Scene #7702: RIFTS: Operation Start

Owner	Pose
Gawain	RIFTS EARTH - COLORADO - DAY There is a large, cold mountain off the Colorado River. Known as Mount Killual by the locals, because of a fearsome story about a monster that once landed on it, it is also the perfect place to set up a base. Attached to the Colorado River for water, not far from a leyline nexus and a small town on opposite sides of the mountain, and with a green forest down by the river itself, it seems charming. It probably isn't. LEYLINE NEXUS: Off away from the river, four glowing blue lines cross through an odd, smooth plateau, furthering deeper into the mountains and in all directions. They glow brightly, humming with magical energy. The leyline nexus. They're quite wide, enough to step inside the whole of one. There's the idea that this area, however, isn't that safe. Corpses of animals lay about, hidden in the woods, and they likely weren't killed by bears or cougars, because their wounds are weird - two small punctures at the heart. Whatever killed them currently doesn't appear to be around, however. If you want to set up a magical shop, this is the place to do it. BOOT HILL: Boot Hills are supposed to be graveyards. This town likely named themselves after the last standing original sign at the graveyard, and it's pretty bleak. Sources say that they've been menaced by bandits coming out from further east for months, and so the people are a little prickly around newcomers who might be working for them. They're hoping a legendary hero will 'return' and save them. What is that all about? It's a small town, with a general store, a saloon, a sherriff's office, and just barely, a 'doctor's office' that probably is pretty unsafe compared to what the Commonwealth has. THE MOUNTAIN ITSELF: Mount Killual is a beauty. Snow-covered, but not too cold to set up shop on. Caves inside, strangely not full of monsters. Places to carve out and build a forward base in. Down where it's less cold and more foresty is also a strong location to set up, as is by the river. It's up to Ioanna Langstrom how she wants to take advantage of the mountain, likely with assistance.
Reyes	Reyes is an engineer. He's also overtly and unashamedly a Techno-Wizard, which means just strolling into town would have unpredictable results. On the other hand, a Ley Line Walker he's not, but that's okay too. He's Reyes and that's just gonna have to be enough. And, after arriving through the nearest warpgate, he adjusts his Streetwolf, bomber jacket with a firm grip, lowers his flight goggles into place, and engages his new experimental flight pack. Delicate clockwork and nail-thin rods swing out from within the strange backpack he wears, then flicker to life with a wave of bluish energies that form into angelic-looking wings. He kicks off the ground and takes to the skies with a single dramatic energized flap and soars up into the fringes of the ley line... where its power will support his flight effortlessly. From above, he scouts the grounds below, engaging the various detecctors of his modified goggles, looking for strong heat signatures and strong magical signatures alike...
Kale Hearthward	Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane - no, wait, it actually is a bird. Kale Hearthward arrives via an aerial approach, on his own so as to not attract attention - he's not entirely hidden or stealthy, but in his experience 'Being person-sized while high up in the sky' is reasonably good for going unnoticed, especially when you have better eyesight than the people down on the ground. He comes to a halt up high in the airspace above Boot Hill, and starts looking around - getting an initial look at the town, visually scanning it for any obvious threats anything out of place - or even if he doesn't spot anything worth reporting back, it'll put him in a good spot to be able to swoop in and assist with any threats the ground-bound members of the Paladins' expedition face.
Ioanna Langstrom	The most important secure points are the leyline and the town. The caves already have Delta Team's power armored frames guarding surplus equipment and construction workers. Work's beginning on the foundations - securing the caves with metal bulkheads, firming up the walls with steel. It's temporary, but it's something. Living quarters can come later. So that leaves the leylines and the town. Ioanna Langstrom is not an expert in magic. But she is an expert at blending in. She's ordered the group to split into two teams, one for the nexus, and one for the town, with Ioanna herself heading up the town operation. The MCM's taken the form of...well, it could be called 'patchwork power armor'. Bits and pieces of power armor are strapped to what would be called a salvaged frame, under which a black bodysuit peeks out every so often. It's been welded awkwardly with some scrap and other armors - chain and plate, it looks like. On each shoulder is a massive fuckoff cannon. Around her good eye is a targetting device, the shape of the FluxComm. Excitement and nerves are at war. She'd been up all night, planning, looking over readouts from preliminary scouts, checking maps. It's the first operation under her command - ever. In eight years, she's never had this kind of responsibility. She's heading up the town team, because that's her specialty. She walks in in her 'power armor', the machine making appropriate noises, as she looks around at the locals. Then, politely, and with the same sort of habits as the locals, says, "Alright, alright. Don't you worry 'bout a thing. We're here to get these damn bandits under control, ladies n' gents - once and for all." Ioanna shifts slightly in the 'bulky' armor. "We're gonna make sure you don't have no more bandit troubles goin' forward. An' if we can help it, no more monster troubles, neither."
