3557/Scars of a Plague Before Undeath - 2

Scars of a Plague Before Undeath - 2
Date of Scene:	21 December 2015
Location:	Great Painting of Ariamis <PoA>
Synopsis:	Continued efforts to clean the area around Blighttown.
Cast of Characters:	Kirito, Tomoe, Staren, Priscilla, 168, 183, 253, 570, Ayako Hasekawa, Lezard Valeth, 626, Reiji Arisu, 847, Yang Xiao Long, 908

---

Priscilla has posed:
    The difference between the soaring, sunlit peaks of Anor Londo and the miserable place that nobody remembers the real name of, now only referred to as 'Blight Town' in distasteful murmurs, is quite literally like night and day. Gone is the brisk mountain air, the gleaming marble, the warm winds and the bustle of the city, as the entire thing is completely underground, buried beneath miles of natural rock, hewn masonry, and the full gradient in between. The destination in question is a gargantuan cavern, carved out by hundreds of subterranean tributaries over lord knows how many years, still audible as a constant, echoing tumble of babbling streams pouring from hundreds of feet up in the ceiling.

    Predictably, it is essentially pitch black, save for the weak, combined glow of hundreds of blazing torches, barely pinpricks at a distance, set all over the dilapidated, ramshackle apparatus that could only be called a village in the most charitable sense of the word; a rambling cluster of old, sodden wood nailed together in whatever haphazard fashion that seemed to keep things falling over, hastily stitched together by endless ladders connecting myriad platforms supporting one or two hovels each at most. The entire thing is hoisted well, well above the ground floor on dangerous looking stilts, seemingly recently padded over with thick columns of dried clay, as the entire thing is a massive, unified lake, impossible to tell the depth of for the fact that it surface is totally opaque, covered by a thick layer of glistening oil, green-grey scum, bubbling gas from decaying matter, and jagged, floating debris.

    It's hot, even underground. It's humid. It's stagnant. It stinks to hell. The only reason the place isn't crawling things with more than four or less than two legs is that the previous excursion through has more or less killed them all, as evidenced by the faint haze of acrid battleship fumes and gunsmoke and the scent of biomass charred by prana fire, though the myriad corpses are probably either rotting at the bottom of the swamp, or have been eaten by the pulsating shapes still bubbling to the surface here and there, representing the more difficult to be rid of hostile elements.

    At the other end of the cavern, the entire back wall is covered with what must be a thousand tons of spider's webbing, the nest the size of a large building, which nothing goes near. The 'native inhabitants' certainly don't, not in the least because at a third visit, they are neither trying to kill anyone in a state of Hollowed madness like the first, or skittishly avoiding everyone by scampering into the shadows like the second. The torches are well out on display they've gathered outside the hovels on whatever open space they can find, an entire community of people covered in tumours, boils and lesions that have only recently been rendered less than cancerous, gangrenous, or other such lovely things.

Priscilla has posed:
    To the first time initiate, it's still horrifying to look at so many people so heavily disfigured by disease so hideous as to border on mutation, but to returning visitors, it's actually fairly surprising to see no oozing open sores, skin tones other than that of a waterlogged corpse, and it seems actually a little body weight here and there. The medical examination from last time has had plenty of time to complete with Kyra's quality samples, and so there's apparently been quite a train of aid following in the same vein. More than a handful of Lordran natives are here, a great many members of the clergy judging by their attire, though a great many others simply former pilgrims or bodyguards, the latter surrounding the former and in turn surrounded by droves of 'villagers' as they patiently wait for food handouts and magical healing for the ailments not so long-term as to require more dedicated medical assistance. The obvious guess is that Solaire has brought them from Anor Londo, as the god turned man turned god again is easily visible amongst them by standing head and shoulders over the crowd and his distinctive pot helm, conversing with Priscilla.

Yang Xiao Long has posed:
    Yang is practically choking, the only thing stopping her from doubling over is the scarf she wears. It's pulled up over her nose and mouth, dulling the rancid edge of the areas stench. "What a place..." she says, looking around at the others. "So, what're we here for again? Monster hunting?" she asks, looking around with stinging lilac eyes.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber has long since learned to wear special clothing when he comes down to Blighttown in person. No long coat and no sneakers for him. Instead, he's wearing a pair of jeans tucked into some decently shin-high boots and a t-shirt with a short-coat over it. He's also got some cloth tied around his face to cover the lower half of it, slightly damp with fresh water and a dab of cologne to let him breath a bit easier.

    He answers Yang blandly when she asks, "We're here to clean this place out. Last time, we cut out a lot of the downstream infestation to make some headway and some room, now we're probably going to go upstream to the source of the blight and take it out there so that it can effectively be cleaned and not become re-infested. This will open up an area for urban development as Lordran expands due to an incoming population boom."

    The half-angel is carrying a shotgun that he lazily rests up against one shoulder as he strolles through.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako is here dressed as a witch, and sitting side-saddle on her floating broom as usual. Not too high, though! She's floating only a few feet above the ground, with pale blue flames floating about her to help give everyone a bit more light to see with. Her gaze is often looking about... she appears to ba admiring the cavern. Water carving out this much space is something that brings a smile to her face, after all.

    Once in a while, she takes her witch hat off to fan herself with the brim. Ungh. Why is it so hot down here? Shouldn't it be cooler? However, as she looks downwards at the massive, polluted lake, she can't help but frown. "I... that lake..." Ayako shakes her head quickly. "That. Lake."

    She then looks over towards Psyber quickly when he mentions the 'downstream infestation' and the 'source of the blight'. "I... Psyber, I'll go with you! I don't like seeing water that looks like this." Ayako frowns slightly and then floats over towards Psyber's side.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe has returne to Blight Town to help with the clean up here there's a heck of a lot of things to do here. Creatures to cleaure out, santation issues to be handled and locals to help. She's brought some healing items if she does run into them. She's also carrying a crate of supplies of some sort if is a break through with the locals she's brought some food and medical supplies with her.

"Monser hunting, sanatation work and humantian aid, Yang."

Comes the voice of Tomoe though she's in an different from that Yang would have seen her before the towerin form of a Salamander rather than a small human woman.

"Right then Pysber I'll fall in with you sir, just let me leave these supplies for if we have any luck with any non hostilt locals down here."

She seems ready and looks over to Ayako.

"Ayako, don't worry we'll keep any nasties off you."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    All things fade with time, for good or for ill. If one were to eat the same banquet for days on end, no matter how diverse nor how delicious the food therein, that meal would eventually become dull. If one were to listen to the same song for generations, there's no doubt that one would grow ill of it as well.

    This is a fact of life that normally torments Mizuki, that grates at her to no end, but in the specific case of this locale it is a tremendous blessing. Mizuki has been here on at least four, more likely five separate occasions at this point, and she has more or less managed to 'break in' the rotten odors and the nauseating sights. In fact, she really doesn't mind the latter anymore: it's such a stark contrast to the world she usually dwells in that it wakes her up, in a manner of speaking. Yes, it's a veritable 'bucket of iced water to the face', but where once that might have been painful now it's right and truly just... distinct. Different. She's not quick to admit as much, but at the same time she might internally feel somewhat proud in the knowledge that she has overcome one of her greater phobias.

    Still, all this doesn't mean that she feels comfortable appearing her with any of her flesh exposed, even if her physical manifestation -is- mostly for show. She's come wearing the same black cloak that she wore during the confrontations with Gwyn and Kalameet, and she has for the most part blended in to the environment in the backdrop near Priscilla and Solaire. She's glad - more than glad, really - to see that those winged monstrosities of yore have been routed, but all the same she's deep in contemplation. What on Earth can she do to clean up the rest of this mess? Yes, she recalls that, once, she had suggested using her portals to more or less 'strain' the bile out of the local water supply, but she can't quite recall -how- she had intended to do so. The moment she does, however, she will likely pitch this idea to the crossbreed and all the rest.

    For now, though, she stands rather idle, eyes cast toward mess of cobwebs on the other side of the, erm, 'village'. She wonders briefly if Quelaag might prefer to be given some more normal form as well. She wonders briefly if such a thing would be possible -- it's not every day that one happens upon the perfectly preserved corpse of a witch, after all. Still, it's something to occupy her thoughts, primarily since she's reluctant to clean up the webs while they still might serve as someone's home. Even if she hasn't spoken with either of them much, Mizuki has developed something of an affinity for these 'Chaos Siblings'. So she will be their advocate whenever possible.

Kirito has posed:
    "Oss n��a n�tt lysa auga!"
    Or, translated, 'Give us eyes that illuminate the night!'

    These are some of the first things Kirito says after emerging into the hot, humid, stinky hellhole called Blighttown. It's accompanied by a flare of magical energies from his body, rings of golden words matching the incantation swirling around it and locking into place...

    The Spriggan has quickly realized that this is no place to be blind in.

    That was the spell for NIGHT VISION, and anyone nearby him who didn't resist it will find themselves not barred at all by the darkness. Everything is ten times clearer, the tiny torchlight being more than enough to illuminate far, far into the distance... hopefully.

    Kirito, though, who joined this outing because several of his allies are in it... is disgusted and horrified at what he SEES upon his sight clarifying further than the normal Spriggan Nightvision advantage. A grimace quickly shifts into seething anger. "Who let things get so bad to begin with?! That anyone could live in conditions like this, that's a testimony to their will to live, alright..."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra Hyral learned that some of the natives here needed wide-scale genetic hacking, which was something her world was not yet capable of in already-living creatures of this complexity. -well, wasn't capable of to Kyra's knowledge.

