5535/The Dark Lady

The Dark Lady
Date of Scene:	06 December 2017
Location:	The Dark Lady's Castle
Synopsis:	Tomoe gets a strange quest where she has to play the villain and she needs to recruit some generals to help her out.
Cast of Characters:	Tomoe, Silica, 1119, Yuuki Konno, 707, Kirito

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Tomoe has posed:
Location
North America
Washington State, America
SAO Earth

The Dark Castle locked in the forested mountains on the west Coast of America was imposing everyone here had been sent a summons by Tomoe asking for help that she'd got a group quest that she needed help with to render this zone quiet again. The local monsters were no where to be seen on the way there or had even just oddly will ignore anyone whose summoned save for a Orc who's waiting at the front gate. He will lead the group towards the Royal chamber the site of the boss fight with the Possessed Tomoe some time ago and would find Tomoe there.

Tomoe sits upon the Throne trying to drink out of a mug that appears to be a skull and she looks at the Orc.

"Good you brought my friends here now go to the kitchen and get them to find me an actually functional mug to have a drink in."

Tomoe is not wearing her normal gear nope her hair as turned white and is a bit longer than normal he wears dark heavy armour which covers her arms and shoulders, the rest? Is something out of a cheesey Fantasy or MMOrpg design leaving exposed skin while not technically indecent it was showy and not very good protection. Tomoe smiles faintly a those who have arrived though..

"Glad to see I have some help coming, come sit we got a lot to talk about as we need to figure out how to deal with this quest I'm stuck on as I need to ... recruit generals, for this as it's not something I can solo. If you want to walk it's fine but I do need help to deal with this."

Tomoe then gets off her thrown to join the arrived party and her expression becomes more serious.

"I'm also worried that this quest could be as a I said a trick from Cardinal but I don't see any other option other than to play this out."

Silica has posed:
    Silica follows the Orc, blinking at the passive Monsters curiously. She reaches up to lightly pet Pina on the head as the dragon gives off a chitterchirp of distress. She looks up at Tomoe, and tilts her head. "So... uh, let me get this straight, CARDINAL kicked up a hissy fit and now you have to play out this quest chain to the end?"

Josuke Higashikata (1119) has posed:
    Tomoe asked for help, and Josuke considers her a friend. So he's headed there, to that castle. If it seems unlikely he'll find transportation to the place, well... there's always Crazy Diamond. He's gotten quite good at getting around via having his Stand 'fastball' him around. Poor pathing AI nodes, requiescat in pace.

    Anyway, he follows the Orc to Tomoe's chamber and... his eyes go wide. "S-so you're in that outfit again." He's blushing a little, actually. Poor teenage hormones. Eyes on the face, eyes on the face, eyes on the face...

    Putting that aside, he asks, "What's going on? You said this might be a trick? Why? What happened to make <CARDINAL> mad?"

Yuuki Konno has posed:
    Of course Yuuki is perfectly willing to help out her friends whatever the occasion. This location is rather odd, but then she knows Tomoe's not native to Japan and has been heavily involved in the American MMO scene as well. Still it's a nice castle, if a bit heavy on dark fantasy tropes. Yuuki can definitely appreciate style though. The orc gets a confused look, but that's nothing compared to Yuuki's expression when she first sees Tomoe!

    Eyes almost popping (though not like Josuke's) she takes a moment to admire before she finally speaks. "Wooooow, that's a really cool outfit!" she says. No, she's not nosebleeding or anything of the sort. Yuuki's got affection for Tomoe and maybe more than affection for a certain other woman but she's not actually attracted to them in that way. Just admiring. "Have you been playing with the sliders, or is that all part of the costume?" she asks cannily. And a little cattily. Yuuki couldn't pull off a look like that even with lots of corsetry. She's cute, sure, but generally falls somewhat short on the sexy scale.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Best I understand it," Xiaomu remarks from behind Josuke, "Tomoe over there took a quest chain and broke it into so many pieces CARDINAL had kind of a stack overflow trying to figure out how to resolve it. That said, I'm curious exactly what you *did* to set this off," she remarks mildly to Tomoe herself.

