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Lilian Rook     Out of all the things Lilian could have done to piss Staren off and push her around, this one is unusually mild. Out of all the things Lilian could have done to help Kale at all, this one is perhaps expectedly tepid. Out of all the things Lilian could have done helicopter Tamamo, this one is perhaps very indirect.

    Lilian has hit up Autochthon. Specifically, because that's like saying 'Lilian has hit up America', Lilian has gone to the Patropolis of Arat, in the massive capital nation of Claslat. It is here that there is some vague semblance of an open sky in that lightless world, inside a singular mechanical cavern that could hold most of Japan, filled with endless biotechnical webs of cables and conduits, clanking gears and churning pistons, hissing steam and sparking lightning and belching flame, all replacing the stars.

    The streets themselves here, though, are what could be described as 'a neon fuckfest'. Building and up and up, plating everything in chrome and brass, slathering everything in luminous paint, festooning it all with glowing crystals and arc lights, and with towering industrial spires blazing fire at all times of day not far away, it's more like being at 'cyberpunk Tokyo (ver. steampunk)'.

    Contrary to everything Lilian ever usually does though, the place she'd been spotted is packed and busy, absolutely teeming with off-shift workers perusing entire street sectors of strange goods, strange-smelling food, custom tools, fine clothes, artworks, gambling dens, barbers, masseuses, taverns and brothels, all crammed chaotically in together with zero regulation and zero oversight. It is the exact opposite place she belongs.

    However, it is also the exact place that there has been a hastily silenced kerfuffle about her visiting a casino, cleaning it out, going to the upper floor with the security, and then the owner being lead out the door in cuffs by the Regulators, followed by her not leaving. A fabulously wealthy den of ill-repute known to harvest enormous amounts of state 'luxury tokens' like dollars, whispered to be for the scandalous purpose of 'not working any shifts'. It's not all that hard to find, and currently still in operation, as the undisclosed 'disruption' was only that morning.
Redshift Operators     While that silenced kerfuffle may have driven away most, it doesn't drive away all. Specifically, it sure didn't drive away a certain gangbunch, who see it as a great opportunity to cause problems. A local transport, stolen or rented, makes its way through the streets, driven by a certain astronaut. They simply smash through any barricades, head to a loading dock quickly and straightforwardly, and park there with enough precision that it's hard to get a look at the gunman, swordswoman, and giant to exit, followed by the driver, and quickly get inside.

    "*Why* we're seeing Paladins moving on this turf, I can get. Casino? No idea." Says one of them as they enter. "Place is probably loaded with crud from the fringes. Find *anything* we can use to get that Vast Marshes Gate slowed down hard. Security records might have blackmail, Rook might be willing to work, cash might grease wheels."
    "A favor earned from Rook would go quite a long way to that end. You saw those calculations, and how much was dedicated to them. I am certain such a great, dark power could do much for your Marsh campaign."

    They ramble as they head in, look around, and head up...
Xion Neon fuckfests are easy to blend into if you're willing to ride the fiesta wave and live within the realm of riot-color. And nothing ever really riots in Arat, because the vibrational quality of the place is like a lit bulb-wire or a running pneumatic press:

Tangible thrum.

It's not just Paladins that the Redshift Operators catch occupying the space, though a black-haired girl draped in neon probably didn't stand out - a Where's Waldox of mysteriously peering noirettes and their bright blues.

On the floor of the Luxury Token Turncrank Operation ver. Literal/Figurative, the single dancer in colorful glowstick bracelets, a black t-shirt with a large ecto green blacklight Rorscharch-blot, dark shorts, black leggings, and neon blue crocs watches the Redshifts enter the converted club with some interest, before peeling off the wall to follow the quartet up to the VIP

"I didn't know you thought as highly of Rook as Staren does on the radio. Looking for something 'real'?"
Redshift Operators     "Looking for someone who can source a bomb big enough to blow up a lot of that Marsh gate. I'll settle for someone who can curse it. Whatever gets the job done." The gunman in his hardsuit hasn't even unslung the gun yet, but somehow he *emotionally* points the muzzle down, in a posture sense. "You look OSHA-compliant. Blending in?"

