2650/Duty: The Lost City of Amdapor

Duty: The Lost City of Amdapor
Date of Scene:	19 July 2015
Location:	Hydaelyn Reborn <ARR>
Synopsis:	Adventurers volunteer to map and explore the Lost City of Amdapor and face off against the Voidsent Diabolos, but Master Therion has other Ascian-inspired plans for the demon.
Cast of Characters:	Arthur Lowell, 255, 395, 565, 626, 627, 666, Lyria Mason, 756, 815, 823, 826, 829
Tinyplot:	Project C

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Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
Notice from the Adventurers' Guild of Eorzea (posted on numerous bounty and adventurer boards, including the Syndicate Network)!

Duty: The Lost City of Amdapor
Location: Ruins of Amdapor, Rootslake, South Shroud
Type: Dungeon
Urgency: Medium
Difficulty: Very High

Enclosed Message: An anonymous tip has hinted at the presence of an extremely powerful Voidsent hiding within the ruins of the City of Amdapor, only recently rediscovered. Experienced adventurers are requested to travel to the ruins, map it out, and rid it of any hostile presences found.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    The Lost City of Amdapor-- ruins lost to time, only just discovered. Hidden within the South Shroud, a powerful Aetheric field of invisibility had clouded the great city as nothing but a mountain chain to onlookers, until by 'chance' a weakened section of the field was spotted by adventurers, and the Adventurers' Guild took notice of it. Now, the uncharted city lay ripe for plundering, but before that must be assessed for dangers. That's where you adventurers come in.

    Though there's no sign of anyone else, not even the one who posted the contract slash notice, the road to the Lost City is clear, a straight travel from the Aetheryte and Warp Gate in the middle of a marsh slash bog area of the forest. It's clear daylight out, still early evening, as you all amass before the large doorway leading into the city, nudged between two actual mountainsides.

    The city is vast, and the cloud shrouded by polen. Flying plants idly disperse seeds and polen in the air, completely safe, but hopefully no one has allergies. Old buildings are covered in moss, crumbled walls bar some paths, and mold bars some steel gates shut. Built of marble and concrete, the city looks only barely modern, especially with how nature has taken most of it over.

    From the entrance pathway, to the far back of the city, is a much larger building, like a cave, carved into the mountains and barred by a set of mansion gates. It is there that wildlife can actually be seen-- large moths, creeping shadows, plantlife actually walking about. Not to mention, a deep, foreboding presence, something obviously aligned with darkness, radiating out, and quite possibly the source of all this mutated plantlife. But then again, maybe that's just how nature evolves after hundreds of years in isolation.

    ALWYN is waiting by the actual entrance to the ruins, with his baby dragon on his shoulder. He'd rather not go in alone.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
Bertram is riding no horsebirds, no sir. He's gotten his hands on a horsemammal, and he is riding it all the way up to Alwyn, where he dismounts and ties the reins to a tree. "Pray tell me you're joining us inside and not just playing gatekeep, Alwyn." He sounds like he's not feeling entirely comfortable with this abandoned city beyond. "There's no telling what is beyond the barrier, is there?"

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    Shin is here to help in the explorations! Of course, that's no surprise, really. After all, he was a narrativeless protagonist and this was a set of ruins begging to be explored. It was only natural that he arrive. Once again, said arrival is on foot with his bike left somewhere less likely to be eaten by a passing Marlboro.
    As he looks around, he takes out his phone and lifts it up. He starts aiming the screen and then snaps a quick picture of the area from some sort of cool looking angle. The phone is lowered and he starts to tap at the keys a bit.
    To: A.Beardsley@Neosweden.gov
    Message: Yo! Check this shit out. Crazy, right?
    Attachments: CityRuins.jpg
    And then his phone is shut and he jogs up to Alwyn, "Yooooo! I remember you from those Garlic Breads we fought, right? Yeah. Totally here to get my ADVENTURE on in some ruins."

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
Where there are ancient, mysterious ruins hidden behind gigantic invisibility clouds, there is almost certainly treasure waiting! Marisa Kirisame has heard the siren-song of unclaimed loot, and immediately boarded the first portal to Eorzea.

She did not expact to find... This.

This... This /hive--/

OF MUSHROOMS.

    A monochromatic bolt shoots through the sky on a contrail of glimmering stardust. Marisa zooms in, her grin almost wide enough to split her face into two equal halves. She takes a moment to do a fly-by of the air over the ruins, swooping between massive fruiting bodies and buzzing by unsuspecting moths. The air is thick with what are probably thoroughly magical (and possibly dangerous) spores. She takes in a good, healthy breathful of the stuff and sighs happily.

    When she touches down, it seems like she's already filled a couple small vials full of drifting fungal spores. "Hey there pilgrims!" Marisa chimes in a far-too-chipper tone. "This is one hell of a place you've got here! I need to make this trip more often. It's just so COOL, you don't even know!"

Marisa beams up at a colossal toadstool, "I mean, look at the size of that! That's insane!"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The prospect of actually getting to explore an unranked, previously unknown dungeon /for reals/ excites the hell out of Kyra since this activity would be illegal for her to do where she's from. Naturally, she is all over the contract and fully expecting to even see some of her classmates here too.

    Alwyn would notice that she's a lot more confident-looking than yesterday, perhaps bolstered by their successful mission against the corrupted water elemental. In addition to the usual gear with her, CURE-ALL and hunting rifle included, she also has a beat-up looking messenger bag slung over her right shoulder. It is quite clearly burdened with something contained within that looks lumpy from the impressions against the canvas. She seems to bear all of this burden quite well despite being a skinny teenage girl. Experience may have been improving her STR score over the last few months.

    A pair of goggles rest around her neck and the forehead-mounted camera is already present and turned on. As she arrives, she dons a pair of gloves and plucks a spore out of the air before tucking it into a plastic specimin bag. The bag disappears under her hoodie seconds later. "Hi Alwyn, hi Bertram! Hello combat vagrant guy!" There is a pause before she adds, "...hello Marisa."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    As is typical for her, Setsuko arrives through the nearest warpgate; it's a simple matter for her to just float right over the marshy area around Camp Tranquil and over to where the city's entrance can be found. Upon entering the city itself, though, the demigod... stops. Entirely. This place is... desolate. Ancient. Overrun with a choking, all-encompassing fungus. It's eerie in a way that unsettles her, as few places have.

    "Hydaelyn produces some strange, worrying places," she declares simply, both to Alwyn and to the person she's brought with her.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    With an area of high risk and horrible fungal infestation, one of the last things Shady Calculator, Mirielle Edelweiss, would do would be squirrel herslef into some small, dark place to hide.

    This is because she has a horrible constitution, and would probably DIE.

    So, instead, she arrives with Kyra, having sussed out her friend and compatriot would be ruin-delving, and deciding that there was a strength in numbers. Also, perhaps this time she wouldn't make Kyra feel bad and hate her, and such Black Swan moments were always good to pursue.

    Arriving in heavier clothes, thick stockings under boots - waders, in fact, full gloves, and a long-necked shirt brought up over her mouth. She probably stole the last from a ninja.

    "This place..." She begins, looking around quietly, and at the gathered people. Well, many seem strong. This is optimal, she thinks. Enough excitement and possibilty, with a strong safety net. All she has to do is NOT train to zone the entire place and die.

    It shouldn't be too hard... Right?

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason heard about a lost city, that alone had the blue haired pirate lass' attention really. So it didnt' take much to get het to come here. She was taking the road and heading or the city. She was also glad she'd taken some bug spray with her too. The various plant life does get a bit of an eyebrow raise from her as she looks it over. She finally spots Alwyn as she nears the entace waving to him and Bertram Silent.

"Hey!"

Shine gets a notice as does Marisa but she's not got much, if any experiance with them. She does however fall in step with Kyra soon enough.

"Ah so you know them Kyra? Works for me then."

Setsuko also gets wave and Mirielle gets a wave with a greeting.

"Ah your on board for this too, Mirielle?"

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    And that person Setsuko has brought with her is one who has never been to Hydaelyn before. A face, in fact, that has not left her own home for far too long. But there comes a time when even tired old cranky knights must rise again and make themselves useful. Her every step is utterly silent despite the heavy suit of silver platemail, Amalthea arrives with her lance sling over her shoulder lazily in the crook of her arm, shield casually clasped in her off hand.
    Though the trip from the local warpgate wasn't too far, the scenery draws her lone eye, drinking in the ancient ruins, overgrown with fungal life and spores that many would consider pestilent and terrible. To her it is simply another sign of life, vibrant and overflowing.
    The fact that, as a mechanical organism, the unicorn doesn't have allergies probably helps as she rests the butt of her lance to the ground. "It certainly is an interesting land from what I can see." Murmured in accord with the demi-god, before giving a curt bow of greeting to Alwyn and the others beginning to gather.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     "Hrm...this is my first time coming to this world. Fascinating..."

     Xiao Li Yu muttered thoughtfully as she approached the group, tablet in hand, which seemed to be scanning the passing environment and reading back various bits of data to her on screen. Normally she wouldn't even bother this but...well, breaks were good now and then. She'd waste away if she spend /all/ her time cooped up in her lab now.

     Eventually, the girl came into sight of the others gathering and looked up from her tablet screen. "Ah, hello there, Kyra, Mirielle, Lyria...and a boatload of other people whom I do not recognize at all." Her eyes scanned and the others and she offered a smile. "Hi~"

     Was she really here to help? She didn't look prepared at all. Maybe she actually wasn't. Wouldn't put it past her.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
OH HEY THAT'S KYRA.

    Marisa grins, and literally /skips/ over to swing an arm around Kyra's shoulders, "Hey there Kyra! Fancy seeing you here. Guess you're lookin' for some neat loot too, huh?" This girl... She seems to respond to scorn with BOUNDLESS ENTHUSIASM.

Can't fault a girl for that, though.

    "I'm totally pumped," she grins conspiratorially. "If the insides of this place are as awesome as the outside, I'm gonna come away from this a very, VERY happy witch." Not that she isn't presently a very happy witch. She is 100% that. Can she get happier? Giddier!? "Man, the reagents alone~~"

    She craaanes her head over towards Mirielle, her expression turning simultaneously inquisitive and incredulous. She's quite literally gone full ('3') for a second there.

"Hey. Hey Kyra. Who's your friend," Marisa stage-whispers, "She looks kinda uncomfortable."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Not knowing Li Yu, Setsuko has no cause to expect the girl has come less-than-prepared; she regards the girl with a simple, brief nod, and replies, "Major Setsuko Kaminagi, UAF." She is otherwise silent for now, one hand resting loosely on the grip of her blade. Her caution is not towards Xiao Li Yu, but rather the area itself.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Just when you thought you were going to have a carefree dungeon exploration...

YOU GET SOUJI MURASAME. The Murasame heir arrives on site in his immaculate suit, looking over the environs with a mild frown before he focuses on the others present. "Mr. Highwind. Good to see you here." He greets Alwyn, before looking to the others and mentally cataloguing them as he greets them in turn. Bertram (White Mage), Shin (Monk), Marisa (Black Mage), Kyra (HYRAAAAAAAAAAAL), Setsuko (Samurai), Mirielle (Calculator/Shady Mage), Lyria (Machinist), Amalthea (Paladin), Xiao (Dark Knight), and Arthur Lowell (Time Mage).

Thank the freaking Divines, we have a tank. Souji allows himself a momentary sigh of relief, before he begins to actually speak to them. "We have a formidable team present. This will be quite an exploration. Are we going to be using standard dungeon exploration tactics?" Souji asks.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Yup! I'm here for the loot. And adventure. I probably get class credits for this." 'Or in trouble' Kyra adds under her breath. She knows her teachers will see this because she is livestreaming the dungeon crawl right this second onto the Light Warriors MogTube channel. Kyra makes a small huffy noise as Marisa THE COMPETITION FOR LOOT AND ALCHEMY STUFF swings an arm over her shoulder but otherwise takes the draping with as much dignity as she can muster. "Lots of good materials to pick up here-oh, speaking of, hi Xiao."

    Her greeting to her fellow scientist is...subdued.

    Marisa starts making faces at Mirielle and Kyra goes quiet for a moment. Since taking off with her, she's been expecting a comment along the lines of 'how are you almost going to kill me today, Hyral' from the Calculator. It hasn't happened. Yet. "Oh, she's one of my classmates and a fellow Light Warrior." Kyra remarks, "-that is, the school club a bunch of my friends made when we unified dedicated to exploring the multiverse." She's quick to supply the explanation, "No relation to whatever Light Warriors /this/ world has."

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    ARTHUR LOWELL is here! He's jetted in on his ROCKET BROOM at his usual rate and with his usual gusto, right until he hits that pollen cloud, at which point his allergies kick in. By the time he's here, he's already looking a little disillusioned with this adventure. "WOW!" He says, grinning through a running nose. "It's like the AIR is trying to GET IN A FIGHT WITH ME!"

    He dismounts swiftly, flicking the broom in a snazzy motion from a side-saddle riding to slinging it over his shoulder. "ALRIGHT KIDS, so before we drown in PROFOUND ALLERGEN MISERY, let's get this show GOIN'." He says, already heading for the gate. "HEY, you guys! Check this out, I recognize like HALF the people here! That's always GOOD STUFF. Alright, SO, here to MAP OUT, we gonna go for SPLITTIN' UP? What's the PLAN? We should probably SPLIT UP on the MOBILITY STUFF, yeah? FLYING DUDES take TOP-LEVEL, WALKING DUDES take GROUND LEVEL, that kinda shit? Someone gimmie the BRIEFING up in this, huh? Figure out what we ALREADY KNOW."

    He's quite eager to get to work! If narrative whims progress as such, he's likely to take to the skies and try to get some scouting from above done as soon as it's possible to. Because the pollen is thinner there.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason looks over to see Souji she gives him a nod.

"Mr. Murasame."

Well they got some heavy support with Souji, unlike some of his social class? The young man could back up things with action and was a good person to have your back in a fight.

"I'm thinking that way when it comes to exploring the ruins."

She looks to Kyra for a moment then gets a grin as Arthur comes in, she does however take a moment to spread her feet out and attempt to feel the earth. She's not from Titan, but she is a Geomancer after all, if something's very wrong she might notice it.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    "Ohhh. Nnnnneat," Marisa sing-songs. She's not REAAAALLLY competition for alchemical supplies. Look at this place! There's just so much to share! She might steal some interesting looking loot here and there, though- but that's just normal for these kinds of things. "School club, huh. Sanae's talked about those before. Kind of like proper covens except less black sabbaths under the full moon and more uh... Not that." The witch sniffs, rubbing casually at her nose. Not because it itches! It's just a thing. "Well. She still doesn't look too comfortable. Ah well, should probably be fine."