Hellwarming Trio	The pair of youkai that have somehow managed to join the Paladins and not get discharged yet have found their next big project: Working on another town! Or outpost or something. They're not particularly up to date with all the parlance just yet, but they certainly look eager to make a good impression as they follow the river until it's time to start breaking off into separate groups. Utsuho: "How much do you think we'll be able to show off?" Rin: "A bunch, I bet. You heard that Ioanna chick, right? We're 'too dangerous' to be around the town, so there's gotta be something big to fight out here!" Utsuho: "Oh yeah... And we can set up the power once we're done." Rin: "Right?! And... Oh. Hey. Somethin's been here." Noticing all those animal corpses around the LEYLINE NEXUS, Utsuho and Rin touch down to check them out. It takes them a while to actually notice the puncture wounds, but it's strange enough that they decide to split their attention. Utsuho scours the area around woods to see if she can find traces of anything that might be the culprit, relying on nothing more than her eyes, ears, and whatever qualifies as intuition! Rin takes a slightly more targeted approach, going from corpse to corpse to see if any of them are fresh enough that whatever passes for their souls might still be lingering in the area. If she can find any, she'll try to strike up a conversation and just ask them what they remember seeing last. She won't break the news about them being dead if they don't know about it, though.
Tamamo	Tamamo arrives in a long, sleeveless leather jacket, seemingly dirty from use but more likely new and necessarily custom fit so as to be partially open while looking casually comfortable, a ten gallon hat with openings for her ears, white undershirt with sleeves folded up to her elbows, chaps, and an actually extraneous broad, leather belt, and knee-high boots. The only thing she's really missing is a gun. This is, doubtless, the most Outdoors American outfit she could think of, if possibly not a match to anything a real person has worn. She does have holsters, but they're just filled with paper talismans. The ink scrawls over each are unreadably archaic Japanese, as ever. She'd heard people needed help with nasty Sun-hating critters around these parts, so she heads for the sheriff's, a cheery spring in her step.
Mack	Mack does not bother doing any serious blending in, because... well, because he's a local. By Multiverse standards. By Rifts Earth standards, he's way outside his normal range of roaming. This is not a place that mutants like him usually go, and regardless of how odd D-Bees and various fantastical creatures might look, a Metal Morph does not at all inspire trust and warmth at first glance. He's added in a couple of bits of clothing he got further south of here in order to maybe shift the needle a little towards 'ridiculous' other than 'monstrous,' but, well... A hunched-over metal-covered skeleton man in a colorful poncho and, of all things, a sombrero, still only goes so far. Mack leaves a scrap-armored hoverbike parked outside whatever looks like the local watering hole, then goes to link up with Ioanna. He lets his sensors run in passive mode, mostly unconcerned with getting jumped in broad daylight. Best to make sure the L-T doesn't stumble into any trouble on their first jaunt out this way, huh?
