4948/Book Ratturn

Book Ratturn
Date of Scene:	29 December 2016
Location:	Maw of Tyrants
Synopsis:	Skaven attack the Library of Exclamation, a sacred place to Inconsequentia, Goddess of Sidequests. People object.
Cast of Characters:	1088, Seifer Almasy, 518, 626, Staren, Deelel, 325

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Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
When the Multiverse got rearranged, the fabled Library of Exclamation got moved. It did not get moved to a terribly hospitable place. Its librarians like to keep it safe nonetheless, and it seems like there's been some trouble up there...

The library is a looming stone brick building standing on forbidding bluffs that looks like it might have taken architectural cues from a mix of gothic churches and greek temples. There are a lot of pillars, a lot of arches, and huge, circular stained glass windows in aesthetically pleasing places all over the place. It's pretty solid, all in all.

It's also half open to the air when it really shouldn't be. It looks like a doll house that has been split open into quarters, unfolded in a massive M-shape and then rotated near the top. Staircases lead to nothing, or to upper floors that abruptly terminate and resume over a chasm that shouldn't be there. Bookshelves come apart in the same ways, some between volumes, some across the middle of them. Things are all twisted around like a Rubik's cube got randomized. It makes navigating it kind of tricky, even if you can fly.

The warp gate is in a fountain-filled plaza at the bottom of a pathway leading up to the front doors, which presently stand without any walls on either side of them. In the middle of the plaza is a grey stone statue of a woman, long-haired and robed, with a stone sunburst behind her head. Her hands are outstretched, cupped, with a tablet resting in them. It reads:

                              Brave Adventurers!                              
             PATHUS OF FOUL PEAK, leader of the SACKRAT CLAWPACK,            
                has invaded the sacred LIBRARY OF EXCLAMATION!                
            Deliver his WEEPING BLADE, and you will be rewarded by            
                    INCONSEQUENTIA, GODDESS OF SIDEQUESTS!                    

Seems pretty straightforward: beat bad guys, deliver proof, get loot. There /do/ seem to be a few shadowy figures moving around up in the open sections of the library...

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer Almasy is feeling Pretty Good right now. He's made the last plans for his upcominmg date, he's reserved some restauraunt seats for possible spontaneity, he's looking into some apartments in Grand Dorado, and he has a 'dog with all the toppings from some local stand that tastes so good it puts the cafeteria to shame. Yep, quitting SeeD and killing Odin are looking like the best decisions he ever made. He's in a *great* mood. He hasn't been in a mood this good since he got to buy the last hot dog right out from under that chicken-wuss's nose right in front of him.

     Wait, no, that's a lie. *Eating* it in front of him, *that* was the best he'd felt before.

     That mood abruptly comes to a screaming halt as thoughts of a hot redhead turn to processing his surroundings.

     "The hell?!" Seifer demands, whirling around and spilling some relish on the floor. "Who's gettin' funny with me?"

     "HEY!" he shouts at the shadowy figures, "HEY YOU! WHICH WAY'S THE DIMENSIONAL INTERVAL? HOW DO I GET OUTTA HERE?"

     "YOU! YEAH-"

t The words QUEST ACCEPTED burn themselves somewhere in the air. Seifer jerks backwards. "Wha-"

     "Hey I didn't sign up for this! Hey, hey! I...ah, screw it."

     Seifer takes a big bite of his hot dog and walks over to look up at the woman. He reads the plaque.

     "The hell is a sidequest...?" He mutters to himself. "I don't get it. 'm I supposed to beat this Pathus guy up?"

     Chomp. Chomp.

     "Y'know what? Aight. I can do this. HEY! I AIN'T GOT A LIBRARY CARD BUT I'M PROBABLY GONNA TAKE SOME BOOKS FOR A GIRL! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH IT, YOU DEAL WITH YOUR RAT ON YOUR OWN!"

     Seifer dusts off his hotdog and draws Hyperion, cracking his neck. "You think you can find your way around a library?" He asks the thin air.

     Silence.

     "Great. You just remember where we started."

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    The great Library of...

    Kuran Yuuki was certain Hanabusa said he wanted... some book, from sme library. Things had gotten so confusing, and terribly complicated that when she found herself outside of the fractal library building, she took it in stride. "Well! This is certainly a library." She notes, hands akimbo on her hips, before looking up at the fountain and statue of INCONSEQUENTIA.

    "A... reward? Well, that'll be convenient. I'll just get the sword, and wish for the book I need."

    This is the best plan, nevermind the scuttling shapes or beady eyes in the distance. "Inconsequentia... That's kind of an add name? Oh well."

    Onward, to bumblefuck! "Oh, Mister Almasy is here. This should be easy. Mister Almasy!" She calls, waving. "Do you need a book too?"

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "I guess so," Seifer says to Yuuki with a shrug, "Or the books need me, or somethin'. T'be honest I stole the only book I'm ever gonna need from the Garden library a while ago...really I'm here for, uh, some stuff on...I dunno, smithing an' shit?"

     He shrugs.

     The book he stole is The Sorceress's Knight, because of course it is.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
"Keep it down!"