    And then Arthur shows up! And he looks... Sniffly, too. Super sniffly. "Jeez, what's with that? Ah well, I'm fine with takin' the high road as long as you're all able to keep up!" She... She wouldn't rush off ahead of the group all alone, would she? Marisa just grins. "Nice broomin', by the way. Like your style."

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    "Of course I'm coming! Who'd miss out on something like this?" Alwyn answers Betram with a grin, though his spear is still on his back. Likewise, he'll give a wave, salute or handshake to anyone else who greets him or shows up, to be polite. "Garleans, yeah!" he corrects Shin, not that he much cares.

    Setsuko gets a wider grin. "Worrying? I don't know, us adventurers wouldn't get much of a life without these places. This is the good stuff! The stuff we live and train for. An adventurer who can add this sort of venture to his portfolio is sure to go places."

    A respectful nod is given to Souji, given his own politeness. "I'm not sure what you mean by tactics! If you mean let big tough people take hits and let the healers fix it, then hopefully!"

    As the AIR gets in a fight with Arthur, and greetings are finally taken care of, the COOL KID roars on ahead to scout. From above, it becomes obvious that two separate paths, one left one right, lead through the crumbled buildings and city sections towards the rear of the city-- and from the air, a better look at that cave/back part reveals it may actually be a massive tower. Well, what's left of one. A floor or two, with everything else having collapsed around it.

    Guiding signs, waystones, everything is written in an old, foreign language. Bertram might be able to translate, and it comes down to street names and such.

    To the RIGHT, the AGORA, and to the LEFT, the HALCYON COURT. There are many more sections in this city, of course, countless buildings to explore, but those seem to be the two paths that lead to what is marked as the TOWER OF WHITE, the larger and most attractive building of the city, resting in its back. And where the dark presence seems to be.

    The AGORA has been overgrown with plantlife; walking fungus and mushrooms, mold that makes the floor slippery, large amounts of dust and polen in the air. Some gates look blocked by vegetation, but could be forced through with, well, fire, or other assorted ways to blast the vegetation away.

    The HALCYON COURT on the other hand seems to be the nesting area of giant moths, of diremites (did you think you were done meeting those? scorpion-spider-ants!) and similar large insects.

    Choose your path, or split!

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "Yeah! That's what I said!" Shin says to Alwyn with a thumbs up, "Good to see you again! I'm sure this will work out great."
    Kyra gets a greeting of her own, Shin raising his hand to wave a bit to the medic, "Yooooo, waddap? That's me, Shin Tokuyama, Combat Vagrant," He says, also in response to Xiao Li Yu as well as Kyra.
    But he only hangs around that long before his radio buzzes and someone issues him a challenge over another frequency. He looks around a bit and then says into said radio, "Maybe I will!"
    Moments later, he's running off in a random direction (It's RIGHT) and heading that way. But he only goes a little bit down the path before he stops at one of those big, white, puff-ball looking Mushrooms that litter the path and seem to be growing out of buildings.
    He was issued a formal dare, and so he coils back his hand, curls it into a fist, and throws a haymaker at one of the landscape mushrooms hanging around.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Setsuko is given a smile and a nod. "Miss Setsuko. A pleasure, I'm sure." Kyra is given a look following that. "Aw, such a lovely, energetic greeting! You truly are my bestest friend in the world, Kyra~" She must really enjoy this game of cat and mouse. Souji is given a comical salute. "Hello Fearless Vice Leader! Glad to have you along!" Shin is given a blink. "...Oh, so /you/ are Mr. Tokuyama. I've heard you over the radio plenty."

     Pertinent greetings aside, Xiao turned her attention is turned towards the path(s) awaiting them ahead. A hand went to her chin as she made her way to the crossroads. "Where to go..." She mused to herself out loud. A glance was given towards each pertinent path. And then she closed her eyes. "........" After a moment of silence, they opened again and she turned...right, heading off towards the AGORA. The plantlife intrigued her. Perhaps she could collect samples along the way.

     In fact, the scientist had begun doing just that as she went. Despositing her tablet into her sleeves, and then producing a small, empty jar and a pair of tweezers, she picked at the various plant life, dumping it into her sample jar and mentally noting what it may have been.

     She'd leave it to Shin to barrel on ahead and punch mushrooms in the face. Samples came first!

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
Alas, Bertram is not able to translate. He's a mage, certainly, and a knowledgable one, but he's no linguist and he's never needed to know the Lost Speech of Amdapor. Hopefully this won't be a problem. "Kyra, if we split, you can stick with your friends, and I'll join the other group." He's holding on to his staff, ever ready to cast his spells. One of those spells is actually cast before any split may happen. Ambient earthen dust from the surroundings floats up into the air, aether expanding the dust into rock. Rock then starts floating around people, ambiently forming a protective barrier that will shield the people behind until it's at its limit, at which point it'l placefully crumble to dust. "Stoneskin won't last you long into the fight, but it'll help you."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "I suppose," Setsuko replies, faintly smiling. "Still. Though the soldier trains for war, she may still wish for peace." Her words carry the cadence of someone reciting old teachings. After that, however, she regards Souji with a calm nod of greeting before responding. "I'm not familiar with any specific tactics from your world, but I would imagine most of it is common sense for the sort of things we do regardless." She turns towards the Halcyon Court; hers is a style best-suited to engaging beasts like those, whether on the ground or in the air. Given the opportunity, she'll even take the lead, acting as the Halcyon group's tank.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I think we might have a school club for that too, actually." Kyra asides to Marisa, "Where a bunch of Black Mages hang out." She pauses, making a face, then sneezes. She rubs her nose and adds, "Oh only for the /bestest/ of friends, Xiao."

    Arthur gets a super enthusiastic wave from Kyra, "HEY! Glad you could make it to this exclusive, never-been-opened dungeon, Arthur! I'm super glad you are here." Kyra's excited. So excited that not even Souji Murasame showing up could do anything to lessen it. Normally there would be all sorts of awkwardness going on but right now she's too happy to get surly at the heir.

    As usual, the thought of splitting the party makes Kyra a little bit nervous. "Well, we have enough people here for a split." Kyra reasons, mostly for her own comfort, "You bring up a good point though, Bertram-we ought to spread the healing around. Hey Mirielle, Lyria. I'm going to be going that way." Kyra says, pointing to the plant-encrusted path that Shin just ran off down. A hand works one of the vials free of her belt as she heads off after Shin, avoiding the fungus and going straight for the doors being blocked by vegetation. Calmly, she pours the contents of the flask-which is a super concentrated weedkiller-on the plants.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "SHIT YES," Arthur says, ignoring his allergic reactions, giving a firm thumbs-up to Marisa. "I'm the BROOM KING around here, been making this my jam for YEARS." He does another flick of the broom, spinning the big industrial metal rocketbroom around in one hand and then around to the other deftly before planting it in the ground, and then immediately getting Kyra into yet another one of those coolkid rapid-fire handshakes where he does a bunch of pounds and slaps and suchlike within a second or two. "ALRIGHT, now let's get this SHOW on the goddamn ROAD, 'cause I am ALREADY hella sick of this air." And with that, he blasts on forward!

    He intends to head through the BUG PATH, via air! He will attempt to scout areas ahead of SETSUKO. He also intends to use MAGICAL BOLTS and MAGICAL LASERS to... Engage in SHMUP-style attempts to progress through the bug swarms here, if they're hostile, drawing them up to the air and into sprays of violent magic. Marisa may immediately recognize this.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    "Oh, really?" Marisa 'huhs' at Kyra. So their school is for witches, too? Maybe she'd have to check it out... Later. Now, there is a choice to be made-- a decision that might just shape her DESTINY.

    MOTHS or MUSHROOMS, is it!? What a conundrum! There could easily be PILES OF LOOT in either direction! Which way does an adventurous superwitch go!?

...As if there was ever any real doubt.

    Marisa gives Arthur a CHALLENGING SMIRK as he boasts of his broom-riding skill. As if in response, Marisa hops right back on her own and zooms over towards the AGORA, legs kicking lackadaisically at either side. There's a whistling tune on her lips and /arcs of magic power/ leaping between her fingertips as she makes her towards ADVENTURE!

BGM CHANGE: https://youtu.be/_6L6E7TLy10

    Fortunately, flying keeps her feet off the ground, and her regular exposure to terrible fungal overgrowths ensure that she's able to make it through JUST FINE without exploding into a crippled mess of mucous and inflammation.

Marisa's about to fire off a barrage when she notices Xiao PICKING FLOWERS, and decides that that's probably a pretty good idea actually.

But it can wait until AFTER she's done showing off.

    The little witch *cackles* as she snaps her shining fingers. Four glassy globes suddenly begin orbiting her, one blue, one red, one green and one yellow. "Come on, Orreries," Marisa laughs. The orbs glow in response! "Let's give 'em a show!"

    And then, there are lasers- four, in fact, with one emerging from each of the rotating orreries. They're joined by a veritable deluge of magic missiles as Marisa starts blasting into the fungal monsters swarming Shin. THE DPS RACE HAS BEGUN.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has taken stock of things they got uite a few people they do have a tank so it's all good right? She thinks about Arthur's plan some more, he seems to know what he's doing and he had to figure it out on his own so far as she knows. Her spider drones are actually with her, they crawl out of her back pack and hop to the ground, a moment later she pulls out her m-pad and checks to see the camera feeds from the drones are in working order. With that handled she looks to Alwyn for a moment and grins a little bit. She's going to keep to Kyra it seems today,

"I'll come with you looks like there's some things I can test out there."

She's got her cutlass out in short order and the blade humms to life as she starts to hack her way through, between the spider drones freezing plant life, so it can be shattered. She does keep ane eye on Xiao as miss SCIENCE(TM) might find something interesting. Or something that might go katboom either way it will be enteraining, right

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    "You sure know how to pick your fights." Amalthea asides to Arthur as her TIME NEPHEW arrives, complaining of the allergens. "Hello, Arthur."
    Her introduction for those that don't know her is curt and to the point. Because it dawns on her that the only people here she really knows ARR Arthur and Setsuko. "Amalthea. Union captain." An elbow is jerked Setsuko's way. "Setsuko pulled me along because apparently I was hibernating for too long again." That's it.
    She's about to say something else when Shin blitzes off Agora-wards to slug a mushroom. Hoisting her shield and breathing a slow hiss through her teeth. As Setsuko heads left, she heads right. "I guess I'll go this way. Try and keep people from getting killed." Mused as she head on after the COMBAT VAGRANT, slinging her lance to draw a dagger and start hacking plants in her way-- especially as Kyra pours out the weed-b-gone.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
"That is precisely what I mean, Mr. Highwind." Souji replies. "I am pleased we have a mutual understanding."

He looks to Xiao and nods in response to her salute. He does not influence Xiao's or Mirielle's choices, instead allowing them to proceed as they will.

Souji proceeds along with Setsuko into the Halcyon Court. Like the other Samurai, his own style is more suitable in this area.

The fact that it's less goop and mold-choked has nothing to do with it, either.

As he proceeds, he does not even pretend. He brings up his blade. "Murasame, it is time to feed." He states, the red ribbon untying itself as the blade comes free of its sheath. The monsters here had had a long time to mature under the exposure of the strange energies and wildlife in the city. He cannot afford to allow his pride to hold his hand back.

Besides, a diremite is not impressed by style.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    There is an area of horrible mutated fungus, and an area of simple monsters. Kyra - and most of the people that Mirielle feels mostly-safe around, have gon towards the AGORA area, drawing her there, but Alwyn - and Souji - are heading to the less-staffed Halcyon area.

    Part of her wishes to support Kyra. Another part of her doesn't want anything to do with these spores coming off the mushrooms, and they're filled into the air.

    A quick glance at the sheer numbers, though, is telling. The Halcyon Court crew is... Well, smaller.

    So she toddles off after Mursame, with a raised hand. "Ah! Mister Murasame, wait!"

    He totally doesn't wait becuase A) Sempai Will Never Notice Me, and B) He's Souji Mursame.

    But, catching up with the SLAY HORRORMOTHS CREW, she does notice a side benefit.

    She gets to see Kyra's new god go blow shit up. That's cool.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    AGORA:

    Shin beats a giant mushroom up. Well, it's more like a spore sac. The big bulb more or less bursts, sending a cloud of bright yellow spores and dust all over Shin! He might be able to react fast enough to pull away, but if it doesn't it's going to cause allergy-like reactions for a while. Now he can suffer just like Arthur!

    Xiao gathers samples, which will no doubt yield results later. The plantlife has been corrupt by energy from the Void, which is more akin to darkness than Chaos if she's going to be comparing notes. As a result it's capable of absorbing ambient Aether and magic.

    Kyra's weedkiller causes some of the plantlife to wither and die, though the larger, stronger specimens don't seem as effected.

    Marisa starts shooting magic everywhere. As expected this causes the actual, monstrous plants to start showing up; the mushrooms that have teeth, the walking piles of vines, flying, spinning flowers that shoot jets of polens. They're not TOO challening overall, but there's a fair number of them; after the initial wave's out, larger specimens surface.

    Which Lyria and Amalthea have to deal with more directly. A massive, gray creature, which looks like at one point it may have been alive but no longer is, covered in moss and plantlife, surges from one of the buildings and makes a beeline for those two. Though humanoid, it has a mouth for a stomach, which seems completely hollow when fully open, and another mouth up there for good measure. It's a good twenty foot tall, large enough to swallow someone whole-- which is exactly what it tries doing to Amalthea.

    HALCYON COURT:

    Setsuko leads the other half of the party through the other path, under the watchful eyes of the bugs and insects. Moths fly overhead, not attacking; yet battle is near. The large creatures go about their business, evidently thriving on the plantlife and polen here, at least until Arthur just starts a competition with Marisa. The swarm converges on the intruders, quickly; Diremites try to bite and sting, moths shoot projectiles of dust and corrosive acid, large worms burst out of the earth with teeth-filled mouths. Dozens are slain right off the bat, but insects are usually known for hanging around in huge numbers.

    A significantly larger moth flies overhead, but does not swoop down yet.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Many would balk at Souji drawing a blade with words that urge it to 'feed'. Setsuko has long since grown past such concerns; and it would to some extent be hypocritical, given the nature of her own battle-seeking sword. She begins with only the regular, 'sealed' form of Zanjintou, a katana which moves with unerring accuracy and impressive speed and strength, cleaving every insect that dares come close. However, more and more of them arrive, an acid projectile glances past her shoulder, a Diremite bite manages to find purchase on one thigh, and then something even bigger looms above.

