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Lilian Rook     Though this particular something directly, finally, involves one of the numerous, yet apparently almost never-seen, mystical power blocs of the country, and though it constitutes the kind of affair you are only just recently welcomed to see, after a long string of dangerous and unsavoury favours was capped off with bodyguarding a private party from a terror attack (essentially, don't sweat the details), it's actually starting to look as if this might be the easy part.

    Sure, the invitation comes directly from people with power, instead of through layers of increasingly less ordinary middlemen, and sure, it involves actually leaving the Urban Centers behind completely, but outside of that, it comes off as little more than an exciting invitation. A 'you have won an all-expenses paid'. Perhaps more accurately, getting the RSVP to the foundation fundraiser for the people who spend the funds. It's something that assumes that the receiver needs no vetting, and that the spectacle is part of the program, meant to flex a little rather than astonish and entertain.

    Many of you had been told of the place known colloquially as the Hidden Continent. Some had spent a couple of evenings in mysterious locations throughout it, essentially bag-headed so as not to really know precisely where. Given months of hard work, without deviating from the script, you're finally shown the way (to at least a part) for a summons to those with a knightly heart (or just looking for those who do, for prime opportunities) through a private, purely magically powered Warpgate, only attached to the network for a period of fifteen minutes.

    The other end leads to a place of blue skies and dazzling sun, the light of which fails to blur into the streaky rainbow corona of an especially pure day, but breaks apart into several halos and spokes of surrounding solar glitter. The air is not only so clear as to be shocking for anyone used to urban living, but also thick with a certain invisible quality that makes it 'thicken' in the throat, tingling like cold water and static electricity. As usual, the more magically oriented one is, the more it disperses into the body as a pleasing, invigorating warmth. The less, the more it feels like breathing in a soupy winter fog, scraping at the innards. Either way doesn't matter too much, because it seems the itinerary doesn't linger here for long.

    You're outdoors, with dazzlingly green grass under your feet, ostensibly not mown or trimmed, but forming a perfect level anyways. A wide, clear circle is surrounded by what must be aspen trees, given ivory white branches and brilliant pink and violet flowers. Paths of interlocked white stone enter it from the treeline in precisely thirteen places, converging at a circular walkway around some sort of garden plaza of completely identifiable fruits and flowers, herbs and lichens, practically crawling over a contrastingly rough and primitive monument made of a single stone, tall as a storey of a house, split clean down the middle to present a flat face covered top to bottom in carved writing. Off in what could be concluded to be the due north direction, going by the sun, one can see the blued peaks of slate roofs and towers peeking over the treeline.
Lilian Rook     You're met at the very end of the fifteen minute period, by three noteworthy individuals and an entourage of brown-robed staff on the path behind them. The former group is comprised of two men and a woman. One of the male number, tall, muscular, with long brown hair and a short beard, is wearing a tabard over a sturdy, green drab huntsman's outfit, depicting a white dragon and red dragon interlocked together in a circle, and with a sword at his hip and a modern-ish outdoorsman's pack.

    The other is wearing a more voluminous and flowing, white version of the brown robes, tied about the waist with a rope seemingly made of braided gold, supporting numerous embroidered leather pouches, and walking with a staff of sycamore seemingly swirled around and curled into a crook naturally, still flowering at the top, though he couldn't be a day over thirty by look, given a rose blonde bedhead.

    The woman, between their heights and platinum blonde, is dressed in what could be described as something like a secretary's dress suit rendered in black gothic flax, lace and corsetry. She has the most modern object of the three, carrying an exceptionally bulky tablet computer of some sort, and a polymer messenger bag on a leather strap. She is the one who addresses you directly. "Welcome all. I'm glad to see so many amongst the select number still have an interest in virtue. Though it'd be a pleasure to show you around the grounds, the reason we're here is to prevent the need for extensive travel over land, where it won't be safe."

    "Please gather around the stone in a line, two wide and four deep, going by your numbers. Those at the fore, clasp hands and touch the surface simultaneously. We'll all be headed to the Satellite Colony of Caelton through this method. I'll answer any questions. You can address me as Skelli for now. These are Domhnull and Evald." She gestures to the tall and short men in order. "I won't ask you to stand on ceremony for now. After all, this is a mission of charity and humility."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: RSVP for the party

    Arthur arrives through another's magical warpgate instead of his own for once. He loves that magically-thick air and its refreshing feeling on his ASPECT BAR, which glitters gently in the energy. The Hidden Continent is one of Arthur's favorite places, with this effect.

    "WHAT UP, DAWG." Arthur responds. "Yeah, I love VIRTUE, I got HELLA VIRTUE. It's COOL, gotta keep ya GRIDS on the GULFS 'cause of SPREADING SHIT."

>Arthur: Reposition, handshake, activate MYSTERIOUS STONE

    Arthur's the first to step up there, because hands gotta be clasped and that's an opportunity to barrage the digits of whoever else gets up there to touch the stone with his signature COOLKID HANDSHAKES, a series of daps, pounds, bumps, low-fives, high-fives, twisty little wiggly finger motions, and other suchlike -- which ends in a proper clasp. He also wants to get as close as he can to cool space magic, which tends to be his particular interest.
Gawain Dressed in a formal suit, gloves on, Gawain is here. His sword isn't present, but there's an aura about him anyways, that of a knight. As the sun dazzles brightly on him, he feels invigorated, enough to fight an entire army (or one (1) Lancelot).

The suit's tie is gold with a floral print, and as the blonde steps forward, he half-bows, introducing himself, despite the trio no doubt knowing who he is. He doesn't list his titles, for they do not list theirs, and it'd come off as a braggart or superior to do so - neither of which Gawain is or feels he is.

"Gawain. It is a pleasure, Skelli, Dohmnull, Evald." Looking at each as he speaks, the blonde clasps his ahnds together. "Charity, Humility! Some of my favorite virtues. I ascribe myself to Hope, but of course, a knight heeds the full wisdom of virtue."

"What is our grave mission of Charity and Humility, then? What does Caelton require of foreigners such as ourselves?" As he speaks, Gawain gathers around the stone, clasping hands as he does so. After all, why not walk and talk? Or teleport and talk, at least.
Rhongomyniad     Amidst those gathered by invitation is a middle-height blonde woman in a blue suit, a mantle lined with white fur draped across her shoulders. Her hair done in a tight braided bun, save one unruly sprig which projects itself over the golden spines of an unorthodox crown. Even when dressed in relatively ordinary modern fineries, the goddess Rhongomyniad stands out by the inhuman glow of her luminous green eyes.

    Eyes which cast their gaze across the perfect hills and pale trees. Eyes which take in the intricate interlocking of the stone path, and the split cairn stone it leads to. Eyes which now rest upon the young woman and her escorts approaching. The King of Knights ceases her own motion, her mantle swishing forward briefly and then closing itself around her suit-clad figure.

    "I am Rhongomyniad," she responds when the woman introduces herself and her entourage, "The Tower that Shines at the End of the World. My thanks for your invitation, Lady Skelli." Her expression is, as ever, neutral. However there is a distinct sense that she is evaluating these three representatives, gaze lingering on each in turn, "Lord Evald. Lord Domhnull." When those luminous eyes fixate on the secretarial woman once more, she states, "You are correct. It is my wish to behold your virtues and your chivalry."

    She passes the trio then, to the way-stone itself. Hands emerge from her closed mantle, pressed together already. Fingers spread, then interlace, and Rhongomyniad's head dips in ritual reverence. For only that moment, her eyes have closed.
Tails Okay! First big official multiversal outing! Who's excited? Who's hyped?! Who's ready?!!