    Kyra Hyral, who had actually been in the library the whole time, looks up from her table and her huge stack of books seated next to a very obvious tablet computer. She gives Seifer and Yuuki some pretty intense glares that suggest she's going to start throwing books if they don't immediately shut their big yaps.

    She seems absolutely oblivious to the invasion of PATHUS OF FOUL PEAK because where she's from, there are always suspicious, cloaked things lurking around in libraries. They're usually the tonberri librarians and she doesn't mess with those.

    "It's a /library/." she says, "Come on, guys."

Staren has posed:
    The Multiversal Reshuffling somewhat pushed aside Staren's quest for holiday gifts. Friends are understanding, but still, he feels bad about that. So today he's taking some time to go searching the Multiverse for places to find books for Twilight and Ainsley that they might not have seen yet. Hearing news of a library he's never heard of is good too -- maybe he can't exactly give away the books, but surely they'll appreciate a place with new books to read all the same! So off he goes to check it out

    The Library of Exclamation is in a dangerous area, so Staren shows up in his armor for the initial visit... and steps out of the gate to be confronted by a Quest. He shrugs and looks around...

    And there's That Guy who showed up in Lumiere last time, and That Girl who showed up to the evil amusement park!

    "Hello again! Oh, you too? There are a lot of girls who like books, huh?" SMALL TALK ATTEMPT: Seriously, what did you even just say?

    "Oh hey Kyra, it's been awhile! Man, with all of us here, we should have this Pathus guy no problem, right?"

Deelel has posed:
Deelel had head about the Library of Exclamation and alwauys intended to visiut but with the unierse blowing up like this?It has made it even harder the basic thankfully wouldn't even need to take out any book. She'd just need to see them once but the keyblade using program would fin there's an problem as she exits the warp gate it seems there is trouble ahead.

"...I knew it wouldn't be that easy."

A goddess of side quests if she wnated to go foeward? She had to and she looked ot the others as they arrived. Yuuki, Seifer? They were mostly nnew to her, Kyra was a happy sight though to se and STaren wasn't too bad.

"Right lets not get into too much trouble, Kyra? Also hey staren."

Yuuki and Seifer get a greeting from the basic. "Greetings organics, my ID's Deelel it's good to meet you."

Rhapsody (325) has posed:
    Herein we find another crazy-stairs painting in which the very laws of physics have been picked up, shaken, beaten, robbed of their lunch money, and left for dead on the edge of what is clearly a DANGER ZONE. No, there will be no music, nor blue angels. Just chaos. So why, one would ask, is Rhapsody here? Because- WHY NOT -That's why.

    When Rhapsody sets eyes upon the library, the statue, and the message upon it, she just glares at it a moment, then looks to those that have also shown up for Reasons Of Their Own. "The only way this could be more obvious is if there was some giant glowing punctuation mark hovering over it, but I think the multiverse hasn't quite broken -that- much. . . . Yet."

Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
For no apparent reason, there is a pair of vending machines by the front door. One sells a variety of soft drinks. The other one sells 'Throwin' Thangs,' which apparently includes baseballs, dwarven boomerangs (they're bent straight), and six-packs of cherry bombs. There is a rack of pamphlets nearby about supporting the local economy for a world that is clearly not this one.

Something moves around the opposite end of Kyra's table. Ears poke up, and then beady eyes looking over a ratlike face. There's a hood on, and a cloak with it, and it's moving very, very slooowlyyy...

...and then abruptly snatches a book out from Kyra's pile. It wobbles and topples, spilling across her tablet-space, her, and the floor. The Skaven thrusts the book into what looks like a big ol' loot sack and sprints away, rushing off around a staircase with his tail trailing behind him.

A voice comes from... somewhere. It's hard to tell; it's echoing. Shadows from torchlight play across the walls on the far western split of the library, and more hooded rats with shoulder-slung bags rush into sight. They scale pillars up and down, scattering throughout the library and grabbing things apparently at random. "Take-take the tomes!" shouts a rough, vaguely squeaky voice. "It must be here somewhere!"

Seifer can see a hanging sign to his right. It reads 'ARTS & CRAFTS' with an arrow pointing further in. There's a commotion over there audible from here, and some kind of angry growling and chittering.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Kyra basically shushes him. Seifer remembers that this is a library, and scratches the back of his head. "Sorry," He mutters. Man that doesn't feel right. That Guy shows up again, and Seifer gives him a look. "I guess so. I was tryin' t'be thoughtful and stuff."

     Deelel gets a long stare from Seifer and an exchange on the radio with Yuuki and others. Rhapsody, the same. He's not quite sure how to deal with BLATANT NONHUMANS yet. He had a heck of a time with foxgirls. That was weird enough. BLATANT NONHUMANS are...like...a whole other level of weird he's just not prepared to deal with now. "Uh, yeah. Seifer Almasy. Hi."

     But he's distracted from this by the muttering and noises. Seifer points with Hyperion and jogs forward, taking point not because anyone asked him to but because it's just logical for the guy with the sword-gun to do so when nobody else appears armed. Slow and stealthy is not really his thing, but it's a good distraction for other people.

     Seifer flicks Hyperion over to ranged attack mode, emerges from between the shelves, points down the range, and fires just over the shoulder of whatever might be down there. "Hey! Stop right there!" he shouts.

