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Lilian Rook     'This is a disaster, and disasters change people. 'The same person' (that is, a total continuity of self or aspects of the self) I think is always sort of a tenuous idea. It's never clear, and I think, it never can be. I think a person is not a thing, but a motion.'

    Fucil smiles a tiny bit forlornly at Friz, staring up into the sky and extending her same-coloured hand, looking right through it into the blue. "Yeah. I guess I already took that plunge once before." she says. "It just feels different, when you accept you'll change because you're chasing something, and when you have to change in a way you never asked for. When something just happens to you, and you have to cope." When Friz gets up and hustles, she takes up her whitewood and silver ivy rifle and runs after her too.

    Rita Ma: We'll talk to Lavis and Vermillion. We have to. I promise that.
Rita Ma: I think Mr. Eryl already made plans for how to catch them.
Rita Ma: We'll be moving out soon, so make any preparations you need to!


Elym: Hey. Has talking worked for you before?
Elym: With someone strong. Did it stick?
Elym: How?
Elym: Shit, never mind. Moving to the camp.


    'A leash is one mark of ownership, to distinguish the dangerous animal from one that remains with humans, whether as part of their family or by some other arrangement. Humans, as well, have similar marks, for similar purposes.'

    Lilian's hand wanders to her cheek, two armoured knuckles pressing into the skin, and two fingers touching the gold-dusted scar. "Yes. That's true." she says, enigmatically, then moves her hand to brush through her hair, making a quiet clink when it bumps the beginnings of antlers. "Yeah." she says, Differently.

    'Couldn't have done it without you guys. Let's get back to town--the others'll be working on those bandits, and I wanna be around to hear what they have to say.'

    Indeed, without need of flare or messenger bird, Bercilak's, Phreaks, and Kirishima's inboxes ping red with urgent new messages. Haseo's doesn't, because he has no friends.
Lilian Rook     'He purposely kicks over a barrel and makes it look like an accident. Part of it is to look stupid, but also act like you're overconfident.'

    Ishirou's act of purposeful bumbling incompetence instantly tells him one thing, when he hears the scrape of dirt and clattering of furniture at the same moment he hears the rasp of steel exiting scabbard. He measures the reaction gap at under a fifth of a second. Purely average reflexes are a quarter, with additional machine lag. At least twice that to process action from that resting neutral. Two or three full seconds if they aren't used to stress and violence, like normal people who play videogames.

    'You hate people because you're not a people person. Obviously, you just need to get better at talking to people, like I am. I am the best at talking to people, like you. You're people, right?'

    Ishirou is face to face with two people alright. They stick out to him even more than Fucil and Elym had been the most stand-out pair in Yono, even though they match the description perfectly.

    The soft masculine voice belongs to someone a foot taller than him who might not look out of place off a romance novel cover, built and long-haired blonde as he is, though his features are a little too round and the luxurious locks are pinned at the neck, and the sharp feminine voice belongs to a woman who must be half her partner's mass, with a disorderly black and chestnut cascade and the look of a woman who spent four hours on her sliders before ruining it with a hostile expression. But . . .

    First, their gear is clearly well ahead of the curve, given the clean lines, middlingly complex embellishments, and unfamiliar metals and fabrics. The tall figure has on a set of shockingly well-articulated armour with a strange mercury and lavender sheen to its flutes and curves, and the promised rapier (the cutting sort) and dagger held in 'someone who knows what they're doing dual wielding' style, whilst the short figure barely has on more than thick black and red, flowing silk clothing patterned with yellow flowers, without more than a fancy lacquired arm and wrist guard (and breastplate below the folds), and an eastern sword nearly the full length of her body, dark gunmetal with what looks almost like a red glass hamon.

    But more than that, those identifying Traits were under-described. Blonde's skin is visibly infested with some kind of frosty violet crystal, coalescing from the joints in his armour and forming patches on his lower face, hard and rough but oddly pretty, and a deep purple glow throbs with a heartbeat right through his cuirass. Brunette's hands and feet (wearing sandals) both look blackened as if by plunging them in charcoal ink, and have crawled up to her shoulders just visible by the loose collar, and her eyes are indeed eerily similar to Lilian's; dimmer, and less regular in ther ring-shape, but clearly the colour of the Everse sky and status theme. Their levels pop as 35 and 39 respectively, three times his own.
Lilian Rook     'Regardless, you have fallen into my trap. Peacefully follow me out to the exit here and quietly put your hands out.'

"Are you kidding?"
"Oh. It's just some newbie. For a second I was worried."
"Hey, don't relax! This little punk is probably working with that idiotic militia, right?!"
"It's not like he's a threat. Come on. Let's just sit down and talk about it."
"God, don't be so soft! This is a videogame! You don't have to take his shit!"

    'You can't catch me, because I too am blessed by Everse!'

    The next thing that occurs to Ishirou is how angry the both of them look at that. Lavis flinches, then he settles on an aggrieved grimace. Vermilion openly snarls at him, her lips moving as if to spit. He bolts through the Split, given that he's right next to it--

    And promptly feels pain --strangely intense, given the way the game manages it-- explode at his back, throwing him face first into the dirt outside, having barely gotten to the island shore. His HP bar on the party HUD drops, warning everyone immediately.
Rita Ma Rita accepts the grilled pseudo-bass with immensely gleeful gratitude, munching on it immediately while she keeps tapping at her chat window. "Thank you so much, Ms. Tamamo! The fish tastes a little different, but..." A contented sigh. She looks just short of getting misty-eyed about the food. "It really is almost just like I remember it."

Elym: Hey. Has talking worked for you before?
Elym: With someone strong. Did it stick?
Elym: How?
Elym: Shit, never mind. Moving to the camp.

Rita Ma: Sometimes
Rita Ma: Well
Rita Ma: That's not really important.
Rita Ma: It's the trying that's important, I feel like.
Rita Ma: Even if it doesn't work.


     Then Ishirou's healthbar ticks down. It takes Rita a moment to notice; when she does, she fumbles and then tries to 'catch' her UI window as if it might drop from the startling. "Ah!! They got him already! Ms. Tamamo, Ms. Rook!" Near-simultaneously, Ishirou confirms it on the radio.

     Rita scoots off the counter, lands on her feet, and sprints out of the communal kitchen at top speed- which is to say, markedly slower than in real life, but still fast enough to make her dress flutter. Her pounding legs take her to the edge of the pier. She jumps off, ready to elegantly glide through the lake and-

     Wait, no. That's right. Before the transformation, she wasn't all that good at swimming, was she?

     Rita coughs up water and crawls back up onto the pier with the miserable demeanor of a rained-on cat. A curtain of wet hair hides her face, but one can imagine the pathetic expression from her tone. "M- Miss Rook? Can you-" A little sputter. "Can you carry me to the island. Please."
Friz Dirt: Ishirou's still drawing them!
Savvy: Hell, we gotta get there fast. Moxie! Floor it!
Moxie: I'm flooring it!!
Grit: The boy is at risk.
Dirt: The boy is always at risk, boss.
Savvy: Well, then keep the risk from becoming damage!
Savvy: I'm cutting resources to everything but Moxie. Move those shoes, flatfoot!
Moxie: I said I'm goinggggg!!
Moxie: Grit, glands, now!
Grit: Fly upon wings of panic.

    Friz breaks into a run as fast as she can manage, pumping her arms and legs as fast as she can manage. She rushes with the mundane and yet considerable speed of a hunter on a savanna, the speed of a child darting across a street, the speed of someone driven by a risk to another.

    She doesn't know how to swim, though, and flagging down a boat takes time. Her eyes flash around, manic energy thrumming in their twitches. She searches for options.

Moxie: Dirt, take lead!
Dirt: On it, bud.
Dirt: Running a search for lake-crossing options!

    Memory, vision, allies, all information is considered as Friz rushes as fast as she can to find a way across. No stone is left unturned in the rapid perception-memory effort. "Need to get across *now*! Hell, someone can throw me if they have to, I just need to get to him!" Maybe someone can rush her over, help her out?

"Kid. You're missing an option."
"I can't just go *showing you off* to everyone!"
"Nothing else I can see, Friz."
"God... Fine! FINE!!"

    While she's stuck at the Yono-side shore, she rambles, seemingly to herself... before she plants both feet, clenches her fists and her teeth equally hard, and yells.

    A shadowy humanoid shape exits her body, flickering and shimmering. It surges down into the water, before rushing up onto the shore where Ishirou has fallen, "skidding" to a stop as it comes to rest near him, before vanishing back into phantom invisibility. Detective Rogers, the ghost haunting Friz, draws his gun. If these players are infused with supernatural power, maybe they can take a hit from this. But the one thing he does right now is try to grab Ishirou by the collar and get him on his feet, with a hidden, phantom force.
Ishirou Ishirou was fast!  He'd been learning how to rely on his physical speed more than trying to do everything /but/ his physical stats.  His foot placement was getting better, he was handling his center of balance well...he juked when he should.  There was just a problem, he didn't expect the power that was brought against him.

