Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	The day, or another day, of somewhat cryptic bullshit has come. The preceding months had outsiders explore the satellite colony of Caelton, settled on a sanctuary spit of no-man's land in defiance of the remnants of alien terror all around. Walk its streets. Meet its people. Sample its coffee. Hear its financial woes. Meet the Clan Pendragon Reclamation group of Enlightened behind its construction in knightly mission, and proxies of proxies of proxies the foreign group only known as the Letter Agency.     Those months had them deal with a rapidly emergent crisis that began with mining and a local anagathics trap, and escalated to foreign spies, domestic operative cells, and finally a kind of crime against humanity so well beyond the pale that not only are three thousand of Caelton's innocent people now rendered comatose in an off-the-grid medical center converted from a warehouse somewhere. One where several domestic plants of said Letter Agency had been miraculously captured (and prevented from explosive suicide) as a smoking gun, and the otherwise very exclusive and 'chivalrous' Clan is out for blood.     So much that today is about a dragon. A word that is seldom ever heard here, despite the classic, near-universal significance of it, when it comes to old magics and orders. Rarely enough that it's more commonly heard in the form of a deployment readiness code. For once, even asking Lilian about 'hey, what?' is relatively unproductive. She herself has never been anywhere near a dragon, nor does she know anyone who has been.     What she can tell in advance is that records regarding them between 'ancient history' and 'the Onslaught' barely seem to exist, and any more contemporary than that are fragmented at best. It's known that, at some point, they were *involved*, but nobody even knows how many there were before, or how many are left. Though the common estimation is excruciatingly small, it's impossible to know for certain, given the locations of most were always closely guarded secrets to individual bloodlines and orders in the area.     This one is supposedly a secret shared with only those who can claim some kind of close association to the line of Ludd, or ancient compatriots of Merlin, the latter of whom is the only individual you sortie out with today. A man named Evald, familiar to a few in passing, in his white robe, braided gold belt, sycamore staff, and fruitless attempt at grooming overly long rose blond uncooperative hair. He greets those he recognizes with only a grim smile, and leaves the remainder with the question, "When we reach a hole in the ground, I'd like you to not step foot inside unless you can answer me this: is justice catharsis that comes from the soul, or is justice a duty that comes from our promises?"     He has a very large bag. For some reason it appears to be empty. "Ah, and please travel armed. But only for the way. When we get to where we're going, your wits and your words will serve you far better."
Jonathan Joestar	Like any English boy growing up, Jonathan Joestar had greatly admired the stories of King Arthur and his Knights. They were fanciful tales that suited his young mind's sense of heroism and morality -- even after his brother had been adopted and made his life unbearably miserable, those stories had been a creature comfort even then. In his adulthood, that most of the modern day English were likely descended from Arthur's enemies rather than his own people hadn't been lost on him, but he still thought fondly of them all the same. After intergration, it was then no surprise that he had been shocked to find that many of those legendary figures now existed so tangibly that he could shake hands and have words with them. He had no words for how incredible he found it. This is all to say that Jonathan's prescence here, something of a black sheep among the Paladin-oriented get-together, was mostly one of his personal interests. Having put his research of the arrows to the side ever so briefly, he set out from the castle he'd taken residence in at Windknight's Lot with Blueford's sword in tow, keeping it strapped to his back as he ventured out to another world's lands. Which brings matters to the present, where the massive mountain of a gentleman was bedecked in a mostly standard garb of blue trousers held up by a black belt and a thin golden tasset wrapped around his waist, a simple blue shirt with two iron pauldrons situated on his shoulders, and golden-studded leather gauntlets dyed a similar blue hue to the rest of his garb. His jackboots were a well-maintained, polished black. Genially, he holds his hand in greeting to Evald with a small smile, "My name is Jonathan Joestar, I endeavor that we all succeed in what we came to, today. .. as for the topic you've brought up -- " It was tangential to the words Zeppeli had with him concerning the matter of courage, he supposed, "Justice .. self-satisfaction has nothing to do with it, I think. It's a matter of course, something that everyone has a sense of, deep down. One's sense of right and wrong."
Maya	After the incident with the satellite colony, she's unhappy with what was pulled on the colony so she's tried to keep an eye on things. She knew the clan was normally pretty calm and 'chivalrous' but they were not pleased, to say the least. Dragons were mostly just legend am myth on her world as Maya mused there was nothing that really could pass for one. An oddity far as human worlds went she thought but this was not her world. Even though there was little information at least there was so0mething. She's soon to arrive to meet up with Evald, she bows slightly to him. Maya would check her fate deck and strange magi-tek assault rifle over for a moment before nodding. "I do not think picking a fight with such a being would be wise or productive for our ends. I appreciate the warning." She looks over to Jojo for a moment then says. "I have found Justice is a duty, it's not about the personal satisfaction of it at least in my experience."
Gawain	Gawain knows much of dragons. He's a Round Table knight, having assisted in the slaying of the dragon Vortigern twice, once alive and once as a Heroic Spirit. As they venture, he's already dressed in full armor, since it'll be a dangerous path, and his sword has been sheathed to his side. He nods to everything Evald has to say, and then claps Jonathan on the back, because Jonathan is taller than him so a shoulder clap would be slightly frustrating. "Right! Our promises are sancrosanct, I'd say, so it is a duty that comes from them - justice is not for you, but for everyone around you, even if you may benefit in some way. I promised to uphold chivalty, including the concept of justice. I wouldn't say I know all there is about these concepts, of course. Just that this is the way I've lived my life."
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Join dragon-related quest     Funny guy today, huh? Ha ha? You here for a giggle? For a little joke?     He walks with his broom slung over one shoulder, his Strife Deck up and ready for a battle at any moment, but more in a sense of complying with the request to travel armed. No need to play any of those cards! He thinks he remembers this guy -- was this the dude he was talking to a long while back? Wait, it is! -- and he gives him the standard greetings: totally excessive coolkid handshakes. Arthur answers his question with that typical shit-eating grin.                   ------------------------------------------                                    | [ ] Justice feels HELLA CATHARTIC. World |                                  | don't got NATURAL CLOSURE, it's up to us ]                                  | to GIVE IT THAT so that it can HAVE      |                                  | SOME.                                    ]                                  |                                          |                                  | [>] Justice basically never FEELS RIGHT. ]                                  | Ain't about what people 'DESERVE', it's  |                                  | always about basically MULCHING YOUR     ]                                  | SOUL to make a BETTER WORLD. It's gotta  |                                  | HURT!                                    ]                                   ------------------------------------------                       The dialogue popup shows up, long enough for Arthur to clearly deliberate between the two before the latter is selected. He doesn't say it out loud. I mean, you guys are literate after all. He continues to expound. "If you get in that JUSTICE BUSINESS for a long time and it don't FUCKIN' BRUTALIZE YOUR INSIDES about how MAKIN' SURE PEOPLE ARE SAFE AND SUPPORTED means that you're always lettin' people NOT GET WHAT THEY DESERVE, then you get past the SHELF-LIFE on JUDGING SHIT, dawg. If it ain't MOSTLY MISERABLE, it ain't JUSTICE!"
Tina Natsumi	Is the cowboy hat really necessary? It is totally necessary. If not for that, Tina would just be some out-of-place weirdo in a bomber jacket, spinning a revolver around her index finger to keep her hand busy while she listens to the group's contact of the day. "You got it. Ix nay on foot hole... Yay." She pauses for a moment, snickering immediately afterwards. "Eh, never did learn any o' that stuff back in school. Anyway... Justice, eh? Ideally, yeah, it's a promise to... Somethin'. Sticking to a better standard and all that. I don't know if I'd bet money on that, though, 'cause I've heard plenty o' people scream about it without any kinda promises involved at all." She goes quiet for a while longer, brushing her nose off once before crossing her arms to really put some physical effort into thinking (and not distracting herself with her gun). Her expression becomes a bit more troubled as she mulls it over longer, eventually holstering the weapon. "Depends on the person, I guess. Better folk'll have the second definition, and folks using it as an excuse would totally feel catharsis after shoutin' it long enough."
James Bond	What can one even say about the prospect of meeting a dragon? Presumably, they must exist somewhere--but this notion is as unhelpful as any other chestnut of 'wisdom' about the Multiverse. Questions consume Bond on his way to the meeting point with Evald. This is beyond the pale of anything he's ever done--but he can't deny that it's necessary. Especially not after the unprecedented attack on the settlement. When he arrives, it seems as though he was driving for hours even though the actual trip was far shorter.      At the mention of traveling armed, there is a faint upwards twitch, at the corners of his mouth. Always, his cold eyes gleam. Though his attire is nothing more than a particularly well made suit, Evald will have little trouble divining from his eyes and his posture that he is prepared for the way at the very least. The Aston's locks click into place behind him.      "I used to think that justice came from duty. But if it does, then it's only coincidental," answers Bond. "If justice exists, it isn't universal. It doesn't exist in the world on its own--has to be made." There's a brief pause as he procures a pack of cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. One is lit in short order. "It's different for everybody. I've done things I believed were right--but people in a different part of the world would spit on me for it. I'm sure that some of the men who sent your people to the hospital in comas thought they were keeping fairness and just treatment alive. One of them certainly did, until that line was crossed, anyway."      "I don't know about any soul. But I do think it's personal."