At the moment, she's outfitted much as she usually is - black qipao with silver trim, red vest over that, and carrying her staff like she almost always does. "Quick question to kick things off, though - besides that question, I mean," the sage fox adds. "Is the fact that I'm a 'walk-in' - that I'm not wearing an Augma and not entirely 'integrated' into the game like you girls - likely to be a problem?"

Kirito has posed:
The strange decor and faction shift to the dark side doesn't seem to be bothering Kirito at all. The young man seems THOROUGHLY INTRIGUED by this development, judging by the smile on his face. However much Tomoe might be bothered, the Black Swordsman seems content with his role as a wandering warrior doing quests such as this.

    "Isn't CARDINAL's purpose generating content? There'll probably be twists, but I've never run into a totally bogus quest."

    ... Unless someone considers that infamous quest about Orcs with hockey masks and Chainsaws from the mid floors of Aincrad to be 'bogus.' Sometimes, procedural generation based on news gets WEIRD.

    After delivering this, he double-takes... finally taking notice of Tomoe's change in appearance. His eyes go wide... though, it's less ogling, and more 'what the heck?!'

    Nope. He ain't gonna comment about that getup.

    "Tell me of your troubles, o dark lady Tomoe." The young man quips, unable to completely mask the amusement he feels from bubbling out into a mischevious grin.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is looking embarrassed from this outfit that she's forced to wear but it seems Silica has hit it in one.

"Near as I can tell that is what's happening, Silica."

she seems very annoyed with cardinal about this to put it mildly at this point she moves to sit down at one of the chairs and will wait for the other going to do so.

"I think it's due to how we broke the chain with the dark lady. I think cardinal is just trying to finish it one way or another Josuke."

She is not shocked to see Yuuki here but is very happy to see she's there.

"You think it's cool, I'm glad someone like it and no i haven't this all came with the outfit."

She turns red a little bit and she mutters. "Part of the costume to be honest as far as I can tell as for that Xiaomu. I thought, could handle the chain on my own, the boss had a possession mechanic and since i was alone? You can guess how that turned out if not for what Josuke did to exorcise it I have no idea what would have happened to me. You should be able to register your name and get a basic HUD, others have so they can party and get quests before. So it's not a problem at all and honestly I'm thankful so many people are willing to help me given this is my fault it broke."

Kirito gets a look and an actual laugh.

"Ah the black sword ... I should have known you'd have heeded my call to arms."

She girns now looking at the party.

"I have quest items to give to each of you if your willing. I have no idea where where this will end up. I will have a condtion though don't kill any locals or any of the towns folk NPCS I want to work this out if we can though. Scaring the hell of out of everyone will be required and lets not talk about that quest again kirito."

she'll lay the quest items down on the table each one is a black pendant made of a black metal, with differnt coloured gem in each.

Josuke Higashikata (1119) has posed:
    Josuke blinks at Yuuki, not quite understanding the sharp edge to her voice. All he can think is she's upset because Tomoe's outfit is cooler. So he suggests, "...They probably sell cosmetics for the..." Then he remembers. "...Oh wait, this is a 'game lapping over real life' situation. That might not be possible anymore." He sends a sheepish look in Yuuki's direction.

    He turns to look in Xiaomu's direction when she speaks. "Wow. That's some impressive sequence breaking, to piss off the game so bad it wanted to get revenge for it!" he comments. Looking back to Tomoe, "I'd congratulate you, but I don't think this is really something that needs to be encouraged. <CARDINAL> seems pretty stuck on its rules. Though I guess I can understand it..."

    He snorts a little at Kirito's tease, trying to hide the grin and being mostly unsuccessful. And he outright laughs at Tomoe's 'in-character' response. "Oh wow. This is a lot of ridiculous."

    Tomoe mentions the boss's possession mechanic, though, and nods. "Yeah. Maybe <CARDINAL> is trying to teach you a lesson about friendship or something," he suggests. He pauses, though, blinking at the pendants. "What are these?" he asks. And yes. He's trusting enough -- or maybe just stupid enough -- to just pick up the nearest one to him, to look at it.

