"What do you do fur not fun?" she adds, after a brief delay.
Aina relaxes ever so slightly as you don't berate her over her slip. She gives a chuckle when you mention it's your job to watch people, but overall it seems as if her mood is dark and dreary.
"I haven't had any fun in a long time," she says in a weary voice. "You know I was put through the re-education program, right? Takes about six months to get through. Even before then, I wasn't allowed to do anything I found fun. No stuff to build. No problems to puzzle out. Nothing. Aila, though, she got to work on building and designing stuff for Temerity. She just..."
Aina's voice trails off as she buries her head in her knees.
"'Snot fair! She's all I have left. We're all we have left. Why'd they have to tear us apart?"
Though her face is hidden, it's clear that Aina's crying.
Chessa seems at a loss for words for the sudden breakdown. She... logistically had no real comprehension of it. She'd kept her family, though she was made into a tattle-two-tails in the process. Well, she supposed other-mama hadn't been seen as much... but her aloofness had allowed her to go spy - er check up - on her. She'd seen the re-education program. It really didn't seem that bad - though, she hadn't been subjected to the full duration... which was probably the majority of the torment involved. Po was the worst.
Leg hiked, unmoving... she waits for a beat, then continues, "Is there a reason you can't design things in your spare time..?"
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Aina sniffles then lets out a disbelieving, watery chuckle.
"The way the Gremlins Three gossip, I would have thought you would have known by now," she says with another, more bitter chuckle. "Sorry, it's just been rough and I... I can't really be myself around them. I can't really. I don't have any computer privileges and the last time I saved up for a sketchbook and some drafting supplies, well. I really didn't want them back after Fetchen was through with them."
"What about you? Why didn't you scold me for my slip up like the other yokai?"
Not to mention that Chessa had no idea what happened when re-education didn't... take.
Aina gives Chessa a warm, if subdued, smile as she wipes away a lingering tear.
"Thank you," she says softly, "I appreciate that."
After a moment of quiet, she slides a little closer to Chessa and holds out a tentative hand before pulling it back.
"Um, w-would it be rude of me to pet you? It's just... well... You look like you could use a hug. It sounds like I was right when I thought you were different from the other yokai, and... and I know how hard that can be."
"Fair enough," Aina laughs as she stands and follows Chessa, her mood much improved by the strange little cat. She finds her eyes wandering towards the puzzle and even with orders to not think about, she starts trying to solve it in her head.
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Filtering out all those talks about socializing and adventuring, Salvia takes out the charm dropped by Theodore. She looks at how the light reflects off it, shines through it, gently hits it with a jeweler's hammer to feel its crystalline structure, and performs every other test that her mind can thing of.
The eyes in the fireplace, however, catch her attention. She jumps off her stool and heads to the kitchen, taking some ingredients here and there, but actually looking through nooks and crannies, aiming to find the source of her uneasy feeling.
In the back room there are three humans scrambling to fill orders. One of whom appears to be lacking a shadow. Your hand finds itself around the strange bead as you watch the shadowless figure. By all accounts, they are otherwise a normal human, but their gaze lingers hatefully on the fireplace and their view of the people beyond. Distant recollection suggests their name is Mayeso, and that they work under Maturity as an alchemist.
As you approach the bar, someone with long black hair stands up from their seat and storms across the room, almost bumping into you. Before you can react, they're gone, and the shadowless Mayeso speaks up from behind the bar. "What can I get for you, mon ami? We have an unfortunate lack of spirits, but I can make a mean phosphate." They are offering a drink, pointing out a ban on alcohol, and recommending a carbonated beverage. Their accent is affected, and French is usually associated with lascivious intent.
"This is a social mixer. I'm supposed to talk to people. You're supposed to talk to people. Poor guy wouldn't dream of hitting on me given what the heroines did to the last hunter they found who felt a little too virile. So please, tell me why you're still shooting big brother lasers at anyone you half-remember has a dick." You could swear the expletive echoes around the room, but no one seems to be paying attention. You've seen Malice dust someone for mentioning anatomy so blithely.