The answer to all three questions is one Miles 'Tails' Prower - having newly completed his Paladins initiation, with a shiny new ID badge and radio code and whatever codes of conduct and handbooks and other documentation they hand out. Tails has read it all over, twice, then gone over it with a highlighter and added some colored tabs for important sections and then filed everything neatly into three ring binders that then get stacked neatly in a filing cabinet - everything properly labeled from a label maker, including the filing cabinet.

He's not *quite* sure what's going on here - he's still catching up with reports, and he's probably been pulled along as someone's +1 rather than specifically invited for any nonexistent past deeds he's done outside of his own homeworld - but he's going to know what's going on! He's going to catch up! He's taking notes!"

Literally, he's taking notes. "Thirteen... paths," he says to himself as he draws a brief diagram in his notebook. This might be a clue to a Puzzle later.

And then he's made aware that someone's addressing the group. "Oh - right, the ritual!"

(He does take a second to write down the instructions quickly before shoving his notebook back into a belt pouch.)

"Clasp hands, touch the surface..." He does as ordered, curious as to what's about to happen.
Tamamo     Tamamo no Mae is present with Lilian, though she's changed out her outfit for the season. As much as the Sun, and the magically-invigorating air, do empower her, the domain of Summer is one for Summer's fashions. Thus does she appear in such clothing as (still excessively tall) sandals, skirts, and an enormously wide-brimmed and beribboned hat, with her ears pushed through the top. The sashed top is more of a faux-formal affair, too thin and comfortable-looking to qualify, even if it has all the same visible features as a full jacket. It's anyone's guess whether she dressed down for any deeper purpose, in relation to those she's meeting, the place to which they're traveling, or some recent event. She does, in any case, look perfectly, even serenely comfortable.

    "Though I repeat things already known," as does everyone else, almost certainly, "I am Tamamo no Mae. Whatever the particular nature of your mission, I would be appreciative of seeing more of such success in the satellite colonies. These are frequently met with very little, no?" The archaic Japanese proves largely unaffected by modern, Western fashions.
Tony Stark Tony doesn't tend to 'just show up' places like this, especially for knightly orders and missions of honor and mercy -- but he was invited. So, he arrived. He's dressed a bit down for his normal, with a cream white pair of slacks, brown socks and black leather shoes. A black belt with brass clasp is partially occluded by the tails and points of a matching cream vest, under which he adds a forest green shirt.

And a pair of rather large-framed plastic glasses.

Greeted at the meeting circle, Tony seems comfortable taking the back of the group around the altar, chuckling to himself as he pulls up alongside Lilian. "There's a magic alien and the last righteous man in America on my team, and I'm the one that gets to go to magic chivalry land. They're never going to live it down." He observes.

"It seems like the whole gang's here though." He glances ove the rest of group, pausing on Tails. "New guy, right? Relax, kid. Everyone here's a professional..."

He thumbs at Arthur. "Except Space Cool over here. Don't listen to him or you'll get funny ideas."
Lilian Rook     Touching the mystery stone as instructed answers many implicit questions at once. Where your fingers brush the ancient writings, the lettering glows beneath your fingertips, and then the phrase 'whisked away' just feels perfectly right. There's no dramatic, flashy show of high-powered teleportation magic, but a smoky blur of colour around you and then an abrupt, stock still pop and drop onto the ground somewhere far away, like an extreme time lapse of being picked up, carried, and set back down again.

    It takes zero seconds to tell you're on Earth properly now. Though you're obviously out in the country, due to the still very crisp summer air, it's pretty hot, because the sun looks perfectly normal, and humid enough due to the dark grey clouds tickling the western horizon. You can smell loam, pollen, still water, sun-baked concrete, and a whiff of smoke and sweat. You can hear the sounds of activity all around you, from the chatter of human beings to footsteps and wheels on stone to opening and closing doors and windows all the way to spraying water and some industrious clattering and banging.

    For a 'colony', what surrounds you is nothing like a rolling little hamlet in the countryside. You're stood by a similar looking monument, obviously new enough to have been dug up and carved in the last few decades, at an ornamental plaza surrounded by actual British roundabout. That, then is surrounded by buildings, none lower than three storeys tall, and looking as if they'd come out of a magazine or pop-sci book published in the nineties about the energy efficient and ecological homes soon to come of the far flung 21st century, massively comprised of sloped windows at various levels of tint and vinyl facades covering up a severe lack of plastic, drywall, wood and fiberglass.

    You're free to step right off the roundabout because there are no cars. At all. There are, in fact, no garages, aiding the impressive efficiency of space. You see plenty of people on bikes, and it seems the bicycle has barely changed at all in this many years, made on economic aluminium frames 'to get places'. This is probably because, according to a town map board that some people erected more out of free time and a bit of vanity, it looks like you could walk the entire length of the place, from one end to the other, in a little over an hour. Despite being built up fifteen meters high, it's very small.

    Still, even though nobody has more of a yard than strips of garden between the homefront and sidewalk (which is, as it seems, all cut granite, merely imitating the suburbs of old, with the road layered in thin slabs of black), and the difference in clotheslines strung across tiny balconies indicates a different family must live on each floor, the grass is green, the streets are clean, and people dressed in familiar-looking summer clothes seem reasonably -- no, actually somewhat unusually pleased. The sense of country charm somehow oozes its way between the small imitations of grotesquely wasteful suburban buildings.

    Upon arrival after you, Skelli finds time to bow properly to the lords and ladies amongst the group. She starts answering questions in order, starting to walk while she does, hefting up that tablet and smashing away with her fingertips. "You are correct. Caelton is unique in Great Britain, having stood for five and a half years now. It has a population of fifteen thousand, and is largely self-sufficient. It's one of the very, very few with an approved export chain; under normal circumstances, nothing from a Satellite Colony is permitted to cross a habitation border under any circumstances. The occupied area is roughly fifteen square kilometers. The purified area surrounding it adds another fifteen, for a total of thirty square kilometers, though this is considered the minimum buffer of unsettled area."
Lilian Rook     Once people are fully away from the roundabout, the brown robes start coming through, bringing with them, individually with large framed packs, or in pairs pulling and pushing square-bottom dollies, considerable quantities of . . . some goods or another. Enough that, were it to cross country, one would like several moving trucks for it all. Divided up like this, it takes probably fifty people to lug it all around.

    "Clan Pendragon Reclamation, amongst several of our initiatives, brings certain imports on a monthly basis, as Caelton's main sponsor. It's our desire to see a settlement like this flourish, as proof that they might do so with careful nurturing and support, rather than vanish after a few years of being cut off. Our order is paid nothing in return; the principle of the thing is our full intent here. A hope that it becomes a model of the future."

    "Our duties here are threefold. One is seeing to the regular defense of the colony, in the maintenance and modification of its standing protections. Dohmnull is in charge of this task today. Another is the expansion of the wards and purified territory on a scheduled basis, contributing to the colony's speed of growth by increasing its habitable area and mandatory magical protections. Evald is our qualified sorcerer practitioner today. The third is the seeing-to of the mines the colony is practically built on top of, which is responsible for its contact with the outside world, through miscellaneous patrons that contribute to our project financially. I will be seeing to the monthly assessment and negotiations." She doesn't specify what that part means.