    A simple katana will not suffice any longer.

    With a snap and a rush of air and blue-white light, the handle of Zanjintou lengthens, the crossguard widens, and a broad, flat blade grows to immense size in less than a second. Twice as long as Setsuko is tall, she nevertheless manages to swing it with perfect control - one slash alone is enough to clear out the swarm around her, but her main goal is to hurl herself right up into the air and bring the weapon around, seeking to cleave the giant moth from below. "HAAA!"

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "Augh god damnit," Shin exclaims as a mushroom proceeds to sporejaculate all over him. The wayward martial artist is not quite quick enough to evade the blast of spores and dust, leaving him coated around the face and upper body with the allery-inducing terrible reactions, "Son of a- ACHOO!- bitch," Shin sniffles, wiping his arm with his sleeve, "What an awful-" He stops to cough, "... idea."
    "Oh wow, that thing looks like someone ate a whole plate of creepy pasta and shit out the aftermath," He says, between sneezes and with a bit of wonder, at the nasty looking double-mouthed mushroom. He fishes around in his backpack and then pulls out that Gunblade he couldn't get anyone to buy. He sniffles and coughs as he does this before grabbing some twine and tying the trigger down so that it perpetually starts charging and firing its payload of fireblasts.
    Then he runs up and tries to hock the entire thing into the giant mushroom's mouth.
    One of its mouths, anyway. Whichever is most convenient for other poses.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Well sample collection was going well, fortunately! ...Unfortunately, they were beginning to draw aggro. With so much excitement going on, there was absolutely no way she could safely continue to gather samples without actually helping.

     Of course at that point, That GIANT GRAY GENTLEMAN decided to pay them all a nice visit. That gave Xiao pause. "Aiyaaa....that does not look good." Some mutterings over the radio followed, capped off with "...Aw, it's kinda cute." She brought a hand to her cheek casually, smiling pleasantly.

     "I want one! Can I take it home? Can I?" No Xiao, you cannot take it home. Knowing full well the answer for it, the girl decided to let the MASTERS OF LASERS AND TANKING, deal with the huge creature. It would be more efficient to focus on making progress on her end. "Kyra! Let them handle it! Let's focus on getting this foilage out of the way, shall we?"

     She stuffed her sample jar into her sleeves along with her arms, and after a moment, pulled them out, equipped with a pair of black gauntlets. "Let's make this quick~" Weaving through the chaos, Xiao focused, flames beginning to build up over her body in an aura of magical energy. She clenched her fists, gathering flames into them and then dashed forward. "Hup!"

     The distance was closed in an instant, and in that instead, she struck the wall of stubborn plantlife with her fist. A moment later, a surge of brilliant flame burst outward, engulfing as much of the plants as she could muster in a single shot.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    For all dunfeon delving may seem and feel routine to some, Amalthea is not lax. Even amid the drudge of trying to hack through overgrown plantlife, the unicorn keeps one loppy ear pricked up, listening out for the first sign of danger, like a proper seasoned campaigner and dungeon delver. The magical burst of the black-and-white witch suddenly making terrible plants to rise and bare teeth, the unicorn isn't even given a beat's pause.
    The dagger in her hand is flung, hurled with a monster's strength at the nearest mushroom. Before the much LARGER beast rouses. It's practically on top of her in an instant, and the unicorn's lone eye is suddenly staring into the gut-mouth of something dire and terrible.
    "What the fu- No you can't take it home!"
    For a unicorn, let it not be said she has the dainty vocabulary of a soft and delicate flower. No, no, the curse is sharp, sudden, and snarled as the stomach mouth bears down on her, she thumbs a rune on the grip of her shield.
    With an explosive burst, the heavily armored knight is LAUNCHED skywards, a flare of rainbows, sparkles, and rocket exhaust in her wake as her jump pack sends her straight up. High. Higher.
    She unslinges her lance, Wishblade, the old silvered polearm gleaming in the light and practically singing as its drawn to battle once more. Inertia hits and she hangs in the air for a beat, cape fluttering in the wind, before letting gravity tilt her back down and thumbing the jump pack controls again, aiming a rocket-powered down-stab with the legendary spear.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The black blade of the Murasame Family cleaves forward into the insectoid forces. A diremite stabs its toxic stinger at him, and he grunts, whipping his blade to one side to parry. There is a fountain of sparks, and bubbling venom splashes over the blade. He hisses, wrenching the blade away and spinning the blade to slash in towards some of the armor joints on the diremite. As it draws ichor, it is absorbed into the blade, some of Souji's wounds closing as he cleaves through the horde.

Lightning hisses in his hands as he vaults over the bugs, unleashing a torrent of lightning into the enemy group as well, attempting to bring down some of the fflying enemies as well.

"Impressive. This is actually a challenge." Souji grunts, and glances over to Mirielle with an expression that clearly says louder than words, 'do something'. She's a Calculator, she should be able to handle a calculus of death pretty well here.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Weedkiller only seems to get so far, it seems. Kyra quickly switches to something a whole lot stronger and digs into the messenger bag at her hip. She pulls off a number of red, chalky-looking bricks out, which are tossed at the persistant vines that continue to block their way. She doesn't do anything with them right away as the local wildlife starts to aggro on the others despite Marisa's laser rain.

    "Yeah, yeah, we got this, Xiao! Might want to stand back." Kyra can't magic her fire but she is very, very good at mixing explosives-such as the Galiandan-style C4 she just tossed at the knots of vines. "Heads up everyone, I'm blowing these up!" she warns as she herself steps back a good distance. She snaps her fingers and the blocks ignite and explode.

    The CURE-ALL is dragged over her shoulder, the Remedy option selected and primed with a small amount of MP from Kyra. She turns her aim towards Shin and fires, testing on him if the ensuna-like function of the gun could do something about his sudden bout of allergies.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    Woah! Nobody said that these plant-slash-mushroom things were ATTRACTED by magic! Though maybe Marisa shouldn't be so surprised. The Forest of Magic is positively full of shrooms that thrive on magical energy, so it isn't so odd that there'd be ambulatory species that chase the stuff around.

Not that she'd ever let them eat /her/ magic!

    Jets of pollen and seeds and other stuff lance out at her from the crush of plants- but Marisa is used to this kind of thing! She grins, hopping to steady two feet on her broomstick before scything around to one wall! Bursts of plantmatter chase her, but as they draw too close, Marisa starts scooting slowly towards the other wall. Lines of projectiles stream by, each one /just/ missing her by a few inches. All the while she's filling the line of plant-monsters with more and more magical projectiles.

These, however EXPLODE like fireworks when they make contact, freeing up whatever magic power the creatures have absorbed for Marisa to take in for herself.

She soon has something to use it all on.

    "That thing is not cute!" Marisa grunts at the horrible, way-too-toothy thing. She dips up, whirling into a holding pattern overhead. The orreries swing forward, their orbits narrowing into a neat ring in front of the witch. Draining magical explosives and lances of Love-colored magic blast down into the massive, overgrown tooth-fungus. "That thing's not cute at all!"

It's not even the least bit huggable looking! Fungus should not have teeth!

Though she's kind of curious about carnivorous mushrooms now. Maybe she should grab a sample.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has been keeping with her group in the Agora there' quite a few people here she watches as Shin proves he's some sort of monk, which seems to be pretty useful in a pinch. Xiao is gettimg more samples, why does she have a feeling of dread about that? Kyra's doing a pretty goodf job of things with her posion. IS being as direct as Amlthea is and then comes a creature is found. She pauses for a moment and she wonders about it. She stares and she's filled with horror.

"Paracitic plant life?!"

Okay things need to die in fire, oh things need to die in fire. Xiao has the right idea, given the ruins she's got some ideas to deal withe the plants. She keeps tab on where Amalthea is going and well? She calls out to both Kura and Xiao.

"This is where I love being a Geomancer! These things will be purged in fire!"

She takes a stance, she looks like she's dancing a bit and several magma balls start to form above ruined sections of the old city. Lyria doesn't take long in slinging them at the incoming infested horror and anyyhing telse that seems to be an issue here. Like the plants in general.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    You know what? Any sane man would realize that shooting first was the bad thing to do. A smart person would realize that this is a bad idea, and that killing the bugs and riling up the hive is not something that Arthur Lowell should be doing. The brilliant white and black beams of light and bolts of magical energy streak all around in front of him in a huge chaotic gush. He breaks off just slightly on the path, pulling away just enough that the others won't have to deal with his poor decisionmaking if they don't want to, and keeps up his combat, just because that's who Arthur Lowell is.

    Covered in diremites latched on with teeth, sizzling with corrosive acid, and with at least one or two large worms dangling from his legs by the teeth, Arthur Lowell is already suffering wounding. But he continues pushing on, trying to make sure the group gets on to the tower. And maybe that he can find something worth doing when it comes to this giant moth. That's looking kind of worrying.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle looks up, at the fire and the carnage and the rocketbroomgodkid and the GIANT FUCKOFF SWORD and the lifedrinking edge and and...

    And bugs. Bleck. She tries to take in the situation, as she ducks and dodges flying and falling foes alike, the flurry of attacks, magic, and large objects being tossed up into the air or swung through it. Or, in the case of Arthur Lowell, being a human missile. Human? Person? Godbeing?

    If he was aiming for a breakthrough, there's some things she can do. Considering tanks are doing their jobs, and the strikers are fast-attacking efficently, the most efficent thing to do is to increase their breakthrough potential.

    And also make sure her boss and friend's God don't die. That'd probably be bad... Right?

    Stoneskin and Protect already covered... Mirielle raises her hands, as a trickle of white magic lingering between her fingers. "Either of you dying for being vanguards isn't efficent." She notes, though Arthur, in BUG ASS HELL, may not notice. Both, however, would notice their wounds closing! Or, rather, not getting worse. Regen!

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    COURT: Left and right, large insects die; those who do so in melee combat get splashed by their blood now and again, when they are unable to cover themselves (perhaps Souji cheats with time magic, for instance). Where the blood falls, a strong stench comes off; and overhead, the moth-- no, that's not a moth at all.

    The Voidsent rushes down, as Setsuko goes up to meet it. Perhaps it is meant to look like a moth from afar, but its tail uncoils, four claw-like spikes deploy from around its head, and the shape of the beast changes almost completely within seconds.

    Mirielle is best placed to tell this is something born of darkness.

    Setsuko's blow to the Voidsent sends it back up, and with a flaw of its wing it buffets the group with a wave of darkness, which burns and corrodes.

    All the while the insect swarms continue being a problem; as they are cut, fried, burnt, electrocuted, shot out of the sky, blasted with magic (gravity and space alike?). Their numbers certainly thin, but they're getting smarter. Setsuko and Souji are left alone due to having the Voidsent's attention; all remaining moths converge on Arthur from every direction, biting with teeth they should NOT have. Worms and Diremites, on Mirielle, who presents a much tastier and vulnerable treat.

    The way ahead is not barred, it's just a fancy steel gate with a bit of mold. Technically it could be punched right open, if the party doesn't want to fight.

    Mirielle's support does offer a very good argument for standing your ground though. The healing can keep up with the wounds inflicted-- Arthur seems to need it especially, too.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    AGORA: Shin's Garlean gunblade predictably starts heating up dangerously the more it's unloaded, as the Ceruleum inside, already an unstable mess to start with, heats up. He plugs it into one of the Gourmand's mouths!

    Sturbborn plant-life blocking the path to the Tower of White is met with fire and explosives, as Xiao and Kyra cooperate to blast that bloody gate open. The path ahead is clear!

    And yes, Esuna will clear Shin's allergies.

    Amalthea takes off in a rocket burst, and crashes down atop the beast to slam its upper mouth shut. The spear blow penetrates fairly deep in its skull, though being 'undead', or plant-driven at least, it isn't lethal. The gunblade explodes at this moment, and with its maw shut by Amalthea, the beast's head is blown off completely.

    Alwyn will be over there fawning at Amalthea and trying to remember to ask her to teach him to jump better later.

    Marisa bombards the walking mouth (at this point) with countless attacks, and Lyria adds fire to the mix; the Gourmand flails, blind, stumbling and trying to eat people with its massive stomach-mouth. Eventually, under all that fire, it topples to the ground and stops moving.

    The path ahead looks... clear?

Master Therion (565) has posed:
The Agora certainly is choked with flora and fauna. Lots of ferns and mushrooms, along with the mess of wildlife that isn't really providing much of a challenge... at least to one observer's eyes. Therion is watching from a distance, perhaps something that those sensitive to pure concentrated evil can pick up as a vague unease. Mostly, he's using the actual dungeon's aura to mask his own, though.

He isn't going to just sit idly by while this crew fumbles about when it has work to do though! "Hmnf..." the bored-looking Sorcerer mutters to himself, idly resting his hand atop the sleepy-looking girl beside him. Tapping his chin, he leans back and lets a fraction of his power out. It won't really be a /challenge/ for this group, he's sure, but it should be more entertaining and might drive things along further, especially after the big mess with that massive bellymouth thing.

So those in the AGORA will find the shadows deepening for a moment, lengthening and twisting. It only lasts a few seconds before they solidify into a half-dozen dark, winged figures, each a little larger than a human and with indistinct features.

The creatures dart forward with unnatural speed, one of them plowing through a mushroom as if it weren't there. They are obvious quite a bit stronger than their size would indicate, and approaching from the opposite direction from that just-killed creature. They don't look like natives, though they might certainly FEEL like Voidsent...

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    The Voidsent creature's transformation comes too late for Setsuko to react, and then before she can recover herself for defense, she finds herself buffeted by a wave of Voidal aether, strong enough to send her back to the ground with a SLAM that cracks the stone beneath her. She rises with corrosive burns along her exposed skin, her expression hardening as a line of blood trails down one side of her face. "...clever. Masking your true nature, and surprising with an attack from above. But whatever you are, the sky doesn't belong to you alone."

    Plumes of blue-white energy flare from Setsuko's back, easily mistaken for thrusters at first until they fluctuate in a way that looks almost winglike. Whatever they are, they launch the swordswoman into the sky like a bottle rocket, a blue projectile hurtling higher and higher into the air, until she seems only a faint dot in the sky above. But her voice? Oh, that rings out clearly.

    "ZANJINTOU! ITTOU..."

    For a heartbeat she floats, high above the Lost City of Amdapor, before those bright plumes of divine power explode again, this time dropping her downward far faster than gravity could on its own. Faster, faster, adding more and more momentum, coming down like a bolt of divine punishment, until at the last instant before she'd pass right by the Voidsent-

    She swings the blade.

