959/SGRUB: Scepter Quest

SGRUB: Scepter Quest
Date of Scene:	12 November 2014
Location:	Afterus Orbit - Olympian Realms
Synopsis:	A first trip to the Land of Oceans and Mirages, which really sucks.
Cast of Characters:	2, Deelel, Arthur Lowell, Vruasa Telash, Fiora O'Brien, 253
Tinyplot:	Sgrub

---

Vruasa Telash has posed:
THE LAND OF OCEANS AND MIRAGES

    Under ordinary circumstances, this entire scenario would be prefaced with a whole lot of getting together, a whole lot of faffing around on the Myrmidon, and a whole lot of not actually getting anywhere. Those are all things that actually happened, but the pilot of the Myrmidon was INSANELY BORED with these tedious conventions. So he kicked time into overdrive and skipped everyone over that part in fast forward. This is about as irritatingly disorienting as might be expected of such time shenanigans. It's hard to remember things when they happen so fast.

    Remember when VCRs were a thing, and it was all a grainy blur fast forwarding that motherfucker? Imagine that, only you're living in it. How the hell does that douchebag live with doing that with so much of his life? There's an actual answer to that question, but you're not going to get it today.

    You are gathered atop the MYRMIDON. Your goal is to explore the LAND OF OCEANS AND MIRAGES in search of a mysterious something that will allow you to ascertain the location of the WHITE KING'S SCEPTER. Unfortunately, this entire planet is a CLUSTERFUCK of NONSENSE. The whole thing is covered in oceans, and the only actual visible part of it is the DWELLING SPIRE of GWENON MORGAS, the SEER OF BLOOD. There are lots of APPARITIONS out in the distance, but they appear to be INCREDIBLY FAKE upon closer inspection. This godawful Land is an entire planet that is basically a WATER LEVEL.

    When has a WATER LEVEL ever been any good?

    VRUASA TELASH is here. He's set up a hammock on the top of the ship and is napping on it, because he's not involved in this part of the storyline. That's actually what he told everyone, which speaks volumes about how bad the time loops have gotten.

    IBOLGO LUTHIN is present. She is the one who alerted you to a SHATTERPOINT existing here, which would either make or break the session. Obviously, that is either the White King's Scepter (too simple in this mess), or the key to finding it. A perky yet often aggravating Troll with straight mid-length upright horns, she can currently be found looking at the DWELLING SPIRE apprehensively. Like all of the HOUSES of anyone in SBURB, it is built to COMICALLY HUGE HEIGHTS that rise up from the darkest depths of this planet's all-encompassing ocean.

    She, too, thinks that water levels are bullshit.

> COMMAND?

Psyber (253) has posed:
>Psyber: Harass Ibolgo

    Psyber is here. It has been (from his perspective) months since the last time he got to harass Ibolgo. He's gotta make up for this lost time by doing it all right now. And so he's trying to throw tennis balls at the back of her head. Not hard enough to actually HURT, but hard enough to be annoying as all hell.

    Knowing how time travel works, it hasn't been that long since SHE last saw HIM, so this is just him being extra Psyber-ish today.

    He has no current opinion on the water level. It's probably bullshit. He maybe should have brought SCUBA gear.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel is here once again to make sure the time loop is closed as it were with no issues. She's on the Myrmidon and wonders for a moment. She poinder hopw to ge toto work but this planet well is a massive mess and she's not even sure where toe start and she looks to see it's basically a water level and sighs she follows up Pysber for a moment. She's going to go bug Ibolgo now as well, it's a good starting point right? Also darn it she has no real water gear and has a feeling she'll need it soon enough.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "GAH, FUCK." Arthur says, stumbling before he lifts off into weightlessness. "JESUS dude. How do you STAND this? Doin' all that makes me SICK. Fuckin' TIME ASPECTS." Groaning and grumbling, he immediately shakes his head, trying to clear the disorientation. "WELL, let's get this fuckin' show on the ROAD! It's QUEST TIME, WE OUT." He's going to take the posture of natural assumption that people already have various mechanisms by which to achieve flight or otherwise expedient transport, and so Arthur, for his part, pretty much just blasts off on a rocket broom.

    Time spent on the surface of the BATTLEFIELD, looking at SKAIA, has trained him regarding the importance of APPARITIONS in this game! And so, he blasts over the surface of the ocean, whipping up a spray of water behind him from the rocket blast, and peering out into the distance. He's searching for APPARITION CONCENTRATIONS, seeking out any POTENTIALLY MONARCH-RELATED apparitions in either especially GREAT or especially LOW concentrations - if the apparitions are even that coherent in the first place - or just generalized HIGH/LOW concentrations overall - if they're not - and generally quietly exploiting the hyper-intelligent Mage mind he has to quickly collect and assess information pertaining to all these subjects. Hopefully there'll be some kind of data here, right? I mean, it's part of the Land's /name/.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    HOMURA has come, mostly after class. She had time to get changed into her ARCHAGENT costume, mostly because it looks good, but also because it fits in here. She is however not so happy about the water level bullshit, because her magic can do a lot of things, butit can't keep her from getting wet.

    Therefore her first course of action today is to slide over by the ALCHEMITER and shove in a hair dryer and a generic necklace. Come on, video game, don't fail her now.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "Knock it off, asshole." Ibolgo complains, without turning around to look at Psyber. It looks like she was seriously considering actually taking off with the group, but she's not really very interested in this underwater crap. Land Trolls aren't exactly welcome in the sea on Alternia, and GM's world is almost entirely underwater. They've all alchemized gear to deal with it, but it's still a pretty big mess to do anything here. "You've got better things to be doing than messing with me today. And where the hell are you even getting these?"

