5539/The Denandsor Project-3

The Denandsor Project-3
Date of Scene:	28 October 2017
Location:	Contaminated Flatlands
Synopsis:	The Deathknight Shards of Basalt launches an ill-advised assault on Denandsor.
Cast of Characters:	1124, 1109, Starbound Flotilla, 1129, Sir Gawain, Tomoe, All-Seeing Eye, Staren

---

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    The entry into Denandsor, this time, isn't the remote Warpgate on the distant hill like before. The Flotilla had been clever and enterprising enough to build a 'camp' of sorts halfway into the city, on the verge on the inner and market districts.

    Signs of intense combat from centuries ago have at least diminished the overwhelming encroachment of domesticated nature here. The thriving gardens that had long escaped their confines and overrun the city, to the point where trees and flowers of impressive size twist over and around the many buildings replete with ornamentation of the magical materials and sink their roots into any exposed inch of the earth. Here, on the grand plaza, piles and piles of human skeletons lie strewn about one end, gunned down long ago by the double ranks of defunct automata charged with defending the orichalcum gates, unable to comprehend the wave of insanity that had befallen the city's populace, and having run out of power when nobody was left to recharge them. The scorched and blasted earth makes for poor soil.

    There has been some time to accomplish several tasks, but not all. Clearing detritus, setting up further infrastructure than the artificial warpgate, mapping the area beyond the gates, salvaging automatons, sneaking artifacts from under the noses of the sentries that still patrol the city, repairing the damaged memory crystal retrieved last time, or retrieving Gawain's 'machinebuddy' are possibilities, but with the tangle, the automatic sentinels, the traps, and the nausea and headaches that start to set in after several hours, even wearing Bloody Revelations' incredibly sketchy protective talismans, would have made for difficult work.

    They arrive today, though, with the knowledge that they are not alone. An Abyssal of the Deathlord 'Walker in Darkness', tasked a while ago with salvaging the city for her master, has supposedly come up with the best plan they could on short notice, and come to beat the group to the prize. Shards of Basalt, as she is called, shouldn't have any resistance to the terror curse except Exalted willpower and magic, but the army of undead she had scraped together on short notice certainly wouldn't care. The one other advantage the Elites possess is the white jade ring; apparently a security pass of intermediate level, that can get them through the gates, and possibly help them out in the elaborate administrative, temple, and tomb quarters beyond the gates, just one step short of the Shogunate's palace at the center.

Devola and Popola (1109) has posed:
Despite being automatons themselves, Devola and Popola's focus has been on setting up infrastructure in the area. Making sure everyone's capable of fighting and operating properly over the long term can't be forgotten, and the twins have taken on the task of slowly expanding the Elites' area of operations outwards.

     Too bad they're not immune to the eerie sort of headache plaguing nigh everyone in the area. They keep brave faces on, of course, but even the androids need to take a break every now and then! That's why their progress hasn't been as quick as it could have been, but at least some has been made in getting proper lighting and supply organization set up.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"You have the ring?"
"Well I had it the last ten times you asked. Think it's disappeared since?"
"Can it, ye both. Let's get inside."
"Ugh. ugh! Floran hate curssse feeling. Makesss feel like prey. Go fassst."
"Determined. It's much better for us to focus on that as fast as we can."
"Let us begin, then. No more delays."

    The STARBOUND FLOTILLA are here, in their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces to her central piratey longcoat. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.

    The Flotilla restore their presence at the camp they've built and worked on since the last excursion, but they don't tarry long! And they set off for the geometric center of this curse, the main administrative area they'd been focusing on before. George brandishes the ring almost like a shield in a prepared way, having left one finger on his hardsuit detached. Quick and coordinated, cautious without hesitation, and urgent to zero in on the center.

Miari (1129) has posed:
Miari's unhappy with these creepy amulets. She has turned hers in, and instead is wearing what looks to be a pendant of crystal 'round her neck, which... also exudes a creepy aura of some sort. It's probably something from Malfeas or made of Malfean materials that's accomplishing a similar effect.

    But it's probably equally unsettling to people who aren't accustomed to such things...

    She did say she would make preparations for an UNDEAD ARMY, but she emerges from the warp gate looking remarkably... well, normal. No change in attire, she's not dragging an army behind with her - even spiritual senses show only a few demons wrapped up in her invisible anima...

    She wastes little time on arrival though, in heading straight for the Flotilla and folding her hands across her front. "We have quite a day ahead of us. Are you all ready for this?"

Sir Gawain has posed:
Priority one for Gawain was checking on Machinebuddy and seeing if he was safe, and if so, bringing him along for the excursion. Once he's done with that, he heads into the camp, sword in hand, before allowing the Flotilla to lead the way. "What sort of things do you think we'll find inside? ...Is it possible that the Deathknight already got inside? We need to beat her in there, especially to the orb Bloody Revelations is seeking."

Tomoe has posed:
Once more into Creation Tomoe goes, she wonders was getting involved in this world a go idea at all with her own world's troubles and the others she'd already been involved with it was a hard call for her personally but she saw things through to the end. Also she could see what this place might have been once, but that's an echo at best she was dfully aware of how dangerous this place was and the thing needed to protect herself from the local effects. She did not like the deals she's had to make and wonder how she'd be judged for it someday,

She was very much sticking with Miari on this and sh's found she'd started to work good with her and she was unaware of Miari's nature.

She had been loaded down for mass combat and knew it wouldn't be easy but she hoped her blades and few spells she had would suffice for things.

"I'm as ready as I'm ecer going to be Miari."

She also gives Gawain a look for a moment and then nods.

"ANy extra intel would be useful and I hope fire works well enough on the undead which still have form here."

She has no idea given the rules on various worlds tend to shift about for dealing with the undead.

All-Seeing Eye has posed:
Accompanying the Paladins today is All-Seeing Eye, Chosen of Autochthon. In the short time he's known of her, Eye is certain that Revelations is defective, and highly suspicious that she's a danger to Creation and Autochthonia. It's therefore a prudent decision to come along under the guise of Paladin assistance to do some recon for Claslat's sake.

     Today, he's accessorized as much as any other, wearing a handwoven poncho of thick synthetic cords, specifically chosen not to clash with Revelations' amulet (he /insisted/ on seeing a picture of one before coming along, naturally). The striations of the fabric resemble smog rising from an industrial landscape. Beneath the poncho are a loose-fitting shirt designed to breathe, with sleeves long enough to conceal his wrists. Finally, finally, plain but form-fitting slacks and a very comfortable-looking pair of boots. His raven hair is draped over one shoulder, and a confident smile creeps across his face.

