At the harsh ringing of the bell, Djalos snaps awake. Ruji hops to his shoulder and quickly guides him to the SIM rooms for APE.
A young elf in a tattered coat and black leather armor with gleaming studs slides into the SIM rooms, blindfold wrapped around his eyes and two vicious looking jagged sabers at his hip. The ruffling in his hair would suggest that he has been running through the halls, but he does not appear out of breath.
adon is, if he got it right this time, in fourth period APE, he looks grumpy, as usual, just silently watching people come into the room.
Sense Motive
He gets the grumpy cat face a little more when you laugh, but it fades quickly as you talk until he has a genuine just really happy expression. It obviously means a lot to him for you to say stuff like that. It seems he has a problem with accepting himself as he is, being small and looking younger than he really is.
"Aw. Thanks. You're sweet."
He smiles and tosses a ball of yarn at him.
"Your deal sounds a lot like mine. I can tell about the aura thing. My magic is down right now, but I can still see like a kinda gold, jewely thing around you. Like, if I focus it's there but I can just kinda tell it's there if I don't focus."
Come to mention it, Tybs has a kinda iridescent soap bubble looking thing around him when you look right at it.
"It's cool that you saved the school and stuff. Wish I had been able to help. I'd say we could go out and celebrate, but I don't know if they'll let me out of here by tonight. Maybe we could take a rain check?"
"it is, he mentioned how there's about a dozen of us around here and some of them are rather antagonistic towards us, but I made sure he doesn't have any issues with you, whom he refers to as "mercy's champion" kinda a deal breaker otherwise" he grins cheekily before moving on to the other things his frozen friend said "no rush, what's gone wrong that they can't just *poof* and make you better"
Tyb's ears flick up and down and he blushes a bit when Dave says he'd turn down free great powers for him.
"You'd take me over powers like that? I don't really know what to say."
The pale blue blush on his white cheeks continues for a moment as he pulls gently at his tail. He snaps out of it when you ask a question.
"Uh, I think they said I have raddy. Radi-mation? Radisation? Something like that. I just have to let the little machiney dealies work on me until they're done. Until then, all my magic is down. I feel like a kitten, and I can't eat anything or I'll get sick."
He lays back against his pillow with a *pomf*.
"I tried asking the thingies to hurry up, but Ms. Aananda gets mad when I try and talk to the machine things."
"you're my best friend, if some narcastic elder being with delusions of grandeur has a problem with you and wants to use me to settle it, I can show him where he can shove it, though I get the impression he knew that before talking to me... Any idea when the little robots will be done fixing you of Radisation?"
"Heh. Thanks."
He smiles happily, with just complete and genuine enjoyment he often has around Dave.
"They said it'd take a while, maybe into the night. But, if I'm fixed in the middle of the night, it's not much better than in the morning, ya know?"
He thinks for a moment, looking up at the ceiling.
"This does sound like something Dom could probably help do faster with his water healing, but I don't really know where he is, or if he's busy right now."
Djalos notices the young woman beating many of the comers, and raises and eyebrow behind the blindfold.
Belyu, with her experience, can clearly see in off moments that the young elf constantly rests in a predator's stance, clearly a trained swordsman.
Despite having not moved yet the feathery dragon creature rapidly says "obviously" begins slithering into the room "I require the use of your healers to fix my wing"
"You know it is a bad day if they have to call me into the infirmary." thinks Khassar as the winged serpent enters.
Khassar lowers the operating bed so that the Couatl can slither up on it."A Couatl I believe. Any allergies? No? Good, now drink this while I set that wing. You should be flying again in 2 to 3 days."
Belyu smiles and steps out of the ring as a dwarf with a surprising knack for daggers beats her in a standard duel. She sets her sword aside and takes a break by leaning on a wall.
Djalos says without looking at Belyu, "Those kinds of duels don't really measure true combat prowess. They're too controlled. Anybody who is amazing at duels, but has no other combat experience, wouldn't stand a chance in a real battle."