    "You're all free to see to these arrangements as you see fit. Or simply walk about town, if you so choose. Enjoying a free, self-made life outside of the walls is what draws so many people here, after all. We'd like it very much if you were to gather a cohesive picture of how we of the table do things here."
Tamamo     Tamamo is whisked away, to be brought under a more natural, less magical Sun. This has relatively little effect on her, though the air is rather more humid here, and less pleasantly laced with magic so thick you can taste it. This is, obviously, less preferable, but perhaps that's why she's not wearing long robes.

    "This does sound promising, and I am certain this must be asked often, but what differs this colony from those that came before it?" She looks about with clear interest, from the tiny gardens to the tops of the tall circle of buildings. Relative to rather more historical colonies, at least, one must call these buildings 'tall,' if for obvious reasons. "Or is it is that one cannot yet know what truly distinguishes these beyond the vagaries of luck?"

    Looking over the group of visitors, Tamamo repositions to enable a looping of arms with Lilian. Her thus captured escort is apparently excluded when she says, "I would not speak to the priorities of others. Pursuing each individual interest may be the most productive path, here. For myself," she looks to Evald, "I would be most interested to see these wards, and hear the particulars of those dangers against which the colony has been warded." Smiling to her side, "Shall we?"
Rhongomyniad     "Defense, Expansion, and Trade," Rhongomyniad summarizes in turn, a hand lifting to rest a fingertip against her chin, "All matters of importance to a township such as this, upon the dangerous frontier." Those gem-like eyes close, a thoughtful noise escaping, "Mmm... If you wish to bear the heritage of knighthood, I shall see it with mine own eyes."

    Opening them once more, she passes her gaze from Evald to Skelli, before resting her gaze upon Dohmnull, "You. I shall accompany your endeavors. A Knight holds duty to defend the helpless, and I shall witness your efforts." The tone in her voice is positive, though her expression remains as-ever unreadably neutral, "I wish to witness how a Knight carries out his duties in the service of Pendragon."

    Her gaze shifts once more, "If your interests lie elsewhere within Caelton, Sir Gawain, it is my wish that you pursue them. But should our paths be the same, I shall not object to your counsel."
Tails "Oh - Mr. Stark, yes, I'm new," says Tails brightly. "I mean I'm new to the Paladins, I've been adventuring for the last... fifteen years? Give or take?"

(He doesn't look a day over 18. At least as far as anthropomorphic fox people go.)

Immediately after teleporting in, Tails gets vertigo, looking up. "Whoa."

Meanwhile, he probably doesn't get bowed to, being approximately as common as dirt.

He's looking around so much that he almost doesn't catch the numbers. "Ah- um..."

He gets his notebook back out and starts scribbling some figures down. "Fifteen thousand... over fifteen square kilometers, that's..."

"... Oh, right, that's population density of one thousand per square kilometer, duh, Tails. Hah."

He jots down a few other notes. "Ah... question, ma'am, I see there's a lot of bikes around - not a lot of cars or horses or anything else-" He glances over at the brown-robed porters, "-I mean, besides foot traffic..."

"... Is there a bike shop in town?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Express indignation to the Bezosoid immediately

    "Yo, what? NAH, NAH." Arthur says. "You should totally--"

>Arthur: Accelerate

    It's a flash of rapid motion and they're done. "--LISTEN TO EVERYTHING I-- /Jegus/, did we actually accelerate through REAL-ASS PHYSICAL SPACE? That shit was like BRUTE-FORCE TELEPORT." He shakes his head. What a /strange/ approach.

>==>

    He listens for a time, wandering off the roundabout and keeping his ears on this. It takes him a while to properly understand it. "SOCIOLOGICAL PATRONAGE." He says. "Same DYNAMIC. Kinda like it!" Kinda. Arthur can tell there's a bit of competition here. If one order demonstrates that this can be done, they win the game nobody else realized they were playing by being the one to do it best.

    The decision is one that presents itself cleanly. In fact, there's even a little menu that pops up while he thinks, and the cursor comes to rest on...

-----------------
| [ ] DOHMNULL    |
| [>] EVALD       |
| [ ] SKELLI      |
-----------------

    "We talkin' SPACE and MAGIC?" Arthur says, immediately hopping side-saddle on a fast-summoned broom. "Lemme at THAT GOOD SHIT, homie, I'll get ya your SPACE and some MAGIC done HELLA FAST." He's ready to take off and go do some space-expansion and some magic! It just lines up with who he is, really, so he might as well.
Gawain The group teleports! It's briefly disorienting, but with a smile on his face, Gawain seems the same as usual, as he takes in the sun and the countryside, and then replies to the explanation.

"I see, I see! Five, going on six years, that many people, and doing well for yourselves. I'd love to see it for myself!" Gawain says, and then basically gets permission, after a bit, to go wherever he wants. As the others start pairing up with one of the trio, Gawain...

Well, he waves a hand to Rhongomyniad, nodding. "Of course, my king. However, I will in fact be going off on my own. I want to see the people of Caelton. I want to see the lives they live and the deeds they have taken upon themselves." And then, Gawain turns to Skelli.

"What currency do you use here? Will my credits be enough? I would like to patronize the shops, buy some local delicacies or the like."

And if Gawain is either told his money is fine, or given the money to do so, he literally just nods to the group and screws off to walk into town.
Tony Stark "Fifteen years, huh?" Tony accepts the correction easily. "Sorry, then. That probably makes you my senior then, in this business." He chuckles, arms out as he shrugs. "Shows me what I know."

It's still a lot! But he's been shown.

Teleporting still causes a rise out of Stark, a light jump as his inner ear re-asserts itself and the momentary vertigo of coming just awake enough in a dream about falling to attempt to break a tumble that doesn't exist. Smoothing out his front, he passes it off as nothing and moves on.

"So, inspect your mines, check your walls, talk magic shop, or get a coffee." Stark summarizes, tapping thumb into the side of his leg. "Anything interesting in the mines, or are they mines?" He's seen mines before.

When Gawain suggests going shopping, Tony breaks out into a little smile. "Now there's an idea. See what passes for a coffee around here. There must be something in the water, everyone's so..."

A pan across the square and the Unusually Bright people. He doesn't complete the thought.
Lilian Rook     "Less often than one might expect." Skelli says to Tamamo. "We believe that the reason for its success is obvious, though not many people care to examine it. Instead of isolating a Satellite Colony completely, to cut off potential infectious influence to the greater whole, we believe that even a small amount of support from a parent organization who is equipped to deal with extra-normal dangers is enough to exponentially increase the success rate of re-colonization."

    Lilian, taking up her position next to Tamamo, adds "What distinguishes it, if you ask me., is its size and longevity. "You tend not to see these exist more than two or three years, and never get to these sizes. Three or four thousand, maybe, but not this. Oftentimes it's only a few hundred. Gathering together enough people willing to risk it out in the unknown is far from easy." Given Tamamo's spoken desire to follow and observe Evald, the magician waves the two of them down with a vague smile, and begins heading down the street to the south, all the way to the edge of town.

    While leaving, he replies to Arthur. "It's a rush, isn't it? The really ancient magics are like that. You can never quite tell how they work. Not completely. There's that element of mystery to them. That stonehenge 'why did they do it this way?'."

    The question of bike shops seems to catch Skelli by surprise, a little bit. It seems like something she'd considered possibly the least interesting and most irrelevant detail here. "I imagine so. This colony is built on top of a metalworking industry. That is, not 'industrial' in the sense of automation; everything here is assembled 'by hand' as it were. I can't imagine a bicycle to be beyond the capabilities of the machinery imported by patrons." She answers Gawain's question more easily. "An internal scrip system. There's no use in counting social credit here. Your own credits should be fine. They'll trade them with a patron for whatever it is they'd like, I'm sure."