Silica has posed:
    "I'm willing to help, if we can do this without killing anyone that would be a bonus." remarks Silica with a soft chuckle. "So, do we have to play the bad guys here? That can be fun, sometimes being the antagonist gives you a different perspective for later." she steps forward, and with all the ceremony needed, kneels before the throne. "I pledge myself to your service, My Lady."

Yuuki Konno has posed:
    Yuuki smiles abruptly, no hint of teasing or of upset anywhere within her for the moment, particularly after she manages to get Tomoe to blush. "Okay, this sounds like fun!" she grins. Yuuki's not malicious, but she sure is playful. "No killing villagers of course." she agrees. Not that anyone here is a murderer. Okay, she's not entirely sure of Josuke, having only met him the once and him kind of flipping out on her... but he seems like a nice guy at least.

    Yuuki shrugs and, like Josuke, reaches out to accept a pendant. Her friend needs her help. It's not like she'll find out anything later that would make her walk away. She might end up distracted at a later time perhaps since she's easily caught up in the moment, but right now she's here.

    "Waaait, we're the BAD GUYS?" she asks, sounding scandalized and more than a little amused. "Oh wow! I've been an imp for how long now, and I've never had a chance to be a bad guy! This'll be fun!" She pauses a moment, considering. "Er... will it be fun? I mean, that won't break the quest, will it?"

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Oh, I'm *registered* in the Augmented Reality," Xiaomu clarifies. "Just that I'm gonna keep looking preeeeeetty much like this, fox and all, instead of being able to use my old Sylph skills and gear. Might be able to finagle the magic system if we're using Alfheim's rules for that, *if* it works over here ..."

She'd love to get her hands on an Augma, but work has had her too busy to go around trying to nab one of those for herself. Maybe someday. In any case, Tomoe confirms what Xiaomu more or less 'knew' about what had happened, and fills in some details; then the pendants are laid out, and the sage fox takes a look at them. "Hmmmmmm ..." She makes the 'interface open' gesture - that SHOULD work for anyone who's registered, Augma or not, right? - and sees if she can examine the pendants for any details about which is which - whether their attributes differ, stuff like that.

Kirito has posed:
Kirito's mischevious grin turns squished but briefly, and he turns about into a march straight towards Tomoe on her throne...

    "Quest items?" He wastes very little time claiming one of the pendants and hoisting it up for a close inspection.

    And he promptly pokes it to bring up its item description...

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe seems amused at Josuke's responses an starts to laugh a little bit.

"Not so much revenge as I'm not sure this cardinal is like the one from SAO, Iianor kinda broke it into becoming a person in the end. as for that we got to deal with it. Still you got the right idea josuke video games are eating this world. We'll find out when this is over, lets hope it doesn't make things worse."

She looks to Silica and grins.

"Yes, we have to play the villains, I say we just go full what's the terms back home Ham, just go all out on the theatrics if we're going to do this we going to have some fun with it. Though we might want to tell the near by town's Police about this."

She looks to Xiaomu for a moment and Xiaomu would find the interface appearing asking her to input her name and everything thing else to register it even asks for an email of all things.

She looks to Kirito not having intended to ruin his fun.

"I don't know the details on them given I am just to hand them out for mine."

Everyone gets a look at their item which has the basic info text on it.

A Pendant binding you to the Dark Lady Tomoe's cause it will grant you power over her minions, and access to the dark castle until the completion of the quest. The IC Fluff follows after.

The pendants that binds you to your master in exchange for power be wary the Armoury of Light has opened and Heroes have been called forth, you must scout the county side to find and deal with them for your Dark Lady's glory and your own machinations for power.

the quest would have a the following bit. Defeat XXXXXXXX 0/1 but each XXXXX is a colour marking each of the pendants. Odd is is not?

Finally as this finishes off a squeaky voice can he heard as a small female goblin enters looking like some kind of Tailor mixed with a black smith.

"I see Generals have heeded our call my lady the armoury stands open and none of these outfits will do, we will be the laughing stock of the Dark World if this were to be used."

She looks Tomoe nodding approvingly.