Lilian Rook	Given that Lilian had not only insisted on specific elements of Ioanna's project regarding leylines, but had since come up with an investment strategy regarding how she intends to profit from it, the fact that she is both at the nexus and in charge of it is only natural. She even said so, so it's true. Her attire has barely changed from yesterday, save removing emergency oxygen gear in exchange for a little more armour than 'borderline just a thick bodysuit', and bringing a whole extra satchel full of faintly fragrant and also faintly toxic material, no configuration of hardpoints making it plausible or worthwhile to wear. Reaching the plateau is a trivial affair, influenced not at all by a few extra kilos of weight, but she sets down shy of the giant glowing blue crossroads. "Four all in one place. Not bad at all. I'd expected a simple cross of two, but I suppose she's better at the Eighth than I thought." She withdraws what looks like a brass compass, which is set with a multitude of small, coloured gemstones, and begins winding around several intricate gears with a fingertip, not actually touching them through the glass, but causing multiple hands to align in several directions anyways. One follows the crossover, one the direction of water, four matching the running directions of the lines themselves, and one references the mountain itself. Though she spends a certain amount of time marking the boundaries of a living room-sized circle on a flat rock formation overlooking the crossing point, demarcating it with three concentric and three overlapping circles, and setting out some of the contents of her bag in the aligned spaces, the dead animals take precedence before she does anything with it. The outdoorsy air and refreshing tingle of intense magic make for a need of barely a minute of trance.
Strawberry Princess	Out of costume, Strawberry Princess looks a little like Paladins support personnel and a little like a camp counselor. Her comfy surplus jacket with the Paladins' green shield sewn on one sleeve is vaguely military but wouldn't look out of place in a youth program with "scouts" sommewhere in the name, either. Her white button-up shirt and dark jeans contribute to the ambiguity. Neither of those impressions jives very well with the pistol in her armpit holster, or the Obviously Important slim carrying case slung over her back. She's not wearing makeup, but even if she were, it'd be hard to hide the awful thin scar that arches from below her cheekbone across her temple and deep into her scalp. Her hands and forearms are sunburned, but the rest of her isn't. Her long, messy, blonde hair is tied back into a ponytail with a cute pink scrunchie. In short: someone who's very used to being a hot mess, and is taking a novel stab at trying not to be. While Ioanna chats up the locals, Strawberry quietly looms behind her- one gets the sense that she is naturally talented at looming. She's the kind of person who's been in the back row of every group photo, categorically and forever. After giving the townsfolk a reassuring, distinctly hero-like smile and wave, Strawberry reaches into her jacket's pocket and produces a chunky little flip-top phone. Boot Hill is obviously a spaghetti-western-style town, but this is the schizotech postapocalypse. Are there any electronics she can crack into to get a feel for what they need saving from? Cameras, maybe, or a rudimentary security system.
Gawain	TOWN: There's not really threats, Kale finds. The bandits aren't CURRENTLY harassing anyone, but he gets a good idea of population - a couple dozen at most, with most of them frequenting the saloon. A lot of people are open carrying. If they start a fight, they'll probably get shot at. The Sheriff is currently in. Ioanna, in her patchwork suit of power armor, enters the saloon. People turn towards her, and while nobody brandishes a gun or even really reaches for it, they give her the stinkeye at first until they can confirm she's not in bandit armor. As she makes her grandiose declaration (with a drawl), she can at least confirm they believe she's local. Their words aren't too positive, though, as a couple of men at the bar start speaking. "Oh, lovely, boyo. Mercs' are here. You think they after the 'treasure' the banditos keep yapping on about too?" "Or the rifts." "Yeah, right. Nobody wants to deal with those, like the storms. They just want to milk us dry and then cut a better deal with the bandits." The saloon barmaid sighs, refills their cups as they beckon, and then looks at Ioanna. Less of a stinkeye. "You orderin' anything, or just here to decree our salvation? Because you're not the first, and you won't be the last." An eye to Mack. "Nice sombrero, partner. We don't mind D-Bees too much but don't be surprised if the townsfolk ain't one for strangers in general." Strawberry just gets an eye, as the bar maiden goes back to her work. There isn't much in the way of local tech hooked up to a grid or anything, but there is a single camera connected to the Sherriff's