    She whips a hammer out and begins to bat the tennis balls into the ocean. Despite not being God tier, her dexterity is actually pretty high. It's not hard for her to do this at all. Ibolgo jerks her head towards the great spire jutting out of the ocean, "That's the easiest place to go through around here. Since the Land is almost entirely underwater, GM had to deal with enemies and even the Denizen showing up in her basement. Most of the stuff of importance is down there."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "Same way you stand doing shit like actually gating around the way you do. I don't do it as often as I used to, though. Life with Fiora isn't really all that boring, so I actually end up spending MORE time in a day than less." Vruasa replies to Arthur, before he fucks off. He's still pretty much just sprawled out in his hammock, wearing a swimsuit and pretty much nothing else. This is incredibly unproductive, but what time says is what time says. And since he is basically time for all practical purposes here, he's the only one qualified to... wait. That seems like an awfully easy excuse.

    Arthur has CORRECTLY DEDUCED that the Land of a SEER which is filled with MIRAGES has some INTERESTING SHIT in it. Unfortunately, this means he's looking at PROPHECIES. In SBURB. This is pretty much the worst thing you can ever do. As he fires past on his broom, he gets a look at fragments of events. There is an image of a shattered spherical platform, that looks like it is in the process of being pieced back together. The next image is that of the Black Queen -- she looks even more retarded than your Black Queen, like somebody crammed all of the chinese zodiac in their kernelsprites -- setting the White King's scepter down in... where is this? A veil station it looks like. Which one? The image fades conveniently before you can find out.

    The last image is just the COURTYARD DROLL wiring up some bombs. You've probably seen that song and dance before.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    To answer Ibolgo, Psyber takes out a pad of paper, "I have one of the only convenient, fully functional, and actually not convoluted Fetch Modi in existence," He wiggles the pad and then tears a page off, which becomes a tennis ball. Which he does not throw at her, but instead chucks into the water.

    With the Order Modus put away, Psyber then looks down into the water and frowns, "I really don't wanna have to get wet, but if we've got to go down there." He starts taking off his jacket, at least, hanging it up somewhere so it doesn't get ruined when he inevitably has to go diving in the rest of his clothes.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
HAIR DRYER
+
NECKLACE
=
SUICIDE SURPRISE

This piece of shit is a noose made out of tiny self-powered hair dryers. There is no way you can take this into the water without dying of electrocution.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "You can just go into the dwelling spire. It's not completely unsealed." Ibolgo points out to Psyber, pointing at the building that juts from the water nearby. Like Arthur's spire, it's just a really big house extended upwards infinitely.

    From nearby, Vruasa asks, "What's the fucking fun in that?" Evidently, he's at peace with his TIME CAPSULE MODUS. Either that or he's just been using a stack modus for a long time now. It's really hard to tell.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel listens to Ibolgo for the moment and she listnes huming for a moment about what the troll has to say she's pretty happy that it seems to be teh spire for a moment.

"So your saying the SPIRE? Is where we'd want to go I see."

She looks back to Pysber for a moment.

"You some kind of a wizard to get that thing, Pysber."

She has to agree about getting wet she sighs she's seem to be booting up soemthing to make sure she can swap into something suited for swimming

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "I... don't know what I expected."

    Homura retrieves the SUICIDE SURPRISE and shunts it into her hammerspace. No use wasting this. She has no idea what use it could possibly have but she's kind of a loot addict.

    She wanders back towards Arthur.
    That is to say, as usual, she just kind of APPEARS by him.
    Floating in the air and all, with luminous pink wings.

    "The fast-forwarding? It's not that bad. I actually wish I could do that, it would save me a lot of trouble. I feel like I should have aksed where you are going before following, but it's too late now."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Through this land of mirages, and water, there is a scent, too. Of... Dead things. Dead fish, really. Lots of it. Drifting along are CARCASSES. At pretty REGULAR INTERVALS.

    It's of RANDOM SEA CREATURES. Almost anything that WOULD have molested any visitors is VERY BRUTALLY MURDERED.

    There are also grist-drifts, small piles of RESOURCES from killed shit.

    BASICALLY SHIT'S BEEN MURDERED. ALL OF IT. IT KIND OF STINKS.

    Fiorasprite in her weird mermaid-catfish-dead-ghost-girl thing... Is sunning herself on the dwelling spire.

    She looks like she's sleeping.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur's blasting around seems to come to a frustrated close as he comes to a stop on his way to a dispersing image of the Black Queen. "Oh GOD DAMN YOU. Get back here! Bitch." He swears a little and then turns around to head back to the Spire. APPARENTLY the Mirages won't really do him any good, which makes sense, given his incompatible Classpect. He has completely failed to recognize the ROUND SURFACE any more than tangentially at most. Why does it conjure up an old memory of a yelling denizen for him...

    "OH HEY. Yeah, but, like," Arthur makes vague gestures at Homura. "It's NOT MY ASPECT, you know? Shit's practically the OPPOSITE of my aspect, yo." He sticks out his tongue. Then he changes the subject. "So, I'm starting to think there's precisely FUCK ALL out here, so time to get WET I guess. Shit, not even anything to GRIND out here." Arthur gestures at all the dead monsters. "Man this is FUCKED UP." He says.

    He rockets back to the spire in time for everyone else to apparently be setting up to go into a DOWNWARD EXCURSION! "HEY GUYS." Arthur calls out, blasting by and then slamming hard into a landing on the ship. "Turns out there's FUCKING NOTHING out there, time to investigate THE ONLY LANDMARK."

    And then he's blasting off again, towards the HIVE-SPIRE and intending to head immediately DOWN, to the area under the surface, to see what there is to find UNDERWATER! He doesn't have water-breathing gear. That's probably not a big deal, though, if this place is pressure-sealed in enough places.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber's wings are still pretty janked up from fighting that kid who passed out and then mysteriously vanished later. Or however that worked out for him. Either way, Psyber can't fly over to that building and he's far too proud to ask to be carried.

