Difference between revisions of "1517/Hot Blood, Spilled Blood, Etc"

Latest revision as of 23:19, 10 March 2015

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur Lowell's house is, frankly, kind of absurd.

    A traditional suburban home, copypasted into expansion hundreds of times, Sims-style, forms its basic foundation and shape, making up the core of its aesthetic. However, someone's added a distinctly skull-themed aesthetic that goes so far as to have a floor or two of the structure be entirely shaped like a skull. The titanic structure which shouldn't ever be able to hold itself up as high as it does sits atop a spire that similarly shouldn't be able to hold itself up at all. The tallest spire on the Land of Spires and Frogs has what seems like a normal suburban lawn on it, though there's several strange explosive magma traps on the lawn and the lawn itself hasn't been cut for a year and a half.

    The eightieth floor is still smoking from some kind of massive explosion, while the second floor appears to have been subjected to some kind of incredibly violent breach from something the size of a fridge. The Warpgate through which Kyra might arrive is actually an extremely unusual green spirographic-design gate in an empty room up there. According to Arthur he should be downstairs.

    There are a lot of stairs here. For some reason, Arthur, maybe suffering from a bit of blood loss, repeatedly and very firmly warned Kyra to BE CAREFUL about the stairs. Once she gets to Arthur, however, around the fourth floor inside a giant skull-shaped room surrounded by stacks of odd punchcards and strange machinery and weird piles of a wide assortment of supplies, plastering the shoulder stump of a missing left arm with some kind of weird blue gel. He's also got a lot of other bruising and burning and it's generally a mess, but in the interest of taste and time we won't describe that.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    A second time visitor to Afterus, Kyra's skill at navigating the place has improved. Yet it still took what felt like way too long to finally reach the planetoid that Arthur had earned during the course of his struggle against Sburb. Identifying Arthur's place was also fairly easy but navigating there also proved to be a challenge. It's a combination of float spells and healing (following setting off one of those explosive magma traps by accident) that sees Kyra into the savaged structure.

    "ARTHUR!" she calls out by way of warning to ensure him that it was her that was coming and not some second wave of nightmare robots out to destroy him. Though it did seem that the assassin drones were elaborate enough to strike at his weaknesses, she doubted that her arrival would be anticipated or acted upon at this point. She's still floating when she makes it inside, which does make navigating stairs a bit easier on the white mage thanks to the reduced gravity and thus reduced effort needed to scale them. Kyra is still out of breath when she finally arrives on the fourth floor where Arthur is tending to his own wounds.

    Her eyes immediately go to the arm-stump. "Holy shit." she gasps and promptly starts searching around the detrius of the room for the limb. "Did that get severed or gibbed? I might be able to reattach it if it was severed."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "HEYA!" Arthur called back, when Kyra shouted down. And then, when she gets in, he calls out, "HAHAHA, I had to BLOW IT UP! I made an ARM BOMB. Actually that was ACCIDENTAL PLAN B but it was CLOSE ENOUGH. Don't worry, REGEN'S a thing we're GOOD FOR here." He's sort of crawled his way here if the blood trail's any indication, and seems to be struggling with a chair to get onto it now. After a while he will manage it though.

    "TRUST ME, you just pump a TON of HEALMAGICS up in this fuckin' STUMP and I'll be GOOD AS NEW." His intense vocal energy is faltering due to the exhaustion, blood-loss, and pain, and it all sounds more than a little hollow. "Heheheheh. Hey KYRA. Come gimmie a HAND here." He laughs briefly at his own joke, before a fresh pain-wince tears through his body and interrupts it.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "An /arm bomb/?" Kyra's voice contains a strange mixture of intrigue and both disgust. Dismemberment is clearly not her thing despite being in a position where she'd be treating it on a regular basis. "How the hell do you make your flesh explode? Does all of you explode? Is that a space mage thing?" She draws closer, flexing out the fingers of her right hand. The magical "humidity" around her intensifies and white light can be seen flickering around her hand.

    That magic seems to behave. Kyra hesitates as she looks at the stump and Arthur insists that it can regrow but then she catches that flash of pain on his face and quickly reaches forward, grasping the stump just above the severed, goo-colored edge. Kyra murmurs something Arthur can't quite make out the words to but the final phrase is loud enough for him: "Curaga!"