"Also NO CAPES! I will not issue any capes not after what happened to the Dark Lord! Never again shall there be ... CAPES!"

She ahems for a moment and fades back to keep out of the way it seems the faction armoury is now open.

Tomoes own quest updates the recuit generals objective followed by Heroes defeated 0/7.

Josuke Higashikata (1119) has posed:
    Josuke blinks at Silica a bit. "...Are we supposed to do that? And... now?" he asks. He seems a little embarrassed, but he's more confused than anything else. "I mean, if it's required..."

    Yuuki's assessment gets a wide-eyed look from Josuke. "Eh?! I've never been evil before!" He looks a little uncomfortable for a moment, then seems to square his shoudlers, mentally and physically speaking. "But I'll help however I can, even if it means I have to pretend to be evil." He's gonna have to read up, isn't he? Or ask that estranged father of his; didn't he pretend to be Dio resurrected when Jotaro saved him? Bad timing for a prank, but...

    He nods at Xiaomu's words. "I think I have a username here too. I got the window asking me for one, so I put one in so it wouldn't keep bugging me." He watches Xiaomu open her inventory, and if it seems to have worked, he'll emulate the gesture himself, to see if he's got an inventory too. He hasn't messed with it much.

    Josuke nods to Tomoe's explanation of 'video games eating the world'. "Man... I never thought about it 'till now, but that's gotta be incredibly weird and creepy," he observes. He looks at the pendant, reading the description of the item, raising an eyebrow. "We have to defeat heroes of the same color as the pendant?"

    Suddenly GOBLIN! Josuke jumps a little, fumbling the pendant a bit, before catching it safely. His eye twitches a little at the goblin's mannerisms. And draws back a little at her vehement dislike of capes. "...But. Capes are cool," he comments in a small voice.

Yuuki Konno has posed:
    Yuuki looks slightly miffed. "What, I don't look evil enough?" she asks, striking a proud pose. Then ruining it by giggling. "Oh, all right. I might have to hide my features though. Hmmmm.... no capes? Okay, how about a cowl? Or a scarf? Or a hood and a scarf? Nice and flowing and cute... or maybe not cute, maybe more menacing than cute..."

Kirito has posed:
Kirito is fairly picky about colors. He likes his black color scheme and rarely equips anything that doesn't jive with it... unless the stats are outrageous or he otherwise must. Somehow he has yoinked a green pendant. He's a bit disappointed at this... but he thumbs the floating 'equip' button nonetheless.

    The pendant flash-vanishes, reappearing neatly around his neck.

    "A dark general, huh. Sounds like it could be fun! But a hero...? Hope they're NPCs..."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu picks up the pendant with the red jewel, accepting the quest as it comes up in her window. She's just finished scrolling through when the fashion goblin walks in ..

And if looks could kill, the poor minion would be suffering 20d20 Glower Damage on the spot. "How little you know of worlds beyond your own, little cretin," the sage fox snarls. "I wore this very dress the night that I conquered the citadel of Everfrost, cementing forever my dominion over all the lands of Perelas." She slips the pendant on, her hairtails seeming to pull themselves through the chain to settle out of the way, then stalks towards the goblin, the rings on her staff jingling pointedly with every strike of the staff's butt against the floor.

"Still, I suppose there are better ways to attire myself for a battle such as this," she concedes haughtily. "Some form of proper armor would likely be appropriate, if I'm to face Heroes directly."

Silica has posed:
    Silica picks up her pendant. It glows with a pale yellow light, like sunlight seen through a few inches of water. She puts it on, draping it around her neck, and having to pin her ears down a little to do so. "I guess I should sort out my wardrobe... I think I have the perfect set of cosmetic items from the various halloween and other 'spooky' events over the years..."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "You got a point there, I'm more the Iron Lily than anyone else now." She's almost hitting the point she might not respond right away to the name Sheena at this point. She looks to the goblin for a moment and pauses. "Ah yes the one who ... designed my armor." the Goblin puffs her chest out with pride. "It makes your a terrible wonder to behold my lady."

she's already starting to size up everyone else s they do this.