Lilian Rook	After waiting a short while with Lilian, Evald moves to extend his hand to Jonathan, shaking with a surprisingly firm grip despite his obviously wizardly demeanour and being like a foot shorter. "Ah, I've heard a little about you! Pleased to meet you. And good man! It seems you've got the idea." The first part can be intuited to mean that Lilian has already, for whatever reason, given him an in, but as for the second, whether he means by his garb or his answer, is left purposefully vague.     He winks in a knowing way at Tina, saying "Oh don't worry. I didn't learn anything from school at all." His greeting to Bond is a little subdued, being the man he knows by far the least of what he should, and especially for being reminded of precisely why they're together. "I suppose it is. And that personal aspect is why it has to be me here today. But that's a bit of missing the trees for the forest. Which one is it to you?"     Travel is accomplished by what appears to be a derivative of the Clan's favoured. No Warpgate has appeared in the place they're going, probably for good reason, and it seems the investment into the artificial Warpgate tech tree just hadn't caught on with these old-school types.     A ring of superbly smooth white stones, vertically studded into the ground and each painted with worn ochre script, serves a similar purpose when all are gathered inside, and Evald taps the butt of his greenwood staff three times on the earth, the third causing everything surrounding the circle to change with jarring suddenness, rather than giving any sense of being whisked away or transported; especially due to what can surmised to be the arriving circle looking near-identical.     Trees and a forest are certainly what greet you. In a manner of speaking. The lack of full five-senses 'charge' in the air indicates right away that you haven't been taken to some other place in the Hidden Continent, but are very firmly on Earth. Thus, the going assumption for the environment you find yourselves in would be somewhere deep in a terraformed no-man's land somewhere.     Your surroundings are dark and densely interwoven, shattered slivers of sunlight sprayed unevenly over the ground through enmeshed boughs of fleshy, ridged, wood-adjacent plant material, seldom reaching the dirt beneath your feet for the carpet of broad, rambling leaf structures and weird, curled feelers. Shallow pools of water are a bright, unhealthy cyan, and bubble with evident heat, the colour of which creeps up trunks and over red-banded earth. Man-high pillars of what resembles mushroom tissue occasionally break up 'tree' cover, and prickly shoots grow absolutely everywhere, without a flower or berry to be seen.     It probably takes until the first, startling screeches of birds, and the tremendous rustling of a beast loping through the brush, to guess otherwise. Someone like Jonathan, especially learned on a similar topic, might be the first to notice, before passing by a dragonfly the size of a whole arm, resting rainbow wings on a massive fern leaf.     This is Earth. But this is not an Antegent perversion. Rather, you're walking a narrow trail cut by pieces into a forest of things so ancient that most of them are long extinct, all the way down to algae killed off by the first cyanobacteria. It doesn't take Lilian herself long to comment on the subject, that "From what I remember of those old textbooks, I thought these things all existed millions of years apart? Especially what I can only *presume* are birds,"     Evald points through a window in the bush to the first sign of familiar greenery in the form of a single, almost random grove of crabapple trees. "That's just how it is when dealing with dragons. Especially when dealing with one as old as good Ddraig Goch, the Unconquered One. With the upsurge in the ley lines, and the retreat of the world of men, this is what springs up in its dreaming."
Lilian Rook	As Evald promised, you do arrive at a great, dark hole, gouged in the ground. A steep slope of irregular, water-smoothed rocky steps cuts down at such an angle as to completely evade the sun after very little time. "Mind your step." he says, illuminating the tip of his staff, whilst Lilian just switches on a wearable light. Before entering, however, he turns to Arthur, and says "You've all had good answers, but I especially appreciate you putting it that way." A smile more like a thin grimace fails to break the tension. "When you do it right, it never feels good."     The meaning of that isn't immediately clear. First is the descent into the long, sloping, suffocatingly humid passageway. The temperature rises past the point that being an exotherm makes evolutionary sense, the steady current of air blowing past you having the reverse effect of wind chill --and then again once it begins flowing in the opposite direction. There are no signs of any kind of rock formations inside, beyond the natural, scaled 'steps' themselves, both ceiling and floors scraped clean, though covered in dense layers of cave moss and fungus, and other things that glow strangely.     Only coming to a broad, flat landing, with a sharp drop into the blackness of an immense pit, does Evald remove his big, empty bag, and begin chanting over it with the tip of his staff, causing the cloth to suddenly bulge. Unbuckling and flipping open the top, he huffs, grunts, and then lifts out a longer, wrapped package that couldn't possibly fit inside vertically, and heaves it over to James. Then he heaves one on to Gawain. He doesn't ask them. Only the group as a whole "Are you really ready? Because I don't have any guarantee this will go well. We're sort of trying to strike up a dialogue out of nothing here, and I don't have a lot to bargain."
James Bond	"The former," answers Bond with quiet certainty. "Catharsis."      Standing inside the ring of stones brings more or less the result he'd anticipated--though the instantaneous nature of travel--no pomp or circumstance--does draw an interested furrow of his brow. Walking through the forest is more like walking through a museum. It's as fascinating as it is mildly unsettling, to see so many bygone plants and creatures as if they'd leapt from the pages of a textbook. To see life in such a way is to realize the startling gulf between Earth's history and that of humanity. To realize in that sense how insignificant his work is, how insignificant the empires he topples and bolsters, despite the destruction and ripples they cause amongst each other.      Bond's cigarette is spent, by the time they reach the hole. He snuffs it out with the sole of his expensive dress shoe, idly wondering how its presence might affect what dwells here. "I don't understand it myself," says Bond to Evald, as the heat begins to set in. Shouldn't justice feel good? "But Lowell and I are pretty different." It's with a cold kind of familiarity that Bond accepts the 'package.' There's a nod. He's ready.      "You've got these," he notes, shifting the body to carry it more easily. "That's a start. What do you know about the dragon? What's it like? What speaks to it?" Everyone has buttons. He's not the best at pushing them--he' better at letting someone else do that, using him to apply force. But it's a question that ought to be asked, anyway. Maybe someone else here can do something with it. There's a glance towards Arthur. Maybe him.
Tina Natsumi	Unfortunately for Tina, she's always heard of two knocks to trigger a thing. When it takes a third for Evald to activate the circle's sudden transportation, she has just enough time to be confused and nearly jumps out of her skin when the third knock makes things actually change. There's little relief to be found, though when the strange plant life and burbling water comes into view alongside so many earth-adjacent, but otherwise wrong things. "Never gets any easier..." Tina comments with an uncomfortably forced chuckle. It's not until more of the local fauna arrive and Lilian's comment about things existing millions of years apart that something starts to click for her (sort of). "Wait, so this is... These aren't weird local things, but living fossils? If these kinds of things can exist together because...!" Tina notices herself dropping the cowgirl act in her excitement, clears her throat, then tips her hat down and settles back into that fake drawl again. "A-anyhow. Uh. If this here dragon business is the cause of all this, then... Uh. I reckon it ain't a bad idea to chew the fat with the big feller once we find 'it." Good save. As the group continues onward, Tina starts snapping pictures of the wildlife with her phone, stopping every now and then to make sure she has enough room for all her stuff before continuing. It's only when they reach the big hole that she slips that phone back into her pocket, still moving onward and descending carefully so as to not break her face falling somewhere stupid. "Ready as I'll ever be. If'n we can get this sorted out without resortin' to bustin' skulls, all the better. Wouldn't mind pickin' at their brain some if they don't look too bothered by us scamperin' around, even." She laughs, this time a bit more genuinely while watching the packages getting tossed about. "I don't suppose you askin' us about justice might have somethin' to do with that, eh?"
Jonathan Joestar	When you do it right, it never feels good. Jonathan grimaces, but says nothing to disagree. He didn't think it was always true, but it rang as such more often than it didn't, at least for him. Gawain's clap of solidarity on his back is re-assuring, however. A faint red dusting can be seen on Jonathan's cheeks as he nods -- even though they had known eachother from a distance for quite some time, the feeling of awe of actually meeting one of the Knights of The Round Table never really wore off. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, kind wizard." he mentions to Evald before they move on. It is novel, this mode of transportation they wind up using. Rather than the sensation of movement, it's as if the world had moved itself around them, almost like a film reel that spins and spins until it all blurs together. It's over as quickly as it began, and Jonathan can't help but be held up for a moment to actually observe where they wound up and how they got there, "Fascinating ..." However, with no time to dally, the group must move forward. Jonathan himself frequently lags behind in his observations, seemingly cowed by everything around them. "So many of these things have long since been extinct. Some of it, we don't even have proof it did exist, merely theories ... and others, the only proof that does exist are fossilized remnants." "Take this flora here, it appears as if it were a tree, no? But if I am not mistaken, it is actually a Sigilarria; a relative of fungi. It reproduces via spores, by the way, so please take careful not to breathe in deeply around it."     And on and on they went, until ... Gawain and Mr. Bond receive their packages, and Jonathan pauses thoughtfully. He'd taken many samples on the way here of the various interesting finds he'd made, and kept them all in his tiny backpack; at least relative to his size. "This is the same red dragon whose blood was said to run in King Arthur's veins, is it not? With some luck, perhaps we might be able to reason with it and come to terms. If not, then ... that would be... unfortunate. Yet, I am prepared for such an outcome." He trusted both in his own capabilities and his allies, but also in the sword gifted to him by Blueford as well.
Gawain	Once they reach the hole, Gawain turns on a pocket flashlight that he keeps with his things, and begins heading downwards. All the wonderful animals and extinct things had caught his attention, sure, but his mind was on the prize. The dragon. "Ddraig Goch. I'm unfamiliar with your world's version of this dragon, but it must be quite majestic. I'll be most courteous, then!" Taking the package, Gawain hefts it over a shoulder, though grimaces slightly when he realizes what is inside it. At the landing... "We're meeting a dragon, Evald. There's never a guarantee it will go well. But I'm ready. We must see that Caelton is avenged."
Maya	Maya is keeping up with Evald and the rest of the group. She finds his place kind of pretty but is also on her guard aware of the reason why they had to be armed to get here. Thankfully things don't go bad and the terrain becomes more like the old place she gets there is a power of a sort here and she'll keep moving. Watching for trouble as she goes. Birds at least she's not having to hunt these across several continents as she goes she'll also have a bit of wonder in her eyes at things that should not be on the face of the earth anymore. "This is amazing to see things like this..." She keeps moving until they reach the point they need to go and she'll heed what their guide has to say as they keep going she knows it's time to put her weapons away. "I'm as ready as I can be for this. We'll have to work with what we have then to bargain."