    "Audacious accusations from a man who adheres to standards that include shining green and bright red. Perhaps you would blend in too." The ninja slides in a little dig at the squad leader, as the group approaches.
Lilian Rook     A simple police raid isn't going to keep the night life from starting here. Especially in a place that is all night all the time. A brightly lit den of brass polished until it looks like ritzy, tacky gold awaits. It's jam packed like an army cafeteria, save with card tables, ridiculous steampunk slots, televised holograms of incredibly dangerous vehicle races, and the local colour versions of pool. Even now, it bustles with hundreds of workers off-shift, dressed in linens of various grades of quality, colour, and oil-splattered-ness.

    Of course, chips are being used, in the form of fancy bits of pressed and engraved scrap metal turned into tokens, but all the collateral is being kept upstairs 'behind the counter', ferried there from the bookie station by toughs. Upon entering and being greeted, you're prompted to buy chips, or else be politely but firmly dissuaded by large men with holstered weapons. Probably a fairly trivial challenge, but unconstructive. The preferred thing seems to be heaps of weird little polished glass baubles, but barter is just fine too.

    There's a more significant bodyblock check to the cable lift up. Rows of bouncers, and people off-shift and relaxing who don't want their party being crashed as well, sort of naturally coagulate around elevator. They certainly say 'The boss is busy. Schedule an appointment. Enjoy your time', but you already know the boss is, in fact, currently incarcerated and probably being interrogated right this second. Also, the bouncers directly in front of the lift have been armed with (probably only Xion recognizing) the 2030 model of sidearm Lilian likes using when opting for old-fashioned ballistics. Certainly her doing, given the next best thing is 'a wrist crossbow'. Anticipating minor interference?
Xion Neon Xion, a riot of color, seems like she is ready to blend, but compared to some of the more mundane and off-shift sorts in lesser cloths, she has the air of a noble elite of Autocthonia. The bearing is borrowed, the more observant Operators find, a poise that's more tensed than natural for her.

"I blend in anywhere I'm not trying not to." Xion double-negatives freely, the shortest path to explaining where she is at being soft contradiction. "Are you trying to blow something open, or closed?" She clarifies, already thinking about enormous bombs.

'Buy some chips' the Wall Market Bastards insist. Xion begins emptying out her pockets of loose low-value gemstones, trade bars of various metals, and gets to 'sacks of grain and produce' before she squares up enough to buy in. It doesn't take long for her to

> S E L L A L L J U N K

and gives her some time to talk during. "Because either way, it doesn't sound like you want Lilian. Something to knock open the way, or close it completely, is a pretty big ask. A foundational one." Letting the Operators get in at the cage, she strokes her chin with glowing blacklight-goozed fingers and leaves streaks of pale ecto-white on her cheeks. "Don't you usually bring your own devices?" She asks the nukies.

MOMENTS LATER: Xion taps her foot in front of the AUTOMATUS ELVATUS analogue the group wish to ride up the neonpunk cyberdystopian hyperfuture of Soft Capitalism In Hard Gundam Land.

"I have an appontment. Xion and the..."
She turns her head to the quartet, whomever had directly decided to take the elvator with her.

don't say terrorist cell buddies don't say terrorist cell buddies "... Xion and her friends."
Redshift Operators     Cleaned out apparently didn't mean cleaned out of *all people*, huh? Well, it's probably less crowded than usual. When they're prompted to Make Purchases, that's a problem. The gang is perpetually *flat fucking broke*. Luckily, they have someone to handle that trivial challenge. The large men with the holstered weapons get looked down on by the giant whose armor keeps making the haunting wailing sound. One good primary optic flickers softly.

    His voice is gravel, dust, and blood, and when he speaks, every ancient lizard and primate hidden behind the prefrontal cortex identifies it as the sound of a lethal monster: "We don't *play games*. We're here for someone who can solve my problems. That might be your problem. That might not be your problem. Seems like it would be easier if it weren't your problem. What do you think?" Red Giant wants to make sure they have all the options! He wants to be polite and hospitable with the local workers!

