Session 38 - Battle for the Forgotten City

Ahem.
Previously, across the Horizon...
Celeste Meracydia, old friend of Isa's, current potential cartographer for the Starfall, and chipper overachiever, is gearing up for her presentation to the Nanab Foundation.
Her discovery -- a route to the hidden city for the Forgotten, the long-lost (or at least overlooked) twelfth city of Machanon.
This discovery has brought with it a new danger, though -- an assassin, a gunblade user who attacked Celeste in the Foundation itself, whose attack was only foiled by happenstance, with Isa and the others there to visit her.
With but one full day to prepare before the presentation, the party split into two groups, with Celeste and Isa taking Orrey and Yves quite literally to school, and Linnet and Bast meandering around Thalatte in search for more information on the would-be assassin.
The investigation team learned that the assassin had a name -- Serenye -- and that he had signed on with Liga Kine, who was putting together a team to try and rescue Orrey's father, so moved was he by Orrey's plight.
The adventurers-in-training learned that no one was better equipped than Isa for any sort of physical challenge, with Celeste notably struggling at every task she tackled.
Linnet and Bast implored Liga to listen to their story and at least share his thoughts with Serenye, which Liga set off to do.
The next morning came with no word from the boisterous traveler, and as everyone prepared for the presentation itself, there remained no movement from Liga or Serenye.
The sun is setting, with just twenty minutes before the presentations to the Nanab Foundation begin. The party has been given front-row seats in the auditorium at the center of the Foundation, listed as honored guests who are most certainly allowed to be carrying spears into a room with an expensive chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
In less than two hours, Celeste Meracydia will either be a full-fledged member of the Foundation, recognized for her unparalleled accomplishments...
...or, well, let's not think about the 'or.'
We join our heroes as they engage in spirited discussion over seating arrangements...
**
"But I don't know if any visual aids will be left, right, or center," Yves is muttering, as he considers the front row. "You have to take that into account for the best view."
"Let's take the seats we were offered in the center and take our chances at having to crane our necks a bit. We should at least give Celeste a friendly face." Linnet takes Yves by the arm and prepares to enter the auditorium with grace. And also with Yves.
"Agreed. Center is better." Orrey scans the crowd for hostiles.
"Excellent. You can both escort me in." Linnet takes Orrey by the opposite arm and winks.
"Just remember - I whistle or one of you spots any trouble, Celeste joins the rest of you and you all try to rejoin with Isa. She'll probably get to you first, but front and center won't be a good place to stay," Bast says.
"Do we know Celeste's dominant hand? That usually determines it, if the setup isn't defaulted by the people who arrange the stage," Yves says, but he follows Linnet in agreeably.
"And remind her, if you have to, that she can't finish her presentation if she's dead," Isa says.
"Front and center does give our client best access to her coterie of bodyguards, even if it is Team Nerd and Thunderbun doing the front line guarding. We'll be fine! And for all we know there's nothing to even guard against. Let's not invite trouble." (she says, glancing over both shoulders for strange people with headbands.)
"Just trying to be a good host in case trouble shows up." Bast absent-mindedly checks each piece of his crossbow.
"How you managed to work a crossbow into business dress I will never understand."
There are two people sitting in the third and fourth seats from the left in the sixth row who look suspicious at the best of times, a redhaired woman with a long ponytail and the most dismissive look on her face that Orrey's ever seen, and a goth moogle with black fur that does not look naturally that color. They don't appear to like each other.
As Orrey watches them, a glint of light from the chandelier catches his eye as well, and as Orrey walks to his seat, that light shines just brightly enough to show that there is metal on both of their backs; signaling weapons, of some variety. They're not the only people casually armed here, but the point remains.
That chandelier glint remains, which is curious. Looks like there's a fine golden chain that's almost fallen loose. It wouldn't damage anything were it to come down, but, well, chandelier swinging could be possible, should the wind pick up.
"What do you think of those two shady characters in the sixth row?" Orrey asks, pointing them out to his friends.
"Don't point, Orrey, it's rude. I think they look very uncomfortable."