Charlemagne	Just before the group had stepped out of the circle, before their surroundings had changed, in the briefest of moments a gentle breeze could be felt caressing the back of their heads. It wasn't anything noticeable beyond a breeze, but for a brief moment it had felt as though something had traveled upon that calm gale.     "Ooooooh! I totally didn't see this coming!" A voice ends up flamboyantly calling out from behind the group as they make their way out of the stone circle, the calm of their group having been curtailed all at once. A young man who's carefree expression seemed to completely contrast the restricting and strained environment the group had found themselves in. His smile so innocent one could have assumed it was that of a child's, so bright that even with the forest canopy only leaves streaks of sunlight that it felt like the place had gotten just a bit warmer. Or perhaps that was just the humidity. If this presence had been met upon the streets, one could have perhaps felt inclined to share a drink with him instantly, or perhaps try and laugh along with his easy going nature. Or perhaps just find hima bit overbearing. But when such a man appeared at the last moment, as all present were about to embark on a task that required some level of prudence or tact, or at least some capacity to fend for themselves, this man...Did not give off any of that.     His presence screamed that of some sort of tourist that had found his way amongst the Elites. Even his attire seemed to casual, a long white-sleeved shirt with a black collared-shirt and a pair of jeans that made him look completely ill-prepared both aesthetically and mentally for the task Evald was preparing the group for.     In the few moments he had appeared the words 'cool' or 'awesome' must have been uttered enough times that counting on one's fingers was no longer appropriate and yet..."Ah, long blonde with the white robe...Yep! You're definitely Evald!" He makes his way over to the one leading the group before patting him on the back as if this stranger had known him for the eons. "Sorry I'm late, you guys were a lot harder to find than I thought. I would have said something sooner but it would have been so lame to have had you guys hold up cause-- Ah, actually...I think you were told abotu me already, right? Right? Oh man, please tell me that you knew I was coming! Ah, it'd be so uncool to show up to the party unannounced! Or wait...Would it be cooler if I did? Hmm..." His hand rests upon his chin for a moment, as if the very question was an intense quandary.     At the very least, as the group began down the path as Evald guided them he was keeping along, the real question was however whether it might have been safe to leave someone like this around when they were about to meet with a dragon?
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Follow along     These woods are unnerving. Arthur knows he's somewhere else, but even for a Mage of Space, dense woods are their own thing. Even without a ring of stones and magic to send one there, "deep in the woods, where you can't see the sun" is known as a special, geometrically isolated space. Arthur keenly recalls the partitioning and accommodations that had to be made for things like that, when crafting a universe's laws of geometry. Of course, when building a gutter, you assume a few things will fall into it. Not *everything*.     He whistles, impressed by the display. "Jegus. This is part of the DREAMIN', you said? Okay, I think I can get that bit. Like the DREAM BUBBLES I gotta deal with. Just... LOTTA MEMORIES." A *lot*. He reaches the edge of the pit and squats over it, arms over his knees. "I know, uhhhhh, COMMUNIN'. COMMUNIN' in the weird sense, I mean. I can strike up a good DIALOGUE if ya gotta." He glances over. "WHERE WE DROPPIN', BOYS?" He looks to Evald, by way of a sort of request for permission. Time to dive? >Arthur: Jump in as soon as you get the OK!     Arthur's cocks his head at the hole curiously, intent on jumping unless stopped. He has his answer, after all!
Lilian Rook	Evald makes a nonsense kind of hand-lowering gesture at Gawain, whilst reaching his other arm into the bottom of the bag. "I'd, ah . . . put aside your preconceived notions of majesty. For the time being." he says. "A lot of things have changed very much, very quickly, in less than fifty years. Not even the eldest of us escape it." He adds, having never met Miyamomo. "But certain kinds go beyond even embracing change."     Lilian folds her arms and makes a noise at the mention of dragon blood and King Arthur, though she manages to keep it to a level that wouldn't be offensive to present company. "Allegedly." she says. "Though we've no way of knowing. All kinds of bloodline Traditions get started on word of godblood or dragonblood, whenever the nature of it is in doubt. They're sort of a synonymous do-anything."     Evald replies to Bond, though it also continues his earlier thought. "Mainly only what I know through my family's accounts. I've only met the dragon once, as a teen. Typically the knowledge of it is passed down through the wizard's position; though certain others may demand an audience, the dragon is only well-disposed towards associates of the line of Merlin who once freed it. Or, what you could *call* well-disposed. It doesn't . . . I couldn't describe its personality to you. It's not that it doesn't have one, but it's like pushing on blind through a storm. I couldn't tell you where it all comes from."     "As to what speaks to it, well, certainly not our problems. And most certainly not justice. What's out there --what you saw and felt-- is a better embodiment of what's inside its head than anything I could describe to you." Lilian, sensing the discussion wandering in a vague and profound direction, intercepts for a moment, counting off on her fingers. "The defining characteristic of the true dragon species is, supposedly, the thing that makes them 'the perfect creature'. Their Primordial Gene. A true dragon is said to be able to know and remember everything about every cell of anything it has ever devoured. An immortal font of endless life and an engine of death at the same time. If the first generation of dragons, the Red Dragon amongst them, is as old as they say, it might as well be a living record of everything that's ever lived on Earth. And I'm sort of more inclined to believe that now."
Lilian Rook	Evald nods. "The dragon wants what every dragon wants. Perfection. Sublime power. To have and to know everything worth having and knowing. They settle down in places where the radiant magic of the Earth is strongest, slumbering and absorbing it for centuries, even millennia at a time, emerging only to test themselves against the world outside, as a kind of 'calibration'. We're fortunate, in a sense, the Unconquered One is so old. But on the other hand, it makes it hard to offer it anything it might want."     "We're here thinking in lines of justice and pragmatism and good and evil and society. It thinks in lines of 'fitness', like, 'worth', 'validity', 'winning the right to exist'. If we were cast out of Eden for eating the fruit of knowledge, surely dragonkind sinned at a different tree. So, it'll demand a price for being woken up, which we have, but it'll demand a price for giving us what we need to ask for, which we don't necessarily have. It responds positively to strength and fortitude, but you'll be in deep trouble if you overplay your perceived hand. Same with cleverness and flexibility, but you're finished once you project the idea that you're a follower-type or an intellectual."     Lilian finishes his sentiment off. "It cares how 'evolved' you are, not how smart or right you are. And I assume I know why we brought what we did. We're asking it about the Letter Agency, yes?" Evald nods grimly. Taking a deep breath, he repeats "It never feels good when you do it right." like a defensive mantra, then taps both the heavy sacks given to Gawain and James Bond.     The sacks begin writhing and squirming, kicking violently and making muffled noises. "Throw them into the pit." Evald says, firmly. "And cover your ears." says Lilian, already doing so. "The Red Dragon is supposed to be able to kill everything for miles with its voice alone."
Gawain	Gawain listens to the story of how dragons 'work' here. They're going to have to play this carefully. Gawain's plan is simple: he's going to be Gawain, and see how that works for him. A knight does not change how he behaves, even when faced with a dragon. But... As the sacks begin writhing, Gawain sighs, and then throws the body into the pit at his cue. His hands then move for his ears, covering them solidly once the sack is down. "Well! I pray this goes smoothly."
Maya	Dragons on this Earth are primal and from what she's seen in coming here? She's very much included to believe Evald on what she's been told about this dragon. "So far different mindset than us and it's going to be a tightrope. Honestly, we may have to go out into the world at large to fetch what the Dragon might need." She notes as she now looks to Lilian for a moment and she nods. Maya does her best to not pay attention to the sacks as she goes to fetch a set of explugs from a pouch, put those in and then cover her ears as well.
Tina Natsumi	"Sounds complicated. Hm. So we gotta be smart, clever, strong will, good plan for whatever it is we're aimin' for, but not be too up our own asses or  just be someone taggin' along." Tina paraphrases, more for her own sake as she lets those thoughts rattle around in her head for a while. Looking from person to person, she strokes her chin lightly while nodding every now and then. "Don't think we gotta be too afraid o' that. Er. Mostly. Pretty sure most everyone here's got some of those qualities. Knowin' how to take charge, bein' swole as all heck, good heads on straight..." Chuckling lightly, she takes off her hat briefly to wave it at her face to try and dispel at least a little bit of the heat. If nothing else, all that heat does make it a little easier not to think about what's happening with the weirdly squirming bags. "But when you say 'evolved', I'm guessing you don't mean in a biological sense. Something more like... Ach, what's the word?" She snaps her fingers a few times while looking towards the sacks provided to James and Gawain. "... Mentally developed? Not intellectually developed, but... Wisdom'ly? Gah, can't think of it right now." Between the heat and seeing the bodybag go down, Tina's bravado starts faltering again. She doesn't need to be told twice to cover her ears, although her curiosity does get the better of her as she looks into the pit to try and observe what happens.
Jonathan Joestar	It's disturbing in its familiarity -- but that would be something he could dwell upon at a later date. Jonathan's hopes for what would happen next begin to pitch as the packages writhe with a living kind of furor, "Hold on a moment, what precisely is inside -- ?!" He has no time to express his surprise at Charlemagne's sudden interjection, everything is happening too fast. "What did you do .. !!" With warnings being dispersed, Jonathan's hand splays over his face as he cuts a fierce pose. Ripples in the air begin to lap around his body, ebbing and flowing like water along the shoreline or perhaps, more accurately, like heatwaves on a sunny day. If it's a sound based attack, he could disperse it with his Hamon. A countermeasure like that would operate on the same principle as an opposing current, something he was confident he could pull off.
James Bond	"The latter," says Bond to Charlemagne dryly. It's way cooler to show up unannounced and have eyes on you for it.      Bond tosses the body into the pit without allowing himself to hesitate. He'd presumed they were dead before--but it does make more sense this way. He plugs his ears before the darkness has a chance to swallow the kicking form.      His face is a stone mask. Though the trappings of this particular assignment are more storybook than he's used to, the work itself and what it means are all too familiar. One or two lives for the lives of many more is a bargain he'd take any day. A bargain he's taken many times, or so he'd thought.      There are always questions--who were these people? Will other people truly benefit from this, or just a select few? Often times he knows the answer, knows also that it wouldn't make a difference. If someone should be out here, doing that kind of work, it should be someone who's good at it. Suited to it.      It comes to him, as he ignores those questions--the means by which he'll make his case, if he has to.