The explosion hits him, sending him across the portal and face-first into the dirt across the shore.  Initially punched drunk from the blast, he had only a moment to realize that the blast hurt more than it should.  Worse, he didn't even get a warning about it.  He has to come to the assumption that they can't do that /often/ but it's still dangerous.  

Thankfully, Rogers gets him to his feet with the phantom grab, and he starts pushing his feet against the ground.  He can't stop.  He knows where he needs to go...

Right.  He might need to use something.  He hasn't tried it out yet, but if POD required such high physical stats, then it might be connected to the R.E.S.C.U.E. Unit...though obviously not exactly the same.  He grabs POD, before there is a flash.  

Clanky, clockwork armor replaces Ishirou's more fleshy body.  He crouches at one side of the lake shore, before using the suit to force a jump over the lake.  He'll need time to cross it, but it'll be loud...flashy, and something the two can follow.  

He's just got to avoid another blast like that or he's done for.
Tamamo     Tamamo is startled by Ishirou's voice, and slightly confused by his words, having not properly prepared herself at all for the upcoming fight. She's spent hours just thinking about fishing and the preparing of fish and the feeding of fish primarily, but not exclusively, to a pair of girls of some familiarity. It was only 'most everyone else' who had paid attention to dangerous, potentially lethal, local events.

    She doesn't take too long to get back into gear, but is still slow to catch up to Rita. Her own agility stats aren't tremendous, either, here, just as they hadn't been at any point before, without her magical talents supporting them. When she does--

    'Can you carry me to the island. Please.'

    "Oh, yet I--no, no, that is correct. Ms. Rita has that powerful healing magic in this realm, no? It is most important that she be carried first. However--"

    Tamamo pauses for just half a moment. "Lilian, would it not be better to carry Ishirou to this shore, that Rita might treat him? That would save us all some time, yes?"

    'This shore' also includes where the traps are being laid down by Bercilak et al.

    "Ms. Rita, shall we go to meet him? Here, please allow me to help you up."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Phreak waits in the field that Bercilak and Eryl's contacts had worked to make into a trap-laden ambush. The notification of a new message sees him tense up. "They hit him that quick? Christ." Waiting is unbearable.

     In the forest, Bercilak gets two--one to provide warning, and one from Phreak.

Phreak: need u here now. there faster than we thought.

Chord - Cavalry

     The Green Knight opens his inventory and retrieves the Proof of Bond with the Velvet Ghost, climbing astride the massive creature. "YAH!" This shout, the gentle pat of his armored palm against its thick neck, the urgent squeeze of his thighs, all convey the dire need for its full speed, and even in the darkened forest, his unity with the creature is masterful, guiding it over and around underbrush, monsters and trees with ease. Axe in hand, he makes a circuitous path, sacrificing arrival time for a position behind the two bandits.

     This does mean that the Ghost will have to cross the water--but Bercilak is banking on its size, speed and strength being sufficient for a long leap to carry it from one shore to the other. If it isn't, he'll find out how well it swims, or if it swims at all.

     Phreak, meanwhile, calls up a runspeed buff from his Chord - Courier trait, and sets a long-duration heal-over-time on himself from the Verse - Wraith trait. As prepared as he can be for their arrival, he waits anxiously in the field.
Rita Ma      Soggy Rita reaches blindly for Tamamo's hand, finds it after a couple of attempts, and laboriously pulls herself up while slightly shivering. "Thank you, Ms. Tamamo," she murmurs, then finally pulls the dripping hair out of her face to tuck it behind her ear. "That's... probably smarter. Yeah. I'm, um, really sorry about all this."

     While she waits on that, and leans against Tamamo (if Tamamo can endure Rita being soggy in her direction), she starts to browse through her inventory for anything vaguely towel-like. Her inventory items didn't get soaked, too, right? Oh god.
Tamamo     Tamamo stands back up in the motion of pulling Rita up, lifting with her knees -- though her strength scores aren't too bad, here, and that much isn't too difficult.

    If she minds the sogginess, she is far too polite to give any indication of it. "Ah, a moment... oh. This is all I have, at the moment, I fear." She passes Rita a handtowel that was definitely part of some set of cooking supplies.

    "Now, Mr. Phreak is in... this direction, I believe? I hope that we shall all safely meet together, there."
Lilian Rook     'M- Miss Rook? Can you-'

    "Got you." Lilian says, her eyes slightly focused on something in the corner of her vision; Ishirou's health bar no doubt. For once, the SSR pull of 'Lilian's instinct to aid a tiny helpless girl' comes to the fore over other options, and she's already picking Rita up, eyes flashing with that tell, when Tamamo speaks up, and the excess light flickers out of them. "Please make it in time then." she says, putting Rita back down. "Take care of each other, okay?" She vanishes.

    A boat certainly won't get there in time. Friz doesn't even find one docked in time. She's barely in range of reaching the camp zone in time in the first place. Nobody is looking too closely when Rogers glides through the Ancient Lake. His appearance is just enough to get the two hunting Ishirou to pause.

"Who's that? I'm not getting-"
"Me neither, okay?! Just go!"
"That armour- He's level thirteen. Where did he get that? No, he's one of the cheaters, isn't he?"
"Paladins!"

    Ishirou sees Lavis jogging out of the Split towards him as he armours up, but Vermilion is already right behind him, only backing up with her sword brought up over her head, tip over her outstretched palm, when Steve appears. The red voxel blood dripping from the edge shows that she'd somehow struck him in melee. The next instant, he's hauled up into the air by the ghost, propelling himself on his own momentum over the lake, and then Lilian appears before him. "Good work.", she says, grabbing hold of him, armour to armour, and blinking away again, leaving behind a sharp, rapidly fading, fifteen foot trail.

    The general call has set the alarm back at Yono. A disappointing number of players are simply hurrying inside to registered safe areas, despite their sheer numbers, but the town's self-appointed 'militia' gather up quickly, lying in wait in the woods and inside the closest buildings to the camp zone. Fucil disappears into the brush before Friz does, and her name and status wink out of existence; probably the Stealth skill. Elym simply runs right through the safe wedge between the traps, and positions himself in plain view, drawing his gilded chopping sword. Lilian dumps Ishirou to ground, looking for Rita, Tamamo, or failing that, Bercilak, to heal him, though she says "The damage isn't as bad as I thought, but don't get hit from behind again, okay?" Then "Actually, it's too low. Did you defend yourself with those eyes in the back of your head?"

    But now it almost doesn't look like the two are coming. Ishirou's escape had been so dramatic, involving several other people, that it might be a step too stupid to just rush after him. One could possibly call it the awareness of a mere pair of players who'd survived so far ahead of the curve. There's time to get ready, but nothing to ostensibly get ready against. It's tense at first, then nerve-wracking, and then the heightened alertness of the ten or so player defenders gathered up starts to slip, leading into a mixture of relief and disappointment.

    Until there's a massive commotion at the rear, where one of the snipers tumbles face first out of the misty brush, bow sliding paces away, and the defenders near her scramble back. Her health is chunked nine tenths red, decreasing smoothly in that way of action games, but more importantly, there's an unfamiliar status effect, and she isn't getting back up.

    And there's no attacker. Not a sound beyond the panic.
Ishirou Ishirou is grabbed by Lilian, and the two of them are gone.  Though she can see the smile on his face from the 'good job' she gave him.  Until he gets deposited on the ground.  The armor is off a second later as he falls back on the ground waiting for aid.  Also being prone like this should make him a harder target to being shot like that again...maybe?  

He shakes his head at Lilian, "I couldn't see the attack come at me at /all/.  There is a difference between something too fast, and imperceptible.  I think it's a touch closer to you than speed." he admits, though not entirely sure.  "I didn't get the chance to scan and analyze the attack either...you know on account of my HP being chunked."

"They are players though, that much is certain...and they /were/ willing to talk at first, but that thing I was told to mention..." he pauses, "Well that /really/ pissed them off.  I don't know why, but they went from willing to talk if not maybe lightly beat the crap out of me to..." he makes a motion, "Chunked."

Regardless, when the attack comes, Ishirou is back on his feet.  He heard the comment about his armor...so it's a weight class up.  Had he been using his character wrong..?  Okay, let's thoroughly consider its usage.  Of course, he's not rushing back in without knowing where hitters are, and how to support them.  Also healing.  He needs the blood put back into him!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      The panic sets in with Phreak, too. "FUCK! Ishirou, f--do your thing! I'll keep you topped off!" His Clarity dips, twice, dropping for two casts of a heal-over-time on Ishirou, both sourced from his Verse - Wraith trait. One is a long pulse, long duration, the other a more frequent pulse on a much shorter duration.

     Phreak's Clarity then dips a third time--to almost nothing. The same trait, but a different use, his body is replaced by a smoky shade with smoldering, baleful golden pits for eyes. "You assholes are in a lot of trouble," he calls, defaulting to running his mouth in an uncertain situation. "But you probably know that, considering you're fighting like a couple of bitches. What's the matter, shitheads? Not liking the taste of your own brew?" he hasn't moved from the spot where he is--wedged in between traps.