"Five'll get you ten that's the half of Liga's team that didn't mysteriously absent themselves for some assassination on the side. Wonder where he's at now."
The presentation hall is the center of the Nanab Foundation, with a stage on the western wall and then seats extending out in a cone from there. Entrances are on the north, east, and south, with a second level accessible on the east, and stairs leading to balconies on both the north and south.
Yves has chosen the rightmost of the those three center seats, on the principle that this will be Celeste's left. He has also acquired a bullet journal from somewhere, for more pretentious note-taking options.
Isa appears on the southern balcony, taking a seat in the front row and pulling out a notebook of her own, for appearance's sake.
Bast takes one last long look around the ground floor, noting any likely and unlikely entrance points, and heads up to the north balcony.
Linnet sits next to Yves and is pointedly not taking notes, figuring (a) her companions have that covered and (b) it's more friendly to actually watch the presenter.
The lights dim, and the assembled crowd hrms and hrahs and grunts themselves into more comfortable judgmental positions.
Yves is very bright-eyed. And not just because of the slight tendency for viera eyes to reflect dim lighting back a little more than those of some other species.
There are four people on stage, sitting next to each other, all looking vaguely nauseous. The head of the Nanab Foundation, Sterne Hollow, gives a little introductory speech that goes for fifteen minutes, which is thirteen minutes longer than it needed to be, and doesn't say anything beyond what the plaque outside says.
But then Hollow excuses himself, and the first presenter stands up and begins her presentation. Celeste, you can see, will be going last.
As the presenter begins -- this one is about an archaeological discovery found a hundred and fifty miles too far to the east to fit into previously-known understandings about pre-Alternan history -- you have the chance to see how well Celeste matches up to her peers.
Assuming typical lifespans and general appearances, Celeste looks to be fifteen to twenty years younger than any of the others on stage. She is paying close attention to the presenter currently speaking, in contrast to either of the other two people there with her onstage, who are more intent on their own business -- understandably so.
As the second presenter begins -- this one is just about catfish -- it's also clear that Celeste's presentation is going to have a much stronger effect on any casual observers.
The two people Orrey pointed out look very, very bored.
Isa also looks very, very bored.
Linnet is regretting her decision not to bring a notebook to at least doodle in; her polite smile might be cracking slightly. There are 40,348 tiles in the ceiling visible from her seat.
Yves looks fascinated. He's taking notes /and/ watching the presentations, and looks like he wants to raise his hand on about five separate occasions so far.
Orrey followed the first presentation with interest, but lost his concentration at the first mention of fish.
The third presenter has very impressive mutton chops. Just champion reddish-orange tufts of hair busting out of those cheeks, dancing with every word he says. They match perfectly. Very well maintained. Migratory patterns of the black chocobo north of the something something, let's talk about migration patterns of incredible facial hair. He's sweating a lot, those lights must be very bright.
Yves is clearly /dying/ to ask follow-up questions on migratory patterns. Just /perishing/ with scientific curiosity and/or commentary.
Linnet has a friendly hand on his shoulder to keep him from jumping up out of his seat.
The presenter breaks pattern accidentally. "Are there any questions about this groundbreaking, earth-shattering discovery?" the chops preen.
Yves' hand shoots upward.
"You there, in the front row!"
Bast keeps scanning the room as the presentations go on, occasionally glancing at the stage to make sure none of the other presenters are acting like a threat.
Behind Isa, someone is heard to wearily mutter, "I'm going to die here today."
"Yes! Thank you, what a fascinating presentation," Yves says, and consults his notes. "I was wondering if you could go into more detail on the third summer, and the witnessed pattern among the first-year juveniles? Is there any good hypothesis for why so few of them followed the primary route that year, compared to the other years, or the other age groups?"
"Wouldn't bet against it," Isa murmurs.
"Well, I believe that was well established in the original findings," he says as haughtily as he possibly can. "The issue isn't anything to do with the environment, or the encroaching of behemoths into the neighboring regions, but instead on how the younger birds have gotten soft and seemingly bored, as if they have nothing better to do than to simply lash out against nature and then wreak havoc on the farmers nearby. If you'll indulge me and return to the graphs here..."
