Scene #6100: It is alright to meet in a dungeon!

Owner	Pose
Tomoe	The multiverse was littered with places full of monsters, loot and other things. Given unification kept dropping things into what would otherwise be cleaned out or well-settled area there were always calls for more Adventuring sorts to clean them out. This was one such place an island that had a partially underground castle complex show up one day full of monster and the local settlement had put out a job posting to get it cleared out. Tomoe had responded to this one and was unaware of anyone else had been she's currently using her Naginata moon cutter to fight some horrible lizard thing which seems to have a poisonous bite. Which leaves Tomoe daring about the crumbling chamber, doing a number of hit and fade attacks upon the thing. It would be quite the site to see a six foot four woman bouncing about like a ping pong ball in some plate armour and not to mention the pointy ears to top it all off, oh yes and the wings to given there was enough light for her to make use of them in here.
Nie Li	A job posting about a 'mysterious labyrinth from out of nowhere' was enough to catch Nie Li's attention. Who knows what one might find in such a place? Strange artifacts and treasures doubtlessly await, and fortune favors the bold! So after packing his Interspatial Ring with various supplies suited for traipsing around underground! And so far, his journey has proven at least mildly successful. A number of monsters he'd come across proved within his ability to handle, and he deftly stuck a few of the smaller ones wholesale into the rings (good thing the storage space has a preservation effect!) and butchered some of the bigger ones for bones, horns, claws, and other things that will bear future study. Because monster parts, they're a valuable resource in the right hands! But the sound of combat down a different corridor catches the boy by surprise. Deciding to approach, he does so stealthily and cautiously until he can glance 'round the final corner into the chamber while keeping his aura suppressed. ... Where the hell do such tall women COME FROM, and when did they start wearing heavy armor? The blue-eyed, orange-haired youth in attire that definitely isn't local can only stare in a mixture of disbelief and bewildered sensibilities. That only lasts a second though. His gaze instantly sharpens afterwards as he takes stock of the beast, its injuries, and the telltale sheen in its saliva that bespeaks of poison. His analytical gaze then sweeps to the warrior woman... and takes note of her calm and focused handling. What little worry he'd built up is released all at once. She clearly knows what she's doing, and it would be rude to interfere - perhaps even insulting. And yet, he could use an ally in this place, even if it means splitting the loot. So he channels a little Soul Force into his throat and announces his presence, timed during one of Tomoe's retreats so it won't shock and endanger her as the voice loudly echoes through the chamber over the sounds of battle! "Impressive skills on display! It looks like you've got this handled. But perhaps you'd like help with this beast before it wears you out?" There is, after all, a whole lot of dungeon left to traverse. Probably.
Tomoe	Tomoe keeps on the attack and then she finds someone else has spaced in an attack between her own. Her wings flare out for a moment giving her some more lift. She'll move to come down on the beast like a avenging angel and will take a moment to reply. It's not she's being rude it's she wants to make sure the lizard thing is dead. She impales it to the floor and one can hear the thing's death rattle. Tomoe gives it one more stab to the throat to be /sure/ it's dead before turning to face the man whom she swore was speaking Mandarin Chinese. The Multiverse was a strange thing for she could understand him perfectly and she never quite got over that. She looks the young man over for a moment and gives a bit of a grin. "Thanks and I don't mind well-timed support. As for teaming up, I'm fine with it. It's better than going solo. Better a split reward you can live to spend than a whole one you're buried with." she looks the man over for a moment more. "Tomoe the Iron Lily, well that's the name, I am know by generally." Yup she totally has pointed ears too though she seems to be speaking some other lauange than Nie though if he has experiance with the multivse at all that should not be too shocking.
Tomoe	Tomoe keeps on the attack and then she finds someone else has made himself known during a brief pause in her fight. Her wings flare out for a moment giving her some more lift. She'll move to come down on the beast like an avenging angel and will take a moment to reply. It's not she's being rude it's she wants to make sure the lizard thing is dead. She impales it to the floor and one can hear the thing's death rattle. Tomoe gives it one more stab to the throat to be /sure/ it's dead before turning to face the man whom she swore was speaking Mandarin Chinese. The Multiverse was a strange thing for she could understand him perfectly and she never quite got over that. She looks the young man over for a moment and gives a bit of a grin. "Thanks and I don't mind well-timed support. As for teaming up, I'm fine with it. It's better than going solo. Better a split reward you can live to spend than a whole one you're buried with." she looks the man over for a moment more. "Tomoe the Iron Lily, well that's the name, I am know by generally." Yup she totally has pointed ears too though she seems to be speaking some other language than Nie though if he has experience with the multiverse at all that should not be too shocking.