    The precognitive ninja can take a shot at this though. In the many futures, she can spread out, trying to identify every single route up. Is it just the cable lift? Maybe in the dozens of futures her phantasmal self wanders through, there's some way to discreetly get into the lift shaft? Or perhaps an Incident that happens that she can time right? "Or perhaps... our access limitations are best left to the one specialized to such topics." She mutters, looking to Xion. She expects incredible key magic. She predicts, in many futures, amazing unlocking powers.

    Xion asks to go up. Well *okay*.
Lilian Rook     Despite being big tough men who have smoothly accepted such a major change of employer all of a sudden, the bouncers in front of the elevators are still just recently emboldened semi-professionals with other jobs. They know what a powersuit is, even if it's usually made of jade and steel, and invisibly sweat at being towered over by Red Giant. One shifts restlessly on his feet, the other gulps. "Look, if you're wanting to talk to you know who, he don't work here anymore. If it's about the new one . . ." He looks very out of his element. Whatever Lilian did, she clearly didn't explain much about herself, and it made the help nervous.

    White Dwarf sees that, annoyingly, there are no windows to get up into, as this area definitely wasn't original a casino of any kind, but some kind of volatiles storehouse, complete with a vault that's now probably a panic room. Just rushing into the shaft is fairly plausible for her, but the unfavourable impression barging in like that makes in almost all near futures strikes her as distinctly counterproductive bordering on dangerous. Xion gets to ask before she can fully Katana ZERO puzzleforce through the follownig dialogue. Of course neither of them know who she is or have heard her name, but it only takes them a nervous radio check under Red Giant's ominous flickering stare just to be sure. Then a few seconds later, "Excuse me sirs and ma'ams. You're clear to go." They step aside.

    It's a short, janky-clattery ride up, Down a cramped T-corridor and into a larger room that's been actually cleared and spotlessly cleaned on some semi-regular basis, the empty space itself an extravagant luxury, as well as the warm glow of the lights and clutter of the former owner's fine art, hung coats and hats, and stacks of ledgers and esoteric gear-studded technology shelved away. Lilian now has his desk, and is poring over extensive spreadsheets, both paper and in local glowy crystal touchpad excel, ostensibly two at a time. A heap of those glass baubles of different sizes are carefully arranged in stacked desktop drawers.

    She looks up, to Xion first, unsurprised, and then a little brow-raised at the Redshifts. "You really do just pop up wherever you like." Lilian says to Xion. "I know who your friends are, but just barely. You're not here to try and fight me over something so pointless, are you? I know Wiremu has suddenly become inexplicably popular, but that strikes me as unlikely."
Redshift Operators     The clattery lift might struggle under certain weight.

    At the top, it's the main duo who speak. "The futurist conquistador? Hell no." Says the harsh-talking gunman when he stomps into the office. "Who do you think's been on the other side of that Marsh gate? No, heard you were operating on the other end of the Gate and we had to make sure we try to get something *mutually agreeable*. This cat's stumbled into the biggest military industrial cascade on this side of the Secundus gates. I want it *gutted*."

    "I told you to say 'Conquistadoress'."
    "And I told you never say that word where anyone can hear."
    The ninja steps forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the gunman. "No sense of drama. <Dame> Rook, if it fits your schemes, we'd like to lend our help, for a moment, in this Imperium, so that we could secure your help in the Marshes -- or else cut the access to it entirely." Her... talking with her hands. It has too many dramatic poses.
Xion "I really like what they did with the place." Xion mentions conversationally as White Dwarf <<sees her draw a blade of flowers and slice the factory lift-shaft apart into a Jack-And-the-Beanstalk Ribbon of treetrunk>>//<<She flash-step punches the one on the left//right and White Dwarf takes the second in perfect unison>>//<<Xion shrugs, flicks opens a portal to the top with a 'zoom in' pinch-to-open of her fingers, and gestures inside with an air of annoyance on her face at the guards for wasting her time. Heartless fall out the outher side and the local goons have to shoot them dead with guns. It becomes an international incident. The round ends with the singularity engine going critical and the shuttle being called.>>//the goons calling Lilian and waiting for a response.