     Bercilak, meanwhile, arrives late, astride the Velvet Ghost. He rides a wide circuit around the exterior of the battleground, letting his own Clarity dip to start up a healing aura, attempting to hem in the available targets for the bandits by conferring his healing to the defenders he passes by.

     As he races around, he commands the Velvet Ghost to use attacks--Phantom Step, Air Step, and Trample--in an effort to both keep his circuit uneven and less predictable, and to hopefully catch one of them with a lucky shot, all the while swinging his axe loosed all the way down, making an oppressive seven-foot circle of menace around himself at-speed.
Friz Savvy: Double back! We're pulling to the ambush point!
Dirt: I've got the layout. Approach from here, bud.
Moxie: I'm running, I'm running! God, there's just...
Grit: Keep him safe. Nothing worse than a lost tribemember.
Moxie: I'm getting into place, Dirt, it's on you to figure out where they are!
Dirt: Fine, fine! Chief, get Rogers back!
Savvy: He'll come back on his own, focus on this.

    She still surges with speed. Doubling back, she makes her way to Phreak and Eryl's amazing trap emporium and skids into place. The piercing process... it involved a kind of stealth, ambush, and selective vulnerability, right? She tries to adjust absent glasses, then takes deep breaths. Her stealth skills are limited or completely absent, but selective vulnerability, timed to strike? *That's* something she can deal with. Let the clarity modulate, let the clarity change as it's meant to... she tries to lock down the timing, the bursts of high damage output and damage vulnerability.

    She's tired out from having to run in multiple directions, but she's managing. She manages, somehow, to successfully appear to be a haplessly observing defender, trying to look for the pair. Normally, this would be entirely unwise. But as she grasps at glasses-frames that no longer exist, she activates a far more significant capacity for scouting than she would seem to have at first glance. Her powers of observation are near the human peak. While she might look like a helpless, useless aid for Ishirou, panicked and frustrated, she hides a startling, potentially clarity-rending shot that she can take at the first observable sign of hostile presence. It'll likely be tripped by those traps, even!

Savvy: Do we really not have a stealth option?
Grit: None. Rogers was our only one.
Dirt: I can look like I won't see them coming.
Moxie: Only makes sense that Ishirou would run to a friend, right?
Dirt: We can look like someone who just heard the yelling.
Savvy: We'll have to make do. Just look panicked, frustrated, you know.
Grit: Easy.
Savvy: Okay, well, don't give me fucking sass.
Tamamo     The immediate danger has passed thanks to several combined efforts, but after running to the ambush site together with Rita, Tamamo becomes increasingly concerned about the lack of an opponent. "Ms. Rita, you can handle the healing, yes? With your, ah--your great quantity of 'clarity,' that would leave the others ready to act." This is especially relevant given that Phreak's trying to do the same, but dropping his bars hard in the process, without having Rita's deep reserves.

    Tamamo focuses her ears, but it's the light band around her finger that's most apparent, not her flame-tips, when she uses Chord - Propitiator. She's trying to pick up a location, a sound of motion, the trail of magic, something close or far. Normally, this wouldn't be so difficult for her. Unfortunately, her COG and PER stats are her lowest, dumped in favor of CON and DEX. She really hadn't built her avatar 'like herself' much at all, to that extent, but here she reflexively tries for the thing she's usually good at.

    "Lilian, could it be something like your own, this 'Everse' that is mentioned? It would not be mere speed, nor stealth, in that case. How shall one deal with such a thing, other than to be too great for a single strike to ever suffice? Ah, but then, this is a world in which sudden attacks are disfavored, and to face an opponent directly is elevated... how strange, then."
Rita Ma      "Oh. Thanks, Ms. Tamamo," Rita says, a little less sunnily than she usually might. But her gratitude is still apparent, and she takes a moment to at least wipe off her face and wring her hair before draping the towel around her shoulders. Urgency demands she not do much more.

     As best she can, Rita books it to the ambush point alongside Tamamo, her little boots squelching the whole way. Her Agility is thoroughly average, and her Stamina is thoroughly below average, so the longer a jog that is the worse she's likely to fare- but she does make it, eventually, and is a little drier for the jog and proximity to the Sun.

     "Mmm! Of course I'll handle the healing, Ms. Tamamo. Ms. Rook told me to take care of you, right? That's the best way for me to do it." Ishirou's already being healed by Phreak, but when one of the snipers collapses, Rita doesn't have the good sense not to step out into the clearing with a little gasp. She's still out of breath, but that doesn't affect her healing; she charges a blue orb between her palms that homes in on them and rapidly restores their health.

     Thin though her HP might be, that costs less than five percent of her deep Clarity bar. She has plenty to hand a temporary Clarity boost to Phreak to cover his own depleted supply, delivered in much the same way, but with a glowing white 'projectile'; finally, she casts one more heal and 'holds' the orb between her palms to deliver it at need, her features lit by its azure glow.

     "Please," she calls out, while anxiously glancing around. "Lavis, Vermilion. Can you talk to us? We're from outside. The other people- they're players, for real. We've seen them in their hospital beds. We've sent messages to their familes. I heard you don't believe that, but can you give us a chance to prove it to you?"
Lilian Rook     The defenders have barely adjusted ranks before another of the players --yet again, one of the concealed marksmen-- cries out, and is thrown bodily into the open. It may be a deliberate distraction, but it works, because the commotion is too great to hear the attacker escaping. The luminous red wounds in his back are clearly from blades, but the fact his CL has been completely obliterated, and the massive loss to his HP is sheet overflow, does not so much betray Tamamo's memory, as emphasize just how high their raw level and gear difference must be.

    It's after the third casualty, mystery status effect still full under the yellow HP, that there's finally a catch. One of the trap goes off, rope flies and catches on the branch of a tree, rather than a person. Friz, at maximum readiness, shoots in that direction anyways. With scarcely any lag, she hears the high, clear report of another weapon from inside the forest --Fucil, no doubt-- and the pair of iron slugs collide with the entangled bush with . . . a loud clang and a hot spray of sparks?

    The illusion briefly broken, Friz blinks, and see that Lavis is standing right there before her, already cutting his way free of the rope trap with a kind of calmly suppressed startlement she can only wish she could muster. The two shots had only struck a shoulder and a hip, armoured and non-vital, depleting his CL by disappointingly little, further driving home the sheer gap in raw stats. They'll have to hit something exposed. However, when she blinks again, there's nothing there; no bush, even. A couple of extremely late arrows and one bolt flies into the empty space, unaware of what's happening.

    "Says the weedy little bitch running away to a trap zone."

    There's barely a blink, and Vermilion is right there behind Phreak. Late to the party, maybe, but he didn't even hear her sandal hit the soft dirt. She's chosen the exact moment his Clarity is rock bottom, leaving him completely open to a sneak attack with no extra protection. A rising whine hits his ears, an exact harmonic note, and her odachi glows bright along its edge for a split second. The next, what feels like a score of cuts leave glowing laceration lines across his arms and legs. BLEEDING x4 and AMPUTATION x4 visibly build under his status, though none of the attacks had hit his actual hurtbox.

    She blinks away, without a sound. A red spark, same as the Split, the closest equivalent to seomthing else doable with mundane RGB, follows her. But she doesn't vanish. There she is again, in the face of a terrified axeman, who crumples over clutching a PG-13 amputated stump and screaming too late. Then again, in the middle of the field, disappearing before an arrow perforates the ground. Then again, nearly the same distance away, swinging at Elym, who responds just in time to deflect her with a hasty brace of his heavy sword across his body, just the awkward parry alone depleting half his CL and leaving a trickle of red voxel blood escaping him from a mild Bleed status.

    "You can gather up all the amateurs you want, but you know they're still worthless, right? We can just pick them off like this."
Lilian Rook     Tamamo picks up the trail of Lavis, but just barely. The Velvet Ghost passes right by a random fire pit lying in the camping zone. One that hadn't been there before. Lavis himself is lying right under Bercilak's range of attack, lunging upwards to skewer his mount from below with the rapier, into his less protected underside through it, and slash him with the dagger before fading away. The rapier alone doesn't deal that much damage, but the harmonic note and flashing tell pierces right through the simulated density of flesh and armour, and then leaves an open wound for the dagger to strike, immediately inflicting GRAVITYx1 status that suddenly makes Bercilak and mount experience ten times his own weight. She can probably catch him again before he escapes.

    "You think you're such tough shit. The designer must be a fan, if he let you cheat this much. But don't you know this is a game? Games are the only fair thing in this world. So, right now, we're more powerful than you. Not because we were born special or had some random event like you, but because we got further and our levels are higher. Fair and square. Doesn't that just suck? Hahaha."

