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Lilian Rook     For a nice change of pace, something Lilian has requested outside assistance with on her own world, which hasn't been common lately, doesn't necessarily mean a hideous amount of danger to everyone involved. It's for that reason that she's decided to accept a slightly higher amount of opportunistically available assistance; people who are relatively trustworthy and undeniably useful, rather than only people tightly in the know about the ultimate fate of the world and practically sworn to a blood pact about it.

    But she doesn't tell them every single little thing. As far is advertised, to the Library and the FDMO, this is a high-priority, personally-motivated mission, slightly outside of her official duties, to secure crucial intelligence regarding a collapsed American clandestine agency; one which had formerly presented as a fringe research group focused on psychic phenomena and avant-garde technology, whilst carrying out acts of illegal surveillance, assassination, and attempted abduction, abroad. The organization-- which she divulges the real name of: NAZCA-- was allegedly discovered, and so thoroughly burned by its parent agency, assets reabsorbed, reallocated, or destroyed, and Lilian intends to get to the bottom of it anyways, for them having targeted 'a close friend'.

    It's as close to the whole truth as it gets without mentioning a Divine Tree. There's also no real possibility of setting out from the West Coast Urban Center again, for how suspicious that starts to get, and how far it is to go, and so Lilian, unable to make use of Katrina's rover again (allegedly, she happens in be in Mexico right now), has made arrangements on her own, cooperating with James Bond to have a pair of unmarked vehicles suitable for 'highway travel' (meaning something very different here) delivered to the halfway point, where Lilian had been able to establish a Faerie Fast Travel spot before, and following that, a tiny artificial Warpgate.

    That is, of course, a beautiful little bowl-shaped valley built on an aquifer, just off what used to be a reserve, where generations of locals have kept the ground green and a small lake crystal despite the ending of the world a mile outside. It's not much of a stop, for a group like this, host to only a few hundred people set into a cozy hamlet with an acceptable minimum of modern amenities, but they greet the few faces they recognize very warmly, ask Lilian about her sister, reveal where they've kept the vehicles (under a tarp in a boat shed in case of helicopters), and see people off with gifts again; spare baking, good luck charms, and tiny magical tchotchkes.

    The group is divided between the two vehicles this time, owing to how poorly it went with nine people crowded into a jeep before. Lilian is driving one. Both are linked by an always-on, closed loop, short-range radio, and front-and-back interior cameras. The road itself, once leaving the edge of the valley, is as some remember it; an eerie scene of unearthly wilderness where an alien hand has thoroughly twisted what was once a desert into something like a primordial sea floor, colonized by bleached-bone organic megaliths and forests of weightless iridescent weeds, in turn used as scaffold for rust-red capillary vines and flowering coral-like earth-cancers. Even the sand is blue-black and cold, though it's otherwise as hot as it should be for the location and time of year.
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Ride shotgun

    Last time you saw Arthur Lowell around here was years ago probably. "Right? AGES. Probably DECADES." He rambles to nothing at all. He tried to call shotgun, with a cheating near-instant-teleport, but there's people here closer to Lilian, such as her *literal bride-to-be*, who he'll give that up for. But he'll be obnoxious about it.

    "BESIDES," He'd rambled. "Those NAZCA FUCKERS are gonna be LOOKIN' FOR ME. ALPHABET AGENCY got it out for YA BOY ARTHUR LOWELL. I better hunker down in the NONASSASSINATION SECTION." Like the non-smoking section? But he *had* stayed in Lilian's car, his talksprite frequently popping up on the video feed of it.

    "I guess OVERCHARGING THEIR WORST ENEMY was gonna get a bunch'a them RIPPED UP but not really get us, like, DATA." He admits. "I really didn't think that part through. NOTES for NEXT TIME. Which I think actually CAN'T EVER HAPPEN. But WHATEVER. Y'all are great at CLEANING UP MY MESSES." He reclines obnoxiously in the backseat, maybe taking up slightly too much space with whoever has joined him back there.

    "So what are we LOOKIN' FOR? Not that I'm gonna be SENSING MUCH if it isn't a WORMHOLE or a SINGULARITY or SPACE THINGY or somethin'." He leans over the front seat (somehow he simultaneously gets way too close to the front camera simultaneously). "Scavenging up some OLD FACILITY? I love finding KEYCARDS in the DARK COMPLEX for real."
Lilian Rook     With speed limits no longer extant, and the waypoint being in the middle of Nevada instead of on the coast of California, the drive shouldn't take more than an hour, and Lilian is mysteriously certain of a low possibility of wilderness attacks today.

    'Road rugged' vehicles mean big frames and ample airgaps here, not cramped and fuel efficient, with each one being suitable for six with leg room; two up front in a driver's compartment and a pair of facing two-seats in back. Tinted windows and air conditioning lend to the fact that conversation on the drive is more or less 'at will', though Lilian at least takes a little time to explain any questions.

    . . . . . . . .

    "The technical location of where we're heading is somewhere that used to be known as Wheeler Peak. There's not much that's special about it besides being the tallest one in the range. There'll be an abandoned ski resort and no snow, relatively untouched wilderness; we'll pass an old buddhist shrine on the way up. The 'base', as it were, was only created in the twenty-first century, and doesn't extend that far through the mountain, as far as I know." Lilian says, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, and mostly sounding convincing.

    "Part of the reason I know of it in the first place, besides aircraft movements, is the surprising lack of Antegent activity, or prior terraforming, in the area. Outside of being a covert training facility and experimental laboratory, I believe that it's also one node in a network of observatories with powerful radio and satellite equipment across the western country. One was found in a state of utter ruin the next state over, with all classified information already purged." That was Rita's doing, by the way. "This one seems to have come suddenly under attack by an unknown third party. It was previously very well defended, so it's likely that it was by equivalently trained covert operatives." Meaning, quietly, Ash.

    "Due to the sheer secrecy of this agency, I believe it'll be a little while longer before the loss is noticed, and then sanitized. Before then, any records that can be gathered will help tremendously. Digital, physical, regarding finances or travel; anything at all." Lilian pauses, making a little face in the rear view mirror. "But we have a few keywords to go on. 'Jormungandr', 'Hel', 'Garmr', 'Fenrir', 'Yggdrasil'. An operation titled 'Winter Hazel', and potentially others fitting a similar naming scheme. Anything with 'Hotel Tango Oscar', or repeated mentions of the word 'Spark' or 'Sparks'."
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Note the keycardist nature of the situation

    "DARK COMPLEX KEY CARDS! DARK COMPLEX KEY CARDS!" He cheers, as if he were hoping for this one.

> Arthur: Don't you hate corpses?

    "But honestly if there's, like, DEAD BODIES, I'm gonna need y'all to HANDLE THAT. So I don't gotta keep WASHING MY HANDS, obviously." Not for any uncool reasons. "I hope the MYSTERIOUS THIRD PARTY THAT YA BOY DON'T KNOW was the DISINTEGRATING kind. Not like they didn't have the goddamn OOMPH for it, that's for sure." He rambles, flicking some sunglasses onto his face. "Seriously though, I don't want to see corpsefest twenty-whatever-it-is."
Angela Malkuth and Roland have been asigned to this, with the former holding onto an Angelapad. Angela doesn't really need to know details to send her Librarians out to assist. Malktuh and Roland seem to be the ones that get along best with Lilian at the moment that she still employs and so that's who is getting sent out there. Angela of course insists that Malkuth takes her to the car that Lilian's driving which leaves Roland in the other car but once Malkuth is inside, she shrinks the little Angela window on her pad and opens up a Hod window and just starts talking to her.

"Are you enjoying your birthday, Hod?" Malkuth asks.

"Yeah...! I'm still thinking what to name him though." Hod, on her screen, lifts up a particularly large plush yellow duck. "I'm torn between Quackers and Tutu."

"Oh those are both cute names." Malkuth says. "Let me know what you end up picking!"

Roland wasn't 'part of the team' during the last adventure so he is reading up a little pamphlet that Hod wrote up for him describing the basics of the situation, though minus any stuff about Blooms and the like, but Roland figures he probably doesn't really need to know much of what's going on here. He's supposed just going to have to point his sword at whatever is being problematic.

''An abandoned ski resort.''

"Oh word--?" Roland asks.

''No snow.''

"Ah, well, we wouldn't have had time to enjoy a vacation." Roland reassures himself.

"That's probably one of the clues it's a black ops site of some kind, Roland." Malkuth says, barely refraining from using a diminuative. "Think it through a little."

Roland smiles sheepishly and adds, "Surprised they can control Antegent activity that strongly, but Angela said that our experience has largely been with some of the big ones. Anything not obvious in particular we should watch out for?"

''The keywords.''

Angela and Hod grimace in their respective windows. Malkuth exhales slowly. "Well, we packed our EGO just in case but if it's just a matter of going through information and data quickly..."

"Then you can count on our discretion as per established protocol." Angela adds.
Tamamo     Tamamo's reactions to the place are, of course, different for having already been here before. When offered gifts of little charms and well-wishes given physical form, she's prepared to offer the same in return, completing the cycle of gifting for the occasion. Baked goods wouldn't be out of the question, but she can only pack so many of those, and the current batch is the party's own use, hidden away in her wooden case luggage. Tiny cloth bags, their contents faintly sweet smelling, is what she warmly hands out, instead.

    Arthur attempts some teleport-cheating. Tamamo, being Tamamo, disapproves of cheating, pushing through in her voluminous robes to acquire the closest seat to Lilian's driver position. She's unaware of the relation of seats to shotguns -- but then, to be fair, so are most people. She's very aware of the difficulties of packing flowing clothing into small seats, but also somewhat used to this, as she settles softly into position with folds over folds to avoid touching the gear stick.

    Being a cold desert doesn't make things any different for her, in particular. She's dressed just well enough for the possibility of wildly diverging temperatures. The flora is more concerning, but this, too, is something she's seen before. More recently, even, having dealt with similar in researching for her little project near Niigata. 'Quiet worry' being a conversational non-starter, she pays some attention to what Arthur's shouting.

    "Overcharging...? What was it that was done?" Whether this is a new mess (to her) or one he's describing in a confusing manner on purpose is hard for her to guess.