    Deelel gets a brief response to her statement, "I was just in the right place at the right time to get it from its prior owner," He notes, not having much else to say on that topic. Especially with Creepy-Ghost-Fish-Mermaid-WhateverTheFuck Fiora hanging around.

    So Psyber gets a running start and then tries to just LEAP off the side of the Myrmidion and try to crash through one of the walls (or the roof) of the dwelling on the way down.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The DWELLING SPIRE has fairly typical TROLL architecture, with the usual bent on being godawfully sprawling that Sburb forces on its players. There's a lot of NOISE in here. Like, a LOT. Like, somebody crammed every sentient inhabitant on this planet into the spire and then all the imps followed them into the same living space. Holy shit, just being inside here is a nightmare. It is an unending racket that travels up and down the whole structure like some sort of demented clown rolling around on a unicycle while playing a one-man orchestra multi-instrument. It is truly awful.

    It is also interrupted by PSYBER crashing through the wall like the kool-aid man, which just adds to the noise. Based on the sounds down here there must be more than one type of CONSORT on this land because there's a mix of naks, thips, and something else you can't identify. That might just be the IMPS.

    The mirages get more fucked up on the inside of the spire.

    ARTHUR is the first to experience this particular mirage. As he makes his way into the creaking, noisy halls of the dwelling spire and passes below the water line, something begins to follow him. There is a YOUNG MAN here. He is approximately ARTHUR'S age, and he is clearly working on GROWING A BEARD. Viewed from his peripheral vision he is quite clear, but the mirage vanishes as soon as it is looked at directly.

    The dim shadow cast by Psyber shifts slightly, and takes on an armored silhouette with its hair drawn up into the sort of decorative diadem used to decorate a topknot in some cultures.

    The sound of RUNNING WATER can be heard below. This place isn't completely dry, it sounds. Some INCREDIBLY GROTESQUE Aqua Imps engage in a bout of STRIFE with all comers. They're WAY TOO STRONG for imps, but that isn't saying much, because they're still dispatched easily.

    Brilliant green illumination flashes far, far below. It must be an incredible light source flickering to see it from so far above.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    Up above, VRUASA TELASH receives a message on his SHADES. He gets up and walks to the edge of the myrmidon, looking down in the water. That's a lot of grist. Could use some, actually. It's scarce post-session, and this one won't last forever. The only thing is... why are some of those enemies not dead? He glances towards the dwelling spire, spotting FIORASPRITE, and frowns. Why would she only engage in half a massacre? And for that matter, why's she staying out of the way? This is amazingly awkward. How the hell is he supposed to talk to doomed alternate Fiora? His feelings on her are so fucking mixed, you couldn't scramble them up worse than a blender.

    He drifts over towards her. Is she sleeping?

    "Sup." He greets her, though with a distinctly awkward edge to his tone. This is just too weird for him.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber opted to go with a more mundane loadout than he usually carries today, so the half-angel only has a pistol in his hand when he crashes through the wall of the building and rolls across the floor, looking like some the King of Tacti-Cool Maneuvers. Slick.

    Of course, all the tacticool is gone when he says, "Holy shit, shut the fuck up!" He shouts to the rioting cacophany of noises inside. So distracted is he by this series of noises that he can't even notice that his shadow is changing form. And potentially hostile. And also that that silhouette sounds vaguely familiar in a bad way.

    [bA]: I'm down on the... I dunno. I think I'm like between 5 and 15 floors below you guys. I don't like this place 0>:/

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "I guess," is Homura's reply to Arthur.

    She can't relate, time stuff doesn't bother her.

    As the God of Space blasts off, the Puella Magi follows, perhaps a bit slower behind and dreading the plunge underwater. Oh well. At least she doesn't need to breathe, technically, so that's really not a problem. If something breaks. Let's hope nothing breaks.

    Landing on the spire, she heads down inside after Arthur and the others. She seems agitated by the visions, but hearing she is not the only one having them, remains calm for now. She has a REGISWORD out, which is how she will deal with imps. No firearms here, if things dodge she might put holes in the walls.

    "So, fill me in. What do you know about water trolls? I'd ask Vruasa but he might have a biased stance. Then again, whatever you must have heard probably comes from him too.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel ahs at Psyber and does not press on that topic any further still he's the best one of those things' she'd ever seen and she pauses for a moment watching Pysber for asecon then takes a moment. She generates wht looks like almost a closed parachute on her back and she drops down after him several prong open up and power up which start to slow Deelel's fall as she land shorrly after Pysber and doesn't seem to mind this. at all. She grins a little bit as she comes out of he ctouch and banishes the pack.

"Impressive....what is going on in there?!"

Deelel looks about reaching for her disc off her back. She's not quite sure wha'ts up but she doesn't feel safe here and no she doesn't notice the shadow either herself.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Is anyone else seeing WEIRDER SHIT now?" Arthur asks as he finishes off one of the AQUA IMPS with a hefty broom stike. "Man. This is BOGUS NOISE." He's also saying this over Pesterchum, of course, for the benefit of those not nearby.

    "OH HEY," He declares urgently. "BRIGHT LIGHTS. That means IMPORTANT SHIT, time to GET TO THERE!" He pushes forward, despite crowds and beatings. He's likely to meet up with Psyber and Deelel at some point, leading the charge for Homura, but if he does, it's gonna be pretty wordless and just focused on beating up the weirdly tough imps and getting closer to whatever's REALLY BRIGHT down there! He's specifically trying to not focus on what he's seeing in mirages, because what he's seen so far has been UNSETTLING.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The noises don't shut the fuck up. It's coming from way too many sources in here. It's such a pain in the ass, but it's not deafeningly loud. Just consistently noisy, like a packed restaurant with a lot of chatty people in it. The volume is annoying, but not too impairing, and certainly not painful. Eventually, both the upper and lower groups come across the same sight: A column of consorts moving single file through the descending passageways. They're a mixed bag of consorts, all of which are wearing a variety of sufficiently drape-y cloth things as robes. Most of these things are not actually robes, and some are hilariously inadequate.

