437/The Lance of Kresnik - Prologue

The Lance of Kresnik - Prologue
Date of Scene:	17 August 2014
Location:	Rieze Maxia <RM>
Synopsis:	Milla calls for help to destroy a Spyrix, and it doesn't end well.
Thanks to:	People who attended!
Cast of Characters:	Crys Gattz, 13, Arthur Lowell, 96, 101, 106, 321, 340, 518, Zero Kiryu, 542
Tinyplot:	The Lance of Kresnik

---

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Fennmont-- the capital of Rashugal, a city where it is always night.
    The Spirit-lit Seat of Kings.

    It is a beautiful city, without a doubt. Most buildings produce their own light, an eerie gold that shines and illuminates the rest of the city. A few buildings shine a bright blue instead, and lamp-posts shine yellow and gold to keep the streets safe as well. Great streams of water flow everywhere through the city, with small bridges separating the districts. At this time of day, the weather is a bit cold, though it's not a very warm city even during 'day'. The architecture is a mix of modern and stone age, with larger buildings having been grown from the ground up. In fact, most have canopies for roofs, and Orda Palace, in the center of Fennmont, stands as a single gigantic tree, armored, guarded, and providing the most light.

    Those sensitive to spirits and elemental forces can tell this city is simply buzzing with activity. Those lights are from wind and fire spirits; those buildings are maintained by earth spirits. The water is alive with water spirits keeping it pure. Workers occasionally patrol, providing the spirits with mana in exchange for their services.

    General references:
     Building-style: http://tinyurl.com/qjax7hr
    Orda Palace: http://tinyurl.com/p8mworx
    Laforte: http://tinyurl.com/prto6rw

    Most of you, except Jude, have been called to the Laforte Research Center-- and have been told to arrive quietly. There's a Warp Gate just outside the city which would be ideal to come in quietly, as it is unguarded (the residents may not even know it exists). It seems that right now guards don't mind travellers don't much, and just let the tourists in without much fuss. Laforte stands out-- it's the biggest set of bright cyan buildings, in an otherwise mostly golden city. It is surrounded by water, and Milla has designated a rear entrance through some of the waterways as the perfect way in.

    It WAS guarded. Was is paramount, because where Milla waits, two guards in red armor have been knocked unconscious, and the bars keeping people from entering the building have been turned into still hot slag.

    The air around the building feels extremely off, though. Stagnant. The lights around it are dying, and there is a distinct lack of spirits here. A few puzzled workers are inspecting the lamp-posts and evidently don't understand what's happening.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri Stinson feels a call to many areas of the Multiverse ever since he had reforged his existence. It had taken him a long haitus from work in the field while he sorted out these new motivations and powers and tried to center himself back into reality. FIA had helped with keeping him anchored somewhat and so had a reminder of his past life: The WMAT.

    He finally felt centered and locked into his new consciousness enough to deploy to the field on an actual mission. A disorienting and daunting task. Were he an Infernal, or playing his part as a Solar, he knows how he would act. But in his new form, he has trouble predicting fully his own motivations and actions. And so he had searched for some time for a mission that alligned itself with his comfort zone.

    But enough waxing insecure about his new station in the Universe.

    The white-haired pilot carefully stepped out of the warp gate. As this was a quiet mission, there is no larger machine present. Instead, he is on foot and wielding a simple copper longsword across his back. He adjusts his scarf and then looks around, starting to head towards Milla Maxwell.

    "Yes. I have come to help with your rebellion against the forces which are oppressing spirits in your world." He says in a serious tone.

Crys Gattz has posed:
in for a Meseta, in for Kilo really and here she is. Crys knows things may be going down here and going bad. Sje leeps a low profile even for her and makes sure to not get into any troubl as she goes to catch up with Milla. She nods once to her as she pauses for a moment looking at the place wondering just what's going on.

She nods to see Yui make his arrival, well if they were going to raise some helll tonight? Yuri was someone she was happy to have along wit the team.

"Ready to go."

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro had offered her assistance upon seeing what the mission was; this had sounded important, and she'd been getting rather restless of late, not having been able to take too many missions. There had seemed to be a slightly stealthy element to this, but she's uncertain whether that's the case. Just in case, she was wearing a hooded cloak today. It doesn't actually make her any less obvious, being white with red trimming, but it's there.

    Also she's brought a dragon along, so it may be a doomed to failure effort. Even if he is currently the size of a flying housecat.

    She'll start over towards Milla, offering a smile to those that she knows.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    As a Syndicate-Listed Mission For the Helping of People, We Guess, Maybe? this little incursion into the City of Night had drawn many types of helper-people! Possibly because they could just show up easily. From the warp gate.

    From anywhere.

    And, so, the "Totally Most Normal Girl Who Is Not A Vampire, We Swear" Yuuki Kuran arrives, in a black Cross Academy uniform, looking... Eager.

    "So, how can I help?" She asks. There is a fire in her eyes, though she looks fairly drained and tired. There's no reason for that, though. No sir.

    "Also, I brought this idiot along." She offers with a wink and a thumb behind her. Where Zero probably is.

    He is probably scowling too. Like a grumpus.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum is feeling perplexed.

    She hasn't been so... uncertain about things in a long while, at home. The raid on her world was unusual, possibly game-changing, but there had been a deeper reason she hadn't discovered. This left her thoughtful and distracted, perfectly suited to jumping into a request like this.

    As usual, Chrys is here wearing a fancy dress, though somewhat less fancy than her usual ballgowns. It's more just a pretty sort that a noble might wear, quietly fluttering about her ankles as she makes her way to the meeting place. "I take it this is another of those places of... incident?"

    Oh look. There's Caro. "Oh, hello again~"

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    It's 8 o' clock. It's dark. Well, it's always dark, man -- it's Fennmont.

    It's been a busy couple of days for Jude. A practical, a Union meet-and-greet, a /bevy/ of reading assignments... even now, he's darting through the halls of Talim Medical to find a certain teacher to turn in a report before the school closes for the day. Only trouble is, he's nowhere to be found. The fevered student asks everybody, anybody about Doctor Haus's whereabouts... and no one knows.

    Eventually, his worry over his assignment turns to worry for his teacher's safety, and he leaves the school. Rushing through the central plaza, past the markets and Orda palace, he tears the city upside down. In fact, he narrowly avoids running clean in to a number of people. "Sorry!" He flips out of the way of a woman and her child, turning himself completely around... just so he can bump into a muscular blacksmith who sneers down at him. Jude promptly backs up and away, waving his hands like crazy.

    "P-Pardon me! Sorry!" He immediately rushes around the man, getting the heck out of there before he can be yelled at for the little mishap. But if that incident told him anything... it's that he needs to calm down. Finding cover behind a small market stall, he stops to catch his breath... and think. Had Doctor Haus /said/ anything about where he would be? Think, Jude, think! ... and that's when it hits him. /Laforte/! He had been called to visit the most renowned military research facility in Fennmont, and by Nachtigal himself no less! So... he was certainly okay. Right?

    ... probably right. But that also brings to mind all that of the disturbing things Milla had said. Things about Spyrix. About spirits dying. None of that... /should/ be going on in the city itself, but what if his own teacher ended up being involved with all of that? Suddenly, his worry is revived. Even... even if he won't -break in- to Lafote, he could at least take a look at the building to calm his nerves. So head heads that way.

    And that's when he sees them. Members of the Union all gathered by the waterway in the research district, headed by that crazy girl who called herself Maxwell.

    ... he wonders if they've seen him yet. But more than that, he wonders -why the heck they're here-. Some of them look like they're ready for war, which certainly doesn't help to allay his worries. So... you know what? He's going to go right up and ask. There is something going on here, something big. And if there's something wrong in his world, killing spirits, pushing the world even closer to war... he doesn't want to be left in the dark. Haus can wait; he needs to ask Milla a few questions.

    Stepping forward and into full view of the group, he looks directly at her. "Milla!" Definitely not the voice she wanted to hear. "... why are all of these people here? And what are you doing back in Fennmont?" He clenches his fists slightly. "If there's something linked to the Spyrix here, or something else bad... I need to know."

    Everyone teases him for being a do-gooder honors student. And maybe they're right. But he just can't let things like this go.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    The only reason Tir is here is because there's some serious stuff going down, judging by what happened last time. He's also fully aware that /many/ of the Elites here are pretty competent, which suits him just fine. The Runebearer is perfectly happy sort of sulking in and leaning on his staff, letting the others handle this sort of thing.

    He'll just be over here looking at the slagged bars, thinking about how it was done and... paying attention, just in case he /is/ needed.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    Trailing along to one side of Yuuki is a rather grumpy-looking shadow. Strictly speaking Zero hadn't chosen to take this mission, but his personal assignment at the moment is to protect Yuuki. Which means, of course, that if she goes into a potentially dangerous situation, by default he is required to do so. He is wearing his usual black-and-white school uniform with a long coat over the top of it, but he still probably looks at least somewhat out of place under ordinary circumstances. That's fine, though. People who dress like JRPG protagonists are likely right at home in this place.

    While indeed rather grumpy, he isn't quite on the edge of being in a godawful mood as he usually is. If the setting were more appropriate Yuuki might get a pronounced reaction out of him for her jab, but as it is...

    "I came here to keep this useless girl alive." He says, jerking his head vaguely in Yuuki's direction. A light clinking comes from beneath his clothing, the rattle of a chain. Though he appears to be unarmed at a glance, it would seem that's not quite the case.

Mir (340) has posed:
    "Who is this boy?" Mir asks, jerking her head at Jude. Mir had, of course, come when the mention of the matter was brought up, but her current outfit was far less blending in than the rest. Probably. For one thing, she had to jerk her head toward Jude because her hands were full. Not with weapons, or food, or anything like that, no. In fact she wasn't wearing much of anything, just a thin two-piece bathing suit that clings to her pale form.

