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Bloody Revelations     Given the correct time and place, and stepping into the Warpgate with the brand new coordinates that can't be matched yet, anyone hoping to actually see that 'beautiful capital of the dead' . . . will be sorely disappointed. They emerge, instead, into almost total darkness, and a heavy, sullen quiet that is only disturbed by the mad flapping of some crow-like creature fleeing its perch, croaking from its tooth-filled beak until it too, fades into the distance. The air is thick and stifling, as if one were breathing in just slightly too little smoke and incense to be dangerous. The clouds of grey dust that puff up with every step don't help matters. The earth is choked with it, like a forest had burned down recently and its ashes never disturbed.

    The Warpgate is outside, but you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for otherwise. It's a barren, bleak, dusty hole in the middle of nowhere, and it appears to be in the middle of the night. Far overhead, there appears to be a moon and stars, but it's difficult to see them through a haze of fog that seems to start just at head level. The only real landmark is the gnarled black tree that the bird-thing had left from, and a yawning cave mouth set into a rise in the earth. If someone is adventurous enough to wander around and look through the fog, they will find that they are actually on a beach; the water is just so inky and still that the waves can't even be heard from more than a few feet away.

    Fitting for it being the middle of nowhere, the Warpgate is an artificial one. It seems someone here figured out the plans very, very quickly, given how recent this Unification is on paper. It seems to be largely composed of some kind of black jade, forming an ornately carved ring that is heavily embellished with skulls and funeral masks. Fortunately, there is at least some tiny bit of friendly company --the ghost who had introduced himself as Alabaster Yoti over the radio.

    Despite being very monochrome, though, he doesn't look all that ghostly. His many layers of ornamental, black and white robes, covered in tiny grey gems, look very material, as do his incredibly pale and haughty features. He casts a shadow on the earth, which he at least ostensibly has his feet firmly planted on. He is also just as pleasant as ever, greeting each new arrival with a sweeping bow and an enthusiastic handshake, albeit his hands are cold and without a pulse.

    He's not the only one here, though. There is one other ghost, much shorter, swaddled in heavy layers of leather jackets, concealing his face with a stubbier version of the classical plague doctor beak, and holding the reins of what appears to be the skeleton of a horse, though all its bones are weirdly fused and molded together, flexing without true joints. It's saddled down with huge bags of what must be very heavy supplies, and looks like it will barely fit into the cave.

    "Ah, and that accounts for the whole list!" Yoti finishes with the last greeting, unfurling a lengthy scroll and checking an entry off with a floating silver pen. "Please, say hello to your guide! His name is Chui, and he has been very thoroughly vetted by the court. Please treat him with courtesy! You will need him to find your way back!" The squat ghost merely grunts, and yanks on the skeletal horse's reins, tugging it down the dusty slope and into the deep, dark hole. Yoti looks on skittishly, before following up. "I'm afraid that a mere courtier won't be very helpful to you in there, so I intend to stay out of your way, and keep in touch with this /wonderful/ device." he says, indicating a radio earbud made of black jade carved into a tiny skull face. "Whatever you see down there, I'll guide you through it! Oh, and when you find Lady Vermilion, please tell her I sent for her. That's very important."
Starlight Bandits     This place really does evoke the feeling of a tomb. The dark is oppressive, the air choked and the ground filthy. But does this crush the spirits of the Starlight Bandits, extinguish their merry smiles? No! In fact, they're still chatting away happily on a topic this place reminds them of; grave robbing.

    "Hey Irvine, remember the time we broke into that tomb and you said, 'let's invite the occupant out to dance!'? "Hahah, oh yes! That was an excellent night, shame about how it ended. I suppose people were just too envious that a dead man had better moves than they."

    Speaking of dead men, here's some now! Alabaster has his enthusiastic handshakes with the two met with equal enthusiasm. Molly pumps his hand so hard she's liable to pull his whole arm from the socket! As he explains what they need to do, Irvine listens closely as Molly pats the snout of Chui's skeletal mount. "Be nice to the hired help - hello Chui, thank you for being our guide today - and be clear that you are the one who sent us. Understood sir!"
Staren     Staren steps out of the warpgate and is immediately taken aback. His sensors can see in the dark alright, but still, the visual effect is... opressive. He's taken aback again at the weird horse skeleton. That's just creepy.

    "Hello, Chewie." he greets, offering a handshake. Perhaps fittingly, he's not alive in the organic sense today -- Staren figured that when going to a place inimical to life, being made of lifeless circuits and steel was probably the safer bet. You know, as one does.

