. It shouldn't be too hard to find one of them in the Nexus, either."

[The Bushranger]

Fettinna's Place

At Tina's insistence Sebastian adds his voice to the drunken quartet, warbling along with the chorus in a surprisingly strong tenor. At least until the tower swings into view. That, well, it quite manages to take his breath away.

"It's entirely wonderful. I could spend all day admiring the architecture.." Sebastian says, laughingly slightly.".. If there weren't far better things to ogle."

"Oh, how much of a mess could we make?" Tina says, smirking back, before she glances at Sebastian. "Just gave up on subtle, huh? Aight. C'mon, Shrike, we got stuff to squeeze into."

Shrike gets pulled off towards Tina's room, where a big, round bed sits disheveled in the center of the richly decorated quarters. The neon-eyed girl swings open her closet, looking for outfits that match preferably. "Lucky for you, I've been practicing that shapeshifting Evan taught me." There do seem to be a lot of outfits Tina wouldn't, er, fill out.

Shrike laughs, giving Tina a fond...pat on the back.side "Oh, you have, have you? I bet you've thought of all kinds of fun things to do with that."

Grinning, the red-haired Exalt looks through the outfits with a grin, picking out something that looks like a 'teacher' would wear...if the undershirt weren't cut so low as to reveal most of her bosom. "How's about this, for a start?" she asks, holding up the vest, knee-length skirt, stockings and heels that went with it.

[Murkus]

[Fettina's Place]

Ah, friendly pats. "A few things... Oh, gods, don't tell me that one's still in there," She says, taking the outfit from Shrike for a second before passing it back. The look on her face is both amused and slightly embarrassed. "I'm a little worried about poor Sebastian's blood pressure. Go on. Lemme see if I can find the other half of that set..."

She pulls out a tight little number to go along with Shrike's getup. "Alright, now we've got somethin'. C'mon, hurry! I wanna take pictures." Tina seems pretty excited about this. The booze might be helping. Once they're all dressed and fluffed, no makeup required, the two girls can head back out to Sebastian. He coulda wandered around in the apartment, but something tells me he's waiting (im)patiently for the pair of them.

Tina really pulls it off. Like she's used it for something before, but I just can't think of why a grown woman would have a uniform like that in her closet...

[The Bushranger]

[Fettina's Place]

"Should I grab a hankerchief for when he gets a nosebleed seeing us?" Shrike teases, wriggling into her outfit with a grin. Giggling, she follows Fettina out, almost strutting as they head back to Sebastien.

[Devixer]

Maxwell's Office

Shark changes into the swimming trunks fairly quickly. When Max turns around, he'll see that the rest of his body isn't any better than his chest. He's muscular, sure, but as the result of a harsh career and not intentional bodybuilding. Then there are the scars, which are very hard to ignore.

[Murkus]

[Maxwell's Office]

"...Shark," Maxwell begins hesitantly, once he's turned 'round. He holds a hand out toward Shark slightly. "Are you certain there's nothing my people can do for you?"

[Devixer]

Maxwell's Office

"I'm sure," Shark says. He shrugs slightly. "They make for interesting stories, when people actually bother to ask.."

[ThirdEmperor]

Fettina's Place

Sebastian, meanwhile, has the camera all set up and is trying to feign interest in the art. Any other day, he'd probably be fascinated by the chance to study the culture of an entirely different world, only...

Well, other days so rarely involve two beautiful women wearing outfits like that. Struck dumb is a good term; Most of Sebastian's remaining thoughts are concentrated on keeping his jaw from dropping through the floor like a Tex Avery cartoon.

"... You two look absolutely stunning."

[Slii Arhem]

[Summit Springs]

Humming contentedly, Riss was debating between disentangling herself and getting up or just laying there for another while. Considering how long it's taken me to decde, any longer and I might as well just put it off. It was with a disappointed sigh that the muse began to pull away from her fey, although she was being as languid as she possibly could simply because she was quite reluctant to leave just yet despite her anticipation.

