3385/The Four Winds Bar: Cellar Infestation

The Four Winds Bar: Cellar Infestation
Date of Scene:	14 November 2015
Location:	Pine Core
Synopsis:	An advertisement for a rat extermination goes a bit... more. Theo helps.
Cast of Characters:	Tomoe, Theo Morrison, 756, 877, 895, 911, 912

---

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The town of Grand Crossing, so named because it sits atop a major crossroads between several obscure kingdoms, is a minor trade hub on the edge of a large forest. It looks like your archetypal fantasy town, with humans, elves, dwarves, and others going about their daily business. The houses seem to be fairly uniform, the people blending together a little bit as one walks through the foot traffic. While Multiversal access has been available for some time, none here seem to have bothered to make any contacts important enough to put them on the radar of the Union, Confederacy, or Syndicate.

Until now. apparently, there is a rat problem big enough in a local bar that local adventurers aren't even touching it. Or maybe it's even below their dignity. However, the pay looks exceptionally good for this kind of noob problem, so it looks like it's attracting some people through Syndicate channels and beyond.

What does stand out is the bar itself. The Four Winds Bar is a fairly nice establishment in the Merchant's Quarter, weathering the various travails that plague a city like this with barely any trouble at all. The beds are clean and bug-free, the linens washed, and the rooms are on the second floor, appearing to be quite secure and roomy. The bar has four doors, one leading to a stable and one facing out onto the main street. There are two others, but those face out onto adjacent alleyways and are usually kept locked. The windows have iron bars installed in them, showing signs of being installed recently. There's a stairway behind the bar, likely leading to the aforementioned troubled cellar.

The proprietress, Susan 'Susie' Sweetwater, tends the bar and inn with a smile as she provides quality drinks and handles the money. Carolyn 'Carrie' Velano acts as cook and waitress, the chipper, perky blonde gliding through the service area to deliver hearty food along with Susie's drinks.

The bar itself seems to have only a couple people in it this time of day. Probably too early for happy hour.

Linne (877) has posed:
Into the bar sweeps one Linne K. Park. After quite a while of settling affairs at home, she's finally ventured out into the Multiverse again. Getting herself familiar with other worlds is a priority given her new allies.

In one hand, there's a suitcase that the maid carriers, and the other she simply taps along with her cane. Pausing, taking a moment to let her ears do the work, she'll simply call out to the nearest voice.

She curtseys, lifting her skirts just a little to the crowd.

"Excuse me. Is Miss Sweetwater available? My name is Linne K. Park. I would like to have a word with her, please." Comes the woman sweetly, flashing a winning smile.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    Shin is here! He responded to the job request because he figures that as a Combat Vagrant, killing rats is a natural progression for him. He seems pretty casual about the entire affair, though. He's wearing his normal leisure suit along with his backpack and an iPod at his hip, earbuds plugged in.

    He's also singing to himself idly in Japanese, not really paying attention to the lyrics, "And the spears in your heart... bathe in your love... eternally together..." Are the key lyrics that come through amidst some humming and head-bobbing.

    As he walks in, he waves to the Priprietress and her sister, "Yooooo, waddap. You can call me Level One Adventurer, because I'm here to harvest rats for nebulous reasons. Shin Tokuyama, Combat Vagrant, at your service."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe had seen the job, she could use the extra money really so here the towering armored form of the Salmander Woman known to the multiverse as Tomoe was she was cuyrious about the job though the Bar seemed to be pretty nice as she made it there. She seems to be sizing the place up and takes a moment to do her best to spot Susie their employer.

"Yes I'm also looking for Miss Sweetwater, I'm Tomoe I was like to takj about the job she posted."

Tomoe would be very easy to mistake for an elf of some sort then again one would be mostly right. She takes a moment to look about at Linne and Shin.

"Ah I take it your here about the job too? Good, better to not solo things anyway, I'm Tomoe the Iron Lily."

Theo Morrison has posed:
Supplementary income sounded pretty good; so did ADVENTURE that didn't have /anything to do with Kaiba/. So, there he is, marching on in to respond to the ad for... rat-killing services. Well, that seems simple enough...

Theo stops just inside the front door. He takes a step off to the side, and Kickotron marches in, carrying his backpack, as per usual. He has traded his baseball cap for a pointy green hat with a feather in it, as is customary for adventurers. Theo raises his hand. "Uh, I'm here for the job, too," he says, kind of awkwardly. He's at least dressed the adventurer part.

Elizabeth Bathory (911) has posed:
    EARLIER, AT THE MOST TYPECAST WIZARD TOWER EVER

    Elizabeth Bathory looks at Tommy, up and down, as if inspecting meat. "So you are Master's... apprentice? Well, that places me as your direct superior, obviously. There must be a heirarchy of people, and in any heirarchy, it's the /help/ that are at the lowest point. But, well, you have some skill with magic, yes? Well, any Magus needs experience, so as a service to Master Lezard, I will be taking you out! I shall call this... Operation Better The Weakling So Master Will Notice How Great I Am!"

    Elizabeth notices she just said that out loud, and stares daggers at Tommy. "An operational title you won't repeat, or you and I and my favorite bag of tricks will become intimately acquianted." She mutters darkly. "Now! Let's find some adventuring to do to get you from 'useless baby pig' to 'runty hunting dog' level!"

    NOW

    "Ah, hunting rats. A classic! In fact, I remember having to give this sort of quest out, or something... Ahhh, it's been so long! Now, go talk to the quest giver and don't forget to ask what the reward is, and make sure to leave a good impression of me. I have to go talk to my loving public!" She announces, pointing a red finger at Sally Whateverbarmaid, and beelining for Shin. "Is that my new CD? Oooh, do you like it?" she coos, in full 'wai wai' mode with bright, shining eyes.

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     EARLIER, AT THE MOST TYPECAST WIZARD TOWER EVER

     Tommy Wahagi is rendered silent and speechless by a twofold assault from Elizabeth Bathory, an obn-, errrr, *energetic* lady of a certain persuasion who also happens to be skull-bustingly terrifying when one considers that she's capable of crushing a normal person's skull like an egg. Tommy, being physically weak and incredibly shy, is doubly cowed, and winds up just trundling along after her, stunned into speechlessness.

     Xanya follows behind because she really has nothing better to do.

     NOW

     Tommy shuffles in behind Elizabeth and in front of Xanya. The nurse is...she's weird. She's got this...there's...she looks /manufactured/, almost, like she was made by mechanical hands instead of people. She looks *fleshy*, but it's still...off-putting.

     On Tommy's back is strapped a weird, pulsating thing with four legs. It unlatches and scuttles forward at Theo's presence, its floodlight-eyes flashing, as though they were a dog's raised hackles. Tommy immediately shifts his demeanor a little at Theo, and, though he won't admit it, he's kind of grateful - Theo was easier to concentrate on than the intimidating Elizabeth, or any of the other people here.

     "H-heh. Morrison. I should've expected that." Tommy fiddles with his deck-pouch, his free hand spread slightly in a half-shrug. A smirk spreads across his face, though it's a nervous one - and not JUST because of Elizabeth, but also because of Carolyn, Tomoe, and Linne, all of whom he just sort of...shies away from. It's not OBVIOUS, but there's a little bit of shifting, away from the girls and closer towards Xanya and Theo - the comfort zone, apparently.

     "S-so we're gonna kill rats...what a ridiculously un-P-planeswalker-y job, but I guess if we're getting rewarded..."