    "RYOUDAN!!"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Woohoo!" Kyra cheers, not only because they have blown a hole free in the foliage but because she's discovered that ensuna will do something about these spores! "Now we're cooking." Her attention shifts to the actual people fighting the large double-mouthed mushroom monster, her eyes scanning those there for injuries she might need to dump some healing magic on. Everyone still seems up and going and killing things just fine, at least.

    Kyra waits for the others to head into the newly cleared dungeon section, firmly of the 'backliner' belief as far as party formations go. Unfortunately, this turns out to not be for her benefit as new enemies are suddenly upon them from behind. Back attacks are the /bane/ of a white mage's (or black mage!) existance. Caught by surprise, Kyra is flung to the ground with one of the shadow creatures on top of her back. She's fortunate enough to put her forearm in the way so she doesn't smash her face on the ground.

    "HEALER AGGRO!" Kyra yelps as she squirms, trying to worm her way free. One hand reaches up, flailing wildly, trying to grasp the creature, a quick spell murmured. Not a full Holy but of the same type of offensive white magic, she cries out, "BANISH!" as the incantation ends. This bit of white magic fortunately works as intended.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     At Kyra's warning, Xiao immediately leapt back, soaring through the air and tucking into a backflip before landing right by Kyra with a slight skid of the feet. Her arms hung at her sides as she watched the combined force of Lyria's magma storm and Kyra's explosives cleared the stubborn plantlife away, giving way to proceed further in. "Excellent work, you two!" She praised, giving Kyra and Lyria a thumbs up.

     And then immediately, the scientist bounded off towards the fallen, charred body of the giant mushroom zombie. There were samples to be collected! And collect samples she would!

     ...At least that was the plan before suddenly a good half dozen dark, winged creatures appeared from the shadows, darting for the group's location. "....Aiyaaaaa...." Xiao muttered in exasperation. She didn't even get time to get out her sample kit! "Heeeeeey, no chance we can postpone this until I collect samples from this here fallen beast? No? ....No? Okay."

     The girl sighed and hung her head.

     "Well then. I suppose samples will have to wait." She clenched her fists and frowned in focus.

     "Holy."

     Suddenly a brilliant, white light flared up around Xiao's body. "Let me test an immediate theory..." She mused aloud, clenching her fists at her side. Then she took a stance, feet spread apart, one arm forward, the other clenched at her side. Holy energy gathered into her fist, building up into a sphere.

     A single breath was taken. Then in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

     Dust kicked up in front of one of those dark creatures and Xiao, light sphere in hand, thrust it forward, aiming to push the ball of searing energy straight into it's chest. Upon contact, the sphere would expand at a sudden and explosive rate, filling it's body with purifying light.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The response is far greater than expected. Souji was prepared for a bug, not a greater Voidsent. Mirielle may be forced to deal with the smaller bugs for the moment. He can't even spare a word of appreciation for the regeneration buff, because you can't really talk in the middle of a wing buffet of darkness. The consuming abyssal force seethes over Souji, consuming exposed flesh in a competition with the healing magics of Mirielle, even as he is pushed backwards towards one of the railings. He hits the crumbling balustrade, thankful for something solid to anchor to as he weathers the storm. He is not taking a defensive stance.

He is focusing, his blade held at his side in a tell that a swordsman would know well: He is preparing to marshal a terrible strike, focusing his power into a powerful maneuver.

"Murasame Sword Arts..."

    SAMURAI
    BUSHIDO
    > 8: OBLIVION

The tension is palpable, the heir tense as a darkness falls around him, concealing everything about him and his target for a moment.

And then he strikes, his blade cleaving crimson upwards and through the massive Voidsent from below, Souji cleaving upwards and through with killing intent.

The darkness lifts once Souji lands on the other side, his back to the massive voidsent. That's just how this goes.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    The boss goes for Setsuko. Souji's getting roped into it. Mirielle's healing Arthur's wounds, but she should probably stay with them. And so Arthur, currently being harassed by /all the other MINION-LEVEL ENEMIES/ decides, you know what? They can probably handle it. "ALRIGHT you kids, you're some GROWN-ASS ADULTS and all so I'mma let YOU GUYS handle this!" Arthur calls out, violently kicking a worm off his leg as three more moths dive to bite on his shoulders.

    "Time to go take a look at the APEX PREDATOR up in this shit! Hope this DUMB SON OF A BITCH appreciates a good KNOCKED DOOR!" And he kicks his ROCKET BROOM into higher rocket settings, from CRUISE to SPRINT, intent on blasting into and then subsequently through the crowd of bugs that are swarming around him and wounding him badly. In fact, he intends to bring a whole log of these bugs WITH him, as he covers himself in a thick black gravity barrier of energy and tries to slam dramatically through the steel gate and on into wherever the next area is, likely dismounting dramatically and doing a 360 radial sweep starfire attack to hopefully incinerate whatever's still clinging by the teeth to his body.

    "EVERYONE OUT OF THE WAY, I'VE GOT A BROOM FULL OF ROCKETS, MOTHS FULL OF TEETH, AND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY POUNDS OF BUTTKICKING I can't bring to these ASSLESS BUGS!"

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    Marisa grins as the Gourmand topples, smoldering and smoking and smelling quite honestly a little bit like too-old mushroom stew. "Set," she chuckles, "Match. Now! Let's see here~" The witch chimes, hovering nice and close to the smoldering mass of ambulatory fungus. "Just gonna get a cutting," she produces a little travelling knife and a small glass vial and begins carving out little chunks of Gourmand Flesh into her container...

She does not see the /slavering shadow monsters/ erupt from the other side of the arena.

Not until one explodes through a mushroom, that is.

    "Wh-ooaaah shiii--" Marisa squeaks, pulling UP from her little harvest party- but not quickly enough to avoid taking a claw to the side. She growls as she goes spinning off, alighting just over the battlefield with a now quite thoroughly bleeding shoulder. "Fuckers," she mutters, stowing her fresh sample into one of her pouches. "Y'all are gonna regret that."

    Marisa reaches into another pouch. She fishes out... A distinctly octagonal looking block of wood. "Orreries," she grunts, the brightly colored orbs swirl back into a tight formation- but this time, a fifth one's been added to their number. More worryingly, each and every one of them is glowing with a hot, blue light, "Let's teach 'em a lesson. Nobody gets to sneak up on me and gets away with it."

    "NARROW SPARK--" Marisa growls, levelling the block of wood with the rotating ring of spheres. Arcs of blue-white lightning leap from the orbs to the octagon and back. "--PLUS--" Blue light flares from the Hakkero's core, the five rotating spheres seem to respond by shining even brighter!

"--NON-DIRECTIONAL LASER!"

A pulse of heat ripples through the air.

    Great lances of starlight blast downward from the witch's outstretched arm and the ring of spheres encircling it. They scythe across the ground as Marisa kicks her broom into high-gear, burning great, smoldering trenches in the flora as each beam seems to chase after a separate one of those awful, winged monstrosities.

Is it really non-directional if she can aim the beams!?

MARISA DOESN'T CARE.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    With a YANK, Wishblade it pried free, and Amalthea leaps from the undead fungal beast before the others-- especially Marisa- reduce it to little more than ash. Now she makes a sound as her boots hit the ground, the heavy CLANK of armor resounding as her boots crater the ground. A HISSSS of steam vents from the joints of her ankles and knees, exhaust and coolant bleeding from the vents in her jump pack as she takes a breath to recover her balance and wits after the sheer sudden ferocity of the attack.
    But it never ends. For a moment. For just a moment. The looming sense of dread and unease seem so... Familiar. The unicorn upturns her nose as though trying to scent the palpable feeling of darkness lingering upon the air, before she slings her lance.
    From her hip she grasps a sword. Ringing and songlike it calls as the blue-steel blade is drawn from the sheath, as she takes Faith into her hand. Her reaction is nearly instinctive, the looming shadows altering form and shape, before the dark beings emerge, Amalthea wheels around. As soon as the beast is upon Kyra, Amalthea shifts the grip on her shield before intending to bodily slam the creature off the group healer, before raising her voice.
    "No, you look DIRECTLY AT ME, and NOWHERE ELSE." Roared in defiance and challenge.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    As the creature falls, Shin puts his hands up and hums a little RPG theme for himself, "Doo doodoodoo... DOO DOO DOO. Dooba dooba deedee dum dum," He says before immediately lowering his arms as the next round of enemies comes out, "Shit. Two-stage encounter. My bad," He remarks quietly, immediately changing his stance. Now out of Gunblades to throw into the mouths of monsters, he has to think of a move quickly.
    That move is to stop paying attention to other people and immediately take an iPod out of his pockets! The earbuds are stuck in his ears and he spends a few moments dodging around some darting creatures, "Sorry," He says, weaving around one, "Real busy. One sec," He adds, flipping through the touch screen. Finally, he comes on to the song he wants and turns it on. It gets stuck into the chest pocket of his suit. Now he can have sweet jams while he adventures. Downside: He can't ear other people talking to him.
    Looking around, he blinks a few times and rubs his chin. Stay here and fight darkness creatures? Group of people this crazy, he'd probably just get in their way! So he starts to dash on ahead, aiming to scout up into the areas ahead while people run cleanup.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle sees the horrible Voidsent, scion of Darkness from Outside, and it sends a shiver down her spine. Certainly it has the characteristics of the Dark from Galianda, but it's so much... Colder. And, decidedly unfriendly. Well... Okay, so the Darkness in Galianda isn't really /friendly/ either, but this Voidsent lacks the heat and passion of inner darkness, and the more familiar darkness of 'other' sources.

    She's about to wusskick aside a worm and give Arthur some more Aid to shear off the giant wriggling mass of UGH latched on to him, but can't.

    Since he's waaaay over there. The remaining little pissant enemies are going after her tasty bits, but thankfully she's in waders and long stockings and other resistant clothes. "I do not have time for you. Begone." She mutters, sweeping her hands outwards to blast the remaining ground-bound TRASH MOBS with a wave of Dark, before beginning to incant, drawing her knife and pricking her thumb, pulling out a few other ingredients to get her hex on. "The darkness is not merely the tool of some overgrown eyesore." She grumbles darkly, sweeping her bloodied hands through the air and casting out her hexing ingrediants, before a dark stormy cloud of gook and electricity coalesces around the Voidsent briefly.

    One would hope this boss would be immune to every status effect, because that's what this godawful cloud of badness is trying to impart, all at once.

    Sufficently debilitated, it should be made short work of! She thinks. Maybe then people can peel these stupid adds off of her.

Master Therion (565) has posed:
Not everything that Therion can fight with or summon is vulnerable to light and holy magics... but yeah, these most definitely are. The white-haired mage chuckles to himself, watching for a while now. It's pretty entertaining, enough that he doesn't even notice Etheldreda leaning against his arm possessively.

Amalthea slams into one of the monsters, sending it skidding away. It's... much stronger than it looks, and much heavier. Still, that's a /unicorn/ charging, and Amalthea's horn is a holy thingee. It doesn't make a noise, just staggering back and clawing at Amalthea's shield. If she doesn't just stab the thing, it might leave some claw marks, but now that it's one on one it should be easy to take down.

And it is one on one for Amalthea, because the Banish is EXACTLY what Kyra needed, sending the creature back to the nether realms with a tearing sensation and a sudden dissolving of the shadowy mass. The white mage is pretty effective against these things.

Xiao Li Yu gets some aggro, one of the beasts heading RIGHT FOR HER! Fortunately she has a shotgun, or in this case Holy, which blows a hole in the creature and causes it to dissolve harmlessly. It's left very real gouges in the earth though, hasn't it? That's three down.

Two more fall to Marisa's barrage of lasers, one of them getting wing and arm blasted to spiral away, and another just vanishing after a direct hit. That leaves only one, doesn't it? Shin isn't the one to get this one, since the whole point of these creatures was to prod people along. It's heading right for Marisa, claws and tail lashing out. If it manages to grip her, she'll find its grasp is actually kind of tickling in sensation, but she should be able to blast it before any real damage is done.

"Mmm, I think that is enough play," Therion murmurs to his Grimoire, turning to head toward whatever goal he has for today. Technically two are still left alive, but he's certain they won't last against their opponents.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    COURT:

    Between Setsuko and Souji catching the Voidsent in a blade sandwich of powerful techniques, upward and downward, it only barely stood a chance; Mirielle blasting it with every status effect in the book does not help, causing their swords cut through the creature, and cut in two as such, its body starts dissipating in wisps and flames of purple, Void-tinted magic.

    Not to mention, Mirielle's magic makes the bugs disperse.

    Arthur blasts ahead, with countless bugs on his tail. He can, trivially, outrun them, and that's exactly what he does; eventually even the worms on his legs, if they haven't been blasted off, would let go, and the COOL GODKID would reach the TOWER OF WHITE. He can peek inside, if he'd like, or wait for the group to catch up.

    And soon enough the horrors set upon the AGORA will be defeated as well, allowing all to reach the tower.

    The INSIDE of the Tower of White is kind of a mess. There's... not exactly a building in there anymore. From the outside it certainly looks like a crumbled tower, but inside, everything is infinite darkness and dark stone, with bright platforms of magic floating in the void, and stone ones as well, connected by solid pathways of blue Aether.

    There are a number of those, laid out around a central one. Bright towers of dark stone with blue runes and symbols emerge from the darkness around it, glowing, obviously maintaining these magical platforms. Something is incredibly off and wrong in here, and all of the smaller platforms eventually connect to the larger one at the center.

    If there was anywhere you'd want to be, it's there.

    This realm, whatever it is, CALLS OUT to Mirielle.
    Something about it is extremely familiar.
    Friendly, even-- to HER, and her alone. Nothing like the Voidsent outside. To the others, the presence is hateful and dark. Kyra, especially, may feel watched, not just with hatred, but with targetted disdain and disgust at what she is.

    Alwyn, in the back row, suddenly pipes up. "Oh! I remember now! Amdapor, that was... White Mages! This is the civilization that invented a lot of the more powerful magics of Eorzea! Then they just... well, legends say they blew themselves up with forbidden White Magic, and that's why it took this long for the stigma to go away and White Mages to be trained again. To think we found their capital..."

    He looks about. "I... erm... I admit I have no idea what to do now. I guess we can go stand on that platform. I'm not good at magic though."