    There is also an inner tube. It has a ducky head on one end. She is holding it up around her waist with both hands while she wanders in toward the facility.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Arrive quietly" she says. Hah! Arrive QUIETLY!? Who do you think this is?! Someone who's NOT ARTHUR LOWELL??? You think this isn't the ROCKET-POWERED JERK WHO EVERYONE MUST KNOW?

    Arthur arrives quietly. He refuses to turn off the swaggering gait and typical overconfident striding that he always employs on his way in from the warpgate. The god-boy has arrived incognito, which means wearing his old Mundane Jerk outfit! Just some street clothes, might be a bit off the times but shouldn't draw attention. He walks like he knows exactly what he's doing when he gets to the guarded side of the structure, and he walks exactly like he ought to be there when he gets to the KO'd guards. "'Ey! Yo! WHAT UP, bro." He flashes a quick, disarming grin to Jude.

    "HONEST FACTS, this shit was totally like this when we got here." He gesturez over at Milla, briefly talking to her. "'EY, YO. This guy COOL?" He gestures vaguely at Jude, talking as if he wasn't there. "Don' wanna get my STEALTH KOs on up in this shit without it bein' REAL." He stretches out in a relaxed way, as if limbering up.

    He also waits for Milla to give her explanations or briefing, before probably trying to be the first person to start confidently striding his way right into the building. He's a little on edge because of the smell.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    People trickle in, one by one; Milla's rather happy to have this support. She'll nod, smile and greet people individually, obviously, but makes a sign with her finger to keep quiet. All the loud greetings, the arrival noises, they increase their chances to get spotted, which would be pretty bad.

    This is why, when Jude arrives, he is immediatly wrapped in a bubble of water-- Undine, semi-transparent, hovers around it, glaring at the boy inside, most likely preventing him from breathing. Milla takes a moment to notice who it is, and gestures for Undine to withdraw, at which point the now wet and agitated Jude can hit the floor. Milla frowns.

    She explains, to those who don't know: "That is... Jude Mathis. He is a student here. Jude, why are you here? You cannot afford to be branded an enemy of Fennmont if we are caught. You should go home and forget you saw us."

    Then, to the others (and technically, answering Jude's question too): "Let's go. The longer we sit out here the longer that Spyrix is able to operate. Once inside, we can either go loud and make a run for it, or operate on the idea that as long as nobody sees the bodies we are still being stealthy."

    Milla, and the four presences that hover around her unseen, head inside, through the entrance which has been slagged for entry. Inside, it's... well, a waterway! Looks like a sewer system under Laforte, used to evacuate and cycle water. It's clean, don't worry. There's no even any foul smells down here. Evidently everything is purified before being dumped back into the water Fennmont sits on.

    Ahead, a maintenance staircase leads up into the facility. There's six guards stationed at the base, just talking about whatever right now. A sports game, apparently, where a sports team scored an arbitrary amount of sports points and won a sports cup of some nature or another.

    The guards wear bright red plate armor, Rashugal's color. They would have seen similar guards all over the city on their way in. They have halberds, sometimes shields. Definitely no Spyrix, they're just random dudes.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "I could kill all six with a painful and fast-acting disease." Yuri suggests helpfully and in a complete monotone, "I understand humans are still quite vulnerable to that." He says, looking around to see what people think of his suggestion.

    "It would play well into your idea of stealth, since they'd be too busy vomiting and dying to raise an alarm." He adds, explaining why this is a stealth option.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro looks a little bit surprised at at least one of the arrivals, and will offer a slightly shy wave over to Mir. She'll work up enough to at least speak up and say "Aah. Hello, Mir. Are you worried about falling into the water today?" She asks, giving the most charitable spin she can possibly imagine to the anti-stealth equipment of the reyvateil.

    From there, though, she'll follow into the facility, keeping her own voice down as Jude is possibly semi-drowned, though she'll at least work up to looking concerned while that happens.

Mir (340) has posed:
    Mir actually smiles in a nice way toward Caro. "Oh, hello again, Caro." Looks like at least one Unionite is on her outright good side. But then the mission begins! "Oh... this is just one of the results of the Dives. They give me new outfits that adjust the potency of different portions of my songs."

    The need for STEALTH is stated! Mir recognizes this and is ready for STEALTH by distraction! Which is to say... she walks right out into sight of the guards, carrying her little swimming tube, barefoot and still in the swimsuit. "You there! I was told there was a swimming pool down here!"

    The Reyvateil lifts her arms, "Show me where, or I will DESTROY YOU ALL!" This causes the tube to drop to her feet, requiring a quick squat to pick it up again and stand up straight. "Hurry, no dallying."

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Looking to Mir and Arthur, he begins to answer: "I'm Jude Ma--"

    GLUB.

    The boy is mercilessly caught in a watery bubble, courtesy of Undine. He instinctively moves his hands to his neck, flailing his appendages for air. Soon, though, the bubble bursts, and he's thrown - sopping wet - to the ground. He hacks a few times, gasping to fill his lungs before Milla addresses him. Staggering to his feet, he moves some soaked hair out of his face... just in time to see everyone going inside the freaking lab without him! I don't know how to tell you this politely, lady lord, so I'll say it rudely: that ain't gonna fly.

    He jumps up off of the ground, defiantly rushing in after them. He comes up behind Milla and, when he knows she can hear him, he adds: "If there's something wrong here, I can't just sit back and--!" Blink. Wait, are those guards over there? There are totally guards over there. He -FLIPS- way the hell out of the way, squeezing himself into a corner where he hopefully won't be seen. Needless to say, he's appalled when everyone else doesn't do so with him -- it's kinda just now registering that he's trespassing on government property. In war time, no less.

    Too late does the guy realize why Milla was warning him not to be here... but it's not like that would've changed his response. Taking a deep breath and peeling himself off of the wall, he whispers, "... is there -really- no better way for us to do this? I mean, breaking in, fighting people... -killing people-..." He shakes his head. "It feels wrong."

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz keeps quiet after her intial greetings checking out was coming, she notices Tir, she's heard much about him, spoken to him on the radio but never seen him in person. He wasn't as imposing as she expected when she thinks about it. Arthur also drops ion and the rest also arrive. She's about to say something else as Jude arrive. She takes note of the guard and makes of her mind to show restrtaint if they are not using Spyrix they are just caught up and bad way or thing could get Mir to do an amazing distraction.

Crys is honestly praying that Mir's plan works. Her mag hovers near her head waiting and keeping quiet.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    It is Yuri who responds to Jude before Milla can. The Exalt turns to Jude and says in a calm tone, "Those who would kill another solely for their own benefit lose their right to claim they should not be killed as a solution to the problems they create. Your viewpoint discounts the fact that their actions contribute to a greater form of murder."

    "You should not kill others if you are not prepared for someone to eventually kill you."

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Idly, Chrysanthemum quietly points out, "If you wanted to keep the humans alive, Mir may not have been the best choice to send out." Not that she cares, because that's going to be one hell of an amusing sight no matter what Mir ends up doing.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Milla sighs as Jude follows; she turns towards him, whispering back, while Mir goes off to distract the guards: "I too wish there was another way, but those who choose to use Spyrix know what they are doing. If we are to avoid war as a consequence of our actions, the best plan is to go in, eliminate the threat, and then go back out. Anything else may spark a greater conflict and end even more lives, Jude," Milla says, mostly agreeing with Yuri in this case.

    MIR walks up to the guards in her swimsuit, and they look at her. At least one appears highly flustered and volunteers to step forward. "Err. Miss, I know the city's over water, but you shouldn't just take a swim wherever you want. This is a military complex, you know?" The one singular guard motions for the way Mir came from. "Please leave the same way you came... actually, hold on, weren't there guards at the gates? Did they just let you through?"

    The other five are making fun of him for being so flustered behind his back.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    The appearance of Jude Mathis, being caught in a sphere of water and silenced abruptly, appears to agitate Zero a little bit more. He focuses on the boy in the bubble, right up until he's freed of it. There are all manner of beasts that he's comfortable killing, but taking open action against somebody who basically hasn't done anything... convenient though it may be, it doesn't sit well with the hunter. He glances towards Milla, and then back towards the boy. The attitude is one that he's familiar with, and soon his attention turns to Yuuki.

    This, his look says. This is exactly what you do.

    "I can take some of them down nonlethally, if that is your preference. I'm not in the habit of killing humans." He asides to Jude, as the bulk of them enter the waterway. There are guards up ahead, and personally Zero would prefer not to kill human foes. But it sounds like some of the people who are with them are going to be acting lethally no matter what happens. A moment's consideration passes, and he fishes around the inside of his coat for something.

    What he draws out again is a spool of thin, fine wire. Probably sharp too, if drawn tightly enough. There's enough of the stuff to tie a few people up with, though it is looped about itself so that it can be practically used as a weapon at the moment. Conventionally, it would probably just be used for strangling somebody to death.

    It's doubtful there's enough wire to disable AND tie up a whole bunch of guards, though. This batch and a few others besides.

    While waiting for confirmation on a preferred plan of action, Mir executes a bizarre plan. Zero simply looks flatly incredulous, and refrains from commenting or intervening.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Mir going by him and saying she'll handle it gets no shortage of grinning from Arthur. Not because he doesn't believe she totally can! But because whatever her plan is, it's probably gonna be good. So he hangs back and lets her do whatever Mir is about to do! He keeps to one side, back in the waterway, peeking out just enough to see what she's gonna do.

    Yuri Stinson gets a quick thumbs-up. "THIS GUY knows his shit." Arthur says, as an aside. "Y'wanna know MY ADVICE? Do what you're COMFORTABLE WITH. Me? I'm comfortable with BEATING A GUY IMMOBILE for bullshit shenanigans like this. If other people start doin' the KILLING, well HELL, that's THEIR THING, yeah?" Arthur shrugs vaguely. Then he jerks a thumb to Mir. "Doesn't matter much. Let's CHILL and see what HILARITY 'bout to happen up in THIS SHIT."