Picking up her wineglass with her tail, she made the transfer to her hands as she poured out the last of the wine in the open bottle into it; sitting on the raised edge of the pool as she took a small sip. "I just realized that despite how much thought I've put into nearly every aspect of this that I could think of, I neglected to think of what I would actually do before I went away..." she said with a nervous sort of laugh. She wasn't hiding the fact that she was nervous about her oncoming 'sleep' but she wasn't going to let that deterr her. At least not too much.. "I guess.. Well.. Just leaving now feels awkward but... Oh to hell with it." Swiftly drinking the entire glass, Riss left it upended on the side of the spring before diving back in and sliding up to her fey; moving to pull each of them into a right embrace and a long, deep kiss. "I love you. Both of you, you got it? No matter what." she whispered.

With a deep breath, she began to get out of the pool once more but this time she would attempt to take both fey by the hand and gently lead them towards the half-hidden elevator that lead to her lab; gently smiling on the short way there. "Well.. This is where we've got to part for a little while... But before I do.. Misha? I think you might make some extra headway with your tunneling project if you took a moment to maybe try digging a bit at your pool. And Mimi, promise me that you'll actually sleep tonight once you're in your own bed." the muse said with barely contained mirth. She wished she could be there to see her fey's reactions once they descovered what her clues were about but decided that she would simply need to be content with seeing them once she woke up.

She would give her neried and pixie one last hug each before stepping back with a slightly nervous smile into the elevator. "Well.. I guess it's off to sleep for me.. Though I don't think I need to tell either of you of whom I'll be dreaming of." she said, her tone of voice making it clear that she knew just how corny that sounded but that she couldn't care less.

With a last smile and an almost shy wave, Riss mentally triggered the doors to close. They opened again to show the domineering machine in the center of her lab, four closed capsules behind a thin, shimmering wall while a fifth stood open and empty. She had already made the final preperations earlier and all that was left was to get in. She remembered what felt like more than just a few short years ago when she had done something quite similar as she climbed into the capsule's confines, shivering slightly as she lay back against the cool metal. Of course, last time I was more of a wreck than the skeleton I was replacing. Now, though... Well.. I don't even think I could guess at how much has well since then. Feeling the chilly suspension fluid beguin to fill the tank, Riss simultaniously felt the slight nausia from the activation of the odd sort of temporal dialation field that she had developed with Sora. She felt nervous despite all of the failsafes and redundancies she had put in place. Her rational mind knew that it was because this was undeniably a big thing but it wasn't until she felt the faintest pricklings of her fingers from the micro-hypodermics that she began to relax. I suppose a chemically induced calm is good enough. With her tension quickly being replaced with fatigue, the muse closed her eyes and allowed herself one last thought before falling into a sort of suspended unconsciousness so her psyche could synch up to the cerebral core that her rebuilt form would use as it's mental hardware. I... Really am lucky for having the both of you..

[Summit Springs]

"We'll be waiting for you when you get out. Don't worry about us. Love you lots." Mimi says, giving Riss a little parting wave as the muse disappears behind the door.

Once she's gone, Mimi sighs quietly. "It's gonna be a long couple weeks, isn't it." She's already remembering what a pain it was the last time they were without Riss for a while. And that was way less time than this.

Summit Springs

"Yeah. Least there's still the two of us to keep ourselves company. She's right though, you should get some rest. Want someone to keep you warm?" Misha may not be entirely done with the close and intimate contact thing just yet. If she can't have them both, then just Mimi will be fine for now.

[Murkus]

[Maxwell's Office]

Maxwell's silent for a moment, almost seeming to appraise the other man. He smiles, eyes narrowed. "Alright. Alright! I like it. You'll have to tell me some of these stories. Come on," Max starts toward the water, letting the tide wash gently over his feet. "It's just a short swim down. Dinner's waiting." He's nonchalant, as though that sounded completely normal.

[Fettina's Place]

Tina stalks out in front of the camera and stretches her arms, straining the tiny uniform. If Shrike's still beside her, she'll reach out and take the Exalt by the upper waist, pulling her close, their bodies maybe six inches apart. Her eyes drift from Shrike back to their photographer, hungry and buzzed.

"So how'd you want us, Sebastian? Together? One at a time?" She asks, voice honeyed with sensuality. I think she's still talking about photos. Gods, Tina, you're awful.

[Devixer]

Maxwell's Office

"And maybe I will," Shark says, though he honestly wouldn't have any idea where to begin. Max mentions swimming downwards, and he looks a little perplexed, but follows nonetheless. "What, you have a sub or something?"