    One consort is wearing a filthy pillow case.

    There's a break in the line where some imps caused some problems. Purple grist is visible nearby, but it looks like the consort that got into trouble wandered off. Assuming nothing worse happened, or that this isn't some kind of illusion.

    PSYBER'S shadow asks him why he doesn't like this place. The voice is distantly familiar but doesn't actually properly match the shape of the silhouette. It's more like the same voice, only in the form that person might hear in their head as they're talking. Only, it's perfectly audible. Even Deelel can hear it, strange as it is.

    HOMURA goes un-haunted, cutting through imps as they descend. For her the great noise throughout the spire is silenced. All she can hear is the noise of her companions, their hallucinations, and their footsteps. Occasionally imps, as well.

    ARTHUR's vision flickers in and out. It is becoming more clear. The YOUNG MAN is wearing a GOD TIER outfit. His BEARD is a little better filled out. He PUNCHES AN IMP, and the IMP explodes into grist. All of this may or may not have been real.

    At the bottom of a long staircase, another YOUNG MAN can be seen in the distance. He is TALL and THIN, with a HAWK resting on his shoulder. The second YOUNG MAN glances up, a look of confusion passing across his face. He mouths something.

    Green light surges down a distant hallway. The shadow of an adult troll with spiralling horns is cast against the wall.

    DEELEL in the meantime is being pursued by strange shadows. Eyes like tiny yellow lanterns flicker in the darkness. These are not imps. What are they? Where did they come from? These are not visible to the others. The mirage is strictly personal.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel pauses as she hears Pysber's shadow speak and she stares she is about to say something when she noticed something else comming after her shst atea at the creatures with yellow eyes she has no idea what they are. She has no idea it's not real, there's a chill of fear like some half forgotton memory clawing at the back of her mind. She reached for her disc without thinking launches them.

"...get back."

She says as her disc tails through the air at the strange creatures. Why is there this sense of fear about them? Why is she afraid...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber points his gun at the shadow in surprise when it speaks to him. He pulls the hammer back, but doesn't shoot. He's not sure his gun can actually hit a shadow. He's also not sure how much of this is a mirage and how much is something actually happening.

    He is polite enough to answer the familiar shape and voice, "The noise, mostly. And I don't like illusions that mess with my mind."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The Shadows do not obey, but they are readily dispatched, assuming they were even there. Wisps of inky black smoke erupts from the remains of their tiny bodies as they disappear back into the darkness from which they came. Something more sinister lurks just out of view though, its presence little more than an ominous storm cloud in the distance, but nevertheless present.

    Psyber's Shadow replies that it isn't here to mess with his head, exactly. Rather, it explains, that it is simply a facet of the Land that must be acted out. Though, in its case, it explains that it is certainly more animate than most would be. This is unfortunate, because external factors meddling with the local game rules are often a serious problem for sessions. It doesn't want that, at the moment.

    That 'At the moment' is strongly pronounced.

    Homura's silence is broken. A distant voice questions her: What do you want?

    Is it a question, or a demand? Hard to say.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel catches her disc as it comes back and she's shaken she holds her head a bit. Why are some shadows boterhign her so much she's not even sure right now, she hs to wonder but they are gone, well those one are gone. She takes a deep breath and dhe looks to Pysber nodding in agree me.

"Those things I didn't like the looks of them, either, Psyber? we better get a move on..."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Go on ahead of me," Psyber says to Deelel, "I think I need to take advantage of this for the moment."

    Psyber looks back to his Shadow and tilts his head, "You're using the mirages as a vector to manifest. Does that mean you have a message for me?" He asks curiously, "Or does your presence here have some deeper meaning?"

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur descends. He doesn't like what he's seeing. He distinctly notices the beard. And the hawk. He knows what these things signify and he hates it. "Fuck off." he whispers, under his breath. "Fuck off, whatever you are. This isn't shit I want to see." It's almost inaudible to his companions. Almost.

    "Fuckin' IGNORE whatever you're seein'." He says, his steps taking on a palpable stomping quality. "MIRAGES. Can't HURT. And whatever it IS, shit's DOWNRIGHT OFFENSIVE. Unless we're HUFFING THE TRASH NOISE, we'll get through WHATEVER this is without ANY issue." Then he sees the shadow of the troll. "HEY!" He heads towards the hallway. An adult? He's not seen one of the trolls as an adult... "HEY YOU!" He's moving to round the corner of the hallway and see what's casting that light, and maybe the troll whose shadow he's seeing here.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "The mechanics of this place don't actually allow me to be that direct with you. And also, technically I don't exist. If there is deeper meaning to be had here, then you're meant to puzzle it out yourself." Psyber's Shadow explains to him. So in short he has to be a cagey motherfucker and you've got to ask the right questions. If there are right questions. It might be that the whole exercise is just meant to force you to think, with no real right answer. God damned Seer world.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Is it really safe to ignore these things? Maybe they're not illusions at all," Homura asks Arthur except he's already off. Chasing the shadow of an adult troll? She's not sure she's seen one of those, either. Maybe... there was the time when Vruasa did a thing, and some sort of adult him overlapped? Maybe she's misremembering. She wouldn't class that as having 'seen' an adult troll exactly, anyway. More like 'Vruasa did a thing and it was weird'.