Celeste moves her eyebrows up a diplomatic half-inch, and keeps smiling attentively on her side of the stage.
Yves looks skeptical. "Perhaps further research is warranted," he suggests, letting the matter drop, at least on his side.
Linnet mutters a few windy swearwords through clenched teeth.
The other side of the Great Chocobo Migratory War goes for twenty more minutes, before he is finally applauded back to his seat.
"Can't believe they let him present with /that/ inadequate data set and scientific rigor," Yves mutters under his breath to his companions.
"Well, now you have someone over whom you can feel patently superior," Linnet whispers back.
Celeste stands up from her seat and walks to the podium. She is Explorer Chic today, with tan pants, knee-high brown boots, a white button-down shirt, a leather satchel worn crossbody, and compass earrings dangling from her ears. N-W-S-E is also etched into her fingernail polish. She opens her satchel and pulls out just one piece of paper, rolled up for safekeeping, and places it on the podium in front of her.
Someone down the row from Orrey rolls her eyes.
“Hello, esteemed explorers of the Nanab Foundation, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Celeste Vjetarata Aventurine Meracydia, and I bring before you the answer to a question that has hounded all of Ducorde for centuries: where is the Forgotten?”
Yves flips to a new page in his notebook.
Isa leans forward and rests a hand on the railing, a show of interest to conceal preparations to leap into action.
“I say this not to cast aspersions on any of the explorers who have plotted courses before me; it is only through their guidance and their lessons that I have been able to achieve what I have. My patron, Citrine Swann, has sponsored my time here at the Nanab Foundation and they have been most kind and encouraging through my journey.”
From here, Celeste launches into a long explanation of the founding of Machanon, laying the groundwork for the importance of her coming revelation. She uses the official date of Mechon’s founding, 416 AE, versus the rumored 55 AE (though she does acknowledge the rumors with a confident smirk and joking aside).
(Linnet's attentive smile is no longer strained; she's simply radiating cheerful pride in her new friend.)
Some of the eye-rolling and dismissiveness from the older members of the audience is dying down -- Celeste's enthusiasm and penchant for showing her work is shining through. It's hard to say if anyone is actually taking her seriously, though, and it's hard to shake the sensation that this is a prepared report for a history class.
Orrey is entirely too focused on her speech, so much so that he's not looking around the room at all anymore for those threats that may or may not make themselves known.
Yves dutifully takes notes during the history section, waiting for it to get to the good stuff.
“Eleven cities. Eleven ways of life, eleven pilgrimage sites, eleven stanzas, eleven beats, eleven pillars of faith. Except we all know that is not how it goes." Celeste places both of her hands on the podium, looking out into a crowd she cannot see clearly, but her eyes seem to find each individual's, one by one. "There must be a twelfth city. There must be a twelfth bastion of faith for all those who would remember what came before. Just as we have Itami’s stadium and Somnus’s symphony, we must have a Forgotten city.”
“Explorers, there is a Forgotten City… and I know where it is.”
Orrey can't help but gasp at the reveal, even though he knew it was coming.
Bast is barely tracking what Celeste is saying anymore - only enough to be aware that she is still going. All of his attention is on the entrances, windows, niches...
“As Luso showed us, the Forgotten City is not here within Machanon’s known borders. The terrain here is too accessible for such a place to remain hidden for long. For a time, I feared that the Forgotten City had fallen beneath the waves of the Dicelan Sea, but my time mapping the coasts of the Three Sisters led me to a different conclusion, especially after Gideon Ramada completed his analysis of the artifacts I found embedded in the soil there.”
Yves perks up a bit at the mention of artifact analysis.
"What we previously thought were early Cardian artifacts, dating to the founding of the city-state after the establishment of the Alternan Empire, were not. Instead, they were broken holy symbols and pieces of jewelry that honored the Forgotten..."
Celeste pauses, that semester and a half of theater coming in handy.
"...and they are at least two hundred years older than we previously thought."