It really is the most boring, but also easiest and most expedient path forward. And... "... It's kinder to Lilian, too, isn't it? For your needs." She asks the quartet in the lift as Voltatile Chemical Plant Elevator Muzak plays tinnily through the PA speaker. There is a PA speaker in this unit. There is a PA speaker in every unit. The mouths of the Polis reach every corner.

Reaching Lilian in the open space and her Deus Ex: Immune R/Evolution desk, Xion smiles and waves, stepping to the side so the Redshifts can take an introductory spread and team pose and she can vibe to the side. She explains as she bounces on her eyesearing crocs. White Dwarf speaks in poses, and needs runway.

"Actually, I've been supporting Kale." She ticks off her fingers. "I sorted out Cantio, and then I healed Raziel to stop Kale's resort from being taken, and now I'm here! You beat me this way, but it's fine."

"Conquistadoress? Make it sound more romantic, I say."
Xion summons a rose to clenched fingers, wafting the head under her nose. "Conquistadora."
Lilian Rook     "Conquistador?" Now Lilian's eyebrows really jump under her bangs. "That's certainly a new one. Don't those typically have attitude and swagger? Big dreams and bigger greed. Loyal men and a suicidal tolerance for risk? That sounds like too grandiose a choice for someone who's suddenly put on big girl britches when the colonialism mostly runs itself and her enemy is just a single overwhelmed birdman." Lilian replies. It's calm and conversational, aloof and mildly sarcastic, in the way that perfectly fits that refined accent. So it's going well. "Conquista-- . . . No, I believe Conquistadora is correct." A second goes by. "And surprisingly more fitting. It's like a miniature version too."

    Lilian waves her hand over the sheets. "You might say I'm doing something similar, Xion. I've never particularly liked Hearthward much, but his fumbling efforts to grow into more of a man after his disaster of an attempt to one-up me have earned at least a little goodwill, and also I immediately got sick of hearing Wiremu crow about winning a clash of numbers. So, once again, you have my thanks for picking the right side and working as hard as you do, o Hero of Hearts." The corner of Lilian's lip quirks up in a semi-genuine way.

    "Well, the primary reason I'm here is personal." she adds, reclining in her new seat, fingers drifting to that impossibly gorgeous white gold lily hairpin absentmindedly. "Tamamo has certain interests in the five magical materials --I suppose six here-- from this world cluster, but obtaining them is an enormous pain in the ass, except here. Of course, they're incredibly valuable and rare, and the state needs them in such vast quantities they won't just export them. So I've come here. The 'glass market'. A totally unregulated operation that people mutually developed en masse to trade around their little good worker points redeemable for state headpats with each other, so that they might get something they actually need, before it flows back into the government. The acting word being 'unregulated'."

    "This place was making so many glots --these things-- that the owner was just redeeming them for permanent vacation. In this godless grindset culture, that's essentially heresy, and he was quite unpopular. So I dug up his dealings, pulled a few strings, and ensured I'd get his assets this morning. The people here are utter amateurs when it comes to macroeconomics. I'm hoping I can be running the glot market within the week. Then I'll be funneling it into tapping those material resources that Tamamo wants. Oh, and quite coincidentally, the ones that Wiremu's little baby powerbase needs. Of course, I plan to interfere on the side. But really, I'm being a good girl~ I haven't stabbed or shot or bombed her at all."

    That explained, Lilian focuses on Red Dwarf again. "Marsh Gate? Military industrial cascade? You should-- no matter. One moment." Lilian folds her hand and closes her eyes. It looks sort of like being lost in thought, though maybe White Dwarf might find it familiar, in a much more slow and meticulous, thin sliced way. "I see. Well, much as I know very little about you all, I'm positively disposed to backing an enemy of an enemy who is not the enemy of my friend. What exactly do you want from me? That'll define terms."
Redshift Operators     "I want the Quagmire to stay a Quagmire. There's two people blitzing that zone. Except *one* of 'em mostly plans to stay in the *air*, and he does," The gunman's optic shift like he's curling a lip, sneering with disgust. "*Vegan colonization*. You put whatever resources you got to helping me cut half that shit right out, and I can promise you all the orichalcum scrap we turn their little Vast Marshes settlement into. What I want is bombs, curses numbers-maneuvers, whatever it takes to make that happen. What I got for you is our help."