Lyria Mason has posed:
AS things get chaoic here, shye help sdrop the Gourmand and sees that it's just about done. She does wait till it stops moving to be sure and even as she passes the remains? She gives it a good stab with her cutlass to make sure it's not playing dead. If it's not she's going to dfall in with the others from the Agora at least until sometrhing starts happening new horrorss now assail them all and she's caught off guard as she's now getting smacked around pretty good by them.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    After Therion's attack, Shin isn't actually going to be too hard for people to catch up with. While he did wind up a pretty good clip ahead of people (within bounds of working for the GM, obviously), he eventually slowdown and switched to walking along with his head down and a phone turned sideways in his hands.
    The headphones are still in his ears, blaring some catch J-Rock song or another to anyone who gets right up next to him. There's a loud sniffle and a cough from him due to that pollen and spore combination that still coats him and diminishes his health with annoying status ailments. He coughs a couple more times before he starts cheering at the screen, "Come on! You can do it, Nemo! Get in there! Catch him with the dizzy!" He shouts as the video feed flashes across his screen.
    General inattentiveness as he watches Evo also means he almost walks right off one of the platforms and into the darkness before he looks up, "Oh, huh."

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    Whatever these things are, they sure don't like lasers. Marisa doesn't even bother disguising her grin as two of the creatures turn to so much ash under the burning light of her PEERLESS* MAGIC. But it looks like two just isn't good enough! A third leaps through the air and reaches for her throat--

It doesn't get close enough to try.

    Marisa brings the Hakkero up. The spinning array of lasers sweeps across the cityscape, carving scorched, black lines over buildings and into stone streets. The beams seem to part as she aligns the center of her shot with the last of the creatures.

A flash of light. The beams converge, dissolving the last monster in a wash of white-hot energy.

    "Tch," she grunts, making her way downwards to rejoin the others. She reaches for the gashes along her shoulder, touching gingerly at the bleeding marks, "Got careless. That won't happen twice."

Gotta save up those lives and conserve those bombs, after all.

    It isn't long until they make their way to their destination, however, and boy does it smell like one /hell/ of a treasure chamber. Well. Treasure tower. "Hooo boy," Marisa murmurs, tilting her hat back to peer up at the pool of endless black that is the inside of the tower. "This sure smells like the place." Especially judging by the all-too-familiar enmity that suffuses the very air here. It feels like they're standing in the lair of an extraordinarily powerful and very angry Youkai.

Marisa might be more right than she knows.

    She glances up towards the platforms, nodding. "Well. Time's-a-wastin'," Marisa grins, floating up towards the central platform, "Let's get a move on, huh?"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Once Kyra feels the weight lift, by combination of Amalthea and a banish spell, she's quick to scramble to her feet, using the CURE-ALL as support to get herself standing. She whirls, looking around frantically for more of the creatures-which aren't entirely tied up by the group with two more remaining. Despite the stress, she still feels firmly in control of her own magic and takes full advantage of this, directing another Banish at one of the two remaining winged shadow-creatures.

    She retreats back to the path they carved/exploded earlier since it's opposite of where the shadow creatures came from. After meeting up with the group, she starts poking people with healing-literally. She has syringes filled with Potion. Marisa will be subjected to these if she really needs the healing.

    Eventually, it leads everyone to the Tower of White, the sight of which she captures with the camera on her head, awesome-looking bright platforms included. She takes out her phone and puts on the flashlight app, trying to shine the light down into the void (likely to little effect). Her antics abruptly cease when she feels that presence.

    She takes a step backwards, bumping into Alwyn as she does. For a few moments, Kyra looks like she wants to run out of the tower and not come back. "I don't get it, 'forbidden' white magic? Sure, Holy can hurt but it's nowhere near a proper Flare." She says with a frown, looking towards those platforms. Wary, she casts a Float spell on herself.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao took a deep breath and then leapt back putting distance between herself and the remaining forces. One glance around would tell her that the others had this situation under control.

     ...Time to go collect samples~

     Quickly, she bounded off towards the corpse of the monster they'd felled previous to that random interruption, getting out her sample kit and cutting away pieces to store for later's examination. She worked fast, gathering as much as she could before she was left behind.

     Once done, she stuffed her sample kit into her sleeves and ran off to catch up with the others. Once arriving at the TOWER OF WHITE, Xiao took a moment to survey the new locale. "This is..." She brought a hand to her chin, considering things for a moment. "...What is this?"

     She had no idea. And that excited her.

     Giddy with the feeling of impending discovery, she proceeded to scale the platforms, heading forward and down to out to see just what lie ahead...

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Cleaved apart and obliterated by magic. Setsuko finds herself gratified on some level by the end the Voidsent meets. But the divine side of her calls for ritual, for declaration; for an oath that feels 'correct' for the moment. So she stands straight, holding the immense blade perfectly vertical, and declares:

    "There is nothing my Zanjintou cannot cut."

    Then, a nod to Mirielle and Souji both, and she returns the sword in her hands to its sealed state; in one movement, the demigod returns it to its sheath and moves on... only to stop dead as they reach the inside of the tower.

    A faint blue aura glimmers into visibility around her briefly, when her eyes fall on the platform. "...battle." Her blood practically boils with it already. In the near future, very near, there will be a very dangerous battle. She cautions her allies as such over the radio, and then... continues to walk forward, calm and steady, as if unworried. Battle is in her nature, after all. But she does turn to Kyra, responding with a simple, "Remember, this is not your world. The rules may be different here. The same words don't have to carry the same meaning."

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    As hard as she came at it, when the thing wheels back around on her to counter, the vicious reprisal staggers the unicorn. She's nearly bowled back over with a scowl, before the thing is BANISHED, and she regains her balance. Just in time to face down the next, her holy sword flashing in glimmering strokes while claws gouge and rake her shield in withering blows. Her main focus, however, is keeping herself between Kyra and harm's way.
    "... There's such a thing as forbidden WHITE magic?"
    That sounds super weird to her.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
"Don't see why there wouldn't be," Marisa says with a shrug. "Black Magic gets forbidden all the time. It'd be discriminatory if there weren't some forbidden White Magic spells, too! Or like... Other colors. How many other colors of magic do you people use?" As far as the witch is concerned, she's got at least seven. Maybe even nine.

It all boils down to one color in the end anyway, though.

She seems to be in a better mood now that her wound's been nicely sealed up, at least! Thanks Kyra!

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur gets right on in, obviously, because waiting is for chumps and losers who aren't going anywhere, or that's what he's rudely muttering under his breath. "SHIT YEAH, you can FORBID all kinda stuff. 'Cause you can do BAD SHIT will all kinda stuff. WHO KNOWS what they tried to do, but I guess they FUCKED IT UP or it was a BAD THING TO DO." And with that, he FLEXES enough to push a couple moth teeth out of his shoulder and heads on up to the center platform, expectantly, scanning for magical interfaces that might necessitate interaction and intending to interact with them, or otherwise seeking a method of progress.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Clearing out the adds, and the voidsent, is finally accomplished. The path before them is clear... And Dark. Not un-lit, thoguh! No, that would be simply dispatched with some sources of light. No, the issue is a deep source of the more metaphysical power before them. Within the TOWER OF WHITE, reality itself is a little... odd. And it calls out to her. "How curious. This is the place of White magic, yet it is so filled with the opposite element. Well, perhaps there are some sort of magical wards deeper in. I shall disable them - Darkness isn't a hamper to me." She notes, moving forward. Pillars of stone and a giant column deeper in, she barely restrains herself from hurrying.

    She could /hear/ it. Couldn't the others? Mmm, perhaps not. If Cirra were here, it'd be another thing, most likely. She makes a mental note to focus on using Lightning over Dark spells later, or she'd get a reputation.

    "Ah! I see it!" She calls back, hurrying past the group. "There is a seal around here... Something waiting. All we have to do is..."

    She wanders towards the center of the platform. "Wake it up, yes, that's right. Progressing is optimal here, and to do that we need..."

    She steps into the center.

    "... What was I saying?"

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The great Voidsent is... sent back to the Void. Or perhaps somewhere else. It doesn't matter to Souji, who allows the powerful monster to vaporize without looking back to observe its demise. As expected, Mirielle had a solution for the bug problem the entire time, she just needed proper... motivation.

People tend to get creative to not get eaten by bugs.

Nevertheless, they are free to advance. The White Tower is a fascinating edifice. Souji looks out over the aetheric platforms. "To have enough residual power to waste that much power on simple platforms... the construction is impressive indeed." He steps down along the platforms, the oppressive armosphere growing. But he cannot stop. There is a glance behind himself towards Mirielle. Something about this place is... affecting her. Odd. She seemed perfectly stable before. A glance to Setsuko, and a nod. They both know where their destiny lies. Lowell gets a nod too. He can always count on the very loud godchild to act in accordance to the needs of the moment.

And then he looks back up and Mirielle is walking into the middle of that platform. "Edelweiss!" Souji barks. "Come back! Quickly!"

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    "I'd guess anything has the potential to be so powerful it can become forbidden. Maybe it's superstition, though. When something happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, it's hard to separate truth from what was passed down by who was left to write history, right?" Alwyn replies, not entirely sure of himself, though Arthur's agreement helps, before shrugging towards Xiao Li Yu. "No idea. Never seen anything like this."

    INITIAL OBSERVATIONS would reveal a number of powerful seals and wards all around the area. They are weakening-- quickly. In a year or two, there would not be anything but dust left here. The wards... MIGHT be what's containing the darkness inside the tower? It's hard to tell, they're so old and damaged. They might be what summoned it, too.

    Samples of the wards-- runes on the stone structures and platforms-- could likely be taken, via photography namely.

    But interfaces there are not. This is all a closed system-- no input needed. Maintenance would have evidently been a good idea, but it's probably a few hundred years too late for that.

    As MIRIELLE walks up to the largest platform, something pulses in the tower. The shadows gather in front of her; bats form an orb, which grows, and grows, before a booming voice greets her.

    Darkness gathers and my slumber is disturbed. What do you require, child?

    The orb erupts, and left in its wake is a tall, semi-draconic semi-demonic humanoid of red and black, wings stretching out. His glare falls on Mirielle, as if welcoming. DIABOLOS speaks again.

    You come to my nightmare before the seal is broken. Seek thou to free me, or do you seek a favor? Speak, you who bears my--

    He stops. His glare turns towards Kyra, and other intruders-- but mostly Kyra. With a pulse of red and purple, the tower shakes, and Diabolos seems ANGRY.

    You have brought one of Amdapor's White Mages with you!

    Lances of red and black energy form in the air, aimed at all but Mirielle.

    I will drown you in darkness for disturbing my domain!

    They shoot out! Upon impact (if any), the spears inflict only minor burns as they lance through without a wound-- WITH CONSENT: the victim relives one of their worst nightmares in an instant and flash.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    The instant Diabolos makes his appearance, Zanjintou is in Setsuko's hand and growing to its full size. She's prepared to go on the attack immediately, but even before she can make her move, the elder Voidsent unleashes his attack on them, a lance of nightmarish power that Setsuko attempts to parry-

    flames leaping to the sky, blood on the snow, dead, so many dead, the sight of her father being cut down as she's carried up and over a hill-

    The demigod stumbles. Zanjintou's blade dips, its weight suddenly too much for her to keep steady for a moment. It touches the floor, as does Setsuko's knee.

    And then a brilliant blue corona of divine light erupts around her, billowing and flowing like a silent stormcloud, before sinking back in. That constant presence she exudes, that indefinable 'something' that marks her as Different, seems to swell, to grow until it matches the darkness Diabolos impresses upon his surroundings.

    Up she stands, lifting Zanjintou, holding it steady behind herself, adopting an aggressive, wide-open ready stance. Only then does she turn her eyes back on the Voidsent... and those eyes are glowing blue.

    "Whether by accident or design, demon, your attack has trod upon soil where no boot has the right. For that grave insult, /I will cut you apart./"

    And then she flies. At her full speed, without restraint, she hurls herself towards Diabolos, bringing Zanjintou around for a vicious, cleaving attack, followed by another, a third. A fourth. It seems impossible for that tremendous blade to swing and flow from one attack to the next as it does, and yet she manages it, without her boots ever touching the ground.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    Shin looks up from his iPod and phone around the time the phrase 'I will drown you in Darkness for disturbing my domain', "Wait what? Whatting what?" Whether he's confused or didn't hear over the booming music in his ears is unclear. What is pretty clear is when a lance of darkness pierces his chest and his eyes go blank. He relives one of the worst moments of his life, which we saw just three days ago in a different scene.

=======FLASHBACK=======

    Shin, newly homeless on his journey and sleeping in an alley, rummages through a garbage can in some random city. He finds a loaf of thrown away bread that is only half eaten and sits down. As he starts to take a bite, there's a sinister HONK from next to him. A Goose is there, glaring at him, "No! It's my bread!" He shouts at the goose.
    The goose leans forward and bites him hard on the arm, "NO! STOP IT!" He throws a lazy punch at the goose, but it flutters backwards and then charges in again to bite him on the arm.
    Not wanting to be cruel to animals, Shin attempts to endure this, but the goose bites him relentlessly until he drops the bread and tries to run away. This event will traumatize Shin on his journey for some time.

=======END FLASHBACK=======

    Shin falls to his knees and cries out, "GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!" He shouts skyward, "You've taken everything from me! I'll get you some day! GEEEEEEEEEESE!"

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    This is what had been lurking beneath the old ruins of Ampador, is it? Though the strangely familiar dread left in Therion's wake is now lost to her senses, as the creatures are dealt with and the party moves on. But no sooner than her metal-shod boot touches down once more, Amalthea is... Halted. She can only watch as the bats gather. The voice speaks. And the devil itself is among them. And angered at the disruption.
    The best the paladin can do is bring her shield to bear as the dark pikes of inky menacing energy lance in all directions. One impacts. It batters er shield aside and the blow passes through her armor, earning a gasp of shock and mixed pain. Though the burning sensation is minimal, the unicorn sags where she stands, blue eye going distant and out of focus.
    In her minds eye she sees memories, years old.
    A man making a wish.
    The terrors of a world unleashed through her.
    A war shaking the worlds to its very foundations.
    A universe wiped out with one last thrust of a broken blade.
    For a moment, the old knight is lost in this mired haze of not a nightmare. But actual memory. There's a sound not unlike the sudden beating of a heart as she picks herself up with a harsh ragged breath, eye wide and wild with an animal fury, restrained, only by discipline and tempered willpower. But to be made to re-live that is a harsh and terrible penance in this moment.
    Amalthea has no words in reply, gauntlet simply curling tigher around her blade, she puts her ravaged shield to one last use...
    With all of her rage, all of her burning fury, and every iota of pure misery forced into her memory in that one instant, the unicorn HEAVES. It's a side-arm huck that loosens the shield from its straps on her arm, hucking her shield like a heavy metal frizbee right at Diabolos.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Woah. WOAH! SHIT!!" Arthur calls out, abruptly impaled on a horrible DREAM-MAGIC lance. It's a very little-known fact, but due to his unique issues vis a vis dreamselves and historical issues with dreams, Arthur Lowell has an extreme vulnerability to DREAM MAGIC. Nightmare magic falls under this vulnerability, and therefore has extremely powerful effect against the god-kid himself.