A murmur rolls through the crowd. The three other presenters look absolutely befuddled.
Yves writes a note to himself to ask about the analysis methodology afterward.
Celeste says it out loud. "The Forgotten City predates the Alternan Empire. And I know where it is," she adds with a cheeky smile.
"And if need be," says another voice, "that knowledge can die with you."
That gets Bast's attention.
Linnet presses a hand on each of Yves' and Orrey's shoulders to keep them from immediately jumping up and potentially endangering Celeste.
She also starts tracing small shapes with her fingertips.
Yves snaps his notebook closed.
Isa tightens her grip on the railing and starts looking for the source of the voice.
Bast's crossbow comes to rest on the railing in front of him, loaded and held firmly as he looks for the speaker - and anyone else with an unhealthy interest, in case this one is a diversion.
The southern doors are open, and the lights have masked his entrance. His clothes are the same silver and black, and the red cloth tied around his forehead gives him his only color. "But I'm told that you and your friends like to talk," he says. "So? Let's talk. Though rest assured, if anyone so much as moves at me, this secret dies with all of you."
Celeste squares her shoulders and glares at the intruder. "Explorers, allow me to introduce you to a man who thought this revelation was so credible he attempted to kill me within the halls of this very building," she says. "Consider him my reference."
Yves leans over to whisper to Linnet, "Do you think he's bluffing? I'm no good at reading these things."
"Not particularly," Linnet whispers back out of the side of her mouth. "At least, he seems pretty confident in his angle. No idea if his skills back that up."
He smiles, a bit of mirth invading his scowl. "I do not doubt the truth of what you have found. You just are not going to share it with anyone else. That knowledge is not yours to share."
Bast bites back a rejoinder, and instead starts looking around for a good place where someone might have hidden a bomb large enough to take out the entire audience.
"And perhaps I was a bit hasty in my judgment of the earlier situation," he says, shaking his head and expressing his self-doubt with the wave of his hands. "I had no idea you were so eager to profit off of a hidden civilization that you had already hired armed guards. What did you promise them? Salvage rights? The ability to name a street after themselves? That is how you all do this, isn't it? Find somewhere that isn't yours, and sign your name to it?"
"You're all here, aren't you?" he adds, casting a quick look over the audience. "Nothing's on fire yet, so I'm sure you're actually keeping it together this time."
"It's a tradition with a very, very long history," Linnet mutters. "And he's the one who set the damn fire. Loudmouth prick."
"Bit of stage fright, I see," he says, after no one leaps to their feet to defend their honor. "Well, Meracydia? It seems the choice is yours, though no doubt your meat will come charging forth to defend their investment. Will you be burning that map, or no?"
"He's probably just accusing us of whatever he's planning," Yves mutters back. "Absolutely /classic/ projection."
Celeste looks away for a moment, digging the toe of her boot into the floor. Her eyes flick out to Orrey, finding him in the crowd.
"I'm not saying this would be a good time to strike him with lightning, but..." Linnet side-whispers to Yves.
Orrey locks his gaze with Celeste, and gives a wry shake of the head. "This guy is clearly INSANE."
The intruder laughs. "Remarkable. Another one with no respect for one who has protected this world for so long! Another who would just strip Him of His worth to pin it to a wall or lock it under a glass!"
"...is the Forgotten a butterfly?"
Orrey leaps to his feet and whirls towards the intruder. "You have no conception, no clue who I am or what I am about! You make ridiculous assumptions without even bothering to ascertain the Truth!"
"Is the Forgotten destroyable by being known?" Yves asks, no longer whispering. "Because that seems like a major design flaw, if so."
"Religious fundamentalists are even worse than backstabbing academics. Only question is, do we teach him a lesson in here or outside?"
He stands at the foot of the stairs leading to the stage with his arms folded, well away from Celeste, far from everyone but Isa, who is positioned a balcony above him, the top of his head and the sword strapped to his back just now coming into view. "This is where I should go back and forth with you on what the Truth truly is, words are exchanged, perhaps someone undoes a button on their collar, and a lady faints. I don't think that's quite worth my time, and while none of you are either, regrettably, you stand in the way of my mission."
