Session 104 - Are You Fighting In Moonfire Faire
The officers of the Starfall have arrived in Koehnta, searching for the brilliant mind that created the model for the Seventh Dawn in hopes of recruiting her/pumping her for information/shaking the blueprints from her mind/asking politely for assistance in crafting a particular upgrade for their ship, the Luminous Engine.
Before one can discover the whereabouts of Isara Marquez, one must first go purchase many controlled substances. This is known.
If anyone knew this but Yves Mjrwin, master of negotiation in very specialized fields, they kept quiet.
After learning that Marquez would be at the Celestial Forge for the Moonfire Faire, our brave adventurers traveled to the Forge to find it under guard due to a hostage situation, one that was severely harshing the party atmosphere for many of the would-be faire-goers. After receiving word from on high that this would in fact be a good course of action, our adventurers considered taking action...
...only to see someone else, a masked figure of unknown origin with mysterious goals, leap immediately into said action, darting past security before any could be the wiser.
We join our brave adventurers as they see the drop depart ahead of them...
**
"Who was that masked figure, anyway?" asks a baffled Linnet, stymied mid-action charge.
Yves blinks twice, and simply looks to a point between Isa and Bast--the tactical leader and the captain being the people what tend to tell everyone else who to stab first--to wait for instructions, because he's at least 65% sure that his next step should not be "zap that masked vigilante" or "zap those guards" or "try a few of the new drugs before settling on a course of action." Maybe 80% sure, on that last option.
Isa is still in henchman mode, ready to be the tool by which Bast enacts his will on the world. As such, she is waiting to hear what that will is.
Orrey watches the masked one enter the Forge with a frown on his face. "That can't be good."
Fortunately(?), no one but the crowd took notice of the vigilante taking the law into their own hands. There is polite applause, and then that anticipatory buzz of potential fireworks.
Bast favors the guard in front of him with his best withering glare. "I see you've got this under control. Do try to keep the rest of the crowd out?" Without waiting for a response, he moves past the guard with a lengthening stride and a curt wave to the rest of the crew to follow him.
Isa falls into step, cinching the straps on her gauntlet and flexing a steel fist in preparation for some will enacting.
Yves follows along as if this is the natural state of things, expression slightly abstract as he wonders if he could just reach into his knapsack and have a brief test of the--no, no, after the hostage situation or rescue mission or bakeoff or whatever it is that lies ahead, that's the way to do it. Work hard, play weird.
Trying to look more confident than she feels, Linnet adds three inches to her float, fans out her braid a bit in the breeze, and puts on her best Otherworldly Magic User look as she follows behind Yves.
Orrey falls into step smiling politely at the guards.
One of the guards steps into Bast's path, and then steps again into Bast's path. "No entry, sir," she says, definitely not meaning the sir. "Please return to the crowd now."
Isa crosses her arms, full of unspoken menace. Unfortunately, this means that no one hears it.
"Move along, move along!" the guard barks at them. "Professionals are en route!"
"But we're professionals," Yves says, quite reasonably, "and I need to speak to someone inside on a matter of scientific importance. Is it the mask thing? We can put on masks if you only let in people wearing those, though it seems an odd rule. Not like I would know. You have the eternal flame and all that, it stands to reason that once you're doing perpetual energy displays you might have that sort of thing, and if it's a safety process, well, it didn't look like a safety mask to me, but I didn't get a close look. I have lab goggles in here somewhere..."
Bast checks his motion briefly. "You mean you don't have anyone inside yet?" The outrage at least sounds real, and gives him a few seconds' cover to press one of a number of concealed buttons.
The guard regards Bast, and then dismisses him. People who cut lines don't warrant responses.
Orrey checks his watch and looks over at Isa.
Bast regards the guard, and then streaks decidedly up out of her view, a wave of heat from the jets washing over her face as he lands behind her and dashes for the entrance.
When the guard looks up to follow Bast's movement, Isa launches an uppercut to continue the motion.