    She's arrived here with a cart, or perhaps even small caravan behind her, baring the food and medicine that they were providing on this visit. Kyra herself looks loaded down with gear, primarily consisting of the basic treatments the Union developed for the most common diseases and parasites they discovered from the samples taken previously. She's also wearing half of a gas mask, covering her nose and mouth, which helps block out the smell. The white mage looks to be at peace, feeling pretty safe with all of these other people here.

Konoe Kanno (847) has posed:
     Blight Town.

     Konoe had heard vaguely about this and decided to tag along with Reiji and his people to see if she could help... She wasn't prepared for how bad it actually would be. "Ghnk....This is...-" The smell was horrid. Dizzying in fact. Her enhanced sense of smell was not helping her in this case. It was making it worse. She'd try and cover her nose, but really, that wasn't going to do anything. Maybe she should set up a barrier around herself...no that was a waste of energy.

     Ugh, self control, self control...

     Pushing down her instinctive disgust, Konoe plodded along towards the area where medical attention was being administered by the clergy. "H-Hello, is there anything I can do to help? I can heal wounds and minor afflictions." She spoke promptly to the nearest clergyman, not wasting any time, and doing her best to smile patiently.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    "I am glad you asked." Nathan says. Oh god, NOW you've done it. He's right next to Psyber, though you wouldn't know it was him without the voice, since that armor composed of ice is covering much of his body. "As was the case previously, we have several relevant priorities. We must remove toxic ecological elements and purge local parasites, administer medical care to local inhabitants, chemically cleanse sewage elements, reinforce unstable architecture, and create new channels for appropriate water flow. However, the local toxic ecological elements and parasites are now absent; they seem to have been thoroughly managed by various factors, and the sewage factors are no longer persisting, as the Undead Burg above was lost to Kalameet."

    Alright, now that he's got some stabilization for the local structure, and now that Kyra's made the initial social headway, he's going to turn and give a short, quiet nod to Psyber, giving him free reign to head where he likes, while Nathan gets to work. Time to focus on his specialty. Social things! He needs to see if there's any ongoing social difficulties that the locals appear to be having -- he may, in fact, wind up wandering over to the village itself and quietly speaking with various people -- or otherwise direct himself towards more diplomatic issues. Time to hassle around.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Shinobu Kimiko has not been here before, even once. That being the case, she's only had descriptions to work with, and Lordran once again impresses with how little mere descriptions can do it justice. She's here transformed, in her outfit as a Puella Magi, that faux-Victorian dress presently lacking in arms and armor. It does not, normally, include a mask. It's for that reason that, with a knife produced from somwhere, she's tearing off a long strip from her skirt.

    Given Ayako's cooperation, she wets the cloth before wrapping it around her nose an mouth. That'll work better as a filter than mere cloth. Until it dries, anyway.

    "Thank you."

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Reiji Arisu has invested quite a bit of time and effort into the rehabilitation of Lordran. To see him here, attending to this particular enterprise, should be of no real surprise. In anticipation of what they might find down here, the exorcist has elected to wear a long-sleeved version of his usual outfit, and his head is covered in what can only be described as a mixture of a cowled coolie hat and gas mask. Its thick lenses shine briefly in the firelight as he descends into the depths.

He is not, however, alone!

    Accomapnying the exorcist today is a small squadron of similarly dressed individuals, though none of them do bring nearly so much weaponry as the man ostensibly in charge of their excursion. Most appear to be carrying a variety of mystical or scientific tools inside one manner of container or another.

    "Who is at fault doesn't matter now," Reiji says, though his voice is somewhat muffled beneath his mask. "We're here to clean up this mess, make this place liveable again. Once we clean out the poison, the swamp below will hopefully follow." He pauses, taking a moment to gesture towards one of the technicians behind him. The woman nods under her and begins fishing through her pack for similar apparatuses to the headgear that she and the other Shinra personnel are wearing.

"Incidentally," Reiji coughs into a fist, "We can do a bit for the smell, if anyone needs a mask."

Staren has posed:
    Monster hunting?

    As usual, Staren brings to bear the weapons of advanced technology. The seldom-seen S-3, his father's first successful invention, refined over decades, walks through the tunnel alongside the other visitors. A stout humanoid a dozen feet or so tall, mostly a 'torso' with stumpy limbs and no head, overlapping armor plates painted red. Staren is crammed into a tiny cockpit inside -- it helps that he can control the machine by thought instead of having to move.

    It carries some gear packs of one sort or another, and between them and Staren's matter manipulator, who knows what he's brought?

    "'Let things get so bad...'" Staren's voice comes over speakers. "I wonder if they even had a choice. Apparently it was even /worse/ before. But now, we'll reward their will to live by making things better. We'll put an end to the monsters threatening them, and bring light to the darkness... Medicine, and comfort... They couldn't possibly /prefer/ living like this, right? I mean if they do, I suppose I can always just... go home... but it's worth at least offering, right?"

    Eventually, Nathan lays things out. "So, we still need to administer medical care and do some irrigation, and maybe hunt some more monsters? That doesn't seem so bad..."

Priscilla has posed:
    The mildly amusing effect of tall and taller talking to each other over the heads of the more ordinary people around them breaks up a bit when the Union starts to filter in more fully, Priscilla briefly excusing herself from the conversation to go and meet them. Solaire nods with a little clack of heavy armour, before starting to head in the opposite direction, neither of them having any difficulty parting a crowd, though Priscilla seems more wont to simply hop over the various gaps present than try to take ladders around them, taking a few jumps that look a little too wide to be done so casually.

    "Well met, those of thee joining us new for perhaps the least pleasant and most inglorious task thou couldst hath possibly chosen. Consider this an initiation into the scope of work before us, even if not its general nature. As thou hath no doubt been made aware of, this place, this 'Blight Town' layeth deep beneath the surface of the Earth, directly beneath the formerly most populous human city in the country, which hast recently been completely destroyed. The original inhabitants were those who fled the city above, unwelcomed within Lordran's borders and living as refugees, unlikely to be bothered in this place where all waters for hundreds of miles rinse themselves of their accumulated filth. As a great crisis hast passed, thine assistance is most welcomed in rendering this area, at the very least, save to traverse, if not pleasant to liveth in."

    "The mire below is the most obvious point of contention, having becometh a self-sustaining ecosystem of rot, still infested with the more elusive of its natural predators, which must be purged more or less all at once. These living conditions art also obviously abhorrent, and must be replaced. The people living here hath no quarrel with mineself or any other, and so art to be rendered thine compassion. Lastly, the Daughters of Izalith hath some plans to removeth that . . . nest, of sorts, but hath communicated little else." Every so often, the dingy blackness; more of a dim, washed out grey for people now benefiting from night vision; lights up with a soft flash of brilliant gold and a sound something like bells or soothing chorus as a cleric invokes a minor miracle in the distance, punctuating the subdued murmur of babbling surrounding them.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako smiles brightly at Tomoe. "Ahh, I'm glad, I'm glad! I'll be counting on you!" She idly fiddles with her hat for a moment... before floating over to Kimiko quickly to give her some clean water-at least at first. When she notes what Kimiko intends to do with the water, she gives her some light blue Healing Water to wet the cloth mask with. That will make a much better filter and won't dry nearly as fast. "Eheh... you're welcome!"

    She floats back idly towards Psyber as she thinks and talks to herself. "I could help purify that... 'lake' down there. But... it won't do much good unless we take care of the source of the pollution, huh..."

Kirito has posed:
    "Of course it matters." Kirito retorts Reiji's way, but he doesn't seem eager to press beyond that. There's business to take care of. Which is why he's pacing out onto the wooden walkways to survey the place while he listens to Priscilla's explanation. He eventually turns to listen to Priscilla's explanation. Well, that's that.

    "Living in the sewers... that explains a lot."

    The boy in black sends a nod Staren's way. "Hunting down the predators sounds like something I can do! Although in a place like this we also need to make sure Ayako's covered with protection. Sounds like she's key to cleansing the place."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe looks over at Kirito for a moment tilting her head a bit at him.

"This is an imrpovement over how it was. The world was dying to put it shortly I'll explain more later though there are others who could explain it better than I could. We need to fix things not play the blaim game, also thanks for the buff."

She'll gesture for Kirito to follow here since she is going monster hunting.

"Understood Ayako."

She's very hopeful that Ayako can help purify the water, it would be a huge thing ot help this place.

"Rip out the source of the cancer or cleaning things is pointless."

She pauses to listen ti Priscilla and seems to get it the last part about the Daughters of Izalith having a plan seems welcome from the look on her face.

"Hunting the preadtors and protecting Ayako is what I'll be best helping with."

Priscilla has posed:
    Solaire seems to pay Mizuki a little more mind, not so perennially used to her narrative whims of presence as Priscilla, stopping partway to crouch down slightly and look at her. "Is there something you've been meaning to say? You've been very quiet for quite a while now. I don't think you would have come if you weren't intending to help, knowing you even as little as I do!" It's reassuring to hear that his tone is just as warm and tinnily muffled as ever, despite the kind of 'brewing thunderstorm' aura he gives off everywhere he walks now, Dawnbreaker slung over his back. He briefly waves over to Kyra and Reiji, indicating along a clear path that thankfully only crosses /one/ rickety bridge of nailed together planks, zigzagging badly as the two platforms it connects sway with the distribution of changing weight on each of them.

