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Meresankh     Arriving in Meresankh's tomb-palace is familiar for some, new for others. The black stone walls of the entrance hall rise into darkness above, and the expansive room is lit mostly by green geometric circuit-lines in the floor and walls. Iseptah, Meresankh's blue-robed majordomo, greets you curtly and ushers you to follow him. Something clearly has the fellow's nerves up - he's usually ten times more verbose than this.

    Your footsteps echo through ancient, near-vacant halls. For those who have visited before, only a trace more life is present. There's a Necron functionary here, maintenance drones patching a cracked wall there, even a bored Paladins bureaucrat stationed in a tomb-turned-office among the living dead, but still the signs of activity are few and far between.

    In time you are led to a great pair of stone doors emblazoned with a dynastic sigil, Meresankh standing before them. She shifts her posture, visibly on edge herself, before raising a hand in greeting. "Thank you, Iseptah. You may leave our guests." The seneschal nods, bows, and departs. "And thank you all, for gathering to my aid. As I have explained to some already, we are to descend into my palace's deepest vaults, brave the dangers within, reclaim certain devices and components, and return with them to Lady Nakhtmut's sarcophagus chamber. If you will all join me on the elevator," she says, and the orb atop her scepter flickers. The enormous doors slide open without a sound, revealing a single chamber beyond. Meresankh steps through the gate, motioning for the Elites to follow.
Meresankh     Once everyone is inside, the doors seal again with the same smooth motion, and Meresankh lights up her scepter to brighten the space above what little illumination the ubiquitous green circuitry provides. Those same circuits hum softly with flowing energy as the entire room descends. Down, down, long enough for nearly all of you to lose track of precisely how deep you must be at this point. During the ride Meresankh explains the dangers that lurk below:

    "Of foremost threat is the Destroyers. They are Necrons who have turned to the extermination of all life, and opposition to even the barest hierarchy or order. They have modified their forms into regenerating killing machines, and they favor blades. Keep your distance." She projects a hologram of their scorpionesque bodies. "I still consider them my subjects, but..." a long sigh. "I will not judge you for driving them back however necessary."

    "Be also warned of the constructs that defend the deeper tombs. They are no longer under my control." The hologram changes to a hunchbacked spiderthing. "'Tomb Crawlers' do not kill, but their trans-dimensional isolation beams will trap you in pocket dimensions. If that occurs I can rescue you, but it will cost us valuable time." She projects a new image of a horrid mechanical centipede. "The 'stalker' variety are more dangerous. They carry energy-field projectors which require them to be dispatched up close. The constructs are not thinking creatures. Destroy them with impunity."

    "The deep vaults are also home to shifting labyrinths, lethal traps, and hazards yet unremembered. Be ready to adapt. What we are looking for is this," she says, projecting a final hologram of a head-sized cylindrical device inscribed all over with green circuits. "It is too sensitive to extract with teleportation - once I have them we will need to fight our way back to the elevator."

    At long, long last the stone room comes to a halt, its doors opening into a vast chamber subdivided by walls stretching halfway to the ceiling. "Let us begin."
Riku Asakura Riku Asakura is here today, dressed in his normal clothing.  That is to say, a jean jacket with an orange shirt underneath with a space agency logo on it, jeans, and a pair of tennis shoes underneath all of that.  He follows the Iseptah to where Meresankh is waiting for them.  To say he's unnerved by how silent it is is a grave underestimate.  

He's almost grateful for the sounds of footsteps to remind these halls that something does live in them, or at least walk through them.  He's also thankful that the elevator makes a sound when it opens, and also thankful for Meresankh's voice breaking the silence of the tomb this place has.  

Inside, Riku listens to the review of what dangers await them in this place, nervously looking from his shoes to Meresankh's face and back again.  The Destroyers are a straightforward problem, even if they are technically subjects.  The tombcrawlers look dangerous but are really just inconvenient.  The Stalkers require a more upfront approach, which doesn't bother Riku too much.  

Talk of traps, hazards unremembered, and sifting labyrinths doesn't overly phase Riku all that much either.  Ultraman Geed has a lot of things to help avoid or weather such things, or so he believes.  "I do have one question: Do you know where in the vaults to find the item we seek?  Or are we searching the entire vault for them?" If it's the entire place, he's going to need to watch his time limit on Geed carefully.  
Trudy Grimm     One of those answering the lady tomblord's call is the humble witch Trudy Grimm. Absent is the Obviously Cursed tome she had been carrying when last she met Meresankh, in its place a more simple and homely leatherbound book with a nest of charms on leather straps hanging from its spine, its pages and covers held shut by a buckle.

    Beside her strides one of her supposed 'Cute Friends', easily nine feet tall and clad in corroded, cracked, black-stained steel plate over his entire body. This is the Black Knight, who makes no sound save the rattle of his armor with each step. His weapon, a colossal greatsword, rests over his right shoulder in the loose grip of his right hand. Between the witch and her servant, it is the Black Knight who probably fits in here the best amidst the skeletal Necrons and their deathly decor.

    "Thank you Iseptah," Trudy acknowledges the seneschal as he bows and departs. Her attention shifts to Meresankh directly, offering the undead robot queen a little curtsey, "And hello to you, Queen of the Dead." The witch tucks her heels together, keeping her posture straight; watching, listening. She's seen holographic projections before but the art of it is always fascinating.

    She tucks away the idle thought of developing a way to do that with magic. That can be looked at some other time.

    "Is there some chance, or method, we may employ to force your followers to recognize you again?" It's another idle thought, one she chooses to give a voice to, "Perhaps after their defeat, something can be done. I know how precious your people are to you."

    Riku brings up another good question, and once he asks it, Trudy shoots a look out out over the labyrinth beyond the doors, "I hadn't planned for a long expedition, so hopefully not, ahaha~."
Flamel Parsons     Psychonauts Special Agent Flamel Parsons looks the tiredest he's ever looked. Or, maybe unfocused? He looks, in any case, completely drained of something. But, somehow, he's still got a beaming smile on his face. Despite the slowness of his reaction times and the sense that his combat energy is in the pits, his abilities of psychometry are something he KNOWS will come in handy here. And his skills in breaking into facilities, too.

    His long silence makes it a bit unclear if he *heard* Meresankh, but eventually, he does enter the elevator, and a while after that, he does say: "Sure, I'd love to see the vaults and help out!" He makes sure to introduce himself. "Flamel Parsons, agent of a vague yet ominous government organization, great to meet you."

    His psychic brain-projections are flickering a little, like the lightbulb in a projector isn't getting enough electricity. But he joins in projecting with Meresankh after a moment. The scrawled montage-plans he's got in mind are even more simplistic than usual, pure black-ink cartoons. But they accurately show his plans. "I'll be holding back from combat as much as I can, sticking to invisibility and the back lanes! But, I've gotta make sure to get involved enough that my Psychometry can read old-era residues before they get overwritten, so you can track your artifacts. I don't have much to deal with regenerators -- but they've got minds! I'll be needing you to keep the Destroyers off of me, and I'll try to directly reduce their will to fight. The Tomb Crawlers and Tomb Stalkers don't think, so a lot of my telepathic abilities won't function. Whenever they're thick, I'll be focused on clairvoyant scouting, you'll need to handle them completely."

    "Traps and labyrinth-shifting, though, I'm a great hand at. Let me take a crack at any room that looks dangerous. Breaking into a high-complexity underground bunker is one of my specialties. I can levitate over most ground-level triggers, defuse most major threats, and I've got the gear to decode, decrypt, and slice most things that would lock us out."

    "While we're there, I'll try to pulse my clairvoyance to draw out images of the history related to those artifacts. Since it should be relatively undisturbed and the overall psionic presence of -- what were you called again? Necrons? -- the overall psionic presence of Necrons is more static than standard, I should be able to at least get some images of what was being done with them last time they were handled in this vicinity. Look for footprints, or phantom images of machinery or workers with the artifacts, and follow them."

    "I've got the working telekinesis to move most artifacts of any size through the halls, so make sure you keep your hands free and your focus on the fighting on the way back. That should get us what we're looking for, and then get us out! It'll be great."



    His flickering cartoony projections shudder a little and shut off. He bops the side of his head a few times, there's several loud mechanical clicks, and his body jolts when there's an abrupt sparking sound. "Huh. Hmm. Well, that's fine, aphantasia actually isn't a sign of anything bad! Most people with it live mostly normal lives." He says, in a confident, cheerful tone.
UFO Gang It is certainly the first time the girls with the ship and the Buddhism have been here.

At the entrance, all of them were moved.

But only some of them came in.

MINAMITSU MURASA, who is perhaps the most impetuous and least serene member of the group, comes forth, walking through the empty halls. They seem somehow subtly *comfortable* to the girl, who is wearing a Cool Leather Jacket on top of a surfing-friendly wetsuit, a long harness of nylon bearing that funky anchor she totes around. (She's still wearing the hat, too, naturally. It has been attached with a discreet hairclip.)

"It's pretty, but... oh, hey," Minamitsu said in passing to the bureaucrat on the way past, before picking her thoughts back up: "It's pretty but it's also empty."

With Minamitsu is NAZRIN, a mouse-girl with dowsing rods. Other than a fluffy blue parka, probably in anticipation of Deep Cold, Nazrin is the same as always. She sounds a lot less energetic and hopeful. "That's because this place is a tomb."

"You know, I think you're right."

BUT

"Don... SHINE!" declares Minamitsu, side-leaping while striking a pose to greet Riku! ... and almost falling over. She grins at him, but then attends to their host, even as Nazrin trundles up.

"Oh boy," Nazrin remarks phlegmatically about the challenge before them.

"Can you find it?" Minamitsu asks Nazrin.

Nazrin scratches behind one of her mouse-ears. "Probably, but not in one straight shot," she says finally. "This place is probably at least as complex as LC, but at least we're welcome guests. And in that place, everything was going in a big complicated loop... but I suppose we'll be able to keep making progress."

Both of them look up as the Destroyers are introduced. Both Nazrin and Minamitsu blink once, in unison. "We'll do our best!" Minamitsu declares; Nazrin unslings a flask of what is probably tea and takes off the cap to swig off of it.

Nazrin does get out the dowsing rods and orients them at the demonstrated prize -- the device, rich in its greenery. "You got it," Nazrin tells Flamel immediately when he volunteers to open dangerous doors.

"Hi! Shou told me about your chicken!!" Minamitsu enthuses to Trudy, parenthetically.
Lissandra Lissandra arrives among the others looking prepared for a hike, more than a fight. Long pants, laced brown boots, and a dark blue jacket buttoned over a white shirt, with her nice little shoulderbag hanging against her lower back. One side of the jacket is tucked up and over part of what looks like a frequently-worn gardening belt, supporting a few slots or sheathes for her wand, a work-knife, and a little notebook. She has her staff out and leisurely lays it over one shoulder while trailing the group in their entry into the 'tomb palace'. The aesthetic is new enough to her to be worth some idle sightseeing, at least until conversation picks up when Meresankh takes over for Iseptah.

     It isn't hard to notice Lissandra's face turn a little pensive-pouty, maybe 'miffed' as the threats are described, but that seems to be something she's dealing with internally. "... Precious little organic matter left in these, then, if any. Electrocution might disable those 'destroyers', charming a name as that is, but I'm not keen on entering their preferred range myself." She lets out that tension in a little sigh, and her tone manages to bleed off most of the complaintive tone. "I'll stay out of the way and focus on support. By the time we encounter those ridiculously named beams, I'll try to make a priority of hindering them I suppose."

     She's certainly not feeling as urgently about the time spent as Meresankh, but she's not wasting words either. In the meantime, she takes a few moments to basically just walk around to everyone who's shown up and put names to faces, making short little greetings. Lilian, Calvin, Trudy and Riku, she recognizes from looking them up. Others, she just has to ask outright; she ends up addressing Trudy's Black Knight separately from her despite their apparent heirarchy, and has a curious reaction on seeing Schneider... She's just so *tiny*...

     She does have to acknowledge Flamel's obvious exhaustion, though. First it's a skeptical squint, then she's right in front of him and leaning in front of his face to try and look into his eyes, beginning to look annoyed before she's said a word to him. His stated battle plan, at least, seems to take some of the pressure out of her scrutiny, and she releases him with a soft sigh and a back-of-hand pat to his shoulder. "... Seeing as I'll be doing the same, at least have the courtesy to give a signal if you're going to collapse. You look more like the dead than any I've seen since arriving."
Meresankh     Riku: "I do have one question: Do you know where in the vaults to find the item we seek? Or are we searching the entire vault for them?"

    Meresankh shakes her head. "We will have to search well. Your time as Geed is limited, I remember. You may wish to stay near me until we have the hyperphase transducer in our hands. When the tomb defences learn that we have taken something from its appointed place they will converge on us, and time will be of the essence. Then we will surely need an Ultraman's power."

