Scene #6715: OFF - Zone 3

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	With all of A1 explored, more or less, as it seems to be a sort of 'non-work' area for lunch breaks and sleeping, there's little left to do except backtrack across the floor square puzzle, right past the utterly oblivious Elsens still hanging about, unaware of or unconcerned with the spectre attack in the dorms that had killed one of their own, and wind back to the front desk. The note is still there, and there is still no one 'back in a minute'. It's been a good thirty or so since last they saw it. There is only one other set of stairs, and it leads down, winding around a few quarter turns until it passes by a kiosk set into the wall so plainly and abruptly, that a typically pasty, bald, square-headed Elsen behind it speaking to passers by is unexpectedly startling, as he timidly and wheezily offers unprompted "The monorail is free and accessible to all personnel. Sensational, isn't it?", at least explaining the giant M on the floor. Of course the monorail is the exact same model as the tram in Zone 1, down to its washed out, old-fashioned, slightly cartoonish appearance. Despite it being a monorail, it chugs like a locomotive when ridden, smoothly accelerating along an electric rail with the loud, repetitive clank and hiss of steam turbines and axles. When it exits the tunnel, you find yourself shooting out over the peninsula of shimmering white liquid plastic at utterly unthinkable speeds, crossing what must be several eyes in barely a second. The visual stimuli is dizzying, despite the fact that you clank to a stop without so much as a sway forward. Exiting the green tunnel and stairs up into the sunlight again surrounds you with the bright orange metal facade again, decorated with hazard markings and meaningless hatching and tape patterns, giving you a choice of three walkways, forking into two halves of the same, wide and squat (square) building, connected by their giant piping, and to a much larger section of the factory behind it, tall and looming (and square), barely giving you a glimpse of the monolithic, faraway smoke stacks of Zone 3 over its peak. You find Zacherie there already, scribbled grinning cheshire cat mask still on. In his best shitty Judge impression, he says "It seems as though once again I have beaten you to your next destination in uncanny and bamboozling fashion! At the same time, it was scripted to be like this. You had no chance of success anyway." "That the people here don't fear the Spectres is undeniable as it is abnormal. Since your prime duty will lead to you getting to the bottom of it, I'll leave you now to search the area. If you find something suspicious, don't hesitate to let me know as soon as possible." He shrugs and trundles off into one of the two linked buildings behind him.
Starbound Flotilla	"There's plenty of sensations for open access, yep." George idly offers to Elsen as he passes by, and heads into the monorail, putting out his weird hospital-smelling cigarette so as not to saturate the enclosed space with smoke, or for whatever reasons. He bobs his head to the clank of steam engines as if it were music. "Heyyyy, J! Glad you haven't lost your step since Val! I'd hate to not get bamboozled and all. I'll let you know!" He waves to Zacharie. "So, let's get up in there. Sounds like on today's menu, you gotta figure out what's messing up their fear and all. Think you guys can put all the clues together before we're outta here, or you gonna make it the arc-mystery here? Let's go for getting it settled ASAP, huh?" Yep, it's time to head in, at least according to him, and he's going to pick one of the three paths up there, and the two structures, seemingly at random. At least that must mean the difference isn't too painfully significant.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison sighs, "Of course the monorail looks the same as the tram," he says, disappointedly. It was no swan boat, that's for sure. However, the lion-man could only step onto the train and take it without much fanfare to the next part, arms crossed as he watched the world blur by, and before he knew it they were there. Convenient. Stepping out, Zacharie pretending he is the Judge causes him to squint at him. He doesn't play along so much as just gives him a strange look until he wanders off. "Why is he pretending to be the Judge?" Edison asks, before starting to take the path that would take them to the squat square building. Truly, this world befuddles him day by day.
Starbound Flotilla	George replies as plainly as someone like George can speak as he walks. "Who's pretending to be who? I wouldn't stress out about it. Sometimes, people grieving their loved ones can look pretty weird. That's just how it is for a world that's always a personal hell. It gets to everyone, eventually. Maybe J's just like that when he's stressed! Too bad he can't get a vacation, right?"
Majima Goro	There is a silhouette arriving from the opposite direction towards the party, specifically towards Edison. A baseball cap, a bat slung across the shoulders, and a peculiar...hip-thrusty walk. This cannot possibly forebode anything terrible, whatsoever, and should be gleefully disregarded. There are also three rings circling around its midsection.
Doctor Strange	"Thrilling," says Strange flatly to the monorail Elsen as he passes by. Regularly traveling the distance of worlds with an arm motion, and living in a mansion outside of time and space, Strange is unbothered by the blistering rate of the monorail. In typical fashion, he exits the monorail and the tunnel hovering a foot off the ground, with a neutral frown on his face. "I'll keep you informed," says the Sorcerer Supreme to Zacharie. He nods. His attention promptly shifts to the rest of the party after Zacharie wanders off. George seems to want them to hurry up and solve the 'mystery.' But the Batter... no. No, that's not the Batter. /Majima/ is here--something he didn't account for. Majima has a surprising sense of personal ethics, for an ex-gangster. Maybe he can turn him to his side. "Hey, Majima," says Strange casually. "Got a little something on your jacket, there." There isn't something /on/ his jacket. But there is something /in/ it. The gesture Strange used to indicate the nonexistent spot was the same he uses to create portals. "Oh--nevermind, false alarm." Inside Majima's coat pocket is an eggshell business card. It reads 'talk to me once we're out of here' in shaky handwriting. "Who says he can't?" asks Strange pointedly, when George laments the Judge's predicament. Strange seems to want to follow George. Perhaps he wants to keep an eye on the old man.