    The nearest person to Konoe is in fact a young woman who looks like she can't be more than a couple of years older than Kyra, though has clearly the opposite disposition, dressed in relatively simple white, form-obscuring clothes, like someone who intends to blend into a mass of others identically dressed rather than someone holding a symbol of office like many of the others here. A fairly complex circle of old, archaic, unreadable runes surrounds her and a sickly looking child standing before her kneeling form, her hands on his head, humming faintly with divine power as motes of trailing light rise from the floor, apparently painlessly mending what appear to be a pair of broken fingers and an open, infected wound on his forearm, no doubt from scrabbling over this five flags tetanus wonderland of a living space. She looks to Konoe only as she is finished, the boy looking wide eyed to the youkai through too-long and yet patchy hair in his face before running off behind someone else. "You're very much in the right place then." she says softly, patting down the place next to her where some of the boards have at least been dried and cleaned by a burly, dutiful looking older man with a greying bowl cut in multiple layers of lamellar standing a short ways off to the side. "We've no shortage to the unfortunate here. If you wish to display your compassion to the gods, anything will do."

Priscilla has posed:
    Nathan will find a surprising lack of social friction here, though maybe that shouldn't be so surprising at all considering how this is pretty much as altruistic as it gets in most respects. These are men and women of either faith or simple human compassion doing work they feel is right by volunteer, amidst a generation of their fellow man who has been so neglected as to never see sunlight, obviously mistrustful but unlikely to snub such gifts after going their whole lives (and un-lives) with so little. He'll see the odd group stewing out of sight of the dispatch from Anor Londo, and especially from the Union Elites, but ultimately the only real grumblings or bubblings of hostility he will see are from some of the more dressed up (and commensurately, usually more powerful) clerics here and there; the grumblings directly amicably to one another, and the displeased looks going towards Priscilla.

Priscilla has posed:
    Those going monster hunting will have a simultaneously tougher and easier time of it than last. Though the walls no longer crawl with demonspawn and the air no longer thrums with murderous parasites, everything dangerous is now (safely) contained to the least convenient place to deal with it; the swamp. It's a relatively easy way down (ignoring any fears of breaking one's neck, descending through that jungle of feeble wood and rusted nails and rope), but once one hits the gravel-strewn shores of the cave bottom just barely high enough to peek over the morass of sickly green-brown, only a distinct sense of 'now what?' lies in wait. The irregular movement in the water clearly indicates living things in there, easily enough to make it potentially dangerous to trying and work with the the lake, but the opaque and hazardous mess offers no clear clues as to what those things may be, or how to get rid of them. As usual, the last portion is the most stubborn.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    'Infested with the more elusive of its natural predators' Priscilla says, which translates to 'nasty aquatic monsters' to Kyra. She shudders a little, picturing things with snapping teeth and writhing tentacles. Maybe both. Or giant water spiders, gliding across the water silently, similar to the other monsters they burned out the last time they were here. Kyra shudders again and keeps close to her carts.

    Speaking of moving carts, she along with Reiji finds herself directed towards a path...with a rickety bridge to cross. Quietly, Kyra slips close to the cart and lays a float spell on it in order to lighten its load for a little while and hopefully prevent them it breaking any bridges.

    "Hi." she greets Solaire as she passes him, it in tow. "There's more on the way, this is just the first wave. I think the rest'll show up one each day." Kyra explains, tapping the side of her cart, "I probably won't be bringing it personally though. As for the medicine, I tried to cram as much as I could in it, based off the common infections and infestations I've seen here." Nodding politely to Reiji she continues onward, braving the horribly rickety bridge.

    She even looks down at one point, not liking what she sees at all, and forces herself to look back up.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber nods to Ayako, "Yeah. We need to take out the source, otherwise we're just fixing cancer with a band-aid." He agrees with her with a tired sigh, adjusting the cloth over his face, "You try to get your stuff together, Ayako, and figure out what you need. I'm gonna go off and do my thing."

    Psyber adjusts the shotgun across his back and then utterly abuses his immunity to fall damage. Rather than carefuly navigating the paths and treacherous ways down, he steps off the side of one of the rafters and falls down rapidly, keeping a casual look about him as he descends and falls through hole after hold in the rooves and walkways.

    It's right before the bottom that his wings appear, flaring out just once to create a counter-push that slows his descend and sees him land along the shoreline, "Tally ho, then." He remarks, trying to mill through how to properly aggro most of the lake without inconveniencing everyone else.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki turns to face Solaire as she is prompted to do so, at which time she rests a hand against one of her cheeks, canting her head. "Come to think of it," She begins, "I really don't believe that we've had the opportunity to speak at length since all this began. Suffice that to say, I have seen much of -you-, Solaire. Enough to make me quite confident in your new role as one of Priscilla's chief advisors and retainers. I felt it somewhat necessary to note that before I say anything else as I feel myself appalled at the notion of two people being in such close proximity on so many different occasions without ever once striking up conversation." With that, she forms a small smile form him, letting her hand fall back to her side as she makes something of an abbreviated curtsy for him. "I am Mizuki, by the by. Please remember the name -- I am quite proud of it in spite of its brevity."

    "Ah, ah," She continues, "but, yes. The matter of what I wanted to say, correct? Well. I'm afraid I'm quite useless here on my own, but with some aid from others a select few of my talents might be helpful in purifying this place. I can, for example, do this." In an instant, she summons her blade. In the next, she cleaves two parallel portals in front of herself, drawing a pen from a concealed pocket so that she may toss it in one and see it flying out of the other. It would ultimately have landed somewhere in the muck, but never one to indulge littering Mizuki is careful to catch it in a third portal linked to her home before it can make contact with the ground. "So you see," She continues as the portals collapse around her and her sword disappears, "I can use these to 'reroute' things, as it were.

    "And it's my understanding," She continues, "that if any sort of a lasting solution to this area's problems is needed, that we may simply construct a fountain. Fountains do wonders when it comes to circulating the nutrients in water supplies, and they prevent nutrients from concentrating on the bottom of otherwise stagnant liquid bodies. A fountain would rectify such an issue quite completely, so really, all we must do for the time being is remove the -existing- contamination. And my portals could move quite a lot of -that- in a relatively short timeframe, were someone else willing to give the trouble areas a bit of a 'push'. Better still, were someone able to construct a 'grate' on top of the first portal we could filter for specific particles and preserve some of the water. But ah," She shrugs, "that's just one idea. I am sure the others could think of many other, likely better solutions, so I will simply serve as a back-up should the need arise."

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Protection is one thing Kimiko can do, but it's already been offered for those walking forward--and Psyber doesn't need any, she'll at least trust. The people here have their own bodyguards, and a concerted attack will most likely have some warning. There are few other talents the Puelli Magi of Armor can reliably draw upon. Frustrating, but not at all unusual. She's aware of her own limitations.

    The healing-mask certainly helps, and Kimiko is doubly thankful to Ayako for that. Glancing over toward Mizuki, she raises a hand in greeting to her and Solaire, a knight she is slightly surprised to see here. It shows, she supposes, the seriousness of the effort.

    Rickety bridges. Rusted nails. Wood and scrap. There's not much to this place--it must have seen its fair share of collapses, she'd assume. If it has, that would mean...

    Kimiko steps off a ledge, hits the rock wall, and slides and scrapes her way down on feet that, in a flash of silver light, are now appropriately armored. She is as sure in her poise as ever, making her way down the columns to try to find the wreckage. Broken things, twisted things--things that could be mended, if reforged. If anything like that is about, and she'll have something to help.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard Valeth is present.

The Necromancer of Midgard is present in all of his shadiness, his expression looking slightly irritable as he stands with the others, his arms crossed. "This place has experienced great suffering." Lezard states. "But it can be resolved. It is simply a matter of how and where we choose to apply our skills. Frankly, the solution is absurdly simple. The question is more that of how much of what has transpired that one wishes to preserve, and what form of replacement living conditions would one wish to fashion."

Staren has posed:
    Staren expects humanitarian aid to be more difficult to provide, so he heads to the swamp first. The terrain seems like it should be treacherous, but Staren compensates with excessive use of grapples and jump jets and so on to get down carefully. This leaves the mecha looking at the swamp.

    What now indeed.

    "Well... I don't know if Ayako's purification works with the monsters still in it... if so, it might help us see what we're dealing with. Failing that... We could electrify the water to kill everything... or just chuck explosions and heat into it until it all boils away, killing whatever's there, then we let it recondense, monster-free. Those are the first options that come to /my/ mind. I've been told I tend to think of problematic solutions, though."

Konoe Kanno (847) has posed:
     Ah, people running from her. That wasn't new. Konoe just blinked at the child that had done so, and then looked towards the young lady who'd addressed her. "Um...okay." Well, that was easy to say, but... She looked about, surveying the locals. Hmn. Well only one way to actually find out. She stepped aside, giving the working girl her space.

     Having procured a breathing mask from Reiji, Konoe fastened it on before kneeling down to the ground and placing a single ofuda onto the ground. From it, spread a complex magic circle, and then the seal burned up into nothing. "I'll try and take some of the load off of your shoulders then." The miko spoke to the girl beside her, and then raised her tone a little. "Anyone not being treated, please form a second line here!"

     That is, if there were any not too afraid to be treated by a youkai. It's okay, she doesn't eat humans...most of the time. ......At least not these ones.

Gudako Ordria (908) has posed:
    "I thought of the best thing to bring this world!" Gudako screams, as she comes in with Lezard. Though she is dressed normally (with the exception of having a scarf on, pretty much plastered with a dozen paper talismans. Both of her Servants are visible, for a change-- and both are dressed identically, save for their haircuts, Berserker sporting a ponytail where Caster has the twintails. Both wear bright red Santa outfits, complete with hat (and holes to let their fox ears through), and carry very large white bags over one shoulder. Suspiciously people-sized bags.

    "Why are you all being so glum anyway? Half of you look like you're here for funerals. CAST--" She turns to glance at Caster, then Berserker. "Hey, I thought I said turn into Santa, not turn your clothes into Santa."