Yves attempts to just gently sidestep the whole sudden jet-punch situation and walk inside. He's not all that great at gentle sidesteps, but sometimes it's the thought that counts, right?
...Linnet just looks up, then at Isa, then floats around the punch and after Yves.
Orrey focuses and flings out a cloud of green and purple dust over one of the guards, who slumps to the ground into a puddle of gentle snoring.
"Woah," says the dude, a dozen rows back.
Yves is power-walking in a very calm manner (power-ambling, perhaps? it might even be a power-mosey) as if all this punching and clouding and so forth has nothing to do with him. Don't mind the scientist with the knapsack, he's just trying to catch up with his jetpack friend.
The guard's head snaps back down, just in time to meet Isa's hook. As she drops, Isa looks side to side for the flanking guards, and prepares for a fighting retreat after Bast and the others.
Orrey nods to Isa. "Yours is going to have a headache." Then he follows everyone else in.
The Celestial Forge is a three-story circular amphitheater, positioned on an elevated foundation in the heart of Koehnta. The grounds on which it stands are bordered by a wrought-iron fence lined with gates. On almost all occasions, the gates are open, allowing visitors to come into the Celestial Forge. Since the hostage crisis began, they are closed, with an added line of security guards keeping everyone out. Of course, they did not prepare for the fast fists and jumping jetpacks of the brave adventurers.
The building itself is primarily white stone, with red steel and black iron providing structure and support. Every fifty feet, the building’s exterior wall opens for a three-story-high window, wide enough to grant easy passage should someone wish to climb through the window instead of take one of the building’s five entry doors, if one had an easy method of climbing twelve feet to the bottom of the window in the first place. The windows are blocked, now; furniture hastily shoved into place to prevent any entry or exit. The sheer size of the windows made this difficult, and the bottom halves of the first and second story’s windows are far more fully packed than the top halves. The third story windows are open; over forty feet above the ground, they offer little threat of breach or escape, and instead allow the hostage-takers a bird’s eye view of the surroundings.
To the north, the ever-burning flame looms, casting its brilliant light into the amphitheater, as the structure was built so the pillar of fire serves as the backdrop to the stage.
Yves looks over the windows, and makes a thoughtful sort of noise. "So, do we want to go in from the top, or down here, or split up?" He asks this as if it's a rather academic sort of question--or, wait, the opposite of that, academic questions are fraught and emotionally intense and full of citations. He asks the question as if it's equally easy to do any of the above.
"I can scout up top, if we want," offers Linnet, letting down her hair a bit but still hovering.
"The other guards are going to be on us by the time you get back," Isa says. "What're the chances of breaching the door?"
"Get out of sight now, scout later." Bast pauses briefly to take the windows in, then heads for the partial barricade in the window facing southwest at a jet-assisted sprint.
"We should probably stick together." Orrey says. "I can't get through that door. How do the non-jumping, non-flying folks get up there?"
Yves follows Bast at more like a brisk jog. "Gravity ball?" he says. "It usually comes when I call, and we all walk up. Quickly."
Orrey trails behind, puffing a bit trying to keep up. "I like the wall run idea!"
Isa keeps pace easily, but she's on the lookout for more guards as she jogs along.
"Right, good," Yves says, picking up the pace a little, and he murmurs to someone not technically present, "Would you mind if I borrowed one of those excellent spheres you have for the gravity thing where they--oh, yes, perfect," he interrupts himself, a shiny sphere somehow already in his hands. Reaching the wall, he simply places it against the side of the building, where it sticks, and continues his brisk walk. Now up the wall.
Orrey grabs a pebble as he walks up to the wall and tosses it, watching the alteration of gravity take the pebble in weird directions.
Bast doesn't even slow down as he leads the charge up to the window; a flex of the knees, a burst of fuel, and he flies over the makeshift barricade, leaving a short-lived smoke trail behind.
Linnet doesn't even appear to see the barricade as she follows Bast through the window and looks around. "What the hell..."
Isa already has an...interesting relationship with gravity, but it's usually in the vertical direction only. So she's a little hesitant to follow Yves up the wall, but the mission is the mission and so she does.