Yuuki Kuran	"I think this entire part... Is a place for relaxation. Things are easy. Two hour breaks! And even the Spectres aren't... enemies. It's strange." Doctor Strange is also here. "Like you, Stephen!" Yuuki laughs lightly, her tone amused and effervescent. The whole situation has an inherent lower yield of seriousness, which puts the Director at general ease. "Perhaps the lord of this land is gentle and kind. That would be a pleasing change, wouldn't it be?" Yuuki makes a mildly disgusted face as the memories of the LAST two Zone lords is brought up. "Ah. Very pleasant, yes." Majima's arrival gets a bright smile. "Ah! Majima, it's you! I'm glad you're here. Your expertise in bats may be... extra useful, in this world!" She thumbs at the Batter, who is an Extremely Baseball Man.
Majima Goro	"...eh?" The eyepatched man moves closer. It becomes clear to everyone involved that he has been spinning three hula hoops around his waist for what will probably not turn out to be an interesting reason. He adjusts his baseball cap a bit, swinging the bat around in a vague sense. "...Eh? 'sat why--ah, doesn't matter, ah?" He clicks his tongue, first addressing Strange. He picks at his jacket a little, feeling /something/ odd inside. He raises his brow, but shrugs. "Yeah, well, that's why I got a snakeskin jacket. Cleans easy. Ya know how it is, right?" He claps Strange's shoulder in an overly familiar fashion, grinning widely. The hula hoops eventually drop, and...at some point just vanish away somewhere. It's not important. Yuuki gets a second glance once he's done with that, before suddenly he's introduced to...a solid white guy with an expression that unnerves him just a bit. "Long as I can be useful then, eh? I ain't up to anything too important anyway." With that, he just..casually inserts himself into the direction opposite his current.
Priscilla	The Batter, silently present throughout the whole monorail ride, as had been his no-fun-at-parties presence during all the tram rides, takes about half a second to look at Majima before skimming right over him, appearing unimpressed while he slowly taps his bat on his shoulder with a clearance of two inches. All he has to say to Zacharie is an "Okay." and then dead silence as he wanders off. Entering the linked building on the right actually just leads to Zacharie walked in. He's behind a counter with no real means of getting behind it outside of awkwardly clambering over its surprising height, which doesn't seem to be his thing (clambering, not being behind counters). He doesn't have much to say to people poked again here, besides "No need to follow this old cat like a string of ducklings. Come back when you have some news. You haven't even started!" Though, most of the room's back wall is plastered in those awkward Memos. Memo: Be sure to punch in and out before and after each shift. Memo: Do your job well and you will be rewarded. Memo: If you don't work your hours every day, you won't get any dessert. Entering the left linked building just encounters Zacharie again. Specifically, Zacharie wearing the Zacharie mask. There is a mirrored counter in here as well, albeit the room is stuffed full of crates instead of posters, which he remains behind by walking in through a door to the right (aren't the two halves connected by pipes and not a hall). "Greetings again, loyal customers! It's your good friend Zacharie. I don't get to Zone 3 very much, so my usually sterling selection of interesting items for connoisseurs like yours truly is decidedly thin for the moment, but I should make some money nonetheless." Apparently, since he's been playing Judge this whole time, he hasn't had time to stock up yet, as evidenced by mostly just having a selection of PREVIOUS ITEMS, and some FORTUNE TICKETS and GOLDEN FLESH. The third, much larger building, entails entering back into the green zone, albeit now it looks like something close to a factory floor. More specifically, it'd be better compared to a power plant, as characterized by thick, square support pillars, areas of diagonally hashed 'hazard tape' markings on the floor, which surrounded heavy lines and big, old-fashioned, electrical fusebox-style lever switches, and clusters of thin, rambling pipes shot through the ceiling and walls like wire bundles. The Elsens here wear plastic hard hats, despite mostly just standing or sitting around, not seeming to be performing any useful labour. One is even just sitting behind a tiny desk hemmed in by completely pointless tape markings on the floor, as if a shift supervisor, watching the rest just kind of . . . guard the pipes? Obnoxiously, the way past is blocked by big, stodgy, useless, improbably hard cubes jutting out of the floor. Been a while since those. In fact, most of the switches appear to be blocked by them as well, preventing personnel from fiddling with them, possibly until it becomes time to change them. There is one bank of three unblocked switches. Two switches are set to OFF. One switch marked with a C is set to ON.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison double-takes as they enter another room and Zacharie is there. While people talk to him, he goes back the direction he came, just to see if there is another Zacharie there with a Judge mask on. This must be tested for science. Either way, he walks back in and shakes his head...this is all too weird. He will let other people worry about stocking up on items, instead, he reads the memos, trying to commit them to memory. Who knows when it will be necessary as part of a silly puzzle, or means to get somewhere else. He looks towards the new arrival, as people seem to know him. "Nice to meet you, I am Thomas Alva Edison, Presiking of the United States of America and King of Inventors. Do not mind the face, I am in fact quite normal despite my current form!" He offers a polite bow because he is aware of other cultures being a statesman. He looks towards Yuuki next and shrugs, "Maybe, or it might be the worst one yet. Just because someone uses pleasant means to control a populace does not mean a kind and gentle soul they are. They can be just as terrible as any monster, perhaps even worse. However, I suppose it's nice to keep a positive outlook. I dare hope that this one is up to talking than the last ones." In the third, larger building it appears to be more like an actual factory. Hm! The Elsens seem to be useless, which is good, it means they won't become burnt. He takes note of all of the wiring and pipes, as well as the annoying blocks that block the path. Hm! Levers! Edison moves to mess with the levers, trying to understand how they interact and how he can manipulate them. Then using his GREAT MECHANICAL GENUS, he attempts to manipulate or jury-rig the controls so that he can just simply pull the levers and make all fo the blocks go down.