    "I don't want to be a big fat man," Caster frowns.
    "And what's her excuse?" Gudako glances towards Berserker.
    "Berserker refuses to look worse than Caster, nya!" Berserker answers.
    "Well you two just ruined Christmas, now they'll forever think it's foxgirls that give gifts, not Santa. ... huh, on the other hand, maybe this is an improvement."

Reiji Arisu has posed:
(Do not eat the people, Konoe. They will probably give you seven different kinds of plague and at least one type of cancer.)

    Reiji inclines his head towards Psyber as the angel begins moving to deal with the more... pressing threats lurking Blight Town. While the pollution and the plague are definitely problems that need to be dealt with, it's unlikely that a disease will explode out of a swamp and instantly swallow you up into its tooth-lined murder-maw. "Konoe," he says to the priestess, "Take care of the rest of the brigade."

"I'm going hunting."

    With that, the exorcist boldly leaps off one of the rickety platforms overlooking the swamp below. He lands on another far below, kicking a bundle of detritus off the edge of the rotting, wooden planks. Again he descends, lower and lower, hopping from wood post to wood plank, until he alights not far from Psyber, way down below.

"So," Reiji says, glancing across the way, "What's the plan?"

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako floats down to the surface of the swamp water once everyone else goes first and dips a foot into it immediately. She knows better than to go ahead of everyone! A shudder goes through her body. Eww. While swamps aren't always a bad thing-the natural ones are teeming with life! This one... just looking at it, she can tell it feels very, very wrong. She closes her eyes for a moment as she feels about in the water. At least this way, she can tell and quickly call out if something tries to jump out of the water to ambush them all!

    She nods her head slowly towards Psyber. "I..." Ayako inclines her head to the side as she thinks while stirring her foot around in the swamp water. "Hmm... maybe I can try to do something once the source is gone." She shakes her head slowly. "I can't really tell until we get rid of the source of this... ickyness."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki quirks her brow at Ayako. "Is there still a source? I was under the impression that there was little new filth being introduced -- only a mess of what has already accumulated here." She rubs her chin a moment. "... I suppose that will be revealed to us in due time, however. As many other things surely will be."

Kirito has posed:
    Kirito gets a good look at Solaire over his shoulder, and it's pretty obvious he's impressed by the guy! But he's got things to do in here. And the enemies he'll be facing are all... likely... toxic beyond belief.

    So he starts fingering through his menu, which to everyone else just looks like him making random gestures and poking at the air like he has a smart phone nobody else can see. Some of his gear visibly flickers blue and is replaced with others. Rings, a charm, bracers, and a few other odds and ends are swapped out for optimal POISON RESISTANCE.

    It may or may not be any use against 'real' poison, but his body is digital. These things tend to work out.

    "Lots of problems in that occur to me. For one, electrifying everything might start fires or affect who knows what this is connected to. Or it might not do anything at all and we'll just end up with a massive amount of angry creatures. Boiling all the water away isn't clean. Vapor can carry the toxins into the air so you'd have to evacuate EVERYONE first, and wouldn't actually clean anything... oh, need any antidote items, Tomoe? Or are you all stocked up?"

    Well if she needs some he'll trade some. But whatever the case... he decides to take this fight to where it matters.

    In this case, that means taking a FLYLING LEAP over to the nearest cliff face and just sort of sliding down it at high speed. ... Right to the mucky swamp bottom... it's a WILD ride, that's for sure, kicking up lots of dust.

    Time to go hunting!

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber rubs the underside of his nose in thought as Reiji asks him what the plan is, watching the water in front of him. He lets out a soft 'tch' noise and says, "I guess we could try dynamite fishing," Psyber muses idly, "Toss explosives in the water, see what we scare up out of it. I'd rather flush them onto land than engage them on their own turf."

    As if to emphasize his point, Psyber holds out his hand and lightning ripples along his arm before Einherjar appears. The lightning then pulses along his arm, across his shoulders, and into his left hand as he muses, "Then we just kill whatever surfaces."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is hopeful about how they cna do this and is glad to be working with Kirito again, she draws Dawnbreaker and does much what Kirito does she learned from last time as she moves to pot on poison reist accessories as well.

"I"m stocked up after last time. It was brutal I'd never seen debuffs that lasted that long and it got past my battle healing too."

She moves to follow after Kirito at this point. She pauses for a moment watches him heading down and she laughs.

"You forget what I do on your roof Kirito!"

She pauses looks back to Ayako but she's protected well enough for the moment, they need to go flush things out, and like Kirito? She's utterly expendable here.

"Ayako hang right we'll see what we can to do clear out things this way."

With that she heads after Kirito in much the insane fashion!

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako inclines her head to the side gently once Mizuki asks her that. "I can't tell for now... All I know is that the downstream was cleared out and now we have to check the upstream." She glances down into the swampy water. "That and... there's a lot of things in here..." Her amber eyes narrow slightly.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki nods to Ayako. "I will leave you to it, then. I suppose it will be clear enough when, and if, I can be helpful after you have amassed the relevant details." She sighs faintly. "You'll pardon me, but I do get rather restless whenever I come here. A history with things attempting to kill me within moments of my arrival, and all that. You understand."

Staren has posed:
    The plan is discussed over the radio for a bit. Problems are identified, workable parts isolated. Plan MACHINE GUN FISHING it is! With... parts of the other plans.

    A portable reactor and cables /is/ in one of the packages. Staren dismounts to set it up. It's quick, since he's just planning to shock the lake instead of something careful and controlled, like powering the village. "If you're that worried about it spreading, just radio the town and tell them not to touch the water for a bit. Ready?" Staren climbs back into his machine. "Phase one, BEGIN!"

    "If this makes creatures angry, well, they're about to get a whole lot angrier... Phase two, BEGIN!" From the assembled armaments, a bag of plasma grenades is opened up in such a way as to fling them all across the lake -- between pillars, though -- and let them sink for awhile before going off. They're less about concussive force and more about flash-boiling parts of the water. A few missiles are contributed, but it's not the huge macross missile massacre one might expect from Staren's mecha, because most of the missiles he brought today are about piercing and breaking armor, which turned out not to be what he needs -- yet.

    "Here goes phase three!" Once those are done firing, the mecha starts firing energy weapons into the water -- it has some beam cannons built into the arm, and the RAISER rifle, which is equivalent to dumping something like half a ton of TNT in the water as heat.

    Annoying the creatures? Yeah, this should annoy the hell out of anything down there! "Get ready! Anything this doesn't kill outright is gonna be pissed!" He'll shut off the electricity as soon as any creatures actually show up.

Priscilla has posed:
    Conjuring their sword without forewarning would probably be an ill-advised move for pretty much everyone in the exact situation as Mizuki. Only by virtue of having fought alongside each other on several occasions does Solaire go no further than one gauntleted hand flying upwards to the hilt of his own blade like a flash of lightning, snapping hold of the weapon reflexively. It's a motion so instinctive that it serves as a rare reminder of what his divine domain /was/ before being excommunicated, though once his grip eases back away again at the demonstration, he sounds no less mild and jovial than before. "Ah, I see! That /is/ a power I haven't seen before in these lands. I appreciate your confidence in me, but I dare say you might be underselling yourself for such a minor breach in manners! Not every road travelled need be filled with chitchat, after all." He laughs quietly. "A lovely suggestion! I'm surprised anyone hadn't thought of that. At the very least, it'd make this place a lot more attractive!"

    He looks to the wagon with . . . well Kyra can probably imagine it's pleasant approval. Stupid helmet. "Every day? You're certainly dedicating a lot to this. I'd hate to think it might be beyond your means, though at the same time I cannot rightfully turn it down. It's been a very long time since anyone has been making the little things like medicine. Weapons and armour are everywhere, but ancient relics are easier to find than simple herbs these days." Konoe meanwhile seems to be having better luck with people who aren't little kids. Oddly enough, her slightly less-human features are immediately less of a worry once the spell circle appears, as people immediately recognize a foreign cleric (right?). The girl next to her seems to be pretty popular, so plenty are content to wait in line and stay, but the less conservative of them seem to shift over, giving wary looks to each other, and some who might be their parents, many of the few actually dressed in newer, cleaner looking clothes probably delivered only recently. "Lady Gwynevere bears the burdens of my life with me, but you have my thanks regardless." the girl next to her says. "I am Rhea, of Thoroulund. May I ask as to your name?"

Priscilla has posed:
    Psyber has the easy cheater's mode way down, whereas Kimiko has the coolkid's way. Both of them find much the same however, in that the floor of the place isn't really meant to be traversed much. There are little islands here and there 'out to sea', mostly around the larger pillars and ruins of what might have been buildings ancillary to the belltower within the spider's den, but otherwise they'll be traversing flotsam, greying sand banks, and oversized tree trunks. Kimiko will have a bit of a tedious, but ultimately easy time, finding some of the many sections where something has collapsed through the town above, and as it seems, most of them seem to have been caused relatively recently by who she can presume to be 'adventurers', judging by the surprising number of not-fully corroded pieces of equipment floating in with the planks and pots. There isn't terribly much metal native to the place other than the nails and odd lock or chain, but plenty in the lost armaments of clumsy pilgrims.

Priscilla has posed:
    Gudako's cynical predictions may actually be correct. Nobody who lives here has even seen a santa /outfit/ before, never mind the big guy himself, or any of his various depictions. The red outfits are more associated with the channelers instead, though being known for a similarly positive reputation as travelling healers, troubleshooters and wise men, this may be to her benefit. Gifts may be a little out of the question normally, but that doesn't mean that she isn't immediately swarmed by sickly looking kids keeping just out of easy eyeshot, predominantly the ones who have already received basic healing and thus escaped from her parents. It's a rather unfunny parody of Christmas morning, what with a dead-eyed sociopath with ghost-slaves dressed as santa bearing gifts for diseased disaster refugees, but it is what it is. As is predictable, there is absolutely zip, zilch and zero magical talent down here save for the clerics, which vary the spectrum from fairly average to surprisingly high class, the Divinity rank of Solaire, and the other magic she already knows the source of from deep within the webs.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard glances over to the shenanigans of Gudako and smirks to himself as he watches and listens the various plans and preparations going around. The beings here would not appreciate Lezard's own form of medicine, ilikely.

