Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Bloodied Shards IC (CLOSED!)

Alastor scratched the back of his head while considering the young girl's offer. A quick glance over at Jules decided it, slight embarrassment showing on his face. "Yeah, sounds good. Might not hurt to split up and meet at the town. Jules, you got Neo? We'll meet up with you later." Alastor gathers up his gear and throws his coat on. "Alright Monkey, lead the way! Let's see what we can discover!"

"Ooooh no! There's such a thing as too hot, literally speaking," Drake's face flushes with indignation at the very idea of him being attracted to someone like the rotten Queen of the Foothills. As Victi turns to make her leave, he halfway leaps, halfway trips out of the barstool to follow her. He mutters some curses on the way out for a few different reasons:

1) They didn't actually eat at the tavern; both of them, in the rush to take care of business, must have forgotten. Oh well, they can eat on the road. He probably has some bread and cheese in his pack.

2) They're going to meet Aurora, dammit. And with the way Victi practically flew from the room just as the crow flies, he's certain he can't talk her out of it.

3) Oh, yeah, that bread of his is probably stale. Blech.

"So, Victi," he has a sudden thought. "You're gonna drop or tweak your disguise before we go to meet her, right?"

"Why?" she asks, her straightforward tone indicating genuine lack of understanding "Something wrong with this one? I mean, not the most intimidating look if she demands toughness, sure, but I figure I could make it more battle-ready if I'm in combat or whatever. A bit less clothing to expose a bit more muscle, maybe some battle markings along my arms and face or something.... that kind of thing."

Then she pauses. "That's not the reason, huh?" She asks eventually, speaking calmly, in though, "Something about this form would upset her.... What's the danger?"

"Alright, wait I need to keep my plushie with me!" Liliath climbed back in the treehouse and grabbed her plushie then she climbed back down. Liliath start walking forward "Maybe we find treasures!" Liliath looked around, but didn't found anything intresting. "Maybe we find a secret town or we meet new people."

Adriannu listened to Kylarion explaining what spaceships were with clear fascination written all over her face. When he explained how light was faster then sound, she quickly piped up with. "So the ship is like a flash of lightning while the sound it makes is the thunder...If it's going that fast, wouldn't it hurt to be inside it? I have jumped from trees into the river before and the fall is pretty intense, so if you are going so much faster than that, wouldn't it be even more intense? Also how does it fly if it doesn't have wings?"

Now as she practiced with the new daggers that had been had given to her, her pleasure with them would be damped slightly by Lisa's mortified expression and thus narrowed her eyes. "You have a problem with someone getting a feel for their new weapons?" Adriannu asked, almost if daring Lisa to try treating her like a child so she could deliver a harsh rebuke.

Once Lisa's issue with her had been dealt with one way or another, she'd return to listen to the Magister as he explained war crimes to them. As the child listened, some noticeable fear appeared in her eyes, but even so, still seemed to take the idea of such terrifying weapons and wars better than expected, especially when one considered her age. Now despite having been clearly frightened by such ideas, that still didn't stop her from asking questions. "But...what keeps someone from breaking these rules? I mean the losers in a war can't generally complain about the manner in which they were defeated since the winners hold all the power. I mean I have heard it say that it is the winners that write the history books even if I can't read."

However the magister got the greatest reaction when he revealed the hologram of his Ship; The Agate Breeze. For at that moment, Adriannu immediately ceased in her weapon's practice and threw caution to the wind to quickly approach it with a face that personified the phrase childlike wonder. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth an open circle as if she'd go oooh at any moment as she just started at the image of the Agate Breeze. For a brief moment, the little warrior had reverted back to the child she had once been, the one that Raven had seen before, but this time in the actual presence of adults. "How big is it? It's obviously much bigger then shown here, but how big is it truly? I see it has windows, but I still can't sell how big it is as I have seen some very small and very big windows. Also how big is the smaller ship and will I really get to see it?"

Yet once the subject returned to the blades, her demeanor instantly returned to that of the small warrior. At hearing how the blades were imprinted, she smiled in a somewhat sinister manner before saying. "Maybe I'll have to see if I can trick Victi into stealing one in the middle of a fight so I can take advantage of her sluggish movements to cut her hand off and steal it back. Besides stealing an opponent's weapon to use against them sounds like a way she could be tempted to "play" with her opponent right? Anyway it should make it almost fun the next time some stupid adult tries stealing from me because I'm just a "weak little brat" that they can bully."

At this point however, Adriannu would follow his lead to give Lisa a chance to voice any concerns she had. Once that was done, she quickly started to ask for more info about Victi. "You mentioned that she likes to play with opponents that she doesn't deem a threat? Do you know if she has any prefered methods of playing with them? Something I can try to plan for and figure out a means of exploiting? Also does her body contain any unusual weak spots? I mean I know that the throat and stomach are prime targets, but is there anywhere else I should give special attention to? Like maybe any old injuries she has?"