office. Probably the best they have. It's not always on - saving power - but it's been on enough to find out what the problem mainly has been. Men and women in body armor painted with blue skulls, carrying heavy body armor, with one large demon-like humanoid leader, sort of like an 'orc', coming up to the town and, according to the words they mouth (the audio is broken), demanding 'the map'. A man was shot in one of the altercations, but the bandits left after everyone came out with rifles. They're probably preparing to do more. Tamamo heads into the Sherriff's office. An older man in his fifties, with a red beard, is sitting listening to a radio. He's got his feet on the desk, hands behind his head, and is tuned out. His badge reads that he is indeed, the man in charge here. The door swinging open gets his attention, as he turns to her, her outfit making her immediately 'not a bandit'. "Howdy, pardner. You new 'round here, little lady? Something I can do for ya?" LEYLINES: Reyes finds this place is INSANELY magical. He can also find some heat signatures - a man in the woods, near where Utsuho is going, and those of animals in the distance. Otherwise, nothing like a monster. Utsuho and Rin investigate the bodies. Rin finds that the heart-punctured animals are relatively fresh, enough to talk to. The 'animal spirits' are dumber than she is, but are able to tell her that a shadow swooped over, came down, two spiky 'tails' came down, and then they died. Utsuho, meanwhile, finds the culprit??? No, probably not, because it's another animal corpse and a man doing similar to Rin - checking the body. He's a white-haired white-bearded man in his sixties, with a laser revolver at his hip, survival clothes, and a sour face. "Yep, it must have come from the Rift-" His nose crinkles if Utsuho approaches. He doesn't know where she is, but he seems to have keen enough instincts to discover her. If she reveals herself, he's much friendlier-looking, though, and waits for her to say something before speaking. Lilian starts setting up her magical routine, when she realizes the corpses will be a problem. Looking for the problem, she gets her information...but it might not be immediately actable on, unless she's willing to go on a wild trip, which is possible!
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry immediately, of course, snags the most succinct clip of video- the one with the bandit leader yelling about the map- and silently hands her phone over to Ioanna and Mack, displaying the clip. (Her phone's of that particular era where technology was pleasantly chunky, mono-purpose, and cheerfully indsstructible. It's lovingly plastered in girly stickers.) She raises her eyebrows in silent implication: 'Fuck them up, get the map, earn the town's goodwill.' Words aren't needed.
Kale Hearthward	Kale spends a bit of time relaying information on the radio, and then focuses his SUPER VISION. (No, it's just normal vision, but it's normal for a bird.) He's looking for... tracks. Traces. Foot traffic coming in or out. Or just anything that'd indicate that people were coming or going - or, really, anything that'd be a trail that he could follow. If he can spot something from the air, he starts following it - from the air, if he can, wanting to not land and deal with the many problems on the ground except as a last resort. If he does need to land to follow whatever tracks or traces, he'll at least head outside of town to do so first.
Ioanna Langstrom	"We ain't mercenaries, boyo," Ioanna says, walking over to the bar and leaning on it with one elbow, a big smile on her pretty face. She's a pretty woman and she knows how to use it. "You ain't gonna owe us a thing, and we ain't here for treasure, neither. We're here for a project. If'n this foray goes well enough we can negotiate gettin' y'all on the payroll for it, maybe. Get y'all some more wages, so's the barkeep don't have to worry 'bout your tabs." She laughs pleasantly. "An' if we don't save ya, then, well, what've you lost but five minutes of your time an' two less pretty faces to enjoy?" She taps her finger on the bar and leans forward. The power armor doesn't really accentuate her figure. She does, however, gesture for Strawberry to take up a position behind them, on the other side of the bar, and hopes she puts on her best smile to reassure them. The two of them are human. Ioanna looks at the phone. She nods. Then, once she's confirmed it, she says, "But we'll be around. Don't you worry 'bout that."
Reyes	Well, of COURSE the place is insanely magical... and he's going to have quite a lot of fun channeling the abundant energies of a nexus like this towards making gear! Finding nothing obviously problematic lurking in the woods, he swoops down towards the plateau. "Hey down there!" Hoping that doesn't alarm the hunter(??) too badly, he then drops in for a landing, the magical wings folding up into his backpack. "It looks like something's been skulking around out here but I didn't detect anything flying around. Must be the stealthy kind."
