[Nexus] The Black Dragon's Den X

[Artemis97]

Shyasa's eyes go wide and he immediately refocuses on Sitka, likely firmly reestablishing the veil that made him appear human. "You are living dreams?" She asks, astonished.

[Rebonack]

Another laugh from Sitka at that question. Once again there is absolute certainty that he's just another normal, unremarkable human. Did Shyasa really see something else? Something just beyond the threshold of consciousness? Was it real? Or just a phantom? Like a dream upon waking the vision of the creature is already fading.

"Oh no, not at all. Dreams are our backdrop, our stage, and our set. We're the actors, playing the roles and reciting the lines. But like any actor there's someone behind the mask."

Or, rather, something.

"The Dreamlands aren't as static as the Waking World. Everything isn't so rigorously defined. But then, you've seen it for yourself. You know how queer and quirky dreams often are. What's possible is hardly a limitation."

[Artemis97]

"You are spirits, then." Shyasa decides. "Outsiders. Things from elsewhere, beyond the Material Realm."

[Rebonack]

"Hmmm..." Sitka ponders, rubbing his short beard in thought. "Maybe. Or maybe not."

Then he places his thumb and pointer finger together in a little ring and blows through it, causing a single luminous bubble of gossamer to take shape and go drifting off lazily through the air.

"There we are. Analogy time. Imagine, if you will, that all the universe is the surface of the bubble," he says, gesturing at the pearlecent globe bobbing upon unseen currents of air. "But wait, the bubble has two surfaces, doesn't it? One within and one without. One boarders the inside of the bubble where all is defined by its boundaries. That's the Waking World. The other faces the vastness beyond where limitations have no meaning. That is the Dreamlands. All just two sides to the same-"

And then a bowl of stew is dumped on top of Sitka's head.

Aldrovanda is sitting there leering like an imp, having just upended the bowl onto her companion. "So awful when you start defining things like that, you know? It's just unnatural! Always picking and prodding and poking and categorizing. That's what they do. It's unbecoming for a Shee. Let things happen! Don't try mucking up perfectly good nonsense with rules."

The knucker glowers at the kelpie. "Didn't like your stew?"

The latter bats her eyes innocently at the former. "I already ate all the meaty bits. Why waste time with the rabbit food?"

[Artemis97]

Shyasa is shocked by Aldrovanda's actions, but says nothing. The woman irritated her, but Sitka ad been right, there was no point in wasting energy about it. Still, how could she waste food like that?!

The little dumbo octopus didn't think it would go to waste. Seeing the stew splash to the floor it let out an excited 'Squirr!' and jetted over in order to devour the scraps.

[Rebonack]

Yay for stew!

Sitka removes the bowl from his head and gives Aldrovanda another glower for good measure.

"Well what's done is done I guess. How about we finish off this little introduction ritual? I've told you a bit about me and my obnoxious friend. What about you?" he inquires. "Clearly you're from under the sea. But aside from that?"

Aldrovanda seems to be getting bored of the chatting and decides to begin poking around the bar.

...

There's a decent chance she'll get into trouble.

[Artemis97]

"I am a scout and an explorer." Shyasa explains. "Normally, I would patrol the area around our city in deeps, alert for threats and searching for resources and possible riches. I am skilled, so I was chosen to travel farther, beyond the sea, to seek greater knowledge and wealth for my home."

[Rebonack]

"Huh. That sounds almost mundane considering some of the weird stories people come up with," Sitka muses as he leans back in his chair. "Like that one guy who landed here after being launched out of a catapult into a swimming pool filled with chocolate pudding. As soon as his head broke the surface again he found himself in a different swimming pool filled with butterscotch pudding."

Why?

Because the nexus is weird.

That's why.

"So wealth and information? Are you hoping to trade the treasures of the deep for whatever stuff you can get up here?"

[Hattish Thing]

Well, Marciano Louv're walks into the bar, er... Mecha-Marciano. He's wearing... a zoot suit? Yes, Marciano Louv're is wearing a zoot suit. How... odd? Yes, ow odd. Said suit looks much like this, except there's a big bright orange feather on the hat.

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It seems Marciano has fallen upon hard times, seeing as his corporation was destroyed, he was left to wander the streets, but comfortable with a million dollars safely hidden in his special wallet. Before Mecha-Marcy was created, real Marciano was sure to give him a few things to assure his survival.