    "Because you wish to stay within the bounds, yes? The lack of bombing and killing. That is quite essential, for the advantages you gain, acting within them, burdened by power." For some reason the ninja uses a tone of voice slightly more knowing. "But there are always gifts that come from beyond those boundaries. Such as..." And that moment, Lilian's senses of clairvoyant time magic might detect that the strange woman in front of her, studying her in a bout of silence, is using her own strange precognitive efforts to try to find what Lilian wants most on this frontier,,behind the need to follow that limit, through brute-force future exploration. It doesn't seem targeted, or even malicious. Just the way she interacts, the way she thinks.
Xion Xion, still holding her rose, grins behind it broadly as Lilian accepts her tweak of the strange title into one more workable. Lifting both hands to the sides of her head with the rose-stem pinched between ring and index finger and held behind her palm, she slicks back her hair in an affected gesture, a sly smile on her face. "She does wear a metal helm and armor and comes for the local trinkets, doesn't she? But I wouldn't call Kale 'overwhelmed'. He's straining, striving. Pushing, and finding his limits. It's a lot easier to grow when you start getting feedback. Living in a world with other people, and having to force your way often, brings out your practice in forcing your way. It's not always the best way--"

Her hands, which had ended hung over her shoulders, drop as her slicked-back bangs are shaken out with a quick twist of her neck and a bounce of her chin. "--but people like us get pretty good at it."
    Xion's sly smile dims. "And by that metric, I've not been one. I did all three! Guess I'm not really cut out for the Paladins, huh? I didn't know I had to do usury to work with the Commonwealth. Is that why 'wealth' is in the name?"

Her tone is completely honest.

Xion gazes blankly while White Dwarf trails off, hanging while the precognitive starts brute forcing the probability of friendship.

"I'm really glad you're meeting like this, you seem to have a lot in common." Xion bounces slowly, from her off-to-the-side stance.

Like cursed strategic weapons, and brute force probility friendshipping people. Volumes of likeness.
Lilian Rook     Lilian responds with a short little derisive laugh-in-agreement with 'vegan colonization'. "You for, for an alleged lunatic, you have something of a way with words." she purrs. "So, to get this straight, you want my help with paramilitant terrorism on a nascent automated military industrial outpost, and then you'll take a job from me as mercenaries? My my. That would be terribly lurid if our mutual foe weren't so . . ." Lilian sighs in exasperation. "Objectively disagreeable."

    "I'm not much of a mad bomber myself, but it so happens I've a million and one special little tricks nobody tends to call upon. Counterinsurgency, mainly. Surgical strikes. Reconnaissance and sabotage. They're applicable enough. And of course, more than enough money to bankroll the noble cause of 'not letting Wiremu become a little military dictator'." Lilian smiles faintly, patiently correcting herself with "Conquistadora."

    But she makes a bit of a noise at White Dwarf. Not a bad one. Just an uneasy, thoughtful one. "Truth be told, my range of targets I'm willing to shoot or bomb has . . . gradually expanded, as of late. Call it experience, I suppose. 'Texture'. Discovered nuance. Of course, assassinating Wiremu for the crime of simply being pathetic is rather out of the question, even if it weren't . . . something I can't . . . someone I can't afford to be. But I'll step on her if I have to. I'll step on anyone if I really have to."

    The predictive model gets a bit wonky, because as soon as White Dwarf starts doing it, she predicts futures where Lilian is curious about it and reads it off her then predicts predictions in a sort of annoying causal snarl, but the information that exists outside Lilian's head is perfectly clear at least. Lilian finds the idea of messing with this little territory rush somewhat appealing, and of course cannot resist the urge to assert her Heathdom over the non-Paladins non-friends cohort, but for the most part, it really seems like she just wants to support Tamamo for the sake of supporting Tamamo.