Charlemagne	"Mmmm, I guess that would be pretty coo--" Before he can finish responding to Bond, he can already catch a glimpse of the writhing bags and all of a sudden that cheerful and easy going demeanor fades away. What ensues is an expression of...Discontent? Quiet acceptance? All of a sudden the young man's demeanor feels more appropriate with that of the situation. A long stare ensues, though before the two decide to throw the two bags into the abyss he looks back towards Evald. His expression obviously wasn't happy, nor was it disgust. He had the face of someone simply curious.     "Yo, Evald. . . There needed to be two live ones?" His question not question the methods morality, but more along the lines of its efficiency. Regardless of the answer, it seems like the two already had quite the forsaken fate. A fate well enough, that as they fall into the abyss the tourist begins to do something that none of the other Elites were doing as they fell to what could only be considered one of the crueler ways to go. He shuts his eyes, and offers a small moment of silence. Not a prayer, but a moment at least.     It's about the only moment of silence they and the rest of the group likely would receive before they needed to protect their ears from what was to ensue, and the young man that had followed along made sure he was no exception. Cupping both to make sure there was some protection for what was about to ensue.
Arthur Lowell	>==>s     Arthur takes a step or two back from the pit, awaiting the... grim delivery of the sack. A pair of headphones go on, and a big "mute" icon pops up. Even still, he presses them down over his ears. "So we're gonna be chattin' up the DARWINIST KING." He says. "Well, I clocked my share of HIGH SCORES and BIG TAKEDOWNS. Here's hopin' the BIG GUY gonna RECOGNIZE GAME, yo."     The bags go down, and Arthur feels relieved he didn't have to handle them. "Guessin' the FIGHT is kinda part of it." Arthur mutters to Charlemagne. "I mean, if this is about, y'know, FITNESS? Can't just be somethin' LIFELESS that wouldn't be doin' much if it wasn't in the SACK. Still..." His grin grinds his teeth slightly. "Never a fan of CHATTIN' UP the BIG MINDS that get like this. This ain't even on the EXPIRATION, this was PRE-ALIEN, for real." Alright, no hole-hop yet. But, one assumes, soon.
Lilian Rook	In the moments before everyone has to shut their ears, Lilian replies somewhat cryptically to Tina, with "There's no difference. Evolution has failed you in all other ways, but it hasn't for others." and Evald replies to Charlemagne with a surpassingly grim-toned "If it weren't for the needs of our present situation, they'd face far worse at the hands of the Table."     Plugging one's ears is a boon in several respects. Evald takes a moment to whirl his staff around in concentric circles of threes, chanting something whilst sparkling motes like spring pollen falls around the group, briefly 'afflicting' those gathered with a mild kind of sensory deprivation curse, expecting fingers in ear canals might not be enough. It allows those interested to observe a short period of time in eerie, underwater muteness, only audibly aware of the blood pumping in their skulls.     Flashes of light from the bottom of the cliff, fading into the shimmering air. Rumbles felt through the feet. Intensifying popping flashes. An upward shot of smoke. A slam nearly hard enough to trip over on. Then silence. A short, grim pause, and then the earth churns. A long, slow grinding, like tectonic plates. A surging wall of scorching air, like the pressure of a distant hurricane. Bucking waves of vibrating force through the ground, like the churn of a violent ocean. Then red lights swimming in the darkness, like a vista from an abyssal trench.     The wind doesn't die down for a long while, because the gale comes sheerly from the enormous quantity of atmosphere being displaced by the rousing of the thing from the pit. A pair of scarlet wings fit to blot out the sun, familiarly draconic, yet ridged in bone white carapace. A second pair rises behind them. Spires of porcelain bone ascending from beyond the edge. Patterns of crimson markings that hurt the eyes. Blood red scales seemingly fused beneath the articulated plates of a primordial ocean predator. Claws grip the edge, each hinged like car-sized switchblades within blades, six to a hand. Pulsing lines of alien bioluminescence down sinuous dorsal and flank pores, flashing with indecipherable code.     Bristling spears of spinal carapace between long, flat, fleshy pseudopods tipped with golden rings, like the windblown tassets of a gilded scarf from its shoulders. Four white-hot orbs with the false pupils of a mantis, set in staggered binocular. Scaled belly concealed behind an immense breastplate of organic armour, pitted with angled vents that hiss scalding carbon dioxide with one enormous exhalation. Jaws that bring to mind the gargantuan bite of a tyrannosaurus, magnified a hundredfold in their square and muscular savagery and man-sized silver teeth. The back of the throat is invisible behind a radiant, searing glow of heat like staring into the sun. The coiling tip of an endless tail, itself an impression of a mythical giant serpent, crashing over the brim of the pit with an errant flick.     The parts that are 'dragon' are still obvious enough to see. One could believe that this was once 'the Red Dragon of the isles'. But the form depicted on flags and in heraldry has since become woefully outdated. The hundred meter vision of nightmares before you has rendered it obsolete. Half of it no longer resembles any creature of the earth, nor anything of the heavens, but something no sane god nor act of nature would conceive, perhaps solely the realm of drug-fuelled prophetic nightmares.
Lilian Rook	Mercifully, you can still hear nothing when the savage sinews of its maw flex wide and the primal exhalation from its shimmering throat causes the moss and moisture of the rocks to evaporate and blow away, the red and slick blood clinging to its teeth hissing away into crimson steam. The way the 'cursed' circle flickers against the arcane power of what might as well be a yawn is bad enough. Stanced up and defiant, Jonathan feels the enormity of 'sound' crash against his Hamon, and come halfway to snuffing it out before receding.     Though it has no pupils with which to track its gaze by, twitches of the spheres themselves give the impression of taking you in with independent fourfold vision, as well as your scent, your heat, even the electrical contraction of your muscles, through taste and smell and labyrinths of subdermal organs.     However you're supposed to talk to this *thing*, escapes the imagination for a few moments. There's no way mere mouth sounds can convey anything meaningful to a living, moving, monument to every ancient and brutal thing that has ever walked the Earth, swam the seas, or soared the skies. No doubt such a thing recognizes it can't possibly speak to you and be understood either. Thankfully, the problem solves itself, in another act of perturbing, biological revelation.     There's simply *too much* of the dragon to take in, for the eyes to follow everything that happens, but the almost unholy miracle of a quintillion cells acting in uncanny unison is likely best remembered only in broad strokes anyways. There's no comprehending the way scale and claw and bone and flesh and glowing heat all flow and collapse into one another, nor how the silhouette of a living tectonic feature can fold its dimensions into roughly human form.     Roughly. Fair skin and red hair of the ancient Gauls remembered overvivid like tanned bone and fresh blood. Squirming pythons of muscle that settle and clench taut over one another to build the iron pillars of a neolithic frame. Yellow eyes that, at just the wrong angle, emit a terrible reflective glare, like a night predator caught in a camera's flash. Scattered crimson tattoos rise to the surface like blotted ink, forming alongside seemingly needless tapestries of scars.     A twelve foot shadow that condenses with each step from the edge, its silhouette vibrating with each thumping step, and settling just a little more. The mane of hair falls down to its waist. A beastly, hulking man-- No, the next moment a woman; the reason seems no more complicated than the way it approaches Evald, fair lips curling in a grin full of knives as he struggles not to glance aside from the bared human form; a gesture of casual disregard for human norms and sacred shape save to torment and test the one smell it remembers.
Lilian Rook	A throne of primordial stone rises from the lightly glassed floor, for the dragon to lounge in. Evald lets down the barrier at that time, when the earth no longer quakes under each step. When the Red Dragon utters first, it briefly speaks with the jarring cadence of both male and female voices tangled within an animalistic snarl, before it seems to remember the appropriate vocal structure to fit the body it has chosen at its whim. A voice filled with smoky and dire amusement, and the smouldering undercurrent of briefly satiated violence.     "Amusing. Pathetic struggles, but heads full of amusing things. Is that your desire this day? To hear the thoughts of those worthless men? I knew nothing of their cult of many letters, and now I know much. The pieces hidden in the forgotten cracks and corners of their useless neurons make most of a whole. But amusement alone is not my price. You know this; you are the newest whelp of the clan of Merlin; you were there that day to be taught."     She(?) leans back, casually tapping the stone armrest and burying a centimeter of fingernail into it, apparently having no love for keratin. "Answer or boon, it matters not. You may plead for either, and for each one, I shall have one tribute; a thing unlike that which I have consumed before; a strong thing; a strange thing; and not the same again."
James Bond	Evald's spell is observed with the same passive interest that Bond affords anything magical. He is out of his element here--but it didn't stop him from making the plunge. A little uncomfortability is worth the rare chance to take an action one actually believes ought to be taken.      The adrenaline, at least, is familiar. He has never felt the wind displaced by something old enough to remember grotesques depicted in the pages of biology books. But he has felt the roar of air whipping past him as the earth rushed to meet him. He has never been in the presence of something both alive, and large enough to shake the ground like the impact of millions of dollars of military hardware against the unsuspecting expanse of a mountain range. He has never looked upon markings that hurt the eyes just for one's daring to gaze upon them. But he knows of things, hidden away, which would move such forces as to kill a man.      There are some commonalities. But they are dwarfed by the differences. Never has he seen something so alien. Something with teeth that stand as tall as he. He doesn't even know if those insectoid things arranged in fours see in anyway he'd be familiar with. The Red Dragon of the Isles is being sized up--as is its lair, after Bond lifts a hand to shield his face from stray detritus he imagines might breach the circle. He's unversed, in such things. It will be able to see him, attemping in vain to take in its vastness, scanning its armor for weak points and its lair for exit points. Advantages. But this is not done of fear--Bond's is the body language of a pure, animal survivor.      When it takes human form before him, he nods. <So,> he thinks--<that's how it intends to hear us. But that doesn't mean it will like what we have to say. Only that it's interested.> This, now, is a situation he is imminently used to, however strange the trappings are. The tension. The sense that his life may be on the line. He is at his strongest, and most clear, in these times--when he doesn't have to think. When instinct and intuition may rule. This is how he was trained.      This smell--for it is not quite fear, but the certainty that one is being sized up; that one is sizing up--it may bring fond memories to this creature surrounded by beasts and plants which time forgot. It is a very old smell. But in humans, in this era, it may be one the dragon has not smelled in a long, long time. A complicated smell. But perhaps one that it (she?) may fondly recall.      Does he seek to know the mind of the cult of letters? "Yes."      The dragon respects being 'evolved.' Worth. Fitness. The idea that one must prove their right to exist is what will sway it, not any notion of natural rights or morality. That, Bond can understand. Uncomplicated. Simple. It's the simplest, most effective way to get the point across.     "That's what I want."     He points upwards. Towards the mouth of the hole they'd all jumped through. "Those things out there... Even the oldest of us," says Bond, gesturing towards Gawain, "Would only have seen them in books. Because they're dead everywhere but here."     Something as old and as powerful as this creature is utterly outside of his wheelhouse. But a creature that will kill without a moment's hesitation... that's something he has experience with. So he meets the dragon's gaze with the cold indifference of an animal that will fight for its life without question; no matter the difference in size and strength between them. 'You might win,' his cold blue pools say, 'But I'll come at you with everything.' Moreover, 'I will give you your tribute without question.'     "They fought to survive, and they lost. That's what we're here for. Survival. We're in that fight now. And we're going to fight like hell. We're going to claw and bite and kill our way to the top of the hill, and stay there no matter what. If that means coming here, dealing with you... paying your tribute... fine."