Behind Marciano are twelve men in matching 1920's gangster suits.

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They all carry weapons that look like Tommy Guns, but appear to have been tinkered upon by Marciano, so who knows what they do. Mecha-Marciano's face is unrecognizable, and he's as tall as a man. He couldn't have people knowing his true identity, he'd be killed too fast! He does introduce himself.

Heeeeeylo everybody. So, howsabout you funny old birds put yer hands up! This is a stick up, nobody move, or I might 'ave to bump off a few of you. An' I don't want that. The twelve gangsters aim their modified tommy guns at the crowd. M'name's Ritzy Mckane. You can all call me the Ritzzzz... Now, you saps ought to hand over all your valuables, kay? Drop any weapons too. Sudden movements mean ye get shot.

[Rebonack]

Aldrovanda is distracted from her badgering of a gnome when a bunch of thugs appear! She has absolutely no idea what a gun is.

The totally a hawt scantily clad elf and not a disgustingly hideous kelpie is now leering at the funny men in the funny suits with the icky iron things that might be weapons of some kind. Assuming they're iron, at least. Who knows! Maybe they're made of plastic or composite ceramics or some kind of fancy alloy. Guns get made of other things sometimes!

"Siiiiitka!" Aldrovanda sing-songs. "What's a stick up? The mortals with the matching hats are talking about one. Is it some kind of threat? Are they being threatening? Oooh! Hey! Are you guys being threatening?"

Sitka the totally uninteresting human and totally not a knucker wrinkles his nose at the latest batch of interlopers. In all honesty neither he nor the kelpie have anything of any real value on their person. Though they could probably glamor some dirt to be gold if the need arises. It would just turn back into dirt later, but the thugs wouldn't know that!

"They're being extraordinarily threatening. You should probably pretend to be terrified," the Shee replies as he swivels on his stool to get a better look at the hoodlums.

Aldrovanda puts on her best distressed, terrified female face. It isn't very convincing.

[Hattish Thing]

The hoodlums growls and one of them moves to the pair of people with his tommy gun pointed. Ritztiano speaks quickly in that New York accent. Sho, elf doll, get yourself over here, hm? Come on! I don't want to damage that pretty li'l face. The thug by the elf will motion for her to get up, or fire a few shots by her foot. Don't make Crackles shoot, missy. He brings a cigarette to his mouth and lights it up.

[Rebonack]

Well.

This couldn't possibly go hilarious wrong in the near future.

Aldrovanda quickly drops all pretense of being terrified and practically skips over to the faux-ganster all smiles and wondering if she's going to get to drown and eat him. Sitka had been saying something earlier about drowning mortals inside the city limits, but she really wasn't paying attention at the time on account of shrieking incoherently at the car that nearly flattened her.

That's what she gets for watching pigeons.

It's probably worth mentioning that Shee are practically a walking embodiment of Murphy's Law when it comes technology. The more complicated more opportunity for something to go wrong. Whether their nonsensical Dream Logic rubs off on the robots remains to be seen, but if it does you can bet your buttons there will be fireworks.

[Morty]

"Well, I can't let a bunch of human goons shoot up one of my favourite places, can I?"

Dipsnig's voice can be heard from behind the criminals, just outside the Den. However, the goblin is nowhere to be seen. What can be seen is a suit of power armour taller than a human and a great deal wider. It proceeds to aim two punches, each heading for one of the goons. Their force is considerable enough to stop a troll in its tracks.

[Hattish Thing]

Well.

This couldn't possibly go hilarious wrong in the near future.

Aldrovanda quickly drops all pretense of being terrified and practically skips over to the faux-ganster all smiles and wondering if she's going to get to drown and eat him. Sitka had been saying something earlier about drowning mortals inside the city limits, but she really wasn't paying attention at the time on account of shrieking incoherently at the car that nearly flattened her.

That's what she gets for watching pigeons.

It's probably worth mentioning that Shee are practically a walking embodiment of Murphy's Law when it comes technology. The more complicated more opportunity for something to go wrong. Whether their nonsensical Dream Logic rubs off on the robots remains to be seen, but if it does you can bet your buttons there will be fireworks.

Well, okay. Woman walking near him! As soon as she gets close to him there's a bright light. It's a kind of dazzling weapon that Marciano seemed to have activated. His eyes appeared to have gotten extremely bright in a second and will probably cause Aldrovanda to fall unconscious. Only Marciano is a robot, and it seems.... nothing happens to him? Huh.