Zero Kiryu	Zero Kiryu is, as always, with Yuuki. He's mostly been zoning out a little until the exact moment that Majima makes his appearance. Some measure of awareness returns to his vision as he looks up towards the other man. He's heard his voice on a number of occasions, as another member of the Concord. But this is their first in-person meeting that he can recall. He looks away after a moment, following blips on his radar through his mind's eye. What does the presence lingering with the Batter want? It's a question that's nagged at him a little since he took the time to examine it. "Additional perspectives are useful," he remarks to Majima, "but this place is strange at the best of times. One of our primary agents active in this world considers it a torture chamber of sorts. Can't say that it's easy to disagree with that notion. Though, if things can be lighter than they are elsewhere..." He leaves the thought hanging in the air. The Concord has people on both sides of the line, there. No matter who wins, the Concord collectively wins.
Starbound Flotilla	"Oh, you know." George says, waving vaguely. "Not a lot of PTO here. Not a lot of TO either. Honestly, T is a bit short and up in the air too. Just how it is. Or, you know, the way this place is personal hell." As usual, nothing to buy and not too much to do with Zach besides be pleasant and look around for more things to prompt to buy for him. Nothing new? Darn. "Haha, don't worry. I'm sure we'll be wandering around here long enough for you to stock up. Take your time!" He pushes on. Once they get here, he makes sure to take a look at the newbie. "Heya, new guy. Quick rundown: We're all collectively the Choir, we're helping the Batter, he's purifying Zones of ghost shit. Also everyone around this whole world is /super miserable/. Just a mess. Got questions?" He gestures vaguely in Kiryu's direction. But, you know, Zero Kiryu specifically. "Yeah, this place is basically a torture chamber for anyone it gets its teeth into. Messed up! That's what purification is good for." He goes and settles by the switches, finding somewhere to sit down and smoke while he watches for ghosts and observes Edison commanding the power of giant lightswitches.
Majima Goro	Majima Goro cracks his neck to the side as Thomas introduces himself. Presiking? He ain't an expert on America, but that seems... Ah, screw it. Who cares. "Majima works. President of Majima Construction," He explains. "I'd give ya a business card, but I'm fresh out," He laments with a wide shrug. The Batter is weird, but big silent type with a bat isn't /that/ out of the way, he supposes. Fair enough. So that leaves him time for Zero Kiryu, who...huh. "...Eh? ...then why--ah, never mind. Doesn't matter, huh? Just do ya job and all that." There's...well, it might be a wink, but Majima has one eye, so who knows. Finally, that leaves him with Weird Puzzle crap. Not only does he have absolutely no idea what to do about weird puzzle crap, but the Presiking does, in fact, seem to know what to do about weird puzzle crap. So...hm. "...Eh, I guess I'll just kick 'round till somethin' calls for violence," He concludes, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Doctor Strange	Strange nods at Majima. He knows how it is. To Yuuki's play on words, he dryly responds, "Yyyep. Born this way." "No time off? Sounds like they need to unionize," says Strange to George, pressing the issue by diving further into the analogy. He gives Majima a pointed look after this, but says nothing beyond that. Until George brings up the purification. He leaves the puzzle to Edison, and stands beside George without taking a seat. "How many times has it been purified before?" he asks. It seems an innocent question, but George can probably detect the lawyer-like tone. It's an attempt to get him to hang himself with his own rope. Pavo seemed to imply that this'd only be the latest in a long line of purification. Majima says he'll hang out until something wants to fight. "Something will," he says to Majima with certainty.
Zero Kiryu	"If you were wondering why we are involved, it is more or less coincidence, whim, curiosity, and goals that solidified in the aftermath or as a consequence of those things. There are a few matters that I'd like to know more about along the way." Zero gestures towards George, "One of his colleagues possessed a book that was influencing the narrative of what we were doing for a little while, for instance." "Beyond that..." He gestures at Yuuki, "For me, bodyguard work." "By the way," he adds off-handedly, "don't stress out the natives if you can avoid it. Their heads explode. There will be something that requires violence sooner or later, though. Usually the being that is in control of the Zones. They tend to be insane. This place is unusually mellow, so maybe that won't be the case here, but I wouldn't count on it."
Yuuki Kuran	It's a switch puzzle and thus ENTIRELY OUTSIDE THE PURVIEW OF YUUKI'S INTERESTS. She doesn't puzzle good. She tries not to. Thomas and Stephen, of course, would be the sorts to fix it. Certainly, relying on someone passing notes in class, probably to undermine their 'shared' goals, would be foolish... But worrying about the knives in the dark you can't see would lead to a different sort of paralysis. Thomas gets an empty smile as Yuuki acknowledges his words with a slow nod. "I'm aware." Says the Normal Girl. George's words reinforce the idea, of course, so she can't just totally blast away the doubt with positivity. "It's sad to think about someone being tortured in such a corporate way. On every level, it's the sort of fate I wouldn't wish on anyone." Majima's overtures to usefulness get a cheery shoulder pat. A bit more intimate than most smiles or nods, but Majima is a member of the Concord first, and her goal is to make him feel welcome. "I'm sure you'll find a way to be useful. And even if you do something totally different, if you succeed, that's good. And if you have troubles, we'll be around."