     "Not with me here, you don't!" His smooth tenor is unmistakble for those who've heard him on the radio, especially the sorceror to whom he replies. "The whispers are tiresome, of course, but I'll have us out of here in no time." Coming up behind Miari, he briefly places a hand on her shoulder, only to be distracted by two things.

     The first of which is the magical materials used in the construction of the buildings here. Those could be salvaged and put towards the dwindling reserves of his nation!

     The other of those is Gawain. "My /goodness,/" he pretends to say under his breath. It's definitely loud enough for Gawain (and Miari) to hear.

     As he walks, he uses his vision to peer through the walls of the local architecture--it won't be able to penetrate the magical materials, but it might reveal something either interesting, concerning, or both all the same. It just doesn't do to enter a place like this unprepared!

Staren has posed:
    Staren's focus here has been searching for books of late. Lost tomes of knowledge about the workings of Essence could not only enlighten the mages and sages of the day, but might also grant him some insight into how things work... here, and elsewhere.

    Today he's not here for books though, but to fight. To this end he's accompanied by a little over two dozen constructs. Mostly it's the pony-shaped metal statues, a few of which have missile racks strapped to them. There's also a couple of crude stone humanoids 10 feet tall or so carrying large kanabos, and one humanoid robot that takes up a rooftop position with a futuristic assault rifle.

    To Miari: "I'm honestly surprised you didn't bring some demons or something. Planning to just use big magic attacks to wipe them out before they get here?"

    To the Captains: "I don't suppose you have a way to set up automated turrets? Although... I guess it's hard to know just where they'll go..."

    To All-Seeing Eye: "So you're the Autocthonian? Pleased to meet you, I'm Staren, action problem-solver."

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    Machinebuddy is, in fact, safe and sound. Though the technician savants of today are a far cry from those of the First Age, those assigned to the task were intelligent and experienced Dragon Blooded, no doubt using a great deal of magic to increase their capabilities for the period he was under maintenance. In fact, not only has the data been retrieved, but the dirt, vines, and debris has been cleared out of his plates, and the handful of components they still know how to replace have been fixed up with parts from their spare powered armour. A lot of polishing and cleaning and someone could believably claim he's good as new. As usual, though, he insists on tailing Gawain, and very occasionally politely reminding him to see the Deliberative at his earliest convenience.

    The magical materials used in the city's construction are almost solely for the purposes of beautification. Some of it is used functionally, in the very skeletons of buildings that would be impossible feats of architecture without semi-indestructible supports, but all the ornamentation doesn't pose much of a difficulty in peering into their insides. For the most part, all around the plaza are recreational centers and seasonal shops, gorgeously furnished and still almost completely intact --practically livable-- but stripped of anything of critical use.

    Some are pretty much run bare of useful equipment, materials, and even things like beds and water, after the occupants died. Others are jam packed full of beds and supplies inside, to the point of having empty plates and medicine jars that have rotted away to nothing, after they were abandoned mid-use. Human remains are a constant, most jumbled in frantic motion, but many bedridden or collapsed by the side of the road. Unmistakable signs of plague. There are a handful of artifacts still around! Many of them unfamiliar. From the few All-Seeing Eye would know at a glance, however, he can ascertain that none of them are more than conveniences or novelties, too irrelevant to be seized under martial law, albeit very good ones.

    As before, the jade ring unlocks the orichalcum gate when pressed to its central socket, and disabled a great many invisible, Essence-charged defenses. Running headfirst beyond, the surroundings take on a distinctly different facade. Practicality all but disappears in favour of absurd and outlandish construction, where the architecture swiftly becomes art in of itself, with the most magnificent pieces vying for the city center.

    Muscling past the first rows of administrative check-ins, all sorts of things become visible, from tea houses suspended in what appear to be giant, floating soap bubbles, to golden obelisks blazing with heatless fire, to buildings grown out a single tree, curated over centuries such that its branches naturally form an entire theatre with perfect lighting. A /huge/ number of them have plaques, both physical and holograph, that denote them as memorials or tombs, with the sobriquets and epithets of Solars most commonly among them, but with some others. Many of them must have projects undertaken long before their unnaturally delayed old age. Unfortunately, there's no grid planning at all.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    It's a complete mess in this grandiloquent art gallery, and turning this way and that, they're liable to run into invisible walls set up as part of a phantom maze, or gimmicky puzzle gates that try to zap impatient plebs who won't solve the riddle written on them. It's basically nightmare planning cooked up by a bunch of bored and arrogant near-immortals to commemorate their own crafting talents and show off at each other.

    From outside the city, Kyoko has a very different view. Of course, the Lookshy field force is gone. Gawain would have found that out hours ago. There's no sense in constantly funneling resources to a unit sitting on its ass, weeks after it'd already made contact and secured a diplomatic deal. Instead, it's surrounded by an even larger number of walking corpses. Near to, or possibly a little over, a thousand shambling zombies, obvious to anyone familiar with the concept, form a block five rows deep in front, organized like regimented troops. Translucent shapes of gaunt and decrepit corpse-ghosts flit around the edges, occasionally snarling and gnashing their teeth in impatience and hunger.

    Behind them are arrayed a number of more concerning things. Massive, serpentine abominations created out of endless chains of human spines, skulls and rib cages joined together, which walk on countless arms like centipedes. Catapults comprised of gigantic, organic arms, grown, chopped off, and preserved in formaldehyde (by the smell of it) clutching exotic ammunition in their fists. Lumbering things stitched together out of what look like parts of dinosaurs and other massive beasts, with mechanical fixtures crudely riveted into heir flesh, and partially armoured in soulsteel. It's a much more concerning sight than 'a horde of zombies' as advertised.

    Rather than a thew strange, alien horrors Bloody Revelations has been seen with, these things all look 'created'. Built in some kind of mad factory that processes the dead for war. There is only one living figure amongst them, and they don't really stand out; a lone figure near the head, completely obscured in the ostentatious, skull-adorned black 'iron' of soulsteel plate.