"Those work though i would be careful with a scarf."

She says but she doesn't flip out about the idea of capes.

Tomoe grins and note to Silica.

"Oh you go quite a good collection of cosmetics don't you?"

She pauses at Kirito and tilts her head.

"I hope so too..."

Xiaomu gets into character hard and the goblin actually slinks back it seems Xiamou has scared her she bows down for a moment.

"Forgive my wagging tongue!"

Tomoe just slumps for a moment.

"NPCs these days are getting close to the line and we had ones who were people like the ones we rescued from the death floor."

Who are now working in haven at this point in time.

"I do think there's food on the way but if there's anything else I can help with we'll need to get started on this and Xiaomu can you do me a favour and let the Paladins know what's going on?"

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Might be a good idea, just to make sure," Xiaomu muses, nodding to Tomoe. "Although such a glorious conquest as we aspire to deserves no less glorious a witnessing, does it not ... ?"

She smirks broadly - the kind of smugness that's *meant* to be seen - and turns her attention, for the moment, to matters of fashion. If the fashion goblin pokes her in the wrong place with a needle or something, the fox may decide it's time for an impromptu round of minion soccer - but she's not going to go out of her way to unduly terrify the goblin, who is - after all - just doing her job.

And as archvillains the Multiverse over have been known to complain, it's SO hard to find good help these days.

Josuke Higashikata (1119) has posed:
    Josuke's still looking at the dark blue pendant he's picked up. Though Xiaomu's spiel gets a raised brow. "Eh?" Though it occurs to him that she's probably just playing up her role, so he doesn't ask about it. But he reaches up to rub at the back of his head. "Man... this is just <great>... I don't know the first thing about being evil," he mutters, mostly under his breath.

    Looking back at Tomoe, Josuke nods. "I'm ready to do what I can," he says firmly. And then losing juuuust a little of that resolve. "Though I'm not really sure where to start, I admit."

    He thinks a moment. "...I guess... well, this is still mainly a video game, right? I can heal things, so that makes me the medic, right? Or... I guess cleric in this case. Evil clerics exist, don't they? So I guess I could start there."

Yuuki Konno has posed:
    Having claimed an orange pendant, Yuuki follows the minion onwards to the armory, spending a bit of time oohing and aaaahing over swords and the like. Slowly she assembles her own idea for an evil costume. Starting, of course, with something that disguises her face and features, and ending with a suitable weapon.

    She returns to the group, grinning behind a face mask. Her hair's pulled back and tucked away, invisible under a deep hood. Her ears are concealed as well. Her eyes show, red, peeking up above a mask that covers her mouth and nose. She's no longer wearing her metallic armor, instead wearing a suit that practically screams freedom of movement while it also wraps her in concealing cloth of black and dark crimson. She has a sword, shorter than her normal blade, tucked behind her into the back of a broad belt. In short, her identity's quite thoroughly concealed, and she looks like nothing so much as a red-eyed demon-ninja.

    Entering the throne room once again, she strikes a pose. "Am I suitably evil?" she asks in a deep, menacing voice. Well, as deep and menacing as she gets anyways.

Kirito has posed:
"What's that saying? The more the merrier?" Is Kirito's take on the NPC matter, it seems. But then, the Black Swordsman is that WEIRDO who publically argued with Asuna about why they -shouldn't- use a town full of NPCs as bait for a field boss...

    Yes, he's the one who showed pretty incredible sympathy for simple NPCs. Them being so talkative and interactive like real people? ... His behavior hasn't changed a whole lot.

    "So what's the actual win condition for this quest?" He floats the question out of ice-cold nowhere.

Silica has posed:
    Silica nods to Tomoe, opens her menu to the cosmetics section... and then grins a little, as she selects each one, doing a pose as they apply. Hair turns black as midnight, along with her tail and ears, and gains streaks of red throughout, including the tufts and the very tip of her tail. Silica executes a V-for-Victory sign in front of her left eye with her left hand, as the magenta irises shift to a shimmering yellow, with slit pupils. Her hair also drops out of the distinctive twin-tails, and instead forms a tight pair of buns that look kind of like horns.