Orrey goes on, nearly shouting, "You who brought violence upon someone rather than working out your differences, you who attempted to assassinate the woman standing before us there, you who come in here talking about killing EVERYONE IN THE ROOM!"
"I mean, there are a lot of people who probably can't dodge very well in here," Yves says to Linnet, with a sidelong glance back to one person on the stage, "and we should probably not get them hurt if we can avoid it, because that would be.... unethical, right?"
Linnet addresses Celeste directly. "Ms. Meracydia, you might want to put the map away before something else gets lit on fire."
The audience is transfixed.
Yves mouths 'someone' at the stage, helpfully, in case that wasn't clear enough.
Isa flicks her eyes over towards Bast.
Bast whistles sharply, not adding anything else to the discussion.
"Let's talk about the killing, then."
Orrey unconsciously flicks his gaze up to Isa and Bast as he realizes he's made himself a target.
"Let's talk about what happens when you and your little group of explorers shows up."
"Orrey, you don't happen to have a Silence spell, do you?" Linnet asks, very quietly.
"A brave new frontier. A city you've never seen. A people you've never met. Who comes? How do you arrive? Diplomats? Conquerors? Do you think we haven't seen this sort before? Do you think we don't know what it means to chase glory instead of anything righteous or worthwhile? Do you think we don't understand what it is to forsake duty in the name of a single rush, a lone high?"
Orrey mutters "Not today..."
"You. Boy. What do you believe in?"
"Would you at least give us a context for 'we,' so we know what angle your half-coherent rant is coming from?" Linnet asks Serenye.
His affable tone is much harsher now, though it's not like it wasn't still draped in death before.
"All who go have different motivations. I go as a pilgrim." Orrey looks around at the crowd, wondering what the best way to get them to safety would be.
"Not /more/ xenophobes," Yves mutters under his breath. "Even my /grandmother/ wasn't this bad about it, and she set encroaching buildings on fire for a living."
Celeste rolls the map up.
"Excellent. You can sit it on the podium, there, and I'll come get it. Then I will be on my way, and you can go back to whatever it is you were doing before. Catfish, mostly." He taps his foot. "And no one will be any worse off for it."
"The people deserve to see it," Celeste says quietly, but with conviction. "Any who worship have the right to see the birth of their faith."
Orrey begins to cast a spell, cupping his hands around the watch he uses as his focus.
Bast eyes the distance to Serenye from his spot on the balcony, judging the throw.
"Heretic," Serenye says, and raises his blade.
"Nice to meet you too," Bast snaps off as yet another vial flies over the audience towards the assassin.
"A heretic is one who sees with her own eyes," Linnet yells just before all hell breaks loose.
The smoke cloud bursts into existence well short of Serenye, catching several of the audience members who immediately start coughing and wiping at their eyes - but the dark cloud hangs between him and the stage, obscuring his target.
"That's (_)damned annoying," he growls. He raises his gunblade in the air and pulls the trigger, a sea-green aura enveloping him, as he then flips a small copper device with three funnels that look almost like a gramophone's speaker out at the crowd. It then detonates into a cacophony.
In the instant before the wave of sound crushes Linnet and the others, Serenye's speech pattern jumps out at her. It's like he said a name there... but she forgot.
Isa pulls hard on the railing, yanking herself out of her seat. She turns the momentum into a vault, and then she's arcing through the air off the balcony, her spear snapping out and down as she heads for Serenye's back.
...and lands square on top of him with a visible shockwave stirring the smoke cloud. She hops back in the aisle, pulling her spear back and tucking it into her elbow. "Did you forget about me?" she asks.
Orrey watches the crowd a little helplessly as they surge towards the exits, somehow managing to fling open all of the doors without crushing anyone. His spell fizzles as the Silence settles in, and he crumples down into his chair, completely overwhelmed by the sonic chaos.
Yves snarls at the man with all the noise, looking viera in a way that might remind some people who had otherwise forgotten of that old forest tradition. He's showing his claws for once, lightning dancing from one to the next. "This! Is! An academic! Setting! Violence! Is inappropriate! To your context!" Each phrase punctuated with a tiny white-blue flash shooting out from those claws.