    From a distance, it's impossible to hear any commands. They might actually not be /giving/ them audibly. Somehow, though, they know that there are intruders in the city again. How they're alerted might be difficult to figure out. The first order of business though, is that the arm-pults flex, groan, and then hurl their payloads with a fair degree of precision, causing huge, earthen vats to smash all around the party's general position, without hitting anyone. Where they break, they spill huge globs of what looks like glowing green napalm, which immediately sets fire to their surroundings with eerie viridian flames, but doesn't seem to actively spread. A warning shot? It seems like at least one should have hit someone, with that huge splash radius. The dead begin marching through the gate after only one volley too. Not much of a bombardment.

Staren has posed:
    Incoming fire! Staren tries to blast one of the projectiles with his beam cannons, and then stay away from the fire. Sending drones up to get a sky-eye view... <"They're entering the city!"> He starts putting the missiles he brought to use, dozens of them rocketing into the air from him and the few pony-constructs with launchers, to rain down on the enemy; targeting grouped-up zombies and the armapults with exploding fireballs of plasma.

    Staren himself then flies up to the rooftop to get his robot to reload his missile racks. The death knight isn't the only one with nonverbal commands...

* The two kanobo-wielding stone constructs just make a beeline for the horde, ready to start swinging.
* The robot stays where it is, ready to shoot if enemies get close to the center.
* The metal ponies group up to follow anyone /else/ engaging the zombies. While they might be able to seriously injure a normal human just because of their density and mass, when it comes to elite conflict they're not very strong; Their role is a defensive one -- they're a distraction, making the enemy split forces instead of concentrating fire on the elites. Staren hopes the enemy /assumes/ metal constructs are dangerous, anyway.

Miari (1129) has posed:
Miari grins coyly at Staren's observation, but apart from a quick banter on the radio says no more about this. She's a bit distracted by All-Seeing Eye sneaking up on her, which brings a warm smile to her face. For some reason his presence is simply comforting, even IF he is supposedly made of Soulsteel, and she'll take any source of comfort she can get these days.

    Of course despite all the adventure and roaming through the remnants of past glories, SOMEONE has to ruin the endeavor by gobbing pyre flame halfway across Creation and nearly onto her head. Miari doesn't seem to react at first to a pot that's precariously close to her... but that particular one slows down on approach and swoops around into her grasp as if caught by the wind.

    "Hmmmmmmmmmmm."

    She grins... and, spinning around, WHIPS the pot back into the air along its original trajectory... simply reversed to exacting precision.

    "This could get messy. Very quickly. Pyre flame is nearly impossible to extinguish!"

All-Seeing Eye has posed:
There are many Autochthonians, but few so magnificent as All-Seeing Eye. It therefore stands to reason that Staren is referring to him. "That's me!~ Pleased to meet you, dear," comes the Alchemical's convivial response to Staren. "I must say, you cut a daring figure in that armor!" This, he says, without actually turning his head to look, which might cast doubt upon the compliment. That is, until, "The articulation of the tail is very precise." He notices a second detail, too--the scientist's outstretched hand. Eye pauses in his walking to shake hands with Staren, turning his head to make eye contact. "All-Seeing Eye."

     The scan of the areas around him paints a bleak picture. Though it may be well into the past at this point, something awful marrs this place's history. The whispers from the amulet and the dark fate of the mortals who once lived here cause his chipper expression to darken with something akin to pity, with a long frown and a brief closing of his eyes. So many promising futures and proud legacies cut short.

     Still--the silver lining is the sheer opulence and waste of this place might yet serve the living. While he lacks the means to salvage materials from buildings, he might have to take a peek in them and pick up some of those novelties. On their own, they're not of much use, but the raw materials might be. His people are nothing if not thrifty! He'll be sure to stop by, on his way out.

     Then, he gets past the bureaucrats (how fortunate he's in human guise!) only to find himself in mute amazement at the sheer opulence of the gallery. It's all so... beautiful! Hardly efficient, and perhaps a little arrogant, but charming, in its own, cloying way. That charm is notably diminished with the presence of this mysterious green napalm.

     The most annoyed, put upon sigh heard in this gallery perhaps since its inception is released by All-Seeing Eye. With moderate annoyance, he flips his hair back so that it rests against his back rather than over his shoulder. With the brisk walk of an indignant noble torn away from a pastime by pressing responsibilities, he attempts to find the nearest, non-puzzled exit, looking through walls where he can. From there, he'll seek to gain the high ground on these unknown attackers, taking up a position atop a building and zooming in to get a better look at the invading force.

     Interesting... that almost looks like Soulsteel, in the back there. As Staren has the same idea, he only finds it polite to give a little wave to the scientist from the roof of his own building.

TRANSMODAL RAPID TARGETING SYSTEM ENGAGED

     Over his vision, and visible only to the Exalt, a purple grid overlays the advancing army. Those squares occupied by hostiles blink red, and the grid disappears, save for the red squares. A purple line traces a few of the squares together, attempting to focus on the heavy hitters in the back.

ESSENCE PULSE CANNONS ACTIVATED, LETHAL FORCE ENABLED

     With a pneumatic hiss, beams of purple lighting bolt from the Exalt's eyes. They soar over the rank and file, only to bounce off of a decorative statue of some long-forgotten Solar to head for the group of soulsteel-armored creations bringing up the rear.

Devola and Popola (1109) has posed:
P: "What a strange-looking place."
D: "You didn't think it was strange the first time we saw it?"
P: "Well... Yeah, but it was strange for far away. It's actually cute up close. In a strange way."
D: "Cute until gravity kicks in again."

    Secure in the knowledge that their infrastructure expansions aren't yet on fire, the twins have chosen to follow the rest of the Elites into the center of the city proper! They observe the odd sorts of structures as they pass by them, taking particular interest (or offense) to the existence of those soap-bubble teahouses. Alas, there's not much time to enjoy the sights before they have to go back to focusing on the job at hand.
    
    In this case, focusing means having stuff hurled at them. Big globs of awful burning stuff, even. Thankfully, Staren and Miari are helping to keep the horde and the pots at bay, leaving the androids to do what they do... Pehaps not best, but moderately well: RUN FAST.
    
    Their goal: trying to reach arm-pults that Miari isn't aiming for. Devola and Popola practically leapfrog over each other as they try to clear a path through the swarm, swinging around swords and spears with both their hands and robo-telekinesis. All-Seeing Eye seems to have a similar idea of targetting the heavier targets, and they're soon using that purple lightning as cover as well in their advance to slice and stab those arms apart!