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    "Oh, I see. I hope this one serves you well, then." Caro says, cheerily, then watching as Mir makes her way over towards the guards. She'll whisper at the others. "We should probably take advantage of her distraction of them and go. I'm sure that she has a brilliant plan; she always seemed to have something good in mind when we were trying to save her world."

    Caro may be putting rose colored nostalgia glasses on that, but noone else there is likely to contradict her.

    "Oh, oh, but we shouldn't kill them if we don't have to. They're just doing a job, right?"

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude swivels his head around to look at Yuri... and his words inspire an almost instant dip in the boy's expression. "But..." He shakes his head again once Milla finishes. "A lot of them -don't- know what they're doing. If we could just talk to them..." He averts his gaze, sighing. "... but there's not time to do that with everyone, I know. Just, please, don't kill anyone if you don't have to. Some of them are innocent."

    Shifting his gaze to Arthur, he gives a thoughtful, delayed nod. "I'm a healer. If anyone gets hurt, just let me know." He winces a few times as people keep saying that lethality doesn't matter, but he thinks better of saying anything. And hey, at least he sort of gets his way in the end.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    "I... have a feeling we'll get more answers as we go in, but, uh..." Yuuki begins, before looking back at Zero. "Hey! I'm not useless. And we're here to help." She grumbles, looking offput.

    Zero and Yuuki have matching uniforms! It's potentially adorable. It is most likely IMMENSELY IGNORABLE.

    To Milla, Yuuki confides - "I'm not really useful for much, it's true. I have... uh... Powers? But they're mostly useful for breaking things. Like tables. And doors. And walls. So, uh... Yeah. I'll let Zero and other people handle the stealth for now." She offers, before sniffing the air. Sniff sniff.

    She frowns, drawing a small metal rod from a small holster on her leg. It is entirely mundane as a rod.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz nods in agreement with Zero.

"If they are not in the bad candy I don't see a need to take them down."

she says quierly Then Arthur just, she stares.This guy is a god? Okay he's the strangest god she's ever run into. She however leans to Zero's camp.

"If you can disable them do it. They are not packing the bad candy as I said."

IT's likely Jude is tright these guys have no clue.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri looks at Jude for a long moment and then says, "Very well. I will try it your way and we will see how it works."

    "Greetings!" Yuri Stinson shouts in a much more cordial voice, walking over to stand near Mir, "Myself and the lovely young lady in the outfit that I'd love to get one of for FIA..." He blinks, "Sorry, I got sidetracked! Greetings! I am Yuri. I am here to help the Rebellion of the spirits your commanders are enslaving. One of my friends has requested I attempt to talk to you peacefully, so I will appraise you of the situation."

    "You are being given a chance to surrender and leave. Your actions contribute to the larger machinations of a system that wishes to enslave and kill the spirits that govern this world. This is a form of tyranny, but I do not currently hold you malice over it, for you are simply cogs in a machine. I have now made you aware of your participation in this act, so if you continue there will be consequences."

    He points at one guard, "If you do not leave, I will grab him..." And then he points at a different guard, "And impale you with him. You will die from the bleeding and severe internal damage and he will drown on the pulped mass of your internal organs." He points at two more guards, "I will grab you both and smash you together until you cease to be separate individuals and become a gelatinous mass of flesh, bone, and organs thats last thoughts will be praying for the sweet release of death."

    He points at the guard talking to Mir, "I will then grab him and use him as a screaming meat shield while you shoot at me. He will die. I will beat the last guard to death with his corpse, completing my flurry of ultraviolence."

    "Or you can all calmly set down your weapons and decide you have always wanted to own shops and farm."

Mir (340) has posed:
    Well, Mir's respone to NOT being immediately escort to a swimming pool was going to be 'blow them up' but apparently they're innocent? Mir snorts incredulously at that and shakes her head, sighing. "What? Guards? Why wouldn't they? I'm pretty sure they're the ones who told me there's a poo- oh, never mind."

    Because right then, Yuri comes in and provides the perfect distraction for her to start to Sing.

    Sweet strains of violin and piano suddenly lilt through the room, and Mir's voice floats out. The Translation Effect does work, but it transmits just... vague feelings of fatigue and exhasperation, of tiredness and apathy.

    Little floating fairies in nurse outfits materialize. Mir had to make this Song up on the fly, so it's not super effective if they're tough sorts, but she's betting they aren't. The little fairies all swoop in and try to chloroform the group.

    "It's LIKE Destroying..."

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    Tir speaks up quietly from where everyone else is. "I don't pretend to know a lot about negotiating..." Which is true! He doesn't! "But I think from now on we shouldn't let the guy named 'Dark Hero' and the girl whose claim to fame is 'attempted genocide of all humans' handle talking their way through the guards."

    See? He can try to be the voice of reason, too.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude looks to Tir... and facefaults. Without another word, he looks to Milla with an expression that very clearly asks 'Why the hell did you bring these people along again?'.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum has a candy bar now, and is munching on it. She doesn't actually need to eat, but she can enjoy it and this seems like a good time. "Snickers?" She offers another one to anyone nearby. "It wouldn't be the most bloodless route, nor the most efficient, but letting Mir and Stinson handle all of the negotiating would definitely be the most /entertaining/ route I can think of."

    She sighs, "But I think we've dallied enough here. If you INSIST upon keeping them alive, I can always stop my weapon from being fatal like I usually do when people get uptight about this."

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    This is the most dysfunctional group of lunatics that Zero Kiriyu has ever had the (mis?)fortune of being involved with. He resists the urge to make a face at the explanation of who these two at the front line are. If it works, he supposes it's just as well... and he doesn't know a whole lot of regular people who could endure such threats and suggestions. At least, so long as those people believed the threats came from a reasonably credible source.

    Seems like the whole thing is kind of moot, though. The girl in the bathing suit takes action to mop things up decisively. He slips out of cover and strolls right down the far end of the waterway where Yuri and Mir are conducting their intimidation/chloroform strategies, unwinding the long wire inbetween his hands.

    Frankly, he's fairly certain that there's nothing he can do to make this situation better OR worse by revealing himself, so he feels no great urge to stay put. Worse comes to worst, he can just help engage the armored men and tie them down. They need a way to make it look like everything is alright, though. Hmm...

    A light keening, like metal scraping against metal, issues from between Zero's hands as his wires grind against one another. This isn't even slightly ominous.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    "Wh... what..."

    The guards point their halberds at Yuri the moment he appears, but the certainly with which he says those things... "What are you even talking about? Enslaving spirits? We're working on new spirit artes here, nothing like what you're talking about at all!" No clue, really. Still...

    Mir's spell takes effect, and they weaken and start feeling fairly detached from this whole situation. One of the guards looks back to the others. "So... erm... take the chance he's serious or not?" "No." "No." "Yawn." "Whu?" "Um... no?" "Right, so... settled. Let's just. Yeah let's just go."

    Normal humans who don't want to die.

    They drop their halberds, probably because of Mir's spell, and just slink off towards the entrance that Milla led the group in from. The halberds turn out to be completely mundane steel weapons. The ladder up is now available.

    As people go in, they find themselves within one wing of the Laforte Research Center. A massive rectangular room, with dozens of doors to either side leading into other areas. It's a bit like a gigantic school hallway or hospital wing. It is as bright and blue as it appeared to be outside, but here there are no spirits. Guards occasionally patrol walkways, and there are multiple ways to go.

    There is an elevator shaft, which looks unusually reinforced. The kind even an Elite would have to try especially hard to break through. There's several doors, each labeled as laboratories-- one of which has a strong scent of blood coming from it. There's an access corridor leading to another wing, and the way to the entrance lobby on the other side.

    In total there's about a dozen guards in this room. Some have hounds with them. None of them are on ground level, and so none of them spot the group yet. Most are on the second and third story walkways, which can be accessed by flying or using staircases to either side. It's likely most of them will need to be silenced in order to roam freely here.

    Milla glances towards the elevator. "Undine says we need to use that to reach the Spyrix. It looks locked. One of the guards might have a keycard." Then to Jude, idly: "Why are you here, at any rate? Is it not a bit late for a student?"

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur observes the speech and the singing with a big grin. It's less a presumptuous "look at how amusing these people are" grin and more a "wow this is fun" kind of grin. There's a quick snap from Arthur. He attempts to twist and warp space severely, specifically around the waterway exit the group came in through. The group of guards, when they head out, MIGHT, if the world is space-magic compatible, find themselves in an entirely different city. Not like this will displace them forever, but it'll keep them from calling in any alarms while they're out of here!

    Quiet, subtle godhood.

    We'll get to what he does on the next part shortly, probably based on whatever plans the rest of the group seems to be conceiving.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    "We're going to have to knock out more of the guards, aren't we?" Caro asks after being informed about the keycard. She's less disapproving of the methods of Yuri and Mir than most of her allies here were. Mostly because, in the end, they had shown restraint, and that's what Caro wants to see.

    She'll seem to consider. "I can probably go after them, but it would be more violent than what Mir had to do. Maybe we should try to get them to come after us one at a time?" She asks, not certain if that will work well enough or not.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "You have made the decision that allows you to keep on living. I hope you will go home and enjoy the new life you have been gifted today." Yuri says with a smile on his face, clearly proud of these men for deciding not to participate in tyranny. Of course, he also blinks at Tir a few times, "Is this because many thought my description was too graphic? I wanted to impress the gravity of their situation upon them."

    He then looks to Mir, "But seriously, where can I get an outfit like that for FIA?" He asks her before seeming content to follow along with the others until they reach the next room of guards.

    He looks to Jude, "Should I speak to them again?"

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Ah, this is the sort of challenge Chrys can appreciate! A delicate sneaking through a webway of walkways, avoiding the sensitive noses of hounds and the notice of guards! She smiles, then sniffs the air. "Blood is coming from that direction," she notes quietly, before sh clasps one of the crystals in her satchel and... vanishes from sight.