Regardless, he generally does them the favor of ignoring them, stepping out onto the rickety wood to look out over the devastation that Staren is laying down into the filth. He looks to consider things for a moment. He sighs, and simply waits for it.

Finally, he speaks up. "Windmills." He says. "Yes. Definately windmills."

Kirito has posed:
    Kirito's descent goes unchallenged, and he manages to drop in near Staren's S-3. Since he has the heavy artillery, the Black Swordsman hasn't even drawn his weapon yet. But he's got his eyes peeled for any trouble down here in the muck. he's SURE that lighting the place up will rile up creatures living in the filth and in burrows and other places....

    Then it'll just be a matter of cutting through what Staren can't just plow through.

    "We've sure got an 'easy mode' option here." He remarks. It's ALMOST a complaint as much as it is admiring the simplicity of this solution.

    He IS a swordsman, after all. On the other hand...

    Now that he's DOWN here, the stink is WORSE. His nose wrinkles rather visibly. And a hand goes to plug it. "Blegh. Though, the sooner we're done with this the better I think. I'll need to wash these clothes AND bathe afterwards..."

    ... Does he really need to do that?

    This might be a symptom of being in SAO for years and doing that ALL THE TIME.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki is at first surprised by Solaire's reflexes and then just as much when she releases where his palm had flown to, though it takes her several moments more for her to come to the realization that she was the reason she had done so. "Ah," She just as instinctively mumbles in response, "m-my apologies, I... I hadn't been thinking. It's rather rare that I converse with those who are unfamiliar with my abilities, you see, and..." She actually might flush, somewhat. "Well, I trust that's rather self-evident by now. Again, I apologize. Just as I thank you for having the restraint to not run me through." This apology is accompanied by something of a small, awkward bow. At least it's clear that she's genuinely contrite for the tragic misunderstanding that would have been.

    "Though I thank you just as much for your appreciation of the suggestion," She continues. "That was certainly my hope: to make the area down here more 'livable', at least until those who occupy this place may find more suitable areas to inhabit. And even if there comes a time when most creatures -do- abandon this place, I will be ever so glad to know that it was left better for my - and for our - involvement here. I've... formed a sort of attachment to this place in spite of myself, you see? Hence, I can't quite bear to see it left this way, and I'm glad that Priscilla made its 'refurbishment' a priority."

    For want of more to say, however, she eventually meanders back to the other subject of their conversation. "... though you are quite right," She tacks on. "Insofar as this world didn't exactly lend itself to pleasant conversation before, that is. That was something I rather liked about it, really: that interactions between humans were so sparse made them more valuable, more rare, more 'special'; it made even silence shared between two living things so precious. I admit I shall miss that quite a lot, though I imagine there will be many other people things to come with its rebirth." Turning up the corners of her mouth just faintly more, she finishes, "You will see to that. Won't you? You and your newfound sun."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe has no issue making it down and lands in a crouch by Kirito near Staren's own S-2 as well. The Iron Lily rises up now shaking her head for a moment.

"Don't complain Kirito."
% She gives him a bit of a silly look on her face. She's got osme ideas to help delaing with this. She looks at Kirito for a moment and nods in agreement.

"Yes, I think I'm going to need a very long shower after too and get all of this gear cleaned."

Tomoe also shows a similiar mind set which likely is habit from SAO, then again she knows this world somewhat and well she doesn't want to cart something out on her avatar after all.

"I'm ready here."

She casts a few buffs on her self as she makes ready to tank whatever might come out of the murky depths.

Priscilla has posed:
    Reiji and Kirito join the others down in the muck at about the right time. Ayako stirring her presence into the swamp does affirm that there is actually water in there, even if it is quite viscous and nasty. It seems a little less simple than just being full of decaying biological matter though. Her intimate attunement to the element is immediately enough to tell her about the amount of bacteria and parasitic microbes teeming in it, as well as heavy metal elements and inorganic toxins corroded from various debris submerged in the caustic sludge for what might very well be centuries. Removing it all would leave the lake significantly shallower, though still deep enough to steer a boat through. Other than that however, the currents coming in seem relatively clean, for what it's worth. It's all rain water for the most part, picking up a lot of sediment and mossy grime, but not much worse than a mountain tributary that goes through a forest. The issue is that the filth below is deep and thick enough that things can feed on it, breed in it, and then die and decay in it, perpetuating the cycle.

    Kirito makes the smart move that Tomoe didn't have the luxury of last time, but even then it's going to be a hell of a slog. There are so many different kinds of poison all at once that resistance gear seems to be more of a matter of delaying it rather than having any potential to nullify it, building up as a rather pronounced bar in his HUD. Restricting himself to short forays of a couple of minutes each, followed by a little while of sitting outside of the muck to let it drain off, should be safe, but he'll have to pay careful attention regardless. His death game buddy wasn't kidding.

    Remarkably, Staren seems to have had an idea go by without issue, even getting backing from Psyber, which more or less stamps it as perfectly workable. The amount of ordnance he has on hand obviously isn't enough to really mess up the whole lake, but as he's probably guessed, the things that live down here are used to the dark and dank, being more sensitive to temperature and humidity and light than much else. Firing plasma and beam weapons into their habitat is a really easy way to get their attention, even very far from the impacts where the water only raises in temperature a couple of degrees from heat dispersion, and within seconds of his barrage ending, and even to a degree while it's still going on, shapes begin bubbling up from the surface. Thick, misshapen, sluglike masses of oily, tar-like flesh; ropey coils of squirming somethings that look like inside-out intestines, and here and there, the hulking, bus-sized shapes of the rockleeches that had been buried under the mud instead of clinging to the walls; creatures resembling a splayed human hand of insectoid claws supporting a massive, rippling, maggot-like abdomen and surrounding a grind-mill of nasty teeth.

    They rise from the shores hissing, chittering and burbling, crawling straight on to dry(ish) land and up the wooden supports, where they are immediately in direct contest with the Elites for space. For looking like oversized pond parasites, they are unfortunately extremely aggressive, capable of making alarming leaps onto warm flesh and sinking in all manner of pointed barbs, teeth and suckers through even light armour. The rockleeches are slower due to their size, and proportionately, probably much more dangerous.

Konoe Kanno (847) has posed:
     Right, so kids think she'll eat them. INACCURATE! ...She'd wait for them to grow up first! Okay, no.

     Once the first person steps up, and a line starts to form, Konoe proceeds to get to work, pressing a hand against the circle on the ground. Upon the first patient stepping into the circle, she'd focus, channeling healing and spiritual energy into the body via the circle. It coarses through, attempting to heal or cure any afflicting elements it comes across. It's a pleasant feeling overall, regardless of it's effectiveness in the end.

     Certainly any deeply ingrained illnesses will need to be treated with material medicine and time, but this should at least clear up most anything else. While the priestess worked, she glanced aside at the girl next to her, blinking a few. "Um..." Smiling slightly, Konoe nodded in greeting. "You're welcome...and sorry for not introducing myself." She turned her gaze downwards for a second, and then looked back.

     "I'm Konoe Kanno...of Gensokyo." Well, odd as that sounded, it was correct. "N-Nice to meet you, Rhea-san."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Er, every day for the next week or so." Kyra clarifies, which pretty much means that for the next week she's going to be pretty much unavailable, hard at work making sure the rest of the supplies are taken here.

    "After that, they'll probably start sending some other people in with this stuff. Plus I'm sure the Union can produce it a lot faster than I can on my own." She laughs nervously. "Please, don't think it's trouble for me or any of us to do this. We want to help the recovery." Once she's sufficiently down the provided path, she starts cracking open boxes, passing out the medicine...

    ...that is once she has the locals accustomed to her again. She doubts it'll be as bad as last time when everyone ran away from her.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Well, they're comin' up now," Psyber comments, hand tightening around the lightning sword in his hand. He's not going to waste or dirty the Lifehunt Blade on literal gutter trash monsters like these. He, on some level, feels like that would almost be disrespectful to the sword.

    So instead of going in against the monsters, he backs off a little bit and thrusts his hand forward, sending a massive arc of holy lightning out from his palm and sword. The snapping bolt of electricity tries to slam into and then lance down the side of one of the disgusting monsters surfacing from the water in the wake of Staren's bush-rustling tactics.

    "Take em out! Try to avoid anything too risky, but blitz them down fast and hard!" He commands.

Yang Xiao Long has posed:
    Yang's still here. She didn't have much to say in the course of proceedings. Now there's an enemy to fight though, she grins, and deploys her Gauntlets. The shell casings in the chamber gleam a dull red in the dark light. "You chumps will never learn huh... Alright, lets DO THIS!" she leaps over the side, and drops down toward one of those big, bulbous tentacled monsters, punching down into its 'back' as she drops down onto it. Each punch looses a packet of red flame and light, which explodes on impact.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Well, it's probably not the best way to wake up an entire pond full of nasty, plague-bearing monsters, but lasering the crap out of the place seems to work well enough. Reiji dutifully withholds any complaint. Instead he just watches on from behind his tinted goggles and gas mask as the mad inventor goes to work.

    Sure enough, all that ordnance disturbs the locals. Whichever beasts didn't burn in the initial onslaught begin crawling towards the shores. There's something strange about committing ecological genocide that sits... strangely with the exorcist. But it is difficult to argue with just how utterly /impure/ this place is.