     Then he covers his mouth, swears quietly, and hisses, "stop right there" in teeny-tiny whisper letters.

Rhapsody (325) has posed:
    Chaos. Mayhem. Rats. ALl of these things belong together, but none of them in a library. Maybe a jail cell. A Rakdos jail cell especially. A Rakdos jail cell during a havoc party even more so. "Just what is-" And then it becomes clear. They want to steal ALL THE THINGS. That are books! "HEY! You don't steal from libraries! You can just borrow what you need! IT's KINDA HOW LIB--" she winces, remembering, "It... it's how libraries work...!" Whisper yelling just.. does not work.

    As the gun-blade guy goes rushing in, the dragony dragon guildmaster isn't far behind him. The state of the library, however, gets a wince from her, "If there are any 13 sided dice floating around in here I am leaving.."

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods. He's trying to be thoughtful too!

    Staren is armed! There's a laser rifle strapped to his back! Although, given the surroundings, he decides that perhaps ranged combat is to be avoided. He wouldn't want to hit the books!

    As Seifer hunts down rats, Staren peeks around the shelves behind him and then goes running down the next row -- planning to either ambush whatever's there from behind, or to just leap over the shelves at it!

Deelel has posed:
Deelel was just trying to be polite after all it was rude to assumne everyone was a program given how rare they were in the multivese and given organic life was the most common form of life in the sector? It was the safest bet. Though she seems to have got Seifer to Blue Screen of Death a little which wasn't intentional on her part at all and soon she's falling into step with everyone. She hears someone calling out to get tomes nd she takes a moment to look about the libaary trying to get an ids of what's here or if there might be anything else about given the voice? Something was up and she's always armed one way or another if there was trouble.

"Oh hey Rhapsody I didn't epxect to see you here and ... what? How does a die like that /even/ work??"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
"That's better." Kyra nods to Seifer before pausing to facepalm at Deelel and Staren. She's about to yell at them both too, half considering packing it up and heading to another section of library when...!

    Some DIRTY RAT, which is NOT A TONBERRI, comes in and snatches one of her books and spills her stack over the table. With lightning fast reflexes befitting of someone born in Ramuh, the city of storms, she rescues her mPad before it is buried under a pile of heavy books that would have SURELY cracked the screen to the expensive device. Fury creeps into her face and she stuffs her tablet in her back, throws her bag over her shoulder, and immediately takes off running after the rat-man that stole her book.

    Library silence immediately is thrown out the window, "GET BACK HERE WITH THAT! I WASN'T FINISHED WITH IT!" She pursues the Skaven, chasing after him to that staircase, working a hand under her hoodie to grab ahold of one of her many guns.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki is about to say things. Many things! To address the rather odd elephant in the room - 'r-really, we're gonna greet each other by going HELLO <Othering Terminology> HOW ARE YOU, AS I ESTABLISH WE ARE NOT THE SAME AND MAKE STRONG POINT OF IT' - but is cut off by the capers of Clanrats stealing books, and the presence (sights, sounds, smells) of yet more deeper in. "There sure are a bunch of them..." She murmurs, though nodding to Kyra's 'QUIET DOWN, JERKS!' quickly, she shuts up, stifling more comments.

    And then Kyra is off like a shot, shouting and pursuing!

    With a rather startled look, Yuuki does the best first thing that pops into her head. "Oh, ah, let me help you with that!" She calls, after Kyra, and follows her in at a gentle jog. "I'm sure we can reason with them. It's not like the statue outside asked for anyone's head!"

Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
Seifer's shot goes over the shoulder of a pair of Skaven presenty embroiled in a conflict over a book. The book in question is bound in metal, with a title reading 'THE WORD OF KRONG - A TREATISE ON ANVILS AND HOW TO USE THEM by KRONG, GOD OF THE FORGE.'

It also hits one of their bags, because they're huge and nearly impossible to miss in those quarters. The shot ricochets off something else inside of it, hitting a stone on the ceiling and bouncing a /second/ time to inexplicably strike a chandelier above them. It wobbles, jerks downward, and then falls completely off, dropping between Seifer-side and rat-side.

They, of course, run like hell. One of them still has that book, too -- which isn't the one that gets cut off by Staren. The sack-rat barrels into him, lightweight but moving fast, and then the huge, heavy bag over its shoulder hits its back and sends it tumbling. It keens, making a high-pitched sound that normal humans wouldn't even detect, but one that seems to travel very, very far.

A pair of Clanrats suddenly leap off a split balcony above Staren, dropping towards him with notched short swords and armor in a mix of scrap pieces of leather and chain! They're going for the stabbin', that's for sure, all while their loot-focused companion tries to scramble up onto the bookshelves to get away!

Kyra's pursuit of that particular sackrat finds it rapidly descending stairs behind the up-stairs: an L-shaped staircase is set into one wall, with a railing running alongside it but not the gap towards the lower level. It's casting furtive glances over its shoulder while it tries to get away, each one more fearful than the last. It squeaks in a panic, reaching into the sack and flinging whatever it can find at her. A brass candleabra gets tossed her way, followed by a hefty brick of a book with a picture of a horse and a crowned silhouette inside a stenciled heart on the cover. Yuuki might end up getting clobbered by an incredibly specific romance novel if Kyra is quick enough to escape its wrath!