    Sweet, sweet white magic immediately floods Arthur. Although soothing, it doesn't completely erase the sensation of pain. Kyra keeps the magic flow going, maintaining it easily, eagerly watching the severed stump. Her free hand reaches into the front pocket of her hoodie to pull out her phone, which is basically the Galianda version of a fancy, fancy smart phone. "Can I film this regrowing? I've never seen a Hume regrow anything like this before."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "The BURNING SPIRIT that tears through EVERY LITER of my BOILING BLOOD means I can DETONATE LIMBS AT WILL! Can you think of ANY ARM that can withstand the HEAT OF MY GODDAMN SOUL?!" The energy's back in full force with Arthur for just a moment, before he seems to lose it completely. "Also a couple complex subatomic processes nobody gives a shit about, 'specially not you. Don't worry, I don't always explode. That was mostly intentional. Like, half an accident at worst."

    Grabbing the stump very visibly puts Arthur in a LOT of pain, but it is a necessity! And he's biting it back with gritted teeth. "ALRIGHT, THAT'S the shit. Lemme just... Hrrrrrrnnnnngh!" His body seems to be consumed by an odd multicolored light, filled with stars. The flesh at the stump appears to drip like a soft melting statue, but slowly it begins to extend outward into a full hand. Arthur speaks up during this, of course. He's falteringly trying to restore his own energy to reply again. "MAN, can't promise you the FOOTAGE will be ANY GOOD but SURE, GO AHEAD!" It looks like the healing magic is being parsed into another kind of magical system as well.

    When everything calms down, the lights fade, and Arthur will have a new, sleeveless left arm. "RAD." He declares, wincing a bit from residual pain. He'll probably get to asking why Kyra wanted to visit in the first place, but for now, he remains sitting, kind of panting heavily from exhaustion.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    When Arthur's sprited shouting returns, Kyra visibly relaxes just a little. Hearing him earlier on the radio left her really worried because she could tell he wasn't being his usual hotblooded self. Whatever had just happened here messed him up good-and not just in the blood and burns department. But that spirit appears to only be temporary and the worry returns.

    She'll express that in a moment once the healbombing has concluded. Not even his squirming in pain dissuades her from where she's putting that hand: "...yeah, this might hurt a little, suck it up, the closer I get to the damage the more effective the healing will be." Placement does matter! The magic will focus on the arm-stump first and the rest of Arthur's injuries later.

    Kyra also proves to be an adept at manipulating her phone with a thumb in her one-handed grip. In short order, she has the video capture app going. "Good. You-uh." Kyra frowns just slightly, apparently aware of the diverted flow of her healing magic. It's working and she sure can't complain since curaga doesn't normally regrow limbs from scratch. Space magic, perhaps? Taking the magical particles she's channeling to use for his magic? "Well that's fascinating-Shush for a sec."

    Once it ends, Kyra shuts down the video capture and starts poking the arm with her fingers as if to confirm that it's real. "Whoah." she intones, leaning forward. A few more awkward moments are spent gawking before she straightens. "Hey...uh...are you gonna be okay, Arthur? I've got some painkillers I can pass you if you want. Or...uh...if you wanna talk." She's at least polite enough to ask first before nailing a patient with a tranquilizer.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "PROBABLY" Arthur says. "But, NAH, no painkillers. Hurts like a BITCH but that's sorta THE POINT of all this shit. Shit's WORSE if I'm NOT HURTING usuaully." He rolls his shoulder around, letting Kyra prod at it. "THANKS, though. 'Specially for the HEALS. THIS BODY is pretty GREAT at MAGIC REGROWTH but only if I got the HEALIN' OOMPH behind it, y'know? I'll be FINE NOW though. I mean, PROBABLY." He works his fingers individually, then pounds a fist into the opposite palm. "AW YEAH! Already doin' fine." He says, through a pain-wince.

    "But, TALKING! Talking's good. I think we were gonna do that before I had you come here for DISMEMBERMENTS." There's a snap on that left hand and he points to Kyra. "YEAH! You had somethin' you wanted to MEET about. Hell if I can REMEMBER though, what'd ya wanna talk about?"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    She pokes at the arm a bit more, eventually moving down to his hand to examine that too, proding the palm in certain spots to look for various reflexive movements she's been trained to notice. It's all but confirmed as a fully functional arm when Arthur starts wiggling his fingers and finishes off with a fist pounded against a palm. "Yeah, I could tell. Your body's literally wired to regrow. A perk of being a god, I guess? Are you unkillable? Or really hard to kill? Not that being unkillable is really a god thing..." At least not where she's from.

    She finally stops prodding Arthur and straightens. "Oh..yeah. I didn't say what I wanted to talk about 'cause I was hoping it'd stay sort of private. You're the Mage of Space and it's a thing you became, based on that story you told. You didn't have magic before, how did you learn it? I ask because I'm in a bad place with my magic right now and I have to relearn it so I don't accidentally murder everyone around me."