If she doesn't go unconscious there will a stream of powerful bullets from three tommy guns coming her way. Heh. You're all washed up.

Oh. Then... big thing. Does he just walk around in that? Does it have a suit?

Okay, anyway. Two of the twelve goons, the ones in the back are punched in the back, and appear to have several bones break. They go flying across the room, guns shooting, so special tommy gun bullets will be flying all over the room. Marciano rushes away, running off to a table across the room, and throwing it over, hiding behind it. The other ten will turn around and begin slowly walking backwards and firing 600 bullets per round. Those are some special tommy guns...

[Rebonack]

"Oh, pretty."

That's about all Aldrovanda has to say when the lights light up! Dazzler weapons are cued in on human brain patters. If something is sufficiently different it's a wash. And the glamorous water horse totally counts as different.

And then shooting!

Lots of shooting!

Holy crap is that ever a lot of shooting!

Aldrovanda cups her hands over her ears and yells over the den, "Why are those dumb things so loud!"

...are all those bullets missing her? There's certainly no sign of anything hitting the kelpie, let alone injuring her. It's completely possible that she isn't getting torn into bloody chunks for no other reason beside the fact that she's unaware that the guns actually shoot anything. And if she doesn't know what the guns do then she doesn't know how to respond to them aside from yelling.

Sitka, on the other hand, knows full well what guns do and dives for cover behind the bar! The wood wyrm quickly drops his glamor and crawls inside a minifridge! How he can possibly fit in there is anyone's guess.

Will Marciano notice the hole growing in the floor behind him?

Stay tuned to find out!

[Morty]

The bullets, that somehow fail to melt the guns' barrels despite being shot at an impossible rate... also fail to make an impression on the power armour. Most of them are stopped by its kinetic shields. Those that aren't bounce off the plating.

Dipsnig, meanwhile, steps forward and the upper part of the armour starts spinning at a great speed. He barges into the goons while the armoured arms spin. As before, the force behind them is formidable.

[Hattish Thing]

The guns fire normal bullets, at extreme speed. It is funny how they're not overheating, isn't it? Huh. Must have something special to do with them. Anyway, seeing as the guns seem to be doing nothing against the robots, one of the thugs will attempt to grab Aldrovanda, and hold her under a knife he takes out of his pocket, an obvious threat.

Three of the goons are crushed by the robot, and fall to the floor in puddles of blood. Five down. The rest of them walk backwards a little faster, still firing all around the room.

Marciano doesn't like what's happening here, but he does notice the hole beginning to appear. Marcy can't do too much here, so first he takes a grenade out of his pocket. (Where'd he get that?) and chucks it into the hole, before running around it, to rush out the back door!

[Aric Kale]

A man enters behind the gangsters. he looks like this.

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He walks behind the, presumably distracted, gangsters and buries his clawed hand hand into the spine of a thug who just happened to be in his way. Assuming he makes contact with the hapless man, he'll throw him aside and make his way to the bar, dodging bullets with inhuman reflexes.

[Rebonack]

A grenade is tossed down the hole in the floor!

There's a muffled explosion and a slightly less muffled, "Sunavabitch!" from within.

Otherwise nothing else comes out of the hole.

As for Aldrovanda...

She gets grabbed! And suddenly her glamor is gone.

The thug just grabbed a coal-black, dripping wet emaciated monster with skin like a seal and a tangled mass of water wheel for a mane. The thing is generally equine in shape, though with enough vaguely human features to land her smack dab in the middle of the uncanny valley. And she's the size of a full-on draft horse.

Aldrovanda leers a snaggled toothed grin and whispers, "Gotcha!"

The thug will find that he's utterly unable to pulled away from the kelpie after touching her hide as though his limb had been welded to her. Which might end up being a problem since she just bolted toward the door at full speed, intent on dragging him along behind her.

[Morty]

Dipsnig makes a wide sweep with the power armour's left arm, trying to swat the goons out of his way. The right arm is pointed at the retreating Marciano and three concussive blasts are fired his way.

[Hattish Thing]

Goons are swatted! Two more are broken and battered...

Then another is grabbed by the newcomer, and gets killed. How did he dodge all of those shots? 600 bullets per round, and there's four of them shooting all over the room. Anyway, one more down... That leaves five alive.