    Naturally, she pays close attention to Lilian, and not just when she's speaking. "A buddhist shrine, out here? My, they certainly did travel far, after all." The USA's hippy era is something her time traveling origin missed even as far as its aftermath.

    "If the place was previously attacked... I suppose we need not worry for the same attackers, of a covert nature, being present. Whether wild animals, antegent, or operatives of their sister bases would have arrived before us... is more concerning."

    She thinks quietly back to her talk with Ash about code names, but doesn't speak on it just now.
Xion Xion isn't the sort of traveler who needs clandestine transportation to show up places, invited or not. But, if she indulges in the journey, Xion gets to go on roadtrips, and Organization XIII never arranged roadtrips since everyone just teleported or used public transportation.

So, despite the extremely high possibility of engaging in immediate and severe danger - with Lilian's requests for outside assistance always meaning something required the blundering of four sworn companions or six to eight overarmed mercenaries of personal justice - Xion appears at the appointed place and time dressed for light desert weather. Wearing dark denim jeans with a black belt centered with a star buckle, sturdy black work boots, a black tank top and a brown leather jacket with gunmetal buttons, and a checkered baseball cap with the stylization NEVERWAS Ltd. The period looks a little fuzzy, too. The back of the hat has a dangling red pom charm on thin dark chain around the bare adjustable hatband in the rear. Both of her wrists is wrapped about with and dangles a keychain: the left is a black keychain falling into a glass sphere containing moving crimson, and the right is a pale silver falling into an empty gold star-shape. She jangles, slightly, appearing from a dark and flat plane in the air such as to step from empty air from some perspectives and appear in a curtain-brush of darkness and an exchange of atmosphere, and smiles faintly when she peers around the town from her defaulting 'distant-thoughtful' composition. This place was nice, and it would be a shame to leave it quickly. But then again,

She left most places quickly. Lilian had reminded her of that when she pulled her head up from the business of obligations and mercenary salvation and the 'bad feeling' she had fallen into. Where had she ever stayed?

It was kind, of this place to offer her memento, despite a promise of payment. Xion could produce coins of all sorts of kind but mostly what she had seemed to be various denominations of round-pointed diamonds. Munny was... funny.

Carrying an minor magic tchotchkie that she could not as readily scan through in her inventory and find out what of the Only Three Statistics (and the 20 derived statistics and secondary attributes everyone had - you know the ones! all twenty!!) would be affected by it. It didn't... work like that.

So she just held onto it, thumbing it in her pocket to make sure the luck or protection didn't go into sleep mode or turn itself off for inactivity.

Xion looks at the two vehicles, considering, is nearly about to call shotgun when Arthur does it and obnoxiously immediately starts posting, realizes there's a SECOND seat available--

"Driv--!" Xion begins, and then, realizes that the enormous rugged road vehicle James got from whatever hellscape eight lane road country produced six seat Wrangler Road Manglers aren't primarily operated through candy switch and lollipop clutch.

"Nevermind." She admits, realizing James is going to drive, and then seeing Roland head that way... No. It can't be a *guy car*, can it? Did Lilian gather enough to fit in a Wrangler? "Since Arthur's in that car, I'll go in the other one." Xion reasons though, deciding that it was okay as long as she had a reason that wasn't pure desire to follow through. Even if she wanted to. Especially if.

Climbing into the back and sitting facing forward, Xion kicks her feet a bit and listens to the briefing. "So," She thinks. "We're probably looking for anything with fire-relevant codenames too. Like 'Wildfire' or 'Burning', too, or detonations, or fuses. Anything that's a step or two away from Sparks."

Malkuth's exhale and the Angela-Hod grimace makes Xion smile faintly again. "Hey, I'm mostly a big key swung around, but, I expect at least one locked door in the place, so we can team up."
Foundation Scions     Matilda Bouanich, representative of the FDMO, is quite excited to make good on a somewhat self-guided mission of the organization (beyond its clear intent on keeping tabs on wayward Timekeepers), that of attending 'outreach' opportunities where she can do what she'd consider similar to the duties of a Foundation Investigator, and otherwise earn the good graces and attention of the likes of important figures out in the myriad worlds of the multiverse- it kind of just so happens that a large number of opportunities to play the part of an eager little hero are in some way associated with Lilian Rook.

    She's come prepared more as a diviner than a fixer- she's barely one of those, while she's an excellent foreseer of events- which means she's wearing silly outdoorsy overall shorts, a flat-topped brimmed hat, and carrying along a satchel for her crystal orbuculum and incense censors, along with the likes of sunscreen, bugspray, granola bars and as-ever a Foundation emergency communications device- and reading materials for the 'road trip' aspect of the outing. Is she the most conspicuously dressed for raiding the remnants of a clandestine government organization? Probably not, but she might be up there! Everything about her reads 'literal tourist', except the layered bracelets and necklaces of dangling crystal charmwork she thought to wear. It's the same getup she wore the other time she's visited this world, coincidentally- maybe she doesn't have that many outfits?

    On the other side of the warpgate, despite being aware of the generally-serious nature of the task, Matilda is still smiles and waves to the Elites she recognizes, and ostentatious introductions to those she doesn't. Despite the brimmed hat, she still frequently shields her eyes from the sun with her hands, as she looks around the little town.

    Matilda is ever one to eye the good luck charms the more-familiar-to-the-townspeople Elites are handed, peering over shoulders to ascertain what sort of warding is deemed necessary- and otherwise look wanting enough of one to maybe, possibly, luckily, get handed one out of pity.
Foundation Scions . . .

    "To see a blue desert... this truly is such an unusual landscape, unnerving (perhaps to those less-brave, not I), to look out onto..."

    Matilda has seated herself in the very back of a car! Trying to fight for anything but, does not even occur to her- only a little bit of intuition is needed to figure out that she is used to being driven places, be it by taxi, by hired driver, or by busy family. With how she neatly tucks her bag of equipment between her feet, it's more likely 'taxi'.

    The exception is a book she's kept open in her lap, but doesn't seem to ever be able to focus on reading with such a buzz around- A dusty hardcover printing of Verlaine's Poèmes saturniens, the current phase of her efforts to pour over poetry to name her sword in a comparative way to Sonetto's. As evidenced by the dozens of dog-ears in the book, she hasn't made anything close to a decision of what to pull from.

'I believe that it's also one node in a network of observatories with powerful radio and satellite equipment across the western country.'

    "Such would make sense... the American Southwest, as I have always heard, was most famed for its unusually clear night-time skies even in more modern eras... ah, if the timing is convenient to get a chance to see such with my own eyes..." Matilda trails off, eyes out the car window on the blue sky above. "Is there to be such a chance? Oh! What phase is the moon in, currently?"

'But we have a few keywords to go on.'

    "Hm! Kept in theme..! But, why Norse?" Matilda overestimates the reasonings of Secret Evil Military.

'Anything that's a step or two away from Sparks.'

    "These are Americans, no? Perhaps 'barbecue cookout'?" Matilda says this dead serious.
James Bond      Bond arrives in a casual outfit chosen for the dry heat; a sky blue polo under a beige harrington jacket with cream-colored jeans and dark hiking shoes. Sunglasses hang by the frame on the neck of his polo.

    To be welcomed back in this particular way is something James is a little unused to. It's one thing to come back to a workplace; you might like the people there, but it isn't really your choice or theirs to be there. You know those people in the context of work, and it colors everything you do with or near them. This is different. James, who is used to silently slipping in and out of places like this, wasn't really ready to be greeted like he was the first time he visited, and the second time isn't much different. He awkwardly accepts the small good luck charm he's given, holding it in both hands without any clear need to.

    The first thing he'd ever kept from an assigment was a handmade gun from an Urban Center. Then, he'd kept it as a gesture of insignificant defiance against M and the entire structure she represented. It seemed like so much more than that, back then, when his other, similar gestures amounted to being a few minutes late or dragging his feet to reach a pickup. It's hard for him to imagine the gunsmith remembering him. He wouldn't have believed these people would, if he weren't holding proof preciously in his hands like something impossibly small and fragile. This little bone pendant will be cared for, as much as the old woman who gave it to him wished it to care for him. "Thank you," he says sheepishly, tucking it into his pocket.

    Bond naturally insists on driving the other vehicle. Having helped coordinate its arrival, he of course had a certain level of say in aftermarket modifications for his own. The one thing he won't accept is fights over who gets shotgun, which he will dissuade in the same way that he dissuaded Trudy from needling Petra: by threatening to drink more and more alcohol the longer any such fights go on, thus endangering the lives of everyone in the vehicle.

    Surprised they can control Antegent activity that strongly, but Angela said that our experience has largely been with some of the big ones.

    "That's something of a specialty of theirs. I wasn't always a Paladin. When I worked for a different agency, we had eyes on these people, after an attack on an Urban Center." Bond's mouth twitches downwards at the corners as the memory comes back to him. "The Antegent didn't attack any of their people--only the people they wanted to be attacked. If this facility is anything like the others I know of, the control is part of what made it so defensible in the first place. They could direct who the Antegent would and wouldn't attack. Ideally, whoever attacked it also took care of the Antegent. Or at least didn't make them our problem."

Hey, I'm mostly a big key swung around, but, I expect at least one locked door in the place, so we can team up.

    "'Mostly,'" Bond repeats, with fond doubt.
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: What was it that was done?

    Arthur briefly leans over the passenger seat, whispering in Tamamo's ears. He starts first down where human ears would be, but restarts back at where her actual ears are shortly after remembering. "Remember the Armillary? The weird repeating game-dimension? *Don't* tell Ash, but I designed it to end with blasting the shit out of them, but like, with superpower stuff, on purpose. 'Cuz I figured if they were free to pick what they wanted to, they'd pick the right thing, as long as we made some decent arguments first."

    He jabs a finger at her cheek obnoxiously. "And you can't tell them I helped *on purpose* 'cause they need to know I'm the correct amount of stupid or rude and not get it twisted 'cuz I was doing other shit for a little. A man's pride is on the line and they would'a hijacked it anyway so same difference. I don't want 'em thinking I'm cringe, or *liking* me for it, or *worse*." Who is he trying to exclude with this whispering? Petra. He's trying to make absolutely certain Petra doesn't hear this. Xion on the other hand probably remembers it from heavily participating in the planetary design, and Angela could surely infer it incredibly easily from knowing how repeating loops are designed, so this is *purely* to try to make sure Petra doesn't gossip it back to Ash. Which has just as much chance of making sure that happens.
Tamamo     'And you can't tell them...'