Priscilla	Honestly, a stupid electrical switch flipping puzzle isn't much of a match for Thomas Edison's GENIUS ENGINEERING abilities. Even if they don't really seem to be properly connected to any sort of power grid, they do seem to connect to each other and the various systems in the room (mostly blocks). Due to the way the safeties work, however, he quickly figures out that flipping some of them from OFF to ON turns other ones from ON to OFF, like fiddly breakers. They're also spaced around the room a lot, so there's a lot of strutting back and forth to do. The Elsens in this room barely pay him any mind, mostly just looking bored and dozy. The one in the desk contemplates aloud to himself. "If . . . If I pierce the pipes . . . I could make it come out. But if it escapes, I would never get any of it again . . ." He glances surreptitiously and nervously at the pipes on the wall besides him several times. Another one standing in a corner lamely answers up, "The Director said if we work properly, we'll keep getting it . . .", trailing off in that wheezy, tired sort of way Elsens do. "All the better! One should work his job wholeheartedly!" says another, a little more enthusiastic. He is standing ten feet away from a poster that says Memo: One should work their job wholeheartedly. While Edison gets to flipping switch puzzles though, from the other door, a group of Spectres just . . . wanders in. There's no over-mixed warp sounds or ghostly appearances from thin air or from the walls, as is the usual way of ambushing you; they seem to be prowling around the factory floor. A gaggle of cartoonish balloon-like ghosts turn and swarm towards you immediately, differentiated from the most basic variety by some having great big Xs for eyes, and others a big black X for a mouth. They're followed by what appears to be a floating, spinning king's crown, trailing a ghastly aura of pale fire. They rush right past the Elsens. The Elsens don't even move. The one at his desk watches them go by with overwhelming non-concern about murderous ghosts being on the factory floor. Memo: If you don't attack the phantoms, they won't attack you. The Batter used Wide Angle! Blind Spectre x3 Aggressive ectoplasmic incarnation. No weakness/resistance. Mute Spectre x3 Misleading ectoplasmic incarnation. No weakness/resistance. Crown of the Dead x1 Diabolical and airborne royal headwear. Light weakness against smoke. When one of the Mutes breaks off to attack Edison, the batter sort of slides up and cracks it violently across the head, batting the blood out of it and sending it spiraling away like a punctured balloon. Crown of the Dead used Aspiring Suzerain! The deflated Spectre slowly hovers back upright, peeling itself off the floor under a shower of glittering sparkles thrown off by the hovering crown, reinflating itself and charging back in. "I think there might be a problem with the dessert." says an Elsen. "Oh well, it's a pleasure to work every day . . ." says another.
Majima Goro	Majima shoots Yuuki a grin. "Ah, ya absolute ray of sunshine! Don't worry yourself too much." He flicks his lighter, taking a drag off the cigarette. "I'm sure I'll figger somethin' out even if nothin' pops up we gotta deal with," He says, before nodding back to Zero. "Eh, I'm learnin' not to ask too many questions. This looks like I've stepped in somethin' real deep, and I'll just let ya direct me while I get the hang, huh?" He taps that pocket again, the one Strange put the note into. He still doesn't bother retrieving it, though. Instead, he just stretches out a little while Thomas continues playing about with levers. Oh, look, he's done. And now--and now, weirdass ghosts. What's more, they seem the sort of things where he can just wail on them a bit, which is about what he wants in life. The cigarette is tossed to the ground haphazardly. The bat's back out, and swung slowly in a lazy arc. Ah, here we go. Here we go. This is more his style. Alright, the flying thing is almost guaranteed to be a pain 'bout stayin' at range, so he's going to ignore that. Instead, he rushes one of the balloons, and...starts using his bat like a set of nunchucks, swapping it around between hands as he flips it in all directions, before delivering a solid kick to knock it...uh. Into the wall? He doesn't know. How do ghosts work? He's /hoping/ that helps.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison snaps his fingers. Success! No electrical slash mechanical system was too complicated for him to master! Laughing, he turns to face a Spectre. "Oh," he says before the Batter smashes it across the face and temporarily flattens it. With a breath, Edison looks towards the Batter, "Thank you," he says, though still...uneasily. There was some tension between the two of them still, and most likely it wouldn't be that easily resolved. However, seeing the Crown of the Dead seem to cast some sort of restorative effect on the OTHER Spectre, Edison decides that there is only one thing to do here. Kill the Medic. Edison attempts this by raising a hand, floating into the air, and releasing a burst of DC ELECTRICAL ENERGY, the true and PURE source of ELECTRICITY! Aiming to try and put some hurt on the Crown itself. During this, he speaks to Yuuki. "My apologies, Mrs. Kuran, I did not mean to treat you as a child. Forgive this old man."