    After a moment, she looks embarassed, "Though when I said talk I meant talk about your problems, not mine."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur laughs a bit. It's a good-natured laugh. "HAHAHAHA! Ahhh... I can BOUNCE BACK a bit. I'd, uh... Nah, not UNKILLABLE, strictly speakin'. Ain't anything anyone oughta DEPEND on, really." He makes a dismissive gesture. "But, YEAH, lil' GOD PERK there." Not a lot of detail there. He seems vaguely uncomfortable with acknowledging his godhood in general, for some reason. And then another quick few dismissive gestures. "NAH, NAH. Nothin' to talk about. HURTS like a BITCH but, hey, aside from that, everything's fine. Everything we gotta talk about as far as I go, y'know?"

    He then stands! So dramatically that it tosses his chair back a bit. "SO. Havin' TROUBLE with the MAGIC! Yeah, I used to think I didn't have it. Bein' FAIR here, I didn't, for a LONG TIME. And NOBODY ELSE on my planet ever did, so. EASY ASSUMPTION." He makes a dramatic gesture with one hand! "BUT, YOU wanna know how I got OUTTA that. I'll SHOW YOU!" Suddenly, in his hand, is a very old-looking, battered metal broom with a gentle green light emitted at the bristle end, and a strange trigger system at the handle.

    "I'll show ya. Take this, point it at some walls, pull the trigger."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    A thoughtful look crosses Kyra's face as she weighs whether or not to say something kind of creepy about the whole godhood thing. Maybe if she phrased it right: "It'd be interesting to study that sometime." she remarks by way of compromise. "You sure about you being fine? You kind of...didn't really sound like yourself back there, you know?"

    She sounds worried and looks worried though his dramatic display of getting up out of his chair seems to lessen, but not banish, that worry entirely.

    "So you had /zero/ magic to start with? Not a single magic particle?" Kyra relaxes, letting both of her hands hang out in the front pocket of her hoodie as he continues his DRAMATIC GESTURING and broom summoning.

    "...this is a broom." Kyra states plainly as she accepts the object, inspecting it and eyeing the trigger, "...a gunbroom?" Undeterred, she swings the broom to point the bristles at the wall and pulls the trigger.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "HAHA! Yeah, I'm fine. S'all good! That's just some EMBARRASSING NONSENSE, don't pay attention t'THAT." Arthur says, making rapidly dismissing motions. The whole fake-energy thing is a bit of a weird point for him, it seems. "ANYWAY! Sort of zero. I wouldn't say ZERO-ZERO. It was like... LATENT. And I couldn't BRING IT OUT any way. There wasn't anything I could DO with it, y'know? Least, not on my OWN."

    Arthur grins, and laughs. "YEP, it's a BROOM! Lemme tell ya! As far as WEAPONS go, BROOM is one of the UNEXPECTED ones. This is my BROOMSTICK. The old one I used t'use for casting, 'till I didn't NEED IT and got a NEW ONE." When Kyra pulls the trigger, a brilliant green light flashes out of the broom and impacts the wall, forming a Gate like she emerged from! It's a glowing green magical construct, formed out of lines suspended in space. "See, you're not a SPACE MAGE, but this works anyway. Hell, this'd work in ANYONE'S hands." He stomps one foot and dispells the portal with his own magic. "But that's not the POINT, 'cause it NEVER stops there. The POINT is CHANNELING. The point is gettin' you USED to RELIABLE MAGIC. Me, I started off with THIS." He pounds one fist to his chest. "But it was ALSO usin' a bit of the magic INSIDE me too! Then I replaced it with a BIGGER, BETTER one. And I kept doin' it. It PULLED the MAGIC OUT and made me REALLY UNDERSTAND how SHAPIN' it works. Eventually I didn't NEED the brooms! HAH!" He sweeps one hand at the same wall and summons a row of Gates. "BAM! It's like THAT."

    "Way I learned was learning from ARTIFACTS, gettin' taught my MAGIC by TOOLS. Had a TOOL in my hands, put my FAITH in it, and LEARNED from it. Had a couple TUTORS helpin' me out too, makin' the lessons easier to UNDERSTAND." He starts counting on fingers. "Horrible eldritch spacewizard, evil demon queen with the hair, uhhhh... There was also that magic bard who was mackin' on me... The weird ice fairy... You GET THE PICTURE."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Not being a social moron, Kyra can recognize when someone wants a topic dropped. Such as this fake hotblood on the radio thing. She doesn't ask anything else about that, happily moving to pay attention to Arthur and his former status as sort of magical.

    But at this point, she can't help but laugh a little at the enthusiasm over the magical broom. "Nobody expects a broom!" Kyra agrees before immediately rushing forward to inspect the portal. She's about to stick her hand in it out of misguided, reckless, scientific curiosity before he closes it. Turning from the now blank wall, she faces him, nodding along: "So you used tech like this-" she holds up the broom in both hands, "-to draw out all that potential and 'teach' you how to use that magic." She turns, staring at his summoned row of gates.