    "Of course, Mr. Lowell. I would never be so crass." Revealing things just to hurt someone's pride is something Tamamo hasn't done... even to Petra, technically speaking! Of course, she won't start now.

    "I understand entirely." Maybe not about what 'get it twisted' or 'being cringe' mean, but she can make an educated guess about both those and 'the correct amount of stupid.'
Petra Soroka     Petra has barely put down her phone (NOT mad) from texting Ash when it's time to go. Fucking around with some abandoned NAZCA site that's a relic of how work they all did resulted in a stupid annoying intelligence agency full of assholes falling apart is a good way to vent her (NOT even a little bit upset) feelings, and, besides, she's obligated to bring herself along as a tool for Lilian to use on any mission she needs. She shuts her schoolwork, tosses on a tank top and an off-shoulder tee, puts on a baseball hat for the sun, and gnaws her way through a pack of candy cigarettes while heading out the door.

    Petra is basically as caught up with the situation as it's possible to be. She's so caught up in it that her face gets occasionally rubbed in it via text for literally no reason even though she's done nothing wrong and everyone's just looking for opportunities to dunk on her even when she hasn't even done anything she *regrets*. At least the outpost town is a welcome-enough site... until she starts thinking about the last time she was here, with Cinder, Rita, *and* Yuri....

    She's awkwardly unprepared to receive any kind of gift, and immediately becomes inflicted with the harrowed dread of realizing that she should have brought gifts for *them* instead. While Lilian is extracting the vehicles and supplies, Petra uses the short bit of free time to scramble up the side of the valley, sitting on the edge of it where she can look over the aquifer and the town around. At the border between the carefully-cultivated civilization outside of the Urban Centers, and the Antegent-stained apocalypse behind her, Petra takes a few minutes of meditative breathing to retune her mind to the environment, mentally aligning the intangible internals of her body to seamlessly move through it.

    Petra would like to sit shotgun besides Lilian. This is a fool's errand. Failing that, she would like to at least be in the same car as her. Somehow, she fucking beefs this too. She ends up in the back of the car that Bond is driving, facing across from the illustrious Matilda Bouanich rather than literally anywhere else, and her discontent with this practically radiates off of her while she smooshes her palm into her cheek, leaning against the window to look outside.

"I better hunker down in the NONASSASSINATION SECTION."

    "Well then I'll just be here hanging out in the assassination row with a biiig old target painted on my forehead." Petra grumbles at Arthur, because it's always very easy to grumble at Arthur and it improves her mood to do it.

    A minute later, once the cars roll out, she thoughtfully adds, "I would be so good at looking for keycards in the dark complex."

"Well, we packed our EGO just in case but if it's just a matter of going through information and data quickly..."

    "We've got a lot of practice with that, huh, Ange?" Petra sighs at... well, Roland, since she's been separated from the Angela-tablet by a terrible turn of events. Still, she isn't lying-- she would fucking love to find keycards and go through databases. And maybe delete some incriminating evidence that NAZCA gathered on her before anyone else stumbles across it.

"To see a blue desert... this truly is such an unusual landscape, unnerving (perhaps to those less-brave, not I), to look out onto..."

    "Oh, not you, definitely." Petra takes a moment to match the voice and name in her head, but Matilda actually makes it very easy on both counts. "What brought you along, Matildork? Got a grudge against the CIA?"

"These are Americans, no? Perhaps 'barbecue cookout'?"

    Petra snorts and coughs into her elbow.
Foundation Scions 'What brought you along, Matildork?'

    "It is pronounced 'Matilda'. Mah-till-dah. To use such in a sentance, 'wow, this is a chance to make the acquaintance of the great Matilda Bouanich', yes-?" Enough time has passed that, despite having been gaslit into the positive meaning of that nickname, she still has to correct her on the mistake! In the dorkiest way possible.

    "Ah-hem, and, I have no strong opinion on the CIA? That is, erm, one of the American government's information branches? The Foundation occasionally makes negotiation with them, if the Era is appropriate for such a thing, I believe... But, I was informed this is of the dealings of 'NAZCA'? That is different than the CIA, yes? On account of it having a different name. Did *you* pay attention to briefing information?" She shuffles around, and goes to pull folded papers from her densely-packed bag. "I brought notes."

'I would be so good at looking for keycards in the dark complex.'

    "I, most certainly, would be even better at looking for keycards in a dark complex!!"
Lilian Rook     'I better hunker down in the NONASSASSINATION SECTION.'

    "Back two seats." Lilian says, non sequitur, probably just so his volume is very slightly diminished. "Good to see you too, Lowell."

    'But WHATEVER. Y'all are great at CLEANING UP MY MESSES.'

    "Is that a 'thank you' I detect?" she says, raising an eyebrow in the mirror. "Indeed I am. I've had lots of practice with people far worse than you. So you're welcome."

    'Ah, well, we wouldn't have had time to enjoy a vacation.'

    "If it's any consolation, it was last used as a training scenario block. It's probably riddled with bullet holes and radiation now." Lilian says, leaving off the Melting Love part.

    'Surprised they can control Antegent activity that strongly'
    'If this facility is anything like the others I know of, the control is part of what made it so defensible in the first place.'

    "I doubt that they are, unless their abilities far exceed what even I'm aware of." she says. "We've known them to have means of attracting them to certain places, and rendering their agents invisible to them, but not much more than that. It's likely that the area was originally Antegent-free, or relatively so, for as-of-yet undiscovered reasons. It's also plausible that it's a low traffic area that they were simply able to suppress by force. In the unlikely occasion one comes across you, and you don't notice immediately, chances are that your best shot is to monitor yourself for gaps in continuity of thought, or thoughts and impulses that aren't actually related to a previous one, as well as signs that you're perceiving a different environment, set of stimuli, or ostensible reality than others around you."

    'A buddhist shrine, out here? My, they certainly did travel far, after all.'

    It's not as if there are any other cars on the road, but Lilian makes it brief when she takes her eyes away to lean over and kiss Tamamo on the cheek. "That's the age of globalization for you." she says. "Though, in retrospect, it feels silly to call it an 'age' now, seeing as it didn't even last a century in the end. Hmm." She blinks. "Ah, don't worry though. Sakura and I put our heads together, and we're not expecting danger. Or at least, whatever danger there might be is so far beneath our pay grade that we should handle it easily."

    'I expect at least one locked door in the place, so we can team up.'

    "That's what I'm hoping for." Lilian says, with a smile no less. "Gathered in one place, it seems that I'm actually quite good at befriending people with multifaceted skillsets and a helpful attitude, rather than the Elite-typical crowd of ultraviolent storm clouds. Funny that." After a moment, she says half-quietly, "And also the only missions with men in them."

    Shockingly (to most people), the charms Matilda gets her hands on are actually effectual. An old man with two adult daughters in the mix apparently thought Matilda was adorable enough to press one into her hands, too, recently made; a glossy stone from the bottom of the lake, hollowed out with surprising precision, punctures made around a singular guitar-like port and strung back and forth with fine thread (treated animal hair?) to create a slightly spirographic design covering it. The protection seems to be against a portfolio somewhat like evil thoughts, bad dreams, becoming lost, and . . . the moon?
Lilian Rook     'ah, if the timing is convenient to get a chance to see such with my own eyes... Is there to be such a chance? Oh! What phase is the moon in, currently?'

    "Its paucity of human inhabitants, even relative to the rest of America, may be to blame for that." Lilian says, a tiny bit grim. "Waning crescent. About the safest there is outside of the new moon." she answers, easily and automatically, like it's the temperature.

    'Hm! Kept in theme..! But, why Norse?'

    "I think they just thought it was impressive." Lilian shrugs on the wheel. "Good to have you as well, Miss Bouanich. And the organization going by 'NAZCA' is something I believe intentional, however. Most likely to do with absurd secret theories regarding the famous lines."

    'These are Americans, no? Perhaps 'barbecue cookout'?'

    "You're thinking of Australians." Lilian says, ever so helpfully.

    'Well then I'll just be here hanging out in the assassination row with a biiig old target painted on my forehead.'

    "You're always doing that. Don't joke about it." Lilian sighs. "If I sent you looking for keycards in a dark complex, you'd fall down between the cosmic couch cushions and emerge from a fairy hill ten years older having become a slave in a post-apocalyptic gladiator pit and won your freedom via awakening to your magical girl powers."
Angela ''Hey, I'm mostly a big key swung around.''

"You understate yourself." Angela says, knowing full well that key being swung around saved her life in more ways than one. "It doesn't really matter. So long as the work is easier as a result of our presence than harder I will take that as a satisfying accomplishment."

"Pretty excited for a scavenger hunt though." Roland adds, blithely. Thanks toe the short range radio, these conversations are a bit odd but not impossible or improbable.

For some reason, Matilda doesn't look exactly quite like she expected, but Angela can't see that Matilda's got her own book of poetry in her hands so she isn't in a position to inquire over it but she bobs her head in agreement with Bond's doubt. "Well a bit of projected humility ise understandable all the same." She adds, gaze shifting towards Arthur with an utterly deadpan expression. Is it possible she's picking up that audio? Unclear. Her eyes follow Arthur as he moves to her actual ears. She bites the inside of her cheek so she doesn't rudely bark out a laugh at the slightly bizarre sight.

Angela of course didn't get any gift she wasn't really ever here.

''We've got a lot of practice with that, huh, Ange?''

"Indeed," Angela says from a whole other car. "Roland seems--" She trails off since she almost went into-- "Competent at this sort of work. But it is always nice when one's specialties shine, even in work such as this."

"I thought it was a term of endearment." Roland adds, on the matter of Matildork. "I'm not really from a world with 'Americas' but a lot of this stuff just works simllarly everywhere, I figure. Seems to have some Hana, some Eye, maybe some Claw."