Tracy and Ao see the Agent of Darkness come out from the kitchen to talk to someone at the bar. There is a good chance Astre or Cygnus will drag them back into the kitchen soon.
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On one side of the room are the three cultists in gold trimmed robes eating a quick lunch. They crowd around a small table at the furthest possible point from the room's only other occupant. They talk among themselves in whispers while taking quick glances over one another's shoulders.
On the other side of the inner sanctum, Phil lounges on a pile of gold coin spilling out of a large upturned iron chest. He's in full combat form, which is a little awkward. He's carefully scooped the gold into a shape he can lay across dramatically, splaying out his paws and framing the treasure with his leathery bat wings. His quilled stinger hangs menacingly overhead. Speaking into the air, he delivers his line: "My meal has arrived! Come, weary travelers, and accept your forgone fate. For your every borrowed breath is only a moment more of suffering."
There is a pause, and a titter of laughter from the trio of cultists, and Phil clears his throat. He shakes his head and works his tongue in his mouth. "The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, the tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips."
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Immediately pre-LARP: Ostentatiously bowing the gathered Yokai through the gates to Perfection's Temple, Tracy takes advantage of the fact that she has as much talent for prevarication as a sea anemone does for interstellar flight. Though her lips remain closed, her expressions & eye contact make her opinions of the individual en-fleshed spirits plain, even challenging in some cases. Finally, as all pass beyond her sight, she sighs & ...
lets go...
Finding herself once more in that place that is no place, Tracy impishly embraces Petrichor before grabbing a brace (or three) cans of PBR from the fridge to slip into concealment within her work rucksack before pulling her hair out of it's habitual work ponytail & brushing it into something more closely resembling a sable waterfall.
"Don't wait up for me, but I promise when I get back there will be tales to tell."
With that, Tracy allows the gravity of existence to pull her back into Neo Jimazan's cloying, almost claustrophobic 'embrace'.
Now: The woman, (OMG! Yep, definitely a woman, her costume has cleavage even!) seated at the table has raven hair & an almost milk-pale complexion. Though honestly only 'feminine' rather than 'lush', her body's contours seem almost lewd to you, given the fact that she makes no effort to conceal or contort them to fit current mores. In truth, she seems to have taken advantage of the present circumstances to indulge in garments cut & styled to accentuate, rather than occlude.
Somehow she has acquired one of the only chairs in the tavern with a pivot, almost lazily turning around & around, one foot arched, ankle exposed, to gently kick off each time she comes to a stop. You get the impression she is observing you even as her gaze swings across the opposite end of the room. An almost aggressively white rucksack hangs from the back of the chair, you think you might have heard something within it clink. A blazingly red H is centered on her forehead.
"Have you a plan?"
Aila's dressed in baggy coveralls that are cinched at the waist by the toolbelt. The boffer sword hangs from her left hip with the Nerf blaster hanging below it. She almost tosses the apron, but changes her mind and puts it on anyway since senior member of the Purity Council had given it to her to wear.
[ooc]Class: NPC/SAGE (Shy Awkward Girl in Engineering)
"Sadly, this one does not," Aila answers as she tries to size up Tracy without seeming rude or giving herself away. "This one does think that the card stating this one's role makes it so that this one should probably be pulled along by someone with this one's character's best interests at heart. Maybe a friend who is more outgoing and charismatic?"
Aila takes a moment to study Tracy's outfit for the first time and finds herself blushing some.
"Dang, you must beat them off with a stick," she mutters, not quite aware that the words came out of her mouth instead of staying in her head. Aila shakes the thought away, knowing better than to let it linger too long.
"Or you could be talking about what kind of 'quest' the others should go on. Maybe there's a rat problem in the pipes?"