Serenye angles his gunblade to absorb the lightning into the blue aura surrounding him, and then glares back at Isa. "Less forgot, and more hoped you'd left," he rasps, "foolish as that is. But hey. I brought my own dragoon this time." From the center of the auditorium, a reddish blur shoots up toward the ceiling, the motion blur fading at the top of the parabola to reveal the Cardian who bought the spear on auction at the Valles Estate.
Linnet curses as her spells fizzles and her fingertips get a mild shock. "Well, the hell with it." Heedless of her long skirt, she hauls herself up onstage - no points for elegance here - and takes Celeste by the shoulder, gently but firmly. "I think it's time to let someone else do the messing up in here for once. Celeste, let's grab the map and get back to the green room or wherever they hold presenters beforehand. Everyone else, if you'd be so kind to join us? Nobody's research needs to be lost today if we take some quick decisive action."
"Like, yesterday. Seriously, let's not get in the way of Bast's grenades, some of them are downright nasty. And this nimrod set Celeste's office on fire before, I'd rather not give him the chance to do it again."
"Oh no you don't!" shouts a new voice, and the moogle from before glides into place on the other side of the stage, angrily brandishing a book, beady eyes glaring out from behind his mask. "The map comes with me if you wish to avoid the infinite sadness of the VOID," he adds, the homemade bat wings on the back of his cloak flapping thanks to a little string he has rigged up to his wrist.
"...are you blasting serious."
He rifles through his book and casts a most ominous and dangerous spell: Protect.
"Folks, let's go. This clown show has enough of an audience already." (She's not actually pulling, but trying to force-of-personality folks out of the line of -fire-smoke.)
"Huh. How about that." Bast tracks Genevieve's arc through the air, and times his shot to hit her at the apex. At least that's the general idea. The specific seem to involve a hole in one of the light sconces across the way, and none in the flying dragoon.
Serenye pops his shoulder, wincing at the pain. "You're the last person I want to fight today," he says, firing up at the sky again with his gunblade, this time a shining yellow aura cascading down around him. "So I won't."
Then he turns, blade still held high... and brings it down, along with the glowing bluish-white beam emitting from the top, bisecting the smoke cloud as he slams Blasting Zone down across the stage.
The pillar of magical energy slams down into the stage... a good eight feet to the side from Linnet and Celeste, missing them both.
"Just drop the map!" Serenye shouts into the darkness.
"Drop the attitude!" Linnet yells back.
Isa grins at the yellow aura. "See ya," she says, and flings herself into the air.
"(-)damned dragoons..."
Orrey walks up to Moggoth as he draws his BFK and stabs forward, inelegantly, but with quite a bit of anger behind it. As expected, missing completely.
Henry Montagon just looks offended.
"I bet you tried to legislate pi as three!" Yves snaps at Serenye, glittering metaphorically with rage and literally with tiny sparks that roll down his arms to build into the pattern he swipes through the air, flicked out in the final clawed point to strike home.
"...shut up!" Serenye manages through crackling, chattering teeth.
"Not until you publish a retraction!" Yves shouts back.
"He's not going to be able to do that if you melt him into the carpet, Yves," Linnet comments to Celeste, because ThunderBun is not really in listening mode.
Genevieve lands nimbly between the narrow rows, her spear scraping down Yves's back. The dragoon's eyes are tracking the one in mid-air, though, her preferred target.
Linnet grabs the damn map and - politely - shoves it into Celeste's hands, then gently guides the four folks onstage out a back door. "Celeste, I don't know my way around here, but we'll try to keep these folks occupied while you hole up somewhere safe. Don't let that map out of your sight. I'm not going with you - someone's going to need healing before long, unless that idiot silences everyone again. Just...be careful. Please."
"I'm not abandoning all of you to that madman!" Celeste protests.