Mack	"Thanks. Mutant," Mack says to the barmaid with the kind of ease born of constant repetition, "not D-Bee. But our type doesn't get out this far west too often, so I'd be surprised if you could tell at a glance. I'm Mack. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He smiles a gleaming metallic smile, and hobbles over to the bar, pulling himself up into a chair. He casts a glance towards the other occupants of the saloon, and drops a scuffed-looking black cred-card on the bartop. "Something to clean the dust out of my throat, please. And one for the house, huh?" Mack leans over when Strawberry shows off the screen of the (extremely cute) phone. He watches the clip, glances at her and Ioanna, and quirks a brow, a little smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. He looks back down the bar. "And, point of fact, I am a kind of mercenary. A Mamono, to be specific. Give me a hollar if you have any demon troubles." He smiles what would be a winning smile if he didn't look like he'd crawled out of a car wreck and dragged most of it with him.
Strawberry Princess	Her 'best smile', it turns out, is really really good. Strawberry's transformation into a magical hero of justice and sincerity isn't purely a costume swap; it's a total affective shift, permeating every inch of her body language and expression. When her posture straightens up, the gangliness that usually makes her awkward and gawkish suddenly makes her feel larger-than-life, instead. When she smiles, the anxious vulnerability that usually makes her seem delicate transforms into being a beacon of sincerity and warmth. She's bad at looking 'charming' or 'attractive', but very very good at looking like a child's idea of a hero, and sometimes that's what people need. "I'm sorry things have been so bad," Strawberry says in her hoarse, rough voice. It's shot through with genuine feeling. "Hope is a really dangerous feeling. It hurts so much when you believe things could get better, and then it's snatched away from you. Doesn't it? It's so much easier to stop hoping at all." "I can't- ask you, to hope that things will get better. I know that'd be so unfair. But when we've already done it, I hope you can be brave enough believe in us then." She turns and leaves when Ioanna does, but not without one last wistful-bittersweet smile back over her shoulder.
Hellwarming Trio	Utsuho: "Oh, hey. There's a weird old guy out here." Rin: "And the corpses here said they got hit by somethin' shadowy with two tails!" A weird guy! Utsuho stares at him blankly as he checks out the corpse, staying still for a while to see if he eats it or something. Sadly, he doesn't, but the fact that he looks very much like a person and not a two-tailed shadow thing as relayed by Rin is enough reason for Utsuho to just approach him casually. "Hey... Uh. You. You don't have any tails under that, right?" She asks rather bluntly, leaning over to see if he does or does not, in fact, have tails coming out of him. "Are you from around here, or are you a local guy?" She asks plainly, clearly not bothering to hide the fact that she isn't. Her clothes aren't exactly survival wear as she's just wearing her usual white and green getup with the big corium boot, bronze-looking control rod, and fancy swirling cape. When Reyes arrives, meanwhile, Utsuho looks between him and the stranger. "Oh, hey. Do you two know each other?" She asks, clearly fishing for something to work with before turning back to the stranger again. Rin, meanwhile, continues her search! She dives into a bush, then emerges moments later in her cat form! She starts moving along at a brisk pace, springing about with two tails and floating a bit off the ground to try and make herself an enticing, yet hard-to-catch target in case the culprit is still in the area. With Utsuho and Reyes off near someone unknown, however, she also commences her self-bait search somewhat closer to where Lilian's set up shop with the leylines. She's also prepared to scream really loud if anything grabs her.
Tamamo	Tamamo holds up a finger in a 'just one moment' gesture, cups a hand over her ear, then nods. "Oh, yes, of course." With a 'sorry about that' smile, she nods to the sheriff, and says, "I am Tamamo no Mae, acting with the Paladins, at the moment, and quite newly arrived, it is so. My fellow, one lieutenant Langstrom, is setting up a base, of sorts, on the mountain. She wishes to know if there are relations between this town and others, of which one should be aware, as neighbors. Secondly, she wished for me to see what bounty papers you may have, as these would be useful warnings. Thirdly, and of myself, I have heard you may have issues, in this area, with creatures of a nature opposed to the Sun. Being a purveyor of blessed Sunlight, I have come to make my services available, in supplying those tools most effective in dealing with threats dark and unholy." While waiting with a pleasantly patient 'did you get all that?' expression, she exudes a constant effect of perceptibly supernatural aura. Mostly, it just makes her fur glow. The attention-grabbing, trust-inducing effect is much subtler.