This room provides a showcase for any acts fortunate enough to play the Celestial Forge, with some article from their performance immortalized for future generations to marvel upon. By far the most common item contained within these reinforced enclosures are guitars, though the centerpiece attraction, in the coveted central location, bracketed by stained glass displays extolling the virtues of a life well crafted, is a unicycle and a set of six white bowls. A body lies on the ground, unconscious but breathing. A young man sits in bewilderment by a set of bagpipes.
"Which way did they go?" Bast tosses off to the bagpipe man, killing the jets and making his way across the hall towards the most likely exit.
Linnet, on the other hand, lands, exchanges a quick nod with the piper, and stops to take a quick look at the unconscious figure.
Yves glances around, gaze lingering briefly on the unconscious body. (The other man gets minimal attention, because being bewildered near bagpipes seems like two things that go together naturally.) At least no one is setting guitars on fire or threatening to douse flames or--come to think of it, those rather are opposites, huh. Something to think about later. Possibly during the party.
"Th-that door, but--" the Bagpipe Man says, scooting backwards on the floor, trying to put a toppled chair between he and Bast. He is a human male, wearing a blue vest with no shirt underneath, and he sports a cherry blossom tattoo starting at his left wrist and winding up along his body to just under his left ear.
"He's harmless, I promise. Just...driven. What happened here?" Linnet waves Bast on. "I'll catch up."
Recalling what happened the last time Linnet got too close to a "helpless victim," Isa is on high alert for stabbings.
“But what?” Orrey asks the Piper.
"They -- he -- then they -- wow," is all the Bagpipe Man can manage.
“Right.” Orrey heads for the door.
"Everyone here seems fine," Yves says cheerfully, "so let's go look for the problem that actually needs solving." He's close behind Orrey, for the moment. Maybe a little to the side, in case opening a door proves dramatically unwise in a linear or cone-like fashion.
"Give me a minute here and I'll see what I can glean. Don't get yourselves killed before I catch up, okay?" Linnet looks around for confirmation.
Isa waves to the boys. "Go. We'll catch up." She has no intention of leaving Linnet alone with someone who might possibly own bagpipes.
"You too." Bast gives Linnet a nod without looking and finally slows down slightly just short of the door - to open it instead of just barreling through.
The door does not open. The door cannot open, as the door has been jammed, thoroughly and effectively. The doorknob is worthless, as turning it engages no mechanics inside the door. Whatever metal is inside the door keeping it locked is going to continue doing that, as this lock was sabotaged on the way out.
While Bast fights the door, Linnet takes about ten seconds to inspect the figure on the floor for damage, meanwhile engaging the piper in conversation. "Two sentences max: what happened?"
Yves watches Bast's struggle for a moment, then shifts his gaze to the side. "You have explosives, right? I mean, there's this whole wall, no one locks a wall, they just let it be a wall..."
Bast narrows his eyes, drawing a fist back. "Oh is that how we're doing this." A halo of metal strips whips out of his sleeve, wrapping around his fist in a rapidly spinning cone as it's applied to the lock.
Orrey swiftly backs away, knowing what’s about to happen.
"The Flamekeepers, they took over the building," the man on the floor says. "Chased some people out, kept more of us here, so we can be we 'reforged.' Said it was because of my tattoo," he adds, pointing to his arm.
Yves leans in, to see what's about to happen. ...a split second later, he digs into his knapsack, and finds those safety goggles he mentioned. He puts those on. Then leans in closer still.
Linnet gives the tattoo and the piper a weird look. "Any reason behind that? Ever heard of these Flamekeepers before?"
"No," he says with a shrug. "They said they hear Koehnta's word, and we're all defiling Their sacred space."
"Great," Isa says in a tone that suggests she is lying. "Zealots."
As the drill spins down, splits up and retracts, Bast pushes the door - now with a smoking hole where the lock used to be - open with his other hand and steps through.
Yves is humming a little jaunty tune, something from that one popular song back at the university about the periodic table, as he follows Bast through the doorway.