"Bravo, Phil!" Chessa calls as she makes her way boldly into the room, tippy-toeing down the foam 'strewn-rubble', still in not-fight-form with slow bounces down. "I can't wait to see the next part of the purrfurmance!" she says, tail swishing, as she looks to the other cultists, "Don't worry, catform is fur not-fight. I'm out of character right now. If I come through all big paws and teeth, you'll know that I'm BIG CHESSA of the TWO TAILS." You can hear the careful enunciation of her DRAMATIC CHARACTER NAME. "Are you looking forward to the big scene?"
As she asks, she's looking about the room for the hiding place of the eggs... if not here, then where!?
Once he’s clear of the pile, he looks back. “Oh.” Carefully reaching over the gold, Phil rolls the marble egg back onto the pillow with the others. Looking back at Chessa, he explains. “They looked like they were getting cold. The Erohin may do with them what they wish, but these things are precious. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them while I’m responsible for them.”
"Something sugarless." replied Salvia, pocketing the bauble for later study. Her foam hammer lay abandoned to the side of the table.
Ordinarily, the conversation would have died there, but something in the circumstances prompted her to be more inquisitive than usual.
"You seem to be enjoying this gathering. Why is that? It seems so pointless to me."
Chessa watches the egg roll down the mound, her eyes immediately lighting up as she starts to pounce it... but then the next thing that Phil says gives her paws. Klaxons sound in the chesshire kitten's headspace. If the heist works now, then Phil takes the fall for the Erohin's eggs vanishing. Which meant that the heist had to take place between Phil or the Erohin's defeat and cleanup. Which meant that the new goal was to set up a distraction, create smoke and mirrors... and all with nearly no preparation!
After the brief pause, that absolutely wasn't a blue screen of death, Chessa, bounces on her stubby forepaws. "Of course! Anything to help out! But if my Meowster calls me, I'll have to go running! Did you know Sora used to train fur hours every day fur dancing on stage? The best scenes are always choreographed together. Maybe we could work at a very short scene so that you can destroy my Meowster's pawtry summon befur the fight even begins?"
What is the purpose of _____?
Who or what doesn't belong here?
What might happen if I _____?
Where can I gain an edge?
Who or what here is isolated or alone?
"I suppose that I find the vainglorious attempt to raise spirits humorous." Mayeso takes a tall glass from behind the counter and sets it on the bar, dropping in a scoop of shaved ice. "It is also relaxing to perform even this farce of alchemy by my own hands." From a long tray of herbs, Mayeso plucks a few sprigs of mint, which they crush into the ice with a stone pestle. "I have been deemed too mortal to risk proximity with the substances my work requires." From a pocket in their apron, the Agent of Darkness produces a brown glass bottle. Using a silver jigger, they measure out an ounce and a half of sallow syrup, and pour it over the ice. Another bottle appears from behind the bar, and Mayeso shakes out a couple dashes of powder. "Not everyone likes this part, but you did ask for something sugar free. You'll have to trust me in this, mon ami." From a cabinet behind the bar, they take out an egg, and crack it over the glass.
With the ingredients of the drink assembled, Maseyo tops it with a horn tumbler and shakes the drink. A more ornate glass is taken from behind the bar, and the mixed drink is poured in, where it fizzes and foams. While waiting for Salvia to accept the drink, they begin rinsing their tools and returning them to their places behind the bar.
She had to be careful, though. Her conversation partner might only be dressed that way to weed out those not fully in control of their libido. Little slip ups like earlier were likely to leave her in a bind she could ill afford.
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Pursed lips quirking slightly at Aila's sotto vocce comment, Tracy is on the inhale, clearly about to respond, when the guitar chord kicks in.
You've never seen anyone go from seated to standing to all but floating across the floor... that fast.
The fact that somehow the crash of the chair on impact manages to be at the exact moment necessary to not bring it all to a screeching halt would, in any other circumstance, be the most amazing thing about this...
only now her hand is dancing across your wrist as she isn't done yet...