Lilian Rook	<Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Well, I'm installing 'surge protection' anyways." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Ideally, with this much space and magical energy, I should be able to set up an entire twelve-stage alchemical array here. Though, I'd like to transplant some trees, and ideally draw a river channel." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "I might as well work in charging mandalas off the overflow substations as well. That way Strawberry can set down and 'magic up' if she has to go back and forth." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "The power flow here is immense. It should be more than enough to handle your specific channels, Strawberry." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Though I suppose it's not very portable, so there's a limited flight range." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "Well, when I've had my way here, we'll just be minting our own ammunition." <Tac-Paladins> 4 Lilian Rook says, "However, I didn't exactly come ready to set up gun emplacements, so I'll have to deal with this flying bastard the classy way." A lot of planning has to be discussed as a group. The amount of detailing Lilian intends to do also far exceeds the scope of a couple of hours, even just in terms of walking. For the time being, she has the requisite three bowls out in the subcircles, lighting black fat wax and hazel incense in one, grinding birch, clover, goat's rue, foxglove, patchouli and snapdragon in another, and filling the third with clear water and river-worn quartz gravel. Going over the concentric circles, she adds a fourth substation within, and goes through with black, white, saffron and scarlet ink in order. Just outside, she finds some suitable stones to prop up and set as ogham waymarkers, to prevent wind or rain from falling onto the outcrop and inconveniently disturbing it. It is, essentially, going to be her 'crafting station', protected from the elements, generally 'stealthed' from wandering creatures, insulated from the leyline fluxes. Then she gets to the 'fun' part, in preparation for the actually fun part. Stripping from local trees, cracking fragments off old stones, and making her own fulgurite, to take back to the nexus. The animals are still fresh enough that she can conveniently just slit the bodies for leftover blood, mixing it into a multitude of vials and bowls from her bag, scattering in leaves and using it to paint on fulgurite markers, carving runes into the stones and burning it into the bark to lay them over, then drawing hair-thin geometric channels to the blue glow of the lines themselves. It's a laborious process of leaving small 'bear traps' she can cover with random leaf litter or brown cloth weighted down with rocks, plugged into the very high energy of the leyline. Their function is to establish overlapping zones about fifty meters high, with a floor of ten, which resonate with anything sufficiently large entering that airspace; too high for something from the ground to jump, too low for something flying to touch without deliberately swooping down to the ground, and too insensitive to catch on random hawks. Upon being triggered, the trickle from the leyline is immediately converted into a powerful lightning strike, and then recycled and recharged in a matter of seconds to be reused; potentially on the same thing if it doesn't crash after one. During the process, she bothers Utsuho over the radio, adding like an afterthought "ask him for the name of what he's hunting, and its approximate size".
Hellwarming Trio	When Lilian gives Utsuho that suggestion, she's actually quite good about complying! "Oh, right. Do you know what might've done this, guy?" She points at the animals with her rod. "A name, what it might've looked like besides having two tails...?"