    Lilian is silently watching Vermilion's functionally untrackable dance around the clearing, her eyes repeatedly flashing with increasingly regular rhythm to try and scan around for the moment she's visible, sparing for Tamamo "Probably. It's a videogame. The designer can make up anything they want to emulate real people. They probably did for all the Primes." Right up until the woman blinks in front of Rita, sword swung at her head, where Rita has just enough time to notice it's the back colliding with her skull, and Lilian flashes in close, her streaking trail intersecting Vermilion's dimmer spark, and Vermilion's CL drops by a quarter, spark and blood effects crossing up from both women.

    "Ah, that's the one! The plot character! Haha, of course it'd be designed to be fought with with Luna Memoria Traits! God, if you'd all just fuck off please--"

    "Yeah. We know people are trapped for real. So what? We are too, you know. What does that matter? It's a crappy thing to do, but making the best of it is all we can do. I'm not about to lie down and take it here. And it's not like I'm missing any messages from my family."
Ishirou Ishirou has a plan, and he takes steps to put it into action.  The first step is to open his ability to scan things around him and focus it to just point blank.  There is no way he'll be able to scan them until they're right on top of him.  The stark difference in their levels means they can work around having to fight fair and square...but one attack (probably) won't kill him.  The armor is back again, the clockwork style clearly out of place on his usual sleek design.  

Step two, was to see if he can draw both to him.  If someone could block for him to break their attack, their own clarity could be dropped to make it easier to work with.  This leads to step three...grappling them and taking away their biggest advantage.  Then it's a matter of wearing down their clarity and HP.  Hopefully, by the time HP is being hit too hard, they're willing to talk.  

This is going to hurt, this is going to be potentially dangerous for him.  But...

He takes a breath, steadying himself.  It'll keep other people from being hurt.  Other people who aren't him.  He has to trust in his plan, and that others will support him.  He can't map everything out, at best he'll have a second to know where the attacks come from.  But that'll have to be enough and hopefully, Lilian can make up the difference.  He has to be brave.

...Though being brave is the hardest thing right now.  

"Ha.  Cowards can't even find me.  I guess I'm /too blessed/ by Everse.  Born with powers, good looks, and superintelligence, those attacks can't even hit me, nevermind hurt me," Ishirou says.  

With his scanners on, he'll connect everyone to his senses for just a moment.  Please let the armor and his friends be good enough.
Friz Dirt: Huge CL, chief.
Savvy: Shit! Even with the tech?
Moxie: I'd executed it perfectly...
Grit: Fear. We are powerless.
Savvy: Push through! Hit something exposed!
Moxie: Hit *what?*

    She flicks her gun around, swinging the arc of the unloaded thing. No. No, she can't. She has to toss it down for a moment.

Savvy: Moxie?! Hey! Reload!
Moxie: No dice! I can't move fast enough! Switching to baton!
Grit: We need Rogers back.
Dirt: We need to figure out how they're moving, is what we need, boss.
Moxie: Fuck! They're gonna go after Ishirou right?
Savvy: No guarantees, they know they're in an ambush.
Grit: We are all at risk now.
Grit: The monster is here, and it will kill us without remorse.
Grit: Firing all adrenaline reserves.

    Her breathing accelerates. The baton comes out and she holds it in a practiced stance, adrenaline surging into her gut.

Savvy: Dirt! Figure an opening!
Dirt: On it, chief.
Savvy: Moxie! Fine, baton, but the minute we have Rogers here, shadowbox!
Moxie: Nnnh, okay!
Grit: Our peril is mortal. What will you do?
Savvy: I'll *talk*, it's all I've got!

    "BCCVD, freeze, hands up!" She urges, in a helpless way that offers no special reason to do so. "BCC incident combatants Lavis and Vermillion, you're being taken into Volunteer Department custody for suspected duressed acts of violence!! Immediately cease following the directions of quests, authoritative system voices, or activity metrics which may motivate violent and cruel actions!" Her voice wavers, it's uncertain, her authoritative tone incredibly brittle. But she's most importantly trying to give them an out that saves face, that rejects responsibility, that gives them an opportunity to seem coherent if they stop -- even though she doesn't expect them to accept it right now, it's groundwork for later if she can swing it right.

"Almost back. What do you have?"
"They're over twice my damn level!"
"Tough. Don't start paying your Sourcer twice yet."
"Not gonna be my choice (god dammit) you--"
"Are you talking them down?"
"Give me a damn read on them! I can't see them long enough to gauge anything!"

    The phanmtom figure is slowly returning to Friz. As the shadowy silhouette glides through the trap field, two shadowy eyes light up for a moment as the ghost calls on old intuition. If he can get a few seconds of body language and posture, it's all he needs to read the relative violence-willingness and other personality aspects that shine through even in virtual reality. This is no skill, no trait, no game aspect. It's raw understanding of human motion on an instictive level, manifesting in gut-feeling. Can Friz hope that these two are as non-lethal as they've acted? Can she negotiate with that in mind?
Rita Ma      Either Rita doesn't process how much danger she's putting herself in by healing out in the open, or she simply sees it as worth the sacrifice. Knowing her it's more likely the latter. Phreak's recent injuries get her to dash forwards, casting the healing orb towards him and prepping a second. She can't do anything about the statuses, but she can make his meters less dire. "Mr. Phreak! Hang on, I've-!"

     Lavis's shadow falls over her. Rita's eyes go wide, and her words die in her throat. The second healing orb sputters out as she puts up her arms, desperately flinching away from the oncoming blow.

     The clang of metal on metal and the absence of blinding pain make her peek out over her forearms after a split second. "Ms. Rook!!" In her panic, she reaches for her machine-pistol-like hurlant, nearly drops it, and only then brings it up at Lavis and squeezes the trigger for a long burst. It's almost assuredly too late.

     Clarity buff for Lilian next, who's likely still locked in close combat. Clarity buff for Ishirou, who's drawing their ire. One more for Tamamo, who's guarding the bait. She's down to three-quarters Clarity herself now, which is a little nerve-wracking for someone with such low Constitution. Even so, with her voice slightly quailing, she says: "Thanks, Ms. Rook. But you don't have to spend yourself to protect me. They won't kill me, right?"

     Then she's falling back behind a tree to reload her gun and recharge her Clarity. Louder: "If you know it's real, then why are you doing this?! You haven't killed anybody yet, but look at what you're doing! How long until you kill someone on accident? How long until someone dies because they needed what you took from them??"

     Her voice cracks a little. "You were just ordinary people before, weren't you? So please, just stop it."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      With his wraithform up, it's more accurate to say that Phreak doesn't -have- a hurtbox in the first place--or perhaps that it's divoerced from anything resembling his HP. The laceration lines appear in his spectral form, and it near-instantly fills in to replace them. His heal-over-times, layered in twos, counteract the bleeding, but he has neither the ability to cleanse them nor the amputation stacks. It'd probably be wise if he stopped talking. But he doesn't.

     "Yeah, that's right. I'm a cheater and a little bitch. And you know what else? I'll be the biggest bitch and the worst cheater in the neighborhood if it gets you two giamokes to stop robbing people blind and throwing them to goddamn wolves."

     "I don't give a *fuck* how hard you worked. You're using all that hard work to fuck other people over and keep 'em down. Sound like my fucking father, talking that shit. Did you think it was free? How do those people eat, with no money and no gear? What happens when you starve in the game, huh? You think just because you're not doing it yourself you're any less guilty?"

     "It's a game, sure--but you two sure did a great job creating exactly the kind of bullshit most of these people signed on to escape. Is that all you wanted, you fucking idiots? Is that what you 'worked hard' for? Your turn at the woodchipper? With that kind of attitude I know who's worthless, and it's sure as shit not these people. Fair my 'weedy' ass. Suck my dick."

     Phreak's wraithform flickers and fades, when Rita's heal pops his clarity back up. What's left standing there is an angry, scowling man with his HP bar visibly fluctuating up-and-down to keep up with the dot.

     "He didn't have a random event, you know," says Bercilak. "He'd never say so himself. But he grew up in a place where--"

     Phreak's yell is shrill. "SHUT THE FUCK UP, BERC!"

     "Dude, we're not winning this with force. Look at your health bar. Look at *mine.* They still haven't dropped stealth. And the longer we keep this up, the more people get hurt. As a matter of fact--since these guys are so 'worthless' to you, you should have no problem letting them go back to town, yeah?"

     "Yeah. Well. Begs the question of why they're fucking gatekeeping people from progressing, then, doesn't it."

     "Quiet." Bercilak hops off of the Ghost, running a hand along its neck. He is, evidently, entirely unconcerned with Lavis. His red eyes gleam, and a breeze about him carries leaves--as it brushes against him, it cleanses the GRAVITY status.

    "He grew up in a place that wasn't fair at all. The people that kept the law didn't go to where he grew up, because that place existed as a punishment. And the people who didn't keep the law, but gave enough of a shit to help, had bigger fish to fry than fixing that place up. You know the kind of place I mean?"

     "He got adopted by a rich asshole with something to prove, but only because he'd taught himself to be good at something. Something that'd make that asshole money. There were lots of other kids that never made it out of that place."