    Thus invisible, she floats up to the walkways and quietly starts a circuit around the room. She's not invisible to scent(inscentible?), but that doesn't matter, for when she reappears she holds out a handful of small crystals.

    "That should help us sneaking about. Also, if anyone wants to bark like a dog, take a crystal. You know, for fun."

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude heaves a sigh of relief when the soldiers drop their weapons and leave. In fact, in a show of appreciation and good faith, Jude smiles in the direction of Yuri and Mir. Rather than looking grateful, though, it seems more like a look of relief. As in, 'Thank God they just paint the room red'. He dutifully follows along with the group, though, breathing deeply (and often) to maintain his composure.

    Some of the apprehension dissolves at the familiarity of the halls, however. As you could imagine, 'schools and hospital wings' are things he's kinda well-adjusted to at this point. That is, until he notices the guards, and the scent of blood. This makes him tense up again, only to be delivered from his miniature trance by more words from Milla.

    His response comes surprisingly quickly, though. "I'm here for two reasons. One, because I want to learn more about these 'spyrix', and two, because my teacher might be here." He balls his fists again. "And since you seem to think there are spyrix here, too... I'm starting to worry." Looking back up to her with a renewed energy behind his irises, he continues. "I can't rest until I know if he's okay, and if I find out later that I could have done something now to help him... I would never forgive myself." He exhales. "Besides, I would like to have a chance to learn more about this situation myself, directly."

    So, probably more than you were expecting, huh?

    Yuri prods him too, though, and his question actually inspires him to think for a moment. When he looks back up, he seems surprisingly... calm. "There are more of them this time. So maybe..." He closes his eyes. "Let someone else knock several of them out pre-emptively, and -then- try talking to them." So apparently he can think fairly well under pressure sometimes.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum disappears and reappears.

    She is holding crystals, and the hounds can no longer bark. That is about the extend of what happens though, since nobody has been spotted yet.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz Watches the guards go and sighs okay that part's over and it's time to press oinwards she knows it's going to get messy at this point sooner or later. She notices there's a lot of ways to go. She's glad they broke and ran as she moves in she's going to likely try for the lift, but it means getting a keycard, lovely well one problem at a time.

Mir (340) has posed:
    Mir looks at Yuri. "Well, you can either dive into your beloved's mind and explore their deepest fears and fantasies until it awakens the ability to manifest one, or you could check the swimwear department."

    She sighs to the others, "I will stay here. Most of my real contributions require Singing, and that is not quiet."

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "No, see, we did that the other way around. She dove into my deepest fears and fantasies in order to awaken my inner powers," Yuri explains before grabbing Mir by the hands and bouncing on his feet, "Oh-em-gee. We should totally be besties!"

Intimacy Gained - Mir: BFFs

    And then he turns back to the others when Arthur starts talking about his plans, "Yeah, I can beat people up and sword em pretty good."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur then turns his attention to the room. There's a nod to Chrysanthemum. "UGH." He says. "Fuckin' AWFUL. Well maybe it's BENIGN blood shit." Then he strides out down the hall, casually, confidently, and without any stealth. He's not going to do his plan until he's spotted for the first time.

    As soon as the first guard spots him, Arthur spins in place dramatically, makes a rude gesture at him with one hand, and then, with a flourishing motion, immediately saturates the entire hallway with a sudden flash of INTENSE GRAVITY MAGIC, pointed, harshly, down. If these metal walkways aren't really heavily reinforced... Well! They, and all the people on them, will probably suddenly come crashing chaotically down to the ground. Unfortunately it's probably only gonna be enough to daze the group, maybe knock a few out, but it's a good opener! And it gets the whole enemy force on ground level with them, so no height advantages!

    Maybe. If, you know, this works.

    "ALRIGHT, everyone on the FUCKIN' FLOOR, and LISTEN UP!" He calls out in his absurd and overconfident voice. He's gonna make sure to stand where the catwalks won't fall on him, so that there's a nice moment of dramatic chaos around him as he calls out a brief prelude. Presumably the Feds here can do their theatrical threatening to follow up on him.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    The guards leave and don't need to be tied up, and Zero ends up putting his wires away. He kicks one of the halberds up off the ground, catching it and swinging it up against his shoulder. It's too much of a lethal weapon, but he should be able to make some use of it sooner or later. As it is, he doesn't smell too many threatening clusters of people out there... and the sound of individuals moving around is pretty distant. Regular patrols, he'd guess. It's the distant smell of blood that catches his attention though. Lots of different individuals mixed in there.

    What's going on there?

    Probably best to avoid it either way. It reeks of that disgusting smell, and he really doesn't want to test himself lately. Especially having actually gotten a good meal in recently.

    "Let's go." He signals to Yuuki, before he begins to move.

    Zero heads towards the nearest moving scent that is in the OPPOSITE direction of the great mass of blood, reaching into his jacket with his free hand as he goes. What he draws out is a firearm, that looks largely like a plain .45 save for the words BLOODY ROSE etched onto its side. The gun does not see use as a firearm, however.

    Writhing metallic vines sprout from the weapon, wrapping themselves firmly around Zero as he approaches his target. The mass of them grows as he moves, and by the time he's within range of his new thorny appendages, he's got quite a bit of extra reach to him. A solid mass of the vines darts out like dozens of snakes slithering forth from an uncovered nest.

    Ordinarily, they would drain the blood of the victim, but Zero has commanded Bloody Rose to withhold that particular unpleasantness for the moment. Instead it constricts and binds, attempting to draw the guard into an inescapable hold. For an added bonus, it pretty handily acts as a gag to boot.

    As if that weren't bad enough, these vines are far tougher than the metal they seem to be made of. Even individually they would be difficult for a being with strong superhuman abilities to break out of or endure.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Arthur produces a rather hostile gravity well under the room, pushing the catwalks down. The left side appears to be reinforced enough to withstand it (although the guards and their hounds are still, in a fit of panic, grounded on the catwalks, trying to struggle against the sudden gravity). The right side, however, suffers a catastrophic cascading effect as the top catwalk gives away, and crashes onto the one under it, and then both onto the floor. The guards, none dead, although some rather battered by the experience, try to crawl out of the wreckage, their hounds silent.

    The room has a very strange echoing, though-- the way sound bounces around and fades, it seems like it must be perfectly soundproofed. Most likely the entire complex is. It's a military area after all, the noise here must be intolerable when they run tests, so everything's all nice and contained. No risks of being heard.

    Two guards have managed to escape both the gravity pull and catwalks; they charge for the group with their halberds, only to be shot at by Zero. The wires wrap around them, and they slam onto the floor, unable to move or speak. They struggle a bit and then give up quietly.

    Four guards are attempting to crawl out of the wreckage right now, one of which is almost out and has drawn a sword. Six guards and three hounds still remain on the platforms, struggling to rise against the gravity-- with increasing success as time passes. Two especially have caught on that slipping out of their platemail is smart, and with nothing but the leather clothes underneath are getting ready for a fight.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    Well, things are getting messy, and Tir isn't really sure he's /needed/ here. He didn't get through all that he lived through by making assumptions though. The young Runebearer is moving quietly, trying to stick to places where he won't be seen... until the whole place starts crashing down and their presence becomes obvious.

    Hopefully the guards will surrender, but any that look ready to sound the alarm or attacking will find Tir is there, dashing in behind to do a quick sweep of the legs with his staff and a thrust toward their weapon for a disarm. He'll let the others do the talking.

    They seem to enjoy it, so he's going to go after the one with the sword first. "I wouldn't," he warns the others.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro will finally move forward as the guards seem to have so much trouble, though not too far - she's simply moving up enough to be able to line up a clear shot, wings bursting from behind her right wrist, made of pink mana, flapping gently. They look completely and totally safe and harmle...

    "Kerykeion, Shooting Ray." She says, calmly, before the device replies in the affirmative, a moderate number of relatively thin pink lasers firing out of her device to slam towards one of the guards with halbreds. It's a relatively low level attack, but it is both nonlethal and from an elite, so it should help.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    At once, Jude gets his game face on. He paces forward a few steps, poking out just ahead of the rest in the group, getting into a battle stance. He holds his left hand low out front, and his right fist closer up high. It's... a surprisingly natural look for him, actually, which may make him seem all the stranger to others in the group if they're paying attention. Raising his voice to be as loud as he can, he shouts, "HOLD IT! We aren't going to take any lives if we aren't made to. All that we want to do is get some information and get out." Not entirely honest, probably, but whatever. "We aren't with Auj Oule either. You've seen what we can do -- don't throw your lives away!"

    If they don't listen, he quickly moves to intercept the ones who have ditched their plate mail. Letting them come to him first, he waits until they're in range... and attempts a low sweep to trip them up. Whether or not he's successful, he would pivot behind them, and attempt a kick to the back to pin them to the floor. "Please don't make us kill you!"

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum lets the others choose their fights, drawing her sword. In a swift dash of motion she moves in, aiming for any of the armored soldiers that haven't been taken care of. Her blade flicks out, seeking to stab the soldiers right through the heart in a vicious spray of blood!

    Or not. Her sword can't kill, so at wors stabbing them through the heart results in a brief and painful cardiac arrest that swiftly starts beating again, though likely knocking out the soldiers.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Let's Go?

    That is what Zero tells to Yuuki, whose Totally Normal Girl Nose starts to smell the large amount of blood. Because she is a normal girl, and normal girls are offput by blood. And also can smell it across a large research complexes. She grips her small metal rod and looks at Zero, and... Well, okay, everyone else too, such as Chrysanthemum stabbing dudes right through the heart. With a spray of blood.

    'Lets Go'

    "I-I don't think this is good for me." She breathes, shakily sliding on a pair of RATHER THICK SUNGLASSES onto her eyes.

    Inside the building. At night. Don't worry about her, she is just going to freak out lightly.