    Mixed in with all that is the quiet, dark temptation to use the opportunity to spread her wings a little. Try acting somewhat outside the usual bounds of scale she deems tasteful. Run with the independence and lack of strings, and seeing what she can push hard enough to fall over. Live a little. Shake off some 'world of cardboard' malaise. It is of course utterly mutually incompatible with some of her principles.

    "Oh please don't be that way Xion. I was only being a little bit facetious. I'm pleased --proud, even-- that you'd go through all that trouble, and that you wouldn't stand for those people throwing their weight around in such a spineless fashion. How should I begrudge someone born with a sword in-hand for using that sword as is right and true?" The ghost of a concerned, but chartible smile graces her face at the same time. "Perhaps it's the fact that he's finally trying that makes me want to root for him? Just enough to sympathetically decide things are a little unfair to him, rather than laugh at his misfortune. There are far too many people that never think about their limits at all, but I have to . . . accept them, as the lawful order demands."

    "Don't you want something as well, Xion? You haven't asked yet. Not really."
Redshift Operators     The ninja finds the continued use of that term very agreeable. There's a smile somewhere under that respirator. "Our interests aren't in assassinations. We deal in operations of a different sort. Shifts to landscapes. Certain prophecies and dark inevitabilities fulfilled..." The pose she makes at that part, brings her robot hand over goggle-lens, dramatically. "The sort it sounds as though you've enjoyed pondering. You're on a frontier, and let me tell you, the freedom to change oneself, to expand into a more beautiful and more powerful form, is so much more great in a frontier. We're happy to give you the chance to see what you might be capable of, without the burden of expecting that a blade should be put in the heart of anyone important."

    "What're you talkin' about? Ehh, fine, whatever, I won't go for the instant kills on Staren, but I'm still gonna use my damn guns. That Gate settlement has *gotta go*. And, yeah, merc work if that's gonna do it. Could use something better than the usual D&W Co. corporate shit anyway." The gruff guy turns to hassle the astronaut, who starts prodding at their PDA. "It's *metals*, right? I can get you whatever we scrap at the Gate, and I'll have Newt run down loads on something to smash up tonight somiewhere around here. Should boost things a bit more than the fuckin' scrip you're pulling together now. Keys, you coming?" He gestures to Xion.

    The ninja also looks to her, pondering the claims of similarity, but settles on not trying to decode that too much. Instead, she looks vaguely wise and knowing, nodding with that satisfied look.
Lilian Rook     Lilian laces her fingers contemplatively. A meaningless noise from her fills the silence. It sounds very thoughtful and smart though. "Whatever someone else does to or with Wiremu isn't necessarily my issue. There are things that I don't do which . . . I'm not opposed to, fundamentally, but which I cannot, myself, be the one to do them." She takes a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed for a second. "It's like I told Rita. You should never make Gilgamesh president. Never put Persephone on a jury. And never ask me to lead a rebellion."

    Her head tilts slowly to the side. Long black hair, let down in the office, slides over her shoulder bit by bit. "Mmmmm? Expand into new forms. Beautiful and powerful . . ." Lilian softly exhales, a grim little smirk toying with the edge of her lips. "I see. So it's like that, is it? Well, I'm happy for you that you can have so much fun with it. Cursed limbs turned out to be something that I'm not as cut out for as I thought."

    Lilian returns to business, listing on her fingers. "Orichalcum, Starmetal, Moonsilver, Jade --all five kinds--, Adamant, and you can leave the Soulsteel. Equipment for producing them and maps for any deposits and operations. Names and numbers of providers and artisans. I'll compensate tenfold for any glowing egg-sized gems you find socketed into anything. Twofold for magic rocks." A beat. "And send a message. I'm not in this for petty theft. I want the naive rubes that Wiremu has conned into working for her to realize just how wrong they've chosen. They need to experience the alpha to realize they're in league with the omega. Then they'll likely jump ship of their own accord. I'd like them working with the person who can actually provide for their best interests, rather than wrapped up in the ego of a would-be Conquistadora."