He looks to Petra. "We probably wouldn't be the first assassination targets at least." Being the assassination doers, however, that's another matter.

"If I forget something I will immediately report it." Angela promises. "Since it is likely to stand out." Of course, it's entirely possible she's gained the ability to forget and hasn't realized it yet but she's not going to bring that up. "But I'll be counting on Malkuth as well, as the one holding me. ... Malkuth, we may be observed right now, so you might wish to disconnect from Hod."

"Ah...yeah... Sorry Hod." Malkuth solemnly disconnets.

''Lilian foretelling Petra's fate.''

Roland chirps up, "Well that doesn't sound so bad, with the freedom at the end. "But don't worry, I'll investigate any couch cushions carefully, ma'am, before we risk venturing inside them."
Xion > Perceive general joy at the thought of going through a place looking for keyCARDS...

Xion continues to smile faintly, but sits back and glances out the window. Really, with the ongoing Meaningful Rivalry Between Women Both of Whom Would Appreciate An Enemy Ace Title, maybe she should calm down about the giant magic key that would make this mission potentially deeply boring and unenriching.

In her 'making sacrifices for friends' melancholy-smile, Xion hears 'Woman White' on her radio and thinks about Petra in an all-white or white-centric fit. Dress? No. Full trousers and jacket? Did checkers save it? Xion generally didn't work with white clothes. . .

"Maybe a white jacket over a pink tank top and bright jeans? That might work..." Xion makes a style stab at the conundrum of WOMAN WHITE and then considers The Great Matilda Bouanich who sits besides in the back.

> Perceive 'America'.

"Well... actually, that's not a bad idea? Barbeque, propane - I'm sure they have plenty of cheeky names for things. If you're good at going through papers, you'll be better than me. Oh, we haven't met.

Seatbelted, she leans across to offer her splayed hand to Matilda. "I'm Xion." The blue-eyed noirette grins. "Some sort of mercenary. Like I said, I've got a big key."

James gives her sass. Before she has a chance to reply to him, he causes so much sass Petra gets out her laptop and starts hiring Etsy witches to hex the Chevalier driving. So, she shrugs with a sigh of a laugh and nods. "Like James said, I do some other stuff too. I think I might be letting you compete in the keycard contest with Arthur, but if you need my help, let me know." Withdrawing, as entire afterthought, she casually adds: "Oh! I can also teleport? People understand it as teleporting. By the way, your necklaces are quite nice - do they have a meaning? Or are they just for looks?"

Lilian's real enjoyment at having Xion around for necessary Key Activities doesn't go without a less-faint smile of the noirette's own, Xion twirling her right index about the dangling chain ending in star charm idly.

"You do have a talent for bringing people along for things, Lilian." Xion agrees, gentle-voiced. "I think you do a lot better than ultraviolent stormclouds even if I think Arthur could pull one in a hurry."
Petra Soroka "To use such in a sentence, 'wow, this is a chance to make the acquaintance of the great Matilda Bouanich', yes-?"

    There's an important balance to strike between everyone dogging on Petra in the radio, and the eminently bulliable weirdo lecturing her in the other seat. There's something wrong with her, to make the way to improve her mood from being bullied earlier include being bullied now, but it's all fine as long as she can balance it out this way.

    "Uh huh. What about this sentence instead: 'what's that nerd stuff you're reading, Matildork'?" She tilts her head and squints to get a better look. "Oh, wait, poetry?"

"That is different than the CIA, yes? On account of it having a different name."

    Since Petra's joke didn't land, she has to double and triple down. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you weren't fully briefed on everything. *Obviously*, in the *twenty-first century*, the various different American intelligence agencies all get folded together into one. The different name is just to throw the civilians off, obviously."

"If I sent you looking for keycards in a dark complex, you'd fall down between the cosmic couch cushions and emerge from a fairy hill ten years older having become a slave in a post-apocalyptic gladiator pit and won your freedom via awakening to your magical girl powers."

    The only part of this that Petra can really refute is "I would *never* get ten years older!" But more seriously, Petra is forced to come up with a way to defend her ability to do what she sees as a speciality of hers-- hunting for digital information in a fucked up facility-- without causing problems for Lilian (namely, problems like 'aging').

    "But, uh, I can-- I can go somewhere without supervision for a *little* bit without vanishing. And also, if NAZCA's got a portal to some otherworld locked away in one of their containment cells, then that's probably *good* to know, actually."

"Maybe a white jacket over a pink tank top and bright jeans? That might work..."

    Now that Xion's talking about *fashion*, Petra has to do away with the indignity of her title and think about clothes. She looks down at herself-- green, black, blue, mostly-- and bites the inside of her lip. "I don't... *wear* white that often? I mean... well... I guess the Beauty of Ash (no relation) is the closest I get. Or just taking off a suit jacket. I feel like bright colors make me look washed-out? You know?"

"Barbeque, propane - I'm sure they have plenty of cheeky names for things."

    "I *think* they'd aim for 'cool and mystical'... really I feel like we can safely bet on anything with a stupid fucking headassed capital letter being important."

"Seems to have some Hana, some Eye, maybe some Claw."

    "Well, they also had a person with a horseshit invincible power who could singlehandedly wipe us out, so toss in some Arbiter too." TIP: The A in A Corp stands for 'Ash'!

"We probably wouldn't be the first assassination targets at least."

    "Probably not anymore, yeah." Petra agrees with Roland. She *was* promised that she'd be the first assassination target before, but NAZCA's gone! Yay!
Lilian Rook     The drive, as promised, isn't all that long. That's partly because of how disgustingly fast it is. Fast enough that you don't even feel the bumps under the wheels as they practically fly over them. It'd be deeply inadvisable with someone with less than Bond's or Lilian's reflexes (and frankly, she isn't a tenth the driver he is) to be pulling a hundred even on a road this suspiciously well-packed down, but it's not exactly if there are interstate police anymore.

    Every so often, as is common here, a vast, glassy crater, or the rusted hulk of an old fighting vehicle, go past the windows on either side, but it truly is so quiet out here under the wide open sky that it's uncanny. Lilian eventually solicits music to turn on as a countermeasure, not having thought to load a tape deck herself.

    The transition from alien no-man's land to terrestrial familiarity isn't gradual, but isn't so sharp as to paint a specific boundary. The unpleasant flora dies off first, then the bleached mineral growths trickle away and sink back into the earth a couple of minutes later, leaving behind barren dirt and sand for a stretch of brief miles, just as the terrain starts to rise. Sharp foothills of darker and darker shades eventually get as far as a trickling creek, then a tributary river, and high walls of striated stone on either side of the cars, until finally the greenery seems to pop up from nowhere. Despite the lack of glacial snow on the now-obvious mountain or the massive valley and wilderness park around it, the world outside the windows is defined by overgrown boreal forest.

    A tiny shrine does, indeed, pass by, just as the car slows to navigate the narrowing switchback trails at a less deadly pace. It's clearly been disused for a long time, but someone has occasionally maintained it with local, rough-hewn materials, perhaps once a year.

    The long incline is gradual, and navigates between the shadow of an adjacent, smaller peak, and the zigzag river btween two glacial lakes. There's no sign whatsoever that anyone, much less military, was ever holed up here, until the uppermost portion of the ride, where even Lilian slows down again, out of an abundance of caution; where the ski resort also passes, as promised.

    'Riddled with bullet holes' doesn't do it justice. It looks like it's been carpet bombed. Every available surface is scarred from top to bottom, the pavement is burnt and partially melted, the nearby trees for several rows have already lost their needles and died, and no trace of machinery-- not even a spent shell casing-- remains. Lilian signals Bond to park here, in the shadow of a relatively intact three-level concrete parkade, and points upward as she gets out, towards a narrow slice of an overlook at the peak, where the ski line once carried people up to. From here, you can just barely see signs of a clear plateau encircling the natural mountaintop, perhaps a ten minute walk from here.
Tamamo     Tamamo isn't sure why Lilian took time off from driving to give her a kiss just then, but there hardly needs to be a reason, after all! She mms happily, and only considers the words seriously a few moments later. "Globalization... the present state of affairs is marked by isolation, even more so than in the age that lacked such conveyances as these. For such a thing to precede a return to hidden mountain villages..." She thinks quietly on it a bit longer, before turning her head toward the rear seats.

    "How are you finding field work, Ms. Malkuth?" Tamamo asks, by way of conversation. As they cycle their duties, she can only see each librarian every so often.

    "Oh, a happy birthday to you, Ms. Hod," she gets in before the connection needs to be cut.

    'Ah, don't worry though. Sakura and I put our heads together, and we're not expecting danger.'

    "That saves me some trouble, as well." She can't very well perform a leisurely divination while in a seat belt. They're so oddly constricting.

    ...you'd fall down between the cosmic couch cushions and emerge from a fairy hill ten years older...

    "Having no need to wait about for her return is an optimistic aspect of such a prediction."
Foundation Scions 'Waning crescent. About the safest there is outside of the new moon.'

    Matilda thumbs the newly-received charm, pouting ever so slightly. She's held it gently, and appreciatively, but still- the subject makes her sad. "I- ahem, must admit, it is most truly a shame that the Moon, she is no friendly sort, in this place... But no matter... waning crescent is most auspicious for last-moment chances and opportunity, such as, perhaps, this whole mission. I do say this is a good omen~!"

"Please call me Matilda! And, erm, it is a text of one of the more highly-esteemed of French poets, if you are familiar, in fact, with the work of Verlaine? Writer of such memorable odes as 'Clair de lune', which so inspired famous composer Debussey to create the piece by the same name?" A pause. "I liked that poem, and decided to study over his other work, of course~! Again, please call me Matilda."

'*Obviously*, in the *twenty-first century*, the various different American intelligence agencies all get folded together into one.'

    Matilda's eyes go wide- "I- I knew that! And for what it is worth, I think it is most strange of a decision for them to have made! Why, it must lead to such great inefficiency!"

'Oh, we haven't met.'

    Matilda takes Xion's hand and shakes, eager- "Matilda Bouanich, top-notch Diviner of the St. Pavlov Foundation, as well as many other things! It is, of course, a pleasure for you to get to make my acquaintance!" That's not how the greeting usually goes, "A... 'big key'? Is that some sort of hidden phrase for another meaning? Or, do you actually just have an extraordinarily large doorkey?"