    She chases after Arthur. "Make up your mind! You said to ignore what we see and you're off running after the first loosely troll-shaped shadow, what makes it any more real?"

    On her way there, at least, she has a moment to listen more carefully to the silenced background noise, and then the voice. She decides it can't hurt to answer. "In order? Clues for the scepter's location, or the way to reach it. Getting out of here alive and not wet. Knowing who you are. Knowing what all the ruckus is about."

    "Knowing whether I'm talking to myself or not."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The YOUNG MEN that haunt ARTHUR follow after him. They look exactly as unsettled and alarmed as he does, upon closer inspection. Closer inspection is difficult to achieve, because they're hard to look at directly. Whether that is because it's hard for ARTHUR to look at them directly or because they're meant to be hard to look at directly is probably a pointless distinction to make.

    DEELEL descends further, coming into contact with ARTHUR and HOMURA. The silhouette of the Adult Troll flashes on the wall ahead as she comes into view, and Arthur rounds the corner.

    This one is definitely a vision.

    Two Trolls stand in the hallway. The first, whose shadow was cast on the wall, is held aloft on the end of a trident by something that isn't "in picture", but is assuredly another Troll. The Adult Troll smiles with indescribable joy. Being murdered is exactly what she wanted. The "feel" of her is very similar to Vruasa and Homura.

    It might not be the saddest thing you've ever seen.

    But it might come close.

    Many robed Consorts are in the room beyond, and it is easy to walk through the scene of the happily murdered Troll like walking through a cloud, or smoke. Beyond the scene is a circular chamber, in the center of which there is a raised pedestal. A CLOCKWORK STATUE of a Consort stands upon it.

    Tremendous green light flashes from within. Some kind of power source. The Consorts gathered throughout are all kneeling and writing with crude implements upon crudely-bound books. Water drips from the surrounding walls where it's not quite perfectly sealed, but not damaged enough to allow large amounts of water in.

    The statue begins to whirr...

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Technically, you don't. But you were a resident, and the memories of the residents persist. You're an echo of the past, but that doesn't mean you don't have information," Psyber says with a heavy sigh, "This is the second time, isn't it? The first time you said to me that I was on the right track, and that it wasn't the first time a curse had been made a boon. So what's the track? Keep helping people? It seems like I reach into the fire on that one and get burned a lot."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The voice exclusive to HOMURA is quite offended at being regarded as potentially not real. It declares that it is SO real. This is extremely childish-feeling. Feeling because it is like somebody is typing this at you, rather than actually speaking. It is an odd experience, and one that would be familiar to many Players. Whether or not it is actually real is a subjective matter.

    The voice explains that it is a MEANDERING MERCHANT. MM wonders what kind of Scepter you're looking for and what you would pay to get it if somebody could procure it for you.

    Not that MM has such a Scepter, the voice adds.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel is moving on ahead like Pysber asked to her too do so, she trusts him and figured he might be able to get something to help them. She moved ahead hanging on to her disc at this point. She's able to catch up with Arthur and Homura and gives them a nod before the vision gets her attention for a moment she sees the murder she almost seems to get the victem wanted to be murdered. It's quite sad and she not sure what to think as she makes her way ahead she halts to look over the statue and try to get an idea of what it's just all about.

"That troll...she looked happy she was murdered."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Ghhh... Shut up! Ignore THEM, focus on... important things!" Arthur says to Homura, his voice cracking, briefly, with a bit of distress, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He doesn't mean to be offensive, he's just clearly sort of distressed.

    "God damn it, I'm not supposed to want you back you son of a bitch..." He whispers, tensely, to nothing in particular, trying to avoid looking at the mirages he's personally being beset by, counterintuitively reinforcing their presence through that. When he rounds the corner and sees the vision, he stops, eyes wide, not precisely comprehending but knowing, in a way, some of what's going on. He shuts his eyes right again and stomps his way through the misty vision. "Nope nope nope." He says, focusing on the green light, and the Clockwork Consort built around it.

    Using MAGELY INTUITION, he tries to discern the nature of the power, before the Clockwork Consort can fully power up. He also watches the thing keenly. What is it? What's it about to do...?

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    After a long time, Fiorasprite cracks a cat(fish)tish eye, grinning. "Hey, you! Oh. Wait. You're other-you. Sorry, I was just sunning myself. I had a lot of fun, you know, being HELPFUL! But then, well, all this sprite knowledge got boring. So I started being proactive. I mean, there's not really anything that much farther out, so I just made sure to kill anything that you guys would have encountered. So I killed, and I killed, and I killed, and I got far enough away that I couldn't see the spire any more. So I doubled back. Plus, eviscerating things that don't even fight back... It was pretty fun for a while, but it became pretty boring. So then I went to wait! Did you know, it felt like I slept for /months/. But, you know, you can kind of let time slip through your fingers as a sprite, if you're not careful."

    Fiora's sly smile becomes a bit more somber. "I guess because sprites eventually fade away, once we're not needed."

    She brightens. "But hey! That's why I'm being extra HELPFUL!"

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    Ah, says Psyber's Shadow, but he wasn't that short-sighted. Leaving behind all of his memories in this thing would be a grave mistake. It would allow the means by which all of this accomplished to be discovered. That would be entirely too easy. In short, it concludes, it is fundamentally but not entirely fake. At the very least, it is complete.

    As for how to proceed, Psyber's Shadow goes on, it advises caution. There will be a point beyond which inaction is called for. At the very least, things will come to pass that no bearer of such a Curse should involve themselves in directly. It presses that helping people in a bad spot is more valuable than productive destruction, even in the process of preventing more terrible things.