     He shrugs again. At this point he's just talking to keep himself from *falling apart*.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
When Linne arrives, Susan perks up, looking over to the tapping arrival. "Oh, hello there! I'm Susan. Please, feel free to call me Susie. Everyone else does." There is a pause, and she squints for a moment. "Oh goodness, Carrie, go give her a hand."

The chipper blonde is already on her way, however, positively swooping in to help guide Linne over towards the bar. "Welcome to the Four Winds Bar and Inn! Please, sit down and let us know how we can help~" After helping Linne, Carrie seems to practically run off into the kitchen.

Susie, meanwhile, polishes a glass and nods to Linne. "So what will be your pleasure? Drinks, food, lodging, or something else? You seem to be the business kind of person." She says with a small smile.

Shin's arrival gets a slightly arch of an eyebrow, but Susie seems to take it well in stride. "Ah, here for the job? Excellent. I can have Carrie show you down to the cellar whenever you want to start. Good to meet you, Shin..." She pauses, and looks to the next arrivals. Tomoe and Theo arrive, announcing they're here for the job as well, and Susie waves. "Wow, I never expected so many to arrive... And all at once! This is pretty nice. I need to make sure to put out requests there more often. Feel free to order if you like, otherwise all of you who are here can feel free to form up and Carrie will take you downstairs in a moment"

Xanya gets a momentary stare from Susie. Something about the woman has caught her eye for some reason... But she says nothing, intently continuing to polish the glass until someone asks for something. "Welcome, little guy." She calls to Tommy. "So you're with these guys? Welcome to the Four Winds. Just let me know when you're ready to go."

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
Elizabeth's clearly inhuman appearance causes Susan a little bit of a start, but she seems to be made of stern enough stuff to keep it together. "Hello, miss. Welcome to you as well. Are you and the boy together? Please, if you would like to order anything, just ask. Otherwise, I can help you with getting the job going if you like."

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    Shin returns Tomoe's introduction with a casual, and lazy, wave. He would do more, but he's bombarded by an idol superstart moments later. He hops up and down a bit and looks at her, "Oh man, yeah! Are you her? I downloaded your album into my mp3 collection. I've just been jammin' to it all day while I go about my biz, yo." He comments as he points to the iPod on his hip, "Shit's good candy. Definitely a fan. I dig it."

    Of course, his attention is immediately pulled off of Elizabeth and onto Susie, "Yo, what're you doin after your shift?" He says with a faint lift of his eyebrows before looking around at the other people gathered. He doesn't recognize basically anyone except himself, and so he just says, "Looks like we've got a PUG group for this one. Do you guys serve burgers here? I'm burgin' pretty hard for a Bacon and Cheese."

Linne (877) has posed:
Linne looks a little weirded out by Shin's language. Not so much the creepy song, but she's definitely staring in his general direction.

"...Oh my. Vagrant." She mutters under her breath with vague distaste.

She'll tap her way over, frown to the young man, and then try to straighten his clothes if he doesn't wave her off.

"Gentlemen should be neat and tidy."

Linne nods to Tomoe.

"Correct, Miss Tomoe. It is a maid's job to ensure a home is free of infestations." From her voice, this seems to be a very serious thing to her.

Thankfully, between Theo's nervousness, Tommy's double-nervousness, and Elizabeth's...'enthusiasm', for once she has no words. The maid's jaw hangs for just a moment.

She straightens up, and tries to ignore the weird feeling she gets from that nurse. Some part of her is glad she can't see the thing. She straightens her skirts stiffly.

The maid /does/ take a moment to grab a convenient broom, and reflexively sweep away any dirt that the others might have stomped in. Her OCD satisfied, she concentrates on their newfound employer. Carrie to the rescue!

She gives both the bartender and the waitress her best, most thankful smile.

"How kind! I will be mentioning this place to /all/ of my friends and subordinates if the service continues to be so courteous!" Grease the wheels, Linne.

"One glass of your best white wine, please."

Then she coughs.

"But I, too, am here to assist with the job. Do not worry. Despite appearances, I assure you I am capable." She, thankfully, pays for her drink. And leaves a tip. A /large/ tip.

After that wine is devoured, she gives a curtsey.

"I will be returning to sample more after the job is through. Please have a bath and a meal prepared for when this is over. Ah. And any meals as these gentlemen and ladies need. I am feeling generous." She adds with a nod. She sets her luggage on the counter, leaving it for the inn-owners to deal with for now.

She still has the broom in one hand, held like some kind of sword.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is also seeing quite a few new faces here. Shin and Theo are the only two people she knows. Everyone else is new to her. She listens to their employer for a moment grinning a bit.

"I'll get something to eat after things are cleared out, sound good?"

Tomoe seems to be in good spirits and she gives Tommy a look over for a moment pausing for a moment.

"Theo? You know this guy?"

Then the guy drops the term plainswalker and looks at them.

"Never preusme it will be easy, that's a good way to end up dead. Just saying."

If she's noticed Tommy shying away from her she gives no sign of it.

"I'm ready to get clearing."

Elizabeth also gets a bit of a look over man as she takes a boit of a longer look she's curious and Shin's comments seems to confirm things, Linne also is sized p for a moment but she seems to get a pass she carries her self well enough and her confidence doesn't seem false.

Elizabeth Bathory (911) has posed:
    Elizabeth preens herself lightly and looks a comination of adorably cheerful and nobly smug when she hears her music is some random guy's jam, mostly becuase she didn't have to do anything to acquire it. Nothing untoward, at any rate! She preens and preens right up until the point where he stops paying attention to her, which causes her no small amount of displeasure. Well. The eyewaggle gets her. HOW DARE HE PAY ATTENTION TO ANOTHE--

    Elizabeth brings her overlong fingers to her brow, shaking her head. "Hey, do you want to die?" She wonders quietly, before remembering she was here to get Master's apprentice experience, and wrote off the faux pass as the simplemindedness of the mud-blooded commoners. "Sure, a job." She dismisses the other questions, already her ire piqued at being spoken to by the help.

    Gh... Tommy, as her current slave, should be handling this gruntwork! If only her wonderful Master were here to see her be so calm and reasonable!

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo has no idea what to make of Elizabeth's entrance other than 'wow, she sure is full of herself.' He decides not to say anything to her at all, instead focusing on...

"You." Tommy gets a very dramatic-sounding acknowledgement, because Theo still has no idea what the guy's name is. He casts Tomoe a glance, nodding slightly. "Yeah. He jumped me in Ravnica. We're from the same neck of the Multiverse," which basically means that Tommy could be from anywhere on a full-sized Earth. Theo has definitely never met the guy before the Ravnican clash.

Kickotron marches over to Linne when she starts her compulsive cleaning and helps her by lifting and moving things. Having a silent bird-robot handle the other annoying parts of things like the sweeping you don't actually have to do might be endearing. Especially if the bird-robot is wearing a hat.

"Don't underestimate rats. They're tricky." Theo frowns at Tommy. "Just because you've got some power doesn't mean things are, I dunno, beneath you. It's a job, it pays, and it helps these people out with a problem." He nods at the two women for a second. Then, he pulls a deck-box out, apparently white leather with a stylized sun stamped in the cover.

"Anyway, I'm good to go whenever," he announces. "C'mon, Kickotron."