Aila, even later, was never sure exactly how she wound up looking up into Tracy's eyes, one of the other woman's hands pressing into the small of her back and holding her body tight against her as they began to move in rhythm with the beat of the guitar. letting the flowing chords take them up in a sweeping melody of fire, love, passion, and a hint of bittersweetness, of loss. In one of the slow moments, Aila feels something is supposed to happen and begins to purse her lips for a kiss, only to stop as she remembers where she is and the Erohin's distaste for such showings between humans. She instead buries the urge deep and continues with the dance.
By the end of her turn dancing with the woman she'd approached, Aila is breathing heavily and her face is far past flushed. She stumbles over to the bar, her legs quivering like jello, and grabs onto it next to Salvia for support.
Act cool. Act cool! It's no big deal, even if she's hot and sexy. Nope, not bothered at all!
"G-got anything for... after that!" she asks as she tries not to just melt into a puddle or burst into flames.
"Vainglorious attempt to raise spirits, like that one?" says Salvia, pointing at the twirling Tracy behind her. She grabs the glass and takes a sip of the beverage, thinking about the best way to spin the situation around for her own advantage. Conversation was never her strong suit, but if she could get an Agent of Darkness to talk, maybe...
That's when a flustered Aila uses her shoulder to prop herself up. Salvia winces at the sudden physicality, gently but firmly pushing the new arrival towards a stool. "And what would you work on, if you had the chance? Which substances requiring an immortal's touch do you crave?"
One of the pair who started the dancing arrives at the bar and makes their request, and Mayeso nods. They take a tall sundae glass from under the counter as they continue their conversation with Salvia. "It is not what I would make so much as that I would be doing so without being covered in several inches of slime." Another small brown glass bottle is drawn from the bartender's apron, and from it they lay down a swirl of brilliant red around the inside of the glass. "My yokai is an amorphous gel. They frequently pretend to forget my personal boundaries." The bartender draws a metal hose from behind the bar and fills the glass with a heady brown liquid. With a pair of metal tongs, Maseyo adds a cherry to the top of the foam that stands up from the top of the glass. "It makes for a lengthy cleanup at the end of the day."
Maseyo turns their attention to the person beside Salvia, waiting to see if they take a drink. Another person dressed as a cook rushes in from the kitchen and knocks the root beer off the table. The cook bows apologetically. “Sorry! I’ll clean that up. Could you go help with the hors devours?”
The person on Aila’s left looks anxiously across the room at a pair who seem to be arguing. They’re dressed as some form of archer with pointed ear prosthetics, and sit with a tense grip on their left arm above the elbow. Some measure of this anxiety seems to be habitual.
"My yokai is an amorphous gel. They frequently pretend to forget my personal boundaries." The bartender draws a metal hose from behind the bar and fills the glass with a heady brown liquid. This soda jerk also seems tense, but it’s entirely to do with the dancing, which they now refuse to look at. With a pair of metal tongs, they add a cherry to the top of the foam that stands up from the top of the glass. "It makes for a lengthy cleanup at the end of the day."
The bartender turns their attention to Aila, waiting to see if they take a drink. Another person dressed as a cook rushes in from the kitchen and knocks the root beer off the table. A dark look possesses the soda jerk’s expression. The cook bows apologetically. “Sorry! I’ll clean that up. Could you go help with the hors devours?”
Aila knows she shouldn't be eavesdropping, but she couldn't help it, nor could she keep from feeling empathy for the person next to her. Before she could say anything or ponder on what she'd heard, or even reach for her drink, Another of the tavern's staff comes out and sends the drink tumbling into her lap. Aila is fairly quick, but not quick enough to avoid getting soaked from belly to thigh.
"N-no, It's alright. I think... I think I'll go change," she mutters before giving the poor cook a wry smile. "Who gives someone a tissue-thin apron anyway," she asks with as she lifts up one corner of the now translucent fabric of the "apron."