Starbound Flotilla	"What, the Zones? Ehhh, enough times, I guess, the way I heard it." George's response to Strange meanders evasively. "None of 'em were gonna go as far as the Batter will though. Hell, Doc, you of all people ought'a know that sometimes the contamination is a little further than skin-deep. Bats is the only one who knows how to push a little further." And now, there's other matters. As the ghosts rush in, George crams a cigarette into his mouth fast as he can. "Yeah, yeah, be right with you." He says, pulling out his own bat, the Batter's old Harold bat. "Alright! Let's get going!" He leaps forward, armoring up in a blast of light and holding the bat in a two-handed grip. "So, quick info!" He calls out to Majima, trying to pin the one he just wall-smacked against the wall, wherever it might have impacted if he managed to get a hit. "These guys have boatloads of blood to bleed, so the easiest way to handle things is, knock 'em down and let the Batter kind of finish them off as he goes. Him, or those little circle doodads, see 'em over near Bats?" He pulls out a heavy nailgun, and starts trying to slam the balloon-like Mutes and Blinds with heavy bolts, trying to impale them to walls or the floor, especially those others have struck with intensity.
Zero Kiryu	Zero steps on Majima's cigarette to put it out properly. He nods, "I can't blame you. That's what I usually do. It's been changing a little, lately. I'm not so fuzzy-headed, I suppose..." As the situation escalates, he steps in closer to Yuuki. Creeping vines begin to emerge from his sleeves, spilling out into the surroundings and expanding in careful circular patterns. One branch comes in below Majima, spreading around him and providing a defensive net, so that if any of the phantoms should choose to approach him they will immediately get attacked by the waiting vines. The other does the same for Yuuki, though it cleaves substantially closer to her than it does to Majima. There is a measure of prediction in play, where Zero's vines shape themselves into a complimentary movement to sneak an additional attack in effectively within Yuuki's shadow (if Yuuki should choose to fight at all), or to draw in and serve as an ablative armor against attacks if need be. The man himself barely moves. "George." He asides, even in the midst of combat. "Who tried to purify these places before the Batter?"
Doctor Strange	Strange squints suspiciously at George. "You're talking about the--" He doesn't get any further than that beofre the ghosts appear. The Sorcerer Supreme wheels around midair, hands already working to create the energy-mandalas which seem so integral to his art. The first spell he casts is a strike at the reality of the zone itself. With a sound of shattering glass, the air cracks. The break spreads around the party in a circle. Having dragged a portion of the Mirror Dimension into the physical realm, Strange quickly begins shifting the space to his advantage, and to the advantage of the party. The thick blocks moved around by Edison's puzzle spit out duplicates of themselves, multiplying in two dimensions to form a tesselated wall which separates the battle from the nearby Elsen. The ceiling of the factory splits like someone moving a sliding-image puzzle around, opening into a yawning abyss which looks like repeated mirror images of the scene below. A fine lattice of copy-pasted ceiling forms, as if Strange were making a sieve or a vent. More on that later. Strange touches down, making a lateral flip and hurling the mandalas themselves at the Blind Spectres. The sorcerer's motions mimic a martial artist surrounded by foes, all joint locks and elbow strikes. The orange discs obey his commands, bouncing between the three spectres as if he were there swinging them himself.
Yuuki Kuran	Edison realizes his little vocal blunder, but Yuuki seems unwilling to pin him to the wall over it. "It's fine, Thomas. Perhaps I'm just being sensitive, and should take it as a compliment?" Majima calling her a ray of sunshine is a new sort of pleasant, and the Yakuza man's business attitude puts the pale long-haired girl at further ease. Sometimes... Things just work. And George can always be trusted to tutorialize with the best of them. With Zero protecting her, that leaves her with a quandry... A test! And so, instead of attacking the spectres, Yuuki just leans back against Zero's vines and crosses her arms. "This place reminds me of a dream. Or maybe it is one! Do you all think, if we just don't do anything, the spectres will..." She trails off. "Well, actually, I guess we've already attacked them. Do you think it counts for all of us? I'm curious, now. If the Memos really are true!"
Priscilla	Whatever the Elsen seem to think of (or maybe not react to?) the whole mirror dimension thing, it becomes irrelevant once they're separated outside of it, and all real potential for lethal collateral disappears. The Mute Spectres attack with the previously known HEAVY SILENCE, where mysterious pointing fingers apply equally mysterious crushing invisible force, as well as killing all sound in the area and smothering mystic abilities. The Blind Spectres open their mouths wide to screech in using FOREJUDGEMENT instead, and in lieu of real eyes, complicated white occultic symbols of eyes flicker open overtop of people them and blast them with scorching rays of light. The crown flits about to and fro, spinning like a frisbee, showering each of the Spectres with uncharacteristic supporting attention, building 'team tactics' on top of the gradually multiplying strength and complexity of the enemies over the zones . . . or perhaps simply over time? It doesn't go as smoothly as a random battle ought to. Where George pins Spectres with nails, they slowly wriggle themselves free from their pins, tearing chunks of their bloody ectoplasm away and allowing the Crown to heal them. Strange bouncing his disks between them has him immediately blasted in triplicate with the crushing, suppressing ability, targeting him especially. Two of the Blinds form up to block the crown from Thomas' DC lightning , suffering the scorching blowthrough in its place. The Crown tends to those skewered on vines and caught in thorny brambles. It takes a few rounds of back and forth to wear the enemy down. The Spectre that comes to up menace Majima after a few blasts oddly hesitates as he spins his bat around like a nutcase, before being crumpled in by the blow much harder than one would expect. One of the glowing halo Add-Ons swoops in and slashes it to bloody ribbons before it can recover. George bats a pair of them together, disrupting the Mute's aim on Strange, where the Batter strikes the third with one of those long ranged, space warping reticle swings, giving him the opening to cut down the stunned Mutes with his mandalas. When the Crown flies over to get them, it's arrested by Bloody Rose's tendrils and blasted in half by another DC beam, finished off by the second Add-On causing it to implode with a shift of visual perspective. The remainder are stabbed, shot, battered and blasted until much of the mirror dimension factory floor is blood and pockmarks, scouring away plating and revealing pitted mineral concrete beneath. Progressing out of the room, you come to a doorway much bigger than any you've encountered so far, with its own hazard markers and what looks like a track for a massive security door, left open for the time being. Stepping through the blindingly dark yet completely tiny hall beyond it leads into a room that follows suit in being larger than anything in any of the Zones, large enough to be a trainyard. Instead, it appears to be some kind of vault, with a trio of hard hat-wearing Elsens having just come in, accounting for its open door. There are no shelves of pallets or crates or safes though. All of the floor space is either barren, or filled with mountainous stacks of glittering white powder mounded dozens of meters high. The stuff glows like fresh snow and sand-fine diamonds, sorted only by how large the loose pile is, with wheelbarrows and shovels littered around, beside hatches in the walls.