The myr disengages from finding more random chores to do and readies the tray table, now on its head.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The question to Susie gains a measuring look from the bartender, who looks him over with an arched eyebrow. "Well, that depends on how much of my cellar I have to clean up tonight, Shin." She replies wryly. "Either way, burgers, huh? I heard about those, new reciple up from the Empire. All the rage, I hear. I'll have Carrie start on it once she's done getting the wine from the cellar." She replies, and turns to Linne. "I'll have it for you right away." She says to Linne, and then calls into the back, "Carrie! We need a bottle of the 847 Caelum!"

Carrie pops her head out of the kitchen, blinking. "Are you sure?"

Susie just gives her a Look, and Carrie sighs, turning to run down into the cellar.

You know, the one that would normally store wine.

And is full of...

There is a sudden scream, and Susie pops up, looking to the assembled Adventurers as Carrie runs up the stairs, hands flailing. "RAAAAAAATS!"

And that's when the rats arrive, their aggro radius apparently longer than the cellar stairway. It's practically a boil of rats, tons of them. A veritable pack of rats.

Rat Swarm Lv.1 x12

... That's a lot of rats.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "SOME DAY!" Shin replies to Elizabeth, her muttering escalated by his abrupt shout, "But I wanna do it awesomely! Like in a car crash. Or a collapsing building! And I'm all like 'Go! Get the hostages out of here, I'll hold them off', and then I rip off my shirt and I'm all ready to fight like fourty dudes in a collapsing skyscraper to save people." Shin says to Elizabeth, smiling and giving her a thumbs up, "Y'know?"

    "Oh hey! Rats!" Shin is quickly segued off before he can reply to either Elizabeth further or Susie at all, "Sweet. Grip it and rip it, gonna kill me some swarms of rats."

    He darts forward and then axe-kicks one leg down, bringing his heel upon one of the rats and then trying to stomp another to death. He doesn't seem that scared of them, owing to the fact that they're rats and all.

Linne (877) has posed:
Linne politely ignores Elizabeth. This means leaving Tommie to his fate. Poor thing, destined to be harrangued to death by a j-pop-idol-dragon. She'll no doubt lay very nice flowers over his grave.

Kickotron, at the end of it all, gets bent down to, petted, and then given a nice shining with a cloth.

She now very pointedly follows Kickotron, and by extension, Theo. After a moment, she nods to him.

She offers over an arm.

"Mister...Morrison, was it? Would you care to..." She doesn't get much further than that.

As the wonderful waitress comes screaming up from the cellar, with a pack of rats in tow.

Woops. She vaguely feels bad now.

With a polite pat to Theo's shoulder, she'll sweep to the side of the man defensively, and then raise her broom at the tide of rats, slamming it down after tossing aside her cane. Is she really hoping to use a soft broom against these pack of killer rats!?

That broom, as it hammers down, turns jet black near instantly, and might make a small hole in the floor far too much like it's suddenly become a sledgehammer. She'll start to repeat this process, playing the defensive wall for Theo and his deck and Kickotron!

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     Nobody else there can hear Tommy's thoughts. This is a good thing. In the back of Tommy's mind...well, it's not a nice place to be right now. He's been powerless in a hospital bed for a long time, and doctors are *assholes*. Revenge fantasies are how he sustained himself for a very long time.

     The only thing that shows this is Tommy's hand closing and opening around his deck-pouch. He pulls out his cards and starts shuffling them, not talking to anybody.

     "I d-don't need you t-telling me how this works, and I d-don't give a damn if I'm helping out anybody, Morrison. That's y-your bag. The w-world never did anything for me and I don't intend to d-do anything for it."

     Tommy walks down the stairs.

     There are SO MANY RATS. SO MANY RATS. SO MANY RATS. SO MANY. RATS.

     Tommy stumbles backwards in shock. It's kind of disgusting. He almost drops his deck, though Xanya stabilizes him and keeps him from dropping everything. Tommy draws his hand, and...

     ...well that's interesting.

     The four-legged mobile table monster thing stumbles in front of him.

     Tommy grins.

     He's going to imagine *all of these rats* are Elizabeth and Theo. *All of them*.

     But...first he's gonna have to survive round one.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "Oh so that sort of knowing him huh? Gotcha nd yes we could be dealing with Rodent of Unusal Size."

She notes it's just a joke but sadly this could turn out to be reality here and it seems it mnight be right. She hears the call of Rats and there's a huge number of them. It boils and she stares at it with more than a little bit of horror. She'll move to tank for Theo though he's a good guy but she also knows he needs his focus to do his thing so here she is. With Linne also backing up Theo should be very darn well save, she sarts to chant now golden runes fly about her body, she's also chanting in badly accented norse too.

A moment later bursts of flame start blasting into the swarm of rats.

Elizabeth Bathory (911) has posed:
    Elizabeth has disengaged from most of the proceedings, finding the glances/stares she accumulates totally normal. They are becuase they are her loving public and/or peasant scum and both would look upon her with awe and envy, obviously.

    Elizabeth does not understand people.

    But, as there is a scream about rats, she approaches the doorway, seeing the filthy swarm and sighing, gesturing at Tommy. "Go ahead, apprentice. Show everyone the power you represent! And remember, your actions reflect upon your superiors, so make sure to show off with the spotlight on you!" She 'encourages'.

    Shin gets a curious look. "A car accident? How... dramatically sudden." She responds, utterly taken by surprise. "If I were to pick a death, it would certainly be surrounded by the corpses of my upstart rivals, obviously. These... animals are beneath me. I'll intercede if you are in trouble, of course, Thomas~."

    "It would be unseemly for a servant of Master Lezard to fall to..." She counts the rats, before Shin goes to COMBAT VAGRANT and Kickotron approaches to visit MYR-BASED VIOLENCE on them. "A mere dozen rodents. Crush the under heel."

    She points to Shin's axe-kick. "Like him, but with magic. Don't /actually/ dirty your shoe. Rodents can bring plague, you know."

Theo Morrison has posed:
Kickotron is now the shiniest myr at the dance. He positively /gleams/. Linne scores points, but it's hard to tell if that means anything, given the utter lack of expression the myr usually shows.

Theo gives Tommy a look. It's hard to tell if it's disappointed or irritated. "Sure, guy. Whatever you say. That kind of attitude isn't --"

Rats start to boil out of the doorway. Theo, freaked out, takes a hasty step back. Kickotron moves in front of him, and Linne in front of Kickotron. "Huh? Uh, alright then --" He drops his deck on the surface of the tray table, next to his Abstractum. It has derpy looking goat on the sleeves, with a really long tongue sticking out of its mouth. It is positively ridiculous.

Theo still draws his cards. "Oh, sweet." He slaps one down without pause. "Leyline of the Meek!"

Golden light erupts from the floor. A fiery, serpentine trail of it goes across the tavern and out the door, passing through walls and shining on the floor without any apparent effect. It /does/ give the whole place a nice, warm color, though, and it feels a lot like magic meant for the underdog.

"That... in hindsight," Theo says, after a second, "it might have been a better idea to hold onto that." He scrambles to do something else anyway, dropping a land with a quick muttering of, "Plains," and an embarassed look. He'll know in a few seconds if he just made a TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The heroes get to work! Linne begins smashing rats, the sledgehammer broom causing some unpleasant cracking and damage to the wooden floor. Good thing it's still on top of a stone foundation... Or is that the cellar below? Uh oh. Regardless, Tomoe begins blasting rats, the explosions of flame helping to clear the swarm quickly as the scent of scorched and dying rat fills the air. It looks like the rats have no special resistances or defenses, being just... rats. Shin axe-kicks a rat, smashing it immediately as he helps clean up with kung-fu crush power. They're swarms, but somehow Shin seems to be more than capable of damaging several of them at once with single attacks, as if they were stuck together somehow.