"What you feel is actually acceleration, the change in speed, rather than speed itself. You notice that there is no pain or discomfort in a fall until the impact, where your speed changes dramatically from the speed of the fall to nothing in a mere instant," he explains, seemingly pleased at her curiosity," A gradual change in speed alleviates this. That said, we have ways of working around it. Starships have systems that isolate their internal sections from the reality around them in various ways. I do not understand the mechanics of them fully myself, as I am not a specialist in the understanding of those things. They are complex enough that several years of higher learning are required to even begin to examine how they work, and those fields are not a path which I have pursued. Some of the details of a starship's flight are the same, relying on gravatic fields and inertial-frame redefinition, though the way in which it actually moves is simpler, taking advantage of the fact th--" He's abruptly distracted by something in his vision, and he grimaces slightly. A very close look may reveal a small bit of light on one eye before it flicks off. "My appologies. One person coming to a realization of the way certain things truly works can transform an entire society. The concepts I was about to present will be discovered on this world, almost certainly relatively soon as these things go, but we have laws against 'uplifting' cultures. You must grow and learn on your own. My appologies."

"Speaking of that issue, your concern about these wars..." he goes into detail about MAD and the ways third-parties enforce the laws.

((I did write that description, it is very long and unrelated to the game. If you want to read broad descriptions of hypothetical warcrime law enforcement for hyper-planar civilizations, let me know, and I can send it to you.))

"Yes, it is an impressive vessel," he agrees as those gathered admire the image of his ship, "for a sense of scale, each level of window is separated by about the height of this cabin." This puts it at ~120m tall and ~550m long. "The shuttle is much smaller. Perhaps twice as long as your home, miss Adeptus," he nods to Lisa, "and likely no taller than it. One thing I can say regarding your earlier question is that those engines," he gestures to the enormous structures on the back of the craft, "are its source of propulsion, forcing it forward. And yes, when I depart, you will see the shuttle I will be taking. No entering it, mind you."

"She.... has used others' weapons in the past, though we shall see if she does so here. It is not her typical way of opperating, though," he says, "perhaps as a finishing blow, but I do not know if she would kill someone who is incapacitated in this case, when she could simply take their shard."

He pauses to listen to Lisa fumble through her confusion and the overwhelming flood of information. "Take your time," he tells her gently, "I understand that this is quite stressful."

"She is fond of illusions," he says, returning his attention to the young warrior, "Deception, misdirection, and presenting a false reality. Normally, any image you see of her in combat will be false. If she believes you have figured that out, one of them will be real.... unless she suspects you have anticipated that as well. She is observant, cunning, and likes to make sure she knows her opponent before actually engaging them. Additionally, she is very mobile, using her magic to flit around the battlefield, flanking her foes by herself, and using those same magics to redirect foes. If she can stop you from trusting even the fact that a straight line is a straight line, and convince you that nothing is as it seems, she will."

He pauses for a bit as he considers his next words, finally saying, "The issue with vulnerabilities is striking the body itself, and I do not mean piercing her veil of deception."

He reaches into his robe and draws a long ornate knife, the edge of the blade that same dull gray of Adriannu's new weapons. "You see, she has many magical defenses, protecting her body from harm. If she did not, I would hunt her myself." With that, he drives the blade of his knife toward his own hand. It stops as if striking stone, a white crackling web of magic flashing in reaction to the blow. "Physical warding. If something would break the skin, the barrier activates and stops the blow. In terms of old injuries, she.... our technology and magic are sophisticated enough to repair injuries quite quickly, and memebers of... our species," he seems to be displeased in sharing a species with Victi, "heal very cleanly, contributing to our long lifespans. And she knows a very competent healer. If you can make her vulnerable, though, and she does not teleport away, her body is as fragile as anyone else's. I would say to strike her tails, but they will be the most defended parts of her body. Our tails are the wells from which we draw our magic, and damaging them, or especially removing them, is a near death-sentence to us."

"All of that said," he continues, "I would advise that death may not be the way to neutralize this threat, as a great many have tried and failed to kill her over time. The cost of life seems... likely to be high for you and the other denizens of this world, as it already has been with that cataclysmic spell she cast. That said, if her goal is made unachievable, or too high-risk to accomplish, that would likely entice her to abandon it. She is bold, overconfident, and determined, but generally not quite suicidal or blind to cost versus reward. My knowledge of this place and its people is still limited. It is up to you and the other shard bearers to use your knowledge and cleverness to safeguard your world, though I will offer as much help as I can."

Drake shakes his head first, then, as Victi catches on, he nervously smiles and nods. "The danger is she might try to kill us before we get a chance to talk."

"To be blunt, she's a racist bitch with an explosive temper. You and I can drop all the clothing we like, but she won't like us unless we change our species." Lucky for them, Victi can easily change her disguise and Drake can introduce himself as her subordinate; that way, she might hear their proposal before blasting them into oblivion.

"Wow, sounds like a lovely critter," Victi says sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"Fine, fine, once we're remotely in range or whatever, I'll drop the disg---- no. Well, yes," Victi says, hesitating for a second and tilting her head in thought, "yeah, it'll be easier to recast rather than transfer."

She thinks for a second, then comes back to focus and explains, "We can play the same game as we did tonight with the roles reversed, disguising you as one of mine. Unless you think that would also set her off. I'm fine with 'wary', the mutual lack of trust deal is stable enough for me, but I would prefer not to have to gut someone I'm trying to hire, especially when she's apparently the only one for the job. What else d'you know about her?"