    Drifting over to Milla, she looks left and right with her comically huge sunglasses on. "Erm... Miss, is there something I can do that isn't so... bloody? I want to help, I'm just... having... problems." She breathes, panting lightly. It's not a tired sort of pant.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz hopes that Jude's plee will get some traction the guy wants to be a doctor not a warrior. She knows some worlds doctors take an oath to do no harm and suspects it's likely true. She however knows with what might happeen they may have no choice, she's already summoning a weapon from her photon trap the photon saber snap hisses to life, the DB sabre is ready and she's got a ruby bullet pistol in her off hand, she's ready go move and there's something about Jude that's curbing how she normally might fight.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "SHIT, YOU BETTER BE LISTENING!" Arthur calls out. Hopefully there's not just Jude doing the speeches in a bit. Arthur sees, especially, the guards slipping out of their armor. "OH HELL NO." He calls out! With a sudden flash of white light, he's wearing his God Tier outfit, and boldly leaping straight up onto the remaining catwalk to confront those guards that slipped out of their armor.

    "I SAID get on the fuckin' GROUND! ON THE FLOOR, FUCKERS, I've got a MOUTH FULL OF YELLING, a ROOM FULL OF SHITHEADS, and a BROOM FULL OF BEATING so you'd better STEP THE FUCK OFF and SIT THE FUCK DOWN!" Wow, rude. What was that about a broom? Oh, right, Arthur's got a hefty broom in one hand, and he's rushing forward, intensing to smash the ones standing up in the knees and get them back on the catwalk.

    Someone should probably handle the actual intimidation in this.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Tir will find, naturally, that he is much more skilled than a random guard without a name or face; it won't be hard for him to trip the guard as intended, and then knock the sword out of his hand. The guard quietly nods, raising his empty hands in defeat to show he's unarmed.

    Caro's blasts slam into one of the charging guards and immediatly grounds him, unconscious, without a single injury to show for it. The other guard continues charging at Jude regardless of the warning-- the medical student proves faster than he gambled on, and with a quick leg sweep, pivot and kick, the ground is on the floor, seriously reconsidering his life choices.

    Chrysanthemum is kind of a huge dick and gives people nonlethal heart attacks. It is however enough to keep the rest of the guards from interfering. One of them had stripes on his armor, and has a keycard strapped to his belt, with a symbol identical to a sign next to the elevator. That, plus Jude's pleading, and Arthur's yelling... yeah, no guard is going to budge an inch anymore.

    The elevator could be used now! People could also explore the side rooms, if they wanted. There's quite a few of them, but none have important-looking markings. They're just laboratories, with numbers.

    To Yuuki, Milla asides-- not bothered by the glowing eyes, although taking it as a sign all is not well-- "I apologize. If I had known such an approach would bother people, I would have tried finding another way. I'm afraid I don't know how much more fighting is ahead of us. What are you best at?" she asks.

Mir (340) has posed:
    Mir sees that Yuuki is having difficulty. The others apparently have decided to just nonlethally subdue instead of ask for surrender, and that suits Mir fine. So...

    A bun holding something is held out to Yuuki. "Here, just drink something and calm down. I fixed it myself."

    It is a soda in a burger.

    Somehow, the soda is between two buns, with a straw in them. You drink it.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri has been hanging out and not doing much. Jude seemed to object to his more lethal fighting style, so he's kind of just hanging around at the back of the group while everyone fights. He has a cell phone in his hands and may be updating his MalfeasBook Status.

Name: Yuri Stinson
Occupation: Pilot
Relationship Status: Engaged
    Current Status: DAE Ever have people object 2 violence? Like if this happens 2 u.
    Malfeas has posted:
    HOW ARE YOU STILL ON THIS? I BANNED YOU. <1m ago.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    "It's not the approach that's bothering her. There's been quite a massacre ahead of us." Zero reels the guard he captured in and takes out his spool of wire to secure him, dropping the halberd he borrowed in the process. He strings as many of the surrendered guards together as possible, preventing them from actually going anywhere now that they're surrendered and/or incapacitated. Bloody Rose goes right back up as soon as that's done, the thorns around him disappearing. Quite inconveniently, it appears that this usage of that weapon has left a number of wounds along Zero's body.

    The gun had been drinking his blood through the thorns, and it's left some marks. Not big ones, but enough to be visible and noteworthy in places along his uniform. So, the fact that he retreats to join Milla, Yuuki, and Mir probably isn't as helpful as is intended.

    He digs something out of his pocket and tosses it to Yuuki. It's a small packet of something or another. The vampire equivalent of cold McDonalds, though it wouldn't be evident at a glance or even with cursory inspection.

    Since his job is in face to protect Yuuki, her difficulties take priority for the moment. The others can resume taking point and wrecking guys.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthumum flicks her sword. Blood doesn't seem to stick to it, unsurprisingly... nor to her dress. She sheaths the blade and turns away, leaving the soldiers still breathing and asleep. Looking to the others, she regroups with them and states, "I am going to look into the room that smells of blood. Those weak of heart or otherwise having problems with this should probably keep going."

    She will only wait long enough for people to make a decision before she heads for that door, now with more determination than the vague amusement she's been holding for some time now.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    Tir will go along with Chrys. "I'd rather know than not. And no offense, but someone in the Union should go with to see for ourselves." He nods to Jude, "You can stay here if you like."

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude relaxes, kindly removing his shoe from the guard's back. There's a pretty clear look of shock on his face once he lets his guard down, though -- his ever emotive face would say to any onlookers, 'Did I really just do that?'. He looks to the body of the likely unconscious guard for proof, and... nope. Not his imagination. He sighs.

    He does speak up when Chrysanthemum poses a visit to the room that smells of blood. Jude thinks to himself. It's... a little unnerving, that prospect, but at the same time, there could be someone alive in there. Someone he could heal. So against his better judgement:

    "I'll go to check out that room too. Just in case."

    Even if he'll hate himself for it later.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur finishes off in the area, seeming to be satisfied with this. With a quick snap, the gravity intensification shuts off a bit. It was kinda draining to do!

    Moving on now, Arthr is rejoining the group. There's a quick nod to Tir and Chrys. "RAD! Lemme know what you find. Or don't! Holy shit, gore gets my JIMMIES RUSTLED. So YEAH, I'mma work on THIS sweet shit." Unless anyone else is doing it, Arthur immediately sets about handling keycard looting and use to get the elevator ready.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro looks rather satisfied with the results of her spell. However, in spite of herself, she'll follow along after Chrys and McDohl, not particularly wanting to see, but determined not to let them head into danger missing a supporter just because of her being a bit squeamish. It does, after all, stand completely to reason that the room with a massacre inside of it will also contain extra danger.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Milla nods, and actually starts following after Jude, Tir and Chrys. "I will come as well. Though our main objective is the large Spyrix underneath us, it would be useful to see if there is more of them in those rooms. Could you get the elevator working, while we check?" she says, highlighting the fact she has no idea how this technology works, so... someone is gonna have to mess with that keycard and the control panel besides her.

    The room that smells like blood is not a gruesome sight, but rather that of a room filled with medical tanks. Inside, bodies. Some look badly damaged, others partially dissolved. One that sticks out, is a still almost intact man, probably in his 50's or 60's, in good shape, and wearing doctor clothes. Jude would recognize him as Professor Haus, the man he came here to find.

    As people enter the room the machinery flares to life, and mana immediatly begins to leak out of the people inside the pods. The machines are turning them into raw mana, which tubes and wires carry into the floor and presumably far below the facility.

    Professor Haus wakes up from the pain, and immediatly starts banging on the tube at the sight of Jude, evidently wanting out before it eats him. There's a console next to one of the many pods, which details the process the emptying a human's Mana Lobe as an alternative power source to Spyrix.

    Milla frowns, but does not know what to do.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Mir gives Yuuki Ice Cold Macdonalds-ola. She takes this offered drink carefully, nibbling on the bun slightly before drinking the soda. It is... Kind of tasty! If odd. And revitalizing! But, for her, in the sense of one of the ener-chambers in 22XX. You know, the ones that make gowly stomach noises and say '... but you're still hungry'.

    And then Zero shows up, handing her things! She takes those things. Then she crams then in her mouth, and washes them down with more Burgersoda.

    She just looks miserable though. "It's okay. I'm okay. I'm fine. Just..." She sniffs lightly, and then blanches, shaking like a leaf. "Why does this place exist? To torture people? There's so much blood, everywhere."

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude jerks forward... before listening to the radio for a while. Collecting himself as much as he can, he rushes forward to the tank so that he can be in position to catch him when Chrysanthemum does her thing.

    You can't see it, but he's tearing up a little bit.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    This is something that Chrysanthemum has seen, at least similar, before. Drawing her sword, yanking /something/ from inside it, and dashing forward... to just slash right through the tube, trying to shatter it whole. Just like the last time she encountered things like this, she's extracted her sword's ability to connect with human flesh, so she won't accidentally damage the professor.

    She'll leave Jude and Tir to catch the man though, if she succeeds in saving him. She immediately moves to look for others who might be salvageable.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    "Your teacher?" Tir guesses, hearing the name and title. He quickly moves up to catch the man as well, even though he doesn't know what Chrys plans. When this turns out to be 'smash it' he sort of sighs, though.

    "I'm not sure if she relies on that trick too much, or not enough," he mutters to Jude.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro will stop at the edge of the door, behind the others who have gone in, gasping in horror - she's not really positioned to try and help smash the containers, not without causing other problems, and in any case will not be useful for catching the man. She may be able to feed him energy once freed, if he survives long enough, but that will have to wait to see if he even lives that long.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri looks up from his phone and calls over to Jude, "So you were saying something about sparing lives. I don't mean to rag on you here, dude, but maybe the people that run this facility deserve, I dunno, the most painful death I can come up with."

    He doesn't mean to be callous or insensitive, he's just not great at relating to most emotions that tie into 'suffering', save for a very narrow window that applies to him. Oppression, moral outrage, but not pity. He still has his phone in one hand as he watches Jude.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz people were born of what one could see of twisted science, yet it was nothing like this. Nothing like this at all, she watches as the people in the pods are devouring people.