Linnet shakes her head, finishes her inspection, and stands up. "You're both fine. Stay here, don't die, we're going to go kick some fundamentalist butt." Without waiting, she follows Bast through the hole that was once a door.
"That was not what I was expecting, Captain. Much more directed than your usual explosions. Very impressive." Orrey admires the work as he passes through the doorway.
"I thought I heard something!" An armored tonberry swings a sword at Bast, narrowly missing the captain of the Starfall, before springing (gradually) back. "Forge light our path!" An earth sylph moves to support her flank, wielding a scimitar in her left hand and a miniature crossbow in her right, bringing both to bear.
Best Practice swings her sword up into the sky, and the blade glows with the fires of conviction.
Both of the attackers are wearing turbans on their heads, turbans depicting rising smoke.
"Don't have time for your shit." Bast spits in disdain and whips out his own crossbow as he steps aside to let the rest of the party out of the room, bolts ricocheting off the walls of the hallway and into the cultists.
Through the door, Isa sees the tonberry's sword go up. "Oh no you don't," she mutters, and draws her own sword, golden flames echoing her opponent.
A confused Linnet attempts to throw two layers of protective sparkles over her friends, only to see them all disappear into Isa's sword.
Core Value takes both a swing and a shot at the closest person, that being Bast, with both scimitar and crossbow bolt attempting to make a home in the captain's tender(?) flesh.
Bast steps aside with a contemptuous sneer, not even trying to defend himself otherwise, and watches the sylph overbalance and barrel past.
Orrey steps to the side of the door, drawing the Armageddon and triggering the Queen’s Gambit. A pulse of purply-grey light bursts out as an orb rises above Orrey.
Yves had a little bit of blue spark starting to crackle at his fingertips. But having seen what happened to Linnet's sparkles, and after looking between the rune sword to the left of him, the rune sword to his right... He sighs, mutters something under his breath that sounds like a very rapid "oh for the love of little brown mushrooms," lets the sparks vanish, and raises his voice to ask brightly, "Hello! You must be locals! Can I interest you in any interesting recreational drugs? I have some exciting new ones suitable for every species, and let's be honest, you would enjoy them a lot more than what's going to happen next otherwise!"
If anyone knew this but Yves Mjrwin, master of negotiation in very specialized fields, they kept quiet.
After learning that Marquez would be at the Celestial Forge for the Moonfire Faire, our brave adventurers traveled to the Forge to find it under guard due to a hostage situation, one that was severely harshing the party atmosphere for many of the would-be faire-goers. After receiving word from on high that this would in fact be a good course of action, our adventurers considered taking action...
...only to see someone else, a masked figure of unknown origin with mysterious goals, leap immediately into said action, darting past security before any could be the wiser.
We join our brave adventurers as they see the drop depart ahead of them...
**
"Who was that masked figure, anyway?" asks a baffled Linnet, stymied mid-action charge.
Yves blinks twice, and simply looks to a point between Isa and Bast--the tactical leader and the captain being the people what tend to tell everyone else who to stab first--to wait for instructions, because he's at least 65% sure that his next step should not be "zap that masked vigilante" or "zap those guards" or "try a few of the new drugs before settling on a course of action." Maybe 80% sure, on that last option.
Isa is still in henchman mode, ready to be the tool by which Bast enacts his will on the world. As such, she is waiting to hear what that will is.
Orrey watches the masked one enter the Forge with a frown on his face. "That can't be good."
Fortunately(?), no one but the crowd took notice of the vigilante taking the law into their own hands. There is polite applause, and then that anticipatory buzz of potential fireworks.
Bast favors the guard in front of him with his best withering glare. "I see you've got this under control. Do try to keep the rest of the crowd out?" Without waiting for a response, he moves past the guard with a lengthening stride and a curt wave to the rest of the crew to follow him.
Isa falls into step, cinching the straps on her gauntlet and flexing a steel fist in preparation for some will enacting.