Tommy is still prepping slaughter, but Theo HELPS THINGS ALONG by dropping Leyline of the Meek. The gleaming line of light weaves through the area, gently encouraging the weak to rise up and become more powerful.

The problem is that the weak things in the room right now are the rats. The golden power causes the rats to begin enlarging, becoming more dangerous! It would be a problem if they weren't all already basically exterminated by now. With another smash, a couple axe-kicks, and a blast of flame, the swarm is undone.

Oddly, the rats begin to disappear, leaving behind a couple coins on the floor. Susie is busy helping Carrie up, so it doesn't look like they seem to notice. "Wow, looks like we got theright people for the job!" Carries says. "That was awesome! All whack! Boom! Smash!" She makes vague punching motions in the air as Susie shakes her head. "Okay guys, head down into the cellar and make sure they're all gone. We'll put your food and drink tonight on the house once you finish up and get back."

The creaking stairs takes the group to a cool, dark cellar. Wine racks are stacked with a number of vintages, though all local so it might be hard to tell which are good and which aren't.

Notable is a moderately-sized hole in the wall, from which rat noises are heard.

Linne (877) has posed:
After the rat-smashing is done, Linne turns to her newfound charge.

"...What...was that, Mister Morrison?" She asks with a vague air of polite worry. Did Theo do something silly? She can't tell. His abilities didn't /feel/ like a Stand power and she doesn't feel drawn to him that way.

But who knows. Stands are weird. And the Multiverse is weirder.

Anyone who might be dusty or otherwise rat-gutty gets a featherduster and cleaned up. Linne is helpful like that.

And then there's a minor conundrum. She wishes she had brought her explosives expert with her.

"Ideas, everyone? Unfortunately, I do not tend to carry grenades." Which would be really useful right now.

"Tearing down the walls may be...impolite, after all, just to get at the infestation. Does anyone have anything to draw them out with, perhaps? A bit of cheese?"

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     "I'm f-fine," Tommy replies to Elizabeth. The rest of her monologue washes over him. He's not paying attention to it. Well, no, that's not true. He *is* - his memory is eidetic, he can't *help* but pay attention to it - but he's not *focused* on it. He'll be focused on it later, when he needs to draw on dark thoughts to get something done. The self-righteousness will fuel all kinds of horrible things.

     And then the situation...clears up. Tommy looks a little annoyed, briefly, as the whole situation just kind of evaporates. But...

     But he can still feel the game going.

     He glances at Theo thoughtfuly, as if he's not quite sure if he's 'feeling' what he thinks he feels, or if he's delusional. It takes him a moment to decide that he's not, because even if THeo's NOT feeling the same thing, he *is*, and he'd rather trust his own feelings than need confirmation.

     Tommy places another card down and starts walking down the creaking stairs. It's a wine cellar. Okay. A wine cellar is...a thing? Why are there rats in a wine cellar? Do they keep cheese down here? That didn't sound like any wine cellar he'd ever read about, but...

     "Oh, uh...n-no, sorry. I'm not using the right d-deck to break walls right now. I'd need another..."

     Tommy glances at his hand.

     "Two t-turns."

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "Well, there's any number of ways to die theatrically. The important part is to go out so people remember you, obviously," He comments as he cracks his knuckles and sets his stance after the rats do. He looks around a bit and muses over the current situation.

    "Sweet, coins," Shin comments as he picks up the coins and puts a couple in his pocket. Best to take those for later, he imagines, before looking around, "Alright, don't lock the cellar doors behind us in a clearly telegraphed betrayal that we all should have seen coming or something," He says to the two sisters, pointing at his eyes and then at them.

    "Grip it and rip it, bitches, we rollin'!" He runs down the stairs and then hocks a red fireball of ki into the hole in the wall, aimin' to blow up some rats.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe can still smell in this form and she gags on the stench of what she's done. She should have listened to Xiaomu but she'll have to worry about that at a later point in time that was so a bad idea but she's going to have to learn to live with it now as she pushes onwards she's now heading down first and she pauses at the hole in the wall.

"Anyone got ice fire will just make the stench worse..."

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo glances at Linne, and then the aftermath of the rats getting utterly demolished. Tension slowly leaves his shoulders. It did not go as SUPER TERRIBAD as he thought it would. "Uh... Leyline of the Meek," he says. "It makes a leyline that empowers super generic monsters. That's kind of what I'm doing, so..." He trails off. Rats are super generic, but these might be legitimate creatures. At least, the tougher ones will be. "It worked out," he adds, a bit hastily.

Kickotron doesn't say anything. Shut up, Kickotron.

"A wall? I can probably handle that. Get ready for when they, uh, inevitably pile out." Theo goes on down, but stays away from the rat-hole. He draws, plays another land, and taps both. "Sundering Growth!"

Roots spring up in the cellar. They move towards the rat-hole, winding into it and then promptly tearing it wide open in a flurry of natural destruction. There won't be much left of it when the spell is done with it, and there will be a little tree growing down there, too!

Side-effects, Theo thinks, and moves on with his life.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The heroes deliberate on how to deal with the rat hole, and Theo decides he's going to fix the problem the way he usually does.

Spectacularly. The roots explode up through the rat hole, tearing it wide open and disturbing the rats, and likely leaving a nice little tree! Pretty.

However, with a rumble the floor of the cellar abruptly collapses in, dumping the entire group into a long fall. Suddenly, the rats seem to be less important.

After falling some distance, those who don't have some method to negate gravity or fly find themselves landing in a small, stagnant lake. Hope the card guys play with sealed sleeves. The dim light of the cellar is visible above as a small circle, from which a small shadow pops into view.

"Oh wow, that's a long fall. Are you guys okay!?" Carrie calls. Her voice begins reverberating through the cave you guys have fallen into.

"We'll lower down a rope." Susie says without getting near the hole. "Get some rope, Carrie. A lot of rope."

"Okay!" Carrie pops out.

In the meantime, the group seems to get the luxury of looking around their area. It seems to be a natural cavern of some kind with a tunnel running off in one direction. There appears to be some faint noises coming down said tunnel. Sounds almost... Grunty.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "Sonuvabitch!" Shin calls out as the floor under him collapses. Luckily, he's able to react quickly, and twists himself in the air as he falls. One foot lashes out and kicks off the side of the wall, propelling him off of it andremoving some downward momentum.

    (There is, unfortunately, an unpleasant pop from his ankle as he does so.)

    As he zips horizontally and down, he catches someone. It is a certain pop idol he has recently become a fan of. He lands on the ground with her in a princess carry before setting her down, "Yo. You alright, Idol? Gotta be careful, I need you to make a sequel album where you try to do some new stuff and it sucks and all your fans want you to go back to the old stuff, so you do, but you always sorta resent that your experimental new music wasn't appreciated, but I'll have totally appreciated it, so you feel like sort of a sell out because you can't do what you want and only a small band of your fans want you to do that stuff, so while you outwardly enjoy success, deep down it eats at you and you try to hide it with a happy exterior and you only really wonder at night about the music you could have made if success weren't shackling you to aural stagnation."

    Long pause.

    "Okay?"