Nie Li	Wings. The woman has WINGS. Although it seems she can't use them too much... or why not use them earlier? He files this detail away for later. Though since he wasn't answered until she was done, Nie Li emerges from the passage he'd been sheltering in, standing straight and tall, his youthful face soaked in confidence. Yes, that's right. Youthful. This young man just barely qualifies as a teenager. He's clearly thirteen, maybe fourteen... And he made it all the way down here, without so much as a speck of blood on him. "Haha!" Stepping forward, the young man gives the tiniest of nods of acknowledgement to that logic. "After seeing the way you handled that beast, there's no doubt here. Miss Tomoe is too experienced to fall to even three of those beasts." His smile is calm and a bit childlike, but... is it hiding something deeper? At a glance, one might get that feeling.... Is this young man really just a child? "But if there happened to be a room with five ahead..." Yeah, that's his worry, definitely. Despite their clear age difference he seems to be treating Tomoe with only the barest hint of respect for those older as he introduces himself without so much as a gesture. "Nie Li. I'm a traveling martial artist and librarian. Have you run into any traps besides monster ambushes yet? I'm still gauging how dangerous this place is." He doesn't, it seem, seem inclined to ask what sort of treasures she's found.
Tomoe	Tomoe has her wings vanish as she looks the young man over for a moment. She sizes the young man up and grins a little bit. "No need to flatter still thank you." Tomoe has to wonder if he just a kid? She'd been in the multiverse long enough to see wacky things, after all, either way, though if he got this far in he must not be helpless. "Getting overwhelmed when soloing is quite apt so I'd be happy to work with you and split the payday. A few, though they seem remnants of a defence system from before it fell to ruin. Mostly pitfalls so far, and she tilts her head a bit. "Marital Artist and Librarian? Huh don't run into that too much. Maybe we'll luck out and find some interesting books in all this mess, the locals just care the hostile wildlife is handled more than anything." "Just call me Tomoe, it's quicker that way. Also Nie Li.? Interesting name and I'll ask a question the name China mean anything to you?"
Nie Li	Nie Li's paying sharp attention to the talk about the traps. Pitfalls, huh? "I encountered a spear trap attached to a pressure plate." He shares. "Strange to find traps and monsters in a labyrinth said to have simply appeared!" After thinking it over for a bit, the boy nods. "Fifty-fifty it is. And hm? ... China? Haven't heard of it, nope." Since Tomoe hasn't gone after the Lizard monster, Nie Li dives in with butchering implements and deftly - perhaps a little disturbingly - dismembers choice pieces of meat, organs, and parts like poison glands and claws. These are stuffed into two bags he seems to pull out of nowhere... the entire bag is weighed with a gentle shake. Although he seems a bit incredulous of the usefulness of this find, one bag just... vanishes in a swirl of energy that's drawn into a ring he wears, gone in a flash. The other, he casually offers to Tomoe! "Did this place really appear out of thin air like the rumor? This style of stoneworking's completely new to me."
Tomoe	Tomoe never had the skill to butcher non-digital lifeforms, it's a bit surprising but she's been travelling so long in the multiverse she didn't pause too much at it. "Butcher too it seems is a skill you have." She'll accept the bag and will pull up a menu, the glowing panel hovers for a moment and the bag vanishes into her own inventory. "Thanks, as for yes we think it might have unified in and I don't know it either, seems a little like several styles from home kinda had a child." She'll get up and start on the move once everything's cleaned up. She'll move on head keeping her naginata at the ready. "I'm more shocked when I see something I know I admit." The two will continue on and find a corridor going in deeper there are traps if one pays attention one might seen signs of mechanism that have moved more recently than ... the other things here in this ruin.
Nie Li	"Are beast parts not prized that much where you hail from?" The boy asks, seeing how Tomoe didn't think to butcher the creature. "These creatures aren't Demon Beasts... no Demon Spirit crystals." He seems mildly irritated by this. As if accusing the corpses of being stingy. But it's a lighthearted aggravation at best - he's still been diligently butchering and collecting from them in case they're useful after all! "Might be useful for alchemy..." he mutters, almost under his breath. Then he moves on with Tomoe. "A fusion of styles? Hm. Could be the labyrinth was expanded over many centuries by different peoples. But the traps and beasts are obviously here to protect something. If we only knew what culture fancied this kind of masonry, the place's purpose would be all the more clear." Nie Li does on several occasions hurl stones onto distant pressure plates to trigger traps but as the two progress he extends a hand out to halt Tomoe. "Hold on, there's been activity here. The dust is all over the place!" Can he actually spot discrepancies like that?