    We will leave the specific details of what Arthur experiences without remark.

    The result is that Arthur Lowell has lost 100% of his traditional extreme energy. The wounded boy now looks much more like someone overwhelmed, fearful, and remorseful, in quite direct and intense ways. He wraps his arms around his stomach, hunching with nausea, and muttering quiet apologies. There's not a lot of grim resolve or things like that here that works as a followup. Arthur is just scared, emotionally distressed, disoriented, and hurt in some intense way. It's all he can really do to raise his broom and fire off a few Danmaku Bolts from its rifle attachment, to create some distracting and disorienting wide-range patterns of multicolored spheres that impact with a reasonable level of punch. "Shit. Shit shit! Kill it! Oh fuck, oh /fuck/, kill that thing /now/!" No more over-dramatic shouting or arrogance, and a lot more lacking on the lethality too.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji is surprised to see the massive form of Diabolos. Sure, he's seen the iconography. Everyone knows what the Divines look like. The fact that they have similar appearances here is not shocking.

The surprise is that he's chatting up Mirielle at first. He knew she was shady but dayyyyyyyyyyyyum.

He is about to smile when Diabolos is incensed by the presence of Kyra.

WHY IS IT ALWAYS KYRA HYRAL.

Souji has no time to rail on her about it, however, when a bolt of blackness pieces through his heart. That black-stained heart.

He collapses to the ground, falling bonelessly to his knees as he stares down at his shaking hands, eyes wide. His stoicism shattered, his face contorted in a mask of grief and despair. With a gesture, he folds his hands in the air as if he is holding... or cradling something, and in a whisper, he repeats,

"When this is over, will you come back for me?"

A moment later, he looks up, eyes streaming as he looks up not at the demon, but past him, at something beyond. He does not see the great demons right now.

"Tira..."

For the moment, he doesn't look like he can defend himself at all.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle steps into the center, and a horrible - and familiar - orb appears before her. Bats sworl in, coalescing into the sphere of power. The shape of a being.

    Diabolos.

    Looking up, she clutches at her head. But there's nothing there. No pain, no burning, no darkness. Since she didn't... Who - or what - did? And then he speaks as if he wanted to grant her some desire? But she didn't, she... wouldn't.

    And then Diabolos sees Kyra, and Mirielle turns to see the White Mage - her friend (or perhaps 'friend') - be targeted by the Divine.

    "I have made some errors in my calculations." She breathes, and then she flashes with red magic, breaking off at full tilt enhanced by Haste to leap into the path of the spear of darkness, which pierces her in the back, causing her to tumble out of the air, and fall near Kyra, twitching and shivering, holding her head with both hands.

    ~~>Memories flood into Mirielle. Of a time years ago. Haze fills her mind, happy thoughts. All sorts of dreams, and wishes, and desires, and the memories of a full childhood, drifting through her head. It was warm, and happy, and careless. A better time. Perhaps, even a perfect time. And then, within vaulted halls, something horrible. A terrible headache becoming something more. A migrane that smashed through those happy thoughts, those dreams, those desires.

    Everything she was, being smashed aside. And that word, sibilant and amused, echoing through her head.

    "Child."

    And the the Mirielle that was, before, is no more.<Lightmage (talk)

    Mirielle collapses and cries, too messed up to do more than be a useless pile of broken up Calculator.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao had taken the time to snap a view pictures of the area via her tablet, which she'd produced from her sleeves while approaching. "Strange...no interface at all? Is this system fully automated?" Another look about, and another round of pictures taken. "...It appears to be in dire need of maintenance though. Probably too late for that."

     Done muttering to herself, Xiao tucked her tablet away and looked off towards the center platform. Just in time for Mirielle to AWAKEN SATAN HIMSELF.

     Yeah, that's cool. All in a day's work. No biggie.

     NOT.

     The sudden surge of darkness as the entity awakened from it's assumedly long slumber was felt event from all the way over here. She had to shield her eyes with an arm for a moment as the force passed by her.

     Of course, by doing this, she was left TOTALLY OPEN to the rain of red and black energy lances. By the time she lowered her arm from her eyes, she was met with an energy lance headed straight for her.

     ".....Aiyaaaaa...." No time to dodge, Xiao was left helpless as it pierced through her midsection. Though it left no visible wound, the searing burn was reminder enough of the wound, physical or no. "Ugh-!" And almost immediately following that, her vision began to blur. It felt as if she'd lost control of her body. Her vision tumbled downwards and everything went dark.

     ...Darkness...

     ...Darkness as far as the eye could see...

     And lying adrift in the endless sea of black, was Xiao herself. Her eyes slowly opened, and the sight that met her was a giant, phantasmal eye one with the blackness. It stared at her, even through her and into her very soul.

     "....!" A familiar and sudden pang of agonizing pain hit the girl right then, and she clutched her heart with a hand. The area where her heart was began to glow a sickly purple and a thick, oppressive miasa flooded out of her body, adding to the darkness already around her, enveloping everything until there was nothing else. All the while, Xiao screamed in pain and anguish, writhing and struggling to break free.

     But there was no solace to be found in this darkness. The Eye pierced through the darkness, looking straight at her.

     "...Accept me..."

     "...Embrace me..."

     "...Let it consume you..."

     "...Let us become one..."

     No. No. No. No. No! NO!

     And then back in the real world, Xiao, who was previously crumpled on a platform, struggling against her worst nightmare, slowly, and robotically stood up. Her head was lowered, bangs concealing her eyes. Distburbingly enough, where her heart is, a torrent of dark energy seemed to be pouring out, like a sickly looking miasma. Just like the nightmare.

     "....Black Bane..."

     Silently, she raised her gaze to Diablos. A single, glowing, golden eye peeked through the girl's bangs, and then all around her, dark shapes began to take form in the air. Lances, swords, spears, blades, axes, all created from the darkness pouring from Xiao's heart.

     "....Drain..."

     A shimmering green aura of magic energy followed, covering all of those floating weapons.

     And all at once, they fired forward. Weaving and arcing through the air, they homed in on Diablos. Each impact made would disperse the dark weapon, and drain the Primal's life force, sending it back to Xiao to make up for the life force she was expending to do this.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    For Alwyn, the nightmares mostly relate to the Calamity.
    He sees the red moon Dalamud splitting open, and a great pillar crashing to the ground and crushing thousands of Eorzeans and Garleans alike. He sees the Elder Primal Bahamut emerging, and consuming the area in his Megaflare, Gigaflare, and charging up his Teraflare. He sees the old man Louisoix struggle in vain to maintain a shield for what few heroes he could-- Alwyn included.

    And then nothing.
    Maybe it wasn't a nightmare, though.
    The Echo can truly be a bitch, sometimes.

    The Lancer clutches his head for a moment, grunting and seeming completely out of it. He sees more; it's Diabolos' fault, really. NO, SHUT UP, CRYSTAL MOM, I DON'T WANT A CUTSCENED FLASHBACK OF HOW AMDAPOR FELL NO STOP IT ARGH.

    Have fun fighting the boss guys! Alwyn'll just be over there totally spaced out. Just, uh, push him away if something gets aimed at him, or whatever.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has recovered from her beating eariler she's back on her feet and keeing eith the party. however they find something and she odes ot like this the darkness is different, it eels wrong and then something shouts out. She freezes up at what she hears. She doesn't hear everything however. The thing of darkness yells about a White Mages. Lyria is now getting her pistols out and opening fire on Diablos the look of it? Is this some Primal of the dark prince of her own world?

"WAit is he ...?"

She's not sure but it could every well be.

She sees the bolt coming, ya she's not going to want to get hit with that she leaps flipping in the air and still shooting, she might be a bit trigger happy today. She hits the ground hard and doesn't want to know about what might have happened. She's got to keep them off Kyra and Bertram.

She's sees Amathea throw her shield like a boomerang and she tries to add to it with more fire elemental shots. She really needs to work on getting some Holy ones.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I know but...it seems similar enough, Setsuko. Even some of Bertram's spells are the same as mine." Kyra points out to the demigoddess of battle. "White magic is mostly meant to help people. I wonder what they were doing that it could go /so/ wrong..."

    She waffles at the threshold of the tower, happy to hang behind Amalthea. Reluctantly, she follows a little, but not very far.

    Kyra actually took up worship of Diabolos on her world for a little while-mostly to anger her parents. They would probably be laughing right now if they could see this happening. "I'm not one of Amdapor's white mages!" Kyra screams back, frustrated and terrified. "Screw you!!" With the warning that Amalthea was going to do something 'foolish', thus leaving Kyra without cover, it looks like she's about to bolt from the tower itself. Instead, she struggles to get a Shellga spell up on as much of the party as she can as the darkness starts to swell around Diabolos.

    The spell is not fast enough to deflect or even slow the spear-like attack suddenly aimed at everyone. Kyra is in mid-chant as the spears are loosed, one about to pierce through her when Mirielle unexpectedly leaps in the way. Her own wide eyes stare into Mirielle in that one moment where they are facing each other, the Calculator's back taking the attack meant for her. She isn't the only person to be struck down with sudden...flashbacks? That's the only explanation that Kyra can claim for the muttering and distant looks on faces. Even Arthur the rocket-powered badass is freaking out a little. "Mirielle get up...please, you have to-" She reaches down, kneeling next to the Calculator. She tries a single Esuna on her, then expands it, frantically, to a Ensunaga in case this was some kind of Fear effect that could be dispelled. "Get up...get up.."

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    There are a few rules to dungeoneering. Marisa has never even learned one of them, but even she knows that it's probably not a good idea to stand in the middle of a whole bunch of ominous looking wards. Dealing with Reimu and the damn Gap Hag has taught her well enough that seals are usually bad news, but especially at their center.

She doesn't exactly have time to tell her to get back though.

Not before a creature that Marisa immediately recognizes as Actual Satan appears from the infinite darkness.

    "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh," she drones as countless dark lances appear from he abyss. "Shiiiiii--" they fire. Marisa ducks and weaves, moving like a living dervish to try and get out of the way- but there are so very many spears. A moment before one pierces her side, she sorely, deeply wishes she had Reimu's tiny-ass hitbox.

The lance makes contact. The world goes dark.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    There's a sound like a thunderbolt. Light erupts from her prone form, shining like a beacon into the infinite darkness. No. Not infinite. This darkness is nothing before her. Marisa Kirisame growls as she rises, her lips pulled up into a positively feral snarl. She stares up at the figure, the great, towering demon.

And she /flips him off./

    "That won't work twice, you asswipe," she yells, her arm snapping to her side. Wood clatters against magical platform as her broom slides up to her feet. With a small hop, she takes to the air. An octagonal block spins into her hand, and /ignites/ with a flame that burns in every color of the rainbow-- and then some.

    Marisa takes to the air-- and surges into the darkness. A crystalline orb winks into existence at her flank. Then another, another. Four-- she's surpassed that limit. She's moved beyond her teacher's technique. Five. Beyond that still. Six--

    They flare. Each burning a different color. They form a prismatic ring around her swirling in abject rejection of the endless black. Marisa surges forward, the spheres fire, unleashing an onslaught of magic and searing, shadow-swallowing LIGHT. "KYRA," she howls, her broom blazing a path to the central platform. The orreries whirl around her as she alights over it. "What the hell are you lollygagging around for!?" Marisa grins, her smile seems to burn away the darkness. There's nothing there but raw, invincible self-confidence, "Get that friend of yours up and help me kick this monster's ass!"

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    Perhaps, all in all, Diabolos should not have done this. Against lesser minds and folks, his nightmares would have permanent, sanity-breaking consequences. Against the likes of these heroes, they're distractions-- or fuel for a fire.

    Setsuko charges for the Voidsent, cleaving with her blade; she cuts right through, and Diabolos' form is scattered in half, before reconstituting himself out of bats and darkness. Perhaps, if enough of his energy is spent, he won't be able to do that anymore.

    Amalthea's shield slams into him, not dispersing his form outright but nonetheless obviously hurting him. He groans in pain, or what passes as pain for a demon like him.

    Xiao's floating weapons impact one by one-- some pierce completely through, others merely impale. Diabolos' form scatters again, regenerating lost limbs and body chunks out of ambient darkness. Each time it happens, the pressure of the room and tower seems diminished for it.

    Marisa's lightshow consumes Diabolos completely-- numerous times. He reforms each time, the darkness around the room weakening. In general, Diabolos seems to be weakening as well, in terms of raw presen<span class=" bold_fg_x bg_n ++ e.

    chx">For each of you standing, one is consumed by my nightmares.

    I will consume you like I consumed this kingdom.

    AND THEN, I WILL BE FREE AGAIN.</span>

    Those still afflicted by the nightmares are targetted by the WAKING NIGHTMARE-- shadows from their dreams that materialize and attack them. (Again: with consent only.) i.e. perhaps Souji finds himself beset by the vampiric form of his former love. This is for one-attack only, and the manifestations will shatter at a sufficient show of willpower or just brute force. Also Shin is attacked by giant demon geese specifically.

    Those who have gotten back up to fight are instead targetted by DARK MESSENGER, a powerful dark/gravity spell Diabolos channels and fires as orbs and black lasers. They crush, burn and corrupt-- mostly crush, though. Like being exposed to way too much G-Force at once.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "I'll stain my beak with your blood."
    Shin raises his head when he hears a terrible voice echo in his mind. He stares at the apparition conjured from his own mind. Shin stands up, "It... it can't be you. After all these years. It can't be!"
    With a red gaze that literally trails flame, before Shin stands a large goose wearing a hakama and a white gi. Shin stares in fear, eyes wide as he takes a stance and curls his hands into fists, "You! You took everything from me! Everything in the context of that single loaf of bread!"
    Shin charges in towards the goose, angrily launching a flurry of punches and kicks that all trail red energy, the martial artist fully fired up and ready to fight this opponent. As he presses in on the assault, the Goose steps backwards repeatedly, dodging the atta"Too easy!" "Predictable!" "Pathetic!"
    As Shin delivers an axe-kick to the goose to finish his combo, it lifts a wing to catch his foot, "You cannot escape your death!" It honk-shouts at him as the two angrily stare at eachother, Shin pressing down with his leg as the wing-bone creaks, but manages to hold strong against his attack. The two remain locked in a death glare for a few moments.
    Moments later, it throws Shin backwards and then swings its wings forward, "Double Reppuken." As two huge gashes of wind fly from the goose and strike Shin, sending him sliding along as he hops to his feet and takes a stance.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    There is a groan from the downed, crying calculator. There's a little broken part of her that wants to stay on the ground, that wants to keep feeling sorry for herself. And then the vision of her WAKING NIGHTMARE strikes her.