Yves follows along as if this is the natural state of things, expression slightly abstract as he wonders if he could just reach into his knapsack and have a brief test of the--no, no, after the hostage situation or rescue mission or bakeoff or whatever it is that lies ahead, that's the way to do it. Work hard, play weird.
Trying to look more confident than she feels, Linnet adds three inches to her float, fans out her braid a bit in the breeze, and puts on her best Otherworldly Magic User look as she follows behind Yves.
Orrey falls into step smiling politely at the guards.
One of the guards steps into Bast's path, and then steps again into Bast's path. "No entry, sir," she says, definitely not meaning the sir. "Please return to the crowd now."
Isa crosses her arms, full of unspoken menace. Unfortunately, this means that no one hears it.
"Move along, move along!" the guard barks at them. "Professionals are en route!"
"But we're professionals," Yves says, quite reasonably, "and I need to speak to someone inside on a matter of scientific importance. Is it the mask thing? We can put on masks if you only let in people wearing those, though it seems an odd rule. Not like I would know. You have the eternal flame and all that, it stands to reason that once you're doing perpetual energy displays you might have that sort of thing, and if it's a safety process, well, it didn't look like a safety mask to me, but I didn't get a close look. I have lab goggles in here somewhere..."
Bast checks his motion briefly. "You mean you don't have anyone inside yet?" The outrage at least sounds real, and gives him a few seconds' cover to press one of a number of concealed buttons.
The guard regards Bast, and then dismisses him. People who cut lines don't warrant responses.
Orrey checks his watch and looks over at Isa.
Bast regards the guard, and then streaks decidedly up out of her view, a wave of heat from the jets washing over her face as he lands behind her and dashes for the entrance.
When the guard looks up to follow Bast's movement, Isa launches an uppercut to continue the motion.
Yves attempts to just gently sidestep the whole sudden jet-punch situation and walk inside. He's not all that great at gentle sidesteps, but sometimes it's the thought that counts, right?
...Linnet just looks up, then at Isa, then floats around the punch and after Yves.
Orrey focuses and flings out a cloud of green and purple dust over one of the guards, who slumps to the ground into a puddle of gentle snoring.
"Woah," says the dude, a dozen rows back.
Yves is power-walking in a very calm manner (power-ambling, perhaps? it might even be a power-mosey) as if all this punching and clouding and so forth has nothing to do with him. Don't mind the scientist with the knapsack, he's just trying to catch up with his jetpack friend.
The guard's head snaps back down, just in time to meet Isa's hook. As she drops, Isa looks side to side for the flanking guards, and prepares for a fighting retreat after Bast and the others.
Orrey nods to Isa. "Yours is going to have a headache." Then he follows everyone else in.
The Celestial Forge is a three-story circular amphitheater, positioned on an elevated foundation in the heart of Koehnta. The grounds on which it stands are bordered by a wrought-iron fence lined with gates. On almost all occasions, the gates are open, allowing visitors to come into the Celestial Forge. Since the hostage crisis began, they are closed, with an added line of security guards keeping everyone out. Of course, they did not prepare for the fast fists and jumping jetpacks of the brave adventurers.
The building itself is primarily white stone, with red steel and black iron providing structure and support. Every fifty feet, the building’s exterior wall opens for a three-story-high window, wide enough to grant easy passage should someone wish to climb through the window instead of take one of the building’s five entry doors, if one had an easy method of climbing twelve feet to the bottom of the window in the first place. The windows are blocked, now; furniture hastily shoved into place to prevent any entry or exit. The sheer size of the windows made this difficult, and the bottom halves of the first and second story’s windows are far more fully packed than the top halves. The third story windows are open; over forty feet above the ground, they offer little threat of breach or escape, and instead allow the hostage-takers a bird’s eye view of the surroundings.
To the north, the ever-burning flame looms, casting its brilliant light into the amphitheater, as the structure was built so the pillar of fire serves as the backdrop to the stage.