James Bond	A thing unlike that which was consumed before. A strong thing. A strange thing, and not the same again. He can suppose that everything up there is something the beast once consumed. "They knew exactly where and how to hit with that Antegent attack. I want to know how they knew that. And in return, I'll bring you one you haven't eaten before." It's a big promise. Considering the smaller ones are the size of a horse with the temparament of a pissed off bear. But he is looking unflinchingly into its eyes when he makes it.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Experience relief     Is it wrong to feel like this was cathartic? That the men died in some karmic way? Yes. It is. Arthur feels a rising sense of smugness or joy about what's happened, and suddenly, no. No, nothing like that. He squashes that feeling into his gut. No sense of relief. Those were real humans, and now they're dead. >Arthur: Speak to the Denizen     Not exactly. It's about the scale of a Denizen, though, and its mechanisms are about the same. Questions and confrontations. That makes this some intense danger. A Denizen without a destiny associated with it is a major risk. Thankfully, it's on speaking terms the way a Denizen sometimes is. Sometimes.     But that doesn't mean that the exchange isn't a risk. Lowball a Denizen's price and you don't get enough to fulfill the needs of your quest. Focus on the wrong target and you'll get what you never really wanted. Like a genie, but more dangerous. >Arthur: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO ASK FOR >Arthur: NO COMPROMISE THIS TIME >Arthur: WHAT YOU WANT NEEDS DIVINE INTERVENTION     Arthur twitches. >Arthur: PAY THE PRICE     "Fine." He mutters, to nobody, before speaking in an uncharacteristically serious tone: "Red Dragon of the Isles. I'm Arthur Lowell. Prince of Derse and Mage of Space. I need knowledge that an Antegent had. You've eaten one of those before." His broom's no longer over his shoulder, he plants its bristles into the dirt and glass. "And there's no way someone like you hasn't had the chance to eat someone who saw the face of the full moon, someone who got that curse in their brain. Or seen it yourself." Any Lunatics who knew about this creature would likely have tried to "enlighten" it at some point, after all, it would have been too powerful an ally to waste.     "I need a cure for that. I need to go to the other side, where that moonlight comes from, and kill it at the source, with my own hands, to be *sure* it won't hurt us again. Tell me how to make a Gate to the other side of that mirror, towards where the Antegent emerged from, so we can save those people and slay that monster. I swear upon my title as Prince of Derse that you will have a tribute worth that knowledge, if you can give it."     Show willingness to fight and kill, but be respectful, display no threat. Show a history of darwinist fitness without being entitled. Surely she can see his high levels, his mystic nature, or other things like that. So focus on indicating that's not for show. Focus on making it clear that he's here to find something that stepped into territory it has no right to touch, and kill it dead in the name of survival.
Gawain	Once the deafening ends, Gawain unplugs his ears and looks up at the Red Dragon. He is in awe, yet cannot truly comprehend what he is seeing. He attempts words, but none come. Not until she shows herself. Still inhuman, yet capable of communication. As she makes the deal known, Gawain has thought long and hard what he will sacrifice. It's something dear to him. Every footstep forward is thunderous to a human, but probably like light rain to a dragon. Gawain reaches into his bag, and removes a token positively radiating in Solar energy. "O, mighty Red Dragon! Hear my voice! I am Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun, though not one you would ever know. I offer a token of Solar power from the distant temple-manse of Ondar Shambal, given to me by the Whitewall city goddess after I saved her and hers. It glows with the power of a god of ancient heroes, and is quite dear to me." Another step forward should it be deemed acceptable "In return, I request a boon: the ability to best my foes, no matter how many or how strong. Not in the form of a weapon, but in personal power, an evolution of my very being! What say you? Gawain shows no fear, and no true deference or followership. Only the respect such a mighty creature deserve.
Jonathan Joestar	Evald's words did nothing to soothe the guilt he felt -- indeed, that the bodybag died quickly instead of slowly was, at best, a cold comfort. A tremor runs through his body, a primal kind of understanding, that without the sudden silencing spell placed over them, that his head might've exploded from the vibrations alone. The kind of mutedness he felt, the anxious beating of his heart, the best comparison he could draw was his duel with Blueford. At that time, he'd been trapped under water as the undead knight had chased after him with lethal intent. He'd been unable to breathe, and unable to use his ripple, until he'd found a lucky pocket of air from within the flooded mines ... Jonathan releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, as Evald releases his magic. The ease from which the great red beast had changed its form was as fascinating as it was disgusting. The only time he'd seen body-horror of that degree had been with the creatures of the night of his own world, though, that was paltry in comparison to this. Having taken a vaguely humanoid form, the dragon seats itself at the throne, and dips its..or, 'her' nail in an imperious tap that digs a gash into the keratine.         "Gh.." His fight or flight instinct roared at him to attack, an impulse that he barely restrained, his body coiling up like an over-wound spring. This ... thing, was the great welsh dragon? He had always understood that fairy tales were idle fancies often divorced from reality, but this was a little much for him to take in. I need to center myself! I've completely lost my composure, just at the dragon showing its face. I need to regain my cool.     "Kooooh... Breathing deeply and holding it, he releases his breath slowly through his nose, waves of hamon radiating from his boots as he circulated it gently through his body in a meditative, calming rhythm. Before I even think about what to offer the dragon, I must consider what I should ask for ... there are indeed many things, many boons one could acquire. I could gain a legendary weapon, a blessing of strength like in Arthur's legend, I could gain unfathomable treasures or incredible wisdom, like Fionn mac Cumhaill obtained from the salmon. I could even ask where Dio is...! ... but despite that, Jonathan could not lie to himself. He already knew from the moment the offer was made what he would ask. Running through his options, it was the selfish part of any person -- the inherent greed at being presented opportunity. He had much to gain from such an offer, provided he possessed something worth giving. Thankfully, he supposed he did. Several years prior, celebrating Christmas with a race within one of the floors of a magical tower, he'd won a peculiar item. It was a shining, five-pointed star with expressive, black eyes and a pudgy body. He'd never found much of a use for it, though he had figured ot that he could channel his ripple through it. Unslinging the comparatively tiny backpack from his shoulders, he rooted around in the leather before unwrapping the glowing object and unwrapping it from the linen he'd cocooned it in for safekeeping, presenting it with one hand. "Should you find this offering to suffice, the boon I'd ask for in return is for you to undo the damage caused by those fiends. Please, restore the three thousand victims from their coma."
Tina Natsumi	If Tina wasn't busy covering her ears from those body shaking noises< she'd almost think Lilian was making fun of her. That extra time to think, though, has her mulling over those words more closely. What /does/ she have over the other Elites here? There's many that are stronger, many that are smarter, and even some right here that are better armed with a better view towards the future. "Evolution, huh?" She mutters, more to herself than in response to Lilian, cringing at each flash of light and feeling her stomach churn with each rumble through the ground. Dread creeps into her face and her movements as she pays attention to every shake of the ground, and she brings a hand up to her hat to keep it in place as the winds from the rising wings threaten to blow it right into the abyss. Then the dragon actually appears. That anxiety gives way to excitement, although it's less of a jumpy, energetic excitement. It's more like something's welling up in her gut, barely able to restrain that feeling that isn't just bile (even though part of might want to throw up a little). The figure turns into something more visible for scale, and Tina swallows once as the Red Dragon speaks. When the demand is made, she doesn't speak up right away. She has to think first of what she even has to offer, what could possibly be worth anything to her that isn't just an object. Something like... "... Tina Natsumi. Paladin, entertainer, semi-celebrity." Is this a good idea? No, it's a terrible idea. But she needs it. "I've saved my world once before, but only with the power of many others pushing me along. This one needs me now, too, and too many others that..." Tina raises her phone, closing her eyes momentarily as a red, white, and blue-colored machine materializes in front of her. "... My Persona isn't enough to handle. Not on its own." It's still shorter than the Red Dragon's assumed form, but it stares right at the seated figure as she continues speaking. "I need more. I need power that others can rely on. That I can use to change my fate, other people's, something that I can use to lead them instead of relying on them all the time." Something that will make people remember her, now and forever. "That's what I ask of you. And in return..." Uncle Sam steps forward, standing tall before the Red Dragon. "My identity. My Persona. It's yours, if you can do that for me."