    He voices no mercy when the first crack of gunfire explodes from the barrel of his oversized shotgun. Hollywood is joined swiftly by a blade of roiling, roaring flame. Wood and fire dance together as Reiji joins in the melee, striking and shooting whenever one of the creatures draws too close.

If he knows his plague-beasts right, they shouldn't enjoy being set on fire one bit.

Gudako Ordria (908) has posed:
    "Windmills?" Gudako questions Lezard, before turning her glance to her swarmed Servants. Caster and Berserker resume having jolly expressions, and begin distributing gifts from the former's large bag. They're all gift-wrapped boxes, containing random objects ranging from the useless to the useful-- phones, tablets and the like in the useless column, at least for these people, while the useful column contains proper toys and some first aid kids. Most of the objects have been blessed to bring good luck, for what little good it'll do those children. Then again, a bit of good luck might be useful for their health.

    Caster's bag empty, Berserker noticeably does not start handing things out from hers. Fortunately there was probably enough junk in the one to satisfy every kid. Nevermind the blood slowly starting to stain the second bag.

    "Say, who is that man?" Gudako questions, to Lezard or anyone else still close enough to them to answer, gesturing towards Solaire. It would in fact be hard to ignore his aura.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe was far more prepared this time, Tomoe's own items were just slowing it, but it's building she's going to have to operate much the same way Kirito is, not saying in for too long getting out letting it drain off then move in again. Seriously an old expression came back to her her father told her, this world hates you and wants you to die. It seemed apt somedays here, but she's more worried about what's coming out of the water.

"Here they come!"

Tomoe then starts firing off the taunt abilities and getting into the crewatures faces as best she can. She also tries to not think about what she saw she's also got an idea to also get thier attention as well. She also sees the tentacled monsters and feels this /feeling/ of dread just being near one f those things. However she's starting to chan t a spell causing bright rays of light to fan out into the monsters like laser beams, this should hopefully also help get the monster's attention.

"Glad you could join us Yang! Watch the posion it's insane!"

She's also putting her blade and other abilities to work, trying to keep the monsters after her over the others.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Land sakes alive, and just when she thought this place had stopped being an affront to her very existence, /more/ festering putrescence comes oozing out of its orifices.

    Mizuki turns away from Solaire to face the lake at the sound of the explosion, quickly turning her body translucent in effort to evade any oncoming sludge; naturally, keeping herself clean must be her top priority. Only once she is -dead certain- that the pestilential rains have abated does she fade back into reality again, holding her sword horizontally out front of her to channel... whatever in the world it is that she channels for energy. In time, a sphere seems to rise around her person, causing the air about her to warble as though it had been tainted with gaseous fumes. If one were to step -inside- this bubble of influence, however, they would find that the world inside looks... perfectly clean. Idyllic, really, down to the last, immaculate blade of grass. She's projecting her influence to temporarily make Blighttown look less miserable.

    Not just that, though, thankfully. She attempts to spread her influence further out front of her until it reaches the shoreline from whence these ungodly abominations have emerged. And once they are cleanly within her range, butterflies - yes, the usual ones - begin to form in the area around her. These flutter into ideal locations before transforming into daggers and launching themselves toward Mizuki's quarry en masse. She's going to make /every plausible attempt/ to deal with these things at a distance before acquiescing the necessity of more direct, melee-oriented combat on her part.

    Once Mizuki has set all this in motion, she makes her rounds, focusing on a smattering of individuals to endow them with quickened reflexes should they accept her aid. Flickering, monochromatic outlines attempt to wrap themselves around Kyra, Psyber, Reiji, and Kirito to help make all their movements faster, and any velocity-dependent strikes more powerful.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
It was time.

"Dark Savior." Lezard's voice calls out, and blurred, actinic slivers of inky Dark manifest in the air, shearing downwards in the vague shape of swords and spears like a rain of anti-light at the bidding of the black, twisted staff in Lezard's hand. He stands well away from the battlefront, taking advantage of his higher position and distance while the others serve to interpose themselves. While the battle roils, Lezard continues to rain down the piercing attacks, acting as artillery while they fight. Thankfully, he has no intention to strike his erstwhile allies. Also, he continues to speak, responding to Gudako's question. "That would be Solaire, a wanderer of Lordran. Apparently he has some connection to the former lord of this land but the relation is... murky. Lady Priscilla holds him in high esteem, however. He is generally quite sociable, oddly enough, considering he must have dwelled in this place for quite some time."

He gestures into the distance, then. "Gudako, did you hear the sounds in the distance? If I remember correctly, there was a lift mechanism along the side of the cavern, and if I judge the connections properly, we are quite close to the Valley of Drakes. If we should drive a shaft from the cavern into the crevasse of the Valley, we would create an outlet for the filth buildup here and allow for it to flow on its considerable course, likely to the ocean, as it should be. Similarly, we can mount one or more windmill mechanisms to take advantage of the valley to power any processing and filtration systems they care to install."

He pauses and then comments offhandedly, "Of course, we would have to probably eliminate the drakes from the valley in order to preserve the mechanisms from their usual habits..."

Kirito has posed:
    Kirito... makes... the most DISGUSTED face. He's had to jog around onto dryer places to let his poison meter dwindle down. He's never seen this mechanic before! Just a weird quirk of the Multiverse. Or maybe new content that's being worked on but not implemented? He'll have to poke around some of the odd new dungeons...

    But that's neither here or there!

    What IS here, unfortuantely, is... lots of REALLY ugly creatures. He draws one of his weapons with flourish, twirling it in hand and dropping into a forward-leaning battle stance.

    Thankfully, a number of weird BUFF ICONS appear on his HUD too, courtesy of Mizuki. As with all such Multiversal effects, the system that covers his strange 'wandering' effect can't fully understand things in game terms... but he can FEEL it, and that's enough. "Thanks!" He waves with his free hand Mizuki's way...

    And then... takes a step forward. Except it's with blinding speed. The quickest he can go, he tries to simply CUT ONE OF THE GIANT LEECH THINGS in half with Vox Unitas, then whirl around and chop again DOWNWARDS.

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Oh, looks like a plan worked. All manner of horrible things are coming out of the water. Kimiko frowns at this, in the middle of divesting corpses of their metal implements and armor. The latter comes off strangely easily whenever she touches the surface. A set of gleaming, silver chains bind the loot together; they are clearly not something she'd also found within the muck.

    Kimiko leaps, strikes the wall, and leaps again. A gauntleted hand comes out and creates purchase for her, and her next arc, net full of arms and armor slung over her back, lands her with one foot on the nearest, giant, tentacled wall-hugger. One arm flashes in a circular motion slicing a meter-deep opening in its side before the summoned blade morphs into a pick, and she continues back up toward the village.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako yelps as Staren's 'Stage One' enters the water! She doesn't even need to stay any longer for 'Stage Two' and 'Stage Three' to know what's going to happen next! She quickly floats up away from the water and over back towards everyone else. "Incoming!"

    As she floats by the people ready to fight the surfacing monsters, she thrusts her hands out towards them and shouts out, "Purifying Barrier!" each in turn. Every single person she passes by has a light blue water barrier of swirlling water that tries to counteract the poison of the environment! After all, it might be a bit hard to concentrate on fighting with that poison all over the place!

Staren has posed:
    Applying large amounts of power and force is a simple, straightforward solution. Staren's good at those, so when it's time for that to actually work as a solution...

    ...You get angry leech and slug monsters, apparently.

    The original S-3, so named because Scott's first attempts at a full-sized mecha and a smaller powered armor design didn't work out, was built with parts from a junkyard and let Staren's father uproot a lamp post and go toe to toe with one of the Rowdy Ruff boys, in a time long ago and a universe far away.

    The modern version has seen some substantial upgrades.

    As the monsters begin to surface, the S-3 reaches back and yanks the cables allowing it and the external reactor to pool their power for electrifying the lake, and Staren gets to work. So there are fast little wormy things and big slow slugs? Ports open in the machine's arms and shoulders, and over two-dozen /more/ missiles lock on to rock slugs and shoot off at supersonic speed, aiming to ram into and explode them with minimal collateral damage. Then Staren enters the fray, the machine manifesting an energy sword to slice at the intestine-wormy-things while blasting at rock slugs with the beam cannons if he can ever get a free moment of /not/ being under assault!

Priscilla has posed:
    Yang swiftly encounters the fact that she is accidentally slightly overprepared for this. Should she wind up tosses into the drink undesirably, her Aura will keep her safe for a brief period of time before starting to get debilitatingly ill, and as evidenced by the creatures 'evolutionary' designs on display, both fire and blunt trauma are absurdly effective against their squishy, amorphous, damp and clammy bodies. They're far from pleasant to punch, the sensation being more gut-tinglingly revolting rather than the satisfying crunch of a broken Grimm jaw, but each blast from Ember Celica rips the things open like burnt tissue paper. Their sheer size makes for easy platforms and their distended abdomens are difficult for them to reach, though after churning through a couple, she'll have gotten ample attention, and within a short span of time, one of the others is open her, more out of a desire to eat her than to defend its 'comrades' though. Rather than attempting to grab or latch on to her as could be expected however, its weird, hand-like forebody spins into a whirling blender of thick, hefty, chitinous blades with a grotesque contortion of its entire body like the length of a wet towel, easily enough to slice a couple of people in half stood side by side.