Staren has posed:
    Eye's greeting just gets a slack-jawed stare from Staren. It was a compliment, but it vaguely feels like he's being hit on. He doesn't think he looks like a girl, although maybe it's hard to tell with all the armor. Maybe Eye heard of catgirls but not catboys, or is just also into boys. Or maybe he just compliments everyone like that.

    No time to think too hard about it though, they have a fight to win!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"Oh, you mean ready for the long day, Miari? Yeah, I've eaten like, twenty doses of Five Hour Energy, so I'm good for this if it lasts another week or so."
"Staren. We can deploy defenses. Need to focus on that after we solve the curse. No time for this otherwise."
"Aye, 'tis a divine thing to create in minutes! Yer backup will be soon!"
"With the comfort I can take in such beauty as this, you shall have no shortage of speed on our part."

    The Starbounders call out, over radio or over shouting, to those who have spoken to them. Moonfin, actually moves right up next to George. How can one feel stressed and fearful around such intense beauty!! He loves what he sees here and navigating it is a huge pain in the ass, especially when he insists on solving all the riddles and . He has to almost be physically /held back/ when Biteblade calls out, "Floran tired! Tired of ssstupid riddle! Of feel dumb preyfeelingsss! Floran tired of ssssSSSSSSTUUUUPID AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRT!!!" And she fucking deploys, somewhere between a bunch of statues or something, a very large /entire truck/ from her Matter Manupulator, and immediately just fucking floors it, she just guns it straight through the museum with zero hesitation in a giant scraptruck trying to smash her way through walls. There's even a couple rockets welded to the back. She is not interested in these dumb puzzles. There's going to be plenty of loot, and if they sacrifice ten percent to get to the core, then apparently, so be it.

Tomoe has posed:
Machine Buddy has proven to be useful to the party and it seems that the first age machine is back up and running it has proven to be quite useful in aiding them. Also she hopes the ring that the Starbounders found will be of use here but it seem that something else is coming that there's things arriving and they are abominations thing that don't belong to Bloody Revelations it seems though it's time to get to work a she watches something coming she does not feel at all conflicted about fighting.

She will ready not dawn breaker but Caliburn is at the ready as she falls in with Miari and pauses.

"Sounds like Greek Fire from the past of my world."

A lost terror weapon of another age, and one Tomoe's honestly glad remains lost to this day.

"I can attempt to keep them busy so you can cut them down with your spells if it comes to it."

Which is likely will in the end.

Sir Gawain has posed:
Gawain eyes the interesting buildings and structures inside the inner city as he follows the Flotilla, stopping for seconds at a time to take a look at something curious before catching back up to them. "A lot of puzzles...this reminds me of a classic quest. Perhaps it's to prove us worthy?"

Whether or not that's what it is to do, Biteblade summons a truck and begins smashing through things. Gawain just watches, shrugs, and runs forward, moving to squeeze in with his robot pal before Biteblade gets too far ahead, and asks turns his head to the automaton. "Machinebuddy! Directions to the objective, please."

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    Those trying to gun it to the city center face more than a bit of a gimmick quest. Apparently, the Solars of the past had zero respect for mere mortals with places to be and things to do, and even less respect for people trying to get somewhere on time without stopping to marvel at their glorious death monuments and wonder about what kind of treasures may still be locked inside.

    Actually, that's probably extremely relevant. There's no way the Dragon Blooded could have looted them. That might be why the Walker in Darkness wants this place.

    Biteblade ploughs through in a huge truck. The streets are just barely wide enough for it, but being so cluttered with a jungle of centuries old plant life, she can barely see ahead of all the greenery she's mowing down. The worst obstructions are purely magical in nature, and ramming into them has no hope of bypassing them. Others are simply extremely fancy architecture, and she can take a certain satisfaction in smashing down an orichalcum tori covered in sutras when the sheer weight of the truck just rips it out of the ground. Repeated impacts with imperishable architecture start to rack up however, and by the time she about clears the massive halo of ostentatious and self-worshiping tombs, the truck is utterly ruined. At least she's a spear's throw away from the palace grounds, though that's saying something else; it's as big as Buckingham, and the grounds themselves are the source of the garden-forest, and fantastic sculptures and icons can be seen tangled up in it.

    Machinebuddy is pretty helpful though. "Of course. This way, honoured Chosen." he synthesizes in considerably less garbled tones, trotting through the wreckage left by the truck, and showing Gawain to the official entry arches, in distinctly 'Japanese shrine' style, that correspond to a heavily overgrown path, flanked by statues of golden lions. "The barrier will deactivate and emergency lockdown will be lifted as soon as you present your Anima. Official protocols may be followed afterwards." Wait, barrier? It doesn't /look/ like there is one, but . . .

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    For those doing battle with the undead, the story is a little different. The green flames definitely seem to support Revelations' story that this venture was a last-minute, cobbled together effort. Under the light of Creation's sun, the vast puddles of supernatural napalm start to sizzle and smoke, and slowly, greasily, disintegrate. Unfortunately, they're thick, deep pools of the stuff, and will take many minutes to disperse fully. In that time, they're utterly destroying the buildings they've landed on, incinerating the mundane materials in seconds, and right before people's eyes, slowly charring through the orichalcum, moonsilver, and starmetal as well. There'll be nothing left to salvage, even of the so-called 'indestructible' magical materials, especially when a second barrage flies overhead, and this time seems to be on-range, threatening Miari, Tomoe, Eye, and several of Staren's golems respectively. Rather than just direct hits, they'll have to worry about splashes from multiple sides at once, and where even a drop lands, it clings tenaciously and burns furiously with a kind of devouring ability that doesn't seem to be based on heat.

    Of course, the hastily assembled military force is under fire too. The green flame makes just as short work of the catapult it lands on, filling the air with the unbelievably awful stench of preserved meat combusting, and leaving only the soulsteel rivets and bolts behind. None of the ammo cooks off, though, oddly, but it's a different story when Staren's missiles rain right down into the stockpiles, adding waves of the substance to the explosive radii of his plasma missiles, and quickly eviscerating the back line. All-Seeing Eye's Essence cannons surely have to be drawing attention, and make a near job of ripping into the quickly assembled behemoths in back, two of which groan and rumble as their stitched and bolted legs come apart at the front and crash them haltingly into the ground. There are more, however.