"By the light why do they do this? They are insane!"

They make thepeople who played with D-cells seem smart which is something that rather deeply distirbs the Newman. There's other alreayd on it and likely better than her for it so she's moving in and she's going. Follow up Chrysanthemum looking for other pods with people who might yet be saved.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Luckily for Haus, they acted quickly.

    As his tube shatters, he falls towards Jude and Tir. He seems alive, although his veins are sticking out in an innatural, blue-black way, probably the strain of having his mana drained. He still has some left, and so Jude, a Real Doctor, could tell he'll be fine, he just needs rest now.

    Rest that he declines!

    Haus is quickly back on his feet, coughing, groaning, rubbing his temples. "Jude! Thank goodness. I thought... I thought they wanted to study my Mana Lobe, that that's why they chose me, but they just wanted to harvest it. That's all we're worth to them... you develop your Mana Lobe enough and you're just a scientific project to them!"

    He certainly seems angry. Jude would know this man does not get angry easily, but to be betrayed by Fennmont like this... even the nicest man would be shaken, right?

    Between Jude, Caro and the others here, temporarily fixing him up is trivial, so we'll go over that. Unfortunately none of the other patients are salvageable, and before long there's not even scraps of their bodies left.

    Milla motions back towards the elevator, outside the room. "We need to hurry. We don't have time to save every last prisoner here," and then she's off, to get into the elevator.

    Haus glances towards Jude. "You erm... none of these people are from Fennmont, are they? What sort of company have you been keeping, Jude?"

    (CANON EVENTS BROKEN: 1.)

Mir (340) has posed:
    Mir didn't check out the labs, she's heading for the elevator. Since she actually DOES know something about technology, she'll poke around with Arthur at that. Thus, she has no idea what has them so outraged! She can kind of guess, though... and for once holds back her comment about man's cruelty to man. Diplomacy, Mir. Learn it!

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur's got that keycard! So he's hard at work, trying to ignore the noises from his radio and from the room. NOT GONNA GO LOOK AT DISSOLVING PEOPLE, NOPE, NO THANKS BRO.

    He sets about fussing with the control panel and keycard. Aren't these things usually super simple? Stick the card in or swipe it or whatever, and then you hit the buttons. Guy just tries that. Let's get down to the bottom of this.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "I'm from a magical land called Creation where everything sucks ass and you have to get used to the suckassitude, but if you eventually get enough power, you might make it suck a little less ass before you die," Yuri says to the professor, putting his phone back into his pocket, "I hear not all lands work that way, though."

    Yuri then wanders off, probably to head to the elevator.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude lifts his gaze to Tir's, and man does he look pitiful. Immediately, he brushes an arm across his eyes, but... well, that gesture alone probably gave away the 'why'. After a quick sniff and another, quicker exhale, he nods.

    "... my teacher, yeah." He laughs. "Y'know, I was originally trying to find him to turn in a term paper. I didn't expect to find him like this..." He squeezes his eyelids shut before they're drawn open again by Yuri's words.

    And man, does he take a painfully long time to say anything. "... all I care about is making sure that they can't hurt anyone else." Not... really an answer to his question, but then, it probably wasn't meant to be. His priority right now is catching Haus when he falls, which he moves to do as soon as Chrysanthemum's sword has broken the glass.

    And one really couldn't put into words his relief when he falls into his arms, indeed okay. True to doctoring style, Jude takes notice of the status of his veins, feels for his pulse; the works. He also immediately pours healing arts into him while muttering under his breath, 'need to rest' and 'so glad you're okay'.

    In an answer that he hopes will satisfy everything Haus covered, Jude simply says, "They're from another world. And they're here to make sure that what happened to you will never happen again." He gingerly sets Haus down where there are no shards of glass around to hurt him, offering then to help him to his feet. "I'll help you get out of here, but we need to hurry. I'll explain everything once we're some place safe."

    He helps him walk, if need be, and makes a beeline for the elevator himself. This just got personal.

Zero Kiryu has posed:
    "From the sounds of things," Zero says to Yuuki, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against a bit of wall near to her, "it's less a matter of torture and more a matter of using people as a fuel source of some kind. Or for experiments. There's not much of a difference from the perspective of the victim." The basement of the hunter's association smells rather like this. It's not hard to tell that unsavory things go on there from the smell alone.

    He reaches over and gives Yuuki a light push against her shoulder. It isn't much of one, but it is kind of his encouragement to keep them going. "Keep your distance from the things that are bothering you, but let's get moving. We need to keep up and get out of here with everybody else. Or..."

    "If you prefer we can simply leave early. I doubt there will be a shift change until long after we've gone." Either way, Zero is trying to get Yuuki moving again. Himself, too! Not really being familiar with the world however, he doesn't have much to contribute now that the violence is over.

    And he has plenty of incentive to avoid the bloody messes himself, too.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    "Call me Chrysanthemum," Chrys says, sheathing her sword again... after putting the crystal back in it. "Hmm... unfortunately, the concept of 'death' is a bit too difficult for me to fix here. The people of this place really have no concept of how far to take this sort of thing. Even I have standards."

    She shakes her head, walking outward. "I am from the Empire of the- no, wait, they changed it again. They settled on Azure Empire, finally. I thought Crystal Flower was better, but I'm not going to force the issue." Ramble ramble. Yeah, let's go to the elevator.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri, thinking to himself about Jude's words, runs off the elevator to go grab a pair of handcuffs off a fallen guard and stuff them into his beltline. Then he runs back.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz looks to the professor for a moment and stares.

"...Falz Spawn, I seen such bbefore and ... no we're not. We can explain later sir. I'm Crys Gattz a newman."

So wait they are farming the medical students to be ... dear light. What's wrong with these people behind this?! What is wrong, with them? She's not sure what so know. She sees there's no one else who can be saved. She moves after milla looking to her for a moment before getting on the lift.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    Tir will wait until Caro has given Haus some energy before offering him a hand up, and helping him along. "Sorry for the rude entrance, but we're here to find out what's going on. I'm Tir McDohl, nobody really important right now. The others are going further in... do you need more rest?"

    Tir's first priority is keeping the dude /alive/ after all. "Probably a lot of new terms to hear at once. Just know we're going to get you out alive, all right?"

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Right, the elevator! The keycard slots in. The screen starts showing weird symbols, the elevator door opens, and people can go in. Haus... well, he's old, but he's a do-gooder too. A nice man, obviously, and ready to help. He especially addresses Caro, as they get into the elevator:

    "Young lady, I've never quite seen spirit artes like that before. And to use them so well at your age, you might just be another prodigy like Jude here. Would you mind a demonstration when we're not in this sort of place?"

    He takes the rest well enough; a moment ago he was stuck in a tube that was going to mana drain him, so he's certainly not going to doubletake claims of being from another world.

    The elevator heads down, to the deepest level of the facility.

    The doors open, and people are immediatly greeted by a single, massive, round room. There's a platform going around the outer edge of the room, and then a chasm filled with water. In the middle, a large platform with a massive, turret-like device on it (although the 'cannon end' doesn't have a barrel, so it doesn't look like much of a gun), and a control console in front of it. The water glows an eerie, spiritual green, and is especially rich in mana to those who can feel that.

    Ref:

    Milla's eyes widen. "A massive Spyrix... Undine was correct." In what almost seems to be a fit of rage, she traces four large circles in front of herself, and a massive surge of energy might push everyone back, and the Four Great Spirits, all at once, materialize around her, glowing much, much brighter than usual. They fly off, above the Spyrix, and form a circle. Runes start tracing themselves in the air, and Milla continues focusing her energy into them.

    "It will take the Four a moment to gather sufficient power to destroy this. If you wish, you have until then to use that console in front of it."

    Unsurprisingly, Haus looks pretty flabbergasted right now.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro's certainly happy to feed over as much energy as she rapidly can through her boost device, and once the Professor is back up and moving, she'll stick in close to him. She double and triple checks to make certain that she's not leaving anyone else who could be saved behind...

    She'll make conversation with him, however. "Aah. I would be glad to give a demonstration, but I'm afraid that it may end up being more complicated than you think it is." She won't even explain that her own powers are somewhat limited at the moment by not being fully free to utilize her summons, but that would be rude and require her to explain multiverse, and that's more than she wants to do at the moment.

Mir (340) has posed:
    "Right," Mir mutters. "Someone hold my tube." The dark-haired girl in the swimsuit hands it to YURI, because he's her best bud apparently. "I'm going to see what I can find out here, if anyone skilled in such things wishes to join me."

    Her attitude aside, she's being pretty cooperative with the Union. Probably because she hates superweapons that feed on life force. Either way, the Reyvateil is walking up to check out the console and see what data she can pull up with her computing skills.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "You guys play with the machines. I gotta go see a guy about a thing," Yuri says vaguely, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He's then kind of speed-walking away from the group with a purposeful gait, pacing the room as if looking for something.

    Spoilers: It's a second way in, since he thinks the base commander might keep his office nearby.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Now that he knows that Haus is okay, it seems he's begun to relax a little. Enough to blush faintly and rub the back of his neck when Haus call him a prodigy. "I still have a long way to go, professor. But yeah, these people..." He glances around the room, his gaze lingering particularly long on Arthur, Mir, and Yuri, "... are /really/ strong. I've never seen anything like it before, really." His shoulders slump slightly. "I'm glad they're on our side."

    As he enters the room, he's in about the same place as Haus: gawking wordlessly. Slowly, though, he does make his way out of the elevator, stumbling vaguely in the direction of the Lance as he studies it. He 'whoa's under his breath, turning to Milla. "Wait, you mean that -whole thing- is a Spyrix? You have to be kidding me..." He puts a hand to his head before looking to Haus: "Professor, spyrix are..." Blah blah, exposition. At the very least, he would tell him what he needs to know to understand why this gigantic object isn't a good thing, if he's in the right state of mind to comprehend what he's saying.