...and she might just detect a pair of other Skaven higher up, lurking in a reading nook in a gap on the floor above, pointing a long-barreled rifle of some kind downwards towards the stairs they're pursuing the sackrat towards. It's clearly waiting for a shot.

Deelel, meanwhile, heads towards the voice. It sounds like it's maybe coming from the western side of the library and down low. There's a bunch of shapes moving in the darkness over there; the lower stacks look a lot more tightly packed, with even more narrow spaces between shelves and less illumination all around. There's a couple broken staircases to get down, but Deelel will have to do some platforming to make it unharmed.

Staren has posed:
    "Oof!" Staren bumps into a rat with a bag of books! "Hey, listen, this is a library--" he starts to lecture, but they're running and then he's being accosted by rats wearing scraps of armor. "Seriously? Look, just leave, okay?"

    Staren steps between the skaven and the bag o' books, unclips a cylinder from his hip, and then swings for their swords to emphasize how outmatched he hopes they are, activating the plasma saber just before impact for extra surprise.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "heyyyy" Seifer whispershouts, "heyyyyy get back here with that"

     "heyyyyyy you stupid rats"

     "heyyyyyyy"

     Seifer, instead of running off after them, climbs up the bookshelf. He dodges one of the weird moving books, slings himself up with raw physical might (aided by Guardian Force JUNCTIONING), and starts running after the rats in the least safe but most dashing and fantastical way possible: over the actual bookcases, because hallways are for suckers.

     Seifer cocks the gunblade again. "heyyyyyyyyy i need that book for my date"

     "stop where you are or i'll shoot you"

     "a bunch"

     "it'll hurt"

     Seifer bounds over another bookcase, levels Hyperion over his arm, and fires at the legs of the rat carrying the book, trying very hard not to shoot anyone else coming in, like Staren.

     "hey be ready," he whispers to the air, "i might need you."

Deelel has posed:
Deelel didn't mean to be annoying to Kyra, archives on the grid don't quite have the same rules as a Libary does in meatspace and she seldom gets to go near them. She is however going to follow the voice and mabe she'll be able to find some thing out about what's going on. She'll apologise to Kyra later for now she's having to make like it's back home and doing osme serious platform action. She'll leap, from her to there as she attempts to make her way pas the broken staircases and to contiune tracking the strnge voice. She didn't draw a weapon yet as she's too focused on getting across and also trying to keep tabs on where everyone else was. She didn't like where things were going however.

Rhapsody (325) has posed:
"hey ... ! stop ... !" That's what Rhapsody whisper yells before the chandelier comes crashing down. "That was really loud you know!" the dragon yells before trying to figure out how to cross. Rather than waiting, the guildmaster takes a few steps back and then tries to lunge over the crashed light fixture, "STOP ALREADY!" she yells before pulling out the red spell blade. The weapon is pointed, and then, (it may appear that she's copying Seifer) the blade fires off a bolt of lightning at the fleeing skaven. At this point she just looks over at Seifer, "They're already making a racket! Stop whispering! I think we're past that now!"

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "it's a library" Seifer hisses, "an' that girl said i should stop yellin'"

     The fact that Kyra broke that rule is irrelevant; it directly prompts Seifer's flaws.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
Althought Kyra hasn't shot up with a Haste mixture, she seems pretty fast on her feet. As if she's had experience chasing after thieves before (like SOAN). She clambers down the stairs, gaining on the rodent man with each step before she finds herself slowed as she ducks beneath a brass candleabra that was just hurled at her. She nearly takes the follow-up book to the face, instead it crashing into her chest and being caught in her arms. This knocks the wind out of her for a few moments and slows her down. She scowls and throws the book over her shoulder before continuing, finally working one of her guns free.

Fortunately, it is a needlegun. She pulls out the appropriate dart afterwards, this one filled with a wonderful Sleep mixture that she happened to have on hand. Once she finds herself with a clear shot, perhaps through a long hall of stacks or a non-windy staircase, she takes a shot at the rat man.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Yuuki continues down the perilous passage of partially-walled and barely-followable geometry after Kyra, who is trained in Final Fantasy Adventure School of Following A "Straight" Path after someone. You know the ones! Even if it's awful, broken ground, you can just run straight after the Obvious Plot Guy as everything goes to hell!

    Kyra has practice in this, and Yuuki's intense normalcy gives her a chase disadvantage. "Wa-..." She almost shouts, before remembering it's a library!

    "Come back!" She stage-whispers, which is more or less useless. She has to hustle and finds that her low jog isn't keeping up with scrambling rats. It does, however, let her see some danger.

    She reaches over to a nearby shelf, and takes a handful of books, checking the spines quickly before starting to hock them at the rats waiting in ambush. "Get down from there! You'll hurt yourselves or others!"

Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
Staren cuts through their short swords without much effort, leaving the clanrats to hold truncated pieces of metal. They stop and look down at them, then at one another, and then at Staren. There's a weird kind of pause.

As if on cue, both of them reach into little bags and pull out tiny round things. They back up and start flinging them at Staren, handfuls of cherry bombs going off while they pelt him with a seemingly endless supply of them. Did they raid the vending machine?! Those /vermin/!