===
She finds the locker-room blessedly empty and is even more thankful for the full change of clothes to replace the ones now sticky with rootbeer. After a quickly wiping off anything that had managed to soak through, Aila begins to get dressed but pauses as she spies a heap of colorful fabrics lying in a side room. Memories that feel a lifetime ago come back, of dancers spinning like flowers caught in a dervish. More recent memories of a dance with a woman so boldly dressed in an age where to show off one's gender is seen as crass came back as well. A mischievous grin began to spread across her face as she walked over to the pile of clothes and unused costumes, leaving behind the one picked her in the cubby.
===
Aila returned to the taverns common room dressed in a loose cotton blouse that had flowing sleeves and showed off her slender, freckled shoulders. She'd fashioned a set of colorful skirts from blue, green, and white panels of fabric that had not been used. Her feet were bare, though her ankles were decorated with several sparkling bangles as were her wrists. She took two steps out into the room before she realized that she didn't really know how to dance. Self-consciousness stole her bravado, and it was all she could do to not bolt and hide somewhere as she walked over to where the girl she'd danced with was sitting.
"I... I, um..." she stammers as she struggles to find the words for the question she wants to ask the other woman.
"It seems to be rare to find somebody who respects boundaries nowadays." concurs Salvia. Then, she gets bored with attempts at subtlety. "Is that the reason why you lost your shadow and now serve Darkness?"
“Longstanding wrongs must be righted. Those… parasites… must be erased from this world. You hunters cannot stand much longer against what you know to be true.” The glass cleaned, they place it behind the counter. “Enjoy your drink.” Then they turn in order to leave dramatically.
The guitarist is dragged from the room by Takara and Niji, trailing a long coat. “Unacceptable! We have been granted a reprieve from our intrusive overseers, and what do we do with it? Only prove their necessity. Song and dance and carousel feel like good things, but they are only the temping precursors to prejudice and hate and violence! The Erohin hope to bring us up from our dark impulses, but we cannot do this with the likes of this pervert.”
The tall stranger is thrown to the floor at your feet, and something heavy slides across the floorboards and hits your foot. Their long sandy hair is tied into a simple ponytail. The duster they’re wearing conceals their figure, but their long legs terminate in pointed and polished boots. They seem calm, collected, and defiant.
The guitarist is dragged from the room by the knight and their squire, trailing a long coat. “Unacceptable! We have been granted a reprieve from our intrusive overseers, and what do we do with it? Only prove their necessity. Song and dance and carousel feel like good things, but they are only the temping precursors to prejudice and hate and violence! The Erohin hope to bring us up from our dark impulses, but we cannot do this with the likes of this pervert.”
The tall guitarist is thrown to the floor at your feet. Their long sandy hair is tied into a simple ponytail. The duster they’re wearing conceals their figure, but their long legs terminate in pointed and polished boots. They seem calm, collected, and defiant… and familiar. Echoes from the Shrine of Eyes set the hairs on the back of your neck on end.
The dancing begins in earnest, and the two of you allow yourselves to enjoy the music. Feet which have forgotten real music pad across the floor following the rhythm of the guitar up the stairs and onto the second floor landing. Across the way, a knight and their squire kick in the door to one of the tavern’s rooms. For a brief moment, the music is amplified, and those still scaling the stairs cheer, but then the music comes to an abrupt stop.
The guitarist is dragged from the room by the thought police, trailing a long coat. “Unacceptable! We have been granted a reprieve from our intrusive overseers, and what do we do with it? Only prove their necessity. Song and dance and carousel feel like good things, but they are only the temping precursors to prejudice and hate and violence! The Erohin hope to bring us up from our dark impulses, but we cannot do this with the likes of this pervert.”
The tall stranger is thrown to the floor at the top of the landing. It’s silverROSE, whom you haven’t seen since the Cataclysm. She looks like she hasn’t been sleeping. The duster is DelphicKnight’s and she’s swimming in it, but you can see her pointed and polished boots, and the pearl handle of a revolver tucked inside. She seems calm, collected, and defiant.
One of the cultists stifles a snicker, and another crosses the room to stand watch at the door. Phil flinches as if wounded by the laughter, but manages to shake it off.