Priscilla	The three Elsen are already staring down a posse of Spectres. Gaping ghosts with fanged bottomless maws float slowly towards them in formation, outstretching stubby ectoplasmic arms to grab their prey and upend them into their giant throats. "No . . . No . . ." one of the Elsens wheezes in a desperate panic. "The . . . The sugar . . . Do- . . . Don't touch . . . the sugar." The Elsens step forward, not away. They seem agitated. Incredibly so. But not afraid. Nobody here had seemed afraid of the Spectres, but instead of denial of the threat to their bodily selves, they appear to be concerned about something else. They advance. "Sho . . . Shove . . . Shove off, Spectres!" "Get out! Get out!!" they yell, then scream. The archetyping tone of weedy, sickly sounding timidity and despair that the Elsens have all worn so well is replaced in an instant with fumbling expressions of cornered animal fury. They attack the Spectres. The three of them run right up and start swinging their fists wildly at the ghosts, ineffectually punching them in a blind frenzy, devoid of survival instinct. At first, it's merely a sad, almost comedic effort, only making little blunt noises as the Spectres reach down to gobble them up. Then the Elsen yelling the loudest has his hands explode into torrents of foul-smelling black ichor, and the other two follow shortly after, the fluid corruption forming giant, writhing black claws. With the next blow, the Spectres are splattered instantly --turned into lurid red smears across the vault floor with a flash of red and a sickly tearing sound, obliterated by the furious, wide-eyed, shaking Elsens. They turn towards you. The trembling, twitching leader yells "You . . . You want to eat our sugar too!" and the three of them have their heads pop off in unison as the black gore escapes through their collars as well. All three of them charge at you like beasts, their limbs inflated to hulking proportions by the liquid that runs from their sleeves and trousers, making for massively oversized talons that crush the floor where they lope and bound. They strike with absolutely devastating strength, the frail and diseased, perpetually panic-stricken creatures now capable of putting someone through a steel wall. Their touch is poison, coursing through veins to eat away at flesh and afflict the brain with maddening hallucinations. The Batter used Wide Angle! Calvary Burnt x 3 Employee of Vesper on Sugar deprivation. Light weakness to smoke.
Majima Goro	Majima's good eye squints. This is a lot to take in. While the vines do a fine job of blocking some of this business, the fact of the matter is, he's been struck by some of these strange rays of light, and he...doesn't really know how to dodge most of this. By the time it's done, he's looking...probably the worse for wear of any of the group thus far. After all, he's the poor sucker sitting in melee, comparatively. So, while there's a moment, he just...pulls out a pre-packaged meal. Today, it's a pepper steak, all pre-cooked and ready to eat whenever. It produces a somewhat dismaying sight as Majima seems perfectly content to eat his food, salving his wounds, even as the Elsens seem to be willing to suddenly fight back against these things. It only slightly puts him off his food as they start to suddenly explode violently. At least he's done by the time the Elsens turn on them all. "...Wha-?!" He proclaims, a burning yellow fire enveloping him as the bat comes back out. No. No, this is insane. He pulls out another cigarette, lighting it and keeping it in his mouth as he readies to rush in as a whirling, spinning dervish of wooden mayhem.
Thomas Alva Edison	Crushing soundless waves throw Tomas for a loop, unable to speak back to Yuuki immediately. It's alright, he has TWO AMERICAN DC POWERED FISTS. Thomas starts walking towards the spectres, he is not afraid to approach them. At the end of the back and forth, Thomas brushes himself off, a bit more tired than he'd normally be after dealing with these things. Perhaps that bunch was just a bit tougher than the norm? They were a highly coordinated group. Finally, he speaks to Yuuki, "It is not wrong to dream, we just all have to remember to keep our dreams tempered with reality. Though I feel you already know that, so don't mind me." Moving on into the next room reveals a very gruesome show. The Elzen turning into brunt in front of their eyes again. Damn damn damn! Edison moves towards them, but they go full-on head popping the moment he could get there. There was no talking to them now, and with effort released another burst of DC POWERED ELECTRICAL FISTS right into the nearest of them. For his effort, he gets POISON CLAWED. The burning poison courses through him, causing the lion man to sweat a bit more than he really should.