Seifer, on the other hand, leaps on top of bookcases and starts chasing down the rat-fink what took the shiniest possible book he could get to progress his romantic dream. The sack-rat glances back and promptly panics, jumping up onto a wall and scrambling upwards. He gets shot in the leg, shrieks, and then promptly gets struck by lightning, all the hair on his body standing on end as he falls from the wall. It twitches and sizzles. Rhapsody might be proud of the handiwork, or offended by the smell.

The jezzail team sees a better target, though. It changes aim, losing interest in Kyra and Yuuki and aiming over the bookcases. There's a crack of gunfire, and a Warpstone slug flies over the tops of the bookshelves and at the gunblade-wielder on top of them and in the open. He might not appreciate getting hit by something magically radioactive, armor-piercing and explosive in all the worst ways.

They're about to fire a second shot from a second gun when books start hitting them. They shout in irritation and start to throw the books back at Yuuki, two of them at first, until she gets lucky and knocks one out with a lucky hardcover to the face.

Some of the titles are pretty weird, though: 'Questgiving: An Underrated Profession.' 'Twenty-One Ways to Attract Adventurers.' 'I Am A Viking Wizard And You Can Too.' And of course the old classic, 'The Head of Vecna: Myth or Magic?'

This leaves Kyra clear, though. The sack-rat turns down a long, narrow corridor and rushes towards an intersection, giving her a moment at the bottom of the stairs to shoot it in the ass with a sleep dart. It stumbles and falls down, tail sticking up and then settling, snoring underneath the enormous sack of loot. Books slowly slide out of it onto its head. The snoring just gets more muffled. Now she just has to get down there and find it!

Deelel continues on. She sees shapes dart between shelves, climbing up and over them and rummaging through titles. They don't notice her, or maybe they're preoccupied with other things. She comes to a more lit-up corner of the room, where a shelf and a wall sconce has tumbled into a hole in the floor that leads down into darkness. There's a little fire going over there, totally unintentionally, and rat-men are climbing up and down it, carrying loot out under the watchful eye of a heavily-armored, black-furred Skaven. He hasn't spotted her just yet.

One of the sack-rats stops near him. "Is the boss back yet? We're running out of sack-sacks."

The armored rat looks down his nose at him, and jabs him with the butt of his glaive, growling. The sack-rat makes a worried noise and retreats into the tunnel.

Staren has posed:
    Staren looks between the rats as there's an awkward pause. Is this farce going to end now?

    BANG!

    Staren stumbles back from the force, ending up sitting on the sack of books. He's tense, ready to dodge out of the way, when he realizes his armor is barely damaged. Are they using... fireworks or something?

    His forcefield comes up, the explosives slowly chipping away at it -- it handles the distributed shockwaves of explosives better than the point impact of bullets, it seems.

    Staren is about to dodge to the side when he remembers he's on the sack of books -- they'll get blown up! He can't have that! He stands up, bracing himself against the force of the explosions pushing him back, and after about a second, says, "Alright, that's enough!" and clips the sword's hilt back to his hip and draws a Federation phaser from his bag, dropping the field to try and stun at least one of the rats in the split-second before more cherry bombs reach him and detonate!

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     The book has to do with Seifer's dreams of romance, but it has nothing to do with his romantic dream.

     It's still impeding him following his hormones, though, which is very important (though not EQUALLY so).

     Also, he just got shot with some kind of horrible mutating stone, which is a lot more pressing than trying to score points with his future date. Seifer stumbles with the shock of somebody who just, well, got *shot*, looking down to touch his chest. Blood is spilling out onto his white coat, and through the new bullet hole in his white coat. He grasps at the hole. He pokes it, like he can't believe it.

     Seifer is the kind of guy who believes, to quote a truly excellent piece of fiction, that if God himself descended from Heaven with a shotgun next to Seifer's head and pulled the trigger, *God would miss*.

     Not to mention the itching, agonizing burning the warpstone is generating all the way through. It's not as bad as it could've been, because Gilgamesh's power is making Seifer a *lot* tougher than he'd normally be, but 'it's not as bad as it'd normally be' merely takes it down from crippling to agonizing.

     "AhhhhhhhhHHHHHHH!" Seifer screams, clutching his chest and falling to his knees. His vision blurrs.

     He still manages to fire off a few shots, but he's hazy. He's gonna have to end this in the next strike. He stands and goes running again, heedless of the pain he's in.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel sees the shapes now moving about she can pause to get an idea of what they are and finally she comes on a group of ratmen. She's had no experiance with the Skaven, it's a lucky thing for her and the rats. She does't know the horror of fighting the endless horde of man rate ot hte horrors they like to unleash upon hte world. For the rats she doesn't know what they are so she does have some resttainedbut she sees them they ae clearly looking for things at this point. She now does something foolish as she doesn't start attacking she now attemps to get a better look and to listen in a bit longer before she tries to reveal herself to thee mystery ratmen who bear no real visual likeless to Faruja...