    And then he looks up and shouts out of the hole, "THat cellar is not OSHA compliant! If my ankle is injured, I'm suing! I use that for work!" He cries, favoring his good ankle and trying not to put too much pressure on his now damaged leg. For a martial artist, that's a pretty serious injury.

Elizabeth Bathory (911) has posed:
    Before, all of this was BELOW ELIZABETH'S NOTICE - mostly becase she was here as Tommy's Chaperone and was going to heartlessly abandon him to the vagarities of the cellar-dungeon they had come across. Having entered the cellar area, though, she's given pause as praise is doled out.

    "These rats aren't special at all." She notes, seemingly incredulous at the extremely low-power of the enemies. It was insulting, really. "Probably not even a warm-up for Thomas."

    And then Theo HELPS and breaks the floor under them, pitching her down into the darkness if not for the GALLANTRY AND DARING AND... strange genre-savvyness of Shin Tokuyama, COMBAT VAGRANT.

    Listening to his entire speech, she shakes her head. "Mmm, no, that would be if I was a classical artist. Since I'm an Idol, after my discovery period as long as I keep doing work of a high quality and retain my adorable good looks, I can even get experimental and not lose any fans. It's about name-value! Once an Idol is in decline, they're stuck in that! So, you see, it's just a new character trait that would come out, not camps and bad feelings - something quirky, like that one who says she can talk to shoes. What a foolish girl!"

    She laughs, held from the dirty floor by Shin, and nods sharply. "Yes! Your indignance over these conditions is agreeable!"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe wings flare into existance into they won't last long but there seems to just be enough light for them to fuction for now anf the firey red wingds are able to help her hover for the moment. She looks fown into the pit fort a moment and is going to try to move to end up dropping down fast her wings won't last long in the darkness and she comes in for a bit of crash landing into the water. With a splahs and she surfaces making a face.

"ugg should have rolled Imp somedays. All right everyone alive I hope? Theo?"

Shin's clearly still going she can hear him rightly going on about safety issues.

She will moves to help Linne get up if she's able to and she'll offer help to Theo as well if he needs it.

Linne (877) has posed:
'Super generic monsters'. The only sign that Linne might be secretly judging poor Theo is a slight tightening of her otherwise pleasant smile. Surely...surely that didn't explain suddenly enlarging rats.

"...I suppose it did! I will trust in your, ah..."

"Expertise." She ends diplomatically. She also has fished out a feather duster. Just in case. It's already metal. The poor maid may just be worried now.

At least the rats were weak enough, large or not.

And then there's fire and burning rats and roots, and poor Linne is gagging into a handkerchief!

But that is suddenly /far/ less important as the whole bloody cellar floor collapses. Then she's falling.

The downside of having the power of metal means gravity is generally not your friend. And she'd rather not reveal her Stand in unknown company. So, she simply does what a good bodyguard and servant does: protect your charge.

That means Theo. If she can grab him, she'll hug him to her tightly, awash in skirts and petticoats. A human cushion!

With her general back of her body turning completely into metal. It's another blatant use of her powers, but her Maid's Code demands she do so for her semi-temporary charge. That only makes her fall faster as her weight increases. Her front-squishy-bits are still soft just in case of actual impact.

The two plainswalkers, however, might have a solution for bodyguard-maids.

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     Tommy's sleeves are so ridiculously well-sealed it's frightening. Tommy's cards could survive being in a river and they'd only be a little worse the wear. Maybe the plastic's made out of something really good?

     He clings to his hand for dear life, sealing his deck-pouch in mid-fall. The weird table-thing's...organic...top...seals up over the cards, squelching as it does so to secure them in place. (It's very fancy, and more than a little unsettling.)

     Splash.

     Tommy hits the water, hard, where another unpleasant fact about him is revealed - he doesn't know how to swim. He flounders, clinging to his hand with his free hand, unwilling to bend the cards and slowly sinking into the water.

     Fortunately, Xanya does. She knifes through the water as she lands in a swan dive that's a lot more elegant than her, er, body type should suggest. She drags Tommy out of the lake, water clinging to her body. It's...quite a view.

     It's also *extremely unnerving*, because while the eye might at first be drawn in certain ways, the clinging garment also reveals something really *strange* about the way she's moving. Her muscles are too.../sinewy/...for the body she's got. Too *wirey*. It's like watching pulleys moving under the surface. No matter how attractive certain parts of her may be, the sheer mechanical efficiency, the ridiculous conservation of motion, and the odd visibility of her musculature...

     But she's definitely flesh and blood! Robots *aren't* that good! Robots don't *detect* as flesh and blood!

     Tommy sputters, coughs, and hacks as he's set down on the side of the lake by the odd nurse. He's shivering, but as soon as he notices her outfit, his face goes red, he looks away, and he hurriedly pulls his heavy robes over her. Tommy gets to his feet, and...

     ...and he's *really* skinny.

     Like, *really* skinny. Like almost-skeletal, unhealthy skinny. The soaked-white button-down shirt he had on under his robe does not help the skeletal appearance.

     "F..." Tommy mutters. Elizabeth's monologue about how all this stuff is totally a warm-up isn't helping. It's not entirely untrue - this deck needs forever to get rolling - but he really wishes he'd drawn SOMETHING of use early on, so he didn't have to feel...feel...

     ...feel so /cheap/.

     The weird table-thing ambles out of the lake, shakes itself down like a dog, and opens its brain-case. Tommy lays another card down. He can't shake the feeling. He just can't.

     Something's going to happen. The game's not over yet.

     Though he's shivering, Tommy moves over and tugs at Linne, trying to help her up. It...it doesn't go well. He's not strong. At all. He's kind of pitifully weak. His grip is weak, too, like, really weak. He probably couldn't lift an ordinary human being. It's amazing that he clung to those cards so firmly.

     But it's nice of him to try.

     Xanya, meanwhile, draped in Tommy's (soaked) robe, appears to be experiencing no discomfort whatsoever from being thoroughly soaked. Odd.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo is helping the /shit/ out of this basement.

Which is why he is now falling to his death.

Linne prevents Theo from falling to his death. The fall is instead reduced to a very undignified landing amidst stagnant water, since he seems to lack a method of falling with style, but her skirts and petticoats prevent either of them from being seriously injured. Embarassed, sure, but not seriously injured.

Kickotron, on the other hand, drifts down like a leaf. He actually manages to maneuver himself to a spot in front of the tunnel entrance that isn't soaking wet, and then wades out to Theo and Linne -- forcibly, on account of the magnetism. He slides into the water, ending up right in front of Theo with the tray just above the surface. Nothing is out of place, but a circular band of wood and leaves, currently worn as a hatband, is glowing faintly on Kickotron's hat.

"So /that's/ where that thing went," Theo mutters.

Then, he gets up, realizing where he's sitting and who he's on top of, and hastily bends down to pull Linne up to her feet. "Uh, sorry! I mean, thanks! I mean --" He stops babbling, and does the relaxing and practical thing, which is to put cards on the table. This time, it's not a Plains; it's a, "Springjack Pasture!"

The lake abruptly disappears. In its place, a rolling field of green grass bordered by stone walls and rickety fences appears. Beyond them, dense, dry and frankly creepy-looking trees prevent all passage (conveniently where the walls of the cave are supposed to be). There are patches of brown, and a number of large chunks of rock scattered here and there. High above, the cellar ceiling has been replaced with a greying sky criss-crossed with mottled colors of green, orange, purple... a veritable aurora, except in less-beautiful colors. A peeling white fence-gate is across the gap in the trees where the tunnel was. Is?