    Meant for swimming through viscious, soupy water, the critters that crawl to land are not especially agile there, and so Reiji, Psyber, Mizuki and Staren have an ample window of shooting fish in a barrel, none of their targets being particularly well armoured, and thus easily shredded open by hails of wood, metal and lightning. The kind of gore that results from them being hit would probably be disgustingly excessive on a vertebrate, but for these things it just looks like popping big, nasty blood bags. Insects don't even have pain receptors, right? This should barely even be a sweat for a veteran Hunter, and still a fairly banal exercise for the other two sat from afar, though they do take more physical trauma to get them to stop moving than energy fire, due to how full their bodies are of heavily dispersed, primitive organs.

    They're significantly more lively in close combat, even with Kirito and Tomoe but still not particularly smart. Playing cautious means it's not too difficult to back up and take them out one or two at a time, but not paying attention to where one is going means that it becomes easy to accidentally back up into another platoon of the nasty things from behind, especially with the great majority of them converging on the latter elite, popping taunts and firing off blasts of much-hated bright light. Kirito's speed plays to his advantage as DPS is more useful against the massed, meaty fodder; low soak high HP; though it's Tomoe being besieged with the things, and threatened to be bogged down in them, that gives him room to dance around them. Kimiko creates a brief opening for Tomoe to gain some distance from encroachment, as the little critters seem to steer clear of the big ones instinctively, even when a bathtub worth of blood comes pouring out of it.

    About half of the things have been carved through when Lezard opens up, and as is predictable from the archetypical black mage 'nuke caster', that number immediately drops to a quarter. More bizarrely however, though the slivers of Dark don't seem to be such bane to the critters as good old fire, the area being bathed in it immediately makes them start to turn tail and aim back for the swamp, willing to tolerate the half-boiled water rather than face that.

Staren has posed:
    They keep killing, but there seems to be an endless supply of monsters...

    Well, if they /keep/ killing, the monsters should eventually all be gone, right?

    That this may be genocide doesn't bother Staren. These creatures are primitive and seemingly mindless -- their value to civilization, to the lives of the people in Blight Town, is negative. Every slug or worm killed is a little closer to a brighter future for those people.

    And tireless steel and circuits can work as long as it takes to make that happen...

    Staren cuts through the monsters. Are they even able to /damage/ the S-3's armor plating? It's certainly harder than any natural skin...

    "Need some help there?"

    Staren's machine stomps up to Tomoe, and tries to lift her out of the group and place her on its back with one hand, while cutting down the worms with a great swing of that plasma sword with the other.

    Lezard is definately a helpful person to have around today, Staren notices. Like a dark mirror, Lezard's applications of extreme and flashy force are what the situation calls for... but some of the monsters are running! "Great, we're gonna have to get more explosives and blow up the /rest/ of the lake to catch those things...!"

Kimiko Shinobu (570) has posed:
    Kimiko expected the monster matter to be handled swiftly, and it is. It isn't yet entirely done, but with those gathered here, she has trust it will be.

    Placing one hand on the edge of a platfom, bracing a leg below it, she kicks her other leg up and over before finally dropping her large chain-net of pilgrim's gear onto one of the lower, but habitable, parts of town to start sorting through things. Only, it' not so much 'sorting' as it is 'causing the wood, cloth, and leather bits to drop off' as she magically encourages the metal to flow around. Apart from a complete lack of heat, it's much like reforging, as what she touches is briefly, or all intents, liquid steel.

    She makes her way back up toward where people are actually staying. She'll start in the most used areas and work outward, finding spots where the rust and wear on the pins holding this ramshackle place together show the most threat of going. She's no carpenter, nor architect, but she has the strength to hold up a bridge, and the power to make rust slough off, and now she has plenty of material to fill in the cracks that that will leave.

Yang Xiao Long has posed:
    Yang is enjoying herself, it's not like nailing a Beowolf in the face hard enough to dislocate its entire skull from its spine... but the explode satisfyingly. She does get a little concerned, when that other one comes and whips at her with that mass of bladed, barbed tendrils.

    Yang brings her arms up, and tanks the hit, being knocked out into the dank water, from which she LITERALLY explodes with a blast of flame.

    Leaping clear of the water, she wallkicks then comes down on the offending slugmonster from above, her hair blazing gold in the darkness, actually glowing with flames licking from within the golden strands. Once she's dealt with that thing, she looks over towards Staren and the fleeing monsters. "Hit me!" she shouts to him. "Hard as you can!"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki sighs with relief as she sees the last of the beasts slithering back into the boiling cesspit that they came from. Thank fortune for the small favor of delivering her from that short skirmish unscathed. Still, she dusts off her sleeves to glean some further measure of psychological comfort, of closure, before allowing the sphere of distortion surrounding her person to collapse and her blade to fade into nothingness once more. She joins the tips of her fingers before allowing her hands to fall to her waist together as though she were making the 'closing' gesture of Tai Chi. She gives herself a few more moments of pause to simply breath and recompose herself before looking to Staren.

    "Don't fret," She says. "I don't believe they will be able to survive in the water for long now. Either they will die in hiding or return to the surface where we may have another go at them, but no matter the means, they will be finished in the end. I believe, therefore, that we may call this a success. For the time being, at least."

    ... or perhaps they won't even need to wait that long. It seems that this person demanding that Staren 'hit her' might have another plan in mind? Mizuki quirks her brow in interest, balling a hand at her chin in curiosity.

    Never, never a dull moment.

Priscilla has posed:
    "There's no need to thank someone for something so obvious!" Solaire insists to Mizuki shortly beforehand. "You've done more than enough to be deserving of far more trust than that after all!" He then turns to look at the rotting, fetid swamp as the others clamber down to it, and then engage in battle with its repulsive denizens. ". . . it does have a way of doing that though, doesn't it? Amongst many others. They stick with you, in a sense. It's hard to entirely forget them, where their experiences become part of any seeker of strife." The literary minded author can likely imagine a faraway smile following. "Indeed. There is plenty enough to see to. Absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say, but it's a little too painful for people to be apart forever."

    Konoe finds her magic working equally well as the native equivalent in this instance, being rooted in the same kind of basis in most every appreciable way, despite the distinct cultural twist on it. The results are rarely particularly pleasant. There's a lot of purging of built up gunk in the lungs, veins and other organs going on, which makes for less than pretty and glamourous work, though seeing the inevitable deep, clear breath or equivalent afterwards is perversely satisfying in the way of popping and draining an especially large and irksome zit. "Ah, a cleric of the East then." Rhea says, clutching some kind of white and gold cloth talisman to her collar for a moment. "I think this may be my first time meeting one. The only other from your country I've met was a rather surly masked fellow." She may be confusing local, vaguely Japanese customs for an actual fantasy Japan somewhere else. After all, what are the chances they could be coincidentally similar, right?

    "By the end of one week we'll likely have twice as much as we need!" Solaire replies boisterously to Kyra elsewhere. "I scarcely believed the scale of what we were doing here until I had the ledgers from your representatives. The fact that a covenant like yours exists out there is a wonderful reassurance that such a common good unites people even in strange and distant lands." Kyra may be a minor celebrity at this point after last time. After all, she sticks out enough to be memorable, and this did all clearly stem for her attempts at initiation, and so it isn't long before she's crowded in. Gudako is getting much the same effect as soon as the kids realize what the boxes are full of, which requires a couple of parents coming in and being strict to stop them going back for seconds or thirds, having no idea how this works. It doesn't prevent a couple from trying to get into Caster's tails though. It's easy to be full of energy after you've just been cured of double leukaemia.

Gudako Ordria (908) has posed:
    "So you want us to dig a hole and wipe out some dragonoids? You know, their scales and organs are usually pretty high-tier components for stuff. It could be worth the trip!" Gudako answers Lezard, after taking mental note of what Solaire's deal is. Well, if Priscilla holds him in such high esteem that must mean he's off-limits. "Ooh, why don't we invite the Fangs over for that? It'll be like tea and biscuits social except more like... tunnel digging and dragonslaying social. Plus we'd want enough people on hand that none of the bodies go to waste!"

    Caster and Berserker being done handing out junks to kids, they'll probably entertain them with magic tricks. Failing that, Berserker is a very large fox and cat rolled into one, they can pet her tail and ears or something. Or Caster's! It's kids, so it's alright.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    The thing about trying to kill an entire swamp is that there is often a whole lot of swamp to kill. Reiji is a man with far too many weapons to ever be reasonable, but he still only has two arms to fight with. Still, as Lezard calls down the heavy artillery and his compatriots tear through the slugs little by little by little, Reiji continues to dedicate himself to the wholesale slaughter of a species gone rampant.

    Still, regardless of whether they destroy the entire lot in one go, all they need to do is to ensure that their numbers are reduced to the point that any further outbreaks can be dealt with by the people of Blight Town. And, if these creatures are responsible for the poison in this place, maybe eradicating them- and their toxins- will prevent them from multiplying further?

But that's pure speculation for now.

    Hollywood clicks empty as he discharges its final few rounds into a cluster of fleeing worms. They're in the water, now. If he intends to chase after them, then it'll be in their own territory, but Reiji is not without his methods of dealing with the creatures. He packed an extra tool for just such an occasion.

    The exorcist snatches a uniquely odd pistol from a holster at his hip. He joins it with the shorter of his three swords: the lightning blade Chirai. Reiji swings the katana from its sheath, unleashing an arcing crescent of lightning into the waters surrounding the fleeing beasts. He follows up with a few shots from the handgun, its bullets immediately erupting into tiny electrical suns as they leave the barrel.

It's a fine piece of Grathmelded technology, this Brahmastra Vajra. He'll have to thank Misha for it again later.