    For now, though, he lets Mir be the one to futz with the machine. It's a little intimidating for him.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    The console reads:

    LANCE OF KRESNIK

    Everything else is technical data and status reports; everything seems online and operational. Last activation was a little bit earlier, for exactly two seconds. Shortly before the group arrived, in fact. It might explain the dimmed lights around the research center.

    As Yuri steps through a door, he bumps into a girl.

    Dressed in all red, with white hair and a wicked sword in one hand, she immediatly starts cussing and swearing as she hits the floor. "Look where you're going, scrub!"

    Behind her, an office, exactly like Yuri thought. Or rather, an observation area with a desk, and wards around the room. There's a mutilated corpse on the ground, and the blood trails to the girl and her sword. She is holding the dead commander's badge in her hand.

    "Wait what. WHAT. Who are you people?! I was here first!"

    The girl in red huffs. The room starts heating up.

    "AhahaHAhaHAha~! Fine! FiNE! We'll play too! We can ALL plAY!" Looking ever so unhinged, she charges at Yuri with her sword, heavy flames trailing behind her.

    Lances and swords made of fire appear in the air all around the room, and dart towards every last person in the group too, with their origin point obviously being the girl and her rather ridiculous looking rotating sword.

    "CoME on! COME on! COme ON!"

    Milla is currently defenseless, though.
    "Please shield me, I can't suddenly rupture the arte!"

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz keeps moving then kinds stares for a moment at the machine.

"That weapon would ... right on it."

She looks to Haus and takes a moment to try to somehow reassure him at least with a looks at the cray girl she grips her weapon the claw clanks once and she says.

"Your like someone I knew once, he was just as rabid. "

Crys has nothing else to say as she throws her self at the attacker. She's also caught in flames as she tries to cloes, oh that's not going to be fun, her barrier takes some of it but not all of it and the question remains if she'll even be able to close and get into melee combat with her.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    Tir is... actually looking a little ill. "I'm going to just stay back here." The reason is, naturally, not just his own disgust... but the fact that this thing is an aberration against the whole cycle of this world, which is giving the Soul Eater a bit of a tweak as well.

    Fortunately it's not nearly the same as his, so it's more like the Rune is grumbling irritably rather than being fully enraged. It's still not pleasant for him.

    Then... fire swords start launching everywhere? "Oh come on," he murmurs softly, suddenly moving into action. The Heaven Fang staff is in his hands, trying to block one of the incoming blades... but without help shielding Milla, he probably can't use all his tricks, and will need to take a hit or two.

    Which proves to be the case, when one of the flying blades can't fully be knocked away and opens up a deep gash right in his thigh, burning across it.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro is left with a choice of trying to shield herself completely or doing a half-assed job of that in exchange for putting more effort into shielding Milla, and.. Well, she'll recover later! The magical girl finds herself with a cut along her barrier jacket, which manages to absorb most of it, even as she herself calls out. "Kerykeion, boost shield!"

    There's a pink bubble of energy trying to surround and shield Milla. It's certainly not invulnerable, but Caro's putting a lot into it, so it'll take some power to get through.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    When he gets charged by the woman, Yuri draws the weapon he was going to use on the base commander: A pair of handcuffs. Is he going to try to arrest her? "Okay, we'll play. I have a game for you."

    he steps in towards her as she brings the sword in. It pierces directly through his midsection in a spray of blood and, oddly enough, Brass flakes and flames. He staggers back in his footing and then brings the handcuffs up. Instead of handcuffing her hands together, Yuri instead puts both bracelets of the cuff on a single arm, and then grips the cuffs by the chain and causes a very noticable pulse of green fire to run through them.

    He pulls himself back off the sword with another splash of blood and then wobbles in his footing. He collapses shoulder-first against a wall and slumps down a bit, cradling his stomach while trying to catch his breath a little. He'll let the others fight for now.

    Even out of his machine he was considered pretty strong, but he tanked that hit specifically to get the cuffs on her for his own purposes, and it looks really nasty at the moment.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "OH HEY, we got ANOTHER guy here now? Alright, I guess? S'up." Arthur says, as Haus joins up. Then, down the elevator goes!
    Ohhhhh shit, this looks like a bossfight chamber.

    Arthur frowns briefly as he enters, looking around the wide room with a bit of morbid interest, and then at the centerpiece with a sort of concern. He doesn't know what this thing does! But it sure does look ominous.

    The godkid, for all his subtle, hidden genius, isn't all THAT good with computers. So he can get the elevator working, but Mir's gonna need to handle this next bit. He's gonna follow along behind Mir, peeking over her shoulder like a jerk and reading whatever comes up here. Let's find out what this is all about. Lance of Kresnik? What's Kresnik? And then, suddenly, fire from the girl.

    Arthur's almost immediately cut up in several places by a rush of auto-cauterizing blades, sustaining deep, blistering gashes. "AUGH! FUCK! WHAT?!" And then he assesses the situation fully in a few fractions of a second. "ALRIGHT! COME ON!" Arthur's yelling out with enthusiasm, despite the pain! This sort of insane person needs someone to engage them directly in their insanity, don't they? So that's what Arthur will do! He can't tank for Milla and he can't do whatever strange fanciness people like Tir are doing, nor can he safely engage in melee as wounded as he already is, but...

    He can engage her insanity! "ALRIGHT! Let's get PLAYIN', BITCH! We're here to BREAK SPYRIX and GET IN FIGHTS and we're about to be ALL OUT OF SPYRIX!! You wanna get IN ON THIS? Get in on some PRIME BEATINGS ACTION?!" Arthur immediately returns fire with a gush of starlight. "Well SHIT, let's see who CHICKENS OUT FIRST!" It's intentionally trying to draw her hyperaggressive attention to him and give the others lessened trouble. If there's ONE THING Arthur can do, it's engage excessively hot-blooded enemies in distracting competitive hot-blooded-ness!

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum has a few choices here. One is to use her own Bifrost in an attempt to help destroy the machine... or the other is to keep Milla safe. The latter is more selfless, and Chrys is not a selfless person.

    She is, however, one who believes in adventure and a story done right, and Milla requested aid. Also, this is kinda something she can laugh at! The woman suddenly appears before Milla, helping Tir and Caro to shield her by just sort of standing there, arm outstretched, as if to 'catch' the incoming blades. She is basically invulnerable to most attacks, so it should bounce right off her.

    Unfortunately for Chrys 'most' is not 'all,' and her overconfidence is her undoing. A blade ends up piercing right through her shoulder, erupting out the other side in a spray of burning blood! The blonde woman jerks, eyes going wide in utter shock more than from the injury itself. "What...?"

    But hey, it should keep Milla safe, right?

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    "I still can't get over how -massive- it --" Jude stops midsentence at the sound of a voice he doesn't recognize. "... huh?" He paces over toward Agria and Yuri just in time for a freaking -flaming lance- to come flying at him. W-Was that some kind of spirit arte? No time to think -- he dives to the left and out of harms way... mostly. His hair is singed and the splash damage sears his right leg.

    But thankfully it's not enough to keep him off of his feet for long. With a pained look, he leaps up and assesses the situation as quickly as he can. The pink-haired girl is already protecting Milla... but is anyone protecting Haus? He shakes his head. The doctor can probably take care of himself. So, without a second thought, he rushes forward to help Yuri. The first thing he does, naturally, is try to heal him, though the method is a bit different this time; he puts his fists together and summons forth a pale teal field that would hopefully send new energy coursing through his body. He probably didn't need that, but just in case.

    Afterwards, he attempts to close the distance between himself and the girl, but... he doesn't throw any punches. Instead, he just tries to grab her wrist. Looking straight into her eyes, he says, "I don't know why you're here, but if you're trying to break the Lance, then we're on the same side! If you could just calm down, then maybe we could help eachother!" He realizes that's a long shot, but Yuri -did- mention that someone else killed the leader, right? And she's just a kid...

Mir (340) has posed:
    Well. Crap. Everyone is shielding Milla and Mir is left here prodding at the controls. Alone. Oops. "Oh. Dear." Because that means a Reyvateil is alone without a guardian, and that usually ends poorly for them.

    This is no different, because Mir is abruptly impaled through the stomach and pinned right to the floor, falling right away into a crumpled heap! She uh... basically can't take a hit at all, without her combat suit.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    Yuri flails a bit as he's healed by Jude, "Nnn... thanks." He comments to the medic that is currently infusing him with energy. But then he spots Mir taking a MUCH WORSE hit than he did and having much less ability to remain standing after such a hit.

    He snaps his fingers at Jude a couple times and points to the crumpled up Mir, "Go help her, she needs you more."

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Between Tir, Chrys and Caro, it seems Milla's safe enough. The lances and swords of fire don't reach her, which is good, since she's still channeling her own mana into the Four, and there's a massive ball of light forming in the center of the circle they're tracing above the Lance.

    Yuri slaps cuffs onto Agria; it only makes her grin. He can tell they're working, but it seems she's... ENJOYING it? As some of her skin burns and her movements slow in eerie green fire, she just grins, wider and wider. "I loVE this GAme! Let's be BEST FRIENDS!"

    Jude grabs her by the wrists.

    This, unfortunately, subjects Jude to GREEN SUN WASTING; Yuri did warn him to stay away from the cuffs. The disease is fully resistable by an Elite, naturally, but Jude might still feel a swearing pain in his hand, as green flames essentially try to give him Super Radiation Sickness. That was probably a bad idea.

    To all those words, from Jude and from Arthur, Agria starts screaming: "BREAK IT?! Why would you want to brEAK this super FUN toy?! PAIN, AGONY, FOR EVERYOOOONE!"

    Shaking Jude off, she makes a leap, and lands at the base of the Lance of Kresnik. She slams one of her fists onto a console, a bit awkward considering she's shackled and still holding her sword.

    "FOR EVERYOOOOONE~!"