Maya	Maya nods to Lilian as she puts in a pair of earplugs and then still covers her ears to be sure. She also does not want to think about it even with what the likely contents of the sack did. She'll keep her ears cover but all the other effect she'll feel at least. She knows this is a being of power and not one to mess with if at all possible. Also hopefully they can get the information they needed from it. The dragon soon makes itself known and she can tell what it is but she's never seen one like this before. She's going to need a moment as the thing makes itself known to them. Maya would then watch transfixed wondering how are they to communicate with such a being? The Dragon thankfully solves this problem in short order. The first thing she does is lower her hands, then pull out the earplugs and pockets them. Maya has seen old things primal things on her world but nothing that was aware and had the span of a world's history even the hallowed core's functions was merely to regulate the functions of the world's continents layers in the end. Maya doesn't seem like much at a glance save her hair, thought a moment longer and should the dragon have any means to sense magic Maya smells deeply of it. James Bond asks a very pertinent question as does Arthur. Maya thinks she was thinking to ask about the cure if there was one to the people affected by what the three-letter cultists had let slip upon innocent people. To find the source and end it. She has an idea of what to ask for Jothtans bookends the other half of Arthur's question. To aid the victims of its horrible power, and then Gwain asks to be made stronger, as does Tina. Maya just stares at the distance Tina is willing to go her own thoughts lost for a moment as she attempts to center herself. She won't insult Tina by attempting to interfere, long ago she was where Tina was once. Once that settles a bit Maya looks up and says in a respectful tone. "I am Maya of Oasis. Inheritor of the Legacy of the creator of my world Septerra. I seek information on the network of contacts, and agents that are still operating on the isle. At least so far as the ones you consumed knew. I wish to see to aiding the Round Table it taking it apart. As for what I offer? I will bring you an apex predator of my world known as a Razorback Helgak a creature that is able to make use of magic with its hunts."
Lilian Rook	"That is correct." Evald manages to say in excruciatingly rehearsed, even tones, riding the line between deference and confidence. Many, many hours spend practising in ritual ceremony. "I wake you by the authority of he who woke you first, and offer generosity as he did. These are the men who survived the terrible, senseless death that they wrought. And so I will follow them to their masters, and I will see them destroyed." He may not mean, literally, 'I', for a weedy wizard, but the sentiment is strong.     The Dragon-woman curls and uncurls 'her' fingers vaguely, performing an uncannily human microgesture of slightly rolling those eyes in recollection. "They are convenient fools. Disposable tools who are convenient to their masters for the fact that they thirst for nothing more than to spill the blood of foreign men and women. They know nothing you seek. But every glimpse of paper and screen, every murmur of words behind closed doors, every unspoken meaning of human twitch and posture in their masters; I know them well enough to tell of it, in ways they themselves never did." That's good. Sort of.     Her scarred and completely jacked form leans forward in that stone throne towards Bond, like a massive snake sizing up a young lion. A moment later, laughter, loud and strong. "A bold promise! Nigh-suicidal! For ten years did I run red in tooth and claw on those creatures! Where the others fell, I climbed the rungs of that other world's ladder and spread my wings high atop the mass of its finest corpses! Their strange flesh, their novel weapons; I have made them my own! What guarantee have you that you can impress me with the spoils of your hunt?" It isn't a *no*. He can feel that 'she' is *just* barely intrigued enough by his steely confidence to bother asking in the first place.     The barely subsided laughter returns, straight from the diaphragm, at Arthur. "This clade of strangers! Ridiculous! Absurd! The line of Merlin has done well to gather together such amusing fresh blood! And yet, not quite the fools they sound. One whose robes are singed on the fire of stars and whose blood boils with youth even as it hardens with age. Indeed. I have seen your 'Man in the Moon', in the guise he wears when he walks in the light trapped inside eyeballs and looking glasses. I know what he promises the weak. I know where he lives, though only for the boundaries of his territory." The dragon returns to drumming fingers, with little clicks and cracks of stone, one leg folded over the other.     "Your 'Man in the Moon' lingers on this side. He cannot leave his celestial cave, for the laws of the Earth do not permit his existence, much the same as any of those creatures you compare to 'Gods' cannot. Should you go there yourself, you will drown in his light and perish; any other outcome should take more might than you alone can muster. But I will tell you all the same, if you can prove . . ." A disgusted grimace creeps across savagely fair features. "Collateral, you call it."     "For where they *all* come from; I refuse. Even the fragments I recall from their minds of wrong-angles and un-lights tell me enough. The Gaea of that place, their Tiamat, their Brahma, their Holy Spirit, it seethes and rages as the ocean. Let its orphans perish on the burial grounds of their kin, and seek no meaningless battles with the court of colours of suns and warm bodies and their thunder words. The knowledge is impossible anyways. Be glad that it seems lost to them as well. And be glad I will grant your closest wish." Oddly, Lilian herself stiffens up at that incomprehensible prose.
Lilian Rook	The 'woman's gaze tracks to Jonathan. To his offering, being something actually presented rather than only promised, but then to him. "The three thousand will survive on their own. Your 'Man in the Moon' takes their souls for only one revolution. However, it is true his fingers will linger behind their eyes for all the rest of their lives, calling them softly. Is it still so, that you wish to heal them of something so petty?" Despite the overwhelmingly inhuman presence of this thing, it seems surprisingly fair that it'd ask an 'are you sure' for a desire that it deems small; an opportunity to add something to it. Maybe it's because Jonathan had the guts to stance right up in its face before.     "A hunt." is Maya's reply at first, merely thunderously neutral. "A hunt is good. I will see for myself whether your prize is worth it. Spill your blood for me so I may know. Then if it is so, I will trade with you my mark. So that when I bestow upon you what I know, you will have your time to prove your worth as a hunter, and should you flee instead, I will feast upon your bones." The dragon-woman nods to herself.     She claps both hands down on the stone rests at the same time in a moment, pulping both ends to round, soft corners. "Power! Yes! Power is one I know *well*~" comes the sibilant croon, to both Gawain and Tina. "Merlin's favoured knights! Indeed I will grant you power, for a token of your quests! Your tales! Your heroics that resound through ages are a sweet blood to taste! Very well! Bring it before me, and I will grant you strength to conquer your foes!"     But there is seemingly no interest in Tina, for long moments, until she finally produces Uncle Sam. Some sad girl's identity must be worthless to it, but this isn't. "Mind-meat is it? Spirit bones. The sinews and blood of the ego and id. You will bear excruciating pain. If you are unready, you will die as penance for your weakness. Bring your soul-prey forward."     Until those two are done, Lilian appears to be hanging on to --that's a Sylladex Card, from the time with the Demon-class Antegent in the silver pit. The shard of 'something' that Arthur grabbed for them at the bottom, when Korra came away from spiritbending into the ruby needle. She flashes it at Evald, who nods silently.
Jonathan Joestar	Soaking in the information, he felt relief that they would eventually recover on their own, even if it seemed skeptical that they would be able to ensure the moonlight wouldn't be able to be used again. However, that wasn't flatly impossible -- though, it was Arthur's request to work out, he supposed. Gawain's had not shocked him, the man was plainly honest and straight-forward and desired the strength to pursue his ideals, to protect others and serve his lord. Tina's, however, had, and Jonathan's sympathetic gaze trails to her offering, her Persona. They were manifestations of the true self, from his understanding, the apparition of one's own 'shadow' .. and to give it up, to allow one's shadow to be devoured in such a way would be the same as death. The annihilation of the psyche. It was very possible that whoever would stand in Tina's place afterwards would not be her at all, but someone entirely new. Of all the things he might've expected her to ask for, and for her to offer, this had not been one of them, not that he did not understand how she felt. If he had been presented a similar opportunity back then, rather than Zeppeli's teachings, he most likely would have made the same choice. It is for that reason that he does not judge her, "Miss Natsumi ... there are many people who will sorely miss you as you are." He would not stop her if she did insist, but he felt it would weigh on his heart and mind if he said nothing to her. Perhaps she was not as powerful, or as smart, or as skilled as she could be, yet ... That didn't change that she had people who cared for her, and would hate for this to happen. Not only her adoring fans, but her friends.     "You don't need to do this. Is it truly what you want?" Jonathan pauses to consider his own request. Yes, in this context it was a small thing. It would be more equitible to request another desire, but -- "Even so, Ddraig Goch, I would see that they know peace once they do wake, that they do not suffer the grasp of an enmity they never once deserved nor earned. This itself will not bring them happiness and propserity, but, they deserve such a peace of mind regardless."
Gawain	As the Red Dragon assents, Gawain moves to present and give over the Ondar Shambal Solar Token, once and for all. He doesn't need it - not more than he needs the power to defeat the Letter Agency, a power to surprise them and defeat them once and for all. And then, he waits. This is going to hurt, isn't it? Tina's sacrifice gets no pause. If she has the bravery to offer that, he'll accept it. If she dies, he'll mourn her. But there's just a simple nod in her direction. "If this is what you want to do, I stand by you."
Maya	Maya watches the 'woman' she listens as she works out the deals with everyone else who is present her own seem to at least be acceptable. In the back of her min sh's formulating plans, old contacts to hit up for this. She knows just who to drop a line to for this. She will reply in term. "I will endenvor to do so. I have no intention to flee, better I die on the hunt than attempt to flee." She understands why the dragon said it though. At least she thinks she does. She looks to Tina for a moment she frowns, yet she does not stop her. It is her choice and she will have to respect that. She does wonder what will happen even if Tina survives this trial. She can only now wait and watch if there is any physical injury though she can help with that at the very least. "I wish you luck Tina."
James Bond	"The guarantee of desperation," says Bond. "Of urgency. But you already knew that, didn't you? Knew it from before you changed into that to speak with us. Or to throw us off." Part of him wonders if that particular form wasn't meant to surprise them--maybe even put him, particularly, off guard. But he saw how easily the creature could match human shapes. He doesn't know much of anything, about such creatures. He knows, however, by the sight of his own eyes that to call such a thing by a feeble human word would be like trying to hold the vastness of the ocean in a thimble.      "You know that I'm like them. That I do things their way." He is perfectly still, as he explains himself. The dragon's senses no doubt perceive that this is because in his current posture, he has access to a number of items on his person. That he could spring one way or another, if he were to become boring in its presence. "Well, I can't afford to, this time. And neither can they, now that we've held them off once. This is going to be dirty, bloody, violent. These things always are, when the first blow isn't decisive." It knows what he means by 'these things,' now it's found insight into the Letter Agency.      "I want Caelton to be on top when all of the teeth and claws have found their mark. And I want that very much." The only movement so far--a clench of his fist. "I do what I do sitting across from loaded guns. Across from men who would gladly break another human being in ways most of the ones outside could never dream of."      There's a slight smile. Is it real? Maybe. "I find you your food, or else I die trying, or else I can't pass muster and you kill me for having broken my word. Assuming there's a me left, after meeting this Antegent. But I have to move, and I have to do it now--because those men sure are."      "You know better than anyone in here how powerful a motivator desperation can be in nature. 'Even a worm will turn.' That's your guarantee. That I'll either have it for you, or you'll have the amusement of watching me boldly squirm against whatever inhuman boot strikes your fancy. I simply can't come at this with anything less than everything."