The room beyond appears to be a raised platform with wide, cardboard pipes to either side. At the end of the platform, there is a set of stairs, and you can see dark shapes suggesting there is more to the room in the south.
“At last! Our inevitable campaign continues.” Conquest steps boldly into the room, and Brilliance stands from their seated position.
Aila watches the scene and does her best to hide her shock and the flash of anger she feels as the thought police bring out the guitarist. She wants to speak out in their defense, but as she considers the ramifications for Aina, herself, and the musician, especially with how she's dressed, she finds the words dying on her tongue.
They're no better. They prejudge those that do feel and assume we'll fall into hate. Is it jealousy or hatred of those have not surrendered that part of themselves?
Finding herself trembling, she looks down to hide her eyes, and hopefully her soul, from the gaze of others. She then notices the strange gem next to her foot and realizes that this must be what she had felt hit it when they'd thrown the guitarist on the ground. Quietly and discretely, she grabs it with her toes and looks up to the scene playing out. Outrage, shock, and fear swirl around now as the tension builds. Her already whipsawed emotions threaten to break her control.
Slowly, she backs her way through the crowd. Step by step as they were all lashed by the ones assigned to police them in absence of the yokai. Degenerate, pervert, and other less complimentary or at least less polite labels are bandied about without care for how they might affect those listening. So what if she wants to feel and to dance? That is who she is. That is who Aina is. Isn't this the same thing the Erohin accused humans of doing? What gave them the right?
Aila reaches down as her foot holding the gem pops up. Even as much as she wants to flee, she feels that she has to hold onto it. It is important even if she can't say why. She takes another step back as she clutches the gem to her chest, then another and a fourth. Memories of fire and shadow come unbidden and she turns as she ducks her head so the others won't see her tears as they wear away the dam she'd put them behind.
No one notices as Aila leaves the tavern and runs to hide in the maze made for those going out as adventurers.
Curious, and not really wanting to ask for permission, Aina quietly goes to see what lies to the south.
Conquest rears back with their javelin and shouts into the darkness: “Halt fiends!”
The wheelbarrow drops off the board, and one cultist busies themselves parking its glistening load. The other turns and draws a foam paintbrush from an inked sheath in their gold trimmed robes. “I’ve got bleed damage!”
A foam tipped arrow bops the cultist in the shoulder and clatters to the ground. “Mancaouro! That’s entangle. Stay in character, please.” The armed cultist hides a sigh and makes a note of one of their feet before testing their reach with the serrated ritual kris!
Hiro might experience long-term damage to their sight for all the eye-rolling that’s going on.
The skull-adorned front of the dungeon is being watched by the final ambush crew: a family of ‘kobolds’ returning to reclaim their sewer. There is a small temporary tent where Conquest’s folks are getting fitted for cultist robes. The coordinator looks tired. One freshly minted cultist heads for the back of the building. There is definitely another way into this place and away from prying eyes...
Aina grins as she jumps down the stairs. She tries to not hit the guy too hard, not wanting to actually hurt someone, but she still brings it around in a huge swing.
*BOMF!*
"Didn't anyone warn you that this was a swordfight," she asks as she pulls back and waits for the expected call.
Aila slinks off after the cultist, figuring that the back way will be unwatched. Her mask is in shambles, cracked and broken as her emotions take control. Tears spangle her vision as she tries to regain some composure but to no avail. She has to face the truth. She is a part of a system that is doing its best to snuff out what makes humans, well, human. Art, culture, relationships, and everything else would lose almost all meaning without emotions. People who wish to express who and what they are find themselves ground under the boots of the Erohin and their stupid, ridiculous assertions that it is those things that made humanity prejudiced and degenerate when they are just as bad if not worse!
And she is helping them. She cannot lie to herself now. She is helping them by building the very weapons that will be used to do it. She can hide from others, is good at it even, but she cannot hide from herself. In that moment of realization, she hates herself and wants nothing more than to find a place with no one around, a hidden place to curl up in and weep for everything that she had become without realizing and weep for her missing sister.