    Trudy: "Is there some chance, or method, we may employ to force your followers to recognize you again?"

    This gets an awkward hesitation from Meresankh. "I have... already soured relations, in attempting to assert my titles. Their anger is driven by a deep and ancient curse, so if you have methods of cleansing such afflictions they may work for a time."
Lilian Rook     There need be no particular reason for Lilian to make a personal job call from another Paladin. Her reason is specific, and perhaps a little unflattering, but by this point, she's already engaged in something similar and less justifiable with Sarracenia Sundew of the Concord, so she keeps it to herself.

    Despite all her time at Sapient Heuristics, when she thinks of 'space', it's still the Cryptark that comes to mind; always. For once, the reality aligns with her fantastic impression; not just for technically being a crypt, but for the cavernous darkness, the ancient metal and stone, the alien lines, the unreadable glyphs, and the ominous glow of technology with no interface ever made for a human being. The cold, the gunmetal rock, and the echoes of her own footsteps, place her in a mental context that feels just right for trespassing into an alien mausoleum.

    Fully armoured from the get-go, Lilian would almost pass for a machine below the neck; at least some vain artist's idea of one, baroquely rendered in black iron and magnetite facade. The soft ticking of her armour's myriad improbably-fitted parts takes up more of the empty air than usual, audible from a distance like a running watch. The glints of gold in the moving seams turn an eerie electrum colour under the green lighting. The sword on her hip, pommel jutting past her lower ribs, speaks to her assumed purpose in the same way the odd black firearm on her opposite thigh does; she has brought two loops of battle webbing worn like a belt, loaded with spare ammo, runestones, and emergency medical supplies, but little else. She wears what passes for her 'helmet' too; the branching circlet of twisted metal, like bent antlers or folded wings, whose points nearly touch at her brow.

    'Sure, I'd love to see the vaults and help out!'

    "You look like shit Parsons. Are you certain about this?" says Lilian, shying away from her usual habit not at all. "I dread to even ask what could possibly have happened to deplete your energy like that. You should stay out of trouble."

    'I can levitate over most ground-level triggers, defuse most major threats, and I've got the gear to decode, decrypt, and slice most things that would lock us out.'

    Still. It's a sound argument. Lilian places her hand on her hip and frowns.

    'Of foremost threat is the Destroyers. They are Necrons who have turned to the extermination of all life, and opposition to even the barest hierarchy or order.'

    'I still consider them my subjects, but...'

    "Have you ever heard the phrase 'get thy house in order'?" Lilian says, unhelpfully. The explanation seems straightforward anyways, so, "It's unlikely you've heard 'Thou shalt never heed the words of that which cannot speak. Thou shalt never heed the words of that which cannot bleed. Thou shalt never heed the words of that which abides not adversity nor attainment.'" She tosses her hair back with a brush of her fingers. "The briefing is helpful, but if they're really as dangerous as you make them out to be, they'll be dealt with as the situation necessitates; not the situation we might wish were true."

    '... Precious little organic matter left in these, then, if any.'

    "Doctor Lissandra?" Lilian says, slightly taken aback. "Well. It's a pleasure to meet you in person, finally, but are you . . ." She doesn't hide her glance up and down at all. "Aware that this is a combat insertion? I understand the premise of networking well enough, but isn't this a bit much for your first field op?"
Lissandra Lissandra hears 'curse' and seems to very slightly perk up. Her animation style doesn't support chibis, but perhaps you could mentally overlay some cat ears. "... It likely isn't possible to make on-the-spot treatments, but provided we capture the afflicted, that kind of work is not outside of reach. It may take time to familiarize myself with the mechanics... Literally and figuratively, however."
Lissandra Lissandra answers Lilian with a small smile immediately followed by an exaggeratedly beleaguered sigh. "I'm aware. Working with Field Teams isn't my preferred kind of outing, but I do stand to gain from learning about any kind of mechanical prosthesis that might be made possible by their technology. It's the area I am the most behind in, relative to my... Newer, peers." She waggles the bottom end of her over-shoulder staff slightly like it's standing in for a lecturing fingerwag. "I hope you understand I won't be rushing to the front as a habit, of course. If need be I'll press myself to the damn ceiling, I'm not looking to self-extract any projectiles today."
Sarracenia      Princess Sarracenia was scarcely aware of Meresankh until recently. Now, despite owing the Necron queen a favor, Sarra still feels grateful and indebted. She is also quite curious to see another machine-based society. The princess is wearing her best red royal gown...which is almost exactly like her normal royal gown. The only real difference is gold trim and embroidery adding some finery to it.

     Sarra greets Iseptah with a polite curtsey. She may not have been here before, but she is at least somewhat familiar with Meresankh's entourage. She looks around with curiosity at the architecture as she follows the group, then turns her attention to Meresankh.

     As she listens to the explanation while riding the elevator, Sarra takes note especially of the Destroyers. They are still people, it seems. She will not be killing those if at all possible. The other constructs are fair game.

     When they have a moment if quiet, Sarra makes sure to speak to Meresankh. "I am glad to be able to assist you with a matter of such importance, Queen Meresankh. Especially after your assistance with Gregory. I will do my utmost to ensure your wife is returned to you."

     Riku and Flamel are greeted with a warm hello. Most of the others are greeted politely. Except Lilian of course, who pulls out one of her 'codes' immediately. Sarra huffs softly. "Lilian." she says in greeting, and leaves it at that.
Lilian Rook     'Lilian.'

    "Sundew." Lilian rolls her eyes. "Don't tell me that you're put out feeling less special than before. I already told you that I was only helping for Gregory's sake."

    'I hope you understand I won't be rushing to the front as a habit, of course. If need be I'll press myself to the damn ceiling, I'm not looking to self-extract any projectiles today.'

    "That'll be a nice change of pace." she says. Her elbow settles comfortably into the right-angle cross of the hilt at her waist. "If you need someone to take a bullet, though, hide behind Asakura and not me. Fair warning."
Riku Asakura 'You may wish to stay near me until we have the hyperphase transducer in our hands.'

This causes his stomach to fall, having to rely on someone else... no, not relying on someone else being a burden on someone else while they have their own worries.  He feels like it'll be bad if things go south, but his time as Geed IS limited, and there seems to be an endgame to Meresankh's plan, one where there will be trouble when they find the item they're looking for.  

So Riku dredges up his most upbeat personality and nods to the Queen of the Dead.  It's fine, he's fine, he can stay out of the way until Ultraman is sorely needed.  

'Don... SHINE!'

"Doooooooon... SHINE!" Riku says back to Minamitsu with a warmer smile to her and her friend.  "Nice to meet you, Nazrin!" he says to her and turns back to Minamitsu.  "It's been a while!"

He also returns Sarracenia's warm hello and smile with one of his own.  
Flamel Parsons     Lissandra actually gets an opportunity to look into his eyes, primarily because his reaction times are so high today that she can kind of squint around the sunglasses. Eventually he does react (but not by breaking his friendly smile). "Hi! Can I help you?" She explains a bit. "Oh! Yeah, I'm keeping track of my reserves, I've got an autonomous focus process set to make several sickening wheezing sounds if I'm about to lose mental task coherence. Listen for the 'HHHHHHHHHHH', okay?"

    "I dread to even ask what could possibly have happened to deplete your energy like that. You should stay out of trouble."
    A bright, friendly wave to Lilian. "Oh, it's a really long story! I was a mountain for a week, the others can tell you what happened better than I can." He says, as if that explains anything. "There was some semi-dysfunctional obsession towards something adjacent to you that you mentally represent! You know how us guys are, we have to get that out of our system." A dismissing handwave. "Anyway, don't worry about it."

    Riku and Flamel are greeted with a warm hello...
    "Your Highness." He beams a cheerful smile at Sarracenia and does a quick little nod-greeting.
Schneider Greco      UPE-1929-- oops, that is, Schneider Greco all along-- looks somewhat worse for wear from her Psychonauts outing, wearing the injuries she'd tallied up when she wasn't sure if she was 'real'. That indecent flapper outfit displays them all.

     Her right hand is bandaged to the mid-forearm, and you can guess what's under the bandages, because her left hand is reddened and slightly blistered with first-degree burns too. The hair-thin scabs on her cheek and legs, like papercuts; slight-scraped knees and elbows from clambering and scrabbling...

     But oh, you'd never guess she's hurt to look her in the eyes.

     "What a plea-sure to meet you, my-lady the witch," she purrs in that feather-fragile smoky voice of hers. If Lissandra's hand is offered to shake, Schneider turns it palm-down, as if she were receiving nobility. "Mhmhm, don't let them scare you. I will keep you safe, if on-ly you say the word...?"

     There's someone else who she's more skeptical of, though.

     "My-lord Par-sons... you did me your great kindness, not even some days ago," she says, bumping shoulders gently with him as they're led in. Her lips form into a small frown. "Are you cer-tain of this? No-one's... forcing you, right?"

     "I dread to even ask..."
     "You did-not hear, my-la-dy Rook? It was about you," Schneider says, while innocently fluffing her hair with the barrel of a handgun. "Ahhh, and o-thers, but... my-lord Parsons, he thinks the world of you. Mhmhm, per-haps a bit too much."

     The glitter in her eyes is a little too knowingly sympathetic.

     a long sigh. "I will not judge you for driving them back however necessary."
     Schneider raises her bandaged hand for a question just once. "Lady Me-re-sankh, do these subjects, ah... bleed?"

     In the event of the likely 'no' answer, she is satisfied: "Good."
Flamel Parsons     "No-one's... forcing you, right?"
    "Oh, not at all! A sensible bunker-dive for an emotionally-significant artifact with a support team and light-duty clairvoyance and security work is actually," Flamel snaps his fingers brightly. "*Right* in my eustress sweet spot. I'm using it to brace and soften any heavier damage. Still, I appreciate the concern! You've got a good sense for anguish in others and I'll make sure to stay extra emotionally open and expressive, so don't worry about anything being hidden."
Swords of Justice      Shirou's a taken back a tiny bit by the foreboding presence of Meresankh's abode... Foreboding... Is that the right way to think of an ally's living quarters? Perhaps the word he wants actually is grandiose? No. That also doesn't feel right either.

     As he stops to try and sort his thoughts, Medusa reaches up to place a hand on his shoulder to get his attention before continuing to walk ahead to follow Mersankh, her hand now moving down to grab his biceps so that she can drag him with her. He lets out a startled yelp, pulling his arm back in slight fear of her strength, before properly following along into the elevator. He'll have to think about that later, apparently.

     'They are Necrons who have turned to the extermination of all life, and opposition to even the barest hierarchy or order.'

     Shirou rubs his chin...

     'I still consider them my subjects'

     And then his temple in thought. So even if they've turned themselves into fanatical killing machines, they're still technically people. Skeletons? Are skeletons- He cuts the thought short before he gets sidetracked and focuses. Not that there's much more to think on with that. If they find any, he'll just have to find a way to try and not kill them. He doesn't have any plans on how to achieve that, but he's sure he'll find one.

     As the elevator finally reaches its destination, Medusa once again grabs hold of Shirou, this time nearly threatening to break his hand as she yanks him out. He bites his tongue to hold back from making a pathetic whine.

     "Next time I'm carrying you."
     "Pl-Please don't... I'm sorry."

     Medusa then finally addresses Mersankh, since Shirou has been too absorbed into himself to do something as simple as converse with anyone.

     "We'll be fighting if need be. I don't think this information changes anything since you were already expecting this, but I'd like let you know formally."
Lilian Rook     'There was some semi-dysfunctional obsession towards something adjacent to you that you mentally represent!'

    Lilian hesitates. It's just short of a flinch, really. "Again?" she says, as if she nearly dare not ask, and turns her head very slowly towards him.

    She double takes at Schneider's arrival, but this time it's more for the fact that she's talking to Flamel about whatever it was than simply the fact that she exists in her proximity. Her eyes narrow, worriedly, ad the words 'great kindness'.

    'You did-not hear, my-la-dy Rook? It was about you,'

    "Nobody told me anything." Lilian says, stiffly. Her spine straightens by nearly imperceptible degrees. "As usual, I suppose. There's never been any shortage of people gossiping behind my back." Oh if only you knew how bad it really was, Lilian. "Whatever it is, I'm certain I've done nothing to incite it and I've played no part in it at all. People entertain themselves as they choose."

    'Ahhh, and o-thers, but... my-lord Parsons, he thinks the world of you. Mhmhm, per-haps a bit too much.'