Tina Natsumi	The Red Dragon speaks of many things, most of which Tina is having visible trouble trying to comprehend. She recognizes a few names, the broadest strokes of what she explains about the 'Man in the Moon', but the rest of it... Well, it's pretty obvious Tina's strongest point isn't in her intellect. Thankfully, she doesn't say anything to make that too obvious even if her semi-blank stare does. She's more focused on keeping her nerve through that gamble, and hearing the warnings from the Red Dragon, from Jonathan... Even with her bravest face on, it's clear to see that there's a moment of hesitation before she speaks again. "... Yeah, I figured it would. I wouldn't have put that out there if I wasn't ready." Finding her footing again, Tina actually manages to crack a confident smile as she looks towards Jonathan, nodding once while smacking her fist against her chest. "I know. It's a risk, and I don't know what this'll do to me, but... I can't keep coasting. I've gotta step up some time, and it won't happen if I just sit on my ass and tag along all the time instead of taking the lead like I keep pretending to." She rubs that struck spot briefly, letting the smile drop as she looks back towards the Red Dragon. "I already got plenty of people killed because I wasn't strong enough before, and nothing's going to change if I don't really start stepping up. If I can stop something like Ad Coelum from happening again... Hell, if I can lead people into saving themselves down the line, whether it's the ones from Caelton, from America, from home... One less pretty face online'll be worth it." She takes a deep breath, then settles into a seated position on the ground as Uncle Sam resumes walking towards the Red Dragon once more. "I'm ready. However you're going to do this, I'm ready." As Tina sits and braces herself, the Persona stands with its arms and legs spread wide, prepared to take whatever may come.
Arthur Lowell	>==>     Arthur listens attentively. He can't find the other shore, then. But the Man in the Moon is somewhere here. The celestial cave is an isolated pocket of its own proper world. And it's lethal, sure, but when Arthur knows where it is... at least, then, he can try. "Sure right, I might die. But, don't got a lot of choice! Whole lotta people are gonna suffer because of me, if I don't do this. This is what I *have* to do. I got a whole lot of blood inside me and every ounce screams to make it right. If it's not in the Antegental direction, I need whatever his direction is." >Arthur: PAY THE PRICE     Arthur says, "Tribute. You won't tell me what you know about the Antegent source, but if you do, you'll have one of my limbs, here and now, and with it, everything the mortal meat I'm in could tell you about me." The flesh of a god and all that it can do. Arthur wasn't planning on skimping. Surely the Dragon has eaten someone who knows the *saying*. Arthur was honestly and truly gonna take off an arm or a leg for that, whatever inferior substitute he'd live with after. "But since you won't, got a price for what you *will* tell me." He reaches into his Sylladex, pulling out a heftier-looking Sylladex card than the more recent one Lillian hangs on to.     Arthur dumps out his own corpse. Speared through the chest directly through a light mage-armor setup, face twisted in a snarl of pain and violent bloodlust, it flops there lifelessly. Looks surprisingly fresh. "My *first* body, from when I got killed trying to fight an ascending digital god. Left it on the Quest Bed in case it was gonna be an ingredient in solving... my problem. One of the ones *you* can't solve." He hadn't touched the corpse around in case it could un-Expire him, fix his mind. There's a chance it could. 'Hair of dog', you know? But, focus on now, this problem, right here. Not Arthur's-- >Arthur: WOULD BE USELESS >Arthur: THIS ISN'T A DISEASE >Arthur: THIS IS A CURE FOR YOUR IGNORANCE >Arthur: PAY THE PRICE     "I said fine, bastard." He mutters. Casting antigravity on the corpse, he sends away yet another possible option for his cure, short-sightedly sacrificing yet another de-Expiration option for the immediate gain of knowledge he can use to probably get himself killed fighting Earth's most notorious satellite. He focuses on the others instead of thinking about that. Specifically, he focuses on Tina. >Arthur: holy fuck, tina     "Jegus, girl." He mutters. "You really are doing this, huh? Gonna go through hell, get that transformative experience? Usually people wait until rock bottom for that. You know, you're gonna catch beef about that, but honestly, you're on the right track here. You gotta *hurt* to get power without compromising *you*. You said you're givin' up identity, but really, shit like this? It's the only way to get lots of power while staying human." He gives a few approving, somewhat sober nods. "Go for it, girl. Good goddamn luck."
Lilian Rook	"Entertaining." the Dragon intones, though sounding slightly less than entertained to Bond. "Is it that you would enjoy such a race for your life? Or is it that you don't value it? What would you say, I wonder, if the price was not your own, but that I may put your home, your nation, your ideals, to the torch?" A pause of unfathomable consideration. "If you fail, and you are insufficient sport, this is what I will do." The stone-crushing female shape leans back again.     "Your enemies lack magic, lack knights, but they wield spies and they wield lies as their sword and shield. Their men are everywhere, and their men are not allowed to know of where their kin are, even right beside them. They even name their cells for swords. The gladius of the great empire of old. More than that, they fear the magic and the swords of older empires than they, and in seeking any advantage they might levy, they study the Un-beasts as much as they study the forgotten gods, and weave arts and devices they barely understand. Their 'Tuner', this time. A frequency that calls them. Enrages them. The human presence that says 'here I am, unslain, unafraid, I spit upon your dead'."     "They monitor the wastelands with many eyes, bury their devices in secret, place their men in plain sight, and when need be, make the Un-beasts of the other earth their weapons. Just as when they split the atom as their weapon, and spread the plague as their weapon before that. There are many on these isles. More than most. And they are not ignorant to you. Their knowledge grows greater, bit by bit, and they weave plans and devices and lies to trap you, deceive you, and fell you if they must. They are able to bring so many to their side by preying upon desperation, upon anger, upon greed, upon enmity, and upon weakness of the mind. Division and disorder suits them."     Since Jonathan clicks confirm, the Dragon gives him a 'very well', unenthused by his compassion, but holding its end of the bargain nonetheless. "Consider well, why it is that you throw away the spoils of your strength to soothe the worries of the weak." Considering the size of the item she's offered, after turning it over a few times, and then her abdomen just splits open horizontally, exposing a blood red maw of glittering silver teeth, yawning wide enough to fit the star whole, and then close with a sickening sound that is far too crunchy for something squishy like that, 'sealing up' as if it were never there. "You have the word of the Unconquered One that before the new moon I will fly to your little town and sanctify it with the power of a dragon's blood." That's pretty vague, but it is at least known up and down many mythologies how many properties that stuff is supposed to have, all the way up to immortality. Maybe it's metaphorical, but there's no particular reason to disbelieve at least.
Lilian Rook	The Dragon stands. Each step from her throne makes the ground shiver, blood red hair swaying heavily over her back and front. It feels like she fills up that entire side of the cavern, despite no longer being twice anyone's size --quite. The female form arrives at Maya, places a hand on her head that feels like a pallet of bricks weighing down on her neck, and then sharp nails pierce her scalp, drawing blood. The Red Dragon breathes in the scent of blood, and then huffs affirmatively. A red marking appears on the palm of Maya's hand, somewhat like the tattoos on that symbolic, battle scarred body itself.     "There are eight other groups on the isles. Each have three spies. There were three and three divided to watch each of the mighty orders of the isles. The Ring and the Table and the Roots. Only one spy of each knows of the place in 'Nevada'; the province where no human lives; an icy grave buried by their bombs, in which the torpid brain that their masters worship babbles in its slumber, hearing the prayers of the multitudes so they might listen. Men who loathe the old traditions, and look to the stars and the places between to overcome them. Men who 'make contact' and spin tokens of steel and wires and thoughts. They are not so weak as they appear; this is purposeful."     When Tina steels her resolve, the Dragon walks over to her next, looming over her even more than Maya. One hand is used to grip her by the back of her head and lift her effortlessly, and then the jarring sight of what appears to be --for just a moment-- a sort of egregiously domineering, mouth to mouth kiss. Except then Tina feels the air being sucked out of her lungs. Then the breath being drawn out of something deeper. The blood trickling from the mouth and nose. The terrible burning in her throat and behind her eyes. Consciousness flickering. All the oxygen in her tissues burned up at once. Nerves overloading and strobing. Then, Uncle Sam-- its right arm and a good portion of its chest disappear in the shape of an enormous, ragged *bite*. Its edges catch fire, in a sort of silent, psychic way, which spreads over a set portion of its body. The Dragon tosses Tina aside. "Your transformation will be agonizing. The form will be great, should you survive. Three days."     Gawain's Solar Heart-Token is taken up, and chomped in the woman's teeth with a brilliant flash of light, as those fangs crack even Orichalcum. Her hand spears deep into her own chest, bloodlessly, gripping where her heart should be, but drawing forth instead some kind of dagger or spike, white like glittering snow, yet pulsing with spiral patterns of living scarlet lights, translucent serrations limming its length. It weighs incredibly heavily in even his hands, as she shoves it into his gauntlets, carrying the gravity of a million million years of bloody-toothed victories. "At the red peak of battle, where your heart thunders with exultation and vengeance, thrust it deeply into your core, and let the power of its every cell flow into you."