     "He'd never admit it, but he had to fight to get everything he has. If you want to call someone a cheater, it's me. I lucked into everything except knowing how to swing this," he says, lifting the axe. "And even then, I had more and better teachers than most people ever will. I'm Bercilak of the High Wasteland, and I'm begging you, both of you, to stop using what you fought for to make the rest of these people miserable. If that's a game, it's not one I wanna play."
Tamamo     Tamamo moves toward Ishirou with the air of one protecting a tactical objective. The truth is a bit different, and she has doubts whether Ishirou's attempts at deception will work, here. Such a straightforward provocation worked once, but now a trap is expected. Even with her shield being separate from her own position, she can only cover two arcs, and hope that the protection she implicitly offers encourages an attack that Lilian can counter. In regards to Vermilion, that appears the only recourse.

    Surely, one would assume, the shield-fighter moving to protect the loudly yelling fellow means that there is some value in attacking him. Will they think that? Maybe. Tamamo doesn't have the skills in skulduggery to make an effective, direct assault. Not if she can't see her opponent.

    She is, however, looking for those out-of-place objects, having picked up Lavis's trail once. He'll have a much harder time getting past her, at least. She had pumped up her DEX for good purpose, there.

    "Is it still truly a game, where death is one outcome? Such a god as would set such trials is one without great compassion, though I must regret to inform that such is the most common mode of gods, no matter their opinions of fairness. 'A trial,' at best, it may be. 'Play,' it is less so, in the manner that you have chosen."

    And yet, they haven't quite killed anyone, here. That hasn't escaped her notice. Was that luck? It wasn't any she created. There's no way to know for certain that none of those lost between here and Clef died at their hands, given their skills and the general lethality of the dungeon and surrounding areas. They can't be declared innocent.

    "Your distasteful hobbies aside, I have one warning to impart. If you call my Lilian an 'it' again, you will take all your meals through a straw."

    A taunting ability was included in Verse - Inordinator, as she notices, though Tamamo activates it without particularly thinking. Drawing attention to herself, and transforming that attention into the sometimes useful modes of awe or fear, is something she's far better at than avoiding attention.
Lilian Rook     Most of what Ishirou gets from scanning isn't too useful. What he can tell is that Lavis must actually have a phenomenal Stealth skill on its own to not be leaving any traces, despite his heavy lifting Trait, and that Vermilion's blipping isn't quite the same as Lilian's. It's too patterned. Too consistent. Ryhthmic, even. She regularly appears for a tenth of a second out of every--

    It's a 4:4 time signature.

    "Laying it on too thick, fuckboy."
    "You already ran to your friends. We get it."
    "But you kind of piss me off anyways!"

    He can count the exact timing Vermilion comes for him. Obviously, from the arc Tamamo doesn't cover. However, her charged sword is an inch from his recently healed face when Tamamo says those words. The attack slows just enough that she disappears again, and no damage occurs. Vermilion staggers away a beat later, and Lilian collides with her from the side, just as planned. They tumble over each other, and Lilian pins her, having actual hand to hand combat skill. For a moment, they stare into each other's eyes, one aglow grinning and another grimly focused, and then Vermilion disappears from Lilian's grip, rolling sideways to her feet a short distance away. It's not as if she's stopping the game clock, but blinking in and out of the game world.

    "Ahaha, are you serious? You're actually-- You're a player? You're kidding right? With the little caesura by your name? How the fuck did-- Lavis!"
    "Yeah. I already scanned her. It's not a fan account. Both of them are real. Pretty sure I4 is too."
    "It's Ishirou now, asshole! Oh my god, hahaha! I was thinking it'd be petty little dispatch goons, but it's real, first-tier Paladins Elites!"
    "Are you quite done talking over me yet? I didn't ask for this obnoxious verified account mark. And I don't play these atrocious videogames either. This is a crisis situation I was directly called to answer."
    "Ahaha I know who you are! Especially you! Sorry, sorry, it's just--
    "You get it, right?"
    "I can't believe you're one of us! Who'd have thought~?!"

    Vermilion disengages to neutral, CL at half, HP barely touched, a golden status unreadable on her bar. Lilian stands up to guard Ishirou and Tamamo, HP chipped, CL rapidly recharging from her maneuver.

    "Hey, I'm sorry, miss Tamamo-no-Mae, but it's still a game. This isn't real life. All it can do is scare you and stress you out, or you can enjoy it. You're a good person, from what I know about you, so . . ."

    Vermilion cackles at Friz's bold attempt at laying down the law. "Custody? For what? Too spicy PvP online? If you know so much-- "Tell us how anyone could be dead. It's a bunch of different devices, in a bunch of different worlds, right? There's no way a videogame could kill people like that. Can you explain it? Can you prove it?" "I'm going to take the word of the admin over you for no, no offense~ Once you get far enough-- well, I won't spoil it~"

    Rogers's read is worrying. The two of them aren't violent professionals, but they've rapidly become very good at it. They carry themselves in the way of apprentices rapidly wearing off their novice habits, and who never had a healthy aversion to violence in the first place, and were already used to pain and danger. They have no compunctions about inflicting harm. And when they respond to Rita, the only real read he can figure for why they haven't killed anyone is the sheer limit of discomfort with the kayfabe; the way other players act, in terror of death and mourning their comrades, is too much for them to enjoy; they feel good enough flexing power by winning for now, and finishing the deal isn't even profitable.
Lilian Rook     "Just ordinary people, huh?"
    "Sorry for not being special. Video games are supposed to be for ordinary people though. This is a world just for us, where we can unwind and be together and do things fairly. They're not for you. You can already go outside and do whatever you want."
    "Nobody's going to die, and they're definitely not going to die because they had to walk half a mile to that little village. It's a videogame. The health comes back and they can find food lying on the ground everywhere. They don't need to be so fucking spoiled. I bet none of them have walked further than their fridge for a meal before. They've never been hurt worse than a stubbed toe. They'll be fucking fine. Let someone else take care of them, god."

    Elym takes a run at Vermilion. A clash of blades transpires for a moment. Fucil fires from the brush, and nearly strikes her in the back, getting their timing down, but a tent was Lavis and blocks it on his armour. A "Well then don't mind us taking exception to it, if it's all fair to you, Machia-fucking-velli!" is roundly ignored with an "Out of the way, trash." and a swift low cut through the knee, amputating Elym's lower leg and dodging his swing. The response is night and day too, when Lavis says "Gonna take the other sniper."; they obsessively know the Paladins members, but not the Watch members.

    "Kill yourself." Vermilion says to Phreak, in that internet way, followed by an expertly delivered Gamer Word. However, she doesn't attack him, apparently trying to figure out the ability that lets him still have his limbs on. As the group gains valuable information, these two are feeling the Elites out too. "These people signed up to go on adventure safari and feel special. We were planning on PvP from the start. Who cares if they get fucked over? At the end of the day--" "The game ends, they go home, and it's life as usual for them. They'll be fine, and happy and safe as usual, when this whole crappy prank is done. So just go away. Let us have this while it lasts." "If this puts some fear into all those normies --if this is the worst violation they've ever suffered-- then good. I don't care. Better I get at least a little taste of their woodchipper where I can."

    There's a long pause after Bercilak talks. This time, it's Lavis that pops up by Phreak, and repeatedly attacks with a glowing pattern of superhumanly fast dagger slashes, repeatedly applying that GRAVITY status to someone with lower strength, even if he can't find the hurtbox. Vermilion blinks past Bercilak, cleaving into his armour, overcoming his sheer girth with the level difference between them, having thrice the attack of his defense. Again, those cruel wounding statuses go right through. It's not clear how she applies them.

    "Sorry. That sounds awful. I really sympathize. But . . ."
    "For every one of you, how many of us do you think go through hell and don't even get any cool powers to show for it?"
Ishirou Ishirou knew that attack was going to come, Tamamo was covering him.  There was only one place it /could/ come, and while he laid it on thick, he knew they couldn't pass up the chance to shut his mouth up.  He was waiting for his chance to hit them with his debuff abilities...with one massively debuffed, it might turn the tide if they weren't immediately grappled.  

However, some things change rapidly.  The situation goes from hot to not in a bit.  He breathes out and lets the armor fade away and the armor reform.  Of course, even though they go neutral to them, they are still going after their watch allies, and the way that Elym goes down causes Ishirou's eyes to narrow.  

He's never been madder than he was at this moment.  "The real question is, why are there several Paladins here, including /their leader/.  Yeah, we all decided to log on and play a video game all at the same time for no reason.  Real. Fucking. Thoughtful."

When Elym goes down, he waits, and the moment Vermilion goes for Berilak is the moment he unleashes the debuff, trying to massively apply as many debuffs to his clarity and parry as he can.  If he can just push it low enough for the Green Knight to overcome in the clash...

"Don't belittle his trauma with his father.  So what if he has abilities, so what if he has powers?  He's still a /fucking person/ and he doesn't deserve anything you're giving him right now."