    She doesn't try to enter any of these.

    "Huuuh...seems solid if you're the result. At this point, then, I'd be asking you to tutor me." She offers the broom back to Arthur.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur Lowell grins and laughs. "HAH! Wouldn't call it TECH." He leaps up into the air briefly, landing with one foot propped up on the circular central platform of a strange metal apparatus with a robotic arm attached to it. "Lady, this is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT GENUINE ALCHEMICAL MAGIC!" When it's offered back, the broom disappears from Kyra's hands the same strange summoning way, though Arthur doesn't seem to move a bit! It's like when something disappears into a player's inventory in a videogame.

    "Shit yeah, it's solid. I'm a PRETTY SHIT TEACHER, but!" Then there's a laugh. "Well I kinda OWE YOU now, right?" He emphasizes this with a quick flex of his new arm. "You want a HAND, I'll GIVE IT to ya! Work a lil' ALCHEMY, whip you up somethin' for HEALING, start from SQUARE ONE, get you RELEARNING what you gotta KNOW to keep your SHIT IN CHECK, maybe PUZZLE OUT SOME ANSWERS." A few boisterous laughs. "I'm a pretty SHIT TEACHER myself, but HELL, you want the HELP, not gonna say NO. WORST I can do is SAY SOMETHING STUPID, right? And you'll figure THAT out QUICK."

    Then he zips right back over to near her, crossing his arms dramatically with an enthusiastically expectant look. "So, you really wanna GIVE THAT A SHOT?"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Looks like tech to me-" Kyra starts to protest, watching as he hops his way onto one of the weird machines he has in the room. To further call it GENUINE ALCHEMICAL MAGIC has her stopping, deciding that comparing it to her world's definition of the word was pretty useless. This was completely uncharted territory for her. There is also some mild surprise when the broom disappears without him visibly taking it from her. She was half expecting for him to open a little portal in front of her and reach a hand through-some fancy space magic stuff like that.

    "Weeeeeeeellllll...." a more altruistic person might insist that, nah, healing was just a part of their job no repayment needed, etc. "Yeah, you kind of do. If I hadn't come along you wouldn't have had a pair of guns to flex. Just one." She smirks in spite of knowing well that his mage muscles didn't really count as 'guns' but it sure was funny to call it that.

    Even with Arthur's admission that he's a pretty awful teacher, Kyra is undeterred: "Hell yes. C'mon Arthur-" she holds out her hand to him, "Let's do this."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    It's true, Arthur Lowell is lean like dried meat. There is no gunshow to be found here. "WELL SHIT," Arthur says, grabbing the hand firmly and with much gusto and shaking. "Let's get you STARTED then!" With a great, intense flourish, Arthur pulls away from the handshake with one final heavy shaking motion, and turns around, and strides back to his machine. "ALRIGHT. Let's get this shit FIGURED OUT." He's first heading to a titanic stack of punchcards! "Got a couple QUESTIONS here, to get you SET UP. FIRST OFF: What's your KIND ABSTRATA? Errr-- That is, what sorta STUFF do you usually do FIGHTIN' with, in your HANDS. Or CASTING I guess. STAVES? WANDS? We gotta get you a THING to do the MAGIC WITH."

    As he's rummaging through this pile of punchcards, he also rambles off other questions. "Also, explain the MAGIC ya got to me. A TOOL can only teach ya what you ALREADY KNOW, kinda; you're not gonna learn how t'do SHIT that you JUST CAN'T. Whad'ya got SO FAR, and how's THAT WORK? And what's that part you were talkin' about, the MURDERING EVERYONE AROUND YOU?" He's already picking out cards and setting them aside. "And I gotta know, this MAGIC THING, been goin' from DAY ONE? Or is it a RECENT-ISH thing? Got anything mighta CAUSED it, or been RELATED to it?" It's getting a little academic on his part, but he seems to still be ENERGETIC AND HOTBLOODED about it.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra's also going to call the recovery a success at this point, even if it is distraction that is making Arthur feel better for the moment.

    After experiencing the most intensely hot-blooded handshake she's ever had she pulls the savaged arm away and follows after Arthur, back to that machine he was perching on seconds before. "My what now...?" She starts at the strange technical jargon presented which, when translated, must mean something along the lines of weapons. "Oh, guns. I use a bunch of different guns." She grasps the zipper to her hoodie and unzips the front, revealing what is hiding underneath: At least three different guns amongst a huge collection of alchemical materials and bullets. All three are small arms in this case: a needlegun meant for firing the darts she has on her, an ornate-looking pistol, and a pretty ordinary handgun. "They're all separate from the white magic. I never really got into staves, rods, or hammers. I just kind of direct it with my hands when I need to."