Lilian Rook	The Dragon allows the Arthur-corpse float into the pit, no doubt for later. In the flicker of 'her' eyes, he knows that she can recognize something that requires *ritual* to devour, rather than teeth. "You are the most amusing of all~!" She smoulders. "I will bless you most. Struggle with all your might, to retain that humanity, burning one. Or else you will fade away completely."     There is, of course, no way to convey the information verbally. That tremendous hand is thrust to his forehead, and the knowledge flows into his mind. Jagged and uncompromising visions like a tumble of glass through his mind, not made for human comprehension and apathetically unsoftened. Thoughts that cut and gash, until they can come to rest, and be gradually pieced together over time into a shape that makes sense.     The surface of the moon. A vista of pure, ghostly white, no longer tainted by a speck of grey dust. A monochrome aurora borealis. Walking upon a tapestry of ghastly faces, cheek to cheek, brow to chin, making up the ground from the white horizon to the black void. That flag; the fools, they lead it right to them. Man in the moon indeed. Rover remains, grown over in white ivy. A flicker in the corner of the eye, impossible to grasp. A black suit like space. A white form like eyes. Something that blinks out of existence just before it's grasped, like the faintest stars in the sky. It seems to say something. 'I will save you'. It says without saying. 'They will not forgive, but I will. They will kill you, but I will keep you safe here. But only those Saved will be taken'. Rising bile and the taste of iron. A blue glow. Keening screech. Everything recedes.     And then as a bonus, just one flicker of an instant. A searing singularity of scarlet and white, at the center of all things, always 'upward', always 'inward', commanding the attention of all things. An archipelago of vantablack refuge in orbit, numerous as the stars. Oblivion beyond. Space cannibalized by Time. Gravity swallowed inside Intent. All eyes are on him. A tick, tick, tick, tick, the world going by in frames. The scent and raw pain of an open wound. Then he's physically dropped in the real world.
Lilian Rook	Lilian offers the mystery card to the Dragon last. It stares at her for a really, unnervingly long time. It leans in intimidatingly close. Even with a human face, the impression of a heat-sensing pit viper, swaying back and forth, trying to make sense of an infrared lamp, springs to mind. "I want to know where else they are." she proclaims evenly. "And why there. This is--" The Dragon interrupts her, devouring the image of the glowing shard like the rest. "I know." it says. "'Their' weapons. That is two questions, but they are the same. For *you*, I will answer."     "They have long hated, feared, admired, your 'United Kingdom', your 'China', your 'Egypt', your 'Greece', 'Japan', 'France', 'Italy', your 'Israel'." Even the Dragon grimaces in a moment's confusion. "Palestine." it corrects itself. "The places where once stood the clans, the yellow emperor, the pharaoh, the hermetics, the blooded, the knights, the holy romans, the disciples of the Lord. However, they also hate your 'Russia'; an old grudge, but it is one of the three. Here. The other isles. And the vast, cold wastes. In these places, they congregate in vast numbers. Because they believe something-- someone special will appear in these places. They believe it because someone --a boy-- already has in their lands, and seeing his power, they wish no others to possess it." Lilian somehow finds the presence of mind to frown.     A heavy *crack* thunders through the Earth as it seats itself again. "Will that be all?" The dragon-woman heaves.
Tina Natsumi	"I know. It's... It'll be worth it." Tina replies to Arthur with a resigned sigh, still bracing herself, still trying not to let her resolve waver from how incredibly foolish her entire plan is. How does she know that she won't just die from this? Or that she'll get anything worthwhile out of this? No, this'll be worth it. She just needs to keep reminding herself of that despite all the doubts swirling about in her mind. She barely even makes a peep when she's picked up, keeping her eyes screwed shut when she feels herself being pulled closer, waiting for... There's a moment when Tina has to fight the urge to make some kind of dumb comment about that initial contact. Thankfully, that moment is cut short for everyone's sake when pain becomes practically her entire existence. No goofy thoughts, no snide comments, no light-hearted quips, not even a forced laugh. Between the air just exiting her body and the blood making it impossible to pull new air in, her mind is already screaming at her for how stupid she's being. It feels like hours before things get worse again. The burning sensations in her everything, wanting to tear her arm off just to stave off some of that pain, the aching void in her gut as though something's been removed that shouldn't have been, all of that keeps her from even realizing that she's hit the ground an agonizingly long minute (at most) later. It hurts too much to scream, but she thrashes about wildly as though she's making up for that. There's nowhere for any of that pain to go, no way for her to use her Persona to just absorb it for her. Uncle Sam barely even holds together as it collapses on itself between the missing arm and torso mass to keep it upright, and those burning marks on it almost seem to be making it even worse on Tina. Those three days might as well be an eternity for all she's feeling now. She's already dreading having to survive the next ten minutes. It will be some time before she's able to move again.
James Bond	That gives Bond pause. The dragon knows him--how well exactly, he can't say. But well enough to know what price to extract. His home, his nation, his ideals--can he truly say that they're his? It doesn't matter. His, or not, they're all that he thinks he has. Something that he convinced himself that he'd been fighting for, at first, and things which still faintly glowed within the furnace of his soul, like embers in danger of dying out.      He has never been afraid of his own death. Or of things, forces, people which would twist him into something other. But none of those things has ever been able to extinguish those embers within him. This one might. It will try. And it is too late now to back out.      It is a terrible chip to have on the table. In danger of being snatched by an old, old player of older, stranger games than he has ever known. It is the first time, among several that they have met, which Arthur, Lilian, Gawain or Tina might see something like uncertainty clouding his cold eyes. It is no longer just about him, or his life, or his professional pride. It is about the deepest, most integral parts of his view of the world, which have allowed him to weather its forces. This thing could snuff them out. And it will try. It will try, if he fails.      The answer is simple; the certainty returns. Don't even entertain the possibility.      "I won't fail." Not in getting the dragon's prize. Not in utilizing its knowledge, either. Already, he is calculating a way to counter the Agency's methodology. If they strive on division and strife, then Caelton must be indivisible, united in mind and purpose. Jonathan's healing will be a significant step in that direction. "Those things... you're shrewd, to make me put them on the line. On the one hand..." His gaze meets the dragon's again. Faced with a creature of such terrible insight, there is no point in hiding his words--he hides them not from it, but from the others. It knows his meaning, by the electric impulses of his muscles, the subtle shift in his breathing, the downward twitch at the corner of his mouth.      <On the one hand they're all I have left. I think about what will be left of me, when they're gone.>      "But that's your way, isn't it? To test how worthy things are to remain alive." He nods once. And repeats,      "I won't fail. Tell me where it hides--the one that lives in your mind even now." He wants it. More than he's wanted anything before. And the dragon comes to understand why, studying this man-thing that knows the ways of the Agency and has ways of his own agency. It isn't about victory. It is his chance to allow something new, something different, to come into the world--rather than pruning it away in service of the old. It is a fierce, burning curiosity--something which might even spark new embers in the furnace of his being.
Jonathan Joestar	She seemed less than enthused over his choice, but that was fine. He was doing nothing more or less than being true to himself -- even if he fancied the notion of asking for some big, life changing favor, of being the next King Arthur or some such drivel, it wouldn't be as important to him as soothing the ills of those innocents, of making things right. "I am grateful," he says, sincerely believing that she was telling the truth on helping them. Dragon's blood was famously said to have many potent, beneficial properties, after all, so whether or not she was being literal he felt assured she would make good on her end of the deal. He watches the star's shine disappear within her second maw, and stands to the side for the others to finish their business here. The more he turned it over in his head, the more resolute he felt that he'd made the correct decision, atleast from his own perspective. For him, if he had asked her for anything else, he knew it'd truly be for no other real benefit than his own sense of self-satisfaction. No. This was good. As long as those people could feel peaceful again, he was alright with the way the day turned out for him. Still, for everyone else ... and especially for Miss Natsumi, I hope that they've gained precisely what they had wanted, and carry no regrets for it.
Gawain	Gawain takes the heavy dagger, arms sagging noticeably from the surprise of the weight. He carries it even so, moving to try and sling it in one arm... So he can lift Tina with the other. "I will not waste your boon, o Red Dragon. That is all I need." He's gotta get Tina somewhere she can fight this, that isn't in the literal dragon's cave. As he moves to carry her, he whispers into her ear. "I believe in your strength. Survive."
Maya	Maya stands there waiting for the Dragon to do what she has to do. The hand and the pressure is hard it's heavy like several slabs of basalt upon her neck. She makes no sound at the pain and she will pause to look at the mark as it forms upon her she looks to the Dragon pauses and take heed of what she is told and knows what she has to do she does not flinch. She fully intends to deliver on the hunt she knows the region of the part of her world those creatures hunt in. She knows it far too well due to the number of encounters she had with them in days gone past. When things are all said and done will look with concerns at Tina, she'll have to call ahead to medical on this she thinks. Also, the information she was given sinks in, it hints at things go far deeper than she thought they would. She had seen the letter agencies of other worlds but this is a whole new level.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: See     Saying without saying. Saving without saving. Forgiving without forgiving. Killing without killing. Iron. Blue glow. There's that light. The light that drowns and kills, which makes you forget how to be alive. How poetic! The products of the sun, and the home in the moon. The sharp edges on the mental communication rip up his skull -- or at least that's how it feels. He isn't shy with a sustained, teeth-clenched grunt of pain. Arthur starts to wonder:     Was there a lunar mission underway when the Onslaught began? >Arthur: See more     The Black Archipelago. The death of time. The weight of an entire Forge Physics. Eyes. Frames. Scent. Arthur still knows all the secrets of how to commune with an alien mind like this. Relax. Let go. Let the information pass through and into you. Don't try to decode it all at once, or you'll destroy it. Let it rest, self-archive, self-compress, and self-disassemble. It'll form itself over time, over hours and days and months of arcane decryption. He's been muttering those words, he realizes, when he drops into the world. Words like "Black Archipelago" and "Forge Physics" and "frames, frames". He shakes his head, clearing up key parts of the prefrontal cortex while others get to work on archiving the new information. "Thanks." He grumbles. "That's a hell of a kick. I'll work on figuring it. Appreciate it." >Arthur: Examine Tina     "Hell, kid." Arthur mutters as he heads over. "I don't think I've ever seen power at *that* kind of price. Shit, even the cyborgs get painkillers." He kneels down, being surprisingly serious considering the pain Tina's in. "You're gonna need a mouthguard for sleeping, gonna grind them teeth down otherwise. Gonna need time off, don't do *any* work like this. Gonna need a big pillow to scream into. Gonna need energy drinks to keep from dozing and heavy exercise routines for forcing yourself asleep, otherwise your sleep schedule's going to shit. Damn, this is looking worse than *any* stuff I've seen..." Even his old intense mystic-pain experiences aren't gonna be much help here!