Yves looks over the windows, and makes a thoughtful sort of noise. "So, do we want to go in from the top, or down here, or split up?" He asks this as if it's a rather academic sort of question--or, wait, the opposite of that, academic questions are fraught and emotionally intense and full of citations. He asks the question as if it's equally easy to do any of the above.
"I can scout up top, if we want," offers Linnet, letting down her hair a bit but still hovering.
"The other guards are going to be on us by the time you get back," Isa says. "What're the chances of breaching the door?"
"Get out of sight now, scout later." Bast pauses briefly to take the windows in, then heads for the partial barricade in the window facing southwest at a jet-assisted sprint.
"We should probably stick together." Orrey says. "I can't get through that door. How do the non-jumping, non-flying folks get up there?"
Yves follows Bast at more like a brisk jog. "Gravity ball?" he says. "It usually comes when I call, and we all walk up. Quickly."
Orrey trails behind, puffing a bit trying to keep up. "I like the wall run idea!"
Isa keeps pace easily, but she's on the lookout for more guards as she jogs along.
"Right, good," Yves says, picking up the pace a little, and he murmurs to someone not technically present, "Would you mind if I borrowed one of those excellent spheres you have for the gravity thing where they--oh, yes, perfect," he interrupts himself, a shiny sphere somehow already in his hands. Reaching the wall, he simply places it against the side of the building, where it sticks, and continues his brisk walk. Now up the wall.
Orrey grabs a pebble as he walks up to the wall and tosses it, watching the alteration of gravity take the pebble in weird directions.
Bast doesn't even slow down as he leads the charge up to the window; a flex of the knees, a burst of fuel, and he flies over the makeshift barricade, leaving a short-lived smoke trail behind.
Linnet doesn't even appear to see the barricade as she follows Bast through the window and looks around. "What the hell..."
Isa already has an...interesting relationship with gravity, but it's usually in the vertical direction only. So she's a little hesitant to follow Yves up the wall, but the mission is the mission and so she does.
This room provides a showcase for any acts fortunate enough to play the Celestial Forge, with some article from their performance immortalized for future generations to marvel upon. By far the most common item contained within these reinforced enclosures are guitars, though the centerpiece attraction, in the coveted central location, bracketed by stained glass displays extolling the virtues of a life well crafted, is a unicycle and a set of six white bowls. A body lies on the ground, unconscious but breathing. A young man sits in bewilderment by a set of bagpipes.
"Which way did they go?" Bast tosses off to the bagpipe man, killing the jets and making his way across the hall towards the most likely exit.
Linnet, on the other hand, lands, exchanges a quick nod with the piper, and stops to take a quick look at the unconscious figure.
Yves glances around, gaze lingering briefly on the unconscious body. (The other man gets minimal attention, because being bewildered near bagpipes seems like two things that go together naturally.) At least no one is setting guitars on fire or threatening to douse flames or--come to think of it, those rather are opposites, huh. Something to think about later. Possibly during the party.
"Th-that door, but--" the Bagpipe Man says, scooting backwards on the floor, trying to put a toppled chair between he and Bast. He is a human male, wearing a blue vest with no shirt underneath, and he sports a cherry blossom tattoo starting at his left wrist and winding up along his body to just under his left ear.
"He's harmless, I promise. Just...driven. What happened here?" Linnet waves Bast on. "I'll catch up."
Recalling what happened the last time Linnet got too close to a "helpless victim," Isa is on high alert for stabbings.
“But what?” Orrey asks the Piper.
"They -- he -- then they -- wow," is all the Bagpipe Man can manage.
“Right.” Orrey heads for the door.
"Everyone here seems fine," Yves says cheerfully, "so let's go look for the problem that actually needs solving." He's close behind Orrey, for the moment. Maybe a little to the side, in case opening a door proves dramatically unwise in a linear or cone-like fashion.
"Give me a minute here and I'll see what I can glean. Don't get yourselves killed before I catch up, okay?" Linnet looks around for confirmation.
Isa waves to the boys. "Go. We'll catch up." She has no intention of leaving Linnet alone with someone who might possibly own bagpipes.