Tomoe	Tomoe says "Kinda it's hard to descibe my home world it's ... strange evne by this crazy world's standards. Even before ther wasn't anything like that thing out there. Lot of city folk out there really who'd never run into wildlife and a lot was protected or had set hunting seasons. As for that never heard of either those types of monster or a drop like that. Faioling that if the meat's at least etable we got dinner right?" Tomoe shakes her head "Just from my view point but your guess is as good as mine, the beast could just be wildlife that moved in as for the traps there has to be something of vaule here ya." She pauses for a moment and she looks and she looks about now seeing. "Damn your good. I see it now, we shuuld avoid those areas." Thanks to Nie both of them are able to slip past the traps nd work their way down it's quiet there' the sound sof water and a lot of ruined stuff but it seems there's signs of the lizard eggs, shead skin. "We could have a nest here..."
Nie Li	"How come there's eggs but no...." Nie Li doesn't finish that sentence, which is barely muttered in the first place as the pair come across the distant nest. There should be other signs of these lizards besides just shed skins and eggs. That's only natural, right? Assuming there's anything natural about the lizards. "...." Nie Li's looking a bit troubled by this discovery. As if seeing a nest in a weird labyrinth like this is weirder than NOT finding one. "It wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong about something." He admits quite humbly about the nature of these beasts.. He is, however, paying sharp attention to Tomoe's explanation. Enough that there's a bit of teethgrinding at work here. "All I'm willing to say about my home right now is... it faces overwhelming threats on a regular basis. There's always the looming threat that a horde tens of millions of beasts could swoop in at any time. A world like yours sounds like a paradise in comparison."
Tomoe	"I'd killed several before you showed up could be that or they could be elsewhere." She notes she looks to Nie and nods she won't pry but she seems free to talk about her own. "Till about two years ago the most dangerous thing on my world outside some extream environment and very rare large predator in more isolated areas? People were the most dangerous thing generally but not anymore. I can see where you're coming from there though. My world didn't have much but we didn't have horrors lurking in every shadow." She keeps going that's when there's movement as the pair decent deeper into the ruin. They will find the lower levels, oh they will find a much larger lizard over a massive clutch of eggs which seems to be in what once a forge complex of some sort and whatever enchanted magic the forge had was still active as it was quite hot in here. "Whelp... I'll go first and try to keep its attention. You see what you can do here Nie Li." Tomoe now goes in popping some of her strange abilities off as he charges at the Lizard bouncing around like she did before, though the wings don't come out this time she's getting the creature's attention the good news is the eggs haven't hatched yet but the big thing is looking and snarling at Tomoe with all the fury of an angry mother also a very hungry one. There are old forging tools all over the place some weapons, vats of old quenching oil and other smithing related items one could put to use if they were creative.
Nie Li	"Whew..." It is indeed boiling down in this ancient forge. Nie Li's starting to sweat before even getting into battle. "If all these eggs hatch, the locals will be in big trouble." Is his prognosis of the problem. They have an actual brood mother here of some sort! The surroundings do have plenty of interesting tools. And even some cover available. But Nie Li doesn't actually go for any of them. Instead he waits until Tomoe's looking away-- And then, whoooooooosh. He blitzes across the distance in a blur of motion, aiming for the big lizard's blind spot. A single slashing motion with one arm, and a black, shifting sickle-blade - which he hopes to keep hidden from Tomoe by the creature's sheer mass - lashes out with assassin-like precision to rip into the creature. He's not messing around - it's a blow aimed straight for where he HOPES are vital organs like lungs and the heart. The blades vanish as soon as they appeared though, leaving just a weird sense of DARKNESS surrounding him.
Tomoe	Tomoe is busy keeping the Lizard busy, there is the clash of blade on talon and gang Tomoe is doing an amazing job of keeping the lizard busy so well that Nie Li has no issue with making this move hell she almost doesn't /see it/ she still catches something out of the corner of her eye. There's killing intent like she's only seen in a few places and the Lizard is dead shortly there after slumping to the ground. Tomoe takes a look around there are no others it seems they cleared out the first generation of eggs, and the second had yet to hatch lucky for them. "You all right? Seems you are ... a heavyweight from the looks of it."
Nie Li	Nie Li backpedals by simply kicking off the ground to leap away from the lizard as it collapses. It was a move of brutal efficiency, because taking that beast head on would've been a challenge... At the query, he shows a grateful smile Tomoe's way! "Ahaha... I've simply trained under a very knowledgeable teacher. Beasts act on instinct. They're very predictable."
Tomoe	Tomoe makes sure it's dead. "Butcher it I gues and lets see what else we cna find around here, if we have trouble hauling it I can shove it in my inventory." She notes before she'll clean off her spear and it will vanish in a flash of light. After which tomoe will prowl around, there's some iognts of silver, little gold various weapons that could be repocessed but the real piz are some intact blade sand the enchanted smithing gear itself. "So after you want to get something to eat after we tunr it in? I know a good place that serves types like us. It has one rule no fighting."