    She edges closer to look over Arthur's shoulder at the punchcards, curious. "What, like the white magic itself? It's all mostly healing and buffs. I get a handful of offensive air or light spells too. It works through me because I've got the Job for it, which is pretty much like, genetics, right? A pattern that develops inside a person that gets expressed. I've got red hair, you've got black hair, and I've got a white mage Job. To make it go, I put my magic particles-MP-through the pattern and out comes the white magic I want when I focus on it. At least that's how it's supposed to work, basically."

    Kyra, on the other hand, is trying not to get TOO academic about it-because she can, being a huge science nerd. "What's been happening instead of white magic coming out is random, chaotic effects. Like, even spells from Jobs I don't even have. This thing has been going on for about a year but recently it seems more frequent and more dangerous. Like 'wipe the party' dangerous. One of my Union friends-Ainsley-thinks it might be because I dumped my parent's dumb religion a year ago."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Oh, HANDGUNS huh? The SIDEARM kind? I can DIG IT." Arthur says, nodding. "Alright. Let's see... Got the old REVOLVER card... Oooh, we could get the RIFLE setup TOO, if you want that INSTEAD. Here's the MAGIC CRYSTAL BALL card... Hey, you got any HEAL POTIONS on you? I can't use VITALITY GEL in this thing. I can just make the ol' GHAST TEAR REGEN thing though, if y'don't... Oooh! Here's the old IMMORTALITY ELIXER card..." A small pile of punchcards is being set aside. "OH, and if you got ANYTHING ELSE you wanna throw in the mix, LEMME KNOW." A quick thumbs-up!

    Then he's standing back up properly, listening to the white magic explanation. "RAD." He says. "Sounds SIMPLE ENOUGH to get. Kinda like LIFE around here, 'cept less ARBITRARY CONSERVATION OF ENERGY." And then the explanation of how it started. Arthur's broad, constant grin seems to crack a bit, faltering. There's an almost somber look creeping into his eyes for a moment, almost seeming to look knowing. Privately, Arthur thinks he already knows where this is going, and it's a bit troubling. But it lasts only a second; the grin's back in full force and Arthur's already launching into a response. "WOW! Sounds like some SHIT LUCK you got there. Alright, this TRAINING PROCESS, obviously it's more for kids who CAN'T use magic instead of kids using the WRONG magic, but I think it'll FIT YOU ANYWAY. This AINSLEY guy might be on the RIGHT TRACK, but!" He points a finger dramatically at Kyra! "If you dumped it, you probably had a SOLID REASON, so I'm not gonna tell you to GO BACK. Instead, I'm gonna tell ya, we're gonna see what the TOOLS find out is the BEST WAY for you to GO."

    "I mean, you know about this BULLSHIT GOD NONSENSE with ME, right?" Two thumbs get jabbed to his chest there. "I'm like the MOST QUALIFIED DUDE to say, TOTALLY FINE with the FAITH DUMP. And if WHOEVER you were gettin' your PRAY on to before has HALF A BRAIN I'm sure THEY are too." What a non-judgemental creator deity.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I use long guns too sometimes." Kyra speaks up when Arthur also mentions having a rifle card. "Can't say I'm a certified sniper but having the extra range is handy, especially since the healer aggro is /real/ out here. -oh yeah, and specifically, white magic healing works by resetting your pattern back to normal. Which is why it only works for injuries and not like a hereditary disease you were born with. Or male pattern baldness." Patting herself down, Kyra selects a flask from one of her belts that contains a slightly luminous green liquid. "Hipotion." she explains, holding the flask up. "What's a ghast tear regen?"

    Since this seems to be all about MIXING STUFF TOGETHER, Kyra digs through her belts and pouches some more, green eyes flickering to that immortality elixer for a moment. A few more things are removed-a dart with a dull orange liquid in it and a big shiny hunk of gold. "Gold mixed with dragon blood." she explains, "One of the Union allies had molten gold thrown at him during a fight." A bullet is also added, though it's a strange one by normal firearm standards. It's a solid slug with nowhere for powder or charges.

    "Girl." Kyra corrects out of respect for the lizardwoman. "So yeah, I agree and I'm up for starting from square one...even if it takes years. I'm all ready to to nope right out of accidentally killing my friends." A wide grin spreads across her face when Arthur conceeds that going back to the aforementioned religion was not recommended. In that moment, she starts liking the hot-blooded mage just a little bit more.