    Oh that's worrying. Lilian looks back at Schneider again, her expression anxious-neutral, and doesn't look especially reassured by the look in Schneider's eyes in return. Fretful energy courses through her body, sloshing around as she rocks her weight from foot to foot, and finally overflowing from her lips with the words, "What has he been telling you? Despite our differences, I would usually think Agent Parsons to be a rational enough person to keep things to himself and focus on his work." The idea that he wouldn't seems to put her much more on edge than the description of deadly tomb horrors. "Was there a tree involved?"
Calvin Nash      The hard soles of Calvin's boots make for especially crisp echoes, beating an effortfully confident stride through the entrance hall. His head is locked forward, though his eyes do occasionally flick away from the spot above Iseptah's shoulders, towards the darkness, or down towards the COMP on his wrist. The device is open, and displaying his roster of demons.

And thank you all, for gathering to my aid.

    Calvin bends the brim of his uniform's hat towards Meresankh. "Yes ma'am," he affirms. "Take care, Iseptah," he says to the majordomo as he leaves.

    Entering the elevator as requested, he backs out of the roster program and calls up a notepad. In a new file, he taps away hunt-and-peck style with his index.

destroyers bad up close. rusty lookin. stubborn. ask abt plans

Crawlers big spider. dont get trapped
fight stalkers up close.
neithers got a brain

whole place is booby trapped

    "The Destroyers," asks Calvin, multitasking on his COMP. "They're the ones that was cursed?"

I'll be needing you to keep the Destroyers off of me, and I'll try to directly reduce their will to fight.

    Calvin pauses typing to point his index at Flamel in a gesture of acknowledgment. "Got anything long term in mind for undoin' that, Meresankh?"

Traps and labyrinth-shifting, though, I'm a great hand at.
I'll stay out of the way and focus on support.
lissandra on support

     Calvin pauses, realizing that he hasn't met a few of the people here.

<J-IC-Scene> Calvin Nash says, "Hey, you in the suit. And y'all with the anchor and the parka. What's y'all's names?"
<J-IC-Scene> UFO Gang | "Minamitsu Murasa, nice to meetcha!" "Nazrin."
<J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons, in the suit! "Hi! I'm Flamel Parsons, agent of a vague yet ominous government organization."

    Briefly closing the monitor on his wrist computer, Calvin offers Flamel, Nazrin and Minamitsu a firm handshake each. "Chevalier Calvin Nash, Commonwealth Paladins." After, he flips the COMP back open and taps in a few more notes.

parsons on maps traps and calmin destroyers down
riku muscle

Lilian.

    Calvin pauses to point his typing finger at Sarracenia with pre-emptively admonishing rather than acknowledging intent, looking over the monitor of his COMP with unearned imperiousness. With that done, he returns to typing, navigating back to the roster and calling forth two demons. They appear in a cloud of DOS-green binary and data artifacts each; one is a giant skull with a snake wound through its eyeless sockets, and the other is a three-headed dog with a wild mane and a spined skeletal tail. Cerberus stands eye-level with Calvin's chest, and Loa is large enough for Calvin to rest his elbow upon.

     "Loa, I want you next to Lissandra. Anybody gets trapped, see what you can do first and shoot whatever did it if you can't do nothin'. Cerberus, up front with Lilian 'n Riku. I'll work with Flamel on puttin' them Destroyers to bed. Got one of two ways, dependin' on what kinda plans Meresankh's got in mind for gettin' 'em back normal."

    "Very well. Doctor Lissandra, I am a go-between for gods and humans; you may call me Loa," says the skull. Or the snake. Or both. Neither's mouth moves. "As Marshal Nash has requested, I shall lend you my power for a time. Offerings, songs and dances are welcome, but not required."
Lissandra Lissandra nods at Lilian's 'fair warning', a little amused at the idea of constructing a tiered list of bullet sponges to hide behind. "Duly noted."

     Schneider, on the other hand, finds Lissandra's puzzlement a bit stronger after she first hears Schneider's voice to recognize her, and then it dips back down to a sort of comfortable acceptance as she slides into conversational fencing. "And to think nobody's fretted over your own safety here, you must be quite something." She lets that hang a moment like it's all she's going to say, but after Flamel's exhaustion she's already primed to react to outright visible injuries.

     Schneider finds Lissandra reaching a hand out to meet hers, but she cheekily palms four small tablets to Schneider in the process. "I don't know what kind of attention you're looking for, beaten up like this, but before you go making *bold offers*..." Lissandra tips her staff forward, off her shoulder, carefully levering it down to touch the crystal headpiece lightly against Schneider's arm. "Be at your best?" She lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head down, like she's scolding the smaller girl on common sense. The crystal gently lights up, and Schneider could easily pull away, but Lissandra seems intent on at least magically mending the burns she can notice before they go anywhere important. The tablets are half immune-boosters and half anti-inflammatory painkillers. Open wounds in a place like this can get infected!

     Lissandra won't interject on other topics of conversation she isn't familiar with, but she does have the air of a sideline-snoop, quietly absorbing the gossip from proximity.

     To her potential credit, when Calvin assigns her a bodyguard in the form of a strange, floating(?) snake using a skull like a hermit-crab's shell, she only needs a couple of seconds to process this as a net-positive gesture. "Hello darling." she greets, gently reaching out to offer the snake a little stroke atop its head, if it isn't cagey. She's comfortable with critters! And all critters are darlings and sweethearts and babies, you see.
UFO Gang Some conversation on the transmission system makes Nazrin adjust her little earbud for a moment. When Minamitsu mentions the ocean bottom they need to reach, and they get the reply:

<J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura says, "Oh, I can do that as Ultraman."

Nazrin immediately uncorks her tea flask again and takes an even bigger swig.

"Awesome!!" Minamitsu says to Riku in enthusiasm. After this, some of the conversation makes Minamitsu look to Flamel with concern. "It sounds like you do this a lot at the mind control department," she says, with *audible* concern - for *him!*

Nazrin scans the other; Lilian, Schneider, Calvin. Nazrin nods once, the put-upon we're-all-gonna-die factor of her mousy mug receding materially. Minamitsu did not sign them up for a deadly quest. Just a hard one. Probably. Nazrin has not yet actually seen a hostile Necron. Nevertheless, she shakes Calvin's hand, as does Minamitsu a moment later.

Minamitsu beams. "Is that a computer?!" she says, looking at the COMP. Nazrin exhales at this one.

Minamitsu also thumps her chest. "I can command water, and stuff! So you can just put me in where you think I'll fit your plan best. We're here to help people!"

The skull-snake's appearance gets both of these weird girls looking at him. Minamitsu claps her hands twice and bows her head solemnly. Nazrin simply nods to Loa.
Meresankh     Lilian: "Have you ever heard the phrase 'get thy house in order'?"

    Meresankh, initially pleased to have Lilian's assistance, visibly bristles. "I am doing my best," she half-hisses. "It is a process." The queen hmph's here and there through Lilian's assessment, but ultimately relents: "Do as you must."

    Calvin: "Got anything long term in mind for undoin' that, Meresankh?"

    "I do. Restoring the minds of my people, Destroyers included, is my greatest ambition. It is also very complicated."

    Schneider: "Lady Me-re-sankh, do these subjects, ah... bleed?"

    "No, but serious damage will still stop them until they can recover. That is a slow process here, because the nanoscarab supply in the vaults is depleted by the passing of ages."

    Lissandra: "... It likely isn't possible to make on-the-spot treatments, but provided we capture the afflicted, that kind of work is not outside of reach. It may take time to familiarize myself with the mechanics...

    Meresankh offers an encouraging nod. "You have already asked for details on our unlife, as recompense. Perhaps returning above with a captured Destroyer could be beneficial to us both."
Sarracenia      'Sundew. Don't tell me that you're put out feeling less special than before. I already told you that I was only helping for Gregory's sake.'
r      'Calvin pauses to point his finger at Sarracenia with pre-emptively admonishing rather than acknowledging intent...'

     Sarra raises an incredulous eyebrow at Calvin as he points at her, then huffs and rolls her eyes right back at Lilian before crossing her arms. "I hope you will not feel less special to know that my being here has nothing to do with you. And of the many things you make me feel, special is not one of them."

     It seems there are things to be done! Sarra isn't the best with safely finding traps. She can look for them sure, but she is not the most observant nor particularly knowledgeable when it comes to traps. So, she reaches to touch her Silver lotus hairpin and coats herself in a protective layer of Silver armor. She offers metal mushrooms to any others who might want one. They won't stop harm completely, but armor is armor.

     She also forms her ususal hammer out of her Silver and holds it in front of her like a shield. And she keeps green mushrooms handy to help with any injuries. It is when they get to the transformed Necrons and the constructs that her skills will be more useful.
Meresankh     Flamel is able to confirm this even as the elevator's doors open - there is a deep, abiding rage here. Flickers of consciousness here and there signify the presence of wandering Necron Destroyers, and when they think they do so with one voice, a voice not their own. It is vast, and ancient, and it tells them only to kill. Vast, and ancient, but not *impenetrable*, not unbreakable. When the voice is rendered quiet the Destroyers cringe away from the light like frightened beasts, or like people suddenly woken from a thousand-year sleepwalk to frightful and unfamiliar conditions.

    Flamel's clairvoyance is helpful, but perhaps not as much as he'd like - these chambers and halls are sometimes so identical that a vision of 'where something is' does not always tell what that 'where' is connected to. What's more, the omnipresent black stone construction has residual psychic-damping properties, limiting how many walls Flamel can think through at a time. Arranged in a geodesic structure this could be potent defensive stuff, but as is the walls are flat and corners rectangular. In the moments of peace Flamel can offer against the Destroyers, Nazrin's dowsing rods seem more effective. 'Magic' is not a method the Necrons worried about as much as psychic powers, it seems, because the divinations give clearer senses of direction than psychic detection in this place.

    Further evidence of such a gap in Necron preparedness is the efficacy of Lissandra's invisibility magic and illusions. In particular the constructs seem incapable of distinguishing real light from the magically conjured stuff. The tomb-crawlers' beams terminate after traveling middling distances, dispersing into flashes of green energy that consume chunks of the doctor's illusions instead of piercing through like a laser might. Lightning is somewhat less effective - the Necrons themselves are more shielded against magic than their architecture, apparently.

    The combination of psychic and magical scouting leads deeper into the hall of vaults, and the concentration of threats only grows. Destroyers emerge from the darkness in bands, hitting and running in attempts to pick off careless Elites. Tomb-crawlers are less common here, but the skittering of robotic centipede legs from just beyond the edge of vision is almost constant. The constructs display no particular alliance with the Destroyers, leading to the enemy presenting themselves as more a constant trickle of ultraviolence than a united front.
Flamel Parsons     "I would usually think Agent Parsons to be a rational enough person to keep things to himself and focus on his work."
    "Oh, yeah, but they went into my brain at one point. You know how psychonautry is -- that's where all of the things I'm keeping to myself are! Really, though, I think it was a larger synthesis of a lot of things reconciling. Or, I guess, apparently not reconciling!" Flamel lets out a friendly Sensible Chuckle as he describes the vast gulf of cognitive dissonance. "I don't have a lot of especially clear memories of it, really, feels like some part of me got hit in the head a few times." He says while the camera focuses for some reason on Schneider Greco specifically and slowly zooms in.

    "Chevalier Calvin Nash, Commonwealth Paladins."
    "Pleased to meet you, Chevalier Nash." Flamel says, nodding and returning the handshake with a grip that's very slightly just short of being firm and certainly short of being quick. Not impolite, but surely drained. He has enough psychic energy to resist the urge to let the man know how pleased he is that there's a skull companion, and that Flamel himself is part skeleton in his heritage.
Lilian Rook     'I am Cerberus'
    'Marshal Nash speaks highly of the one called Lilian'

    Lilian's eyes widen a little. She doesn't so much play off her surprise as she just admits it. "Well well, that's certainly a first." she says, eyeing the demonic dog like she'd only just now noticed him thirty seconds after being summoned. "Ordinarily, the number one thing that demons love to say to me is a big pack of shit-talk." She glances away at Calvin. "And I'll admit that I thought his praise was closer to lip-service than that."

    She rolls her shoulders, taps her fingers against the hilt of her sword, and says, "Very well. Would you care to fill me in on your abilities?" then, "I do wish any other worlds would adopt our brevity codes though." She sighs, just to clear the air. "For my part, I'm a fair hand at reconnaissance, can get into wherever I need to be, and kill anything I can see before anyone knows what's happening. I dislike protracted battles because there's only so many times I can do that last part in a row. I'll be fighting up close for the most part, though I can fight at middle range as well without issue. I can use all seven of the celestial elements to some degree, and provide emergency healing as a last resort. If I suddenly sense something, listen to me immediately." It's about the most she's willing to say right in front of Schneider, and then only said out of respect for Calvin's (and his people's) focus on coordination.

    'I am doing my best. It is a process.'