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
Kyra gets her shot off and she finds herself exceptionally pleased as the mixture works quite successfully. But suddenly, there is a GIANT PILE OF BOOKS BLOCKING HER WAY! Well fortunately, she doesn't have to run any further and quickly reaches the book pile. She can hear the ratman snoring beneath the books and pauses. "....wait, what title /did/ he take...?" she wonders aloud before digging through the pile, pushing books aside until she can grab that big sack she saw her stolen book get shoved into.

    Once she has it, she plops down at the base of the pile and starts picking through the sack, looking for anything that she could have been reading. It was probably a sidequest-related tip book.

Rhapsody (325) has posed:
    FRIED RAT. Nice, but not so nice when the smell hits her. "Ugh, bad idea, bad id-" then Seifer is basically screaming, over there. It's enough for the guildmaster to get a bit upset, "Alright, seriously, ENOUGH!" she roars, firing off the other -five- charges into whatever scurrying rat she can fire at. They aren't very well aimed shots, though. "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! DROP THE BOOKS!"

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Unlike the Jezzail team's sniping pair, Yuuki is not trying to kill anyone or anything, though the sharp scent of familiar blood hits her nose. She knows the owner, and frowns...

    Seifer. He sure did like getting in trouble, didn't he? He almost reminded her of a much more honest with himself (if spacey) Zero. And she had a big place in her heart for people like Zero.

    However, she had been trying to pointedly ignore her sense of smell in this place, because right now it smelled more of decaying paper and dust.

    And rat poop! Basically awful.

    As she throws her books, she starts slowing down. "An Abridged History on the Plus One? Spell Components - The Power of Bat Poop?"

    She drops the books. "This isn't just any library!"

    She scowls, a tangible aura swelling around her as she starts looking annoyed. "This is a /specialty/ library!"

Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
Staren drops his force field to fire, one of the Clanrats hitting the dirt instantly. The other starts to run, but Rhapsody's /lightning fiesta/ catches it before it can get far. In that instant, though, something else is upon him: another rat, sans the man part, huge and dropping from above and landing on his back. It bites into his armor, clinging to him. There's a weird hissing noise, like a... fuse?

Yes, they /absolutely/ tied explosives to a giant rat. Staren's got about three seconds to figure out what to do about this problem before he goes on a magical adventure straight through a floor.

Seifer's shots go wide -- mostly. One clips the second jezzail-rat, glancing off of the breastplate it scrounged from somewhere and spinning it around in the reading nook. It staggers, fumbling to reload its gun, which... well, it's a muzzle-loader. It's going to need a minute. It gets to putting in the powder charge right about when another dose of dragon-delivered /lightning fiesta/ heads that way, setting off the charge in its face and pitching it over with a decisive 'whump.'

Kyra finds a lot of books in there, and a bunch of shiny things used for reading books. Titles include 'Necronomeconomics 101,' '50 Recipes for Dungeon Dieting,' 'Intermediate Rangefinding,' and, perhaps oddly, 'The Doom of Kavzar.' There's probably a dozen tomes packed in there, though, and there's not much space, and there's that scratching noise...

...scratching noise? Scratching noise, like from nails on wood. There's a creak as weight settles on old shelves behind and above her, and a cloaked figure leans off a shelf like a rat-man with some kind of monkey genes. His left hand and one foot keep hold of the shelf; his right hands hold black-bladed short swords, dripping some kind of liquid onto the stone that sizzles when it makes contact.

Yes, 'hands,' as in 'he has an extra arm on that side. PATHUS OF FOUL PEAK drops down from his perch, stabbing his paired Weeping Blades (two?!) at Kyra with a trademark growl of, "Die-die, man-thing!" From higher up, Seifer and Yuuki can see him, but in the dim light... it might be hard to make him out from that range.

That gets the attention of the Stormvermin and the sack-rats by the hole in the ground, keeping Deelel mostly in cover. The sack-rats scurry faster, while the Stormvermin yells down the hole, "Send up the little ones," waving a hand at some unseen rat below. There's a scurrying and a lot of squeaking, and... brown. A carpet of brown, rising from the hole, and rushing off into the stacks.

Rats. Big ones. Lots and lots of rats, a veritable swarm -- and they're coming for Deelel!

Staren has posed:
    "Get off me!" Staren shouts as he feels something clinging to his back and hissing. He reaches back with an armored hand and tries to pull it free, finally flinging it to the ground in front of him.

    There's just enough time for him to see the explosive and recognize what it is. It's almost comedic, really.

    The armor prevents the shockwave from pulping his body, but doesn't stop the raw force of the explosion from flinging him through one bookcase and into another, sending both falling to the ground.

    "Urrrrrggh..." he groans as he climbs out of the bookcase and gets to his feet, surrounded by the damage this fight is doing.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel goes for the disc on her back as she sees that she's now got rats coming after her. She mutters about osmething called grid bugs and knows tht ohters re now fighting in the libary with the rat men. She held off too lng and may now be paying for it now. The humm of the ID disc can be hear as she throws it into the horde of rats the letal cutting edge is lie and it will bounce about hopefully getting a number of them as she leaps up into the air and back a bit.

"So grid bugs? Tch come on lets's see if you got some game!"