    She answers Tony easily as well. "You could certainly say that. The mine here was developed by Leopold & Hektor Metalcasting, due to their interest in the location. Specifically, it's built close to a site that our order has maintained as a historical and nominally allied territory throughout the last forty five years, due to its closeness to Tir na nOg. The expansion of Earth's original landscape has occurred with the blessing of those allies."
Lilian Rook     "By this means, those locals who feel capable are able to acquire valuable materials that do not naturally occur together, and experts and technicians within the colonies can assemble them into desirable materials, which the company has arranged a sanctioned import channel for. It enables the colony to import luxuries and specialist equipment not normally available to, essentially, an arcology."

    "Though the company has no formal ties to the Clan order, we've approved the arrangement for the additional prosperity it brings the colony, and the opportunities for gainful employment and use of time by the colonists. I will be examining them in person, and checking up with the spiritual representative, if you so care to see for yourself."

    Dohmnull only really nods to Rhongomyniad, wanting to measure the defenses for herself. "This way then, please." he says, gesturing towards the eastern end of town instead, and leaving as Evald does. However, when he leaves, a number of the brown-robed extra help follow him, lugging considerable amounts of material. Probably a third of the total number of packages and crates.

    Likewise, when Gawain goes into the city, the remaining two thirds of the help fans out with him, though most begin to split down streets and intersections -- perfectly planned in radiating spokes and circles -- as they go, the traffic bleeding off over distance. A large portion of what he passes straight away is residential, mostly comprised of compactly built, essentially identical buildings, that have all been prettied up as desired by the occupants, in probably pretty strict violation of any hypothetical homeowner's association that tend to infest real suburbs like actual garbage.
Tamamo     "Was the colony nearly this large at its beginning? I would imagine that far more would be willing to take such a risk after some proven success." Tamamo walks after Evald, arm-in-arm with Lilian, touching the brim of her hat to take a look about as they go. "The people here do seem healthy, but perhaps it is the sight of newly granted charity that warms them, today. To be entirely cut off from a prior life is a far harsher burden."
Rhongomyniad     Rhongomyniad turns slightly, beholding the large array of assistance that assembles to follow Dohmnull. After a brief assessment, she nods once and turns back to follow him as well. Her pace quickens until she walks beside the taller man, and there she matches his step, her mantle flowing past her shoulders.

    "What manner of beast menaces Caelton? It is my understanding your world is plagued by a great number and variety of phantasmal threats." He has clearly come prepared, after all, and so the King of Knights shall use it as an opportunity to increase her own knowledge.
Tails "Assembled by hand..."

Tails gets his notebook back out and makes a few notes. "It's just... outside of fiction there haven't really been too many instances of the bicycle becoming the predominant mode of travel - typically horses remain in style till the adoption of automobiles, and especially if you have automotive manufacturers who push the- ahem."

Tails realizes he's nerding out and cuts off. "I haven't seen or heard of a city doing majority-bikes, is all."

He gets another look at one as it goes by. "These seem... pretty standard? Assembled by hand, yeah. I'd add some variable gearboxes and handlebar brakes, probably... and swap out the tires, especially if you want to ride trails in the Purified Zone you have."

As the groups split up, Tails trails along behind the one going into town, looking around some more.
Gawain As Gawain is confirmed his money is still good, he turns to Tony and nods. "Well! Come with me, if you'd like. Coffee should be fine. It'd be my treat." Yes, Gawain is aware that Tony Stark is ludicrously rich. He's also just trying to be friendly.

As he walks into the city, Gawain first watches the splitting couriers, and then looks at the various colorful houses in the residential district, before moving onwards towards what should hopefully be a commercial district of some sort. His money's in his pocket. He's not loaded by any means, but he has enough cash for one-to-two coffees and maybe some souvenirs.
Tony Stark "You'll buy the coffee? Well, I suppose, fair is fair. I bailed you out at the party, you..."

Tony smirks. "Buy the drinks."

He's pretty sure Gawain is some sort of super goodboy knight super goodboy, and thus is totally dry. It's a fifty fifty between Gawain killing entire kegs like the other blond-haired enormous football star prom king Tony knows and otherwise.

Before he leaves, though, he observes to Skelli: "It seems to me that an interest in a tangible good - a material relationship - combined with earnest outreach - has created a model for success. Exactly as you say, in fact."

"So once you have the modle, I'm sure there'll be a step two in whatever process you're entertaining."

He saunters off after Gawain, smirking again at how intelligent he is. Feeling smart and superior is just as good as a beer in most circumstances.
Lilian Rook     On Evald's end, the journey takes you out of the radiating circles of residential planning, to what could be termed workplaces. There seems to be no need of large buildings for many people to cram themselves in, and commensurately there is very little traffic, easily navigated on foot. There are a surprising number of people outdoors, at midday, on a weekday. It very much gives the impression of a lack of universal schedule. People come in and go out mostly as they please, though the broader, more spartan construction is visibly fairly occupied as you go, curved panoramas and rounded walls and ceiling corners revealing open plan interiors and occasional courtyards.

    This end appears to be related to that self-sufficiency thing. Most of these buildings appear to be geared towards food production. That is, hydroponics. Ultra efficient cultivation of plants indoors, on complicated arrays of racks, trays, suspensions, and trenches, hooked up to spiderwebs of irrigation tubes and monitors, and sunlit by glass roofing which appears to be partly polarized, likely by electrical current. Of course there wouldn't be land to spare for great big farms, fallowing fields, pesticides and tractors. Other buildings appear to be stuffed with triple the number of computers and sealed sections, marked laboratories of some purpose, where smaller numbers of professionally, scientifically trained colonists have set up shop, out of some personal interest or another.

    Beyond that, roads taper out to storage buildings, larger, somewhat fancier housing that's been set up 'close to work', a tall weather monitoring tower with what appears to be a simple radio building next to it, and then out into the green, where the path becomes mere fine gravel, almost blinding white at noon, surrounded by tall wild grasses, small and deep ponds, groves of newly grown, still-skinny trees and bushes, and the sound of a creek somewhere in the distance.

    This lovely little journey only continues for about half an hour, as the British countryside only stretches for just about two kilometers in total. Though there are plenty of pond flowers (and algae) to be found in the unmoving waters, there is a distinct lack of anything more than a few bugs to be found there. Same with the grasses. Though they flower, there is a severe dearth of bees or butterflies, or even ants on the path. The view is even what one might call deceptive, slowly going slightly uphill, with the colony at the bottom of a shallow geographical bowl, until one can see beyond its edges.

    The fertile earth disappears in a gradual fashion, plants becoming scarcer and more stunted, the dirt becoming exposed, and then little more than packed brown sand. The creek that flows close to the path slowly turning wide and shallow and muddy. It continues for a half-kilometer, until it becomes thoroughly cracked and barren no-man's land, and then beyond that, the ground is colonized very differently.