    The golems and thw twins join the horde up front. Suffice to say, the zombies are cannon fodder. There's absolutely no way they could possibly fight effectively in terrain that is nothing /but/ choke points and kill corridors, and Devola and Popola are shortly marching through streets piled high with severed limbs and bisected corpses, some of which impotently nip and grab at their heels. Some of the undead filter through the side streets and ambush them from behind, but with two people working together, it's unlikely they'll be caught off guard. The golems have slower going, smashing through them with heavy, studded clubs, but the zombies can't do much but try to bludgeon them with mundane weapons, or failing all else, lamely bite them.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    There isn't any real threat until the Elites mince through the front lines and wind up confronted by the necrotech weapons. Devola and Popola are shortly pounced on by a succession of spine chains, racing down the sides of the architecture and crawling between giant roots and striking them like centipedes, with horrible, fanged maws and slashing claws. The golems are set upon by one of the hulking, reanimated siege engines, which is large enough to pretty much kick them underfoot. The figure in armour can be seen marching behind them, looking around at the carnage piling up, and clearly growing increasingly agitated and distracted; both from what the curse must surely be doing to her mind, and the /alarming/ amount of her army that has been laid waste to already. Surely she had expected them to largely be bullet sponges, but the sheer destructive viciousness with which they've been set upon should be incredibly shocking to someone used to the Scavenger Lands and its mortal feudal states, not half a dozen fighters who would each qualify as an experienced Exalted in capability.

Miari (1129) has posed:
"Making an ORDINARY fire that can burn even underwater isn't impossible. But this stuff is different. Pyreflame will continue to burn endlessly even if you BURY IT IN MUD and deprive it of air. For years. Thankfully it won't be the case in Creation... the Daystar's light will eventually purify it... we just need to---"

    The NASTIEST of noises brings Miari crashing out of her monologue. She sees what Biteblade's up to... and it's like the truck just blew through her heart too. PANIC. MORTIFIED, OUTRIGHT PANIC flashes across her face. She very nearly starts flailing and screaming after the renegade plant! But she can only wimper... and reluctantly nod at Tomoe.

    "Gawain will have better chances than I." She notes, although this seems pretty odd given she SEEMS to be a Solar?!?! "Meanwhile, someone must deal with that army. I'm not much of a match for a Deathknight up close, but from a distance..."

    Miari breaks into a RUN... a run that's spectacular enough that when she springs up and off the ground she sort of spiral-ascends upwards as if caught by a freak updraft... and stays aloft there.

    Sunlight pours from her limbs as she takes the few moments of airborne vantage to gather energy. Motes of light coaelsce into a palm and spread out into a mandala of Old Realm sigils... "Death of Obsidian Butterflies!!"

    The Undead pose a significant PROBLEM when it comes to warfare. You can stab them but they can't bleed out. You can chop an arm off but they have another. You can cut them in half but they'll still crawl along. You can't starve them, or demoralize them. That really only leaves one thing.

    And that very thing is what the storm of THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of tiny, glittering, obsidian shards carved in the shape of butterflies that pour forth from Miari's anima will hopefully accomplish. SHRED THEM DOWN TO BITS AND PIECES.

    This spell, designed specifically with large scale warfare against lots of soft targets in mind, aims to strafe a wide channel into the approaching army!

All-Seeing Eye has posed:
Eye watches as the vat flies through the air in a slow, menacing arc. They're designed to break, so shooting it is just going to cause the same problem as standing still--namely, a big mess of pyreflame splashing all over him. It's strong enough to eat through magical materials, of which he is made!

     But, he could always... throw it back at them, like Miari did! A soft purple targeting reticle follows the trajectory of the siege projectile. The Exalt sprints beneath it at the apex of its curve. Just before it's about to hit the roof of the building he's standing on, he flicks his wrists towards it. With a vicious snapping sound, two steel cables shoot from his sleeves and ensnare the vat. With all of his might and a labored groan, All-Seeing Eye pivots on his feet, attempting to toss the vat of pyreflame back towards the catapults.

     Assuming this endeavor doesn't bring great injury or death to him, he scarcely waits to see the results of his throw before leaping from building to building frantically in an effort to engage the Deathknight leading the incursion.

Staren has posed:
    Staren's not initially THAT concerned about the flame. There will be plenty of city left!

    When the second volley comes, though, he starts to wonder how many shots they have. The pony golems serve their purpose in drawing fire, but it's kind of disconcerting how quickly they melt -- even mundane metal doesn't usually do that! They try to scatter, but some probably get splashed anyway. At least those that only get a little bit on them might last awhile yet before being consumed.

    The stone constructs would be useless against the direct attention of a powerful foe -- Staren's seen one chewed through in seconds by a hail of lead before -- but against a horde of zombies, they're strong. Biting does nothing to them except maybe break zombie teeth and jaws. Still, there's two of them and a horde of zombies. This might take awhile, and if they're caught in a narrow ally when that green fire comes down, they might be taken out of commission nigh-instantly.

    Staren, for his part, meant to rush ahead but is having second thoughts as that artillery continues to be a problem. And he can't shoot the projectiles down either. Using drones in the sky, he tries to locate more of the armapults, or the ammo reserves for the green fire, to take out as much as he can with a salvo of half a dozen more missiles.

Devola and Popola (1109) has posed:
Devola and Popola carve their way forward like a well-oiled machine, working in tandem to both clear a path and keep each other covered. It mostly looks like they're just dancing around each other and doing unnecessary flips, and that's correct for the most part! As the dismembered creatures and spine chains start closing in, though, that's just about the best they can manage without knowing just what it is they're up against.

It's definitely nothing like the machines from back home, and the twins really have their work cut out for them. Although they're moving around eratically enough to avoid getting bisected themselves, circling around so rapidly means they're really just spreading out the damage to their bodies and delaying the inevitable.

"There's too many of these things. We need to regroup!" Devola shouts as she and Popola start to fall back towards their non-truck ramming allies, crying out sharply when a spine chain sinks its face into her side. Popola lets out a more vengeful cry of her own as she thrusts both a sword and spear at it. Should her weapons find purchase in the chain's 'body', the normally neater android would then start swinging it around like an oversized bludgeon at the other encroaching chains.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"When we are finished with this mission, I am going to find a way to make /herbicidal tea/."
"Look, Moonie, i'm sorry, but we just /don't have time/."
"Ugh! Dumb truck!! Go!! Rrrrrh!"
"Assessing. It's totalled, Biteblade..."
"Proceed on foot. Faster."
"Avast, mateys. Let the sun knight try first."