She calls out as she catches the disc and throws it again.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
"What the...dungeon dieting? Is that even a thing?" Kyra laughs, putting that book aside, though pausing as she sees "The Doom of Kavzar". "There we are, that must be it." She concludes before a chill travels down her spine at rasp of metal on wood. She looks up, following the sound of the creaking before she suddenly sees the cloaked figure dangling from the shelves, carrying a corrosive sword.

    /Two/ corrosive swords. With too many hands. "EEK!" she squeals, snatching up her gun and firing upon the thing as she scrambles backwards, the weeping blades whistling through the air and making contact against the girl's arms. She squeals out in pain from the edge and the following sword's enchantment, blood immediately staining her white sleeves.

    "SWORD GUY WHERE ARE YOU??" Kyra calls out, book tucked under one arm loosely, one hand grasping herself as she fills the stacks with the bright green glow of her healing magic as she fixes her wounds. "HURRY I THINK HE'S GOT FLESH MELTING SWORDS!"

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer may not be able to see, but he knows he's missed. It's that instinctive knowledge somebody who's used to shooting can just *tell*. He's missed, and it's annoying him. Even as Rhapsody takes out the other rats with /lightning fiesta/, Seifer is still annoyed. He shouldn't've missed that.

     He needs to plug the wound. He's losing blood.

     As he moves, Seifer jams his coat into the wound on both sides. That'll staunch the bleeding, as long as he doesn't pull it out. He's moving to get a better shot-

     -and then Kyra calls for his help.

     Seifer wavers. On the one hand, he really wanted that book to present to Lin. He was pretty sure that it was better than flowers, taking an interest in a girl's hobbies and passions. On the other hand...a woman was asking for his help from a monster.

     Ah, screw it. Seifer knew what he had to do. He wouldn't be a proper Knight if he did anything less.

     Blue light manifests in his hand. An orb whirls into being, spinning and pulsing with power. Seifer jams the orb into his sword, which immediately starts to hum - musically, as it generates actual notes of music hanging in the air around the blade.

     Seifer dives dramatically off the shelf, the blade in both hands, and falls towards the rat threatening Kyra.

                       JUNCTION: OPERA SINGER --> ATTACK                        

                        LIMIT BREAK: CRISIS MODE LEVEL 2                        

                                  CURTAIN CALL                                  

     Seifer brings the opera-charged blade down on the rat's head. The gunblade goes off not with a BANG but with a glorious musical pitch, like a singer. Seifer lands, his coat whirling about him, inverts the blade, and drags it up through the rat again, pulling the trigger midway through. Another beautiful note rings out. He steps forward, past the rat, dragging the blade to the side; more music. He whirls in front of Kyra, levels the singing gunblade, and jams it directly into the rat's jaw. A final, incredibly high-pitched note sings out as Seifer draws the blade out and whirls it around, the musical notes disappearing. He turns away from the rat with a flourish and a bow. Roses fall to his feet as behind him (conspicuously directly over the rat), an inexplicable but extremely heavy curtain falls.

     The roses and the curtain vanish a moment later. Limit Breaks are weird.

     "Whenever a lady's in trouble," Seifer says, brushing his cheek with his coat and turning back to face the rat, "I'll be there t'save 'em."

     "C'mon! If you got any fight left - just try an' get by me!"

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    Breathe. Deep breaths, in and out.
    The smell of rat and blood fills her nostrils.

    Think happy thoughts! Happy!
    The soft curve of a neck, the taste of hot, fresh...

    Yuuki Kuran is Havin' A Problem. As things get worse, she just sort of tries to retract into her own world, to calm down. It's fine. It's okay!

    It's just a book.
    Just... A book.

    Yuuki manages to get her shit under control just in time for the quest monster whatever to... Get basically trashed on by Seifer? Huh, Seifer was pretty brilliant when he was motivated. "Seifer!" she calls. "Grab the swords!"

    In the meantime, Yuuki moves to assist Kyra. Poorly.

Vatol Halftail (1088) has posed:
Staren is presently in some wreckage and left alone by the rats around, who assume he got blown to pieces. There is an open book next to him entitled 'Housecats And How To Fight Them: A Wizard's Manual.' Every page is blank.

Deelel's disc ricochets, cutting a few of the rats up. The rest surge onward, flowing up shelves and across the floor in their hunt for her. The frantic squeaking gets the Stormvermin's attention, who expected it to go elsewhere, and he steps into sight, drawing a wheellock pistol and firing a booming shot of Warpstone down the narrow space between shelves at her. "Man-things!" the Stormvermin yells. "Bring-bring the books!"

Kyra finds the wounds burn /awfully/. The venom on this thing is corrosive as well as horribly poisonous; she'll need an Esuna and maybe an extra Poisona to get rid of all of it. These must be the Weeping Blades the statue was talking about. Fortunately, an easy kill is something that PATHUS OF FOUL PEAK can't take -- the shot from Kyra drives him back with a stagger, and Seifer moves in with... with...

...opera?

The three-armed rat-man fights with a fury. Seifer's Gunblade meets the Weeping Blades with musical ringing, the Skaven's counterattack fierce and bloodthirsty. He gets hit, though, again and again, too focused on the offense to mount much of a defense, one of his blades knocked out of his grip while he stabs with the other. Seifer's last thrust hits him in the jaw, and there's a flash of black un-light and an acrid scent from under his cloak as something burns a horrible green.