    Lilian raiss an eyebrow, replacing her hand on her hip, but her tone softens slightly. "Allow me to be more specific: If your men turn on you, the proper thing to do is to deal with all of them as immediately as possible with the most expedient means available. If you keep holding out hope that you can make them come back to you, you'll get burned sooner rather than later. You can't go expecting everyone else to feel the same sense of loyalty you do."

    'I hope you will not feel less special to know that my being here has nothing to do with you.'

    "Oh goodness no." Lilian gasps, punctuating it with a laugh. "I'm God's own gift to the Multiverse; nothing you could possibly do could ever make me feel mundane." She gestures offhandedly, palm upturned, like Schneider might do with her gun, actually. "Try not to let it become all about me, though. Someone who quite eloquently referred to me as a 'black hole' should know better than to orbit too closely."

    But then the elevator slows, and its doors open, and Lilian loses interest.
Riku Asakura Riku stays near Meresankh during the exploration phase of the operation.  He's mostly a normal human in his form.  He's strong but not as tough as some of the others here, and mostly fights like an Ultraman... which is dangerous to someone who isn't one.  It eats at him to have to stay behind friendly lines while people potentially get hurt, but it's probably for the best if he stays his hand and gets ready for when they need to get out of here.  

He looks to Meresankh during this and notices the look on her face, and frowns.  "Are you alright?  It seems something weighs on your mind, Meresankh," he says, hopefully able to talk with her while they tread behind the group.  
Schneider Greco      "I'll make sure to stay extra emotionally open and expressive..."
     "If this keeps you in good repair," Schneider nods, vaguely amused. "Tell me, my-lord, if you should be more or less stressed."

     "Was there a tree involved?"
     "A tree? Mmm..." Schneider, worryingly, taps the barrel of a handgun to her chin in innocent thought. "I did-not see one. On-ly... ah." She casts a look aside at Flamel again.

     "... It weighed too heav-i-ly on him, that those like 'us' suffer, and he does not. His guilt, my-la-dy, came over him, and he tried to burn himself for our warmth and light."

     A soft cluck of her tongue. "I had to tell him, ahh, he does-not make a good candle. But please be gentle, if it can be helped."


     Lissandra's praise makes her preen. Her shoulders draw in, she gets a half-inch taller, and her smile glows just slightly more. "I am quite some-thing. And so are you, right? So it would be a shame, were you neg-lec-ted."

     The pills, she takes with eyes slightly widened; and then giggles softly, holding still for the magical healing (yay! hands un-pinkened!), before handing Lissandra the tablets back.

     "Mmmh, thank-you for your care, beau-ti-ful witch... but isn't-it a little for-ward, to give me strange pills as first we meet? You are ver-y used to being trusted, right...?" Huh? She won't take fantasy aspirin, but she's cool with magic spells being cast on her??

     . . .

     The tomb-elevator grinds to a halt.

     Schneider, surrounded by glowing green circuitry and science-fiction weaponry, placidly accepting being shown hologram-diagrams of futuristic tactical threats, steps out, looks back, and says:

     "It is astounding you no longer need an 'elevator girl', my-la-dy."
Trudy Grimm > "I have... already soured relations, in attempting to assert my titles."

    "Ah, that is unfortunate," Trudy remarks with her eyes closed. Mending diplomatic ties isn't really in her skill-set.

> "Their anger is driven by a deep and ancient curse, so if you have methods of cleansing such..."

    Oh, but that is. One eye opens, "I'll see what I can do once I've had a look at them for myself." It seems like Lissandra has keyed in on the same issue. Whether Trudy sees this as collaboration or competition isn't immediately clear, though.

    She gestures with here left hand, hefting up her tome in her right. In response, the Black Knight strides forward to take his position-- not alongside Lilian, Cerberus, and Riku-- but in front of them. That's not precisely what Trudy ordered him to do, it's just how he chose to follow her order.

    It kind of makes sense though. Whatever traps or dangers there might be, the Black Knight is already super dead and animated by dark magics, it's reasonable to assume nothing here could kill him in a way that matters. His hand tightens on the grip of his sword, hefting the weapon down into a readied position-- though still wielded one-handed.

> "Shou told me about your chicken!"

    "Ahaha~," Trudy closes her eyes as she advances, "Weren't you there for its raising? Your advice about securing cupboards and drawers has been most helpful, Minamitsu."
UFO Gang FORWARD!

Nazrin's main plan for this is to stay behind others. Nazrin's defensive capacities are minimal in this place, and she is probably one of the smaller people present, with the least blood and flesh to sate the -- well, don't worry about it. Nevertheless, once there are lulls in the sudden surging clashes of destroyers, her rods pivot and point -- forwards.

Or to the right.

Or to the up ramp, that leads almost immediately to a much longer *down* ramp...

"Yanno, in a way, we're about mind control too," Nazrin comments to Flamel, following up on what was probably about seven Destroyer encounters ago (back when their number of Necron Encounters was either Zero or A Few, depending on how you're counting Meresankh and co.) -- back before they started.

As for Minamitsu, her fighting is more clearly shown when a Destroyer lunges at her -- she has been staying near the van, if not exactly shoving her way to the front. "Hup!" she says as she sweeps forwards with the... ...wicker ladle? she had in the inside of that jacket.

It may be wicker but it's more than that as well. A sorcerously conjured surge of water, like a two-foot wave taken in isolation from a distant ocean and immediately brought to bear against a Destroyer who *almost surely* did not expect that to happen, and Minamitsu is-- "Safe! Hah~. So you were saying about ice?!"

After this, though, Minamitsu looks to Trudy - and frowns, blinking. "That's right," she says. "I did. The cold, the ritual, the piece of Lapis Lazuli-- Am I --"

"You watched twenty-six straight hours of that TV show after you got back," Nazrin tells Minamitsu.

Minamitsu cups her chin with her pinched-together index finger and thumb for a long moment, before suddenly pivoting around to hurl high-speed water bullets at a sudden looming dual-ocular presence!

"That is so embarrassing," Minamitsu tells Trudy, grinning for a moment. "I'm still not used to TV and Dav-- DVDs and everything!"
Lilian Rook     'And to think nobody's fretted over your own safety here, you must be quite something.'

    "That's because she hates it." Lilian says, authoritatively, and with no basis in anything she's seen or heard of. She declares it while strutting forward off the lift, smoothly drawing her black blade.

    'Oh, yeah, but they went into my brain at one point.'

    "And you really have got to break the habit of creating situations that force people to do that."

    . . . . . . . .

    Lilian, despite all of her coding, actually isn't much of a 'dungeon crawler'. Once she gets into the swing of it, it almost reminds her more of Bladecraft than of the Cryptark, which frames things in a comfortable way despite the unknown danger.

    She insistently takes vanguard; it is not an argument, because if she wants to stay slightly ahead of someone, she can do it forever. Her 'clairvoyance' is unlike Flamel's; she stops at intersections and junctions, slices both corners, and then after several seconds of zoning out, picks one without explaining why, following an invisible causal thread through the maze. She senses enemies quickly and preemptively, describes their formation to Calvin first and Trudy second.

    Her preferred MO is that she drops into the middle of the enemy packs and shatters coherency with seamless strings of supremely deadly sword techniques primarily fit for striking multiple enemies at once while moving quickly and erratically and warding off projectile fire. When the damage is done and the group is ready, she leaps back out again to allow gunners and elementalists to bombard the enemy to finish them off, and shoot down any stragglers, though she reacts with uncanny ease and smoothly moves out of the way when someone needs to shoot something close to her in the thick of it.

    With large groups, she softens them up first with runestone traps, drawing them around corners and into choke points. She's conservative with them, and her ammunition, hot-swapping which array is in the chamber for maximum effectiveness and only firing at exposed enemies out of position. Her weapon isn't particularly suited to deflecting beam weapons, so she dodges them as much as possible, and tests how exotic particle weapons interact with her weird armour as little as she can. Despite Meresankh describing the Destroyers as the deadliest threat, she approaches them so aggressively that one might think she enjoys it; it's the pocket dimension fuckers that she displays an excessively healthy wariness for, even though Meresankh already said she could rescue someone if they get got, and she avoids them like the plague, mostly directing others to deal with them.

    Despite her ultra-offenisve approach to front-line combat, Lilian also manages to pay rapt attention to the backline, often 'teleporting' back to intercept possible threats to Lissandra and Flamel before they become serious. It's Trudy and Riku whom she mostly lets do as they please, and she watches how Schneider fits in much more than she gives suggestions; instead, she fires her tactical chatter back and forth with Calvin for the most part, trusting in his sense for teamwork and timing to cut down her expenditure of effort.

    For an 'adventurer', she fights as if she's never heard of healing in her life.

    . . . . . . . .
Sarracenia      'Oh goodness no. I'm God's own gift to the Multiverse; nothing you could possibly do could ever make me feel mundane. Try not to let it become all about me, though. Someone who quite eloquently referred to me as a 'black hole' should know better than to orbit too closely.'

     Sarra mmphs and frowns. "Your god has a terrible sense of humor if you are his gift to the Multiverse." she says. "Oh, and do not worry about it becoming all about you. Fighting against someone in a war who tortures you for fun because it is 'optimal' and 'a legitimate tactic' quickly banishes any thoughts that they are worth idolizing."

     Lilian loses interest somewhere in there, so perhaps she doesn't even really hear Sarra. Which is fine with Sarra, really. She is tired of dealing with Lilian after all this time. The attitude of superiority, the Multiverse worshipping her, the unheroic qualities constantly giving her whiplash with the heroic actions, and all the things she and Petra are basically extorting her into now. Sarra often says never give up, but fighting -against- Lilian feels like trying to push a very heavy boulder up a very steep hill.

     Once they start encountering the constructs and the Destroyers, Sarra gets to work. She actually stays back from the bladed Destroyers...and doesn't use bombs. She fires Silver fletchettes and ice bolts at their joints to try and immobilize them so that they can be recovered. She wanted to save Mermaids. These things are the same thing to her. People that have been transformed and should be saved.

     The constructs though, she shows no mercy. She swings her hammer in mighty blows that resound throughout the tombs and is not shy about being on the front line against them, leading the way toward the item they are after. She isn't fast enough to bounce between front and back line, so she does her best to ensure there is little reason to pop back to the front line. Wading into swarms of enemies keeps her mind distracted from the other things worrying her. Not that she expects anyone to trust she can handle things on her own.
Lissandra As the group proceeds, Lissandra takes a relatively relaxed approach to her efforts. She gives the others a wide berth where space allows it, remaining out of sight and elevated where possible, and even unhearable, thanks to a combination of leisurely floating along astride her staff and masking her own noises with magic most of the time. Loa is welcomed into her personal bubble of sensory masking, drifting along vaguely above the battle whenever possible, and Lissandra pays attention to Loa's movements to cover for them like a mindful pet-sitter. Offerings might have to wait for later, though. When her electrical attacks prove ineffective, Lissandra doesn't try very hard to compensate for that issue; instead she simply shifts to focus more on creating confusing decoys of her allies, or outright blocking the enemy's sight with illusory lights once she notices their effectiveness. It feels a little like spitefully holding your hand over someone's face, but she's not above it.

     All she really has to do inbetween most of the time is interrupt any particularly badly-timed attacks from angles that others can't easily respond to, and Lissandra shifts from lightning to wind and ice; neither is likely to greatly injure a body of steel at the potency that she's slinging, but the physical impacts should work well enough for throwing off the balance of a Destroyer or knocking their arm off its intended path. She has all the time in the world to line up those shots, since she's not trying to help *defeat* the enemy basically at all. She's pretty good at recognizing who has the openings that need covering for, at least, and before long she's paying quite a lot of attention to Riku and Sarracenia's backs, while throwing in a little help for others inbetween.

     *Earlier*, Schneider's refusal of Lissandra's pills is met by a quick little jumble of 'confusion' then 'annoyance', then somewhat belated understanding and almost immediate acceptance. She certainly processes things quickly, but it might be a little funny to follow the small changes in her expression while it happens. "... No, you're right. I suppose I am used to it. I've had to remind myself things work differently away from home, a few times." She neatly divides the pills by type with her thumb, and doesn't have to look as she returns them to their own little bottles inside of her bag. She must've used magic to hide it when she reached for them originally. What's less hidden is that she doesn't quite seem to know how to respond to Schneider's flirting, or how seriously to take it; she has a little wiggle in her jaw when she breaks eye contact, like she's trying to run simulations in her head. Eventually, she has to put that off for later, and simply conclude about neglect, "... Likewise. We've only just met, so don't expect all too much doting to compensate, alright?" Schneider did kind of throw 'neglected' vibes showing up in the shape she did...
Lilian Rook     'Your god has a terrible sense of humor if you are his gift to the Multiverse.'

    "God is a piece of shit." Lilian says, alittle too casually. "The gifts I bestow upon you all merely by existing, I'm certain, weren't part of his plan; only the consequences of his actions." It's still unclear whether she really means a divinity, or is speaking more abstractly. "It seems more likely that he intended me to be dead."