    Biteblade frees themselves from the crumpled and shattered car, and the rest of the Flotilla work to catch up, soon reaching it through the broken inner city pathway. They're going to let Gawain take the first shot, forming up on the outer regions of the "barrier", and then waiting on Gawain to handle the rest. Biteblade rests, having injured herself a bit on that ride with the wrecking of that truck. The others, meanwhile, work on setting up a heavy artillery emplacement to fire on the oncoming enemy combatants later. An absolutely massive gun assembled in multiple parts. They're ready, just in case Gawain can't convince the security system, for a proper fight, though.

Sir Gawain has posed:
The truck slam causes Gawain to shake in the wreckage a bit, before crawling out, checking to make sure Biteblade is fine in there, and then following after Machinebuddy once he can assure that they are. At the barrier, though, Gawain stops, immediately sensing the magical energy despite the wards not being visible. "My anima? Hm...I understand! Let me do the thing." Gawain had no idea what that was before he asked Miari over radio, but he's apparently a Chosen according to Machinebuddy, even if he's not an Exalted, so he /has/ to be able to do it, right? Just exert his power. Well, that shouldn't be too hard. The knight raises his sword to the air, flowing his prana through it to light it aflame. The blade is his legend, attuned highly to him, so if this isn't exertion of power...he has no clue what is. "Barrier! I am Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun, and now, I flare my 'anima'! With fire, you know, like a flare! I shall pass through you now, so don't hold me back!"

Flaming blade held aloft, Gawain moves to start crossing, keeping an eye on the magical signature. He will probably keep trying to cross even if it doesn't seem to work on first try...just to be sure.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    On the front lines, the battle is all but decided. Compared to the Golden Bull, this 'assault' is almost a joke. With very short notice, the experienced Solar had marshaled a small, elite task force that had taken considerable preparation and cost to put down, and had personally been a combat menace, but in this case, it seems the mastermind was driven more by panic and their liege's whip cracking at their back, and hadn't even been able to secure the cooperation of their immediate peer. Dull and uncreative, and at least a decade less experienced, they had come prepared for a team of Lookshy commandos at most, for which these forces would probably be sufficient. They did not get that.

    The Obsidian Butterflies make literal mincemeat out of a massive chunk of the remaining zombies, turning an entire main thoroughfare into a rank-smelling charnel house (more than a normal one, even). It doesn't take a Celestial Circle spell to murder a squishy mob designed to soak up the ammo and Essence of mortal and scattered Outcaste defenders. With the Autochthonian's rebound and Staren's second salvo of calculated missile strikes, the catapult line is completely done, cast into sheets of eerie, flickering flame that utterly consume the siege engines, meaning a third salvo never comes. Devola and Popola suffer a momentary shock ambush that hurts one of the twins, but when they fight back, they find that their anti-Machine Lifeform weapons are amply able of shattering their bones and butchering the creatures. They're specialized for clearing castle walls and the defenders atop them, and have been poorly used.

    Eventually, All-Seeing Eye lands before the figure in heavy, fully concealing soulsteel plate, looking about frantically at the growing ruins of their army, and mulching congealed blood and rotten flesh under every footfall. "You!" it cries out when Eye lands in front of it, brandishing a moaning soulsteel daiklave in his direction. Its voice however . . . is male? It kinda sounds like it.

    "What the hell are you doing here?! Where are the Lookshy imbeciles?! What'd you do to them?! What's going on?!" 'He' sounds extremely panicked. Frenzied, even. It's easy to forget that the enemy here /doesn't/ have protection from the curse, which has been wracking his mind for hours by now, depending on how long it took to organize the undead troops. They're clearly at their wits' end, even when their Anima suddenly explodes into a dark, amorphous, rolling bonfire of shadows. They run screaming at the Alchemical, accelerating to superhuman speeds after a few footsteps, and smashing into him with an incredible amount of force, trailing black sparks in the arc of their daiklave, which blasts Eye with an incredible, unnatural chill. That seems to be the best strategy they can muster.

Tomoe has posed:
The battle is well under way, the fire seems to support BR's story and she's going to make use of it and she attempts to not get covered in supernatural Napalm that would be a bad fate for her, a very bad fate for her. A very bad fate that would befall her indeed. Her wings flare up as she moves to get mobile and not sit still she will attempts to keep from the burning hellfire as she starts to chant on the fly, golden runes surround her body in a dance the norse is horribly butchered.

The rays of light would seek out the attackers where ever they could find them but she can't keep it up for long she's not a caste rfirst she'll also keep with Miari as she does her best to help as her own weapon will lash out at anything which gets too close as she attemps to follow Miari and give her cover as the undead are a big issue and the lone caster could easily get swarmed Exalted or not after all.

"Just keep going!"

She'll also be attempting to pop all of her taunts for all the good it will do on these things but she doesn't know if it will work but she must attempt to do such.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    The Flotilla can set up the artillery with impunity. They can, in fact, /aim and fire/ it with impunity, because the front lines of the rushed Abyssal army are crumbling, and with Staren's drones in the air, they can easily rain parabolic death on anything they choose using that targeting imaging.

    Gawain does exactly the thing that earned him the approval of Ondar Shambal's Temple-Manse. Specifically, it earned him the compassionate aid of its God, in service to the Unconquered Sun and the people of Whitewall against the forces of Oblivion.

    He is not so lucky in this case.

    Instead of the soothing voice of a powerful spirit revealing itself to someone 'close enough' to the sun's Chosen, he is greeted with the harsh, synthetic tones of an administrative Animating Intelligence, which has no capacity whatsoever to make such fluid judgements. It seems to register his 'Anima' as Solar alright, but then a holographic panel outright shows the gate intelligence cross-referencing it with a database of recorded Animas, and then loudly rejecting him for not being 'on the list'.

    "UNREGISTERED INCARNATION RECOGNIZED. PERMISSION CANNOT BE GRANTED. REPORT TO YOUR NEAREST LYTEK-SPONSORED OFFICE AND REGISTER YOUR IDENTITY AS THE BEARER OF YOUR SHARD. 'PRINCE OF THE EARTH' DESIGNATION CANNOT BE GRANTED UNTIL THE DELIBERATIVE IS MADE AWARE OF THE IDENTITY OF THIS INCARNATION."

    The gate itself is an automaton, managing the entire palace grounds.

All-Seeing Eye has posed:
Eye makes sure to strike a flamboyant pose upon landing before the commander. He weathers the barrage of questions with a secretive little smile, as if he's about to give the juiciest little bit of gossip the commander ever did hear.