"I noticed your technique. It was good. Very, very good. If it weren't for the strict conventions of the standard duel, you would have dominated him."
"Two to three days?!! What are you!!..." He then pauses in his diatribe before it could get well and truly started and looks surprised saying "wait, did you just say coutal..?"
"No need to thank me for just telling the truth" David grins before relaxes with him, laying down completely and transforms his body from the diamond and gold form he had been fighting in to the body made of flesh and blood and feathers. "I don't have Dom in any of my classes, or if I do he hasn't shown up in any of them, he might be in my meditation class, haven't been to it yet but it's.. Ah understandably mandatory now... Still a tad frustrating, could be using that time to learn something useful like new spells or weapons or sword techniques or simply knowledge of how the world works, instead I have to take a class on ensuring that I don't accidently mind rape everyone I come
In contact with... This is nice though, you know, just hanging out with each other, relaxing in the cold of the room, not necessarily something I want to do every day, but every now and then... Nice" he closes his eyes and sighs.
"They're the only ones I lose." Belyu replies, straightening out her uniform. "One on one battles like this are simply smaller battles. Don't disregard them so easily."
Tybs laughs quietly as he can see you rise on the matress visibly from your sudden shift in weight.
"I wouldn't put it past him to be skipping class to hook up with his girlfriend. Dom's a super nice guy, but he could use a cold shower every once in a while."
He pulls his legs in, not crossing them, but putting his paw pads together so that they meet.
"I know that you'd rather have another class, but meditating isn't that bad... And you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Everybody here has powers they can't control. That's part of being a student here. It's all gonna be ok, man."
He smiles encouragingly and pats your wing extended towards him.
"I like doing this too. I'd rather be ruin running with you, but I'd take this any day you'd want to."
He smiles, brushing his paw over your wing again before leaning back onto his raised pillow.
"Two to three days?!! What are you!!..." He then pauses in his diatribe before it could get well and truly started and looks surprised saying "wait, did you just say coutal..?"
"Yes 2 to 3 days." Says Khassar as he adjusts a lens on a piece of equipment. "Apparently your chakras have not aligned to this body yet. I would say from some recent transmographication or polymorph. Interesting that this doesn't show your true form. Let us run some more tests and I'm sure we can find something other than a rather garishly colored, feathered, winged snake for you to be. Or maybe not."
"what?" he asks cocking his head to the side "please speak plainly, by the ni- I mean what is a chackra"
"And a cold shower would accomplish what exactly?" He asked with a smirk "yeah, yeah meditating is important, but it's soo boring, and really everyone has uncontrollable powers? When's the last time you accidently mind raped someone or attacked someone because instincts flailed up, or cursed someone by reflex when they pat you on the back too hard or broke something because being made of diamond and heavy metal suddenly matters when you can't turn off gravity with a simple thought anymore... or... Sorry... That was rude...what do you mean ruin running?" Seemingly attempting to change the subject wanting to appear happy with his friend there
[ooc]And useless to things immune to it?[/oo]
Tybs shakes his head.
"I don't really know. That's just something people say when someone thinks about sex too much. I'm not sure what it would do really. If the water wouldn't freeze when it touched me, I'd like to cold showers. Magic gets me clean, but I miss swimming and water fights and showers and stuff..."
He doesn't directly respond to Dave's struggles, letting it go like he wanted to, but his own experience kind of puts it into perspective that, yes, everyone has stuff they have to deal with.
He snaps out of it quickly, leaving the old and sad topic behind.
"Oh, you've never been ruin running?! Oh, we have to go as soon as we can!"
He claps his paws and squirms in place happily.
"Running is the best!" He truncates the term, apparently something people in the know do. "Oh, sorry." He realizes he hasn't explained it yet.