    It doesn't clarify this, because it can't. But it does add that if Psyber can't figure it out, he's doomed to madness anyway.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "It's a white scepter. I think it has an orb at the end. Blue-ish? Retrieving it would probably make you a hero and see you showered in riches if that's your thing. If you deal in other currencies, you'll have to specify what you might be interested in." With her mind distracted by the offers of the Meandering Merchant it seems she neglects to pay attention to Arthur and his episode until he actually raises his voice-- more than usual. On the other hand she might look odd, talking to herself.

    "Arthur? Are you sure you're alright?"

    They walk down, and while Arthur watches the consorts, she watches the adult troll and the scene before them. The happiness in the dying one's eyes is... weird, without context. But she knows what it takes to make someone want to die, so...

    "I wonder if this place is trying to send us a message, and not just mess with us. But that might be overly optimistic. I get a feeling we shouldn't stay longer than we have to, though."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Confusing as ever," Psyber says, crossing his arms and lowering the gun. He holsters it as his side again and rubs a hand under his chin, "A time for inaction. And a time where helping people is better that productive destruction." Psyber thinks his over and slowly nods his head, "I will hope that I know such a time when it arises."

    The fact that the spectre is enough to guide him along, but not enough to delve for answers in his own psyche is frustrating, but Psyber expects it, "For now, I'm going to keep trying to help the Witch of Doom." He pauses.

    "I thank you for your counsel, Viridian Sunrise."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    When Deelel approaches the statue, she can tell that it's either been here for a long time or been grossly neglected for a shorter time. There was definitely an exterior chasis once, but it has since rotted away or been pulled apart. The rivet marks are still quite visible. There is an object in the center of it that obviously serves as some kind of power source or engine. What IS it though...?

    Green light surges through a spherical object inside of it, and the clockwork statue of the consort comes to life, answering: [Correct. What you saw was the favorable termination of that young lady's employment. It is, of course, of no consequences to yourselves, and barely intersects with this iteration of reality at all.]

    Arthur gazes into the heart of the statue and witnesses a distant star:

MUSIC: http://unofficialmspafans.bandcamp.com/track/chronology

Deelel has posed:
Deelel looks over the statue she gets it's been rotting for a long time or some one really abused the heck out of it and she pauses looking at the thing for a moment peeering but she can not understand the nature of what happens. She just stare at the thing as it's its anwer that she can not undertand.

"What...what is this I don't understand what it's saying..."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    MM says that it'll see what it can do. Goods like that are hard to come by. You might have an easier time getting a lead on such a thing than actually acquiring it. Plus, it'd be really useful for you right now, so giving it up would mean not itself having it. It'll still run a price, though. You're good for it, right? With your fancy suit and Regisword. MM guesses that the Derse Archagent is still handing those stupid things out to anybody who wanders into his office. But still, nobody unimportant gets those things. Not -really-.

    In the meantime, the statue speaks once again: [You have walked here through the Mirages, as a small number of you have done before. No one comes here without seeking answers. No one leaves here without an answer in hand. What answers do you seek?]

    Psyber's Shadow chuckles. It says that it's flattering to call it that, but it doesn't really exist. It's not a ghost, or even a memory. It's less than the fragmented beings left behind to advise in his place. Good luck, it says. This game is a terrible place to have a curse.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "NO." Arthur says, harshly, to Homura. His eyes go wide. He looks straight into something that twists his mind with his comprehension of what it is. Examining the SOLAR FUSION PROCESSES involved in this makes him wince and makes his brain whirl around.

    He averts his eyes for a moment and then shakes his head. There's a glance to Deelel. "It doesn't matter. Not to us." And then his head snaps back to the Clockwork Consort. "Fine. None of that matters." He crosses his arms. "You're showing them something. You like showing people things. So if that wasn't relevant to us, show me something that is. I'm looking for something favorable too."

    He can tell the scale of what he's confronting. "We're looking for a scepter, and I'm hearing that looking here, I can find something that'll know where it is. A veil station."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    BACK ON THE SURFACE...

    Vruasa stares blankly at the quasi-mermaid Fiorasprite. He wonders if her dreamself was the one who came back with his other self and prototyped herself with the existing sprite. Either way she's clearly a little bit cracked. He finds himself inching backwards in the air. "Uh... @lright then, I guess. @re... @re you ok@y? I me@n, norm@lly I'd @ssume so but this re@lly isn't..." Vruasa trails off, not really sure there's a good way to tell an apparently slightly crazy alternate Fiora that she's acting incredibly insane. Especially for a Fiora.

    A small part of him is starting to regret how casually he's treated iterations of all of them from doomed timelines.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "When we found him on another planet he was still handing them out, yes," Homura confirms, and then adds: "But I got these from pillaging his office on a whim. It's a nice suit, and the swords are pretty good." Admittedly, it is more or less Psyber's fault she started wearing suits at all.

    "Well, ah... assuming you are as real as you claim, how will you contact me again? I would prefer not to have to return here too often just for an update."

    Right, this is odd. Probably the strangest haggling she's ever done with somebody she doesn't even know is real. Living here must have been a wild ride if simply wandering in causes this.

    She turns back to Arthur and, carefully, reaches to put a hand on his shoulder. "Arthur. Calm down. This is odd for you even by your normal standards. There's a merchant in my head who says he can look for the scepter, but it'll cost us. Nevermind the way I'm phrasing that, it's exactly as odd as it sounds. What's with the panic and the statue speaking? Stuff from the last Session?"

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    [Well,] The Consort Statue explains, [I am not actually completely responsible for the visions here. That is a function of this Land, which is primarily inhabited by a highly delusional Seer. The ambient energies of my existence are imposing a greater scope of mirages over this place than would be ordinary, but they are not images that I direct. I am simply acting as an additional conduit for this Land to perform its function.]

    [This place offers possibilities, in addition to falsehoods.]