    Either way, she is curious!

'By the way, your necklaces are quite nice - do they have a meaning? Or are they just for looks?'

    "Mm! They are both stylish *and* multifunctional- divination is a dangerous art, and require cognizance of the threats of bad luck and lingering curses one can bring unto foretellings, or beckon onto yourself in the process! So, these," She points, half-cut crystal to polished gold emblems to well-worn wooden beadwork, "Balance and mitigate most outside influences, to ease passage and bring less, erm, 'metaphorical outside-dirt inside on my metaphorical ritual-shoes'? Does such make sense?"

    As for whether they're 'tangibly magical', they clearly are to her- but the jury is out for anyone else. "My family is responsible for the cut and polish of many of these stones! Work in fine crystal is, of course, the staple of the Bouanich line, and our trade is well-renowned worldwide~!"
Foundation Scions . . .

    "It almost begins to look like the dryer parts of the Alps, with the rising rocky peaks..." Matilda murmurs, having overall little experience seeing real mountains out in the wild. "Such excellent spots to seek crystals out... oh, but how I wish there was more time for excursions!" Matilda Bouanich is a girl who gets two weeks of vacation time per year. Stopping at a highway-side 7-11 would be an exciting excursion for her. The vestiges of the ski town draw her eyes, face pressed dog-like to the glass of the window, poetry book long-forgotten in her lap- "Like a true war-zone... Why? Did people live here, in the midst of this world's disasters..?"

    Hopping out of the vehicle, she nearly stumbles, and has to take a few quick steps to re-balance, tugging her little rucksack straps tighter to her shoulders. "Ah- oh, you can feel the thin-ness in the air, comparatively! We are to..." Eyes shielded by her hand, following others' gazes, "Hike higher-up the peak..? Hmm! How refreshing such a walk will be, it is always most advisable to stretch legs after sitting for too long!"

    Matilda Bouanich wants to Run and Jump! It's so clear looking at her. "Oh- but, when is it we must start to be quiet and careful of our notice..? Right now..?"
James Bond <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "It's all ADJECTIVE NOUN right? If you didn't have a MECHA and you didn't have FIXED LOCATION STUFF and you kinda don't have a THEME, so you were just RUNNIN' AROUND. 'RUNNING WOMAN SPOTTED'. Wait, no, they were colors, so you'd have been..." He gets distracted in the middle of thinking about that. "I kinda wonder if that stuff even worked on Ash. Seemed like they had good-ass reason for detaching people from names."
<J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "Since they had the heart of a true gamer and all."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond finishes for Arthur. "Woman White."
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "I have a mech now! You can't just call me that!"
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond reveals one of the added features: a window between the front and back halves of the cabin, which he performatively rolls up as Petra protests.
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka grumbles while pulling out a computer, "You can't shut me up. You're trapped in a box that's receiving fucking radio frequencies. If you tried to run away into the wilderness I could tape a loudspeaker to a ratbot and yell at you through that."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond answers by veering suddenly, as if to flip the car over, then corrects.
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka yelps. "Hey!"
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "I don't need this! I'll just walk if you're not gonna drive safely!"
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond serenely pulls over to the side of the road.
<J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Ms. Soroka, please behave. One should not unduly distract a driver."
<J-IC-Scene> Matilda Bouanich says, not in on the Petra-bullying, "Was it not a clearly intentional swerving of the car..?"
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond says, "Salt corrosion."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Behold. My crack team of veteran operatives."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond says, "She needs this. It's like vitamins to her, and she's not in the same car to get it from you like she normally does."

     It's also a form of enrichment for Bond, who had requested the partition window specifically as an anti-Arthur countermeasure but is happy to be able to use it to bully Petra just a little. Sadly she does not take him up on his offer to let her walk, thus depriving him of the opportunity to fake speeding off just to circle back around and accelerate just enough to make getting back in a matter of awkwardly jogging. C'est la vie.

     With the day's amusement out of the way, the trip up the mountain is undergone with much more of the discipline that Matilda would appreciate. Pulling into the spot bidden by Lilian, he gets out and surveys the site. "Nothing if not thorough," he opines on the utter destruction and the lack of any obvious mechanical assistance.

     Following her pointing, he nods, snaps the lapels of his jacket and checks his watch, then heads up the trail.

Did people live here, in the midst of this world's disasters..?

     "For the most part," says Bond, "The disasters drove people out of places like this, unless they had specific ways to survive them. A lot of people thought they did, but didn't. I'm told the Americans used up most of their arsenal in the early parts. But even they ended up developing Urban Centers after a while."
Angela "Ahh happy birthday to you too wait shoot--" Hod manages to tell Tamamo before the connection is cut.

"Oh it's nice to get out again. Though work at Lobcorp doesn't exactly train one for spy missions, we owe the Dame Commander so much, really, and your visits were always so lovely--it's nice to be able to pay a little bit of that back. How about you? It's been lovely having you around helping with the Abnormalities, but we haven't really been able to talk much during those ventures. Have you been working at the Trideag Association too?"

Angela feels the reach of the world as distant once more. She closes her eyes. Sometimes even being out there doesn't even feel real, like there's impermeable barrier--one more phantom injury she has to contend with. But she best avoid the whining.

"Oh missed the ten years older part. Man, I'd really not expect to hit middle age myself." He's imagining grimworld mid thirties Petra. But, like, in the Magical Girl of Love's outfit--as she's the only magical girl he knows of. He frowns. It doesn't feel exactly right to him.

"Yeah yeah, but it's best to stick in pairs at least. It's always good to have someone covering you and someone for you to cover. The nature of heading into rough turf."

''So toss in some Arbiter too.''

Roland smiles, "I was trying to avoid thinking about that. But you said ''had'' so maybe I don't gotta stress that much."

''Probably not anymore, yeah.''

Roland frowns at that 'anymore'. "Always an honor to be nominated." He murmurs. He grips the side of his seat as the incline gets steeper and the road more zigzaggy. Malkuth notices and sniggers at him which results in him crossing his arms. "Not used to cars," He mumbles.

When they arrive...

"It feels like forever ago we were worrying about our radio signals being intercepted. A lot can change at a rapid pace even when you so briefly turn your gaze."

Malkuth and Roland pile out of the cars. Roland wants to run and jump! Malkuth, summoning her EGO--Fairy Festival--looks like she could just climb up the mountainside. But she's still holding onto the Angelapad, which she actually offers to Roland who offers it to Petra.

"Don't think they left any surprises behind, do ya?" Roland asks.
Tamamo     'Ahh happy birthday to you too wait shoot--'

    Tamamo smiles.

    'How about you?'

    "I suppose many things have conspired to make me rather busy. It is a bit of a problem, as I would wish to live in leisure as much as any. Oh, but I have been glad to help with the Abnormalities, of course. I am quite hopeful about such things. To see children be given a chance that would have been denied them... is that not a wonderful thing?"

    'Have you been working at the Trideag Association too?'

    "Though I had considered it, Lilian suggested that it would be strange for her to be my 'boss.' I suppose this is true."

    The trip is ultimately uneventful, as promised. Alas, among the many things Tamamo did pack, a music player isn't one of them.

     "Perhaps..." Tamamo gestures obliquely to the Angelapad.

    When it's time to get out, Tamamo takes her time. 'Summer heat,' at least, isn't something that bothers her quite as much as it does most, even with a lack of air conditioning, and an apparently present unwillingness to reduce her combat power by reducing her layers of priestessly silks. It's fine! This is much easier than the Urals. She's even packed extra heat-resisting charms for anyone in need and with a free accessory slot.

    "Well, this place is certainly... what was it you said occurred here?" She could figure out by stopping for a closer examination and applying certain skills, but it doesn't seem as if this place is the actual goal, and Tamamo does have some resistance against distractions. She'll fall in when everyone is unloaded, with her dark cloth luggage pack held under one arm.
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Fondly regard decal effects and bumpmaps

    "DUDE." Arthur sticks his head out of the Non-Assassination Section into the ultimate assassination section, which is to say, jamming his entire upper body out of the open window. "WHAT. How did they FIND ENOUGH GUNS to BLAST THIS FUCKIN' THING? I lived in LITERAL BULLET HELL for YEARS and I never saw it THIS BAD." He laughs. Or maybe hoots and hollers.

> Arthur: Don't think they left any surprises behind, do ya?
    "What, want me to FLICK THE GRAVITY, set off any MINES?" He offers, doing a little light-switch motion with his fingers that makes dust and pebbles of shattered environment rise weightlessly for a moment before clattering back to the ground. "Wait... Huh, maybe it's 'cause they were doing TUTORIALS AND TRAINING AND STUFF here? I don't think we're gonna get a lot of TRAPS and stuff, otherwise the ATTACKER would'a had PROBLEMS." He hops out of the car properly.

> Arthur: When is it we must start to be quiet and careful of our notice..?
    "FRANCE LADY, let me tell you, if ANYONE is STILL CHILLIN' HERE or there's SECURITY ROBOTS or somethin', then I made a BAD BET, and I never make a BAD BET because I'm," He plants a thumb on his chest. "THE BEST GAMBLER IN THE MULTIVERSE. Got an AWARD for it and everything, 'cause I was LUCKY." He makes a waving gesture. "It's gonna be pure KEYCARDS. I'm SURE OF IT. I used to go into HELLA PURGED FACILITIES for real and the BIG THING was always finding KEYCARDS. Or fighting an EXPERIMENT, but I don't think these guys did EXPERIMENTS."

    He lifts off the ground weightlessly and starts drifting along with the others to the destination! Let's see a good facility, and a nice walk on the way up surely never hurt anyone.
Xion Xion is consistently told to think better of herself, and Angela's more pointed statement had sat with the noirette. Conflicted, still - conflicted especially when Angela on the pad is between her and Lilian in the vehicle - Xion wavers between appreciation and deflecting with her eyes, and then the conversation moves on. There's a lingering, guilt, and a mumbling of 'Happy Birthday', before Xion really engages with Matilda. Is it an escape? She wouldn't say yes, but she couldn't also say no. It was one of those kinds of car rides.