    Her half-lucid state, as Kyra tries to dispel Misery with Esuna, and then Esunaga... Besides her, crouching over her tear-streaming face, is another her. But this one is dark, her eyes filled with fire. And she's smiling. She's happy. This WAKING NIGHTMARE that is simply her, filled with that dark fire, doesn't have her cares or her worries.

    But it's not her. It's a 'her' that's dead inside.

    But do you know what cures Misery?
    Comfort.

    Mirielle's WAKING NIGHTMARE extends a hand, smiling still, from ear to ear, and she pushes it away, reaching out to weakly grip Kyra's hand. "Kyra." She croaks. "I've already felt that pain. Too many times." She mutters, pulling herself up with Kyra's help. "Don't worry. I'm... acceptable. At least you're not hurt. This time it was... totally my fault." She offers, a little smile on her face.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao watched as Diabolos was struck by her legion of weapons, each blow caused a portion of life energy to flow back into her, and the debilitating pain growing in her heart lessened each time. Before much longer, she was back to standing with some life to her, rather than being hunched over, clutching her heart.

     But it wasn't over yet. ...She normally wouldn't have cut down on her life again by using the darkness dwelling within her heart. But it was fooloshly roused out of her. Now, she'd use it to help put an end to this quickly.

     Xiao's arms went into her sleeves, producing a familiar set of black gauntlets. "Mode Change: Black Blade." Upon her command, her gauntlets began to shift, the metal encasing her arms sliding down and off, then building atop one another to form a long, black sword. Typically Xiao didn't seem like a Dark Knight. But it was now, in this dire situation, that she actually put the abilities of her class to actual, honest use.

     "Black Bane."

     The blade was raised into the air, held by both hands. Dark energy began to pour from her heart once more, this time gathering into the sword, and being amplified.

     "Holy."

     Following that, a shining, white light rose, radiating about her body before being drawn into the blade as well, mixing with the darkness as both forces swirled together. The energy began to grow, swirling faster and faster, growing larger and larger until the aura surrounding the blade had reached ridiculous heights.

     "Twilight Blade!"

     The blade of light and darkness was then brought down with full force, bearing down upon Diabolos with all the might Xiao could muster.

     She saw that nightmare plenty enough on her own. She didn't need some /Divine/ showing it to her too! It was time to show it what happened when you did!

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko's blade dances and weaves, neither her body nor her weapon ever quite managing to be in the same place as Marisa's blasts or Li Yu's weapons despite the unceasing nature of her attack. She only stops when it becomes clear that her allies are buckling under the weight of their own nightmares. Most of those on their knees she doesn't know or understand well enough to help. But there is one that she does - a twist of irony, in that it is a young man who is perhaps her antithesis in many ways.

    "MURASAME SOUJI!"

    The demigod's voice rings out, Zanjintou already changing in her grip. "Now of all times, you should not falter! As a swordsman, it is your past that drives you! It is your past that sharpens your blade! Make of your scars a weapon, and let none insult you by turning it against you! Let your nightmare harden your resolve, stand up once again, and /TEACH YOUR ENEMY THE FOLLY OF TRAMPLING A SWORDSMAN'S PRIDE/! ZANJINTOU...!"

    Setsuko whips herself around as if to swing at Diabolos again... but the Zanjintou has already changed shape. Curled around, broadened at one end, become almost boomerang like. And her swing continues into a spin, faster and faster, until she unleashes it with a roar of, "DAI! SHAAA! RIIIIIIN!" It flies through the air in a wide, high-speed arc, cutting through whatever hellish vision might arise to attack Souji.

    And while it flies, for good measure, Setsuko turns around. A blue corona engulfs her hand, just long enough for her to dive in and drive her fist into Diabolos' face.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The nightmare effect must be too strong, Kyra realizes. Or she just does not know enough about it to correctly countermagic it at the moment. Fortunately, at least she was able to get up a Shell on everyone, which will lessen the effects of the sudden extreme gravity and darkness. Kyra's Float spell is immediately countered and she drops back to the ground, shell warding off enough of the effects on her that she isn't completely immobilized but it is still difficult to walk.

    Reaching to Mirielle, she pulls her up with one hand. "Thank you." she mutters, "No, I think it's it's own damn fault it got so angry at my mere /existance/. I didn't do a damn thing this time."

    The other shakily lifts, pointed at Diabolos. She looked like she wanted to flee on the spot but her stubborn defiance was keeping her there, keeping her casting the Holy centered on the Primal. "The hell you will, asshole." she hisses. "C'mon Mirielle, Marisa's going to give us a ride."

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    "Oh. Oh /no/ you fucking wannabe apocalypse. You mess with MY head, you don't GET to go free." Marisa snarls. Her hand curls around that wooden octagon. Prismatic electricity crackles beneath her cupped palm as Diabolos' dark magic pours out over the battlefield. Orbs of corruptive, gravitic sorcery blast through the air, joined by beams of strange anti-light, like a strange mockery of her own spells. "Get on," she asides to the girls, yanking them up onto her broom if she has to. She can't leave them down here. Not with what's coming.

One would think that it'd be nearly impossible to dodge Diabolos' assault- especially with the added weight of two highschool girls.

Marisa makes it happen.

    She weaves through the beams and the balls, letting the gravitational field juke her to one side or the other. Every time, she slides just out of the way of a part of the blast that would have otherwise struck her. Her orreries flare whenever one gets too close, meeting laser with laser and shattering orbs of deepest darkness with blinding light. It's in this manner, by playing with and taking advantage of Diabolos' own magic- or just meeting it with her own- that the witch somehow, impossibly, manages to make it through the onslaught.

    "You made me see shit I never, ever wanted to see," she growls, "But that's all it was. An illusion. A dream. Well, guess what!?" Marisa surges inward and upward, ever upward, towards a sky she knows is hidden beyond all this darkness. "I'm from a place where that shit WALKS AROUND with you! IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! You think you're scary 'cause you're old. 'Cause you're some terrible hellbeast out of some ancient's nightmares! But I have to deal with that shit every day!"

"And I learned from the best of them," her voice draws into a furious hiss. The Hakkero's core flashes, blasting up and down the color spectrum like it were leaking rainbows. "And I've beaten the worst of them. You're so scared of White Magic, but that ain't what you need to be afraid of."

    Light EXPLODES between her hands. She can feel her magic taking shape, that inexhaustible wellspring of will pushing it on. Prismatic rays lance out into the darkness from between her fingertips, but she keeps the pressure on. She forces it tighter and tighter, until her hand BURNS with the strain. "My magic ain't Black. It ain't White." Marisa levels her glare at the demon down below, squeezing her hand to the Hakkero, not smothering its light, but... Refining it. Intensifying it. "It ain't Blue or Red!"

    "It's my own, Love-Colored dream! This is the magic that'll reach the stars!" She can barely hold it in anymore- the pressure, the heat, the feelings blazing in the very core of her being, roaring against the inide of her heart. Marisa's lips crack into a grin. "Let's see how you like it."

She holds her clasped hands to the demon below... And throws open the gates.

Magicannon - Final Spark

    An unmistakable sound rolls through the chamber. It sounds like a laser. Lasers don't HAVE sounds, but this one DOES and it sounds like 'Laser.' Of course, what emerges from Marisa's hands isn't so much a beam as it is a wall of light. Every color of the rainbow floods out from the Hakkero, blazing into the night- pouring out into, OVER Diabolos and his platform and all his darkness.

It's not holy. It's not unholy.

That light that burns with all the colors in the world is nothing like that.

It's the power of a human being's burning desire to rise higher than any other.

This is the light of Marisa Kirisame's invincible dream.

Can Diabolos handle the heat!?

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Shields are not meant to be thrown. Let alone hurled like a frizbee. Amalthea's does not return to her after that fling, leaving her both hands free to grip upon her sword. A slow breath and it takes her a moment as she works to calm her soul and regain her center, but she slowly, mentally, crawls back from that state of almost bestial fury, lone eye slowly sliding to a close as she whispers a quiet mantra to herself.

    "Fear is the foe of hope..."

    "Hope is the foundation of faith..."

    "Faith is the weapon to kill fear."

    With that soothing reminder to herself, she opens her eye again, the sound of her own heard drumming in her ears. Her initial intent is to fling herself where her shield LANDS, throwing herself in a controlled tumble and roll, snatching it up en passant. In that moment she's reunited with the battered slab of metal she puts it to immediate use against the crushing impact of the unleashed orbs of darkness.

    "For each of us standing there is hope. For each of us standing there is the compassion and the force of will to uplift the fallen. You will go -nowhere-." Hissed at the ancient being of malign intent.

    The heartbeat is audible now, to all others as she stabs her sword into the ground point first, that lone eye casting glance over the melee. But with the beat of that heart might come a bolstering of strength and resolve, a small gift of strength to both the indomitable and the faltering. A literal, small, gift of hope, nothing more than the fleeting light of a candle cuttering in a gale. But that's always enough, isn't it?

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is still standing, she looks not sure if she even did much damage to Diablos to be honest. She hopes she might be able to do some damage to Diablos. She pauses for a moment looking at the things coming for her she's not sure what the hell it is. The dark magic is coming for her and she pauses bringing her guns almost otghete as she starts firing on Diabolos. She leaps she drops then rolls just barely evading the magic but the gravity spells are slowing her down, which could be a problem.

"No your not getting out, you shall remain here as you should be creature!"

She then takes a moment shifts her stance and launches more globles of magma at Diablos.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur is still under siege by the waking nightmares. And as before, he remains incredibly vulnerable to dream magic. And this time, there's really, honestly not that much that rides on him pulling through here, so his tremendous reserves of willpower remain untapped. As it stands, today's someone else's show, not his. At Marisa's call, he leaps onto his broom and blasts back, even while being beset by... Something. The specifics of what is assaulting him aren't something that should be brought to light, at least right now, but one can certainly be sure that those bruises are coming from somewhere. He disregards them utterly.

    Streams of black and white magic, star-fire and gravity bolts, are what he sticks to. Something snaps and something else cracks while dream shapes, shrouded in too much shadow for anyone else to see properly, brutalize Arthur with a particular set of mixed stabbing and smashing weapons that are a little difficult to identify precisely, but and thankfully are unfamiliar to those few who are here. Arthur does not focus on them, however, instead he focuses on maintaining his stream. He's gotten a little more momentum, not much but still enough. He fires his sutained stream, ignores the physical brutalization happening to him, and focuses on what little he can do at the moment. Nothing too disabled, nothing too empowered, just sort of still hanging on.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
You always think you're hard enough to forget. You always think you can lock it away. But then someone hits it just right, and like a gemcutter finding the perfect cleavage point, everything shatters.

This is why Souji, despite everything happening, is practically insensate with grief. It's why he doesn't move when arms, pale with the pallor of death, yet possessed of grace, slide along his back and shoulder, a figure stepping into view.

Dressed in a simple white gown common among Cosma worshippers, the white-blue-skinned Tira leans down, a hunger in her eyes as she reaches out to embrace him. "We will be together... forever..." She whispers, as she opens her mouth...

And then the slashing attack from Setsuko strikes, slashing her in the back. She arches backwards, shrieking with an unholy chorus.

Perhaps Setsuko's words reached Souji. Perhaps seeing the phantasmal vampire-succubus triggered something deep within him, but his tear-streaked face has changed. It is not the stoic, subtle scorn that he usually wears as his mask to face the rigors of Ramuhan nobility games and the pressures of attening Alexander Academy and running a massive corporation all at the same time... But instead it has gone flat, devoid of emotion...

As the Murasame Blade plunges forward, piercing the apparition through the heart and out the back in a disturbingly precise strike.

He stands, withdrawing the blade as the apparition shatters into the Void whence it came, and he turns towards Diabolos.

"You dare." He says, simply. "Who are you to attempt to use our very hearts against us? Setsuko is correct. Such an insult bears only one response. Murasame hungers."

There is a crimson slash as he cuts his hand on the dark blade, and slowly runs it along the crimson runes of hunger. "Blade of my ancestors, blade of eternal hunger. Awaken, and feast upon our enemy. By the ancient arts of my family..."

    SAMURAI
    SWORD ARTS
    > MURASAME BLADE

"MURASAME, COME FORTH!"

Blackness billows around the blade, and then explodes outwards....

Light vanishes, replaced with a roiling darkness as the environment seems to stop existing. From the darkness, there is a crimson flash and a shriek as a red, claw-like hand stretches out an impossible distance, shearing through Diabolos' position.

And then another. And another. And another. This continues to repeat, thousands and thousands of claws rending, shearing, gnashing, tearing, pulling, and ripping away bits of Diabolos and pulling them away into a void of its own.

When the assault finally ends, the light returns, Souji standing there with blade outstretched. The crimson runes are dormant... Perhaps the blade, for the moment, is finally sated upon what it could tear from the great demon.

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    "If you fight like that, you'll never get anywhere."
    Shin stares at the taunting Goose, his hands curled up into fists. He lets out an angry howl of energy, bolstered forward by the minor infusion of hope and courage being lent to him by the unicorn invoking her power. As he charges, he lands one foot forward and hits the goose in the chest with a side-kick. It lets out a honk and slides back across the ground, kicking up dust and then comes to a stop. As it and Shin glare at eachother, it wipes some blood from the corner of its beak and the two square off once again. It raises a wing, "Heh, heh, honk." It beckons Shin over to press his attack.
    Shin pushes his chest forward and his arms back and howls, "GEEEEEEEEESE!"
    And then Shin charges in once more, aiming a roundhouse kick towards it before it blocks him and counters with a wing-punch. Shin rotates around and goes for an uppercut, but it double-wings Shin in the chest and slides him back.
    Shin then picks up a Rock off the ground, "Rock. I need you to help me defeat Geese once and for all." He says in a serious tone. Then he hocks the rock towards the goose, hitting it right in the face with a loud *CRACK* noise. The goose lets out an awkward honking noise and then starts to just fly away. Shin says sternly, "Thank you, Rock. You helped me defeat Geese once and for all."