    The thing closest to grass spreads across the ground as a carpet of semi-matte blackness, faintly swaying blades of something or other branching fractally out of each root. Flowering grass stalks become bundles of translucent fibres with faintly glowing tips that stand at man height. Bright, jarringly red blossoms appear further in, opening and closing at a regular, heartbeat-like pace. Perfectly smooth columns of fleshy black matter covered in patterns of bone white shell replace trees, the gaps creating black twisting patterns across them, which branch into roughly cross-shaped canopies of indistinct red glow, as if on fire. The creek deepens and flows several times faster now, becoming a deep amber colour. Black shapes glide through its depths.
Lilian Rook     Evald keeps up a lazy, cheery sort of atmosphere even arriving there. "Is that what you take away?" he asks Tamamo, with no particular tone. "Of course, you're right. There are far fewer demands for medical support here. But I'd like to think that it has to do with the fresh air, a more laid back atmosphere, without the demands of city life, less crowding into areas where disease might spread, less pollution, and plenty of time to see to it if you're worried about your health at all. Doesn't that sound nice?" Even Lilian thinks it over for a few seconds, and says "Yes. I think. Especially compared to what I've seen elsewhere. Those old metropolises are absolutely trash once you go, even if you think of them as romantic."

    When they get to the border fully, Evald says speaks aloud for the benefit of the curious, since that seems to be half the purpose here. "In the style we do it, three steps are necessary. One is the cursing and sickening of the alien land. Typically this takes about three months to kill everything within the area. The next is the purification and lifting of the curses from three months ago. The last is the blessing of the soil and the planting of earthly life to cement and hold it in place."

    "After that, the newly fixed area must be surrounded with the appropriate wards and protections. He begins pointing out small stone markers as he goes, built not dissimilar to roadside shrines, with still-smoking incense holders and gilded braziers, as well as arrangements of still-fresh herbs and flowers. "We prefer the very old kinds. With some instruction, the colonists can maintain them on their own. We'll be moving those and re-consecrating them. I've also brought the necessities for a few more."

    "The trick is that you can't simply expand the line in whatever blobby shape you like. You have to maintain a certain geometry between them. We'll be doing a full tour around the entire perimeter. Of course, that means as you go, the circumference becomes geometrically wider, and you need to use more power and introduce more material, shortening the gain each time. It's best to expand only in keeping with the number of colonists, since additional manpower is needed to maintain them."

    Lilian chips in with "Still, you don't have to add or move the walls. It's a lot easier than an Urban Center in that way. Expanding the infrastructure is easy when the place was planned for that purpose from the start, and the structure of it is so homogenous. There aren't even proper circles here, right?" Evald answers in the affirmative. "Correct. Since any Satellite Colony is self-governed, it's up to them how they want to organize themselves, and most people leave for one in order to escape the arrangement of city Circles. Those who aren't engaged with Leopold & Hektor tend to set their own schedules and make their own arrangements, so long as they meet the necessary quotes to keep things running." He ponders just a moment. "I think this place started from three thousand people? We've moved about that many through each year after. That's about a normal number for a Satellite Colony, though the average is growing . . ." Lilian finishes "Two percent per year." She read that somewhere.
Lilian Rook     Following Dohmnull leads to similar scenery out of town. However, going west goes past rows of buildings with rows of thin steam stacks, and strangely tall, cross-latticed wind generators, made of some glossy material the flexes slightly in the stiffer breezes above. There are fairly obvious transformer stations, fenced off only nominally, probably just to keep kids out, sending their cables into the ground. There is the occasional whiff of asphalt, concrete, bleach, and other industrial bits and pieces, and a pass of a warehouse yard with stacks of wood and billets of steel and stone piled up next to drums of something or other and bags of what is likely fertilizer and ice salt.

    The terrain is drier and rockier, passing by boulders scattered about like broken marbles, only recently re-colonized by green and orange mosses. You have to leg it up a few steep rises and negotiate some loose and sandy paths, but the trees here look the oldest and thickest, at the highest ground. The attention to planting and fertilizing here is somewhat lesser, and you occasionally find odd-looking furrows and holes in the ground, as well as places where some hillside has cracked off completely and exposed a steep wall of striated soul bands. You eventually pass some of the same boundary stones, but you go further past those.

    Eventually, Dohmnull bids you look to the fore for specific details he points out. A small tower, perhaps ten meters high, predominantly made of rebar, with a cluster of black glass sensors at the top, budding like grapes, with antennae sprouting like stalks, with a small, mobile dish apiece. Small, square-shaped bar supports are planted in the ground here and there, marked with cameras and lasers. He even points out, and brushes aside, parts of path where a pressure-sensitive film has been covered over, and indicates where they've been left for months and allowed grasses to grow over them.

    Beyond the monitoring equipment, there are several radio poles where thick lines of weatherproof metal crates and long plastic cases have been piled up, surrounded by their own tiny circle of miniature boundary stones, maybe only thirty meters in diameter, and un-supplied for the time being. Given that they have what amounts to military tents already half-set up in them, these are probably places for militia to camp out, or people to duck into in an emergency, lighting the markers themselves.

    Finally, beyond that, there is some rather heavy duty equipment that the colony probably brought here with them at first, from some Urban Center's budget when they cashed in their credit. Huge, beefy, military-industrial gun turrets are pintle mounted to swivel platforms high enough to need their own steps, fully equipped with their own mantlets and retrofitted targeting equipment once they secured company cash. They're about the size of what one would find on a tank, with about that much space to sit for those that work with manual operators.
Lilian Rook     "That's a high-powered cannon with a coaxial gun every five hundred meters, given the range they can cover." the presumable knight, or at least squire, says, heaving off his backpack. "Automatic machine gun sentries are placed ahead in wedges of three, and chevrons of ten between." He gestures his thumb backwards. "The parts for real guidance systems are outside of what this colony can produce by far; not exactly flush with microchip producers. So it's old-fashioned mortars in the grass, for the most part. It's all linked to the early warning system. Simple radio receivers and acid-coppered circuits. And past that . . ."

    He points forward. "Landmines. If the warning system indicates an actual breach of the perimeter, trained militia can bike up the path in five minutes going hard, and hold the line. That's only happened once so far, though. This is a very carefully chosen site. So far, there hasn't been a single recorded instance of a level Giant or higher Antegent coming more than a kilometer close. The smaller, stupider level Beast types are the ones that tend to approach, sometimes level Spirit, and the majority of those can be killed with enough firepower. The uncommon kinds that can't are dealt with via the stockpile of alchemical products we've left the formulae for within the metallurgy and laboratory buildings."

    Doing his huntsman garb well, he brings you to a ditch that has partially filled with spent casings, matte black and slender, ostensibly from a cluster of those automatic guns, spaced a stone's throw apart. Opening up that pack, he brings out a metal drum filled with replacement ammo, and a toolkit and electric diagnostic hook-up just to check them for any damage, fiddling with a touch pad under a back panel and wiping dust off the lenses.

    After playing a bit of saved footage, he says "Well, if you want to know . . ." and keeps walking without finishing the sentence, until arriving at bare, cracked ground covered with oily, purpleish fluid, leading further ahead in several thick trails. There are, surprisingly, no bullet holes in the ground. He paces around, tracing out many sharp, deep grooves in the ground, like an old cutting board scored with knives over many years of use. "Looks like four of them. Feel like a trophy?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Curse, motherfucker

    "Oh, we gotta CURSE AND SICKEN?" Arthur says, putting up a finger. "I got THE BEST KIND OF CURSES, I used to play on XBOX LIVE." Do you really, Arthur Lowell? Do you really? Surprisingly: Kind of! "I can get this shit MAGIC-IRRADIATED AS FUCK on the REAL PRECISION, then I know COOL SHIT about DE-IONIZING that stuff. Probably get shit KILLED OFF in, I dunno, SHORT-ASS TIME. Might set off all the SMOKE ALARMS in the TOWN though. RADIATION'S basically CURSE, for real. Plus I can keep it all LINED UP on the GEOMETRIES. We gonna GET THAT DONE?" He sounds like he most definitely wants to show off about things like this.