Thankfully, Matilda was delightful! Xion had no reason to consider the words she says wrong... right?

She only squints a little at 'a pleasure for you to make my acquaintance', but they're past it so fast Xion just flutterblinks a few times and resettles on the point. "Oh, yes. No, not hidden. Extraordinarily large doorkey, with a sword grip? They're called Keyblades." She's a little tight with the leading 'ch' sound, like she's half-trimming a syllable and there's no space or hyphen between those words quite clearly. Shifting hand in the large SUV-oid Road Mangler, Xion flips the keychain dangling off her right hand up into her palm and closes grip around it in a smooth and practiced motion. As her fingers close, there's a firm stop in the air that flashes with swiftly-filling color and mass with a metallic 'shwink!'. The object has an energy implosion as its created, casting off pale stars that rattle into the upholstery and get lost under seats to glow like hot coals. Held at an angle, comb of the key-end and cap down near her ankle and length across the air over the seat island, Xion smiles around Starlight. The pale silver length, black grip, and large blue guard seem cartoonishly smooth and though Matilda might not know it, Starlight is one of the least complex blades of its kind.

"This is one of my keyblades - the one that I started with. I've had a blade like this for as long as I can remember, and before that I wasn't me. It can do, you know, key stuff."

Xion's explanation fails to capture the artifact's value, use, or purpose, but it certainly has the air of an item meant to be swung for damage. Its effectiveness is mysterious and its properties vague.

When Matilda launches into her discussion of necklaces, Xion swaps her focus to that, moving to lean key against car interior and shoulder to lean in and inspect the pointed-to objects, nodding slowly while trying to appraise them.

"They're focuses! I understand. Wise to bring your own then rely on finding one in the world." Xion nods, and, then they're... there!

At a mountain ski lodge!

"Wow, I guess someone was really earning that fire metaphor." Xion mumbles, looking at how devastated the surrounds are. "I don't think anything would still be hanging out in *this* area that a little enjoying nature would hurt, but," Xion clambers out of the car equipped with shoulder-slung Starlight off her left hand. "And if it's not key-cards, well, I guess we can always look around. But, greatest gambler ever?"
Lilian Rook     'I think you do a lot better than ultraviolent stormclouds even if I think Arthur could pull one in a hurry.'

    "Perhaps, but I promised no tornados." Lilian says, smiling at her own inside joke. "The talent requires people to reciprocate, you know. And I'm always happier for seeing it again."

    'And also, if NAZCA's got a portal to some otherworld locked away in one of their containment cells, then that's probably *good* to know, actually.'

    "It'd have nothing to do with NAZCA." she says, firmly and confidently. "The goblins of the bazaar would have a case of mistaken identity with your alternate self shoplifting from infinite universe GobMart and they'd appear out of a star portal to take you to space court. It'd have nothing to do with anything and you'd have a new transformation and a new torrid affair by the end."

    'Well, they also had a person with a horseshit invincible power who could singlehandedly wipe us out, so toss in some Arbiter too.'

    "Oh? So now girls-- people with singular special powers that you keep losing to over and over again deserve comparing to Binah? How very quickly the culture changes." Lilian says, probably joking about it.

    'I- ahem, must admit, it is most truly a shame that the Moon, she is no friendly sort, in this place... But no matter...'

    Rather than choose between her emotionally obvious affirmatives, Lilian sticks to the venerable "Mmmh." and shifts the car into park. "I had such a lovely image of the moon built up in my mind before I found out how it really is for everyone else. But I really believe that we'll set her back to normal, one day." Stretching as she exits from the driver's side door, as if she weren't out in a bombed-out husk of a block, she says, "And it's just the nature of the nation that first put V8 engines in cars and is the last still not using Metric. Americans love their inefficiency."

    'Such excellent spots to seek crystals out... oh, but how I wish there was more time for excursions!'

    "We're not on a strict time limit." Lilian says, then, "For once." Clearing her throat, she continues. "But I'd personally not enjoy trying to drive back in the dark. Consider how enjoyable the idea of sleeping out here sounds to you." Unfortunately, this probably sounds exciting and romantic to several people present. "If there's anyone else here, they're outnumbered and outgunned by us. We wouldn't have to sneak; they would. I doubt such a secretive facility would have surveillance extending to the outside, but . . ." Lilian pats Matilda's shoulder lightly. "That's something I'd still like you to divine. If anything in this vicinity catches your eye, anything helpful, it's all yours."

    . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook     The trail up the mountain isn't exactly a real one. Lilian follows massive tire tracks, partially filled in by nature, along a sloping ridge, and towards one flank of the plateau. Wearing hiking boots and high socks, with bike shorts under a shorter-than-usual skirt and a sleeveless athletic top, even going so far as lightweight climbing gloves, she'd apparently considered this part the most important to dress for, or that the inside will present the same risk of heat, snags, and treacherous terrain, as outdoors.

    'It feels like forever ago we were worrying about our radio signals being intercepted. A lot can change at a rapid pace even when you so briefly turn your gaze.'

    "I suppose that's proof of exactly why we're supposed to be so important." says Lilian, rendered pensive by the last leg of the walk. She stares into the tire tracks, and occasionally runs her fingers over a puncture mark in the trunk of a nearby tree. "But I'd rather an even bloodier change than this than everything staying depressingly the same for any longer."

    'I'm told the Americans used up most of their arsenal in the early parts. But even they ended up developing Urban Centers after a while.'

    "The rich went to their bunkers and died there. The generals went to the real bunkers and put it all off for as long as they had the weapons. People fled from small towns to large ones, then from large towns to cities, and then the cities to the capitals, and finally from the capitals to the coasts, losing more and more each time. The prior government fell apart from simple human attrition, much less the collapse of communications infrastructure, so the Letter Agency almost stumbled onto the world stage by accident. They couldn't have deliberately orchestrated a higher hand." Lilian sighs.

    "Though people were quick to reinstall a new democratic government and go about calling the states 'united' again, everyone with a clue knows that they live in a place like everywhere else; it's just that their benefactors prefer the shadows even more than elsewhere, because they can't imagine how to function without them."

    'Though I had considered it, Lilian suggested that it would be strange for her to be my 'boss.' I suppose this is true.'

    "That makes me kissing you into 'sexual harassment'." Lilian huffs. "It's better this way."

    'Well, this place is certainly... what was it you said occurred here?'

    "Training exercises. Allegedly. For the abduction operations." Lilian says, leaving off 'of Blooms'. "The damage is due to an enemy attack. A training theatre is a perfectly apt place to deploy weapons, since you already have them there."

    'otherwise the ATTACKER would'a had PROBLEMS.'

    Lilian opens her mouth, then closes it. She definitely misinterpreted 'had problems' for a second.
Petra Soroka "The goblins of the bazaar would have a case of mistaken identity with your alternate self shoplifting from infinite universe GobMart and they'd appear out of a star portal to take you to space court."}

    Petra quietly mouths 'GobMart' to herself. "I-- that's way too whims-- whimsical. I think you might have more of an imagination than me...? I don't think I've ever even seen a goblin. Well-- the Train did have the gnome car, but--"

"How very quickly the culture changes."

    "I'm just mad at them right now." Petra pouts. Actually saying it out loud, now over an hour since their conversation, makes 'mad' feel like a huge overstatement. "Did you know they're apparently talking to Nika and Sakura now?"

"I- ahem, must admit, it is most truly a shame that the Moon, she is no friendly sort, in this place..."

    "Oh, thank god, you do know about that." Petra sighs in relief. If Matilda had started gearing up to do some moon reading, then Petra would've felt compelled to stop her.

"And, erm, it is a text of one of the more highly-esteemed of French poets, if you are familiar, in fact, with the work of Verlaine? Writer of such memorable odes as 'Clair de lune', which so inspired famous composer Debussey to create the piece by the same name?"

    "Mm, never heard of him." Petra shakes her head, but she's not *uninvested*. "I'm actually just starting taking a course on 18th to 19th century poetry now, though, so I guess maybe that'll come up?"

    "Been a lot of poetry talk lately..." She muses, mostly to herself. "I don't think it started until I got into it myself. Maybe it's the Barnum-- no, the other one, effect, but I literally can't think of a time *any* Elite even thought about the idea of poetry before that."

"Why, it must lead to such great inefficiency!"

    "Duh. 'S why it collapsed. Keep up, Matildork."
Petra Soroka     Petra *would've* walked, by the way. She totally would've. But, like, it's tactically efficient to not waste her energy, and she needs to be on the top of her game because this is something Lilian needs done, so really it's just a show of her devotion and extreme power of will that she snootily turns to the side and stays in the car.

    And then they're at the ski resort slash hidden mountain military training base! On one hand, Petra sort of dislikes, on a wordless gut level, being back at the bombed-out ski resort, but on the other... it's kind of an ideal aesthetic for her, and the sort of environment she thrives in by nature. Petra practically sleeps in the cradle of bullet-riddled wilderness whenever she gets a chance! When she gets out of the car, she does a biiiig stretch and canters a bit of a distance away, as if to prove how much distance she *could've* traveled on foot if she *wanted* to by leaving the car behind.

"It feels like forever ago we were worrying about our radio signals being intercepted."

    Petra takes the Angelapad without hesitation-- she's reaching for it from Roland before he even offers it out, and awkwardly side-eyeing Malkuth a bit when she gets close. "Yeah... it was, though, wasn't it."

    "Anyways-- since we're probably pretty safe here, how do we want to split up? I'm really good at combing through digital info, and I kind of like teaming up with Xion, but, I guess maybe another group would need doors opened more than me...? Because of keycards."

"Consider how enjoyable the idea of sleeping out here sounds to you."

    "I--" Counteracting her own point, and having been told that there aren't *that* many Antegent in the area, Petra immediately pipes up. "I don't think it'd be *that* bad. Imagine, we could, like, find some rooms in the resort that aren't totally wiped out, and it'd be like camping except with these surroundings and comfier places to be than a tent or my mech. And-- even if we're out at night, I could probably just get back with the Beauty of Ash... though I might get lost."
Angela ''I suppose many things have conspired to make me rather busy.''