The kelpie thing... is creepy. Okay, mobster is stuck to a kelpie, and dragged away with her, screaming as loud as he can. One more down.

The four of them attempt to grab the rest of the guns nearby, and try to run.

Marciano runs out of the back door, his goons following. Oh, blasts. Ow. Okay, two miss! MArciano's pretty good at dodging, being stealthy and all. But the third blasts right through his right arm, blasting it off of mecha-Marcy. There's no scream of pain, but Marciano's elbow is twitching and electricity is zapping. A robotic arm lies on the floor, burnt and black.

[Rebonack]

Aldrovanda will head straight from the murky canal behind the Den and dive headlong into it. Due to the weirdness of the Shee the water will be plenty deep enough for her to vanish utterly from view regardless of the actual depth.

The poor thug is going to be drown and eaten.

Hopefully in that order.

Back inside the Den!

The hole in the floor is gone now.

Aaaaand...

That's pretty much it.

[Aric Kale]

Yes, he somehow manages to dodge all of them...right until a fish-horse appears before his very eyes. He takes three bullets to the side and collapses; in his place lies a wolf. This wolf has brown fur with white patches, similar to his coat.

[Morty]

Dipsnig aims a final concussive blast at where he figures Marciano is based on where the arm fell. He's not getting away this easily.

[Hattish Thing]

Okay, well. Thug is drowned and eaten... poor guy. The surviving thugs have gathered the guns dropped by their fallen, and have ran out of the door. Then another shot! Marciano's too selfish to save his comrades, and keeps running as a blast flies towards him. Unfortunately, one of the four thugs gets hit instead, dropping the guns and feeling his spine break. The other thugs grab more of the guns and run, even Marciano carrying him. AS soon as they run five feet outside, they disappear. Maaaagic.

[Aric Kale]

The wolf growls and whimpers slightly as it forces itself to stand, three bullet wounds evident in its right side.
This wolf has claws measuring about one or two inches, absurdly sharp and also surprisingly clean, aside from his front left which shows signs of fresh blood...
It shakes his head and any who care to observe would see it shift back into the man from before. This man will whip off his hat, reach inside up to the elbow, and pull out a wand imbued with healing magic. He uses said wand to remove the bullets (assuming they aren't antimagic, that is) and seal the wound before placing it back in his hat, presumably to recharge...

Could I get a beer, eh? And a wet towel while you're at it... He adds the last bit as he looks at his bloody hand. His voice is low and gravelly, almost a growl as he makes his requests, obviously in no mood to be trifled with...

[Artemis97]

A goblin with a long pointed nose steps out of the kitchen and back to his place behind the bar. He pours a beer from a tap and places the frosted mug in front of the bloodied man at the bar. The bartender then grabs a clean white rag from a stack behind the bar and wets it in a small sink before offering it to the man.

"Do you have any idea what that was about?" Daggernose asks. "Boss sure won't be happy about it. Carpenter sure won't mind it, though." He adds, digging a notebook and pencil from his pocket and making note of the damages.


Elsewhere in the bar, Shyasa blinks away a spot of deadtime, and notices she missed something exciting, however it was all over with now, so there really wasn't anything to worry about. The pale aquatic elf looks around for Sitka, whom she had been speaking with previously, but both he and his odd companion seemed to be gone.

[Rebonack]

Aldrovanda is having lunch! She'll be at that for a while unless someone decides to try diving into a filthy, murky canal to attempt to find her. Rebo strongly advises against that course of action for a number of reasons.

As for Sitka?

Well...

Daggernose might be surprise when the knucker pokes his head out of a minifridge that may or may not have existed prior to him hiding in it.

"Hey? Are they gone?" he asks of the goblin.

Hopefully the answer is yes. Sitka has a really nasty allergic reaction to getting holes blasted through him with bullets.

"I'm going to guess that the lack of automatic weapons fire means yes."

[Artemis97]

The goblin nods at the wood wyrm, but was clearly frowning. He was going to have to clean that whole fridge now. Eh, maybe just a quick wipe down would do.


"Oh, there you are." Shyasa says, spotting Sitka poking his head out from behind the bar. "Hiding, were you?"

[Morty]

The front of the power armour opens and Dipsnig steps outside.

"I'd say that was a near flawless first run," he says. "The bastard got away, but at least I sent him running. Beautiful."