    "I remember Afterus Exposition Hour." She nods...then snickers, "Well since this choice has the official Creator God Seal of Approval then that makes it double okay. 'cause it was a creator god religion I dumped. Well...goddess. So it's like double extra revenge on my parents, heh heh." There's a little malicious look on her face for a few seconds as she rubs her hands together. "Okay, so...abstrata time, right?"

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "You say Ainsley, I think of that big guy on TV with the cooking show. Though I guess he's not had that for like three years now." Arthur shrugs and laughs a bit. Oddly enough, each offered artifact disappears into Arthur's inventory. Kyra will get to see him fuss with new, un-punched punchcards!

    

    How strange. He sets about punching other cards with codes he's reading off the back. "Alright, let's try the MAGIC CRYSTAL BALL and the RIFLE mostly, a side of GOLD. I'll try WITH BULLETS or WITHOUT BULLETS, and then one WITH DARTS or WITHOUT DARTS. Oh, right, the GHAST TEAR stuff, that's something I learned from an old POTION-MAKING PAL. Or, ENEMY. She killed one of my BEST FRIENDS 'cause of a LOVE TRIANGLE, but she made a MEAN POTION. REGENERATION! Sort of. GRADUAL HEALTH STUFF. Not INSTANT HEALTH though." There's a bit of a wince at the 'revenge on my parents' comment. Arthur's been around the block enough times to know both the issues with that stance and the tactlessness of trying to break Kyra out of it right now. Instead, work! Help! Friendship! Much more productive.

    "Let's see, let's see..." And now he's plugging cards into slots, carving weird crystaline structures at some kind of lathe, inserting them into the larger platformed apparatus... But, what happens at the very end is DEFINITELY magical. The big robot arm comes down and scans the crystal with its laser reader and then there's a sudden gush of magic as something appears on the platform!

Arthur crafted ASSAULT RIFLE !! (MAGIC CRYSTAL BALL && HI-POTION) !! DRAGONBLOOD GOLD to make the AURUMAL AUTODOC

ITEM COST: 4000 BUILD GRIST, 250 STEEL, 200 INK
ITEM DESCRIPTION: The pimpest assault rifle to ever heal a man of grievous wounds, the AURUMAL AUTODOC is an ornate firearm that emits a blast of strange blue and white magic to apply healing at range. While a lack of required ammunition means it can be fired non-stop, it also cuts the healing-per-second down drastically and means that the healing itself can't be adjusted on a per-purpose level.

    This information is visibly demonstrated at some kind of holographic station that Arthur plugs the mess of cards into, after he plugged it in to make the thing in the first place. "Looks like an EASY BASELINE. We could get some SWEET MODS though, with more ALCHEMY."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Never heard of the guy." Kyra remarks, the reference going completely over her head, watching the offered items disappear like the broom did earlier. It doesn't occur to her that some kind of inventory trickery is happening until he starts messing around with cards with the images of the stuff she just put down.

    The malice is all but gone now in the face of imminent stuff-mixing and a second tiny exposition bomb (exposition grenade?), "The same love triangle that was part of your game?" She did remember the phrase 'murderous love triangle' coming up during storytime.

    Any further exposition Arthur might provide on that is lost. Kyra is completely absorbed with staring at the alchemy-in-progress, which definitely registers as magic to her. She's absolutely -fascinated- by the whole process, up to the item eventually produced.

    "...that's the blingest rifle I've ever seen." Kyra intones before looking up to see the item description which more or less repeats the observation but with much more other useful information attached. "...no ammunition." Kyra looks starry eyed, "/No ammunition/." she repeats, reaching out to lift the rifle from the platform. "This is fucking amazing. So what your saying is we could continue upgrading this thing too with your alchemy machine?" Kyra jerks a thumb at it, letting the Aurumal Autodoc rest on her shoulder. "Also can I shoot you with this? Gotta try it out."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Yeah, that one." Arthur gives a quick nod to Kyra about her love-triangle question. Not a lot to say about it, honestly! Really easy summary. And then, of course, "HELL YEAH." He says, definitively, to this assessment of the rifle. Also, apparently, to being shot by it. He's still got some wounds on the rest of his body after all! "It's what I DID, yeah. We just keep pumping MODS into it until it's a MAGIC CHANNEL. See, right NOW, anyone could pull that trigger. But we run a couple more ALCHEMY SESSIONS, and it'll be a NO-JOKES FUCKIN' FULL-ON MAGIC CHANNELING ARTIFACT. The way this works is, you gotta BUILD UP the way I did. Take THAT THING out for a spin or two sometimes. When it FEELS GOOD, when it FEELS NORMAL, you amp up to something that draws off of YOU more. And MORE, and MORE, and MORE. 'Till you know all the SOLID WAYS of gettin' your MAGIC OUTTA YOU like the BACK OF YOUR HAND."