    'Fighting against someone in a war who tortures you for fun because it is 'optimal' and 'a legitimate tactic' quickly banishes any thoughts that they are worth idolizing.'

    "Oh please. It didn't seem to slow you down in the least." she scoffs. "You were absolutely giddy just to have the chance to taunt and annoy me through it. Everyone being on your side and going after me; you were obviously having the time of your life." Lilian sighs. "I admit that trying to break your will to fight was the wrong decision, only because it was a pointless waste of time to think you'd make a decision on your own."

    'A tree? Mmm... I did-not see one. On-ly... ah.'

    "Good. Then it wasn't that serious." Lilian says, three-quarters meaning it. It puts her in a better mood for all of ten seconds; the use of 'us' instantly sets her back to invisibly bristling.

    'His guilt, my-la-dy, came over him, and he tried to burn himself for our warmth and light.'

    "That's very noble of him." Lilian says, tersely. She focuses on wiping down her sword in a lull, and chamber checks her sidearm. "But misguided. 'Warmth and light' should be something you reserve for those who the cold and dark are going to kill. If you try to force it on the freaks who've already adapted to it, who are native to it, you're only going to burn them." Like an intrusive thought, she stares at Schneider's hands.

    She keeps walking, but something about that 'us' bothers her; more and more with each step, rather than less as she turns it over in her mind and files it away. Her little restless habits creep back in as she waits for Flamel to handle a trap. When he's busy, she turns to Schneider again, with the air of someone who has something weighing heavily on their mind.

    "Do you ever wonder about that suffering?" Lilian says. It's like an entire prelude was just skipped. Paragraphs of text taken for a priori knowledge. "You know about the Storm, don't you? Whatever it is he sees in you, does it ever bother you to think that . . ." She takes a deep breath, reaching for words, with the last person she should ask, but the only one she can. She forces them out with the pressure of not having another option. "That everything you remember was . . . might have been, just set up to be that way. That it might have happened for no reason at all; that it was never avoidable. Like, it's a role, that 'had to exist' arbitrarily, and something elected you to fill it; because there has to be a sufferer or else the gears get stuck."

    She's watching Schneider too closely for it to be just about her feelings.
Meresankh     Schneider: "It is astounding you no longer need an 'elevator girl', my-la-dy."

    Meresankh looks back at Schneider, wide-eyed with evident confusion. "Do.. Should I? Need an elevator girl? It does not see much use. I suppose once the vaults are properly under my control, I could station one..."

    Lilian: "If you keep holding out hope that you can make them come back to you, you'll get burned sooner rather than later. You can't go expecting everyone else to feel the same sense of loyalty you do."

    "I don't want to give up on them. So many other rulers have. They use Destroyers as shock troops, arming them to the teeth and teleporting them to enemy front-lines. I... don't want to be like that. Just seeing them as things, disposable for their incurability."

    Riku: "Are you alright? It seems something weighs on your mind, Meresankh,"

    The queen has indeed been quiet much of the journey. "It is Lady Nakhtmut. I... did not always look like this," she says softly, gesturing at her body - a custom build, slighter and more feminine than the ordinary Necron shape. "And when we entered our tomb together for the Great Sleep, it was under the Necron Empire's banner. Now the dynasties are sundered, and our world of Oryx numbers among the Commonwealth. I will not be quite the Queen she remembers."
Schneider Greco      Schneider's near-sultry, lazy strolling into the dark of the tomb-palace near the party's fore does nothing to inspire confidence in her fighting discipline.

     One of the pretty handguns she totes is held low; the other, after peeling off the bandages she doesn't need, dangles from her fingers off-to-the-side in a feminine palm-up gesture.

     BANG.

     So it's a bit jarring when she peels the ghost out of the first flank-charging Destroyer with a flick-gesture, puts a slug through the ghost's ectoplasmic eye-socket, and steps neatly out of its collapsing body's way when the real thing's head is sympathetically blown open.

     The gunshot hasn't quite finished echoing when she steps over the body. There's a three-second pause, pointing the gun at its face, to see if it gets back up before she continues.

     By degrees, she dials the lethality of her targeting precisely up and down. BANG, there off-center in the neck. BANG, there 'upper spine'.

     Once she finds the point where they show some signs of recovery, but don't get back up as an immediate threat, she sticks to that; even if it takes a kneecapping shot or three tense seconds of barely-leaning-dodges of whistling blades to line up the shot juuuust right.

     That's a flourish for when she feels she can afford it, though. When pressed sufficiently- 'sufficiently' once meaning one Destroyer approaching the party's backliners, BANG-BANG-BANG triple-tap whistling concerningly near Lissandra and leaving nothing above its neck- she drops the mercies.

     The more she's defensively squeezed, too, the more the casual stroll caves to taut movement.

     The droopy-smooth affect vanishes for a few moments when she strolls into an open space, ducks a translocation beam, has to clink-deflect the scrabbly claws of a second Crawler with a whirl of magical bladelike feathers before even recovering from her dive, and then swishing around the back of a third as she rises while BANG-BANG-BANG trial-and-erroring where it keeps the closest thing to a brain.

     The demeanor returns as soon as she can softly breathe out the adrenaline. How can she act so relaxed?
Calvin Nash      Loa interprets being pet as an offering, which endears Lissandra to it.

     "I understand that the one called Riku is capable of reaching a towering height." There is a pause, and Cerberus' tail wags, slow and wary. "Please watch your step."

I do. Restoring the minds of my people, Destroyers included, is my greatest ambition. It is also very complicated.
...provided we capture the afflicted, that kind of work is not outside of reach.

     Calvin nods. "On it," he says. "You gonna get as many as you need."

Would you care to fill me in on your abilities?

     "Of course," answers Cerberus. "I can easily reposition due to my speed. My size affords me reach and strength, though surely not to the extent that Riku's does. Anything which would attack via the energies of 'death' will find no purchase against me. Lastly, I have various means of weakening particularly stubborn adversaries. I prefer to fight in close quarters."

     IN THE MIX:

     Cerberus is fast and powerful, darting in and out of the front lines to set up takedowns for Lilian or to pin down enemies and keep them in Riku's field of vision. He has a knack for perfectly timed leaps, his heads spewing flame as one's breath might make fog on a particularly cold day. When he needs to get clear, he does so, leveraging his bulk (and calling out more troublesome injuries to Calvin for quick spot-healing) to take favorable trades. Often, as troublesome dogs do, he employs the time-tested method of darting beneath the legs of anything trying to stop him, of which the denizens of the lower levels seem to have plenty--his spiked tail coils and snatches limbs as he passes, letting momentum and balance do what they will.

     Loa acts as a mobile turret for Lissandra, blasting with electricity from the jaws of the skull anything which ventures too close or opens fire on her. It allows her to do the healing, but does attempt dispelling magic to counteract the traps of the Crawlers. It also supports Lissandra by casting a spell on her; a brief curtain of green starbursts falls like a summer rainshower. Every so often, one of those little starbursts appears with a movement she makes; for as long as they continue to be shaken loose, she finds that she gets more effect from her magic for less effort. Others, too--two interwoven screens of purple and blue scales seem to flare up whenever she's struck, blunting the impact.

     Calvin calls out information on the sentient threats they encounter (anything that could be considered an opponent rather than the environment), sticking close to Loa to leverage the demon's ranged capabilities as he does so. Once he's given mid-combat rundowns of the varieties of denizens encountered, he focuses on making good on his promise to Meresankh and Lissandra.

     Namely, 'putting the Destroyers on ice;' fighting towards the front lines. Special rounds from his shotgun conjure first gallumphing spectral tapirs to put them to sleep, and failing that, dimly glittering spectral basilisks to petrify them.
Riku Asakura 'It is Lady Nakhtmut. I... did not always look like this,'

Riku wasn't ready for this. He paused in his footsteps for a moment before struggling to catch up to Meresankh.  "So you've changed, and so has your empire," he says, not sure what to think initially of this.  What does he say?  Saying everything will be alright might be disingenuous, because he doesn't even know Nakhtmut.  

He takes a moment to consider his words carefully before speaking.  "I'm sure the two of you can work out any differences together.  Not just with the empire, but with each other.  It might be tough, and you might disagree, but I'm sure you can come to an understanding and love each other the same as before the great sleep," he says with a bright smile to Meresankh.
Trudy Grimm MONTAGE:
    Trudy's contribution to the path through the dungeon is twofold; The witch herself keeps near the backlines, drawing upon ancient runes to inhibit and confound the feral Necrons with curses, further diminishing their threat alongside Flamel's attempts at calming their hostility.

    Much more obvious than the witch's spellcasting is the Black Knight. He doesn't move particularly fast but he never stops pressing forward, step by step, leading with the edge of his greatsword. Each swing clears great swathes of space that he advances directly into. The broad blade acts as a shield against the blades of Necron Destroyers from which he can immediately counterattack.

    Scarabs are stepped on, largely ignored; the centipedal Tomb Crawlers less so, assaulted and finished off in brutally efficient fashion. If he had a face, it would probably be distressingly pleased with his work. But all one can really see is the green glow from within the slit visor of his helmet.

    At some point the Black Knight loses his right arm; the sword moves to his left. Pieces of his armor and even his body are missing, showing grey, desiccated flesh underneath. With part of his breastplate carved open, bleached white bits of rib are showing. He doesn't slow down.

> "I will not be quite the Queen she remembers."

    Trudy doesn't immediately have something to say when she hears Meresankh voice her worries about her wife. She does purse her lips slightly in thought, but that's about as far as she gets.
Swords of Justice      Medusa doesn't need any help to fight once it finally comes to it. She's strong and fast and good with a sword, though mostly she's just using her overwhelming strength to deal with them, only occasionally pulling out her sword. Though even then, it's simply to summon Greyon, who proceeds for a brief moment to also smash more Destroyers. Respecting Meresankh's wishes, she doesn't aim to destroy them, however, just simply leave them in such a state of disrepair that they can't easily get up.

     Shirou, on the other hand, is just a guy in comparison. In the time it takes Medusa to handle multiple Destroyers, Shirou is still dealing with his one. Though a lot of it is trying to figure out how not to kill it, even though it's a skeleton and already technically dead. At first, he fights with mundane swords, mostly because they're easier to produce, as he looks for an opening. He also takes his fair share of cuts and bruises, though eventually he finds the brief window he was looking for and finally pushes through with Caliburn, unleashing a blinding light that cuts the mechanical skeleton in two. He worries for a moment, that he might've killed it, before remembering that they regenerate.

     Shirou briefly considers staying to make sure it's still alive, before Medusa finally makes good on her promise and simply picks him up and carries him off to join up with the rest of the group. Shirou briefly considers protesting, but knows he's already lost. The only way to maintain his dignity is to not say anything and remain as stern faced as possible.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel's movements, as he exits the lift are slow, methodical, and not pushing himself. He focuses on what he can do. He keeps a dense Shield around him, he keeps his pulses on a regular beat, and he focuses on the minds. 'KILL,' They think, and he sure hopes they won't. A single massive impulse on their minds... Restoring each one would take such a *long* time, if it's possible at all, but he can focus on disconnecting the singular voice from the remnants of each mind and letting it quiet in their skull. He might not be able to chip away its vastness, but cutting one root away each time...

    '# # # #'

    What was that? He stops a moment in one of the chambers, descending from his levitation to twist two fingers against his temple. "I'm picking up another signal." He says to the others, reaching into his jacket and brandishing some radio equipment. He continues to twist his temple with two fingers, as if turning a dial, holding up a spinning dish device that slowly pings. "Almost..."

    Once they're deepest down in there, the Destroyers in bands are getting psychically defused by the half-dozen as Flamel gets used to the process of wading through thin, meager mindscape and separating it (at least temporarily) from the curse... He otherwise needs to depend on the others (example, Lilian) to defend him as he focuses on his work, defusing a trap here and opening a door there.

    'F # E #'

    "What is that? 'Free'? Is something trapped down here?" He mutters. "Something..." He levitates up, raising his radio receiver and closing his eyes as he tunes. A soft whine comes from inside.

    In the rebuilding wings of the Parsons Institute, a team in the Communications Department are plugging in cables, lifting frames and antennae, and resetting fuseboxes. Someone with a working radio over stacked filing cabinets turns knobs, chattering to a colleage as they decrypt. And slowly...

    'F E E D'

    "'Feed.'" He says. "What *is* that...?" It isn't long before Meresankh explains over the radio, and Flamel brow furrows deeply behind the sunglasses. "Alright. Let's move fast." He says, engaging with the worries in proper sincerity. While this whole place might be built with antipsychic material, he can focus through it. Meresankh was worried about the source of that signal, so he shifts his clairvoyant pulses. A direction, and an approximate intensity, roughly corresponding with distance. Every five or so seconds, he can manage a pulse with that sinister yellow indicator -- however much he can detect at all, around the many red signals of KILL.
Schneider Greco      As the gunsmoke disperses from the most recent ambush-clash, Schneider re-fluffs her bangs with the barrel of one of her handguns, erasing the evidence that she exerted herself at all.