The blade glances off, cutting shallowly. A disk of some kind of greenish rock, hot to the touch and glowing faintly, hits the stone floor and cracks. Some kind of cord has been wrapped around it, but it's cut cleanly. It disappears behind the inexplicable curtain.

When the odd effect is gone, the Skaven is, too. There's a hint of tail fleeing towards the hole in the ground. The other rats are all following, running away and abandoning most of their loot.

One of the Weeping Blades is left behind, embedded in a bookshelf. The endlessly dripping venom is eating through the shelving.

Yuuki, were she not Perfectly Normal, could smell something like strong medicine mingled with the scent of blood coming from that side of the room. Deelel, once she's dealt with the rat swarm or escaped it, will note the Stormvermin is gone, too.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
Honestly, Kyra didn't even know if calling for the sword guy was going to work. He had a sword-gunblade to be specific. What she realizes now, as he comes sweeping in with ha gorgeous, flower-filled special attack, is that he's not just a guy with a sword. He's a certified Knight class. It makes her forget about her suffering for a moment as she looks on, sparkly-eyed.

    Her poisoned wounds keep her from swooning after he makes that final cheek-brushing pose. "Oh~...oh, oh right, ow-" she knows, right away, that just a Cure isn't going to do it. Her flesh is literally melting, necrosis eating away at her until she halts it with an esuna. In fact, she casts /two/ esunas just to be sure.

    SShe grins as Seifer's attack is enough to drive the rat-man away. Unaware of the quest, she doesn't take the blade for herself and instead stands. "Hey sword guy. Um. Thank you." she says with an unashamed grin on her face. "Oh, yeah, you're gonna need this-" Without much further warning, she drops a Cure spell on him as well.

Staren has posed:
    'Housecats And How To Fight Them: A Wizard's Manual'? Staren sucks it up with the matter manipulator for later perusal. Then he runs to check on the others, a bit unsteadily, partly from the terrain and partly from having just been exploded. His armor's dented all over the front and has some cracks.

    He leaps down to the lower floor with the aid of energy wings, landing by the rest of the party.

    And... the rats are gone, and one (1) Weeping Blade has been left behind. He'd be concerned if people are okay, but Kyra seems to have that well in hand.

    "So... I guess we win?" he gestures vaguely at the sword.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer is like *right* about to fall over before Kyra heals him. He's got *just* enough wherewithal in him to notice her dropping a Cure spell, and that snaps him out of his haze. The spell, not him noticing.

     "Huh? You use Para-Magic?" Seifer asks, "Are you SeeD?"

     That's probably some words Kyra doesn't know. Seifer does offer her a hand nonetheless. "Seifer Almasy. No problem. I ain't the kinda guy who can let a lady get hurt."

     Seifer scoops up the book on forging and tucks it under his shoulder, then sheathes Hyperion and grins at her. "Thanks for the heal. Thing felt like it was settin' my insides on fire."

     "I guess we turn in the sword or somethin' like that?"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
"Nah, that was just magic-magic. White magic. And no, I have no idea what you mean by 'seed'." Kyra finally stands herself up. "You're a Knight, right? With that technique, you have to be a Knight." she says with a matter of fact conclusion, only to pause, "Burning insides? Oh, right, you'll probably need this too."

    She casts esuna on Seifer as well just for good measure. "Can't be too careful around rats. Vermin vehicles, all of 'em. And you're welcome."

Staren has posed:
    Staren grabs the sword. "Guess so. Uh... I guess we bring it to... the statue?" He heads over that way. "What's a SeeD? And Para-Magic?"

LATER:

    Staren retrieves the book from the Matter Manipulator and opens it. Every page is blank except the last, which reads:

                                     Don't.                                    

Deelel has posed:
Deelel says "I am not a man!"

Deelel feels a bit miffed about that one but she is doing a good job clear the floor more come at her and she keeps throwing her blade and trying keep themback thankfully she's been able to deal with the swam but she does pause where did the rat in heavy armour go? He somehow got away and now she has got awya but she's a bit banged up there's a crack here or there on her body as she puts her disc away. 5R
"Wht the glitch ... was tht about and does anyone need help?" She'll be trying to form back up with everyone else. What a crazy night...

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     "I ain't a knight officially, but it's part'a my romantic dream. Maybe someday I'll tell ya 'bout it." Seifer rubs the bridge of his nose and looks away.

     He appreciates the spell visibly. "Thanks."

     He pointedly doesn't answer, because Garden *is* still a secret and these people *aren't* part of his faction. He may not have any loyalty to Garden, but he's not gonna just throw them under the bus.

     "So, uh...the hell were these things?"

Staren has posed:
    "They looked like rat-people." Staren comments on his way to the statue.

Yuuki Kuran (518) has posed:
    "Rats?" Yuuki offers, around the same time Staren does. She looks much more calm and normal now. Perfectly Normal, even! Thankfully she didn't flip out over books.

    It was, in fact, reminding how dumb it'd be if she blew her lid about books.

    "I don't think my book is here, but it's alright. Seifer, you can go ahead and... I don't know... Play cards for the reward? I'm going back home. I /definitely/ need a shower. Good night, everyone!"

    Then she wanders off the way she came.