    Regardless, with the creatures on the run, electrifying the waters around them is probably the best bet for clearing as many of them away as possible. And so Reiji keeps up the assault, launching wave after wave and bolt after bolt of lighting after the fleeing beasts.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is glad they got some really heavy hitters like Psyber and Kirito are here. New faces like Yang are welcome too along with the rest of the team in the fighting. Staren's plan has worked well but she might be getting over her head. She's got a lot of attention which is her job but it's possible for her to be overwhekemd and it's looking like this might be a possiblity here. She could usre some help but she doesn't call out for it everyone else has thier own issues, thankfully? STaren bails her out of the fire as she will get lifted up.

"I owe you one!"

She'll use her sword to slice into those things they get close and up to Staren's gril for the moment. She's not to proud to accept help however that's just asking for it. Once she gets a moment to center herself she'll get back into the figtht and she's learned a few things. She'll end up acting like a turret for the moment firing off light spells and the odd burst of flame. All the while with each cast the glowing golden runes dance about her. Still it seems to be about over here.

"Not bad Yang! Not bad at all!"

Staren has posed:
SPECIAL INTERRUPT POSE!

    The S-3 turns and looks at Yang for a second or two. It's not immediately clear where its optics are, but the impression of staring might get across anyway. It can't really shrug, though. "Well, alright. Tomoe, hold on or hop off!" The plasma sword deactivates and the mecha grabs a metal pole off it's back -- Scott never forgot that fight when he showed up to fight /without a weapon/, so ever since, every version of the S-3 has always brought its own metal club /just in case/.

    The S-3 starts running towards Yang. The jetpack kicks on, adding to its speed. It holds the metal pole with both hands clasped close to one end like a baseball bat.

    There's the windup...

    And as the mecha runs up to Yang, it SWINGS, clubbing her with all of its robot strength and momentum. Hopefully whatever she's going to do works or this is going to be super embarassing and painful.

Konoe Kanno (847) has posed:
     Ah, that was always pleasant, watching built up pus and gunk filter out of someone's system...and by pleasant, she meant not at all. But Konoe kept a straight face, smiling patiently and working through her line of people brave enough to be treated by her, applying as much healing as she could manage. Her ears twitched at the sounds of combat off in the distance and she looked in that direction for a moment.

     "...?"

     Given the condition of this place, she didn't want to know what they were fighting out there. No, instead, she glanced at Rhea and nodded slowly. "Cleric from...the east?" Was Gensokyo 'the east'? Probably. And so the youkai just nodded. "Y-Yes...This is my first time meeting a cleric of your kind as well." She looked towards the locals lined up for her and smiled a tad under the breathing mask as she focused back on her work.

     "The people seem to like you."

Kirito has posed:
    These creatures go down easily! But... messily. Blood and guts and gore is left in Kirito's wake. Ewwwwwwww.

    Still, they're slow and predictable. He easily fends off beastly aggression with the flat of his blade and backflips out of danger. At other times he 'sidesteps,' dramatically skidding out of the way with a simple kick-off. He's having NO trouble weaving in and out of the masses... only a few times does he take blows to his back or sides, leaving him at eighty percent HP.

    Then he sees what Tomoe's up against... and draws his other weapon. Divination, the crystal-blue longsword to match Vox Unitas. Twirling both... he draws them back. "Uuuuuuoooooooaaaaaghhh!!"

    The swords GLOW. More than that, they IGNITE. Crimson light merges with raging flames. Kirito saw how potent fire was against these things and he's doing the same.

    "Dual Blades ORIGINAL Sword Skill... DOUBLE CIRCULAR!" He yells as dramatically as he can manage in accented English, throwing himself forward into the mass. 'Double Circular' turns out to be quite a move. Eight strikes of spinning! First a horizontal spin for wide sweeping, then a plunge forward with both swords twirling for energized blows like a weird drill!

Yang Xiao Long has posed:
    CLANG! The swing stops cold as Yang grabs the Club, absorbing the force and gaining a very /dangerous/ look in her eyes. They even change colour! Glowing blood red in the gloomy darkness. She growls out. "Thanks." and then, she leaps up to kick off the S-3's shoulder, onto the wall and with a wallrun and another kick-jump, she leaps into the air above the water.

    "Get behind something!" she shouts, then with both gauntlets, fires down into the muck with those explosive bolts... are they /bigger/ now? Whatyever the case, they pierce into the rancid water, and EXPLODE like depth charges... likely trying to blast the fleeing monsters either apart directly, or back onto the dryish land for the others to take out.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    "Seeker of strife," Mizuki echoes in her conversation with Solaire. "Quite. I had always thought of strife as something more mental than physical, but this place has... done much to broaden my perspective on that issue, all told." As to the second comment, she can only sigh faintly. "Were it that no one had to, and that some perfect balance could be eternally maintained. But if such a perfect proportion of things is attainable in earnest, I've so very far to go in learning the 'how'."

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Gudako proposes bringing in the Fangs to make this a group effort. Lezard, noting the fire, not Dark weakness of the monsters, ceases his assault, especially when Staren jumps in. He does not seem particularly motivated to chase the remnants, instead turning to Gudako to consider this. "That is an excellent point. It would do much to show that we, too, have much to offer in our own... special way." The last is said with a slightly dry note. "Also, it would benefit them to get used to the local nature of Lordran, some of them may be interested in both the proximity of New Londo and Lost Izalith for research purposes. There are many beasts here who may possess useful components, including said drakes."

He nods. "Yes. I will make the necessary arrangements."

Priscilla has posed:
    If anyone has heard Gudako's and Lezard's secret villainous dialogue, nobody is about to stop them. Unlike what seems to be a fascination in most worlds, /nobody/ here likes magical, flying, fire breathing lizards, and the problem is simply that nobody is tough enough to get rid of them; aside from the one whose hatred of them is so legendary that he has an entire hall of the Anor Londo palace dedicated to mounting their heads. It /might/ be possible that some people are totally willing to not look this particular gift horse in the mouth, as that valley used to be a crucially important travelway before the awful things moved in. Really though, who could possibly be /that/ evil when accompanied by such generous Servants with such wonderfully fluffy tails? Nobody, that's who. Just look at all those happy children, some of whom may actually even eventually be educated as to what a tablet is and/or does.

    The bog beasts don't seem to be getting out of this one though. They've had their thousand years to make a mess of things down here, and they've failed to clean it up in time for Darwin coming home from vacation. As awful as it is, the water is still water, and thus the impurities in it conduct electricity admirably from Reiji, arcing through the metallic compounds especially and frying scores of the things as they plunge back into the bath. Those at the advancing shoreline are wiped out in an instant by Kirito spinning across them like a buzzsaw of destruction, those slipping around the beginning and end of the sword skill mowed down by Tomoe's levelled up magic skills. Once Yang thoroughly overdoes the excursion in the name of adrenaline-infused showmanship, scattering tattered flesh and steaming blood all over the gravel bank along with great big globs of sizzling gunk, it's a simple matter for Staren's mechanical prowess to steadily grind through the rest, hardly posing much of a direct threat in such dwindling numbers against a non-fleshy target. Finally, Ayako can do her work in /peace/ for a while.

    Kimiko will find that a good deal of the equipment dredged up, as is fairly common for Lordran, features very large amounts of thick and heavy steel and related alloys, and here and there certain articles are etched with very small quantities of titanite, making for a haul that is surprisingly much larger than it initially seemed, since most cloth and leather is barely a superficial covering now after having rotted for so long. She'll have a laborious process ahead of her though, as the pieces of the framework crucial and stressed enough to require metal reinforcement are uniformly close to failing as a rule nearer the water, simply due to the humidity and faint air acidity, though she has enough purified scrap to /add/ extra stability wherever she so desires.

Priscilla has posed:
    "There's no sense dividing the physical from the mental. Adversity is adversity, and seeking it makes the soul grow stronger." Solaire replies matter-of-factly to Mizuki. "It might sound more sophisticated to put labels on it, but try not to fall into that trap. Hardship is, in the end, the only way to become a better person than you were, that always works, if you can survive it. If it came from only one kind of living, we'd see a lot less wisdom in the world! After all, it only exists by being a perpetual state of imbalance, doesn't it?" It takes some serious working, but eventually Konoe and Rhea have essentially run through their crowd. Though some linger around, there's really nothing these people /own/ that they can give as gifts or repayment even if they wanted to, so the exchange is a little awkward. "I imagine it must be interesting. At least I think it is." she says. "That there are foreign gods who answer the same prayers, in their own ways." She smiles vaguely. "But then it isn't about being liked. It's about letting people know that there is a power out there that cares for them, and to give them the chance to know its tales and to seek its light."

    And finally, speaking of light, things wrap up in a spectacle as the gigantic mass of spider's webs at the far end of the cavern goes up in a building-sized ball of flame, silent one moment and spontaneously igniting into a roiling fireball the next, the backwash of prickling heat palpable on bare skin even a mile away. A pair of figures swathed in black can be seen exiting the inferno unharmed, turning to watch as the pearly silk burns away to slowly reveal ancient stonework underneath, strangely, or perhaps deliberately, untouched by the damp of so many years under all that obfuscation.

Staren has posed:
SOON AFTERWARD

    Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

    The twelve-foot-tall machine, soaked in ichor, makes its way to the town.

    "Your swamp monster problem has been taken care of.

    It walks off again.

Ayako Hasekawa has posed:
    Ayako blinks her eyes slowly. Explosions! Fire! Electricity! Blades cutting apart these monsters like nothing! People would probably pay to see something like this! Ayako certainly would. But that's besides the point! Once the action quiets down-and it does take a while-she slowly floats over to to the lake's water and dips a foot into it again.

    She thinks quietly to herself for a moment. "I... I think I can clean up the swamp here! It might take a while for me, and I might have to stay here for a while, but... I think I can." Ayako smiles softly and (ungh to anyone watching), slips into the ichor soaked, disgusting swamp water up to her waist. "Besides... I can help with healing the residents here at the same time too!"