     "I ex-pect I shall have to earn your doting, my-la-dy Lis-san-dra. What a varied ar-can-um you have," she softly marvels, slowing her pace to walk alongside the witch. "Not on-ly to remedy, but to com-mand the elements of the world... mmmh, what truth is it you've grasped, I won-der?"

     "Do... Should I? Need an elevator girl?"
     "Mmmh, do your sub-jects need the work?" she says lightly, glancing back at Meresankh.

     "I... did not always look like this"
     Oh, yes. Robotesses are always self-refining it seems like. "Ah, like the Lady An-gel-a," Schneider asserts with a baseless confidence.

     "That everything you remember was . . . might have been, just set up to be that way"
     "Like, it's a role, that 'had to exist' arbitrarily, and something elected you to fill it"
     After another almost perfunctory BANG, Schneider's attention drifts to Lilian, and her lips press as she visibly decides how honest to be.

     Whatever she settles on, it sounds like: "I have of-ten won-dered, Lady Rook... why it is I find myself in this body, this time, this place. 'Schneider' is here. She has these hands, no other; these eyes, no other; and..."

     A little breath out through the nose, smiling. Her eyes shut, despite the ever-present dangers. "... no. I do-not think, that I am only a means to an 'ends' of the world. To be 'me' is an ends- what-ev-er fate made me, serves me. But if there is some jailor, who has trapped me in the prison of this body and this fate... mmmh, my-la-dy, you can guess how I would greet Him."

     ". . . Surely, you are not on-ly a means?"
Meresankh     Lilian, Cerberus, Sarracenia, and the Black Knight take point against the encroaching Destroyers and occasional waves of construct guardians. Runic traps, even hastily deployed, are effective against the unrelenting forward press of the Destroyers themselves, as are Lilian's 'jumps' into and out of their little packs. Her jaunts rely on no method the Necrons have seen before, leaving them unable to predict her movements where conventional teleportation might be split-second tracked. The Black Knight serves to cover her retreats, even as the Destroyers' energy blades mar his great blade.

    The Sundew princess's approach of sheer overwhelming force, meanwhile, is effective in dealing with the 'true' robots (as opposed to the undead robots). The centipedes are built for flexibility, not durability. They can come from anywhere, including dropping from the ceiling, but Lissandra's illusions force them to close distance instead of picking off the Elites from afar, allowing Sarracenia to crush them by the handful.

    Schneider's techniques work on the Destroyers, although the gosts are pulled out sluggishly, like the spirits are sunk into their bodies with barbed hooks. And they don't look quite so... mechanical, as the Destroyers or as any Necron, their alien-organic shapes hanging in the air. They gaze back at Schneider not with fear or anger but with sheer befuddlement, as if roused from the deepest of sleeps. Damage to the spirits, however, translates as always into damage to the body, ordinary lead tearing apart reinforced super-alloys just as it would do to flesh. Meresankh herself is briefly transfixed at the sight of the spirits, only tearing her eyes away when the first bullets land.

    Calvin and Lissandra's disabling techniques render a number of Destroyers immobile or incapacitated, frozen in blocks of magical ice or temporarily turned to stone. Meresankh pauses near a cluster of them, withdrawing a number of scarabs robots from her cloak. They latch onto the paralyzed Destroyers and warp away, transporting them to some prison in the higher levels of the tomb complex.

    Riku: "I'm sure the two of you can work out any differences together. Not just with the empire, but with each other.

    Meresankh makes an affirmative noise, but her eyes don't meet Riku's. "Thank you. I can only hope so."
Lissandra As the group's urgency and pace rise, Lissandra announces on radio, "Those of you taking injuries, move a step behind the leading line. I'll patch you up as we go." She can move entirely unseen, sat side-saddle on her staff within the invisibility spell's radius; others are able to step within it, and she expands it somewhat to encapsulate those who she swoops in to treat, or... Well, Schneider, who walks alongside her at points! From within, it looks like they're surrounded by a big, glossy soap-bubble.

     Shirou feels a couple of light wand-taps across his shoulders, letting healing light run down him and close the surface injuries, relieving strain from his bones and joints in the process. Trudy's Black Knight has his dismembered arm snatched from the floor and brought over, nonchalantly sewn and then 'welded' back on at wandpoint by a direct manipulation of whatever flesh and bone the undead knight possesses. Lissandra mindfully and automatically sterilizes the wand after doing so, running it through a tiny fluid dollop suspended near her palm and flicking it dry again. Still not being quite familiar with the difference in magical paradigms, Schneider's question leaves the busy-working Lissandra distractedly thoughtful. "Is that how it is for you? That there is some specific 'truth' to grasp?"

She has to think a moment on exactly how verbose she wants to be about this, with someone outside of her new organization's specific boundaries, but Schneider is easy enough to talk to that it doesn't leave her in decision paralysis for very long. "... I strive for breadth, Schneider. The things I was born with don't do all that I need them to. I have many tools, and I've siphoned up whatever I could of the magical schools most closely compatible with mine. I suppose from observation, your magic does seem somewhat more... Bounded. It's difficult to imagine what your adjacent attributes might be, even as a novelty."

     But, she can't just chatter away, and before long after treating the few casualties thus far, she's back to her aerial, invisible orbit. Calvin's defensive magic goes mostly underappreciated except in the greater confidence she can show around stone shrapnel from stray shots, but his magical output buff starts to influence the rate and timing of her spells once she becomes familiar with it; a little bit of extra punch means she can condense a wind bullet enough to outright topple the heavy mechanical bodies of their opponents when she catches them from behind, or as aforementioned even encase some of them in ice when given a moment to prepare. It's sort of pleasant to be able to extend the effectiveness of magic she wouldn't usually have the raw output to use in such a dramatic way, but she sticks to what's practical and effective whenever possible.

     Loa is welcome company even with the macabre choice in accessory. She often times her elemental blasts with theirs, either concentrating the effect or exploiting the flinch from one to land another on a better spot. "The Marshal is quite lucky, I think. He has such talented familiars. Next time we meet, I'll try to have a proper treat prepared for you, for all your hard work little Loa."
Meresankh     In Flamel's mental radar, yellow dots creep onto the fringes of the display, then just as promptly flicker out. Each of their approaches is a little bolder, a little more straight-line, and all the while the distant impulse to feed, to *devour*, grows clearer. It's the sort of feeling that makes a person want to crawl out of their skin... and possibly into someone else's. More insidious, less angry than the Destroyers' curse but more obsessive. Eventually, yellow eyes glint in the distance, in contrast to the Destroyers' greens.

    They keep their distance for some time. Long enough, even, that Meresankh suddenly looks to one side. "We are near the transducer. I can detect its standby signal. This way." She directs the group of Elites around a corner, and it's not long before the party is gathered before a great stone door. "Opening this may take a moment," the queen explains, and her scepter lights up as it begins to manipulate whatever mechanisms lie within. All the while those eyes, first two or three pairs at the very fringes of even magically- or technologically-enhanved vision, then growing in number to a dozen or so. Still, they keep their distance. Meresankh glances back into the darkness now and then, openly fearful. "Almost..."

    The vault's lock opens, and its door hums, lighting up with a different sigil than the one on the door to the vault elevator. This vault in particular is revealed to be barely a closet's depth as the door slides aside, with only a few shelves bearing, indeed, five of the devices Meresankh showed in her earlier hologram. "It's time to go," she declares. "Take them all." For her part, she picks up one and holds it carefully in both hands, her scepter tucked into one elbow. The vault slides shut... and darkness descends, even the light from Meresankh's scepter blocked under some kind of thick odorless smog, like shadow made physical.

    Something shrieks just out of sight, and a hundred yellow eyes light all around, some only paces away.

    As whatever illumination the Elites can muster on moment's notice struggles against the rolling darkness, long scissorlike claws cut through the fog, grasping for anything they can find. Farther out the sounds of metal tearing metal are audible, the hunched mechanical figures descending into an orgy of violence against each other as much as against the Elites. They are fighting for the privilege to consume and become you.
Lilian Rook     'I have of-ten won-dered, Lady Rook... why it is I find myself in this body, this time, this place.'

    There it is. A completely neutral statement that could only possibly mean anything to the person who spoke it. Lilian leans in closer, so as not to miss a single word.
    There's something strange about it. The feeling of her attention is . . . Uncomfortable. Starving.

    '. . . Surely, you are not on-ly a means?'

    Lilian takes a short, sharp breath. "Who knows." escapes her lips, airy and automatic. Her fingers twitch upwards, towards her head, and fall to her side again. "That's up to everyone else to decide, isn't it? Everyone is a means to accomplish something to someone." She's stil restless. Uncomfortable with her own evasive answer.

    "If not 'a means', then, 'an inevitability'. Someone who can't not be here, filling this role and no other. The fact that I can do it all so very, very wrong can only lead to the inescapable conclusion that there was a right way to be; but there was never a happy ending for any of the girls who did it right, so I suppose I'll keep taking my chances."

    Lilian exhales, suddenly feeling more taken out of her than all the fighting managed. "There's no point in Parsons feeling guilty either way. Whatever his sense of misguided pity has conjured up, there was only one way that all of this was going to go from the start. I'd rather do everything wrong and nothing like I'm supposed to than coast through life accepting everything I'm told." She looks back at Schneider. 'You seem like you feel the same way' is silently present in her eyes.
UFO Gang Minamitsu glances back at Meresankh's moment of conversation with Riku. It's heartwarming, somehow, even if it's also longing. Thoughts have come to her about these strange machine-robot-people. Is this rebirth? Is that what's going on with these guys, bad rebirths? Such theological speculations are exciting!

Nazrin needs no theological speculation. When she hears that the feeling is going from KILL to also FEED, her ears flatten back and she grinds her teeth together for a moment. (More worrisome if she wasn't at least partly muscine, one might presume.)

Deeper they go. Deeper. Things are growing more uneasy. Minamitsu doesn't put her ladle away. Ridiculous as it may be, high pressure seawater is a fairly effective weapon, even once the surprise factor is reduced.

Nazrin doesn't speak either. The two of them end up near each other as they wait...

And wait...

And wait...

click-Hum! "Aha," Minamitsu says with slight shakiness, as the vault is opened! Revealing no fewer than *five* of those things, even as Nazrin points her dowsing rods, nods once -- and packs them up, brushing off her hands. "That was pretty tense," Nazrin says --

As Darkness rolls over her feet.

As something SHRIEKS.

Minamitsu turns to look at -- others; at Riku and perhaps the promise of Ultraman, at Meresankh herself, at Trudy and her Black Knight, at Parsons and Schneider and

            KTANGGG

The long, too-long finger-claws swung diagonally downwards and the creature's strike hit that anchor she keeps toting around. Perhaps it shows WHY Minamitsu carries it around on her back half the time, because the blow throws sparks and is pulled away without sawing a piece of Minamitsu off. For a moment, claw-wedges that go nearly halfway through a piece of solid iron -- and which were *drawn backwards* rather than forced -- glitter and gleam.

Minamitsu screams.

So does Nazrin.

Moments later there are storms of watery bullets and desperately shoved-and-swung 'large piece of metal' but the screams, somehow, hang in the air.
Trudy Grimm     Lissandra promptly restores the Black Knight's arm during a quieter moment of transiting the labyrinth. Once it's welded back on, he hefts his right hand and makes a fist, flexing his fingers with audible creaking. His helmet turns slightly towards the Red Witch, staring at her with those glowing green eyes hidden behind his visor. There is just the slightest nod. The understanding that he appreciates it because it means he can Kill More. When he returns his attention to the fighting ahead, he passes his battle-worn sword to his right hand again.

    At one point after a skirmish, Trudy pauses to look over the battered ruins of the Necron Destroyers. Her eyes close and she gestures. Shadows deepen around one of the more intact specimens. A heartbeat later, it 'falls' into the darkness around it, as if the floor were simply removed. The shadows disappear a second later.

--

> "It's time to go. Take them all."

    Trudy nods once. Her own shadow deepens and extends to either side; from the darkness arises a pair of skeletons, fleshless creations who step forward to collect a pair of the important Transducer devices in their bony hands. She would normally just carry something like this in the Void herself, but the warning about teleportation earlier tells her that might do more harm than good. So skeleton porters it is.

    The vault door shuts and sources of light all die. Her own eyes now clearly glowing in the dark, Trudy's eyes squint sidelong suspiciously. A trap? The Black Knight is also already on edge, or perhaps he never dropped his guard to begin with. The huge warrior strides past Meresankh as if he could see her there all along, gripping the hilt of his greatsword in both hands (Thanks, Lissandra!) to sweep it in a huge, broad horizontal swing just as the golden eyes of the Flayed Ones flicker to life in the darkness.