    [Naturally, it is the place of this Land's player to learn which is which.]

    [A feat that you are not as capable of, as a Mage.]

    [The nuances of circumstancially simultaneous events muddy the reality of this place, among many other factors. There are, for example, a number of others asking questions within a subjectively simultaneous timeframe at this very moment.]

    [But that is not what you want to know.]

    [The Scepter is on a meteor that will land on one of Alternia's two moons, long after it is rebuilt, and long after it is destroyed for the final time and abandoned.]

    [In short:]

    [It is in the future of the present from which you originate.]

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    MM explains to Homura that he can see her right now, so contacting her isn't a big deal, but he thinks it has something to do with one of the other people around. So he just leaves her his e-mail address if she really wants to get in touch with him. There's a website attached to the e-mail address that seems to be some sort of carapacian equivalent of amazon.com. He also remarks on the time shenanigans that she seems to be involved in.

    Never pays to indulge the time shenanigans, he says. Dirty prospitian nice guys sucked fate's (the word he uses here is basically 'dick' but doesn't directly translate to a human organ of any kind) and look where it got them.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    After that conversation, Psyber doesn't want to go deeper into the building after the orders. He kind of wants to head back up to the roof and find a way back onto the ship. And so that's what he goes to do.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    IN THE PERIPHERIES OF ARTHUR'S VISION...

    Two young men are conversing with the statue at the center of the room at approximately the same time as he is receiving his answer.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    PSYBER makes his way back up to the surface. The minions around here seem to be avoiding him for the moment. At the very least, they don't AGGRO. Maybe he's too HIGH LEVEL. Back on the surface, IBOLGO LUTHIN is standing on the edge of the spire nearest to the MYRMIDON. She looks rather aggravated and apprehensive. Needless to say, she ended up not going down there.

    "Why're YOU back so much earlier than the others?" Ibolgo demands, arms crossed over her chest.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    "Meddling with time never pays, no, but in this case the cost of not doing so is greater than the potential cost of doing so." At least, from how Vruasa explained it, either they fix the time loop either things go horribly south. So they have a choice of watching things go horribly south of messing with time and making them maybe not go horribly south. Might as well give it a shot.

    "Thank you for your time. I'll send you an email."

    She wonders if she should do so in the present, or wait until next time they're in the past again. She'll probably ask Vruasa, he'll know if doing that ends up with dead hims or not.

    Her gaze returns to the statue and Arthur, but a lot of that goes over her head. So this place WAS an awful place to life, but is slightly more awful right now because of whatever's powering that statue and talking. Also the Scepter is in the future. The present's future. That... sounds a whole lot harder to get to than the past. Unless it's the near future. Doesn't sound like it is.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber sticks his tongue out at Ibolgo and says, "Because the game didn't want me to go all the way down and find whatever the others did. My purpose for being here was different and I got a different set of answers. And even more questions."

    He sticks his hands in his pockets and shrugs, "All said and done, you're gonna be stuck with me helping you out a little while longer." He takes out a pack of cigarettes and starts smoking one, "Decided not to go in after all?" He asks her.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "I'm not a Seer," Ibolgo replies to Psyber, leaning against a nearby railing, "but even I can still see something awful like my own death. It might be worth going in there, and it might not. I don't want to take any unnecessary risks."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "At some point, you're going to have to step to a plate, you know," Psyber says to Ibolgo seriously, giving her an even look. He leans against an opposite railing so he can half-sit while he watches her, "You can't ride the pine forever, and I'm pretty sure you have a role to play in all this. Dunno what, yet. But you should start preparing yourself for the possibility you may have to go into real danger."

    He pauses, "I'll have your back when you do, though."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    "Stepping in the line of fire is a lot different from entering the front lines. Trolls are pretty much made for that shit. This..." Ibolgo gestures towards the door into the spire, "This is a clusterfuck that should be avoided by anyone as much as possible. It's just that sometimes this is the only place you can get important things. That's the way the game works."

    "I wasn't going to be alone to begin with," She points out, "but I'm pretty happy to have as much strong back-up as I can get. This shit is going to get intense, fast, and we've lost players. God Tiers, even. We didn't even know that could /happen/..."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur grits his teeth.

    "Worse than last session. Fine, if you're getting deals about that, I think the one I'm talking to isn't about to horn in on someone else's /market/." He says, tensely to Homura. "I'm... I'm fine. I'll deal. More problems if I'm /calm/." A tense, hissing-like noise.

    But the voice answers. He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes. "That's... Not how this normally works." And then his teeth grind, audibly. "If they're real, if he's still--!!" He starts, his voice cracking into panic before he stops himself harshly. Through a tense voice, ".../Thank/ you." He says. "It's enough to start off with. One last question. Then I'm guessing whatever rules you play by say we're done."

    He glances to the side, letting the pair disappear when he looks at them. "You're right, I didn't wanna know about any of this shit about parallel stuff." He jabs one hand to the side, eyes screwed shut for a moment, his finger pointed harshly. He really wants to ask if it's real, and if he'll ever... Meet them. But he knows how this works. "/That/. I never get a straight answer from this damn game so maybe I can at least ask a crooked question. Does that... At least end well? Figure out everything they need to know, beat everything?"

Deelel has posed:
Deelel pauses as the thing speaks to them and she listens she doesn't like what she hear this place seems to be made of glitched, coded qith glitch by a a null unit. She looked at it for moment the good news is they got info on where the thing they are seeking is which is good news thankfully anc she notices the troll for a moment musing.

"It is a cluster fragment isn't it?"

She looks to Arthur, if she had blood she'd pale at the realisation of ti's worse than the last sesson.

"So we need to go after the prize and what else?"