Theo taps all three and mutters, "Glorious Anthem," placing another card down. There's music in the distance, suddenly, but it's faint. Still, Theo decides to focus on that instead of looking too closely at the soaked nurse. It's far less disturbing.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
"OHGOD! I'M SO SORRY!" Carrie calls out to Shin, clearly panicked. "We'll make you an extra burger when you get back! Please don't soup us!"

"Sue. He said sue. And weren't you supposed to be fetching rope?" Susie comments, still watching.

"RIGHT! SORRY!" Carrie stops being audible as she vanishes, and Susie calls. "We're sorry for the fall. Look, we'll make it up to you as soon as we can, just... give us a little time, okay?"

And then that's when the grunty noise gets louder, and a number of familiar shapes turn the corner.

Orcs. Dumb, brutish, and greenskinned, bearing rusty weapons and armor. One of them holds a torch, and they all look surprised.

"Uh... What's goin on here?"
"What happened to our water?"
"They took it and put in a pig pen!"
"And lookit the sky!"
"This is /wizard work/. YOU! GO GIT THE BOSS!"

One of them turns and immediately runs, yelling while the others yell, raising weapons and charging. "RAAAAAAGH!" As they get near Theo, their muscles swell up a bit. This probably wouldn't be a problem...

Except there's a bunch of them.

Orc Peons+ Lv. 1 x7

Linne (877) has posed:
The noodly grip, weak and useless as it might be, is appreciated. Linne is soaked, her maidly sensibilities is gaining points of stress in massive magnitudes, and she frankly just wants to break a very, very expensive and nice lamp into pieces right about now.

It's Tommy's noodle arm that keeps her from Stand-jumping back to the remains of the cellar simply to break something.

There's a tortured smile.

"...Young man. You are a gentleman and a scholar. You uplift this maid's heart." Comes Linne with complete earnest words. She's still a point or two away from Stress Explosion. God help the Inn when she gets back up there.

At least she's not horridly hurt. Only pride. Up she goes thanks to Theo and Kickotron, and she's shivering as the lake dissappears. At this point she doesn't even question it.

She's cold, wet, and very unhappy.

"Simply a maid's duty, Mister Morrison. Aheh. Aheh. Heh. Hehhehheh." Comes the woman weakly.

Despite that, she has her broom in both hands, just /waiting/ for something she can break into pieces. Browtwitch.

"Two kind gentlemen. What luck." Mutter mutter.

Suddenly, orcs. Big, ugly orcs. The maid's fashion and grammar senses are immediately offended. On the other hand, it's something she can break. Good timing.

Linne smiles far to wide as they're charging Theo.

She drops the broom, curtseys, and stands right in front of an oncoming Orc tide.

"...I am afraid, dear Sirs, that I cannot allow you to cause harm to Mister Morrison. Please die quietly."

Both hands reach out with near blinding speed. She's not particularly strong, simply athletic. But her Stand is.

Anyone paying close attention might notice her two hands briefly becoming four, two of flesh, two of gunmetal grey.

She reaches for incoming Orc throats. Some are met with hands that become crushing metal, while others are subjected to the torments of her Stand.

Iron Maiden's hands seek to turn more than a few Orcs into dead, lifeless metal. She won't shrink from blows, her body itself hardening just to protect Theo. There's likely the sound of metal on metal as the orcs attack her.

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     Linne's reaction gets a small blush. But it's Theo who helps her up and gets the real glory, so it's a short-lived one. It leaves him...smoldering. Unhappy.

     Those poor orcs. Those poor, poor orcs. They have no idea what they've walked into.

     As soon as they appear, Tommy's already reacting. He drags power into himself, drawing on the nearby swamps. He pulls black mana into himself, feeding off his hate, his anger, his displeasure. He feeds off Elizabeth and his desire to hurt her and make her stop talking. He feeds off Theo, off how Theo's been showing him up the whole time. He feeds off Linne and Tomoe and the looks of pity he imagines crawling through their minds after him not being able to swim. He feeds, and the swamps feed, and he draws them all together inside himself and throws out a hand.

     "BILE BLIGHT!"

     BILE BLIGHT: TARGET CREATURE AND ALL CREATURES WITH THE SAME NAME GET -3/-3 UNTIL END OF TURN.

     The black mana explodes out of Tommy like a sinuous vine. It wraps around the first orc, and with it carries the stink of oil, the stink of *poison*, the stink of *machinery*. It slides into the orc's skull and down its throat and through its ears.

     It is at this point that their insides start to turn to rust.

     Rust spreads up the first orc's arm as the black mist spreads to the others. The symptoms repeat. They keep repeating. Organs *rust*. Skin rusts. Eyes rusts.

     Tommy, trembling there, doesn't even notice.

     That was the end of their turn.

     Tommy draws in a sharp breath and pulls in his anger, his hurt feelings, the /cheapness/, the *brutal undermining he keeps getting. He feels pathetic, and he takes that feeling, a feeling he's /so/-well acquainted with, and drags it into himself again. He drags it and the power of death into himself, the power of black mana, of swamps, of sickness...

     "RISE! KORLASH, HEIR TO BLACKBLADE!"

     The ground splits open. A horrific monster emerges from the rift, nearly eight feet tall. At first, it looks like your standard zombie knight, welded into his armor. Its eyes smolder, it has a horned helmet...

     ...no. No it doesn't. That's not the smoldering of mana, that's the smoldering of *lights*. Exhaust pours out of its eyes and mouth. And those horns? They're welded onto its skull, which also appears to be metallic. A long black blade is welded to its right arm. Wires run up and down its arms underneath the armor, and *pulleys* - bizarre, organic pulleys, indistinguishable from, nay, *part of* the skeleton - power its motions. It thrums with an uncomfortable noise.

     Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, simply stands there, waiting for Tommy's instructions, because it's *highly likely* all the orcs are dead.

     Tommy starts laughing.

     It is not the laugh of a nice man, or a gentleman, or a scholar.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe looks to Tommy and paues as he summons something she's still not got used to people have a weaponized card game. Kaiba, Wheeler, Theo, Tommy and the rest, it's just strange to her but there's no doubting it's power she makes sure Linne's okay and she's turning into metal okay she's fine. Shje draws her blade and gets ready to deal with the orcs she moves in and is aiming to attack them she will however leave them be if they have the sense to stay down and she's actually getting a bit crteeped out by Tommy's summons. She does however strt calling out to the orcs.

"Hey green skins! You want some of this Elfy butt come get it!"

She knows her normal taunts won't work so she's got to use actual ones to get thier attention. Yet the method of how they are being attacks is starting to register on Tomoe and it's even more horror causing she is not sleeping tonight...and the laughing just seals the deal.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"Well... uh... thanks," Theo manages, still kind of awkwardly. Linne is a bit weird. He doesn't know how to react.

He is also not sure how he feels about having a warrior-maid moving in to kill orcs on his behalf. ON the one hand, he didn't ask for such a thing, and that's straight-up freaky how violent she seems to be simultaneously trying not to get and deliberately wanting to be. He's probably reading her wrong, but this metallic power she's got and the speed at which she goes for the throat is a little bit... telling.