    "Time to go!" Trudy calls out. Her skeletons shuffle behind her with their cargo while she brings forth Suwolu, the Rune of the Sun. Runes shoot out around her feet, rotating in interlocking circles until the pattern completes. The rune manifested above her hand is released upward, where it flickers and sputters and then flares up into a sphere of light and heat similar enough to flame. She had supported Tamamo and Arthur with such cantrips before; if it can provide some light for those stuck here in the vaults, Trudy will take that.
Lissandra Lingering outside of the vault while Meresankh works, and basically waiting for the moment everything suddenly goes wrong, Lissandra is inevitably justified in having remained within her bubble of invisibility since they first began this little adventure. Even she hadn't expected some kind of tangible shadow to creep in and interfere with the others' lights though, and it's only thanks to the security that being unseen and airborne provides that she can stay as calm as she does.

     The first, absolute priority is restoring the others' ability to fight without risking herself in the process. That means, without speaking at all, she slowly drifts overhead (being sure not to suddenly crash into the ceiling or a wall) and uses the mental map she's been building of this last bit of passage to figure out some ideal places to anchor magical lights. The illusory lights probably can't erase the smog, but if she spreads them out and makes them really bright, it should at least help a *little* as a first effort.

     By the time she's done placing half a dozen bright lights at different positions, Lissandra has landed on a more substantive idea. Positioning herself overhead where her hovering in place unseen won't get in the way, but drifting close enough to Schneider that she can be seen at least by her, she makes an educated guess; creatures living in the dark, who ambush in the dark, who flock together... Must depend on another sense. Scent is too muddled in these numbers, most likely. So the obvious candidate seems to be sound!

     Lissandra extends a palm downward, aligning it with a space just above one of the other woman's firearms. When it's fired, the resulting sound will be amplified within the senses of these robotic attackers, and ideally the many-times raised volume will completely disorient the group as a simple byproduct of that first shot fired, without seeming any different for her allies. Best of all, she doesn't have to get mixed up in the chaotic fight herself! If this doesn't work out, she can just try something else.

There's a helpfully familiar 'soap bubble' visual aura around the gun afterward, entirely manufactured for Schneider's interprative benefit. Thanks for the idea, Calvin!
Flamel Parsons     Flamel is struggling to maintain a mental light in the darkness, as the hungry masses close in. He calls out to Lilian, "You know, there actually are a lot of utilities you can find in guilt! Only in extremely strictly-controlled amounts, but if you keep it at a certain level, it provides mostly an executive impulse to improve things! Although, I guess there might be a bit of a fumble in getting it too precise too? Really, though, pity's not the right way to say it."

    He whips around, brandishing his hand like a gun when there's a shriek. "Ah! Uh oh. Let's get moving. But-- You access a useful Truth that most people can't." He's moving quickly, levitating as steadily as he can and offering a telekinetic hand for any Transducers that people need handed off. "I don't know if it'll ever make sense to explain, but you're one of the people that represent a sort of... Reconciliation of irreconcilable truths." Layers of his Shield shatter when the blade cuts through, and he evades as best he can in hopes that his defenders will keep his assailants away. And he strains a bit to explain. "The mind's interior can't be allowed to change the world, and the world can't be responsible for the mind. The Truth Phenomenon that you, and Persephone, and..."

    He has to rush forward and dodge under a lashing blade. "What I'm saying is that-- Gah! Well, I can't do that, but I've gotten a sense for seeing something about how you do! It's not pity, and it's probably better to make sure it's not some kind of admiration, but it is True, right? You *do* resolve the tension between the astral and the physical, without compromising them!" His tone is chipper, despite his urgent rushing through the terrifying dark tunnels and the scary incoming pings of radar.
Sarracenia      'Opening this may take a moment,'

     Sarra's dress has some cuts and tears in it by now, but she continues to stand wherever is between the bulk of the enemies and herself. "You will have time. And Riku is right. I have no doubt that your wife will accept you as you are now." she assures Meresankh with a smile. "It is quite a romantic story, after all. Reviving your lost love after all this time. You will certainly still have love, and yet be able to fall in love with each other all over again~"

     Once they are inside, Sarra moves to put as many in her purse as there are unclaimed devices. But, then remembers that they shouldn't be teleported. Do warp pipes teleport? She decides not to risk it, but without her purse she really can't carry one and still fight.

     They exit, and darkness descends. Yellow eyes appear everywhere. Sarra pulls out a fireflower and gives it a squeeze, then once she is clad in fire colors she holds up a fireball to help illuminate the area. She gets chills rising up her spine at the sight of the creatures and how they just start attacking. "We need to get out of here!" she exclaims, then pulls out a Bullet Bill power-up.

     The princess is engulfed in an explosion, and out rockets a car-sized bullet. Sarra-bullet plows through as many as she can before the Bullet Bill explodes, sending Sarra into the fray. Scissors cut at her and her shrieks quickly mix with the shrieks of the creatures as she becomes a spinning hammer of destruction. She isn't shy about using explosives now with this many things in the way. She only didn't use them earlier because risking damage to the tombs didn't seem worth it.

     Now, they seem to be in a much more serious situation. She wants the road clear, and she wants it clear now. Explosions light up the darkness every few seconds.
Schneider Greco      "Is that how it is for you?"
     "Ah... my-la-dy, who is to say?" It's a guilty pleasure to linger by Lissandra in the bubble-of-safety, taking up room that a patient could use. Fortunately, Schneider is guiltless.

     "With ar-can-ists, there is always a... mmh, fixation. Not a 'truth' that can be put to words, but it is true. The priests and the gov-er-nors and the doc-tors, they will say the magic came first, and it makes the 'madness' of the knowing."

     BANG. To protect the sanctity of their conversation, Schneider lazily puts a bullet in another Crawler. She smiles aside, provocatively: "But I wonder?"

     The girl adorned in blood-red feathers, with jewelry of a venomous snake wrapped around her arm, with two snakeskin-blood-red guns and a flapping black jacket like a Death's cloak she will never grow into, with accents of 'money' and 'power' and 'sex', certainly shows some fixation.

     "The things I was born with don't do all that I need them to."
     Her mouth was already smiling, but now her eyes do too. "Ah, so you have ambition, my-la-dy Witch? Ti capii bonissimu. One so self-less as a doc-tor-" hadn't she just been critiquing doctors, a second ago?- "rarely has this, yes?"

     "If it is not 'natural', it is all the prettier, I think."


     At last she has to leave Lissandra's bubble, if only to lean against the wall and rest her body while the vault-closet is opened. It's fine; she has Lilian's company again, instead.

     "That's up to everyone else to decide, isn't it?"
     "Is it, my-la-dy?" Schneider is all too comfortable with Lilian's ravenous attention. She seems to relish it, in fact, making unbroken eye contact as a dare. "Do others decide things for you often?"

     Her fingers twitch upwards, towards her head, and fall to her side again.
     If Lilian shows no signs of leaning away, Schneider gradually-and-smoothly raises her gun, barrel towards the ceiling, and strokes a bit of hair smoothly from Lilian's face.

     "Then you are... 'someone who was al-ways to be born'," Schneider says, with a slightly melancholy envy. More delicately: "Or, per-haps not, if 'you' con-sist in the wrongness of it...? My-la-dy, are you the archetype, or the flaw?"

     Lilian's knowing look knows her. She smiles. "Mhmhmhm. No; I'm a good girl. I do as I am told," Schneider playfully lies.

     . . .

     Ah. Lights out. Ambush.

     B A N G .

     If Lissandra's right, that first echoing shot- neatly trimming three heads in a line- should do the trick. Puzzled briefly by the aura, Schneider casts a glance back; finds Lissandra; and smiles sleepily-fondly.

     But even at three-per-shot, Schneider doesn't have the bullets for this many. Instead she dissolves her guns into a whirl of dark feathers again, directed like two bladed discs or orbital rings by her flicking gestures.

     Little room for laziness now, sadly. Schneider moves slowly, but deliberately, not trusting to reflexes to save her in the sea of razor claws. Instead, each press or stab of the whickering feathers corrals the mechanical ghouls in against themselves; calculate a strike to the knee to topple that one backwards, deprive that other one of space except among a crowd of its fellows.

     Wherever yellow-eyed ire tries to find her, she isn't.

     It's mob suffocation through a dozen micro-spacings and tiny deflections, but unless you have an eye for the broader pattern, it almost seems like the ghouls magically turn on each other when they're near her.
Lissandra ** Pre-Ambush **

     As was said before, Schneider is easy enough to talk to. With how quick Lissandra is about getting treatments done, she doesn't particularly need the miniscule space that Schneider takes up for anything else. "It's typical of those with power to want to take it from those who obtain it unpredictably. It's altogether more bold to claim one's magic precedes who they are. I suppose I have more curiosities to pursue about your particular 'Earth' now." She sounds... Dully exasperated by it, but it's aimed outward, not at Schneider. Just a familiar sort of wearying way-of-the-world that she's had the time to grow tired of. The way Schneider sidles around directly pinning the label on her own chest draws Lissandra's eyes onto Schneider's, but even with teased-up suspicions on the mind it isn't as if Lissandra can make an authoritative conclusion.

It's just conversation, ultimately. Schneider's praise still seems to be met with the gentle expression of someone who knows- or at least believes- that she's fully caught onto the game being played but still doesn't especially mind letting it go on. "I suppose that's why I'm a Witch, and not a Doctor, isn't it? Though it isn't so bad to be both. I haven't gone as far as leaving a signature on my subjects, yet." She chuckles after the 'yet'. "Well, for my part, I think it's quite hard to make a new hand that will be as 'pretty' as the original. I try, though."
Lilian Rook     'The priests and the gov-er-nors and the doc-tors, they will say the magic came first, and it makes the 'madness' of the knowing.'

    "They wouldn't normally imagine that the knowing comes first and that the magic is the madness of the world."

    'Ah! Uh oh. Let's get moving. But-- You access a useful Truth that most people can't.'

    "I can hear that capital letter you know." Lilian says to Flamel, tone strict and warning. "I certainly hope you're not speaking of--" She double glances behind at Schneider and Lissandra, before her veiled repetition of what she'd just said. "--'type black'."

    'The mind's interior can't be allowed to change the world, and the world can't be responsible for the mind.'
    'You *do* resolve the tension between the astral and the physical, without compromising them!'

    "But surely you, of all Psychonauts, with everything you've seen with your own two eyes, wouldn't be so insane as to envy it." Lilian says. "Forcing the world to reconcile with a personal truth only comes about when the world is too wrong about it to tolerate. Nobody reconciles those two things without desperation behind it. Not even Persephone."

    'Do others decide things for you often?'

    Lilian bristles again. This time in a more easy to understand way. "Don't give me that. Everyone experiences things being decided for them. Even if it's only decided quietly in the mind, at first glance, nobody escapes it." she says. "The more that's decided for you, the more it costs to decide one thing for yourself against the current. Being nobody in particular, a loose end, comes with freedom if nothing else."

    She stiffens, visibly, at having a gun near her face, but something distantly related to pride compels her to not flinch from it. Thrice shot and twice shy, perhaps, but today she's wearing armour, and Schneider isn't wary of her sword.

    'Then you are... 'someone who was al-ways to be born''

    "Perhaps I should say instead that I'm only someone that our world, as long as it exists as it always has, can't stop itself from producing." she says. "Beg pardon, but I don't intend to reveal anything too sensitive." As if it would matter.

    'Or, per-haps not, if 'you' con-sist in the wrongness of it...? My-la-dy, are you the archetype, or the flaw?'

    "The flaw, most certainly." Lilian laughs softly through her nose, in pure derision. "More than one skilled diviner was in agreement about the specifics of my fate before I was even born; and I've somehow managed to disappoint all of them." She proves herself a liar almost immediately. Perhaps it's the intoxicating allure of sharing something that is so much 'an arcanist thing' in company that would accept it at face value. "I have an incorrigible habit of sticking the gears, you know. Nothing ever goes as it's supposed to around me."

    Lilian homes in on the transducer storage vault unerringly. She doesn't look surprised at all to see them, nor taken aback by the size of the room. The first thing she does is say "I'm not carrying one. I need both hands free and I don't have a pack." The second thing she does is draw her sidearm, whirl to aim it at the dark, and depress the double-stage trigger until the entire mechanism sparks and the entire ammo rod is fired at once, fusing on impact and catalyzing an enormous explosion of glittering alchemical fire. Charging into the gap left by the blast, she stutters around the edges of the breach, clashing furiously with multiple enemies at a time, driving them back and cutting them down where she finds the opportunity. Unable to get a moment to say more than "Come on! Go!", she signals the group with hand motions and strong confidence that Calvin will herd them through the obvious tactical opening on his own. Then, she has to hold them off at the rear, to give the group a head start.
Calvin Nash If you try to force it on the freaks who've already adapted to it, who are native to it, you're only going to burn them.
That everything you remember was . . . might have been, just set up to be that way. That it might have happened for no reason at all; that it was never avoidable. Like, it's a role, that 'had to exist' arbitrarily, and something elected you to fill it; because there has to be a sufferer or else the gears get stuck.