    And then he looks towards the Goose as it flies away, shouting, "I won't obsess over you anymore! These fists aren't for vengeance, but for defense!"

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    Some struggle with their nightmares; but others keep Diabolos on his toes. This lord of the Void is not all-powerful, though. There are greater, darker beings than him. To fight him seriously is to seriously threaten him, no matter his claims.

    The Twilight Blade attack plunges into Diabolos; the darkness affects him slightly less, but the holy light burns and sears him like nothing else has yet. His form reforms from being completely obliterated, but it's slower, and seems to tax his presence even more than before.

    The blue flames of Setsuko's divinity (and anger?) punch into the Voidsent, causing severe damage that requires several regenerations to undo. Diabolos roars in anger, louder, fiercer, despite his diminishing presence.

    Kyra's holy light doesn't stop its pressure either; the blast disrupts Diabolos' existence, a lot, and she could infer from that maybe it's why he hates White Mages so much. It's also possible he's stuck here because of them! He certainly did claim he razed their kingdom though.

    The oversized blast from Marisa will have much the same effect; the longer the demon stays within, the more of his body is blasted away, only to return through bats and darkness. It's a struggle at this point; all this firepower is a bit much even for Diabolos.

    Lyria's magma orbs are going to be no less effective there, melting, scorching and just burning away chunks of the being.

    Arthur's constant stream of magic, even if he doesn't intend to 'take the show', aren't harmless in the slightest, costing Diabolos more and more of his stability, under so much pressure dodging is a far-off dream.

    And finally, there's Murasama. If it CAN be sated, this is probably a good first step. It drinks deep in the demon's essence, cutting through it like paper. Time and time again, breaking apart the demon's form.

    When Diabolos finally musters the strength to reform, it's to bring this to its end.

    Hope? No hope will shield you from the terror of my weaving! Not even the eternal sleep of death is beyond my nightmare's reach!

    Diabolos suddenly pulses with power. His being is condensing in an orb he holds out before him, as if casting a very powerful spell. The gravity of the tower abruptly shifts, twice, three, four times Earth's, steadily increasing. The orb seems to be the cause, and the shadows of the tower are drawn to it as well. One assumes when it bursts, it's going to be pretty mean.

Master Therion (565) has posed:
The gravity is steadily increasing, double and then triple what is normal. This is going to be hard to move in soon... but then suddenly the acceleration slows, then finally stops, at least for a moment. This seems to be from the swirling disc of darkness that's appeared above Diabolos, reversing gravity in the opposite direction from the deadly pull that's going on. It clearly isn't planned by the Lord of the Void, although his reaction is going to be very difficult to see.

Right after that attempt to reverse the flow, it becomes clear that the powerful spell is a distraction. It isn't clear if even Therion has the raw skill and power to deny Diabolos this power, given it's his specialty... but the Master of the Black Lodge is strong enough to make a distraction. A distraction merely meant to keep attention away from his presence fading into being nearby, Etheldreda at his side.

Everything Therion does is in a casual, bored manner... even when he fights for his life. He isn't fighting for his life now, he let the rest of the group do that. When he steps into view, he is holding an orb in his hand, something that may or may not be recognizeable as technology similar to this world's. "You have better places to be, creature," Therion states mildly.

The orb activates, flung outward to hover only a few feet in front of him. In a bright and dazzling display of multicolored light, it 'blossoms' and sends tendrils of light out, wrapping around Diabolos to twine all around the dark being's form. The power pulsing through him is visibly drawn into the device, one surge... then another. And in a mere heartbeat, they're dragging Diabolos himself inward, light pouring out all around to drag the beast into the strange sphere.

And then the light show abruptly stops, the orb glowing with lines of power. Therion smiles to those gathered, "It was a pleasure seeing all of you battle. I believe you had some interest in exploring?" He seems to be assuming that everything is all okay and the rest of the group will just go about their business.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    Diabolos' presence wanes, and then disappears. The Allagan orb of Magitek held by Therion contains the whole of that power now.

    The darkness of the Tower of White fades, revealing the broken walls of the structure. In the stone pillars were the runes were etched, large compartments open, revealing... LOOT???

    The compartments contain four suits of armor-- heavy, medium, light and robes, full sets, meaning gloves, boots, etc. Another compartment contains rings and jewelry, which grant minor bonuses to stats. Nothing really worth bragging about if you put them on, but hey, a tiny edge is a tiny edge. And another compartment contains weapons, namely a pair of Baghnakhs (red-clawed fist weapons) and a VERY ornate grimoire containing undecipherable magical incantations. But there's basically something for everyone in there. You know, once you're done dealing with Therion.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    When the Final Spark goes off, Setsuko is just... gone. She's wheeled up and out of the way, reaching out to catch the gigantic boomerang-sword flying back around to her - conveniently keeping her out of Marisa's line of fire. But it proves insufficient to finish the job, and then Diabolos begins to gather his strength.

    Even amid all that gravity, Setsuko is preparing. Her free hand returns to the Zanjintou, the weapon reshaping itself into its colossal battle form once again, just as the wave of crushing force hits. But it never quite pulls her out of the air, and her trembling muscles manage to shift her grip in preparation for some attack... that never happens. The load lightens, and then a strange show of light and darkness plays out with the end result that the Voidsent is captured entirely.

    Master Therion will find himself subject to a hard glare... but no killing intent, and after a moment she even returns her blade to its smaller size and sheathes it. "...I am under no illusions that you have any altruistic or even practical intentions in helping us. And when you inevitably use that thing to your own ends, I will be there to stop it, and you." So declaring, the swordswoman simply turns and floats down to the platform at last, beginning to walk away in calm strides. The unspoken 'But this is neither the time nor the place for that' hangs heavily in the air.

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
So maybe appearing right when the Big Bad Evil Guy is about to drop a super magic spell is probably not the wisest thing to do. The order of events is thus:

1) Diabolos does horrible gravity tricks.
2) Marisa decides she's having none of that and engages BLAZING STAR
3) Marisa decides she's having DOUBLE none of that and activates MAGICAL ABSORBER
4) Marisa blasts right at Diabolos' head.
5) Master Therion shows up and does SHENANIGANS
6) Marisa realizes that her target has been replaced by a strange blonde magician and desperately tries to BROOM DRIFT out of the way.
7) This is hard to do at Full Blazing Star Speed
8) Marisa's trajectory takes her into a COLLISION COURSE with the world's second evillest magician, surrounded by a Magic Absorpion Field. She's screaming all the way.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!?

Shin Tokuyama (756) has posed:
    Shin, so exhausted from his fight against Goose Howard, doesn't have much left in him for anything related to combat. Instead, the strong-willed and mighty martial artist, wobbles on his feet after the final push against his foe and then drops down onto the ground into a kneel.
    "Man... really tired out..." He grumbles, glaring towards Therion as he steals Diabolos. He kinda just then tumbles backwards and sits-down full force, "What the hell happened?"

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji struggles against the horrible gravity effect, but there's only so much he can do. The power of Diabolos is well known to dwarf even practiced Time Mages. He is pulled to the ground...

And then the beast is sealed away by a man... He does not recognize.

He blinks, but he does not bother making an assault on the man. He turns and sheathes the Murasame Blade, the red ribbon tying itself around the hilt. "I am curious." Souji asks of Master Therion. "What is the purpose?"

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     Xiao sighed, feeling the pull of gravity upon her. She had no energy to bother trying to resist it, and dropped to one knee.

     She had completely run out of 'aiyaaaas' at this point. This entire /trip/ was aiyaaaaa!

     At least she got some valuable samples out of it. At least that.

     The appearance of MASTER THERION EVILIST OF ALL EVIL MAGICIANS has the scientist only sighing. At this point, she hardly cared if he just pokeballed a Divine after they did all the hard work of suffering it's nightmares and fighting it.

     ...She just wanted that book.

     But for now, she'd watch. Watch and wait till this new debacle runs it's course. Souji's question is a pertininent one however.

     "Yes, not that I expect an answer, but for what purpose indeed."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Straining against the gravity, Kyra prepares another shell or reflect or something to lessen it when it abruptly stops.

    "...did that guy just killsteal us?" Kyra asks angrily, "After all of that? Did he just /killsteal us/?" Kyra lets go of Mirielle's hand for a moment so she can take up her hunting rifle. "How dare you, we didn't stand up to this bastard demon so you could wait around like some lazy little-"

    She hears Marisa yelling about books and stuff. She immediately turns from Therion to the spots where the loot has been piled. Fearing that this guy will take all of /that/ stuff too, she makes a scramble for the rings, weapons, and other items.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    The battle with Diabolos was hard and vicious in more ways than one, taxing to both body and mind. And then. Then it's over.
    As Amalthea is about to bite back foul and furious reply when the devil dismisses the notion of hope, her heart suddenly freezes in her chest, and silver blood runs cold.
    Master Therion. Here. And TAKING Diabolos with him.
    For a long moment, Amalthea stands where she is, shield arm limp, jaw hanging in slack disbelief. "--You. What the hell are you..." The question is swalled back as the unicorn puts on a rictus scowl.
    "The purpose is nothing good. At all." Asided in a gruff hiss to Souji.
    She's suddenly very disinterested in the lood, this 'victory' turning to an ashen taste in her mouth.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is too drained from the fight, she sees her geomacy has helped and that's quite good but then as she's about ready to aid the others in the party? That's when Master Therion drops in and is going for the prize. Wait was he after this all along? Did they just get played? It looks like they did she can't stop him she knows this but the loot? That was something to ease the pain a bit she owndered if there was anythign she could use.

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    Arthur is, at the very least, HIGHLY resistant to gravity. He'll survive... Mostly. But after he's forced to the ground, there's very little he can do besides keep on keeping up with that stream of magic, until Therion eventually shows up!

    And then Marisa is going after him! Unintentionally, but still! Arthur is bruised, stabbed, and still has at least a dozen moth teeth lodged in his body, but god damn it, he's not going to have his cousin's daughter wind up dying on a /sidequest/! With one swift motion, he drops his broom, encases his arms in a heavy gravitational enchantment, generates and leaps through a portal, and emerges in front of Therion. "No!!" He calls out, urgently and desperately. It is at this point that he attempts to catch the broom handle of the broom that Marisa is riding on between two palms, despite massive, heavy cracking noises from his arms, blood spraying from his assorted wounds due to exacerbation by Marisa's magical energy, and almost, but not quite, being taken off of his feet, instead likely crushing portions of the ground beneath him.

    Hopefully this will let Marisa expend the last of her spellcard harmlessly, in as much as anyone besides Arthur cares.

Mirielle Edelweiss (666) has posed:
    Mirielle lets her hand slip from Kyra's, being forced down without magical protection anyway, and afterwards, remains sort of seated. Master Therion seems to have things well in hand, and it takes Mirielle just a moment to realized exactly what Kyra has.

    That they have been kill-stolen.

    "You can... Capture Divines from this world?" She asks, looking invredulously at Therion. And then...

    Then Arthur stops Marisa from going ham.

    A pointing, accusatory finger. "Kyra, what's your new God doing?"

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
THE CHAIN OF EVENTS HAS BEEN AMENDED. Arthur bravely blocks Marisa's UNSTOPPABLE MAGIC BROOM. What happens is this:

1) Marisa does a horrible front-flip barrel roll.
2) The bamboo straw on the end that is presently the nest for a COLOSSAL MAGICAL THRUSTER catches the back of Arthur's shirt. Thankfully, Marisa had actually turned the Hakkero off when she no longer had an actual target, so Arthur is NOT FRIED.
3) Marisa catches Xiao's eye with a VICTORIOUS SMIRK as she tumbles through the air with Arthur in toe!
4)THEY SPIN RIGHT OVER MASTER THERION'S HEAD, only managing to lightly muss his hair with the ensuing breeze.
5) They smash into the treasure room, rolling like a horrible Indiana Jones boulder around the priceless artifacts
6) Marisa and Arthur somehow land RIGHT NEXT TO THAT BOOK.
7) Marisa hops up like she didn't just almost cause a party wipe and snatches it from its little platform.

"DIBS," she cries. TRIUMPHANTLY!

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
"Oh, uh," she looks over towards Arthur, and geeeennntly tries helping him up without breaking any more bones, "You uh. You okay?"

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     "KIRISAME!"

     Xiao shouts after Marisa's call of 'DIBS.' And stands up and points, much more spirited now than she's ever been. There's a huge, pouty frown on her face as well. "I CALLED DIBS!"

Marisa Kirisame (829) has posed:
    "SHOULDA RUN FASTER," Marisa yells right back, tucking the book safely beneath an arm. "IF YOU WANNA CHALLENGE ME FOR IT, MEET ME IN GENSOKYO. THE HUMAN VILLAGE. WE'LL SETTLE THIS."

Master Therion (565) has posed:
Oh... something rockets over his head. Therion's hair is indeed mussed, but he runs fingers through it carelessly, eyes wandering to follow that spiralling thing. "Mn. Let's go, Etheldreda. It looks like I have no need to defend myself, now that they have done a barrel roll." He... doesn't seem to realize how utterly bizzare that statement sounds out of context.

Either way, a shimmering gate opens up, and a giant metal hand exits, palm up. Etheldreda and Therion step up onto the hand, which withdraws. "Enjoy your victory." He sounds... kind of sincere there?

Arthur Lowell has posed:
    "Yep, I'm all good. My bones cushioned the impacts." Arthur says, remaining sort of limply motionless, aside from the one arm he uses to raise his index finger pointedly. And then he sort of laughs. "Ha ha ha! Ow. Haha. Ugh, wow, this quest turned into a real shitshow. I'm not looking forward to seeing what he does with the stolen god-thing."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I don't know, Mirielle, but I don't like it." Kyra doesn't want to mess with the argument over the book right now, turning from the loot with some disappointment. She was expecting more white mage stuff in the abandoned white mage city! Instead, she heads over to the fallen Arthur so she can fire at him close-range with the CURE-ALL. That is after switching the setting from Remedy to Cure at least.

Xiao Li Yu (823) has posed:
     "Grrrr! Fine!" Xiao shouts after Marisa, still pointing. "I'll see you in Gensokyo and I'll get that book back! Just you wait!"

     RARE BOOK SENSES WERE GOING OFF THE CHARTS.

     But for now...

     She sighed heavily, honestly, this entire trip drained the crap out of her. And there were a million unanswered questions from that ....person who stole Diabolos. Seriously.

     "......."

     A moment of silence, and then Xiao glared childishly towards Marisa. "Don't run away after all this, you hear me!?"