She glances to her companion she's totally not making a call on this head trip world.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "The thing about a clusterfuck is..." Psyber pauses, taking a long drag of his cigarette before he exhales some smoke, "Everyone thinks they should be avoiding it, so no one ever gets around to solving it. That's the Catch 22 about them, see. No one wants to solve them, so they become unsolvable."

    He reaffirms, "Yeah, though. I got your back. But you guys have already lost God Tiers? How does that even happen?"

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Fiorasprite seems to look both angry and happy at the same time. She is, however, pretty obviously frayed. At least, mentally. It's obvious, possibly, for Vruasa most of all, but at the same time, this isn't the Fiora he knows. She is a sprite, with a Lusus crammed in her as well. Maybe it's some weird lusus shit?

    A damp hand pulls Vruasa closer in as she whispers into his ear.

    "Next time, don't abandon me for months. I know. I can feel it. The absence, the long stretching seconds. I know what you're doing." she hisses.

    Then she releases him, flopping back down on the spire's grounds.

    "Well, actually, if you're gonna be absent, I can just spend my time being really /really/ HELPFUL!"

    She closes her eyes, which had been alight with an insane glimmer. "More helpful than just half a planet, for sure."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    [You are asking a question with an unfathomably complex answer. Naturally you are expecting a simple response which confirms both that I understand what you are asking and verifies what you believe to be true. The answer is neither simple, true, or false. It is easiest to say that you cannot know the answer to your question without first witnessing it yourself, thereby collapsing all possibilities -- true and false -- and ascertaining the outcome irrevocably.] answers the Statue, grimly. It shudders with a sharp mechanical noise, and goes offline.

    One of the two young men disappears from the mirages. The other remains, becoming a little more clear. He seats himself along the edges of the room where the consorts are recording the prophecies and Q&A's that occurred here.

    The young man props open a briefcase and sits in silence, examining its contents until everyone has left.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Bastard." Arthur whispers.

    "Fine. Let's go. We're going to the moon." Arthur says, turning around and stomping his way out of the room, heading back up the spire with a stressed posture and a grim, slightly upset look, broken only briefly when he stops, takes a glance back at the man with the briefcase, and then continues.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    The young man with the briefcase looks up as Arthur looks back. It happens at approximately the same time that Arthur starts to turn away -- so sudden that he could have imagined it. Just as suddenly, and just as uncertainly, it seems that the young man raises a hand to wave goodbye.

    If anyone looks back, the young man has gone.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    VRUASA TELASH looks deeply unsettled by ALL OF THIS. He doesn't even know what to say about it. This is worse than whan Fiora was divided into herself and her dreamself. This person is completely off her rocker. Why the hell does she expect him to be around? Why doesn't she just board the Myrmidon and enter the future with them? Will she simply disappear? He stares at her, not frightened but far more troubled than he had ever been by the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors that screech nonsense at him in his dreams.

    Instinctively, he wants to help. To make it better.

    In the end, he just nods curtly at Fiorasprite and flies away.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Homura nods and follows, now that it seems business has concluded on all fronts. She'll wait until they're out (or at least, flying back to the Myrdmidon) before asking Arthur: "So... who were those guys who kept following us? They seemed to cause you a lot of stress. I feel like I missed something important that must have happened to you. We can talk about it another time if you prefer. Or never. I usually pick never when it comes to showing my closet off."

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    Ibolgo Luthin nods at Psyber, but doesn't seem inclined to listen. Like a kid receiving well-meaning advice that they're just not going to be able to deal with until they've made their mistakes and learned from them the hard way. Hopefully she'll survive it. Regarding the God Tier, she says, "It was Ivulst. The guy you guys all ganged up on and killed? I mean, we figured he'd come back, but he never did. We're not sure how, or why..."

    "Something about his death just stuck." She hops back over to the Myrmidon, heading back to the interior of the ship.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur's gravitational variance flutters and fluctuates briefly as he flies back to the Myrmidon. It's like space snapping. He gives a quick, hushed reply to Homura.

    "They're nobody. Most of the stuff in there isn't real. Bunch of parallel bullshit. They didn't properly exist and they never will. T-they're not real, even... Even if..." He thinks back to the waving form. "It doesn't matter. It's worse than thinking about saving someone who's already doomed to die. Can't do anything about someone doomed to not be real in the first place." He's making fists so hard his knuckles are white and his palms are bleeding. "Even if... Never mind. Just never mind it. Won't come up again."

Fiora O'Brien has posed:
    Floating behind Arthur, as he speaks on doomed people and saving someone who is doomed, Homura (And anyone looking at Arthur) can see a huge, grinning, wide-eyed Fiora with a mad look just beaming at everyone.

    Fiorasprite looks kind of like shit, by the way.

    But right now she looms silently behind Arthur as he talks about the futility of saving the doomed.

    And she smiles.

    It is not an entirely kind smile. She also didn't actually seem to do anything but appear there. Behind Arthur. If he turns, well...

    Maybe she'll still be there. Creepysmiling, with wide-held eyes.

Homura Akemi (2) has posed:
    Distracted by TIME TALK with Vruasa and Arthur being moody, Homura does in fact JUMPSCARE (or as close as she usually comes to, which is looking surprised for a second and then frowning intensely).

    That's kind of unsettling.

    Where did she even come from.

    This Land is fucked and she's not sure if that's Fiora joining in the awfulness or more of the same. Vruasa sure didn't want to stick around either.

Vruasa Telash has posed:
    Once everybody is about the Myrmidon and ready to get the hell out of dodge, VRUASA heads right on up to the bridge and throws them back into the present. He doesn't come out of the bridge at all, that anyone can tell. Indeed, he fails altogether to inquire any further as to the OBJECT of their mission, despite being told that it was completed.

    All of that can wait. They, after all, have all the time in the world. And there's something he has to do.