     "I /love/ your Anima," he says.

     The wind is then knocked free of his biologically superfluous lungs as the commander hits him like a freight train. He's pushed through a pillar of marble by the force, a pillar which explodes rather dramatically into fine white powder in the wake of the swung daiklave. Having lost most of his momentum, he spins sideways in the air... only to stop himself from falling face first with a single, outstretched palm.

     "Here's mine!" With a crack of thunder, a black hurricane--storm clouds, winds and even angry purple lightning strikes, surrounds All-Seeing Eye. Naturally, he's in the eye of the storm as he thrusts himself upwards with a shove of his hand.

     Two whips snake free from his wrists as he charges back towards the commander. In an agile display, he takes to the air with a somersault, and just as he's upside-down over the armored figuer, he strikes.

     The steel cables from his hands are joined by two sprouting from his ankles. They swirl around him like the gale-force winds near the center of a storm, each one carrying an electric charge as it lashes against the commander. When he lands, the assault doesn't stop, either.

     Keeping his hands free, Eye tenses for a moment, performing a sacred mudra with the fingers of each hand. Whips made of purple lighting materialize with a crackle and a smell of ozone. Eye cuts loose, his body performing a deadly dance with near-clockwork precision, whips of different material flying in graceful, lethal lines.

     He even attacks with his long raven hair, because no one should throw shade if they can't throw hands.

Staren has posed:
    They seem to have this about wrapped up. Staren asks if Eye needs any help... upon hearing what he assumes is a negative, he sends some drones to get a closer view of the Alchemical-Abyssal fight!

Devola and Popola (1109) has posed:
As the army of zombies, chains, and arm beasts thins out through the sustained assault, Devola and Popola finally get enough breathing room for the latter to take point with her weapons while the former cleans up the stragglers still laying on the ground. It doesn't take too long for them to finally reach the area where Eye and the Deathknight engage each other, although the sight of them letting loose with all sorts of crazy weather has the twins opting to stick closer to Staren instead of getting in there themselves.

     It's a good opportunity for Popola to check on Devola's wounds and Devola to offer healing to any allies coming by, anyway.

Miari (1129) has posed:
With THIS many powerful individuals, an undead army just stands no chance. And the gaze that Miari aims first at Eye and then Shards... "... if the Deathknight lasts ten minutes, I'll be impressed. This so-called 'assault' is beyond asinine."

    Apparently she's confident enough about Eye and the others that she turns her back on the battle and instead DIVES through the air, swooping down and sailing down to the barrier that is giving Gawain so much trouble...

    Upon landing she dusts off her kimono, adjusts it around her neck with a sharp tug, and... "If this goes badly... I trust you will understand."

    With this cryptic statement delivered... she FLARES her anima, filtering it through the deceptive genius of the Ultimate Darkness to modulate it. It is surely registering as Solar, though Miari is quite worried that the sorceries of this place might be sufficient to see THROUGH that.

    Not only is she trying to fool the scrying magics of the barrier into recognizing her as a Solar, but she's digging deep into her Past Lives memories...

    Wisps of Devon's Anima Banner emerge, surrounding her in a storm of phantasmal pages covered in burning Old Realm glyphs. Hundreds of thousands of mathematical proofs of the rules of the cosmos and the Solar brilliance that understood it. Rigorously measured and structured like the blueprints of a grand machine.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
"You think that, uhhhh... Machine guy, needs to breathe?"
"You suggest firing /upon/ him with the weapon?"
"He can't legally sue us if we say 'HEADS UP' first, mateys."
"Exasperated. I would like to lodge a complaint against this plan."
"Complaint noted and ignored."
"Focus. Fire it."

    The Flotilla finishes assembling their machine, and load in something special. It's framed in stylish glass, and contains an incredibly potent gas payload, from the look of it. Sliding it into the barrel of the artillery cannon, they only ever fire the one shot; with luck, the one shot is all they're going to need to manage their scheme, weeks and weeks in the making.

    A long time ago, they worked on making what seemed essentially useless: An anti-protection agent, designed to exacerbate every physiological consequence of proximity to the curse. The biochemical debuff would be useless in other times, only a minor system stressor. But right now, the hope is that it'll synchronize with the ambient curse, and when the chemical weapon impacts -- targeted to where All-Seeing Eye is in combat with the commander -- it'll burst a vicious gush of the awful gas. Creation doesn't have gasmasks, right?

    Oh, of course, Seft gets on the comms. "Alert. Chemical weapon incoming at your target! Please take any necessary precautions!" With luck, this will let All-Seeing Eye secure the defeat, instead of allowing the awful Death Knight to get away.

Sir Gawain has posed:
...Well, Gawain didn't explode. That's good! He doesn't proceed into the barrier when it speaks up, instead standing and glancing at the gate, before turning to Machinebuddy. "Location of nearest Deliberative office, please!" Even if they're all dead...well, the local equivalent of the DMV should have something, right? Though while he's considering possibilities, Miari decides to try herself. Gawain puts out his sword, stands to the side, and lets her proceed. "Good luck!" This will go perfectly well, so Gawain's not on the defensive. Why would he be? She's a Solar, after all.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    The Alchemical joins battle with the Abyssal. It is certainly a spectacular sight, as who may or may not actually be Shards of Basalt channels their anima, intensifying the roiling darkness around them, and launches into a ridiculous flurry of parries, where ghostly afterimages of his/her daiklave leap to and fro to swat away the onslaught of electric whips. He/she even finds the time to, in the middle of it, step through a gap in the raging storm, and counterattack with a screaming swipe from his/her giant, pitch black sword, before All-Seeing Eye spins from reach again.

    Unfortunately, the sheer difference in experience and cultivated Essence is also obvious. The Alchemical has spent much longer regulating the works of the Great Maker than Shards of Basalt has been an Abyssal, and largely wasted the last many years uselessly banging their head on this impossible project. They're outmatched, and it shows. It would drag on into a vicious brawl anyways, under normal circumstances, but they're scattered, distracted, fearful even, with their frayed sanity under hours of exposure to the curse most here un-fondly remember.

    The gas shell explodes all over them. Despite the ridiculously heavy armour, it does absolutely nothing to filter out a chemical weapon. In a few moments, the Abyssal stops to physically clutch at their chest, heaving in bestial, guttural panic as their symptoms triple in intensity. It's so bad, in fact, that their Anima flickers and wavers, losing coherence as their ability to maintain focus and steel their will completely bottoms out. Unable to muster the wherewithal for further magic, a pair of whips slice through the face and neck of their helmet, and gouts of blood rupture forth from the dark recesses, gushing down their breastplate.