    Two little black devil horns appear on her forehead, and her face gains markings like eldritch symbols, tatoos that break up the outline so someone would have to look close to tell it's here.

    Down to her outfit, the blue and metallic armour morphs into a long black gown, touching the floor and open in front to show off her legs. It clings to her frame, the main body a lattice-work of lace and sequins, like those Brides of a Monster gowns from old 50s movies, it even has the high collar framing her head. Boots turn into flat soled mary janes, with spikes along the toes in a tasteful arrangement. Finally her gloves become full arm fingerless lace affairs, and black and red nail polish finishes off the look. "Transformation, Complete~." she says, having snuck a voice changer in as well, making her normally high and cute voice take on a deeper, more sultry aspect.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "Yes it does but i would hate for there to be a miss understanding?"

Given Tomoe has been iffy on the Paladins as a whole it's better to keep them up to speed than to suddenly have Paladins kicking down her front door over this too. She now more gets into character.

"Yes my Dark Priests go forth and spread the Gospel of my power!"

It's clear is she's going to have to suffer through this she will have some fun with it much as Kirito did with his GGO avatar. She looks to Yuuki and seems amused at it with her new outfit and she seems to approve.

Good good, and it says ... defeat the Heroes. That's all I have right now we may want to go looking through my eldritch tomes which may have more to help us in this quest."

There are likely side quests after all and other things that will doubtlessly pop up and Slicia just goes on full dark magical girl which suits her and the voice changer helps s heck of a lot to make everything work.

"Good, good, now once the food arrives we can ... make some plans and ... we need to hire a five year old to double check our plans..."

Josuke Higashikata (1119) has posed:
    Josuke blinks at Yuuki. "Wow. Yeah, I'd be pretty scared if I saw that coming at me as an endboss," he confirms. Kirito's question has him quieting though, and he looks to Tomoe for the answer. He's curious about that too. She did say 'no killing the NPCs', but beyond that, what could they do?

    He blinks as he watches Silica's 'transformation sequence'. "Whoa. Yeah, I need to get with it." If the goblin tailor/armorer is still there, he looks at her. "What do you think?" A pause, and he pats his hair. "Just outfit-wise. I'm keeping this. Kinda got sentimental reasons."

    Tomoe's words draw his attention back, and Josuke tilts his head. "Hnnn... the Paladins might try to break the quest chain again," he points out. "Y'know, because technically Tomoe's breaking the law by being a Dark Queen. Isn't that their thing?" He's worked with them in the past, but not been privy to their internal dialogue, so he doesn't know. "So if they knew, they might come in and try to disentangle Tomoe from the quest chain by roundabout ways. And that might just piss <CARDINAL> off worse."

    He blinks at the mention of a five year old, though. "Wha? Why a five year old?"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "Because if they can see how to foil our plans, we need to up our game."

Yuuki Konno has posed:
    Yuuki laughs uproariously at Tomoe's joke, so she can't explain the answer to poor Josuke. She also probably seriously ruins her image as the dark brooding ninja at the same time... but oh well. Having fun is more important than maintaining the evil image right?

    She does eventually calm down though, although she continues to grin. "I don't see 'being a Dark Queen' in the lawbooks anywhere. This is America right? Does anyone know American law? Is it against the law to be evil?" she asks rhetorically. She shrugs. "And if they do have a problem with it we'll kick their butts then explain it all nicely and send them on their way!" she offers cheerfully.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"All hail the Evil Overlord List," Xiaomu says with a massively amused smirk. "I probably ought to review that for good measure ... but where are we going to find a competent five-year-old who doesn't want to betray you to the heroes?"

Meanwhile, she's considering what she can do within the bounds of the game and how she'll need to be attired for it. Metal armor may be awesomely intimidating, but in practical terms it's a non-starter for several reasons. Silk and leather, maybe ...

Kirito has posed:
"Pretty sure the only illegal thing we've done so far is cross the border without permission." Kirito blurts rather bluntly, in an airy tone that suggests he's thinking pretty deeply about this quest and its implications...

    He tends to do that sort of thing, doesn't he?