"Ruin Running, or just Running, is when you find an old temple or pyramid or something from a long time ago that's been abandoned and you see how fast you can get through it. Then you find all the cool and shiny stuff you can as you go. It's like Parkour and treasure hunting at the same time. You know, there's a lot of planets and places that used to have people or intelligent life, but stuff happens and people leave or vanish and all that cool stuff gets left behind. So, there's a group of people that go in and find stuff. I actually used to get commissioned by giant multiplanet museums to go in and find stuff to bring back for them."
He searches his pillow case with the familiar aura of his storage ring linking it to his stash and pulls out a blocky ring with a seal on it resembling a blocky ziggurat with an R on top.
"See? I haven't had time to do it in so long, but if you have the same teleporting power I got, we can go out and find some really cool stuff together."
He smiles happily, this is easily the most excited you've ever seen him, loving the thought of sharing one of his favorite things with you.
"you could try salting the water or something like that, makes it harder to freeze.... Ruin running sounds like fun. You'd have the edge in maneuverability and expirence but" he says casting a simple illusion "I see eevveeeeeeerrryyyythhiiingggg" he says with his head appearing to rotate all the way around.
"Ew stop!"
He throws a ball of yarn at Dave, but still laughs at your weirdness.
"That's gross, man!"
He starts putting his puppet stuff away.
"If you're gonna be a runner, we've gotta go the The Museum and get you certified. That'd also be the easiest way to find ruins to claim. At The Museum, there's a research crew and and bulletin board you take running jobs from. They don't have the kind of power we do, so they usually have sleeper ships to take you to your jobs, but I don't think they'd mind if we just bounced in and out. With most jobs there's a couple things they want you to find, and they usually want to keep things of cultural value, but everything else you keep as pay for the job. Then depending on how well you do on your jobs, you get a rank from D to A and S is the highest for the really experienced guys. I only got to B before I decided to move on to other stuff, but I've been eager to get back to it. Certain jobs can only be taken by certain levels of Runners. I can take you on my jobs, but we should probably let you try a D rank first just to let you know how it works."
He starts laying stuff out that you'll need to know before you start.
"What's the name of this organization and are thee any rules?... Hmm you know a ring of X-Ray vision or w few castings of locate object ould make it almost too easy"
"what?" he asks cocking his head to the side "please speak plainly, by the ni- I mean what is a chackra"
"Chakras are best described as the meeting points of the non-physical energy channels called nadi. Just to clarify, nadi are the channels in the non-physical body through which the life force or vital energy moves. There are many chakras in the body, but usually only seven that are considered to be the most important ones. If it helps, think of these as storehouses with the nadi being rivers and roads connecting them."
"So like a mana node? Or does everyone somehow have these?"
"Mana node? I am not familiar with that term. I would say no though based on your second question."
Tybs laughs a bit. Apparently you've said something funny.
"That. Those are rules. Part of the runners is that you aren't supposed to use magic unless you're about to get seriously hurt. There's no fun in just tracking everything down. If that was the case we could just teleport in, grab everything, and leave. When you're on a run, there's someone back at The Museum scrutiny you. That's how they get your score and rank. You get points for style, speed, traps you disable, and points off for using magic. When you get up into S and the higher A ranks they actually put you on great big scrying screens in a theatre and people buy tickets to watch. Running actually has some big celebrities like sports."
He pulls a black and white board out of his pillowcase along with a nice wooden box.
"You know how to play chess, right? I actually got this set on, like, my second? Second Run. Rookies get a lot of castles and more modern places that got abandoned. Older places that are starting to fall apart are reserved for vets. Ancient traps can get pretty unpredictable."
He starts to set the pieces out, figuring if you don't know, he'll teach you.
"Ah so I might actually have the edge in maneuverability then if you can't teleport around... Hmm you think I'll get points docked off if I just punch or fly through walls" when tybalt brings out the board he examines the pieces "I think I remember how to play this game, which ones are the silver generals and which ones are the gold generals?"