Zero Kiryu	Since Yuuki decides to LOUNGE, Zero doesn't end up actually doing much. He helps Majima out, and mostly remains in the wings, so he only gets a little cursory attention by the time the spectres are worn down. It's not until the SUGAR-OBSESSED ELSEN completely lose their shit and go Burnt seemingly at-will and intentionally that he really ends up taking a solid hit. The largely-supportive vines he had been using are obliterated on contact -- separated from his body, withering on the ground as they're disconnected -- when one of the CALVARY BURNT swings and hits. Not really having been expecting such a powerful blow, he is tossed to the ground and rolls once before stopping. "Yeah..." Zero replies to Majima as he pushes himself to his feet with assorted grunts of aggravation that come with being struck with that force. The skin where the poisonous blow made contact is sizzling lightly as his body fights -- and rejects -- the toxicity of them, "That's what happens when the locals freak out." "They're all so passive that they can't really even defend themselves without this happening." He explains. Zero flicks a wrist, exuding both a new set of vines for Yuuki to recline on (or be defended by, as the case may be) while little blossoms appear along its length, a powdering substance seeping into the air and drifting lazily towards the Calvary Burnt. It's the same soporific he used on the Secretaries, some time ago now. "I suppose... the mildness of this zone had to end somewhere." He remarks, dully.
Doctor Strange	Getting up after being blasted into the floor, the now-silenced, dusty Strange makes a new mystic symbol: two middle fingers, his face a mildly annoyed deadpan. He makes an erratic zig-zag running across the factory floor, making his way to some of the pipes that dot the area. When George and the batter tag-team the mutes, Strange goes in for the kill. He runs straight up the sheer surface of a nearby pipe, and right when gravity is about to disagree, his magic returns. He leaps backwards, re-summoning his mandalas like a flash, and sends them towards the Mutes like a pair of bright orange buzzsaws. The grates of the 'vent' he created in the ceiling come crashing down upon them, aiming to dice them into minced meat. When the battle subsides, Strange dissipates the Mirror Dimension. As reality slowly returns to normal, so too do the signs of their battle gradually vanish. The next room is initially one which gives him some hope. Seeing Elsens fighting the Spectres is a good sign. His hope drains when they begin to transform into Burnt. Unlike the Mute Spectres, though, he's ready for a fight. The first Elsen-Hulk to try and Smash him is bodily thrown by the sorcerer, in the classic soft-martial-arts 'use your opponent's momentum against him' maneuver: step into their reach, sweep the leg, over the hip, and wham. At least, that's what he tries to do--these guys are so roided out that it's very possible they get a good swing in.
Starbound Flotilla	Frustrating. It's painful dealing with the heavy silence! Scorching lightrays may be half of what hardsuits are meant to block, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still sear the flesh when it's concentrated like this. And the back and forth clearly wears on an old man like George. He's already cramming another cigarette into his mouth by the time it's done, and wiping blood from his cheek. Wandering in, he says, "Haha, haven't seen something like this since the old Chemistry days." He watches the grim display anxiously, hand on his bat, but then the wrong side wins. He listens, and his face twists a bit in concern, a deep frown. He speaks to himself a little. "Wait... did you--? No, god damn it, don't tell me you seriously did. Fuckin' hell, you always-- Jesus, they're burning!" He eats a heavy blow that sends him into one side of the vault. "Ahhhh, fuck." He spits, his hardsuit sparking and his breath ragged. "Uuuugh, what is /in/ those talons?" He's lost accuracy as he tries to figure out what is and isn't a hallucination! The problem with spending time around a wizard and a lion is that you have a hard time remembering that sort of thing when you're posioned. But he does his best, taking his shots slow. "Steady on 'em, don't go animal-wild about this." He sucks hard on his hospital-smelling cigarette and moves in, trying to smash the claws particularly, to shatter the hands so they can't slice poisonously so effectively. Might be tough with his accuracy down though! He'll have to go for the ones that have already been downed a bit by the others.
Yuuki Kuran	Spectres that support each other. "Maybe I got spun around. If the person being tortured is Elsen... But the Batter's attacks reach past the Spectres to hit their source. So which is the stress? Did I miss something again..?" When you have too much time to think, sometimes you do the thing that everyone suggests you don't do - and think too hard. But it's fine, and Majima specifically is whipping out DELICIOUS STEAK. "Did you just have lunch to heal up between fights?" Yuuki wonders with some interest, having NOT PARTICIPATED AT ALL in the semi-complex tutorial fight. "It smells good! I think they used a little too much salt, though. Packaged food can do that." The sugar pile - and the trio of burnt - is shocking. It had been nice previously, this calmer land where the Elsen worked and the Spectres didn't attack anyone... But it created such a shocking show of the Elsen actually going on the aggressive foot, even with the memos - the reminders - all about... "They're so strong? Is this the power of someone actually taking a stand? ... No, it's worse. The sugar. If they don't work, they don't get dessert. It's a cyclical hell of work and reward." "They're addicts. This is a land of addiction, isn't it? Where you can even ignore the monsters for your next fix!" Yuuki does not have the free time to be overcome by irony or emotion. "Thomas... These aren't the right kind of dreams at all, anyway. Fever-dreams, and chills. Shaking down to the bone." Actually joining in, this time, Yuuki hustles to the defense of George and Majima, passing by the breach-suited George to lay a fanning kick at the other arm of the Burnt he was going for. "George! If you've got extra of your special cigarettes, maybe share them with Majima!"