Malkuth says, "Oh you know, you don't owe us your time or anything. It's just nice to have. You have this way of--"

"Focusing on what's important. Restoring sanity." Angela finishes.

Malkuth frowns. "...Yeah... I mean, she's kind of been doing that for the Abnormalities too. It is wonderful. I'm sure Miss Carmen would agree."

Angela is sure she would too. Invisibly, her hands clench slightly. She's faced Benjamin, and Ayin, but Carmen. Carmen feels weirdly tough to think about.

"I suppose it would be a bit strange." Angela agrees. "I suppose you could assist Berislav's efforts." She says it so easily she must not have recently happened with those efforts. Angela is, frankly, just fine with the efforts of both of these groups. They're both ultimately daggers at her enemies. So long as she doesn't get stabbed first... But she's hoping that there will be minimal open conflict.

"What change are you looking for, Lilian?" Angela asks. She never really considered it important before. Lilian could've wished this world to melt into a fiery lava pit and she'd happily have lended her hand, but she's trying to be more considerate about it now.

''FLICK THE GRAVITY.''

"Oh yeah. Almost forgot you're all a bit ridiculous." Roland's smile is strained for a moment. He doesn't even know what flicking gravity means but he knows it's probably something that's going to make him want to drink with Netzach after this. He's sure about that.

''How very quickly the culture changes.''

"In my experiences, Binah mostly lost her battles but I suppose her record prior to my existence was considerably sharper. I'm genuinely surprised a new Arbiter hasn't knocked upon our door. I half expect the Hana Association to know the full story already."
5r''We're not on a strict time limit. For once.''

"That IS a relief." Of course it was still dangerous enough that she couldn't go along so Angela can only be so pleased by it. "You have permission to run and jump within the confines of the mission you two.#-1 FUNCTION (ASNI) NOT FOUND

Roland and Malkuth's morale immediately improves! But they don't immediately get to running and jumping either. It's just the idea that they can if they want to that helps.

''I suppose that's proof of exactly why we're supposed to be so important.''

Angela looks at Lilian for a long moment. She thinks of Nika, and Lilian, and Ash, and Sakura. Even through her limited interactions... But she leaves her question as the same as before.

''GobMart''

"GobMart." Angela says loyally. "I'm glad we are done with Train business."
5r''Did you know they're apparently talking to Nika and Sakura now?''

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Angela asks.

She feels more comfortable in Petra's hands already. Roland sticks with Petra, Malkuth lingers with Lilian, but she looks her over and gives Petra a small little wave. She still sticks by their last conversation since the war ended. It's fine.

"Mm...Before deciding on accomodations, we should see what we find."
Lilian Rook     'Did you know they're apparently talking to Nika and Sakura now?'

    "I'd hope so. Matilda's reading is how Sakura and I set them up to talk to Rita." Lilian says, tapping her temple. "They may be basically invincible, but I'm a scheming machiavellian bitch, you see."

    'I don't think it'd be *that* bad.'

    Lilian frowns in that specific way that means she's considering it, and doesn't like that she is. "There are at least three people here who likely have more important duties involving libraries." she says.

    The rise brings the Elites to a plateau that is familiar to fewer that have been here. The mountain peak has clearly been carved away by massive industrial equipment and paved over to create the fifty meter variable ring of flat space around it, though you wouldn't see from below, and wouldn't catch it through the hanging air camouflage above.

    Diverging off tire tracks scorched into dirty concrete, Lilian walks as if by memory past the heaps of neatly stacked and buckled down cargo, forklifts and towing vehicles still in their lames, a blinking radio mast that's been folded in half down its middle, and no less than four computer-operated point defense batteries, plus two short-range missile silos, drowned so thick in spent casings that it's ankle deep. Dark bloodstains, dried by time and weather, streak for impossible lengths from landing pad asphalt to the natural rock, but there are no bodies.

    "Looks like they cleaned up plenty after the first attack, and they were ready for the second." Lilian says, kicking away an empty casing as thick as her wrist, but only touching the natural rock with her hand. "Had ample time to warm up and go weapons free on them. Didn't achieve enough. The personnel on deck here were almost certainly all killed, but it doesn't seem like anything was taken, or even deliberately destroyed. Not even the weapons."

    Her contemplation continues all the way to the west-facing 'front' of the mountain, where the path comes to its thinnest; little more than a camouflaged industrial catwalk around the outside of a heavy lift system that ostensibly goes down into the mountain. Peering around, she singles out where cold war era blast doors have become stuck in their tracks, tilted at a twenty-five degree angle, beyond which is . . .

    A cavernous descending void, pitch black from barely a few meters down and beyond. Steel-caged industrial lamps flicker unevenly against the back wall, tracing some of the elevator track down into the abyss, where the few that still work only matter as much as bioluminescent flashes in the darkess of the deep sea. Pressing the recall button doesn't do a thing; the lift tracks have clearly been stripped by physical force, the platform destructively plunged into freefall like it wasn't designed for. For some reason, despite the fact that you're at the top of a mountain, the dull, droning howl you can faintly hear seems to becoming from below, rather than the wind behind you.
Tamamo     'That makes me kissing you into 'sexual harassment'.'

    Tamamo makes a two-handed 'there you have it' gesture toward Lilian, facing Malkuth.

    'You have this way of--'
    'Focusing on what's important. Restoring sanity.'

    "Oh, how kind of you to say so." It's an unusual compliment, but Tamamo still takes it as one.

    'I suppose you could assist Berislav's efforts.'

    "I have found Father Berislav to be a most reasonable and compassionate man, certain affiliations aside. Perhaps I will seek him out on these matters." She can't think of the Watch without thinking of some less reasonable people. Oddly, even if it's the same with Lilian, they probably won't think of the same list.

    The trail up the mountain isn't exactly a real one.

    Which is just as well, since Tamamo did not dress for mountain hiking... though she's pretty good at dealing with heights, too, when necessary, geta or no. "Mountain air is always rather pleasing, is it not? When it is not too cold, at the least. I should wish to bundle up a bit more, were we to go and find a still functioning ski resort. Ah, should we? We have a few months to consider that particular vacation."

    'Anyways-- since we're probably pretty safe here, how do we want to split up?'

    "I would be pleased to be accompanied by Xion, as well, though I supppose I may simply bring up the rear of our formation, without having my own means of slipping through doors." Tamamo can lock doors a lot faster than she can unlock them, the way her magic traditions shake out.

    ...where cold war era blast doors have become stuck in their tracks, tilted at a twenty-five degree angle...

    "Come to that... Xion, do your keys also work on doors that are 'broken'?" Tamamo asks while looking down, though she's unsure that fixing those doors would help too much, given the rest of the damage to the lift.

    "A moment, please." Setting down her pack by the edge of the light, Tamamo pulls a thin, paper strip from inside her sleeve, flicks it out over the darkness, and lets it descend. Mid-toss, it alights, sparking and then burning brightly, and continuing to do so for long after the fuel should be exhausted as it slowly descends, slow as petals on the wind.
James Bond And it's just the nature of the nation that first put V8 engines in cars and is the last still not using Metric.

    "They were onto something with the V8," says Bond conversationally. "For a while was what they were known for. We had the flat four and the inline four, they had the V8. Two completely different philosophies that both produced results."

     "They put them in everything back in the sixties and seventies. A lot even now, in the eighties. It's easy to look at something like a Ford Torino--a 5.8 liter V8 in a 'midrange car,' and say, 'why do you need that much for a daily driver?' But the answer is because cars were mostly still being made to make people happy. Those Torinos, you could drive them around town and relax, low-rev. A car like that could take you from one side of the country to the other in comfort and ease if you wanted it to. Not my kind of thing, but I could see the appeal."

     "And," he adds with a little smile, "In the lighter cars, especially the muscle cars, another distinctly American thing, you could floor it and leave the car beside you at the light in the dust--and everyone on the corner would hear you doing it, too."

    "I can hear that rumble, if I take a moment to imagine it. Idling, you'd get that distinctive sort of shake," he says, illustrating with his hands. "Like the car's alive and ready to go. My Aston's got a V8, you know. A lot of people weren't sure if it'd be a success, after they stopped the straight-six in '73. Now it's a mainstay. British engineering philosophy with a little American muscle."

Did you know they're apparently talking to Nika and Sakura now?

     "Good." Bond knows Ash the least, but is positively dispositioned towards Sakura and likes Nika quite a lot. Anything that gives her more company is a net good, to him.

The personnel on deck here were almost certainly all killed, but it doesn't seem like anything was taken, or even deliberately destroyed.

     "That should make it easy for us if it's the same inside."

     'Inside' means getting past an elevator shaft where no elevator is readily available. Bond is more used to this sort of thing than most. He twists the bezel on his wristwatch. In order to see the ceiling of the darkened elevator shaft, or, rather, to let the watch see it, he has to snake his arm through and then aim the watch up at it until a soft 'beep' sounds from the watch. It sounds again, when he aims it downward, with help from Tamamo's descending light. A press on the stop sounds a sharp hiss, as the face of the watch pops outwards to fire a metal disc. Out from the disc spool two ends of high-strength cable, pulling itself taut as steel-tipped points bury themselves in the ceiling and the floor.

     The disc then beeps and travels slowly upwards, diligently waiting just past the door. All that remains is for the doors to open a little wider, and he can zipline down.
Foundation Scions ' Wise to bring your own then rely on finding one in the world.'

    "Hm! Yes, you will find that Matilda Bouanich always comes prepared. Do you keep such, as well? And, if not-" Matilda thumbs through some of her necklaces, and the dangling crystals attached, assessing them on some unsaid metric, and reconsidering, and then re-reconsidering, holds one between forefinger and thumb- "Would you like one? This one, topaz, warming and steadying, generous, and as fully well-suited to gifting- there is a value to giving such away. Heh... this one, I've always liked that its shade fits the autumnal harvest moon's soft hue..."

'So I guess maybe that'll come up?'

    "Hm! He best come up, he is, (apparently, as I have read,) one of the influential writers of Parnassianist Romanticism, and thus there is merit and beauty to his works (so I have heard)."

'FRANCE LADY,'

    "Matilda Bouanich," she corrects.