"Why do you think I /was/ I4?  What kind of human has a name I4?  It was an ID for what /was/ my model and number in the organization I was a part of.  I was nothing but a chattel slave to them and was told every day that Androids don't have emotions.  That I was less than a human and defective for expressing them."

"I'm not even a combat model, I'm a field support model.  I /was/ a human, I don't even have my memories from that!  Everything that I was, my whole entire life was /taken/ from me.  And you want to sit there and tell me how good I have it?!  Tell me, what the fuck can I change on my own without the help of an elite worth their weight in salt more than ME!?"

He hyperventilates, just so done with what he's hearing, and their outright toxic shit.  "Right now you're out there /killing/ people.  Why do you think you can't log out?  They can't either.  You're separated from your bodies.  You weaken them so that they take those steps and get dead by monsters.  They can't afford weapons or gear to progress or even /go out/ in this area."

"You're not killing them directly, but you're doing it in a worse way.  Slowly.  Making sure they see every second of every moment they slowly fade away."
Friz Savvy: Shit!
Grit: Focus! Get a convincing line!
Moxie: They'll put you full of holes if you don't.
Savvy: I'm *working* on it! Dirt, pull up everything we've got!
Dirt: Nothing, chief. No methods, just body count.
Grit: A body count is significant.
Savvy: I'm not gonna bludgeon them with it.
Moxie: You have to do *something*!
Savvy: I'm bringing in Rogers.

"Rogers! I need something to work with!"
"Kid, the grip is sliding. They're pulling graywards fast."
"God, how fast?"
"It's dire, Friz. Worse than Flinch."
"They've got a reason to pull graywards then."
"Don't be a hero, kid."
"I have to do something!!"
"They're too sturdy. Not gonna make it."
"I'M TRYING ANYWAY!!"

    She whispers to herself for a moment, working herself up into a flustered mess, before she manages a reply. "They're not coming back! I don't know what's happening! I don't know why it's happening! People are dying in interfaces that aren't even neural bridges! You've *got me*, okay?! I'm *supposed* to know why it's happening and I don't, and I've tried for weeks and I can't make any progress, and now I can't even make the one arrest, and--!"

Savvy: Give me some fucking space!
Moxie: But it's true!
Savvy: I said give me space! We're sounding like we don't have control of--
Grit: We don't.
Savvy: Just-- Let me--!

    "I'm trying to help! People are starving and dying in a sink-or-swim death-game that doesn't make any sense, and the best I've got is *one* Volunteer Department running out of *one* town. People have already been dying and all I'm *trying* to do is stop whoever's built this stupid skinnerbox that's making you hurt even more people, so that you can *help* them! So that you can do a lot of good!! Please, just--"

    She's not going to rush at them, but she has a readied baton with the intent to strike if they get close, swinging with force and desperation. "Just fucking understand, the things you do are making so many consequences! You could make them good consequences! Just help me figure out how to stop that admin!"

Savvy: Fuck's sakes Grit, turn down the sinuses.
Grit: This is a desperate situation.
Savvy: IT'S NOT FUCKING HELPING! Moxie, steady these shakes!!
Moxie: I'm trying! There's too much adrenaline!
Dirt: They might take a swing. I can't track them.
Savvy: Then keep scanning while I talk!!

    "The game is the only place that's fair! That means you know, you understand, you know what the right thing to do is! The system makes that clear! Right and wrong! The referee can call it, and you can too!! You know the teams and you know how to help them and hurt them... So help me stop them getting hurt!!" Her shaking grip firms up for a moment. "Have you even seen *one* person come back?!"
Rita Ma      "For every one of you, how many of us do you think go through hell and don't even get any cool powers to show for it?"

     "A lot," Rita says, bittersweetly. Against her own better instincts, she slumps back against the tree, lowering her gun with a sad little smile. It's a funny feeling to have that line thrown back at her friends. "Thousands. Millions. I know. I'm... I'm used to not being special, too. You can look at me, can't you, Ms. Vermilion? You can see my stats."

     Rita steps around the tree and into the open. There is a half-lie in her words somewhere, but the half of it that's truth is more meaningful. She's still holding her weapon, but it's not at the ready. That close call from earlier has put proper fear into her, but she's trying to swallow it down.

     "I'm really, really glad that both of you get a place to be special and strong. You've had really hard lives, haven't you? So you deserve it for sure. We're not here to take it away from you."

     There isn't anywhere she can look to make eye contact with the pair, so she faces the misty woods in an undefended direction while the fight echoes around her; that 'feels' right. Then Rita lifts her chin, symbolically exposing her neck. Her hands are folded delicately, but her knuckles are white. She's trying not to hyperventilate.

     "But you know, don't you? Mr. Lavis, Ms. Vermilion. Even if your heads don't want to believe it, I think your hearts know that people die for real. Why else would you try so hard not to kill anybody?"
Tamamo     "Truly?" Tamamo asks, with the tone of one who could hardly believe the babbling coming from another's mouth. The same natural skills that make it impossible to read through her thoughts let her wear them on her sleeves for all to see, when she chooses to.

    "You meet with a team of Paladin Chevaliers, and your judgment is that we lie? No, worse, you judge that we are merely jesting with you, taking part in some elaborate prank, in a game you judge us as having no reason to play? If you have heard of me, do you know me to be one who is such a petty liar?"

    While she speaks, she continues to try and track Lavis's movements, quietly indicating anything she spots to Ishirou, trusting him to relay it to everyone else.

    "Even the grandmaster is involved. That many have died is the stark reality of our situation. Need you see their remains, in the world outside this one, before you will believe what has occurred? If there had been no death, if there was nothing but a temporary period of stress and frightening pictures, there would be no need for such a serious response. No, those who fear death are right to do so. Are you addled?"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      "WHY THE FUCK WOULD I BE IN THE WATCH IF I DIDN'T KNOW HOW BAD IT WAS OUT THERE?! I joined this fucking thing FOR THOSE PEOPLE! SO DID THEY!" he screams, gesturing to Elym and Fucil. Lavis sticks him with stacks of a debuff he can't remove, his attempts to weave and bob out of the way becoming more and more clumsy.

     The thing about his gimmick is that it costs clarity to use and instantly deletes whatever's in the tank. It makes hitting him a roll of the dice--

    But eventually, he rolls snake eyes. Phreak screams as his organic arm is severed at the joint, collapsing to the ground.

>But you know, don't you? Even if your hands don't want to believe it, I think your hearts know that people die for real?

     "And now," he hisses through clenched teeth, "All three of us are gonna fucking die, too, because you wanna act out your little abuse fantasies on real people who could die from it. LISTEN TO HER!" He howls, leveling his mechanical arm towards where he imagines his attacker to be. The clockwork thing shifts into a hurlant as he sets his tuning to Dissonance, holding down the trigger.

     "If it was *just* stuck, the Paladins have the money and time to fix that but WE sure as fuck don't! Why the FUCK else would the Watch be spending time here when so many other places need help? HUH?! It's all over the fucking news, moron! It's not make-believe!"

     Bercilak rushes to Phreak's aid, even in spite of the damage he's taken. He hasn't fought back since making his appeal. His Clarity is gone, utterly. His health dances frighteningly back and forth. "We thought you knew. I'm sorry you didn't. But we--all of us, need you to stop. Even if you've been leaving these people at 1 HP, this isn't the kind of game where you bounce back from that easily. It's some kind of statement about struggle, and what makes a person who they are, and if either of you believe that people should be put through what the two of you were, just because it makes you 'stronger,' then you come out of stealth and you say that to my fucking face, and if Phreak shoots at you I'll take his other arm, too."

     "How many times was it that a friend of yours who hadn't been through near what you had, told you how 'strong' you were? How 'brave' you were? And what would you have given, to have never needed to be that strong, or that brave? Stop. Please."
Lilian Rook     "Yeah. I know your backstory, Ishirou."
    "You talk about a lot. People with access upload facts, y'know? Some people pay a lot of money to stay informed!"
    "Hey. Let me finish. Or, really I just wanted to say . . . I'm sorry, but that kind of doesn't matter? If this is just a big trauma party, if everyone here sucks because the world sucks and we're all just smashing into each other because other people, who are fine right now, were bad, then what does it matter? Am I supposed to listen to you because you had it worse?"
    "You know it doesn't work like that. It's never worked like that! You just love listening to yourself talk, don't you? I don't care about the spoiled normies and their ruined videogame, and the fact that the Paladins are here to police it is breaking my heart a little."

    The time signature is getting a lot easier to follow, but there's a different, sustained buildup note, and the trio of streaking lights flying at him from the side resolve as flat, dense, gunmetal throwing knives, easy with a cocktail of poison and paralysis statuses. Scanning the area strangely doesn't actually pinpoint Lavis, but he can rapidly reference the area map against itself every few seconds and detect new terrain. That works.

    "So if you don't know shit, why are you right and we're wrong?"
    "You don't need my help. I don't have anything I can offer you at all. We've never been any help to anyone. You just want us to stop. Because we finally have power here."
    "And people only care about how much good you could do, or why you want to hurt people, when you already have it!"