    "Gotta admit I don't know how to WARD SHIT against anything but TELEPORTATION, 'cuz I'm an IDIOT, but I can stick some'a THAT up TOO, just in case." He idly waves the hand about the warding. Not as /fun/. He regards the pulsing corruption and his big goofy obnoxious grin falters briefly as one of those crimson blossoms pulses its open state. He regards the creek as well. Something in his brain makes him averse to mysterious supernatural creeks and rivers containing malicious entities, but he can't put his finger on it. Anyway, he's got his offer for what to do on this angle!
Lilian Rook     Venturing further into town is surprisingly pleasant. The eastern end, and some of the north, seems to be dedicated to communal stores, family-owned workshops, and enjoyable amenities afforded to towns over a certain size, such as bars, parlours, cafes, and restaurants. It'd be difficult to call it 'commercial'; there are no hotels, inns, supermarkets, specialist stores, or anything like that, which would be for visitors or small segments of a much larger population, but even without a pressing need to, many people have found time in their lives to deal in some trade or another. Skilled cooks find purpose in their work just as much as handy repairmen, making for those sleepy little country shops that end up being run generationally.

    Though 'self-sufficient' is still the name of the game, the accumulated knowledge of modernity is still something these people hold between them. Nothing that would require extremely complicated and difficult to maintain facilities is made here -- such as aforementioned microchips -- but someone has had the foresight, no doubt, to compile all the necessary blueprints and manuals on assembling things like power drills and electric stoves, as well as how to put together the pieces they need, and how to process the raw materials that go into them. Even the water pumps look to have been treated with care.

    Where the brown robes go, there is no particular sight of poverty or economic affliction. Charity, in this case, doesn't seem to mean giving to the poor; the level of communal solidarity in a place this small and so motivated by a niche ideology is such that people who desperately need something just seem to get it. What they do is knock on household doors.

    Carefully observing them reveals the pattern in which they do so. Homes with weather damage. Homes with sick people. Homes that play host to domestic disputes with neighbours. Homes where someone has died. Homes where someone is pregnant. The supplies are used for mending things that are difficult to fix, deliver more advanced medicines than available here, provide blessings and services, and in three instances, provide amenities for proper funerals.

    What stands out is the stockpile of gunmetal pressed crates which are brought all the way up to a tall, three storey complex on the north end, trying to look old-fashioned, with pillars out the front and peaked roofing. Some lightly armed men in black clothes (albeit, not suits) come outside to accept the transfer, taking it indoors, while what must be a pair of accountants, or other transport, stockpile, and finance trained specialists, sign off on them.

    Other than that, a bicycle shop isn't hard to find. 'Made by hand' isn't strictly literal, as there are plenty of tools involved, but pedal hammering aluminium sheets into tubing, welding them together pouring mould rubber, forging chains, and punching screw holes is something that could pleasantly occupy a household's work day for a week at a time. Of course, there's no cool paint job or brand logo.

    Other things the colonists like to buy from the small percentage of their number who are trained in, and passionate about, some craft or another, are carved and chiseled ornaments, surprisingly comfy furnishings, fine clothes of textiles grown, harvested, and woven on the premises, brewed spirits, homemade candies, glassworks, jewelry made of incidental finds from the mines, home tools, outdoors wear like sturdy backpacks, water bottles, ziplines, flare guns, and actual guns, because one can literally hammer together an AK over a forge.
Lilian Rook     One shop is dedicated to the alchemical bits and bobs that are safe for people to use, as well as various barely-useful and purely ornamental magic-looking curious. Another couple are dedicated to finds in the terraformed zones, outside the town perimeter, from the adventurous sorts. There is a distinct lack of butchers, furriers, or anything to do with animals. There is, however, actually an electronics store, that uses the vintage method of printing and hand-soldering circuits for people to use imported media on, as well as a couple of print book stores.

    The people in all of them are surprisingly friendly. Relaxed. Knowledgeable about their work and happy to share it. These are people who don't have lofty ambitions about personal exceptionalism, replaced instead with a spirit of shared adventure. They don't have strong political opinions. They don't care much for global events. They know the names of a hundred or more neighbours each, though they still have plenty of tea to share on specific people and the odd bad relation and person they want to shittalk, because humans are humans.

    They work perhaps an average of four hour days, depending on how much they want for Nice Things. The only oddity is the very low number of men between twenty and forty. There are a lot of women of all stripes running things, and then secondly older gentlemen with young assistants and apprentices, with mostly scholarly and highly educated types remaining.

    This especially goes for stopping off for drinks and food. It's a rare occasion to sample what amounts to 'professionally home-cooked' flavour, that's never touched a heat lamp or a meaningful amount of grease, prepared on the spot and out of fresh ingredients on the day. The alcohol is strong and the coffee is robust. The staff are pleasant because they're the same people who own the place, though that doesn't mean they aren't surprisingly busy, with a lot of people talking about the usual you'd find at any establishment.

    As visitors, of course, you're very popular right away. People want to talk to you about all kinds of things, and mostly ask for interesting stories and facts about yourselves. Your credits spend *very* well here, upwards of five times what you'd get for them in a heavily urban place. You're treated with the general respect and quasi-reverence of a guest at a traditional, family-owned inn.
Rhongomyniad     Firearms. Rhongomyniad is familiar with them, although only from a distance. The glowing-eyed King of Knights merely listens as the defense line is shown to her. As the emplacements and traps and sensors are shown, she merely nods silently, or makes that thoughtful noise of hers. Quiet acceptance of the information she is given, for she has determined there is no need to doubt his word.

    When Dohmnull sets about re-arming one of the emplacements, the goddess stands over the spent ammunition casings in their little ditch, appraising the residue of battle long-since concluded.

    Rhongomyniad is at last pulled out of her accepting silence when addressed directly. Once more she follows the taller knight, hands at her sides, obscured by the mantle wrapped about her shoulders. It swishes about her figure as she stops short of the boundary drawn around the enemies slain by the defense system, and only parts when a hand lifts to cradle her chin in thought.

    "A souvenier would be uncouth," Her eyes follow the furrowed tracks he indicates. Those luminous eyes narrow slightly, "I shall however lend you my strength. It shall be advantageous to fell such stragglers quickly, lest they endanger the men in your company."
Tamamo     Tamamo nods along, and leans in (above-the-elbow only) to look at the incense burner. "Yes, I see. But the, hm... the area you gain is increased compared to the length of the circle, so it is the bother of drawing the newer, increasingly large circle you mention as troublesome, yes?"

    The magic here is unlike her own, but there will always be some similarity. The methods are not so different, and the goals are the same, even if the fuel and the school change. She can examine the present efforts well without getting her hands muddy, or by doing much more than, visibly, having those golden eyes glow. This information will be useful, later.

    She asks, "The monsters kept abay are new, yes? Do older methods still suffice for these, in shields and poisons designed for other foes?" Though Arthur makes his offer, and she could reasonably be expected to help likewise, from another angle, she witholds. Head and hat tilting, "Is it these methods that require it be a single circle?"
Tails Tails takes notes, trying to get a grasp of the city, like it's something to be studied and pored over like a car on a garage lift.

... But then relatively quickly the notes are forgotten.

"... So Eggman flies away - again, that hadn't changed at all, and Knuckles comes out on the clifftop and he's all 'Hey trespassers on my island I'm gonna push this button here' and Sonic is like 'Oh like I'm scared of a button' and Knuckles is like 'I'm gonna press it!' and they go back and forth like that for a while and I see the explosives under the bridge and I'm trying to get Sonic's attention but they're just yelling at each other at that point..."