Then Tommy does something kind of disturbing: he plays Black spells, which are inherently so. This one is exceptionally bad. The rust and ruin followed by the summoning of something that /should/ be undead and is instead some kind of technological abomination... well, it makes Theo glad that he didn't take the hostesses up on their offer of a bite before he went down here.

Theo drags his eyes away from the sight and does his own thing. Land goes down. He taps it. White mana fills him, a more subtle gathering than Tommy employs. "Springjack Shepherd!"

A young girl -- or perhaps a short woman -- materializes out of white mana and misty Aether. She's wearing dark leathers and has black, curly hair, pale skin, and a wide face. She seems to be something like a halfling, but no halfling has eyes quite like those: white and grey, cloudy but not sightless. She carries a staff made from a blackened branch taller than she is, with a yellow orb glowing at the top and strips of dirty white cloth dangling just below it.

Near her, five other creatures, nearly identical to one another, materialize as one. They're soft and white-furred, looking something like a cross between a large rabbit and a goat, with powerful hind legs and backwards-sweeping horns. These, the aforementioned springjacks, pad up next to her and around Theo. They're each taller than her, but not quite as big as a person.

They watch the orcs in the tunnel, and they wait.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The Orcs charge and meet with utter annihilation. Linne takes a couple axe strikes, but they simply bounce off of her Stand-hardened flesh. A moment later, they begin transmuting into metal, quickly taking on the dull sheen of iron as they fail to resist the power of the Stand. Shin bravely keeps Elizabeth from having to dirty her hands with either stagnant lake water or weak monsters in the meantime, while Tomoe tanks like a boss. Her taunts draw additional orcs off to slam into the iron defenses she was famous for, one of them immediately falling to her blade. Theo calls upon a shepherd for his pasture, and suddenly there is springjack. Springjacks, of course, who are augmentes by the ley line he set out before. This is rapidly becoming a cascading problem for the orcs who remain.

However, the ones who have already died might find it a mercy. As Tommy unleashes his blight, they howl and twist, screaming as they perish horribly under the magitechnological disease as the Black Mana lashes out. Flesh becomes rust, and their cries quickly die out as they crumble into heaps of crimson detritus, becoming piles of worthless red dust. Some, more morbid people might draw a fascinating connection between the sight of powdery rust and dried blood. The cave grows quieter as the echoes of the orcs follow their progenitors, dying out...

Before the laughing of Tommy is supplemented with a clapping sound. "Very impressive! I see my minions are no match for you." Hey, that's not an orc...

With a flourish of flame, a ledge looking out over the cave lights up, and thin, human-appearing man with blue hair and vivid blue eyes looks down upon them. He is dressed in elegant formalwear and bearing a wide black cape behind him which ripples dramatically. "However, you are already too late. No matter how much you struggle, this town will soon fall to my fiendish army which gathers in these tunnels! And from there..." He poses dramatically. "THE WORLD! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He laughs on as he looks over the heroes.

Linne (877) has posed:
As it turns out, Theo is reading her entirely correctly. She kills without hesitation on these living orcs, but she's holding in violence towards inanimate objects. It's an utterly mixed up world view that points to very, very deep problems in her psyche only vaguely anchored by ironclad duty to someone she's latched onto as her sort-of employer.

With her real employer missing, it may well be a coping mechanism that keeps her from truly going insane.

The sudden rusting of orcs and complete feeling of /wrongness/ even to her has her heart skipping a beat. Her Stand cowers within for a moment, Linne mentally browbeating Iron Maiden into sense, but the effort is just more stress. She's breathing heavy, sighs far too long and deep.

Linne is way too on the edge right now to pay too much attention to either the creepy Korlash /or/ the horde of death-goats and their shepherd right now. She's retreating to some silent inner maid-space for a second.

At this point, there needs to be violence for Linne's state of mind. A convenient target offers itself in the form of a thin man, oh-so-elegant.

Linne smiles warmly.

"How polite! Good evening, Sir! Please enjoy today's festivities!" She offers, polite but hollow.

There's a flash of gunmetal-grey double-legs as she Stand-jumps towards the figure, a vast majority of her body turn into metal. Everything that /isn't/ necessary for base survival. She intends to simply slam into and crush him with unelegant, brute-force kicks, punches, and landings.

Thankfully her trajectory means the others will have ample time to act.

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     "S-so what?"

     Tommy's fingers play along his hand. His long, slender fingers are surprisingly dextrous. It's like watching bones dance along the cards as he walks. He's still shivering, because that little dip in the lake might've been enough for him to catch a cold, but he doesn't seem to care right now. There's a weird confidence in his eyes, in his stance. It wasn't there before he started throwing around black mana, but it is now.

     "Who c-cares?"

     Tommy snaps another card out of his deck holster and glances at it. This guy is just a convenient target. Much like Linne, Tommy really doesn't care about the why or how right now. He's got feelings and he's going to vent them, and he's riding HIGH right now on the power he's throwing around. The crazed, delighted grin is the same grin he had on with Theo when he had like six hydras out.

     He draws in the power of black mana again. Korlash - the horrible techno-zombie - seems to bulk up, growing bigger and stronger as Tommy draws on more power. It's like...there's more fuel in the engine, so the mechanical parts are working harder...? Then again, it's hard to determine what's metal and what's bone on that monster...

     "Grey Merchant of Asphodel!"

     He never stumbles over cards.

     A zombie rises from the ground next to Korlash. As it rises, it bears with it some sort of...vaccuum? Bagpipes?

     With mounting horror, it becomes apparent that where lungs should be is some sort of horrible mechanical bag. Winding down its right arm, made of equal parts bone, sinew, and metal, is a wicked-looking tube. Its eyeless face whirls to look at the blue-haired man.

     Metal, jagged, makeshift jaws fall open. It screams and raises the tube.

     The tube starts drawing power. It drinks in life, drinks in strength, drinks in magic. It drinks it in, and the bag slowly fills.

     Then, with the horrible lung-bag pulsating under its chest quite full, it raises its other hand. Each finger is a syringe full of darkness, which it jams into Tommy's arm.

     Tommy seems...invigorated. He seems healthier. There's a flushness to his face that wasn't there before, a strength to his slender form that wasn't present as the zombie pumps life from the blue-haired man into Tommy's veins. He even looks slightly larger.

     Then he snaps his fingers with a sudden surge of confidence and flicks his hand forward. "Korlath!"

     The shambling techo-skeleton-knight opens its own mouth, but all that comes out is the roar of the engine. The black blade thrums and hums, vibrating with unholy power as the knight moves with surprising speed, stomping across the field to stab upwards into the blue-haired antagonist. The sword looks swollen with evil magic.

     Tommy laughs again.

     "Nobody cares what it is you w-want. All that matters is if you're actually strong enough to d-do it, and if all you've g-got is this crap, you're nobody. You're *less* than nobody."

     "That's the rule. P-power. Get what you want, or get out of the way."

Elizabeth Bathory (911) has posed:
    Helped down by Shin, and the ground being changed from brackish, swampy water to springy soft field is quite agreeable. Though her champion is hurt! How terrible. But as the man's proclamation goes out, she raises a single eyebrow, a look of utter disgust present on her face. It's not that she doesn't see this man as a person or that she doesn't empathize with him - those are natural aspects that Liz just has, but she hides them behind a thin veneer of cheer.

    No, this Evil Lord has made a grave error, and gets to see - or at least hear - Liz's true feelings. "You useless insect, lower than a hosefly - do you think you share even the conceptual space as Master Lezard? Feel absolute terror before you die horribly, worm. I don't even need to stain my lance with you. Begone."