    Fucil shrieks somewhere in the woods, staggering out with her rifle braced defensively, falling towards Friz out of reflex with the gravity status kicking in, pinning her to the ground. She shoots wildly, striking a steel-hard smoking rack, which then moves in to skewer her, and is deflected with a loud crash and sizzling crackle by Friz's wild swing. A second shot is fired point blank, the rifle hissing dry as the last of its gas blows the breech open, and Lavis staggers back with a hefty chunk of CL gone, before vanishing again.

    "If the referee has that much power, what am I supposed to do exactly? If you can't figure it out, if you don't have an answer, arent' you the losing side?"
"Why should I see anyone come back? I don't spend time with you losers. The right thing to do is to send them back to Clef to make more room for the rest of us."

    Vermilion is visibly quite irritated at Tamamo, when she blindsides her whilst tracking Lavis, only to be deflected by Lilian.

    "I have your timing. You're not ruining my time here either. Do you even know how much has passed?"
    "Who cares? It's not like I'm going to work tomorrow. Must suck to be you though, with everything important you have to do~ If your time's so precious, why are you even wasting it on the main progression? Just get on the Everse path already! I can see those Traits, you know. You've got to be basically immune to the Alienation, right? You were hand-picked for the good part! Just come with us and tell these dumbshits that it's all fake."
    "I'm not in the habit of taking orders or suggestions from people who don't know the meaning of the word respect."
    "Haha, okay, I almost believed you! But really, you're even more aligned than me! God, I really want to know all about it. All this time you were . . ."
Lilian Rook     She's driven flying back when she blinks to Tamamo's side and is intercepted again. The lighter armour makes it a costly maneuver. Lavis has to catch her in his arms, and they split ways again. "People plan fan accounts in games like this. And you're still right at the start. You haven't talked to the admin yet, right? They're . . . well, they can't be great, if they did this. Or they're stuck working for the guy who did this. But from my perspective, this makes sense. You just don't have the context yet. You should try straying off the beaten path. I think you out of these guys could get pretty far, on a different path."

    For what it's worth, Lavis doesn't stick on Phreak once he's down, but his tone is tense and withdrawn from being screamed at. Despite the asymmetry of the violence, the guy curls in on himself emotionally from the asymmetry of vitriolic determination, just as his partner bitterly lashes back at it.

    "Anyone can die from abuse. Whether it's with guns or words. The way you sort how you want to care about it is messed up. When you'll measure micro-deaths and when you won't. I don't care about the Watch. I don't have any use for heroes who won't save me unless an evil Lich Lord conquers my town or something."

    Vermilion reacts visibly and viciously to Bercilak's chosen special buzzwords. "No, actually. I think I'm starting to like people actually asking me for once!" However, her approach is direct and predictable, and some of the flurry of shots connects, driving her off with chipped HP.

    "Hey. I think we should really consider what I said. There's no reason to stick around fighting these guys. They're--"
    "Don't get soft on them just because they're acting nice! They're only even pretending to give a shit about you because now they're scared! That's the only way it works! The second you give in, they'll fucking SWAT you! Or worse! It's just the admin protecting your info, remember?"
    "And you have to stop obsessing over her. These guys are still pretty tough, but they're way behind us in level. We're pretty plateau'd here. Let's just move on. Push the Path of Eversion story. Come back stronger."
    "I'm getting the hang of their moves! They haven't even figured out Swordsongs yet!"
    "And they're dialling in ours. Let's broaden our repertoire. Come on."
Lilian Rook     The both of them pause when Rita shows up, torn between choices in an argument. It'd be a prime time to get shot, but all of the Militia defenders have been taken out. Fucil bothers Friz with her rifle, saying "Reload me! I can't reach it!" The two 'bandits' turn to look at her baring her neck in unison.

    "Yeah you are. It matters to you who's going to get hurt in the game, not who's going to get hurt after. If someone dies when the plug gets pulled, because they have to go back to the real world, not your problem, right? Because it's not an ~Elite Crisis~."
    "Life outside the game doesn't matter, though. That's the good part. Our lives don't matter. Yours don't. Except that yours kind of make me mad, I guess. Like, you think you can tell us what to do by comparing experiences. That only works with peers, you know, who want to hear it. And you're not like me, even if you're not special."

    Lavis visibly shrinks and recoils from her assertion. "The admin said--" But Vermilion reacts first. In anger. In pointless contradiction. In the white-knuckled need to combat and defy Rita telling her what she's supposed to believe. "I am so fucking sick of people thinking they can read my mind! I'm so fucking sick of people telling me what I really know inside!"

    She blinks forward. Her CL is barely recharging, given the strain caused by keeping that self-buff up, but Rita isn't even defending herself. Lilian comes to her rescue. Of course she does. But in the instant the two clash swords, and Lilian's strength pushes Vermilion back, another flurry of knives are tossed out underhand, accelerated by some skill, and fly over her hip at Rita. There's no way they can deal enough damage to threaten her HP, even up close like this, but Rita's utter lack of Traits, her low level, her miniscule little statline, hits her with ninety percent rolls of high-skill crafted-

    PARALYSIS x3
    SLOW POISON x3
    NERVE POISON x3
    SEVERE PAIN x3
    ASPHYXIATION x3


    It's Lavis that catches and drags her away just as Lilian knee strikes her in the diaphragm and swings down, missing cleanly. With him holding her, Vermilion falls under his same illusion. They're trackable for a short time, but with her holding him, Lavis can skip-blink around like that too. Back towards the Split, fast enough that only one or two Elites in the party could reasonably intercept them.
Ishirou Ishirou can't see those knives coming, he can track them only through complicated roundabouts, which slows down how fast he can actually report it.  Thankfully, he does send what he knows through the link, including what Tamamo can give him...for a fat lot of good it does him.

His HP goes down, if it wasn't for the fact that he got the damage indicator he might not have noticed.  The armor helps blunt the damage, but what it doesn't stop is the knives delivering their payload.  Ishirou's body seizes up and he drops to a knee.  Whatever was on those blades rips through his body, giving him several statuses'.

Ishirou is also /very upset/ because it just feels like they /don't care/.  It hurts and compounding with the various things he's been forced to endure he's trying to hold himself together.  Lilian clashes, forcing them back.  His vision blurry and body not responding right aside, he ...COULD fire a parting shot.  He really wants to.  He wants to hurt them...

But instead, he just dismisses the armor and slumps.  It isn't right.  Even if they're this way...from what they're saying they're both in a delusion of their own making, but actively being lied to.  By the admin.  This wasn't an accident, it seems.  It wasn't just one person...but the entire group of them.  
Rita Ma      "I'm sorry." Rita's posture is proper and demure, only because every muscle in her back is tight. "I don't mean to tell you what to do. You've probably had enough of that, I guess." Lavis flinching ought to be a point scored for her, but instead she averts her eyes from his reaction, grimacing softly.

     Too sparing. Not willing to drive the point home. These are 'her people', she seems to feel. "I'm sorry things have been hard. I don't want to take this away from you, I promise. Please just----"

     Rita croaks. It's an undignified noise: trying to scream and gasp at the same time, in that way that tears a throat. Her legs buckle immediately. She falls to her knees, then to one hand, the other grasping at her chest and immediately regretting it when her fingers brush against an embedded knife.

     There's not enough air in her lungs to scream properly on the exhale, either, so that comes out as a strangled rattle too. Her nails dig furrows in the soft dirt.

     Her eyes are scrunched up to cry. She mouths something, but there's no air to give it volume.
Tamamo     Tamamo can't react to that fast than Lilian does, as much as she'd like to. She tries. She does react, but not quickly enough, and then Vermilion is gone again. Tamamo's voice follows her.

    "And what is it that this administrator told you, that is so trustworthy? Should a kidnapper tell you that the poisons you are handed are not truly real, will you believe them? 'Do not worry, it is not loaded.'"

    There's a coldness to her scorn, a sense that she isn't disappointed only because she'd held no expectations. The politeness is carefully affected, easily detected for its falseness even without considering the content of the words. "It must be quite nice, to be so free from worry, and so simple."

    It's then that she notices Rita falling, and her tone changes abruptly. "Rita--!" She's back to her side in a moment, fumbling in her inventory for talismans that aren't there, looking through less-familiar medical items that are, pulling out both those and looking through own abilities, those Compositions linked to the halo following her, Verse - Originator, that she'd set aside, but now needs. 'Damage' isn't on her mind, but 'pain,' 'poison,' and anything that could lead to death. 'Conditions' are within her wheelhouse, most fortunately. She can still do something about this.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Bercilak is used to close combat with people he can actually see. He isn't used to it when there are layers of abstraction like 'statlines.' His HP dips again, terrifyingly close to bottoming out, even with his masterful deflections. "*Noted.*"

     He says nothing else.