He shrugs.
"They usually try to keep the sites intact. They might not like if you punch your way through an archaic mural. Plus, it's half treasure hunting, so punching things might end up with things getting broken, and that kinda defeats the whole point, dude."
He sticks the very end of his tongue out at you, winking.
"Not to mention that I'd keep the flaps put away, if I was you. Getting caught in things is really not fun. I have to keep my tail tucked in cause I got caught in a door one time. That was... less than pleasant..."
He shudders as he finishes setting up the pieces.
"What the heck kinda crazy chess do you play? My chess has black and white pieces- hand carved marble and real volcanic obsidian, by the way. Almost 1000 years old. Then there's the pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, king, and queen. Do you know that kind?"
He seems very proud of his find, obviously hoping you'll want to play.
"fair enough, though with this new teleporting thing we have getting trapped is much less of a big deal. ok yeah I see your pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, king, and queen but where are your generals and lances...maybe I'm thinking of a different game"
"something to do with internal magics like sorcerers and magical animals, either way, not important, but why can't you just fix whatever is wrong with my 'Chakras'"
"I think you are, actually. These are it. You know how they move? Of course, the goal is to remove your opponent's pieces so you can corner their king. You win when their king can't make a move without being taken. It isn't actually to just take the king. Let me know if this is too much for you, and I can see if I have some checkers in here."
He winks and sticks his tongue out at you.
"Oh! By the way, I was looking through my crafting book, and I found a way to switch your robe's powers over to the watch like we talked about. It's gonna take some practice, but it is possible."
The young elf shakes his head. "Yes, but the rules... irritate me, I suppose. I don't understand why you're there. Believe me, I have been in many situations where I had to fight a single opponent. Real fights are more athari... what's the word in Common? Fast and loose?"
He turns his head towards Belyu, despite the fact that he can't actually see her. "What about we try a fight? A real one? Of course we won't kill each other..." he says thoughtfully, not sarcastically at all.
"Where are my manners? Asking you to a duel before even telling you my name! It's Djalos. What about yours?"
Djalos wants to duel to keep his mind off of something.
"Hopefully this will just be a bit of humanitarian aid. If it isn't, I need to know immediately. Any other questions?"
"I'll take that prolonged silence for total comprehension, then," Tamrin says with a smirk as the three of them reach the teleport pad.
"My son James is in charge of receiving the refugees, and knows you're inbound. Bring your findings back to him when you're done talking with these folks. Good luck."
He then ushers them onto the pad and sends them to the landing facility at Kuros. After that he opens a comm channel to James again.
"I've got two folks inbound now to help you with the refugees, James. I just sent their files over to you."
A few moments after Ghalen and Repp arrive at the Kuros port, the sky echoes with the sound of the newly-arrived vessel descending to the landing pad.
A few minutes later the craft is safely down, and the landing crew has given the all-clear for the welcome team to approach. The rear cargo bay yawns open, and a large, diverse group of beings start to file out...
The amusingly awkward 'tailoring' scene between Mel and Arthur is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a male figure covered from head to toe in some form of sealed flight suit. Traceries of emerald green circuitry run the length and breadth of the figure's form. Attached to its back is a small cylinder of dull gray material, perhaps the length of a forearm and about four inches in diameter.
The figure turns to Aananda and speaks. Fei's even-toned voice comes fills the room, though it sounds eerily monotone...
"The other Vai has been...eliminated. I require the location of the temporal breach so the...remains...can be returned to where they belong and slow the breach's spread."
The emerald glow pulses more brightly as he speaks, then dims back down.
Besides the unusual deadpan tone, Aananda notes that Fei did not address her with the title he always uses with her. Since she took him on a a student he has never addressed her otherwise.
A few moments after Ghalen and Repp arrive at the Kuros port, the sky echoes with the sound of the newly-arrived vessel descending to the landing pad.