Tails has an audience that wants to hear his adventuring stories.

"... And then the bridge blows up and fwooosh! We fall down the waterfall into this giant underwater reservoir that looks like it used to be a city - sort of a Hydro City Zone - and this gigantic ripcurrent just drags us down and around the ruins and we have to go all over the place - up and down and underwater - to find the way out."

"Anyway - that's how we met our best friend Knuckles. He's a good guy, dedicated to his job like all get out, just does his thinking with his fists, sometimes, you know?"
Lilian Rook     Evald seems to think Arthur's suggestion is amusing. He laughs in an excessively laid back way. "Really? But could you do that without poisoning the earth? That rubbish deserves it, of course, but not the dirt we plan to use. It never did anything to us." He makes an odd little gesture with his hand. "It's funny in that way. No matter how bad the terraforming gets, in any country, if you dig down enough, you find rocks and dirt and sand. It's all so much skin deep. But if there's a great hole in the ground, it follows it down."

    Lilian responds to it in a distracted, but has-thought-of-this-before, way. "It makes you wonder if they know what 'underground' is. If there's a 'deep' where they come from." Evald widens his eyes slightly, consider it as if something profound. "I wonder if there isn't?" He goes back to Arthur, though. "Go on then. Give it a try! I'll be here to watch. Just a few meters first, though. I need to see that the radiation goes away, otherwise I'll be in for a beating later!"

    Tamamo, examining the stones, finds them familiar enough. Rather than being set up to observe highly religious allusions and various symbology associated with heavenly architecture, the specifics of shape and material, and the combinations thereof, appear to be more important, emulating the designs found nature in its geometries and arrangements. There are also a great number of angular carvings that are unintelligible to her.

    When she starts scanning them though, Lilian crouches down on her toes, pushing aside grasses to read them. "Protection, favourable wind, wall-stone, all things in their place. Longevity, health, deep water and . . . Sun-night? Sleephome. The One. Huh. So the blessing markers are also your physical boundaries *and* your Moon Wards? That's complicated stuff."

    Evald, again, looks pleased, of a different stripe. "Ah? You read the Ogham? And the transitional form as well. That's unexpected! When I heard you were a Dame Commander, I didn't expect the Ring of Solstice would have taught anything like that to a knight. That's an unusually academic background!"
Gawain As Gawain and Tony presumably arrive at a small restaurant or cafe (preferably the latter), Gawain is quite enthused by how relaxed everyone is. He introduces himself as Gawain, and introduces himself as full titles if asked. He orders himself a very sweet coffee, and a ham and dheese croissant if they have them, and then lets Tony order whatever he wants, since he assumes Tony won't break the bank on him. Hopefully.

As the people ask him for stories about himself, Gawain defaults to 'the time I battled a dragon', because it's one of his biggest stories. Of course, he doesn't hide that he had help, but fighting Vortigern was certainly a thing that happened.

"So!" Gawain asks Tony, after they have their coffee. "What do you think about a place like this? Quite lovely, isn't it? It'd be nice if everywhere was more like this. Sure, it's not perfect - but nothing is. They're relaxed, and comfortable, and a community. And I think that's important."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Curse like the old days

    How does one /extract/ and /contain/ radiation? That's an extremely good question. Scientists have been struggling with it for a long, long time. Arthur has a solution, and it's simple -- if you have intiutive and extremely fine control over all forces of gravity and mass, at least. As Arthur slowly charges his ASPECT bar, he comments, "Are there PEOPLE in the UNDERGROUND? Might just be those motherfuckers DON'T CARE about WHERE THERE AIN'T DUDES. HUMANS are on the SURFACE, so ANTEGENT stay on the SURFACE too." The bar peaks, and Arthur's eyes flash white.

    He claps both hands together, shouting wildly as he summons a small sun in his hands. "AAAAAAAALRIGHT!! Get ready to TASTE A LITTLE METAL, MOTHERFUCKERS!" With the tiny sun, he walks towards the boundaries, and then blasts beams of intense solar fire directly into the soil. It is raw death; another radiation-themed magical person calls it "the light that makes your body forget how to be alive". It is a curse upon the body, and the land, and the wind, and the water. It's really, really spicy and really, really fucked up. It absolutely annihilates anything in the soil. The soil is not just dead, it's death.

    It gets so ionized it glows a pleasant green.

    But those present will only get about the equivalent of a chest x-ray before Arthur's containment system goes to work. He presses the sun inward, into a tiny black hole. Radiation, of course, is affected by gravity. All Arthur has to do is tune the gravity just so, so that it affects short-wavelength electromagnetic emission particles far more than other matter. And then the radiation, and any /specific/ mineral or organic particles that are retaining ionizing effects -- extracted cleanly, simply. It would never work on an organic entity, he can't easily heal radiation poisoning or anything like that, but for soil? Perfect radiation extraction.

    He hoists it above the glowing soil and then pleasantly "sweeps" the glow into it with his broom, like it's a dustbin. "Lookin' GOOD TO YA?" He says, grinning and making his teeth gleam in That Specific Way. He's pretty proud of this method.
Lilian Rook     The 'residue' Rhongomyniad examines is a little different from the firearms she's passingly familiar with. There's none of that grey deposit from gunsmoke and powder, and on closer examination, none of the cases involve brass, or even metal, and have no primer. They're cold and thin to the touch, seemingly not designed to heat up nor resist pressure at all. They tingle a little, like battery bleed.

    Dohmnull chuckles just a little, scratching his short facial hair. "Apologies. I hadn't meant anything by it. It's a common thing for people here. Just like in the old days, men would take trophies to show man's dominance over nature; defeating the elements and the great beasts of the woods."

    "Men these days enjoy taking trophies of the Other. Man's dominance over the great threat. The beings that wanted us all dead, and failed. In our culture, it's a sign of the indomitability of humanity. Symbols of human will, courage, and resourcefulness. A portent of humanity undefeatable. That's even how wizards use them, you know. Just because it's so alien doesn't mean it's not useful in magic, with the right sympathetic connections. They come from a place where magic isn't written into existence at all. It's humans who've given them meaning. The human consciousness that puts the templates of magic over their bits and pieces. I don't know if there are any living stragglers, but best to see to it, right?"

    From there, he leads her into the black. The dark foliage is thick and unpleasantly 'squishy' underfoot, lacking the plush feeling of watery vegetation, more like skin to the touch. He steers clear of anything bright red or semi-translucent, following the blood trail. It quickly leads to a corpse, and then fifty meters away, another, evidently having bled out.

    The organism is, put mildly, strange to behold. The pitch black carapace, slightly glossy, like something from the deep sea, blends in with the flora, save for the pale bumps in trails across its sides and back, like beads of melted and hardened glass. It either has no head, or its two ends are indistinguishable, forming a flattened oblong shape ridged with long, flexible, and very sharp spines that at least seem to run one way rather than the other. Long, flowing, wire-thin tendrils extend from one end, while dagger-like protrusions splay out from the other, still faintly glowing blue in rings at their roots.

    It has four legs that face opposite ways, instead of enabling a gallop or sprint like a proper quadruped, having four joints that change the limb's direction as it goes, resulting in some unwholesome combination of a spider's legs and a mantis shrimp's arms. It looks like it walks on three 'knuckles' of hard, black armour, which then fold back up the entire reverse side of the leg into segmented, scythe-bladed 'fingers', normally recessed into the leg to make a solid piece, but tripling its reach when fully extended, no doubt responsible for all the knife scoring. Nothing like eyes or ears can be found anywhere, nor anything that seems to resemble mouth parts.