     The two bandits make their escape. Bercilak isn't interested in pursuing them. Phreak screams and beats his mechanical fist against the ground. "FUCK YOU," he screams, looking straight up, before smashing is sole hand into the dirt again and spitting. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! I hope you can hear me, you fucking bastard," he swears at the game's administrator, rolling over onto his side. "My whole life I worked to be what I am--for your two little shits to decide they get to kill as many people as they want! What was the point of letting me in here?!" He screams, getting to his knees and beating a fist against the grass again.

    "Just to remind me of what it's like to be nothing? 'Trash?!' To get fucked and not be able to do a goddamn thing about it?! I ALREADY FUCKING KNEW THAT, YOU SHIT! Stupid-ass FUCKING idiot! I tried something new, I tried to be something other than what I am, and you let those assholes shit all over me for it. FUCK YOU," He screams until his throat is hoarse, beats his fist into the ground again, the lack of balance sending him over to his side. Bitter tears streak down into the dirt. He remains lying there, chest heaving. "...if you wanted to see the worst I could be, you should've just fucking told me that. Asshole."

     Bercilak rushes to Rita's aid alongside Tamamo, his healing aura washing over her as well as his cleanse, his clarity again tanking to zero as a windswept flight of leaves swirls around the both of them.

     He isn't deaf to Phreak's screams, but he tries to speak to Rita despite his partner's anguish, kneeling down beside her. "You did the right thing," he says. "Some people... they just... they've lived so long for a certain way that they'll go out of their way to keep thinking of the world that way. Being treated differently is scary, for them. They hear a little voice telling them that it's a trick, or that you don't really mean it... and it can be really, really hard for them not to hear that voice. If you're sad, that's okay. But be sad because they're hurting, not because of anything you did or didn't do."
Rita Ma      Rita's tanked Constitution- the worst stat out of a bad bunch- exacerbates the statuses horribly, but Tamamo's Compositions are enough to peel them off given time. When 'Asphyxiation' is cleansed, she starts to gasp for ragged little breaths. When 'Severe Pain' goes, her hand stops clawing at the dirt and the breaths come easier. Her bars go up and 'Paralysis' goes down, allowing her body to sag.

     Finally, with everything ameliorated but the Clarity damage and the knives physically sticking out of her chest, Rita collapses onto her side. That's followed a moment later by rolling onto her back to look up at the gray sky, completely exhausted. Her breathing becomes slower, deeper, easing back down into a normal range.

     "I'm sorry," she says first, her voice still a little rough from that awful sound that tore its way out of her throat. Her eyes are bleary with tears. "I'm sorry. We... I think we almost got through. I messed up. I'm sorry."

     Another heaving breath follows, pushing out some of her adrenaline. Then, her second thought: "Thank you, Ms. Tamamo. Thank you, Mr. Bercilak. You're the best." She laughs feebly, but there isn't much joy in it, and a lot of something else.

     For Bercilak, she smiles an uneasy little smile, then turns her face away. "I'll try to believe that," she says, in a way that means she knows she can't. "But it's hard not to feel like... like it was in reach. Right?"
Ishirou Ishirou's eyes immediately dash toward Rita when she croaks.  He starts to stand to his feet, his scans already going out to try and ID what's going on.  Thankfully, Tamamo and Bercilak are there.  He sighs in relief, but...

He stares at Phreak.  Slowly, he instead walks towards Phreak and sits next to him on the ground.  He feels like shit, his body is suddenly not working right and breathing is heavy by not...well choking to death.  Right now he's got it pretty good.

He doesn't say anything right away, but instead, he turns to look at Phreak.  "I'm sorry about that line, it was below the belt," he says, with a frown.  "When people turn a blind eye to your suffering it...hurts.  It pulls back the scab you thought you had over it.  Worse when they think you got it so good now.."

"If you wanna talk about it I'm here, but until then we can just wait our turn to get our status' taken off."
Friz Dirt: Something moving!
Dirt: Hell-- it's going after Fucil!
Grit: Impalement. Death.
Moxie: I'm on it!

    Slam! Friz's baton downs the dangerous physics object.

Savvy: Nice!
Moxie: Those shakes were good for something.
Moxie: Are you making any progress?
Savvy: Fucking nothing! Ugh! Stop injecting all this... this *vulnerability* into it!
Grit: It's for our protection.
Savvy: It's not HELPING!
Dirt: Chief! Request for a reload!
Savvy: Moxie! Get it!
Moxie: Going!

    Friz is reloading Fucil as fast as possible. "God damn these amputations..." She whispers as she does. She's watching the duo as much as possible.

Dirt: Ahhh, bastard! Are they grabbing--?!
Savvy: They're pulling back!
Moxie: They're retreating?
Grit: No.

    "Come on, come on! No!!" Friz's failed arrest flees, with the likelihood that they're moving on to greener pastures even. There's nothing she can do, and no way to even chase them, given the way they'll likely be heading towards the Split. "Can't you-- Nnnh..." She regards the damaged sniper, and can't figure a way to make shooting at the fleeing pair effective... Full of frustration, she throws down her own baton, letting out a short yelp.

Savvy: Augh! Don't do that! We look like we have no idea what we're doing!
Moxie: Well we *don't*, Savvy! That was a complete wash, and it was our biggest opportunity! We clearly can't make this work!
Savvy: We're supposed to have some dignity or something!

Moxie: Yeah? Dignity? While we're out here plinking shots off clarity so high we can't Dissonance even ten percent off it? We're going to have dignity while having no knowledge to convince stressed trauma-cases that theft might be wrong and consequences are real? We have to do *something*, and *dignity* isn't a fucking action!
Grit: Moxie, you're going too far.
Dirt: Shouldn't we kind of keep it together?
Moxie: Fuck you! I've got no coffee, I've got no leads, I've got nothing to do but very slightly reduce starvation metrics! And I'm supposed to keep it together?

    Friz, for no emotional reason she can articulate, puts her palms over her face and makes a loud, frustrated, muffled screaming sound into them. She needs a bed. She needs a coffee. She needs *something* that isn't here, a yearning that wastes her brain away like starvation.

    She looks ragged when she finally approaches Rita. She sniffs congestedly between each sentence. "We never stood a chance. You didn't mess this up. We weren't winning this no matter what." She looks tired, and a bit red-eyed. "But you did do something good." She kneels down, and pulls out some of the basic digital tools she's kept. There's something valuable here. Friz carefully records the prints of VERMILION as "Set A" off of the knives.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Bercilak smiles weakly. His lantern-red eyes are still quite good at conveying his emotion, in moments like this. "Yeah," he admits sadly. "I thought if people could finally understand what I was saying, then it'd be easier for me to get out what's inside, and get to what's inside of other people. And for a lot of them, it worked. So it's hard for me not to feel that way, too. Like maybe if there was something I'd said, or if I was a little smarter, then we'd all be in the tavern laughing about this. I have the Ghost's friendship because I talked to it, you know," he says, with a nod towards the grazing, otherworldly steed.

    "Maybe talking to someone, heart to heart, is like fighting. In fighting, there's... advantage, and disadvantage, and economy of motion, and reach, and predictions--but there's not an 'I Win' button. And as frustrating and sad as that is right now, maybe it's better that way."

     "..." Phreak doesn't answer Ishirou at first, save for a slow, weighty turn of his head to let his gaze rest upon him. "I appreciate it. But I'll tell you. What I want to do right now, Ishirou," he says in a hushed tone, "Is get healed up, find a Trait that says I don't gotta sleep, and throw myself at whatever bullshit those two assholes did, hard enough to catch up. Then I want to get ahead of them, find every little point and sidequest on the map on the map for Traits that say 'stealthed assholes get fucked,' and I wanna throw myself at 'em until I break or I get a hold of it. And then, at three times the combat level, I wanna have a conversation with Vermillion about who's 'worthless.' That's what I wanna do, Ishirou."

    "I know it's wrong. I don't give a shit, either. I grew up getting beat and stolen from. Even more, when my brother died. I signed on with the Vanguard and suddenly I'm doing it to other people, and things are pretty great, because to me, that's all the world was. The guy with the stick and the guy under it. I joined the Watch to point it in a better direction. I thought, coming here, I could be something different. But I can't. So fuck them. If that's the only language they speak, they just fucked with the goddamn dictionary."
Ishirou Ishirou listens to Phreak, trying to think of something to say, and he's not sure he has anything.  He's mentally exhausted, he's hurt, and these status effects aren't making life easier.

Even still...

"It isn't," Ishirou thinks.  "The angry one...he sounded familiar in a lot of ways.  Not...actually familiar, but a way we've both felt.  Someone used that to get into your head and you pulled away.  Someone got in my head and made me think I was less than human.  Someone is in their head and pushing them to be like this.  I bet...I bet that they're chosen on purpose.  Specifically manipulated."

"We got to help them realize their mistakes before they turn that corner.  I...know you're angry and feeling this way is the best, but...I also think like they are right now, you know that won't heal.  Instead, let's find who built this sick world, and is manipulating these people..."

"And turn that energy you have right now on them.  But please.." he says, placing a hand on Phreak, "Do not sink back that way.  You're better than that.  You chose to change, and you shouldn't let anyone poison that feeling."