    He starts floating a bit, weightlessly, like an astronaut. "You know, the REASON this is all PROBABLY happening is 'cause the RELIGION was givin' you something you DEPENDED ON. Not to say the SHIT it was givin' you was JUSTIFIED. But, SOMETHING about it was NARROWING DOWN the MAGICAL CHANNELS there, in a way you NEEDED." He actually seems to get a bit serious, and for a moment seems to take an understanding tone. "Hey, listen. When you're out there using this, and when you get to the other stuff, I want you to see if you can think about what it was giving you. The tools can give you a bit of it, but the point of all this is gonna be to let you figure out what you need for yourself, and start finding it on your own terms. When I couldn't use my magic, it was 'cause I had some pretty shitty self-esteem stuff going on. The tools and shit like that were there so I could believe in something else giving me the magic, instead of the magic coming outta me. You already know the magic's coming outta you. So..." He makes a dismissing gesture. "Look, y'know, just think about it when you're running the next dungeon, huh?" He's trying to broach this topic as gently as possible, and let Kyra arrive at a healthy conclusion with her own agency. Something to settle into her mind over a few weeks.

    "ANYWAY! Yeah, enough BULLSHIT GURU NONSENSE, hit me with a COOL MAGIC LASERGUN for COOL MAGIC LASERFUN, let's take this fucker for a SPIN."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Though it was tempting to prod Arthur more about the love triangle thing, Kyra's acute social senses tell her that it's something he doesn't seem too up about talking about it! Which was fair enough.

    She takes the gun in both hands, readily demonstrating familiarity with handling firearms that might be distressing to see coming from a teenaged girl. "Is it going to need a part of me into that alchemy to do that?" she asks, merely curious and not at all disgusted by the thought. It wasn't as if she didn't borrow samples from herself when messing around with genetics stuff. "I mean, like, in the future and stuff since it'll be channeling out my MP."

    As he floats up into the air and starts to talk...her mouth falls into a grim line and she nods, "That sounds like a plausable thing. Like I grew up doing this magic with Cosma as a crutch and now it turns out I can't really walk without it." Vague annoyance settles onto her face-Arthur might have gotten another anti-parent comment at this point except he heads it off, unknowingly, with his sudden serious mode.

    She stares at him, looking slightly taken aback when he admits that he had some kind of self-esteem issues in the past. It seems she had never expected that kind of thing out of the hot-blooded mage. "You've come a long way if you did, Arthur." she says quietly. "But...yeah. I get that. And I don't yet...know."

    She's actually silent for a few moments, even after Arthur switches back on the hotblood, gathering her thoughts, her head lowered. But as sudden as flicking a switch, she looks back up with a huge grin on her face. "Fly around!" she says, hefting the rifle. "I gotta hit moving targets /all the time/ while I'm out partying." She actually doesn't really give him a chance to start moving after she speaks and fires right away.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Nope! Comes out NATURALLY! Least, that's how I DID IT. Some DUMB NEUROLOGICAL THING about HOMONCULAR NEURAL MAPPING. It's NERD SHIT I won't BORE YOU with when it's on NORMAL HUMANS." Arthur makes as many rapid dismissing noises and motions that he can. "For YOUR WORLD I'm guessin' it's more like PATTERN ADAPTATION. Like, STOP ME IF THIS IS TOTALLY BOGUS, but you guys probably got PSYCHOLOGICAL SUB-PATTERNS in the BRAINMEATS and all that, and they ADAPT and EXTEND ONTO stuff you're USIN', like GUNS or SWORDS and INTEGRATE 'EM into your INSTINCTUAL MOTION, right? 'Cause that's the CLOSEST to how SHIT WORKS for regular ol' NON-MAGIC HUMANS."

    Wait, what was /that/?!

    Arthur seems determined to press on through it. "Anyway, yeah, you wanna do the SELF-SUFFICIENCY THING, you just gotta figure out what all OTHER DUDES were givin' ya. I had a couple PROBLEMS, but I got that shit WORKED OUT after a while. Everyone does, y'know? Anyone who seems like they've been COOL and GREAT all their life is just PUTTIN' THAT SHIT OFF."

    And then, on-cue, he launches up off the ground suddenly with a flash of white light. "SURE THING!" And he's darting around the large two-story chamber, still looking completely relaxed and casual as he flits through it. He's not dodging, though, so the brilliant blue and white beams impact his body! His cuts and bruises begin to sear and sizzle away with strange blue smoke when the beams slam into him. It's sorta inefficient compared to standard healing, but the range and the constant fire could make it useful!