"We have a dragoon, a lightning-crazed viera, a grenade-happy madman, and our own healing. This is precisely what we're here to do. You're not abandoning anyone, you're letting the professionals do their work. Please, Celeste. I'll try to keep one of them alive for you to stab when we're done." Linnet winks.
Onstage, Henry, offended, attempts to hit Orrey with his book.
Orrey mouths "OW" silently.
Henry looks surprised, but then tries to recover.
Serenye, fortunately, cannot see this.
"I am not abandoning Orrey or you!" Celeste protests. "And I am not having this opportunity taken away from me!"
"The only thing we're taking away from you is a giant headache from this guy's stupid sonic grenades! We're going to be just fine. Celeste, please. Assuming we go adventuring together once this is over, you'll have plenty of opportunities to save the day for Orrey."
"Alright, it's time to get serious here", Bast mutters to himself as he reloads his crossbow. Three shots go out in quick succession, though with the distance and movement on everyone's part, he's not even checking if they hit before he starts reloading.
"But you have to be in one wonderful Celeste-shaped piece to pull that off."
Celeste clearly hates everything about this... but after a grab and squeeze of Linnet's shoulders, the young cartographer runs out the door.
Good.
"My blackened heart!" Henry wails, clutching a good seven inches below where he was actually shot. Genevieve spins around, trying to find the source of the shots.
Serenye fires the same Heart of Stone aura to guard against an eventual Isa, and then runs onto the stage, skirting the edge of the smoke to try and find Celeste.
From her vantage point, Isa spies that yellow aura flaring, and nods with satisfaction. She orients her spear to drop at speed...towards Henry.
"You are not the one I need to be focusing on." Orrey snaps out derisively at the bookwielder. As he feels the effect of the silencing cacophony wear off, he turns towards the assassin and unleashes a black bubble of force that expands and then implodes.
Maybe it's the smoke, maybe it's the Protect, but when Isa lands on Henry it's merely an ugly gouge taken out of his fur. She looks disappointed in herself, more than anything else.
"MY ETERNAL ANGUISH!" Henry proclaims.
"My ability to process thoughts!"
Serenye staggers as he runs, the Gravity pulling him down, banging his knee against the stage as he pushes himself back up on the tip of his sword.
Yves shrieks at the sensation of a spear to the back. But rather than yell about how much he liked that coat (which, honestly, he did, though at least now it can have a cool scar?), he howls after Serenye, "COME BACK AND FIGHT LIKE AN ACADEMIC," sending lightning after him to, presumably, express how academics fight.
It's not so much a bolt of lightning that cascades out of his hands as an ORB of it, exploding across the man's cowardly, poorly cited back.
If that Dive causes a scar, the spearpoint slashing up Yves's back from the other angle could make a cool X.
Linnet walks over to Serenye, kneels in front of him, and raises his chin with one finger, so she's looking him directly in the eye. "Time to 'ice-olate' you before you spread your stupid any further."
She places a finger against his head and snaps her opposite hand, surrounding his stupid headband in a ring of frost and knocking him out cold.
Serenye clutches his sword with shuddering hands, then manages a weak "I... tried... sorry..." before collapsing.
"Right. Where were we?"
Book and spear immediately hit the ground. "We surrender!" Genevieve says breathlessly. Henry starts to say something, but thinks better of it after seeing Isa again.
Celeste leans her head back in the door. "Is it over?"
Yves spins around, still crackling with lightning, and then visibly resists the urge to shoot Genevieve /right in the face/. "...luddites," he mutters.
"Chief loudmouth is out of commission, anyway. Weren't you supposed to be locking yourself in somewhere safe?" Linnet asks. "Where are the others?"
"Oh, I had someone offer to protect me," she says brightly. "He seems very trustworthy!"
Isa kicks Henry's book, letting it skitter across the stage.
Bast's head comes up from packing away his crossbow. So does his crossbow.
"Liga?" Linnet calls into the hallway.
The Nanab Foundation is... a sight, as the smoke from Bast's grenade clears. The stage has a huge trench dug through it from Blasting Zone, the curtains and backdrop are scored with lightning blast marks, the 30% of the people who couldn't make it out are huddling behind overturned chairs, and there is a trail of blood tracking Serenye's movements, including where the stage buckled under the weight of gravity.