    Calvin will remember that. It can't be brought up now, but it will be, later.

    Right now, the immediate issue is the need for urgency as Meresankh just outlined. "Aight, you heard 'er! Let's pick up the pace, but keep it *tight,*" Calvin calls above the din of combat.

    "Don't get *sloppy* just 'cause we gotta move. We ain't dealin' with cuts and bruises no more. You feel like somethin' is off, you *say so* and you get to Lissandra or Loa."

    Calvin checks his COMP warily during the tense, near-silent wait for the vault to open. His specialist petrification and sleep ammo is running low. "Gonna have to start dippin' into my own mana here, soon," he warns. "Not soon-soon. But soon." The eyes, staring out from the darkness, have him elect to deplete his stores further.
Calvin Nash .get buck 15A 2
.get buck 7A 4

    Calvin feeds five shells into the gun and racks the pump, and then a sixth. The rim of each is carefully inscribed with characters from a mishmash of Earth languages and mystical paradigms. Hermetic magic circles, alchemical symbols for the planets, and on four of them, the European alchemical symbol for 'aether.'

Take them all.

    Calvin quickly palms one, resting the frame of the gun against his shoulder, hurriedly tapping a command into his COMP to store the artifact digitally.

    The lights cut out. The heavy hands-free flashlight on Calvin's toolbelt struggles to pierce the smothering darkness.

    "Shit."

    Two dispel shots seemed like a worthwhile experiment. In these conditions, it seems now like a luxury that might get someone killed. He aims the long gun and pulls the trigger nonetheless. Bright white streaks cut through the darkness in clusters like shooting stars. They pass through Cerberus, Lilian and Riku harmlessly--although they aren't meant to harm even their intended targets, but to dispel lingering magical effects.

    Will it work, against the will-working of something with a grudge as deeply felt and as old as this? He doesn't know, which is why, after the second triggerpull and pump-rack, the next 'pellets' are instead scything crescents of roiling purple energy. It isn't lightning, coaxed into striking by willing that the material world invite friction between the molecules of air, nor is it air, guided into cutting by willing shape and speed upon it. It is Calvin's will that his target be struck dead by the raw and naked hand of the world itself, its natural laws be damned. That in itself represents a considerable investment--'Almighty' element spells are costly to prepare even in this cost-effective way. But this is simply not a situation in which costs should be cut.

    "Nazrin, Minamitsu, FOCUS! We lose our shit, that's a one-way trip, you hear? Don't gas out on me! Loa, cover me! Lilian, switchin' Cerberus out!"

    A few taps later and Chernobog, god of winter, entropy, disaster and death appears, greatsword in hand.

    "Chernobog, form up with Lilian!" A scything metal blade is intercepted and turned aside by the tall, slender avatar of decay, his inky robe rustling in the darkness and briefly illuminated by the spark of metal on metal. His pendulum counter flows into a vicious forward half-sword thrust, made with chillingly placid certainty. A blast of flame from Loa rips the impaled assailant from Chernobog's sword, freeing him up to join Lilian.

    "Good! Little longer!"

.run analyze

LOADING

    A blast of fire colliding with a charging hostile illuminates Calvin's determined grimace, washing out the all-but-suffocated glow of the COMP's monitor. Its scything arm crosses scarcely an inch from his abdomen as its body is sent flying.

Analyze v. 2.3.2
developed by Trina McElwain
'Flayed One'
Affinity: Physical, Blood
Threat: Moderate
Notable Techniques: None
Observations: An ancient curse fills them with insatiable, indiscriminate and infectious hunger. Fights up close and often with numbers.

    "Don't let 'em draw no blood!" Calvin shouts, slamming the COMP closed against his thigh. "Stick close! Loa, rear guard with the Black Knight!" Another triggerpull, another swarm of scything purple energy passes through his allies and *tears* through his enemies. Cutting a path through the swarm in close quarters with allies, he exhausts the shotgun's internal feed magazine and calls, "Reloadin'!"
Calvin Nash      "Through that hole," Calvin shouts, waving with his right hand towards the breach Lilian just opened. "Double time! Lilian, fightin' magic comin' your way!"

     "Sukukaja!" Right arm extended towards Lilian, a yellow glow briefly envelops her before compacting and concentrating into little arcs of electricity that dance across her. Reflexes sharpen and response times shorten. Calvin stops before his next cast to shoulder the shotgun and fire another magic-infused shell into the horde through the Black Knight, this one conjuring tightly-compressed spheres of air that burst violently on impact. Lowering the shotgun to cast another support spell, he calls, Tarukaja!"

     Beneath the dancing arcs of electricity, an orange glow occasionally pulses. The boundaries of the glow form a simplified illustration of a muscular system, superimposed over Lilian; her strength goes farther for less effort.

     "Chernobog, stick with Lilian!"

     "I'm insulted you think I'd wander," answers the demon with a laugh like the winter wind whipping through dead branches. "Her bladework is exquisite."
Meresankh     Lissandra and Trudy do their best to turn the lights back on, and their magic indeed pierces the fog in enough places to at least fight back against the horde. Claws glint through the smoke, flashing as they rake against the Black Knight's restored armor and Sarracenia's still-Silvered body. These are tools for rending flesh, crude in their effect on reinforced metal. The princess's Bullet Bill-powered charge gets her clear of the bulk of the frenzied Necrons and a number of them turn, suddenly less surrounding and more surrounded.

    Calvin's snap decision to fire his dispel rounds turns out to be a lucky choice - this darkness is supernatural, in a way none of the preceding Necron technology has been. The white streaks pierce tunnels through the shadowy fog, which creeps back to fill the gaps much slower than its initial descent. His die-damn-you-die Almighty ammunition is more effective at silencing the attackers themselves, for they are undead after a certain fashion, much like any Necron.

    Schneider's empowered gunshot rips through several of the Flayed Ones, their bodies turning out to be less resilient than the heavily-augmented Destroyers. The magically-amplified sound causes some to panic, others to frenzy more intensely, but brings enough chaos that the mafiosa's shift in tactics proves highly effective to the point of making a mess. As the crowd of ghouls thins (or shrinks, as she drives them by instinct into a tighter cluster), however, she catches sight of something odd. When she tears a spirit free from one of the pressed bodies with her arcane skill, its eyes looking back at her are the very same as her own. In the split second it's known her, it's seen in her everything that was stolen from it. Everything that it will take back however it can...

    And then it's dead, or at least back in its shattered body, and the moment is past. But if Schneider continues to use her arcane skill, each of the spirits she sees has a quality of the living beings around it: a tuft of Riku's hair, Lilian's facial scar, Sarracenia's hairpin...

    Once something approaching a path out has been cleared, Lilian and Loa and the Black Knight bring up the rear in a fighting retreat. Meresankh does her best to support them, modifying the flow of time to speed the Elites' movements back through the labyrinth and give the rear-guard enough reaction speed to handle the remaining Flayed Ones. Those in front have to contend with occasional guardian robots, but the Destroyers are curiously absent, perhaps afraid themselves of the contagious hunger of their yellow-eyed cousins.

    In time the halls become a little more familiar, being the same as the earliest stages of the team's search. It's not much longer to the elevator, even if the minutes stretch by with the fatigue of combat. Once everyone is inside the door shuts, sped up by a surge of power from Meresankh's scepter. And then all is still, at long last. The queen speaks as her scepter commands the elevator to rise again. "Had I known the Flayed Ones persisted in the vaults, I would have prepared us better for their attack. I owe you all doubly for your aid." A pause. "...Thank you."
Schneider Greco      BANG.

     It isn't until after Schneider pulls the trigger that she realizes she was staring into her own eyes. Her heart skips a beat as the ghost-effigy of the Flayed One that, for an instant, looked like her rips apart.

     Instinctively, she senses that the Flayed Ones are only skin-deep. The name, the heart, the identity of 'Schneider Greco' would not really settle into one's soul. She has only these hands; only these eyes.

     Still...

     She sticks to the blade-feather blender to carve the rest of the way out. She doesn't want to see any more ghosts.

     At the elevator, Schneider saunters in, leans against the back wall in an oh-so-lazy slouch, and sighs. The slight gloss of sweat on her skin, the stickiness of her bangs, and the thin drizzling scratches from razor-claws nicking her skin are the only giveaways of her recent exertion.

     "You made it, doctor Witch," she purrs sweetly to Lissandra. "Quite the first outing, was-it not? Mhmhm, but now you know I keep my promises~." Fond sigh, as she looks down at a scratch on her own thigh...

     "... I do like your hands more than theirs."

     When Lilian arrives, with the rear-guard, Schneider is waiting for her with a wink. "That went just as it was 'supposed' to, my-la-dy. Per-haps..." A gun-tilt invites Lilian into the elevator, as if she needed the invitation. "... the mat-ter is only with who does the 'supposing'."

     What is a 'flaw', anyway? Whose standard is it?

     "I owe you all doubly for your aid. ...Thank you."
     "You are welcome, my-la-dy. But, what's happened to your people..." Schneider starts to speak. She's gotten a vague idea; tortured ghosts in failing machines, desperate to not be that, despairing that they ever could.

     But Meresankh's surely dwelled long enough on it that Schneider can't say much new. "... well, you're wel-come."
Lissandra After enhancing Schneider's first shot, Lissandra spares just a brisk swirl of her wand in front of her chest, miming a bow she's not willing to perform while seated on her floating staff, then dissolves out of sight again as she drifts further away and contracts the radius of her invisibility bubble. For the rest of the retreat, she's hovering almost directly over the center of their raid group, opportunistically breaching from invisibility and letting quadrants of the bubble dissolve away around the wake of a solid-ice bolt, or sometimes a burst of flame near head-level of the opposition when light is in the most demand. She's unconcerned with actually finishing any of the clawed mass, reserving her shots with a keen sense for whatever timing leaves her the least exposed and repositioning subtly if she starts to attract any desperate lunges.

     Once the mass of attackers is mostly being staunched by the Black Knight at the rear, she finally abandons her concealment to launch a series of minor support spells at the undead knight, in following with Calvin's own reasoning; toughening his armor to go with the body-enhancement, and improving his agility so he can find the positions he needs for optimal coverage from that heavy blade. This ends up being the best view the majority of the group has had of her spellcasting as she floats along on her horizontal staff, a slight breeze lifting from beneath her that flutters the hem of her jacket. Spells emit from both her staff and her wand now that she's not bothering to hide with half of her effort, and while she doesn't seem to need to motion with the staff while she's astride it, she makes small changes in her grip on her wand depending on the exact spell and trajectory.

She holds it nearly from the bottom of the handle when casting lightning, flicking it away from herself in narrow arcs like a whip. She shifts upward to a firm outward extension when launching shards of ice, twisting and jabbing. She chokes up higher with two fingertips above the proper handle when she curves the support-magic over the heads of unintended targets into the Knight's back, curling her wrist as she bends its trajectory.

     But, it's a relatively short burst of activity given the group's capacity to bulldoze resistance at the front, and her staff carries her along at a perfect pace as if it were tethered with invisible rope to Meresankh.

     Back in the elevator, she leans as if she's going to tip over one side of her narrow mount, but only to put a hand against the side of the elevator's interior and raise her legs higher, floating in the narrow space above everyone else's heads and letting out a steady exhale. She might've been playing it safe, but she *was* a little tense after all. Even still, she plays it off aloofly when Schneider begins to comment. "Now now... Don't jinx it. We aren't back yet, and there's still work to be done. For some of us, at least." She wiggles her jaw again a bit, when Schneider talks about her hands. She is, with effort, a proverbial castle to try and sway... But it doesn't mean Schneider can't shake some of the dust from the walls in trying. "Shame you won't need the hands-on approach for injuries that small, then."

     She glances at Trudy, at least, acknowledging the mutual investment in at least examining the curses that have been in discussion, but more gravely her eyes turn to Meresankh afterward. "... Even if your wife does not understand after waking, you'll still have saved her. You won't have failed. You'll have all the time you need to reacquaint with one-another."

     Tonally, it's a little bit 'scolding' and a little bit 'pressure', but she rubs the tip of her nose against the base-knuckle of her thumb, as an excuse to look away self-consciously. "... Your people live in such frightening conditions, I'd be quite disillusioned if a spousal conversation were enough to leave you in despair."