    It's unlikely to trip just on the first few uses, but the artifact has no obstructions built in it to stray magic. The supernatural nature of the gold it's made out of may mean that some stray MP could make it into the gun and add an imperceptible extra oomph to the healing magic, if Kyra's magical potential is so inclined. Of course, since the weapon's regarded as a healing gun and ONLY a healing gun, psychologically, this would likely never result in a chaotic non-healing effect. It's both a psychological and magical aide, but the effects at the moment might only be a bit of comfort in the act of healing.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "...aww...but..nerd shit..." Kyra pouts, clearly sad that he's not getting into the details. "I /like/ the nerd shit. I mean c'mon, I'm going to be a certified doctor one day. But...hmm. That's an interesting thought, actually, I don't think I've seen anyone suggest a sub-pattern for for soft skills before. A sub pattern that we make instead of just reinforce through experience...I wonder how that would be tested...maybe through CAT scans and..." she mutters something to herself about longitudinal studies.

    But NERD SHIT aside: "Damn straight I want the self-sufficiency thing!" she crows as she opens fire on the floating Mage of Space. She's a good shot, clearly having spent a lot of practice at hitting people. Their HP, after all, clearly depended on it! With the first strike, she squints after him the gauge the strength of the healings, assessing it to be about on the level of a Cure. It's pretty unimpressive on its own. She next fires off multiple shots at Arthur, taking note of the rate of fire, which seemed to make up for the low strength of the healing. This is encouraging-it means one step closer to the healing machinegun-type deal she conceptualized at one point but never had the chance to start prototyping. Maybe in the future...

    So far, it seems the strange magic-warping issue she described to Arthur is having no effect whatsoever on the operation of the gun. The nature of Galianda technology also helps in the psychological effect intended by the gun. Technology on Galianda, though powered by MP of the user, was meant to have a limited set of functions based on the circuits programmed or crafted into the device. Applying the same assumptions to the Aurumal Autodoc works perfectly in their benefit.

    "HOW ARE YOU FEELING?" Kyra asks as she lays down the mad HPS.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "HAH! I KNOW NOTHIN' of NERD SHIT, yo. Can't tell you a GODDAMN THING." Arthur calls out as he flies, flipping about casually! It doesn't matter how long you can fly, it doesn't stop being fun, and so he takes a moment to enjoy and revel in it. Weeee! The repeated blasts deal with the remainder of his wounds that white magic or vitality gel haven't already dealt with, letting him come back to full and proper healing after that target practice! Fantastic! When he lands, the blue smoke sizzling off of the gaps in his mage-robe where wounds used to be is thick in the air. "Feelin' GREAT! GOOD AS NEW. Alright, that BLINGED-OUT GAT of yours, you keep it. The GRIST for it, we'll call that PAY for the SWEET ARM."

    He picks up the cards where he stored Kyra's artifacts and shakes them a bit until the item's in his hands! "Here's your STUFF BACK, I'll keep the CODES 'till we get the NEXT STAGE figured out." A big grin! "And I didn't see a BIT of FLICKERING like that first time. So I'm thinkin', this is gonna be GREAT. Shit's RELIABLE AS HELL. We'll get your MAGIC back ON TRACK quick." He settles down on the ground, planting his hands on his hips briefly before snapping and apparently restoring the state of his robes to full and proper form. "You put that GAT to the PARTY for a week or two, COME BACK, and we'll figure out where to go from THERE. Figure out a little more about what the hell ya NEED, figure out how you you can GET IT, make ANOTHER SWEET-ASS FUCKIN' GUN, repeat, 'till everything's ALL GOOD. Sound like fun?"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I think you're holding back, Arthur!" Kyra teases, "Nobody namechecks something like homoncular neural mapping without knowing SOMETHING about NERD SHIT!" She doesn't seem offended at that point either, just amused. "-oh, are you ALL GOOD?" That didn't take long at all-he was right, the rate of fire did make up for the weaker heal. Though maybe that was something that could be altered with future upgrades.

    Casually, she flips the rifle so it lies across her shoulder again. "Sounds like an equivallent exchange to me, Mage of SPACE! -huh." she gathers the reagents in her hands, surprised, "I thought the items would be consumed. Not that I'm complaining about that or anything." Each item is put back into is proper place on her person with meticulous care. She clearly has some kind of system for storing stuff on her person.

    "Oh, what's that? You want me to go on some sweet adventures and hit people with the heal gun? Suuuuure, I think I can manage. -and some, you know, introspection to figure out a...a..focus." Kyra grins, "HELL YEAH! I can manage!"

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Nah, not unless I'm GRINDIN' 'EM for GRIST. Only NEWBIES punch their CARDS with the CONTENT CODES, I can just COPY IT. Already got the MATS. Though," Arthur's expression gets a little more plaintive for a moment. :