    It's around that time Tommy summons HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT??? and Liz looks both insane and insanely smug.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is not going to be sleeping well tonight not after what she's run into and now there's another cackling villain here she stares at them for a moment. She keeps Dawn Breaker ready and makes it so she's getting ready to attack at them as Linne attack Tomoe follows her up striking out rapidly with her blade. Also Tommy's furhter action just get the horror factot for Tomoe even higher and his words seal it. She's got an idea of what sort of guy Tommy is and it scares her.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo does not leap towards the enemy. He has taken the measure of one of his allies (even if it's only temporary), and judged that she'll do it for him.

The antagonist du jour steps out. Theo lets him actually do his thing. He fully intends to allow him to maybe monologue or something, because that gives him more time to do /his/ thing. He just watches him, drawing and preparing to play.

Tommy plays something that is horrible on multiple levels. If Theo had not been exposed to his fair share of unrelenting horror since he came to the Multiverse, he would be on his way out the door (or... plane, in this case) /right the hell now/. As it stands, he forces himself to push it to the back of his mind and consciousness. This is one terrible thing among many. He'll lose sleep over it later tonight. He needs to not focus on it right now. He will instead focus on how that is a tremendously dickish move, because only huge dickbags play Grey Merchants.

Theo holds in something between horrorified screaming and angry yelling. He lets out, "Cloudshift," instead, and a bank of clouds pass over the field, completely obscuring everything for a couple of seconds.

When it passes, the Springjack Shepherd looks a little disoriented -- and there are five more springjacks, standing in a loose cluster in the pasture. Theo doesn't stop there. "Flickerwisp!"

Something drops down from above. It looks like a collection of pointy, segmented, yellowish limbs, all coming out of a center point connected to big, white, feathery wings. There's no body. It's just legs or perhaps a multitude of pincers and wings. When it touches down, it does it next to the Shepherd, engulfing her in its not-body. She seems to just... vanish.

"End turn," Theo says, partly to himself, and partly to the Flickerwisp. The creature makes a rippling gesture with its appendages, and the Shepherd reappears, wobbling unsteadily.

Five more springjacks join the herd. All fifteen of them stare up at the antagonist on his perch as one, a bunch of goat-like creatures with legs designed to leap at things -- like, say, caped villains -- all primed and ready to fight.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
The mysterious man is in the middle of his dramatic laugh when he suddenly gets greeted... And then assaulted. Linne smashes into him, causing his laugh to suddenly end in a gurgling "URK!" before he gets rammed into a rock wall, crushing some rock into a small crater under the powerful hit. "Wha... WHAT THE..." His facade begins crumbling as the assault continues in the face of Tommy's rampant denial and display of why he plays black. The Gray Merchant hits the field and there is a scream as the unholy creature begins ripping power away from the man, causing himt to collapse to his knees. The Heir to Blackblade stabs upwards, striking to punch through the man... And he lashes out a hand, grabbing the blade with his bare hand. An ichor that is not blood leaks from his hand, sizzling as he struggles to keep the weapon from piercing him. "This isn't... How it's supposed..." He gasps, throwing himself aside as Linne strikes again, trying to evade the blow from Tomoe as well as the others, though a long gash is opened in his side as he tumbles to the ground, kneeling as he breathes deeply. "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FIGHT ME YET!" He yells, indignantly even as Elizabeth drops mad Emotional Crits on him. "UGH, what the hell /are/ you people? I don't even know who you are talking about! Did I get a bunch of competition instead of heroes?!" His voice and his facade crack, disbelief clearly visible on his face. He then point at Theo. "And you! What are you doing, summoning an army in my Tunnels of Torment!? This is unbelievable!" He pauses. "What even /are/ those? Some kind of bunny... goat?"

It's about this time that Linne attacks again, and the man raises a hand, an ornate blade manifesting on the spot as he blocks the strike. There is the sound of ringing steel on steel as the Stand pushes him back some more. "I see I am going to have to compensate for this..." He grates. "It doesn't matter! These tunnels will be the death of you all! Farewell, and know that it is Janus the Malevolent who will seal your dooms! MWA HA HAHA -oh hell, my side." He suddenly grabs at said wounded side, and then explodes into a flash of evil-looking shadow in escape.

A few seconds later, a rope falls down from above, and Carrie calls out, "The roooope is here! Come on up, guys! Your did your job! It's time to rest and relax!"

Linne (877) has posed:
SUDDENLY MEIDO SMASH!

And then villain block. The grind of metal on metal is met with a grin.

Linne is ultimately pulled up with a rope dropped down. Theo is covered likely by her metal powers. Yoink! Up she goes!

She tries to provide metal-maid support to Theo in general.

"...What a day, Mister Morrison. What a day." She mutters just before falling unconscious."

Tommy Wahagi (895) has posed:
     The game ends. Mercifully, the shambling bagpipe-zombie and the techno-skeleton-knight vanish like mist in the dawn, returning to whence they came.

     The game ends. The land underneath them - powered by Theo's own Springjack Pasture - falls away. Tommy is dunked a second time, though this time he's vaguely ready for it, and his cards are already sealed inside their pouch before everything goes awry. He's not very strong but he's got *damn* good reflexes.

     The organic/cybernetic/metallic table-thing latches itself around Tommy's shoulders like a backpack as Xanya, apparently completely unbothered not only by the techno-horrors Tommy just displayed, pulls him up from the brink. With one arm hooked around his waist, Xanya pulls Tommy and his weird little table-thing up the rope, as if it was no problem at all. This may be nowhere near her true strength, but it probably *seals* that she's not human, if any doubt remained.

     Xanya drags Tommy and his backpack-monster up onto the floor of the inn. She does not drop him callously, but helps him up and moves him over by the fire. Tommy, shivering violently, curls up as close to the fire as possible as Xanya goes to fetch a blanket. She does not lean against him, like one might expect. Odd.

     Despite the shivering, and the sneeze that follows, Tommy is grinning from ear to ear. It's not a nice grin. It's the same kind of grin as his laugh earlier - the grin of somebody who really, really enjoyed what he just did.

     He did it. He did it, and he wasn't afraid. He wielded his power, just like he did against Theo, just like he did against the square guys. He did that. He did that. HE did that.

     Tommy casts a glance at Theo and Linne as they collapse on the floor. There's a little jealousy in his eyes, and his grin fades a bit. At this point, Xanya sits down beside him and rubs his shoulders, and his grin fades away to a contented, but quiet, frown.

Theo Morrison has posed:
"The most dangerous bunny-goats you've ever seen," Theo calls, by way of explainatory retort.

Theo lets himself (and Kickotron, who is light for being a metal robot bird) get pulled away by the metal-meido, choosing to accept the aid of a crazy person with an odd code of conduct rather than getting dunked again.

Oh, yeah. The pasture disappears completely the moment THE VILLAIN makes his escape. The springjacks and everything else goes with it.

Janus Farthing (912) has posed:
Everyone is quickly recovered. Linne finally gets her white wine, and Shin gets served two big thick steak bacon and cheese burgers on fresh-baked bread. The others get a free meal and drinks if they wish, and even a night at the inn if they wish, which is oddly recuperative and refreshing.

And of course, everyone gets paid the promised amount. The future looks like it might hold some prospective new jobs, however, with the threat of an army hidden in tunnels under the city...