"Never going to hear more about the catfish now," Yves grouches, stalking over to pick up the book.
"I mean, the researcher should still be alive, assuming nobody rampaged through the rest of the foundation. You can interrogate him to your heart's content once we clean up."
"Hail, friends!" Liga Kine booms, stepping in through the door, then having to go back and try it again to get the two long spearpoints in too. "And hail, other friends! Pseudo friends."
Liga walks over and looks down at Henry. "Hello! You're fired."
"Do you think he's going to stick around for questions after /this/ response to research?" Yves demands. "--oh, hello, Liga!"
"Hail and well met, friend. Celeste, he's with us. We're with him? You're good, anyhow."
Liga strides over to Genevieve, hands on his hips. "Hello! You're fired."
"Hello, friend Orrey! C'mere."
Orrey, seeing that Celeste is ok, complies and walks over to Liga, stuffing his knife into his bag.
Liga hugs Orrey without waiting for a response, bows respectfully to Isa, offers Yves a high five because it seems like a high five moment, and then walks onto the stage and stands behind the podium.
Bast shakes his head and walks downstairs to rejoin the rest of the team, crossbow out just in case. That it is pointing in the general vicinity of Henry's heart when he stops by him is not at all coincidental.
"Oof! Hi Liga. Thanks for watching out for our friend." Orrey adjusts his satchel after the hug.
"Celeste Vjetarata Aventurine Meracydia, I have a question for you and all of your friends who so nobly fought to save you from Serenye Voda. Why would you seek (--) when you do not know (--), and instead, you have merely Forgotten?" The name, the word Liga used, it's... you're sure you heard it, but it just... it's like you were in a dream, and it's already slipping away.
"I don't like people trying to kill my friends," Isa says, as if no other explanation is needed or forthcoming.
"Until you understand the gravity of what you hold on that map, I would ask -- not demand, merely ask -- that you remain outside its borders."
"Who are you to ask such a thing?" Orrey asks without any negative tone at all, curious, nonjudgmental.
Linnet takes a deep breath and marshals her questioning eyebrows. "Master Kine, this promises to be a fascinating debate, but it might be better accomplished in a room not filled with the aftereffects of battle. Could we postpone until after we have confirmed that the rest of the audience - hell, the rest of the presenters - made it out reasonably unharmed? And then adjourn to somewhere with fewer lightning marks?"
Liga walks calmly over to Orrey and, not unkindly, takes his shoulder in one hand and taps his giant knife with the other. "When you can match me with even a single scratch, I will answer that question. And of course! Once everyone here is fine, I will dump Voda in the ship to take him back home, and then go get some waffles."
"Waffle debate party! All right!" Linnet exclaims.
"You are not invited to the waffle party," Liga says. "Waffles are a solitary experience, to be savored."
"...that's fair. Debate party after the waffles?"
"If I see that man again, Kine, there won't be enough left to take home. Make sure he understands that when he wakes up. He won't get a third chance," Isa says.
"Absolutely! I cherish his friendship, but rest assured I am quite cross with him, and should he take steps against Miss Meracydia again I will oppose him with every blade that I carry." He bows to the group in turn. "I am sure we will all meet again! Travel well, and should any other family members be in mortal peril, shoot a firework into the sky, and Liga Kine will be there!"
Isa nods, and then scoops up Genevieve's spear to toss it to her. "And you, that's one."
"Thank you, friend Liga. May our paths cross in happier circumstances." Linnet looks around.  "...anyone else want to go out for waffles?"
"...we're not going to make it to the Q&A session, are we," Yves says sadly.
"We can bring the other presenters along."
Bast straightens up, gunblade held mid-barrel, and looks at Liga. "I must say, the presentation hall of an explorer's society is...certainly quite the place to be asking people why they seek what they do not know."
"I know, right? Because it's there."
Orrey checks in on Celeste before walking out with everyone.
Liga only smiles and walks away, Serenye draped over his shoulder.
And with that... End session.