"You too." Bast gives Linnet a nod without looking and finally slows down slightly just short of the door - to open it instead of just barreling through.
The door does not open. The door cannot open, as the door has been jammed, thoroughly and effectively. The doorknob is worthless, as turning it engages no mechanics inside the door. Whatever metal is inside the door keeping it locked is going to continue doing that, as this lock was sabotaged on the way out.
While Bast fights the door, Linnet takes about ten seconds to inspect the figure on the floor for damage, meanwhile engaging the piper in conversation. "Two sentences max: what happened?"
Yves watches Bast's struggle for a moment, then shifts his gaze to the side. "You have explosives, right? I mean, there's this whole wall, no one locks a wall, they just let it be a wall..."
Bast narrows his eyes, drawing a fist back. "Oh is that how we're doing this." A halo of metal strips whips out of his sleeve, wrapping around his fist in a rapidly spinning cone as it's applied to the lock.
Orrey swiftly backs away, knowing what’s about to happen.
"The Flamekeepers, they took over the building," the man on the floor says. "Chased some people out, kept more of us here, so we can be we 'reforged.' Said it was because of my tattoo," he adds, pointing to his arm.
Yves leans in, to see what's about to happen. ...a split second later, he digs into his knapsack, and finds those safety goggles he mentioned. He puts those on. Then leans in closer still.
Linnet gives the tattoo and the piper a weird look. "Any reason behind that? Ever heard of these Flamekeepers before?"
"No," he says with a shrug. "They said they hear Koehnta's word, and we're all defiling Their sacred space."
"Great," Isa says in a tone that suggests she is lying. "Zealots."
As the drill spins down, splits up and retracts, Bast pushes the door - now with a smoking hole where the lock used to be - open with his other hand and steps through.
Yves is humming a little jaunty tune, something from that one popular song back at the university about the periodic table, as he follows Bast through the doorway.
Linnet shakes her head, finishes her inspection, and stands up. "You're both fine. Stay here, don't die, we're going to go kick some fundamentalist butt." Without waiting, she follows Bast through the hole that was once a door.
"That was not what I was expecting, Captain. Much more directed than your usual explosions. Very impressive." Orrey admires the work as he passes through the doorway.
"I thought I heard something!" An armored tonberry swings a sword at Bast, narrowly missing the captain of the Starfall, before springing (gradually) back. "Forge light our path!" An earth sylph moves to support her flank, wielding a scimitar in her left hand and a miniature crossbow in her right, bringing both to bear.
Best Practice swings her sword up into the sky, and the blade glows with the fires of conviction.
Both of the attackers are wearing turbans on their heads, turbans depicting rising smoke.
"Don't have time for your shit." Bast spits in disdain and whips out his own crossbow as he steps aside to let the rest of the party out of the room, bolts ricocheting off the walls of the hallway and into the cultists.
Through the door, Isa sees the tonberry's sword go up. "Oh no you don't," she mutters, and draws her own sword, golden flames echoing her opponent.
A confused Linnet attempts to throw two layers of protective sparkles over her friends, only to see them all disappear into Isa's sword.
Core Value takes both a swing and a shot at the closest person, that being Bast, with both scimitar and crossbow bolt attempting to make a home in the captain's tender(?) flesh.
Bast steps aside with a contemptuous sneer, not even trying to defend himself otherwise, and watches the sylph overbalance and barrel past.
Orrey steps to the side of the door, drawing the Armageddon and triggering the Queen’s Gambit. A pulse of purply-grey light bursts out as an orb rises above Orrey.
Yves had a little bit of blue spark starting to crackle at his fingertips. But having seen what happened to Linnet's sparkles, and after looking between the rune sword to the left of him, the rune sword to his right... He sighs, mutters something under his breath that sounds like a very rapid "oh for the love of little brown mushrooms," lets the sparks vanish, and raises his voice to ask brightly, "Hello! You must be locals! Can I interest you in any interesting recreational drugs? I have some exciting new ones suitable for every species, and let's be honest, you would enjoy them a lot more than what's going to happen next otherwise!"
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