Gawain	TOWN: "Hah! Nothing worse than a merc than someone who thinks they can set up shop. But if you can solve the problem, maybe the Sheriff won't mind." The drunk snorts, as his buddy laughs, and the barmaiden sighs. "If you get killed-" And then Strawberry speaks up. She has an attitude about her that is just positive. "...please, try not to." Instead of whatever she was going to say, she says something nice. Mack meanwhile, drops a cred-card. "You got anything we can actually use? We don't take fancy chips like that around here - you must be new to the New West, Mr. Mack. Barter system." The drunk next to him seems to like his attitude, though. "One for the bar, huh? I can't afford that, but I'll afford you a drink. One on me, Sally! Put it on my tab." A sigh from the barmaiden, who must hate his tab, but she pours Mack something that'll do exactly what he asked, hopefully, anyways. Tamamo, meanwhile, glows, is trustworthy obviously, and attention grabbing. "Tahmahmoe?" Mangling her name accidentally, he seems pleasant enough. "Name's Sherriff Holden. A base, eh? Townsfolk ain't gonna like that, but some fire support near the nexus would be mighty nice." A pause, as he does, in fact, get all that. "Well, we've got a bounty on the Bluekill Gang, led by a big sonovagun calling himself Wreck. A lone Brodkil, said that old man wandering about. He keeps coming and yammering about a treasure map. Dead, preferably, as I doubt he'll stand down, the rest of them, dead or alive. We've got a few neighboring towns out there, getting us stuff all the way from the big town o' Silvereno. Always wanted to go there, myself." "And if you can help us with the monsters from the Rifts that appear at the nexus, that'd be great. The Tinstar hasn't been around in quite some time, and if he doesn't show up again soon, those monsters are probably gonna erase us. Nice glow, by the way!" He might be a little dumb. Kale looks for tracks. Flying to follow them, he doesn't find people, but he does find their footsteps - led by big ones, which must be the Brodkil. They lead to a fortified cave down further near the river, with spiked posts and a WARNIN' sign. Probably a dungeon encounter! LEYLINES: Lilian gets to work, setting up shop and her wards. They're going to be quite effective, though whether or not they'll actually kill the threat instead of just make it into a boss battle is yet to be seen. The hunter watches her carefully as she gathers blood, before turning to Reyes and the duo. "Name's Elijah Deadwood, youngin'. What you're dealing with, I don't got a name, because it came from a rift. People've been calling it the Bloodsnatcher, since it drains the heart, and only the heart, of all blood. If you're working near the nexus, more rifts are gonna show up, so be careful. And no, I ain't the monster." Rin makes a fool of herself, because the monster is not around here. It's probably not stealthy or invisible. Elijah just laughs, and calls her over. "Get over here, I ain't done sharing. You need a size? It's about..." He gives estimated measurements. They're not exact, because he hasn't seen it, but they're probably close enough to work. He seems to be very familiar with this. "I ain't local. I come out here every once in a while, investigating the rifts and making sure people are safe. Occasionally buy stuff from town. You could call me an adventurer if you'd like, but I'm a little old for that, really."
Reyes	"I'm Reyes. Techno-Wizard from the Tomorrow Legion... and the Paladins. We're setting up a base around here, so taking care of this Bloodsnatcher's gonna be a top priority. Can't have anything like THAT hanging around." Unlike his chatting with felow Paladins, Reyes's tone has gained some confidence now that he's hanging around in his home world again. Some. "Sounds like it drains lifeforce..." The young man shakes his head at Utsuho. "No, but I figured we were doing the same thing. Not many reasons one man with a laser revolver would be hanging out in a place like this."
Hellwarming Trio	With Elijah identifying the size of the creature, Utsuho nods firmly and looks rather pleased with herself after the fact. "So it's pretty... Yeah, that makes sense if it was stabbing holes that size into the animals. Orin would've been in trouble if that thing showed up right now." "Would not! I'm fast, y'know." Rin protests with a distinctly whiny irritated tone, transforming back into her humanoid form after a while. "Probably faster than the three of you put together, I bet." She scoffs lightly after that, drawing a snicker from Utsuho before the raven turns back to Elijah. Utsuho: "Well, if you're too old to be an adventurer, what are you?" Rin: "You can't just call someone old! That's impolite or somethin'." Utsuho: "What? No, that's only for ladies. Unless... Are laser guns a lady thing?" Probably not. Still, Utsuho does take a moment to peer at Reyes' and Elijah's laser guns despite clearly not knowing what the hell she's looking at. After bickering between each other for a while longer, Utsuho remains with Reyes and Elijah and starts relaying the measurements of the brodkil to the teams here. Rin, meanwhile, moves onto another task: Gathering up all those corpses! With the aid of her trusty wheelbarrow, she starts gathering up all these corpses, actually handling them somewhat carefully and efficiently to pack as many into her wheelbarrow as she can (with a bit of help from the zombie-dressed fairies inside to hold the cover closed). Once Rin gathers up a sizable number, she heads right for Lilian to see where she wants them all dumped off, then repeats the process to make some headway into cleaning up the rest of this leyline'd meadow and the nearby woods.