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Chessa pauses in her playfulness, to turn her attention to the person who is being a complete and utter rude Jerky McJerkface. "I'm not sure that it'll be quite cataclysmic... but I think we'll be able to work something out!" Chessa, responds, tail twitching. "I'm not sure I'll be able to pull off perfect choreography... so we'll have to add some layers to that beforehand!"
"I think the scene will be better if we have a casualty at the very beginning. I bounce that one, you pounce me. It'll be super cathartic. So... we'll need to put him in a position..." she pauses, slinking towards the 'acolyte', before suddenly pouncing and becoming BIG CHESSA. The Two-tails part was utterly untrue, at best the tip of her tail looked slightly split due to some extra fluffing... which may even just be the result of careful grooming. When the small tiger lands just in front of the acolyte her teeth are bared, and her claws extended... "You. Are being... Rude."
Apologies if I'm overstepping here.
So, I was thinking that you have Phil whose in danger of falling to the Darkness. He is disrespected and degraded at every turn, even though he's only trying to do his best. Aila finds her quiet place, but then Phil finds her. The danger here is that he now has someone who's not only not disrespecting him (Aila's the wallflower most of the time) but is also at least a little afraid of him. At first, it is because she's worried about getting in trouble and Aina getting punished for it. Depending on the encounter, Aila could grow physically afraid of Phil as he begins to give in to the Darkness.
I know Chessa is trying to prevent that, and it is possible that Aila could pull Phil back from the bring thanks to Chessa talking to him and sticking up for him. Then again, it's also possible that the Darkness pushes even harder since Phil has a chance to end someone who could become a threat to it.
If Phil does give in, I do have a dramatic moment in mind.
Alternatively, someone else is in danger of falling into the darkness and takes Phil's role in the above scenario. Maybe a Chimera Yokai in a who feels they're owed more than they've gotten is slipping towards the Darkness, and them being a bully would make them an interesting foil for Phil.
Actually, I think I like that idea better. Aila's dark bargain for that extra die is that she finds her quiet place, but a chimeric yokai, this one a bully, is in danger of turning to the Darkness and finds Aila alone.
Salvia watches her interlocutor turn to leave. "I'm not saying you are wrong, by the way."
She takes a sip from the glass, hoping to create a dramatic pause and catch his attention. "I thirst for knowledge and order, myself, only to get frustrated as my attempts to learn and organize are thwarted. I'm starting to wonder if the surgical application of entropy could bring me closer to my goal. I thought you might enlighten me."
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Empathy is not Salvia's strong point. As her words try to catch her interlocutor's attention, her face unwillingly twists into an arrogant half smirk.
As Chessa pounces, her goal is not to harm, but to intimidate, to make the person take the threat seriously... and stop being mean. The leap is telegraphed enough by the cat's behavior that fear is able to settle in even before she has taken to the sky. Her claws sheathing themselves mid-pounce is likely to go unnoticed as she hurtles towards the cultist. Regardless of whether she comes up short or on top of him, she starts to speak in a low, rumbly voice. "Stop being mean. Evfurryone here is just trying to do their job, and if you keep purr-fur-ting the scene by undermining it with laughter, all of Phil's hard work will go to waste. If you snicker during the real scene, I'll fur-real pounce you so hard."
The other cultist cries out as the assassin wraps an arm around their neck, lefts them off their feet and begins jabbing them in the side. Once let go, this cultist falls gasping to the floor. “S&~&, dude! This isn’t a contact sport!”
Speaking over the complaint, Brilliance shoulders past Conquest to reach the lower landing. “Excellent dispatch, Corduroy, Omger.” You’ve forgotten already which is supposed to be you. “Suck it up and get into position. Shal we continue up these stairs?”
You can see a low passage through which the paper water passes, but the stairs lead back to the east. There are no other obvious doors in this room. The wheelbarrow filled with treasure is on the other side of the paper.
The guitarist reaches up and clasps Ao’s forearm to pull upright. Not the damsel rescue Ao may have expected.