    Both bodies have a central mass equivalent to a pony's torso, and if stood up on their legs, they'd slightly above the height of a man at a casual stance, and if extended all the way straight up, able to look into a second storey window. Their innards are visible through the considerable craters driven through their hide, filled with the ravaged remains of inexplicable membranes and meshes, lacking anything that resembles developed organs.
Lilian Rook     Dohmnull kicks them to be sure they're dead. "Undobhar." he says. "Common clade. All Beast level. Pack hunters. Perfectly capable of butchering a neighbourhood alone. Deadly if getting the drop on a squad of soldiers at close range. Can cross ground extremely quickly. But they die to bullets well enough. An Enlightened fighter trained seriously in close quarters combat should be able to handle a pack without serious injuries. Other practitioners aren't usually so lucky."

    "You could call this a kind of skirmisher. You used to see hundreds of them come out in swarms back in the day. Just carpeting the field. Some of them sit back and spray those exploding spines, while the rest eat up the bullets and plough through the front lines. Jumping over fortifications. Single-minded and aggressive. Almost like ants. They always operate in fours, though. Even en mass, it's just a collection of fours. Each group of four acts in tandem, like a single organism."

    "Now you rarely see more than a single pack at a time. They're nothing special without large numbers. There should be two more alive, here, though probably not for long. Are you looking to chase them? Or is this enough?"
Rhongomyniad     "I understand," Rhongomyniad states to Dohmnull, "However it would not feel correct to seize a keepsake unless it is from one's own conquest. Perhaps it is an outdated sense of pride, although I should not experience such things." She pauses in the tracking pursuit, glancing out over the moors into the pools of scarlet so deftly avoided by her escort. The hesitation is short, and she resumes the pursuit without further delay.

    The first of the beasts is uncovered, deceased amidst the warped foliage. She gives one of its disjointed legs a nudge with one foot, eyes narrowing in thought.

    When the second is uncovered, and their nature explained, the King of Knights emits another of those thoughtful sounds, "Animals. But with a purpose. Much akin to the Demonic Beasts I am familiar with. Creatures that have no place in the World of Man. Rejected by the World. Used as soldiers by the enemies of Humanity, in some forgotten timeline..." Rhongomyniad lets out another noise.

    "Even a beast may set ambush, Sir Dohmnull. However." She turns to the knight, facing him directly, "I am satisfied. I have no cause to doubt your judgement nor your expertise on the matter. So long as you believe your men safe, I shall accept that determination." She does dip her head slightly, "My thanks for indulging my curiosity."
Lilian Rook     It's questionable if the foliage Arthur is bombarding with merciless stellar rays even *has* DNA to fuck up, at least in the way DNA is known to be, but he can see it bleach, brittle, and flake away like the used up exterior of a burning campfire log, eventually turning to dust. It also absorbs far more of the radiation than the dirt does. Normally ionizing radiation penetrates organic matter fairly easily and is stopped quickly by dense minerals, but somehow the black growth reverses this arrangement.

    Sucking up the contaminated debris is easy from there, since it's mostly contained within that white dust. No need to deal with whatever the hell it is once it's atomized at the heart of a singularity. A nice, clean circle of bare dirt is removed from the eldritch colonization as if with a hole punch.

    Evald whistles that loud and casual kind that someone uses to signal approval without having to form fancy words. "Well then. Act one had my attention, but act three has my interest. I didn't see that coming!" he says. "If you're really interested in hanging around to do that over and over again, then I'd be glad to lend my support. In the name of a charitable work, of course. That might advance our timetable by even six months."

    Tamamo's question is a pretty good one. One that he's more qualified on than nuclear physics. "Some of them do, some of them don't. It's not random, though. Mostly not. Most of our history of protections is built on centuries of specialization. Learning more about the thing we want to keep out or get rid of, and building on the magics of the past to more effectively target that thing, increasing it in complexity and efficiency. Wards to keep out spirits, diseases, evil, bad luck, those sorts of things; those rarely have any effect."

    "The further you go back to those primal roots, when creating a magician's barrier was a big thing that'd unnerve the villagers, the more effect you'll see. Innovating on those fundamental, tangible, wondrous things is a great pleasure. No boring consecrations against the dead or anything. Chasing the high of the oldest boundaries in the world. The Underworld that the living can't enter. The Otherworld one can't escape from after eating or drinking. The Island that can't be found unless one is lost. It's exciting stuff."

    He shakes his head just slightly. "A circle is the most versatile outer shape, and the most efficient at containing power, not to mention being the most relevant to protecting agains the moon. A number of smaller circles is easier to add to, but it's much harder to maintain them all individually, and a lot of work to compress back into one. It depends on a lot of things, but for big areas like cities and towns, a circle is best."
Lilian Rook     Tails is a talking fox. Not like Tamamo -- an actual fox. He thus draws the most attention in terms of fascinated colonists by a lot. His stories are also completely goddamn outrageous as far as they're concerned. A *lot* of questions are asked about Eggman; first they're about his name, and then they're about how a roboticist is up to any of the things he is, and then they're constantly demanding elaboration on the ridiculous evil schemes involved. They have to ask if the other people in the story are also animals, and if so, why is Eggman not a giant chicken.

    Gawain fighting a dragon is a more familiar story. It's not out of the legends, because it's new, so plenty of people gather around for that one too, mostly older folks, absorbed in if the knight Gawain could really take on a dragon. They also ask a lot of questions about what dragons are like, because apparently they're ridiculously rare or something here; it's unclear and nobody explains. He gets a few misguided interpretations that he's from the Reclamation order, which he'll have to clear up, and then a lot more questions about his relation with them and what he intends to do.
Lilian Rook     Dohmnull appears taken aback by what Rhongomyniad first has to say. Unlike Evald's kind of dreamy, detached, even airheaded look of hearing something profound, earlier, far away, the taller and more grizzled gentleman appears genuinely surprised in a way he hadn't thought he would be. "That's astonishingly astute of you." he says, in a new, slightly warmer tone. "I can't say I know much about demons except how to drive them off and how to kill them -- though at my current rank, I admit I wouldn't much like to tangle with one -- but what you're describing sounds like you have a handle on the situation that I wouldn't expect to come from out there." He probably means the Multiverse.

    He offers a proper bow in turn, actually quite sincere rather than merely formal. "Your confidence is greatly appreciated. Being graced with that much trust is considerably high praise. You are, of course, welcome any time." He looks up again. "Both to see the men here, for any reason, and to take up that lance for a conquest of your own. If you should, I'd greatly like to see it. No doubt it'd be for an impressive foe."
Rhongomyniad     "Mm," Rhongomyniad's thoughtful sound escapes her once more, "It is not the exact same creature; I merely observed a similarity with a phantasmal I am more familiar with. On the matters of your world's foes, do not presume myself to be more experienced, Sir Dohmnull." She nods once, then, as if accepting her own words.

    The King of Knights pauses, then.

    "It is my turn to commend your perception. Yes," A slight nod towards the knight, "The Divine Lance is within my possession. Should the need arise, I shall draw steel in defense of your nation, as I have others." Her eyes narrow slightly in thought, brow knit just a touch. Once she finds the words she wants, her expression neutralizes.

    "You are a good man, Sir Dohmnull. This township and this country are in good hands, if the knights of Pendragon are as chivalrous as yourself and your two comrades."

    "Let us return, Sir Dohmnull."