'THE BEST GAMBLER IN THE MULTIVERSE.'

    Hands-on-hips, "And for what it is worth, which is a lot, I, do not believe you! Do you have proof of such with you?"

'That's something I'd still like you to divine. '

    Matilda, dutifully, gives Lilian a double-nod- her little brimmed hat nearly dislodging. "Of course-!" She extracts her orbuculum from the bag she'd been carrying it in (it's too sparkly to keep uncovered in sunlight! What if it glitters in such a way to distract a driver?), and holds it tightly in both arms. It looks, for a moment, like she's about to sit down on the ground, criss-cross applesauce, and consult her orb- but despite glancing a few times at the ground, she decides it'd look too childish, and simply stares into the glittery sphere of crystal to ask:

    "Oh, boule de cristal, réponds-moi, s'il te plaît, qui nous surveillera à notre approche?

    Without prior-setup conditions, or taking too much of a break to set up candles and incense, as the ball starts to fill with the illusion of mist, Matilda looks visibly a little bit more tired- it's a momentary thing, but beckoning forth omens of the future is still clearly a process for her to accomplish.

    Within the swirling mists, and faint, momentary images, she gets her answer, and relays it- "Our passing-through will be noticed by that which wards over this place, but not until long after we are gone, by the next ones to come, should we not eradicate their records ourselves, which may be possible to do. Is such a thing worth worry over? I feel that is a comforting sign, myself."

    Then, mumbling another incantation, and consulting the orb again, "Aussi, oh boule de cristal, trouverons-nous ce que nous cherchons..?"

    What comes of that, she doesn't immediately say.

. . .

    On the other side of the hike, Matilda is quietly prone to staring at the eroded trailsides, especially for little pockets of anything gravel-y, and thus filled with potential little gemstones. No real divergences from the group, but she does occasionally stop, dig through gravel, and run to catch back up. At the actual plateau, however, with natural rock replaced by pavement and fortifications, she sticks cautiously with the group.

    "Such a fight..."

>Elevator'nt

    "Comme c'est irritant! Hmph- how are we supposed to get down..?"
Petra Soroka "They may be basically invincible, but I'm a scheming machiavellian bitch, you see."

    Petra snickers. "Heh, well, you *are* way smarter. That's good, though. I feel like... really all they need at this point is an 'excuse'."

"There are at least three people here who likely have more important duties involving libraries."

    When Lilian thinks about it, Petra perks up and bounces on her toes excitedly. At that comment, though, she blinks and looks around, as if there must be some other library-workers hidden among them besides herself. She points at her chest, confused.

    "I mean... none of the work I do needs to be done today. I mostly just do, like, archiving and organizing-- actually, speaking of that, could I, um, borrow you sometime, maybe?" That could be a euphemism or it could be literal! "The Library's got some weird properties to it and I'm not totally sure what its lights-- not capitalized-- are *emitting*, and time magic stuff would be really helpful to know if there's any special preservation measures I've gotta take before putting valuable old books in there."

"You have permission to run and jump within the confines of the mission you two."

    In another count singling out the Library employees, Petra is excluded from running and jumping! She does understand, though, that this is because Angela doesn't really give her orders or feel like she needs to give her permission for things... though Petra also thinks, that she might also just be less of a Library employee than they are.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?"

    "Definitely," Petra says down to the tablet in her hands. "I can already see a lot of ways they'd get along with Nika."

"The personnel on deck here were almost certainly all killed, but it doesn't seem like anything was taken, or even deliberately destroyed. Not even the weapons."

    Gazing down at the streaks of blood, Petra makes a pensive proclamation. "Rip bozos." If they're all dead and their stuff is all here, then nothing could be better! Yay!

    And then, broken blast doors leading down into a pitch black shaft that's ominously howling! Petra's murmured "Hell yes," might be barely audible to Angela, and her solution to the doors is... simple! She hops up onto the door, balancing in a dent like a goat on a cliff face, and flips open her bottle of Silver. Rather than the usual blobule that comes out, as if uncorking some alchemical concoction from hell, a bunch of whiplike metal tendrils lurch out of the bottle. Possessed by a unifying force, they all suddenly synch up and veer towards the gap at the top of the tilted doors, plunging through the metal like tissue paper and then wrenching the gap open wide enough for Petra to scramble into and sit before hastily closing the bottle back up.

"Hmph- how are we supposed to get down..?"

    Lounging above the elevator shaft, Petra smugly suggests, "Could just jump."
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Get your KEYCARD

    Arthur can't find a KEYCARD! He keeps looking around, because someone has to have one! Well, later it turns out he doesn't even fucking need one, which is making this entire venture a little pointless. He's fine with bloodstains, and thank goodness there's no bodies... Huh, wandering smaller antegent? Maybe something so thorough it just got them all? Or, more likely, someone realized that if the entire base got slaughtered, there would be people coming by to try to harvest keycards (like Arthur) and they rigged everyone with fucked up thermite something or another if all the heartbeat monitors go flat.

    Working on his search, he almost drifts clear over the edge of the elevator shaft while it's being opened up. "WOAH!"

> Arthur: Fondly regard chasm

    "That's a FUCKING GIANT THING to fall in." He mutters, Adventure-Game-fully.

> Arthur: How are we supposed to get down?

    "Yo 'Tilly, I got that GRAVITY." He explains. "Not gonna be as FAST as RAPPELING or whatever but it's GOOD." He snaps his fingers and forms a strange little floating icon just in front of him, right below the lip of the elevator, pointing towards the side--

> Arthur: Could just jump

    He hops into it like it's a powerup, and suddenly has his gravity shifted ninety degrees. The little icon stays in place, and he invites the others to come along! Won't be as fast as something mechanical (and certainly no longer gravity-assisted) but it's a decent walk and it's something that the others can partake of for a bit.
Angela ''At least three people here who likely have more important duties involving libraries.''

Roland looks at Malkuth. Malkuth looks at Petra, pointing at her quizzically. Roland points at Malkuth. Malkuth points at Roland. Alright. That's three.

Angela frowns thoughtfully. She thinks about what Lilian said about coasting. Surely there's more that she could be doing. She CAN rely on Petra, but should she be relying on Petra so much? She wants to support her too. What's something she could do to lend a hand here, take a bit of a hold of her own fate once more.

As she dwells on this, the group is confronted with a pitch black shaft.

''Could just jump.''

Roland remembers... he has...

He digs through his pages and draws out that JUMPING page he got from that Mario Universe he'd been holding onto. The light fades into his body as the page dissipitates.

"Okay, I'm ready for running ''and'' jumping." Roland says, allowing himself a small smirk. "Race ya."

And thus he jumps, readying Durandal in his hands just in case.

"...If Roland dies, may I ask you to collect his book for me, Petra? I would appreciate it."

Malkuth murmurs, "Using these Fairy Festival claws---yeah I'll try that..." Malkuth follows, using the armblades to clamber on down.

".......Yes, if Malkuth dies, I'd like her book back too." Angela adds.
Lilian Rook     'What change are you looking for, Lilian?'

    "What a question." Lilian replies without really evincing that she intends to answer. "I'd sound like Binah if I said 'just for things to not go back to normal', so perhaps I'll add that if I'm to choose something to look forward to, it will be 'the moment no one can pretend that any of it ever was normal'. How's that?"

    'GobMart.'

    "GobMart."

    'I would be pleased to be accompanied by Xion, as well'

    Lilian almost frowns about the split, but she really must believe that things can't be too threatening, because she accepts it without vociferous complaint. Which she wouldn't do if she were casually lying about it being safe. "I suppose the locking and unlocking duo makes sense." she says, just a bit whiny.

    'I can hear that rumble, if I take a moment to imagine it. Idling, you'd get that distinctive sort of shake. Like the car's alive and ready to go.'

    Lilian pauses, faintly stunned, for almost the entire length of Bond's car talk; specifically, from the moment she realizes it won't be just a couple of sentences of jab-back, to the point ten seconds after he's done.

    A lot happens behind her eyes, in those seconds. She looks at him a little different after, with a strange tone to her voice, saying, "Now I understand why you're the best driver I know. You're as if someone could be about cars how I am with swords."

    'That should make it easy for us if it's the same inside.'

    "In the unlikely event that you do find someone still cowering in a panic room or a janitorial closet, waiting until the MREs run out or rescue arrives . . ." Lilian says, bordering on sarcasm. As she checks the zipline anchor with one hand, she unholsters Winter Crow with the other, performing a quick chamber check. "You know what to do."

    'Is such a thing worth worry over? I feel that is a comforting sign, myself.'

    "That's perfect. Thank you Matilda." Lilian says, distracted, but genuine. "There's no way I'd be able to pick out every piece of security equipment myself, nor would I be confident that whatever we can access from a hacked console would be all of it. Let's be certain to locate and destroy-- no, let's retrieve the central surveillance records ourselves." She sniffs in a strangely self-satisfied way, grinning at nothing. "So once again, all the preparation they can think of isn't a match for just the right arcane ability."

    'and time magic stuff would be really helpful to know if there's any special preservation measures I've gotta take before putting valuable old books in there.'

    Lilian looks at Petra as if she'd said something with deeply inappropriate timing, then blows it off a moment later. "I'll see what I can do." she says, instead, as a way of procrastinating.
Lilian Rook     'Comme c'est irritant! Hmph- how are we supposed to get down..?'
    'Could just jump.'
    'Yo 'Tilly, I got that GRAVITY.'

    But she's still in a good mood. Petra breaching the doors is a sufficiently saucy display of power on Lilian's implicit behalf that she has the energy to be a bit of a show-off. "I'd like to verify that Xion won't have any issues with interior geo-jammers at the bottom, so until then, I'd advise you stick with Lowell's plan." she says, sliding her arm around Tamamo's waist.

    By the time the punctuation mark registers at the end of "Riding in style like this isn't something just anyone can handle." she is fully supporting her fiancée on one arm, holding the zipline with the other, and done double-checking Matilda with her eyes; as if she were suddenly unsure about something for a split second, then decided it didn't matter.

    "Chaill tú sé~"

    The watch-wire vibrates faintly, and a door at the bottom of the elevator shaft can be heard forced open.