A few minutes later the craft is safely down, and the landing crew has given the all-clear for the welcome team to approach. The rear cargo bay yawns open, and a large, diverse group of beings start to file out...
Perhaps this will be the location for the new tortures. It is strange to see sunlight, but it has happened before. The dragon was most thorough in his 'experiments'.
After most of the passengers in the cargo hold have filed out, there is a flicker of movement accompanied by the blue arcing of electricity as a many-limbed figure moves rapidly in short darting motions to the top of the ramp.
From the waist down, it appears to be some kind of spider clad in plates of gleaming mithril, the tips of its legs sharp enough to leave small gouges in the deck plating. From the waist up it has the form of a halfling wearing mithril breastplate armor. Small arcs of electricity flicker over its body and from its legs to the deck of the ship. Its face is completely blank, and its eyes show only the faintest flicker of interest in its surroundings.
"Seems simple enough, how do the pieces move?" He asks as he sets up the pieces.... Mostly correctly.. The pawns are a row too far forward and he has an extra pair of bishops in the new mostly empty row, but other than that the pieces seem accurate
"Good on you for finding that man, thanks, now we'll just need to find a good sized chunk of adamanite"
Tybalt shifts the pieces around until they mirror his side.
"You almost got it. As far as moving, pawns only move forward one space and take pieces diagonally. Rooks move as many as they want laterally, bishops move the same, but diagonally, knights move in L patterns of three and one branch at the end, the king moves into any adjacent space, and the queen can move like any piece except for the knight, don't ask me why, hut that's how it works. The king is the goal, but the queen is the most important piece."
He adds in a couple of the peripheral rules, and asks if you'd like to go first or second.
He raises an eyebrow again.
"Why adamanite? It's more expensive than life, difficult to forge, hard to enchant, and frankly kinda dull looking if it's not alloyed, which sorta defeats the purpose of it anyways. I think gold would be better. We could magically strengthen it, and then it would go all nice with your hair and eyes. Not that you'd like bad in adamanite, it's just not, ya know..." He trails off, shrugging. It's progress, at least. Now he can complement Dave without turning 30 shades of blue. Maybe just one or two shades. Still, progress.
"I'll go first, Pawn to b3," he says to the board, huffing and moving it himself if it refuses to move on it's own
"More expensive than life? I only was thinking about getting about five pounds of the stuff is that all a life costs these days? It's durable stuff, no one's just going to rip right through this. And that's not true of all magic, adamanite can hold an edge rediculously well and can hold simple abjurations but you're right this would be rather difficult to get it to hold a magical structure as complicated as this one, maybe I should take this opportunity to streamline it a bit, maybe use mithril?" He chuckles as you start to blush and shakes his head, clearly amused.
Tybs moves one of his far left pawn up two spaces.
"They're not magic. You're gonna have to move them yourself. Hope that won't tire you out too much."
He pokes at your upper arm and sticks his tongue out.
"Life was a bit of an overstatement, but it's still one of the most expensive metals. I don't know about you, but I don't have that much money, and your wings would be plucked like a turkey if we tried paying for it with that. Mithril is a better option. It'll definitely take the enchantment better by far. Are there any inlays in your robe as is? What are the buttons made of? Transfers are easier if the composition is closer to the same. Obviously, we can't make a watch out of cloth, but copying the buttons might help."
"I'm pretty sure that if I can take prolonged trips to the lower planes my stamina can handle board games. Pawn to G3" Dave says with a grin as he nearly mirrors your move.
"It's the cheapest of the star metals, but then you can't even find the others on the open market, and while I do have a stash of money, mostly precious gems and diamond dust that's set aside to be used as material components, this would, if not depleate it then make a significant dent in them, I'm not actually sure I'd have to check my ship. As to what I made the cloak out of, it's a drow silk weave and was inlain with gold thread. The buttons are made of ivory though those little rings on the outside edge of them is also gold." He says moving some of the lower buttons closer to you so you can see easier.