Kale Hearthward	<Tac-Paladins> 4 Ioanna Langstrom says, "I'll set up a plan of attack. I don't want to kick the nest just yet - the primary goal is perimeter establishment. If we can bring them to us, all the better, but for now the central goals remain the ley line and the town." Kale makes note of where the entrance to the cave is... and then considers his options for a few moments. So far, nobody's taken potshots at him up here - it doesn't mean nobody's noticed him, just that for the moment he's safe. So he does a bit more scouting - seeing if, first and foremost, if he can find other cave entrances in the immediate vicinity - places that could be secondary entrances or exits that the Paladins team would need to be aware of, when they go to clear this place out.
Mack	"Wasn't sure if you were that far off the beaten path," Mack replies, all smiles. "Universal credits ain't so universal, huh?" He scoops up the card, disappearing it somewhere in his poncho. He rummages for a second, and there's a sound like something being peeled off of sticky paper -- "Thanks, pal; 'preciate it!" Mack grins at the drunk nearby, then looks back to the tender. "Here, this ought to cover it." Mack puts a pair of objects on the counter: one, a long e-clip, universally useful for the kinds of energy weapons common to even the frontier in North America; and the other, what looks like a computer memory chip in perfect condition, practically gleaming on the bartop. He glances at the door as the other two members of his little posse go to head out. Mack reaches for his glass, turning back to the bar. "Hope is a hell of a thing, huh?"
Tamamo	Tamamo relays these answers, and a little else besides, before coming back to speak with sheriff Holden. "Thank you, that information is most helpful. Incidentally, what should become of the bandits, should they be taken alive? Between myself and a good friend, such may not be terribly difficult, though I would make no such presumptious claims for subdemons." After a moment, "The Tinstar you mentioned, is this one who frequently helps with the Rifts?"
Lilian Rook	When Lilian has Rin's wheelbarrow (metaphorical or literal) of dead animals in one place, she begins the process of doing three things. One: Draining the last of the blood into hermetically sealed ampoules for later use. Two: Cutting them open and extracting all the bones that are particularly valuable in her very old tradition; with a kind of casual ease and grisly lack of care that speaks to a lot of practice. Three: Making a ritual bonfire and beginning the process of a sacred burning that'll have to last through sunset, to imprint a large scale land-blessing to make the terrain more receptive to her efforts later, wresting 'sympathetic control' from the neutral leyline itself, and making it easier to alter with her magic and harder with foreign magic. While she waits between rounds of tending and invocation, she makes circuits of her previous traps to adjust for the Name and description Utsuho had gotten her. She also puts up some basic additions to tell her when they trip.
Gawain	LEYLINES: Reyes gets a laugh from Elijah, as do the duo. "You can just call me Deadwood. All's good. I'm heading back to my hover-trailer soon enough, and getting back on the road, once some business I have is settled." He then moves to pick himself back up, and start heading off, whistling. "I'll probably see ya again, or probably not. We'll find out!" Lilian's preparations don't seem to have any issues. The traps are set up, and all that matters now is for the monster to arrive again. Since it's only recently fed, it probably won't be for a bit. TOWN: Kale finds one additional exit, also barricaded, on the opposite side of the cave. They've probably, he'd reckon from his battle training, have the center as their main area of operations and then two exits to escape from, depending on where they're being attacked from. Mack, meanwhile, pays up rather nice. Sally's demeanor changes as she sees the e-clip and computer chip. "Why, my apologies for the attitude. You hafta understand, with all the mercs who come and get killed by the Bluekills, we're not very fond of 'em. Too many hopes dashed. Only the Tinstar was ever able to accomplish anything of real power." Drinks are poured, people are happy, and Mack has earned minor REPUTATION. Tamamo, meanwhile, asks a very important question. "Not in a long time. We don't know who he is. He came, a decade or so back, when a giant monster came from the Rift and landed on Killual. Wearing gleaming chrome armor and carrying a massive gun, he shot it once, with a boom loud enough to be heard all throughout town. Every window had to be replaced!" "And it took down the monster in that one shot, I'll tellyawhat. Straight through the chest. He never returned, but he said he would. We've been waiting for it ever since." Tamamo gets a nod. "Honestly, they killed Deputy John. I'd hang them all if I had the choice, but it'd have to depend on the circumstances." Once she prepares to leave, he waves her off, and then goes back to his radio.