    The Lance of Kresnik hums to life.

    Intense light emanates from it and the tip splits open, taking more of a cannon-shape. And then it starts. Mana, Essence, all forms of magic in the room start getting sucked into the Lance. Living beings and magical objects alive are slowly being drained, and it is INCREDIBLY painful. Agria just starts laughing and falls over, also visibly being drained herself. This effect can be resisted (and if you have no magical energy to speak of, it's basically harmless to you).

    The Four Great Spirits struggle, suddenly immobilized in the air around the Lance, and the arte Milla was powering gets sucked into the weapon outright. "This is-- what sort of Spyrix is this?"

    Neither Milla nor Haus seem able to do anything but fall to their knees at the strain. At the main console Mir is at, a large hourglass-shaped device has emerged next to the keyboard. It looks like it could be removed.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Honestly, after a surge of internal nuclear hellfire, Jude was already pretty spent. But after the Lance clicks on too? His shit is completely wrecked. Like, he's 125 percent, A-grade dead... or would be if aura wasn't so merciful. The best he can do is stagger back toward Mir, which he does without any regard whatsoever to his own state of complete wrecked-age. With the last of his energy, he summons another healing ring... and he collapses.

    God, I hope somebody turns that thing off soon.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz pauses at Yuri does something that makes her amused. Wait just what is he doing to the she'll leave the boss to them she looks at Jude witrh a lot of concern.

"JUDE!"

She turns her head back to the cracy lady for a moment.

"My what a bit of work you are."

She however she looks at the thing and then she feels it draining her own power it's not quite magic but iut's not close enough.

"Ugg..."

Looks like he might be staggeirng a bit but she's going to try to take a shot at the crazy lady with her pistol.

Mir (340) has posed:
    Mir is a little busy bleeding her guts out here. But if there's ONE thing she's not going to stand, it's going to be killed by some life-leeching monstrosity! Not that... it seems to be leeching mana exactly. But H-waves are close enough that it's disrupting her somewhat, making her body leak a watery substance in addition to blood.

    Yanking the blade out, Mir shoves herself up and tries to tug the hourglass free. "... hope this is it..."

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro had really not expected a problem with her mana, and while it had been a long time since her linker core had been stolen, Caro is still what one might call not a fan of having her magic drained. She is also rather more vulnerable to this sort of drain than most of the room might be due to her dependance on the core. She'll grab at Friedrich, holding on for dear life as she falls to her knees, energy bleeding off of both her and her summon into the void for the moment..

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Wincing, Chrysanthemum yanks the sword out from her shoulder with a coughing fit. Good thing she doesn't need to breathe. That gets tossed aside, and she scowls as she staggers to her feet. And... stays there. She can feel the leech at her life force, a little, but her actual mana? Her powers don't work like that. It... actually kind of makes her angry to be /reminded/ of that.

    She went and got herself wounded, though. AND she has to deal with the crazy lady. Which she does not by anything special except /hurling/ her blade right at Agria.

    Sadly she hasn't stolen any blade-hurling techniques. Which means her aim is pretty dang awful.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    Agria is kind of useless right now.
    The mana drain hits residents of this world especially hard.

    Between the effects of Green Sun Wasting, Crys shooting, and Chrys hurling a sword, it would appear that Agria has gotten knocked off the platform and into the water below. WE WILL SURELY NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.

    Mir tugs on the hourglass; the screen gives an error. "ERROR: ACTIVATION KEY REQUIRED FOR LANCE ACTIVATION. LOCKING KEY." There's a click, and it seems to lock in place.

    The Four Great Spirits collectively glance at one another. A large portion of their mana suddenly bleeds into everyone present, along with clear, unspoken instructions: 'TAKE MILLA AND ESCAPE THROUGH THE WATER. THE WATER SPIRITS WILL CARRY YOU TO SAFETY.'

    Without another word, the Four are sucked into the Lance.

    This causes the Lance to suddenly shutdown, and Mir to suddenly yank the hourglass free from the console. It turns into a small disk, easy to store and hide. The group gets a few moments to recover, but the elevator is making some noise. It seems to have just come back down, with about two dozen armed guards, these ones in black armor, and armed with Spyrix-- guns, fancy weapons, massive shield-mounted cannons, huge coil-guns.

    "I refuse to leave until that thing is destroyed!" is unfortunately the song that Milla insists on singing. Haus is just happy the drain effect is off.

Tir McDohl (321) has posed:
    "Nope," Tir says, panting heavily. He DID have mana to drain, but the Soul Eater he carries kept his life force safe, resulting in grit teeth and an angry quiver down his body. But it does keep him from acting... for a time.

    And as soon as the drain is gone, he's moving, grabbing Milla by the side. "We are leaving, it's time for a retreat."

    He's going to try to yank her into the water, yep.

Chrysanthemum (101) has posed:
    Chrysanthemum hisses, "Don't be foolish!" She whips her arm around, throwing a crackling lightning bolt at the Lance, but she doesn't expect to destroy it with that. Damage it, maybe, which could keep it from activating longer. Wounded as she is, though, she desires more to get her commanding officer to safety... so she's dashing forward to use her good arm to gather up Mir instead of sticking around.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    "What-- put me down!"

    Milla protests a lot, but...

    She appears to have no strength.
    She probably couldn't even swing her sword if she tried.

The lightning bolt slams into the lance. It scorches the surface, but doesn't leave too deep a gash. It's built tough-- and it seems to be powering up for another go, or for something ELSE, from the feel of it, even without the activation key.

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
    "I hope that bitch dies of super cancer," Yuri grumbles to himself as he pushes himself to his feet. He wobbles a bit, still clutching his stomach as he starts staggering towards the appropriate gathering point for the exit.

Mir (340) has posed:
    Oh good, the key turned into a disc. Conveniently it's a flat disc now. She tucks it into her tiny little swimsuit, to her also-flat chest.

    Then Chrys is lifting her, so the Reyvateil clutches weakly and slumps against the other Confederate, letting herself pass out.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur, for his part, was totally disabled by that thing for a while! This dude's almost completely based in magic. He gasps with sudden stress. "Hhh... Oh fuck, that's... U-ugh, someone turn that off!" They stole his capitalization! Suddenly the celestial fire sputters out and he's just some guy! It's especially bad because now he's just some guy who's covered in horrible, blistering cut wounds! Therefore, immediate pain collapsing is what happens.

    And then, juice! "Wait! SHIT!" He calls out as he sees... Something happen! He's not sure what just happened with those four spirits, but it seems BAD! So he immediately wants to get this reversed. But damn it, he's running on limited fuel now, and he's gotta get this stopped.

    Well, those four seemed wise. And Arthur, for all his irresponsible faults, totally understands that ancient beings are really insightful. So he obliges. "ALRIGHT!" He screams out, making a sudden wrenching motion with one arm. Space is torn open violently, ripping a flickering green spirographic Gate into existence just near the lance. "EVERYONE IN THE ESCAPE HOLE." He declares. The only exit he can manage on limited power is back near the waterway.

    Arthur himself keeps this open in here as long as he can, probably with the guards approaching. He's going to give a pair of extremely rude gestures to the guards that approach when he enters his portal (presumably the last of those who choose to use it) before trying desperately to shut it before more guards get in here.

Caro Ru Lushe (96) has posed:
    Caro's vision is going dark as Mir finally manages to turn the thing off, and she's certainly not going to object to making an exit - she's not certain she could even dimension shift herself right now, let alone the entire room. She'll stumble over to the portal, with Fried sitting firmly on her shoulder, and drop through it to wherever Arthur has been kind enough to point it to. The escape hole has to go somewhere better than this room.

Milla Maxwell (13) has posed:
    The room does cause a fair amount of noise in Arthur's ability to teleport about-- not so much he can't do it, but for example, he'll find it much easier to make a gate to 'just outside the city' than he would to make a gate to 'another world entirely'. Only while in this room though! Once outside, it'll be back to business, once he catches his breath.

    Conveniently it turns out the gate dups people into the water-- without having to leap of faith off the platform. The water is eerie green, and fully breathable-- a blessing afforded by the water spirits, under Undine's final orders. The currents pick up, and carry people outside the city. There's even a very faint regenerative effect in the water, but it is by no means a replacement for a good doctor like Jude, Caro or Haus.

    As people wash up on an empty coast, maybe a mile away from the border of Fennmont, they will notice an extremely bright green and purple light flare from the city, and suddenly surround all of it like a bubble.

    Nothing else happens. The bubble seems stable.

    Milla... well, she looks pretty beaten. "A Spyrix capable of containing the Four... that should be impossible. I'll need... I need to go back to my shrine. I can resummon them there."

    As she tries walking off, she quickly stumbles and falls to the ground instead. She is in no state to go anywhere on foot.

Crys Gattz has posed:
Crys Gattz is very happy the drain effect is off herself she sees things may almost be done and she loiok as Milla things are not too good for the natives. As she also attemps to get back up and she well isn't going to argue as she makes a dive for said secape hole it's time to WOOB WOOB WOOB and get the hell out of here.

Jude Mathis (542) has posed:
    Jude is out cold... until he gets dunked. The splash of water wakes him up pretty quick, and he promptly begins thrashing out of instinct, probably not having any clue for a moment or two where he is or why he's there. He'll have plenty of time to mull that over later though -- he's totally exiled from the village of Iselia now. Or... wait, crap, did I seriously type that? And intentionally leave it in the pose? Well yes, but I guess I meant to say 'Fennmont'. Yes. He's exiled from the village of Fennmont.

    And then the OPENING CREDITS PLAY... as he's helpless swept to a distant shore, certainly hacking up a bunch of water.

    Naturally, though, he pledges to accompany Milla on her way back to the shrine after helping Haus to his feet. Again. Regardless of everything else, he immediately sets about healing everyone that he can without passing out... before he does, and Haus becomes the de facto first aid guy for the time being.

    Just another day in the life, y'know?