Priscilla	These Burnt are somehow so much worse than all the ones previous. Where the standard Burnt had been comparable to 'fast zombies' in threat level, and the awful Valzong Burnt had achieved 'special infected' tier with their durability and special attacks, the Calvary Burnt are like engaging with some savage and hulking lycanthrope or demonic creature, far and away more deadly than the Burnt who detonated from exceeding their stress limit in Zone 1, or exceeding their repressed and gradually decaying tolerance for fear in Zone 2 --as Yuuki surmises, those Elsens exceeding the threshold of safety that each fix gives them, agitated to the point it no longer works, and releasing yet uglier corruption, stewing longer and deeper inside of them under the heavy handed tactic of sedation. It takes many DC blasts, bat attacks, ripping vines and force maneuvers to slow each one down, often clawing up the floor and running along the walls, spraying their fountains of corrupting stench every which way with the angle of their necks. Breaking off claws with precision attacks and smothering them in soporific spores starts to make the situation more manageable, diminishing the sheer amount of DPS they can put out. Even the Batter uses SAVE SECOND BASE, dipping into reserves he hasn't previously had to use, and healing himself and his halos in much the same way the Crown of the Dead had the Spectres, but colour inverted. Add-Ons Alpha and Omega strip their defenses and purge them with their own sort of holy substance that eats away at them from within, until you're left kicking and stomping the remains. When the last of the Burnt fall, there is a brief, unsteadying moment of visual vertigo. Like a flash of insight. A camera cut. A glitch. A change of perspective. The Spectre blood is gone. The black tarry goo is too. All three Elsen stand before you, the same as they were before, heads on and uniforms immaculate. You're each covered in dark red human blood. Your clothes are washed out and pale. "No . . . No, we must protect . . . The Sugar . . ." the lead Elsen says, then collapses over dead. Everything goes back to normal in an instant. You return to messy, battle worn reality, left only with the faint tang of foul ichor and the overpowering saccharine scent of sugary sweetness masking it. Footsteps sound from the hall behind you. Zacharie --the Judge one-- appears from the corridor, and says "Mmmh . . . It smells awfully good around here. Without doubt, that is due to these piles of immaculate white and granular powder. It seems to be sugar. I think it is sugar." "Seems so." says the Batter, barely giving it an eye. "Ah ah ah. Well, this is quite surprising; I didn't expect to find such an ingredient at this po- . . . in this place." says JudgeZacharie. "Maybe we'll find the answers to that in Area 3 . . ." "Logic obliges us to go on with the third after the second one, after all. Remember where we are." he adds. "We've got to do things the constructive way. Well, go on. I'll meet you again when you're there. Hurry up." He turns to leave, but then stops to append "By the way, I suggest you be careful on your way back. The employees seem to be feeling a bit under the weather. They even appear to be in a bloody bad temper. "Okay." says the Batter. "See you later." says Zacharie. The Batter advances a little further into the room, head on a swivel around the piles of sugar, and oddly enough, finds one last glowing halo stranded by itself, bobbing up and down slowly, sealed in the vault as some mysterious thing that nobody else could make use of. Add-On Epsilon. It swirls around him to join its compatriots as if happy to see them. Indeed, though, as Zacharie had hinted, from the way you came in, you can already hear the frantic screams and sounds of crashing metal spreading.
Thomas Alva Edison	Edison is a bit pressed by that, more than he was expecting even. The flash of reality causes him to stare at the sight before him before everything returns to normal. Edison frowns, he knows the vague effects of this stuff all too well. With a soft breath and release of the atmosphere of this place, he turns only to see Judarie inform them that the other Elzen have gone into withdrawal. Edison only nods once towards Yuuki, "Well, so much for that. It's going to be far more difficult forward. Perhaps we should have spent more money with the peddler..."
Majima Goro	Majima has not been there for the first two. He doesn't have this frame of reference. All he knows is that there were terrifying claw things, and frankly, he's very happy that he's not brutalized on the floor. What he is, however, is beaten fairly black and blue, and there's only so much turmeric a man can consume to ward off the effects of poison and horrifying hallucinations. He's just panting against a wall, shaking his head. "Aiyaaaaah. Everythin' round here got deadly claws and poison and..uh...whatever just happened there?" He complains loudly. And then he pulls out the whiskey. Yes. You know what a great response to all of this is? Drunkenness. He's pretty sure.
Yuuki Kuran	"He didn't have any wares, I believe, Thomas. But the results are..." Yuuki gestures at the pile of sugar, as awful poisoned wounds slowly fade from the skin revealed from rents in her coat. "... Discouraging. I suppose I was too quick to hope. This sort of poison is one I understand a bit more deeply." She sighs. "Are you alright, Majima? That's..." It's Whiskey. "Well, we'll see you back, at least."
Starbound Flotilla	George fusses around with his Matter Manipulator. "Ugh. Fuck. Hate poison. Was that what that was? Christ. This is off-rails, I never got told about any of this shit. It's supposed to be meat and meat only around here, what're they doing with all this fucking sugar? Who brought this shit in here? Where are they getting it?" He seems genuinely baffled, a little concerned, and possibly a fair bit stressed out. "Whatever. We'll figure it out, I guess. Gimmie a second." He falls onto his knees and vomits profusely. Gets the poison out of the system, one assumes. "'Scuse me. Alright, so, sounds like the spookies are getting into the sugar stuff, from the sound of it. Hope Z's gonna be okay-- I mean, J. Guess Three will figure out the sugar business. Where did..." He draws a pistol, loads it. Draws a shotgun, loads that too. Fuels up a welder, too. Jams some power cells into his gauntlets, to electrify them. Just arms up a /lot/, and heads out.