    With an cacophony of clanking and wailing, then drop to their knees, then to their hands, then collapse completely, blood pooling around them. The aura of their Anima extinguishes, and a sizzling, black spark can, just for an instant, be seen crackling from their corpse. The undead don't suddenly stop and drop to the ground like discarded puppets, but their assault, as ineffectual as it has already been, pretty much crumbles. Without orders, all they do is wander and root around the city, looking for the living to consume. In the distance, Elites can already hear the discharge of Essence weaponry as stray zombies and spine chains run into the functioning defenders that Denandsor still has.

Bloody Revelations (1124) has posed:
    Things at the palace gates do not wrap up quite so simply. For a minute, it looks like they might, when the animating intelligence recognizes and begins checking Miari's Anima against the database, just as it had with Gawain. The feeling of ambient magic pressure intensifies, though, and not just from Miari's display. It feels like the many gems mounted in orichalcum sockets in the walls are staring at her. Examining her, even. After several seconds of tense 'PROCESSING . . .' silence, the tension is finally broken by-

    Hextuple bolts of pure white, Essence-charged lightning spearing Miari from every direction, launched from a series of strategically placed, ornamental sculptures on and around the gate itself. To make it even worse, they come alongside a full blast of mid-level countermagic, capable of shattering apart any sorcery that would be low-level enough to spontaneously cast on the spot. Since nobody has ever gotten this far, they've never been used (at least, not since they were last charged), and so she gets the full-tilt blast of the nasty, Manse-powered trap the original builder had left at the gate, and which had reactivated when the Daimyo at the time had managed to switch the whole city back on with . . . whatever he did, during the last day Denandsor harboured life.

    Not gonna be that easy, sadly.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe keeps following up Miari and keeps airborne as she does so dopes her best to cover her but she feels kinda small with the crazy exalted powers going on. She will move to defend and otherwise keep anything that attempts to get near ot Miari from reaching her without being intercepted by her. She's not a solar or anything else she's something born of unification and the multiverse that still often thinks like one of the faceless masses in the face of such power.

She keeps fighting though to keep them from Miari as the battle reaches it's end. Soon it comes to ane dnd the undead will be easy enough pickings in a bit as she cuts a few more down to get breathing space but the reaction to Miari has here going wait what?

"I have no idea how we're going to deal with that..."

Maybe it will be simpler than it sounds but given the city is dead it might he impossible to deal with that. She will take things one step at a time however.

Miari (1129) has posed:
Miari realizes something is wrong when the automaton goes silent. All her supernatural senses and heightened instincts scream one thing at her: she is in immediate MORTAL PERIL.

    And it's a good thing she made that realiation, because in THIS scenario... two seconds are the difference between life and death.

    No work of sorcery could protect her from such an overwhelming assault.

    And so it is not Sorcery that she calls upon. It happens terribly fast, but many here have the sharp senses needed to parse the events as they unfold.

    Miari's skin ripples as if covered in some kind of strange liquid. This unseen second skin flows off her and pools into her shadow, revealing much the same person beneath... although her skin's covered in weird black scaling patterns, and exudes an oily sheen. Her eyes are strangely reptilian and vermilian in color... what the heck does this mean?!

    At the same time, the anima she exudes undergoes a similar transformation. The sunlight stops pouring from her... in favor of a far different light. A grand plume of the light of the Green Sun flares all around her, surrounding a geometrically-faceted halo closer to her body. The Twilight Caste Mark that was burning on her forehead changes to a half-open 'third eye' that also blazes with green fire.

    And then, the defenses fly up. A cataclysmic explosion of searing light materializes from her anima in torrents and slams into the incoming blasts... and it seems to ERASE chunks of the energies, albeit not as much as she probably hopes.

    The ground rumbles and enormous pillars of black iron, brass, and basalt raise around her in several layers just in time to be her second layer of defense. The Essence beams carve through them layer by layer though... and though the rock blocks her from view, she's in a sweaty panic at this point.

    "You vindictive old geezer!" She screams to nobody in particular as the beams finally penetrate the defense--

    KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    Miari is LAUNCHED like a missile from the path and straight towards a distant building at calamitous speeds. But she's not as she was. She's fully decked out from head to toe in a sealed suit of... the gold is ALMOST Orichalcum, but it has a strange brassy tinge and is covered in patterns of blue-green verdigris. Whatever the material is though, the armor's visual aesthetic is just as artistic and intricate as Denandsor's decorations...

    And proves equally impervious when she goes sailing THROUGH the building with a *CRUNCH*, presumably to settle somewhere in the streets a block or two away.

    The green flames are still visible, even from this far away.

All-Seeing Eye has posed:
Eye hears Seft's warning over the comms. A chemical weapon? Easy to avoid, with ample notice! As he battles with the Deathknight, he observes the payload on its way. Parry, parry, parry... ah yes. Here it comes now. All he does is offer a close-lipped smile, entangling the Daiklave to prevent a strike with a standing pirouette. One of his lightning-whips twirls decoratively around him like a streamer, and as his smiling face comes around for the final turn, the gas hits.

     Two steel cables punish the Deathknight for their momentary lapse, and, as is so often the case with Exalted, that lapse decides the battle. Eye offers the fallen Abyssal a mocking, over-exaggerated frown, steel cables retracting and disappearing into his body. The two lightning-whips dissipate.

     All around him, the gas settles, but thanks to his lack of need to breathe, it may as well be simple fog. Behind him, his vision catches a golden figure hurtling through the air like a meteor. His anima still whirls around him, the Exalt standing as the eye of the black hurricane. Zooming in on the figure, he notes the odd, off-key Orichalcum. It's enough to ignite... suspicion.

     Another defective Exalt? It appears to be a magical material, which means he couldn't peek through it even if he were in range. This bears... investigation. Through the symbolic gale-force winds of his anima, All-Seeing Eye's sarcastic frown slowly turns up at the corners. Then, his hearing tracks the source of the sound, matches it along the trajectory. It's... Miari?

     Now things /are/ interesting. The two of them will have to have a little heart to heart! Namely, how does one of the Sun's chosen have a Green anima when the sun is very clearly Not Green, and how does one of his chosen somehow sour his very material? Very interesting, indeed.