    He looks to Yoti again. "So... why did she go into this cave, in the first place?"
Yuuki Konno     When Yuuki arrives she seems friendly enough, if a bit dubious at the surroundings and at greeting a ghost. She doesn't want to be rude though, and her enthusiastic handshake is genuinely warm, as if to make up for the coldness of the spirit. She seems pleased by the antics of the Starlight Bandits, and they seem to set the imp girl somewhat at ease despite the dreary surroundings. That or it's just not in her nature to dwell on dreariness for long!
Lin Lin's emergence from the warp gate is a strange thing to see. She manifests a full five feet off the ground, curled up almost into a fetal position... and is carried forth by quite some momentum. She unfolds from this contortion and slams both feet on the ground to bleed it off against the cold ground though, a wave of SHIVERS traversing her body from the tips of her toes to her shoulders.

    The oppressive, bleary, cold EXISTENCE of the Underworld is like a tidal wave of icewater to her fiery heart and she actually wobbles unsteadily and drunkenly for a moment... only to topple right over and land on her tush with a WHUMP.

    And just as unprofessionally hug herself for warmth that isn't coming.

    The greatest of the gods gave her incredible power, yet one step into these forsaken lands cut her off from its source. In here, there's at first little trace of her usual bravery and confidence.

    She shuffles to her feet almost timidly at first, regaining composure bit by bit as she straightens out her outfit and checks her sheathed blade... and only THEN gets a good look at who she's here to meet, almost as an afterthought.

    It does not please her. The Solar gulps quietly... but swallows her fear then and there, and her grip through the handshake is firm.

    Her only response to the instructions is an acknowledging nod, a deep breath... and drawing her blade as she faces the cave.

    "This has to be one of the crazier things I've ever done. But we'll find your Lady and see her safely returned!"
Tomoe The paycheck was good, while Tomoe wasn't mercy normally there was a need for coin as of late given the GU no longer had a factional patron after all and honestly keeping things from being disablized would be good right? She exits the gate and seems to be alert she takes a deep breath as she looks at this place. It's a bit strange to look at the black jade and she tilts he head the skulls and funeral masks remind her of the death floor from SAO which does her mind state no favours but the Iron Lily.

She moves to shake the one greeting her's hand in return. She'll never get used to the undead but since they are not /trying/ to eat her brains she's got no issues with what someone is generally.

"Yes, thank you for the welcome. I'm thankful for the additional support in this matter."

She'll give Chui a look a d try to give nods and she looks. Remote help? She can live with that.

"Going to go operator? I get it."

Raid Callers, can be insanely useful at least in things like ALO was before the change happened.

The bandits get a look as does Staren. There's Yuuki and she tilts her head a little bit.

"Seems we got a right old party here."

Then comes Karal whom she's not seen in a while.
R "Lin, hey."

She's got to catch yup with her friend later but for now they got a job to do right?
Bloody Revelations     Yoti seems mildly overwhelmed, but very much pleased and enthused by Molly and Irvine's exuberance. It would be hard to fault him, given how dour the rest of this place is. He does his best to return their infectious good mood, as difficult as it is to do without life of his own, even going so far as to say "Oh no no no! There's no need for 'Sir'!". Chui seems to be doing his best to ignore everyone, navigating down the slick rocks with his thick, clunky boots. When Staren calls him 'Chewie', the skeleton-horse he's leading suddenly erupts into a mad fit of screeching laughter, whipping its head around and cackling like a lunatic. Chui waits it out patiently, and then grunts out "It can't understand you. That's just the only noise the damn thing makes."

    Yoti makes a few comments as people pass by, insisting that Tomoe and Yuuki go ahead. "Aha! What a rare sight it is to see young ladies clearly so skilled with the sword! And your armour! Do you happen to serve the same liege? Or are you from the army? No matter! I'm quite confident seeing you around!" He does look askance to Karal, then, curled up in the dusty sand. "I'm not so sure about that one. Is she quite alright?" He then seems to measure Staren with an appraising eye, squinting at him quite carefully. It's clear he can tell Staren isn't organically living, perhaps just by some ghostly sense, but befitting a courtier, he hasn't said anything he isn't certain is polite.

    When asked about this Lady Vermilion he's after, Yoti takes a minute to stroke his chin before answering. "It wasn't this particular cave, to be specific. Many underground passages here all lead to the same place. Lady Vermilion embarked from Styiga into the fourth bolgia, after a brief convention at the capital. She isn't a courtier like myself, given to royal politics. She serves my liege as . . . an aide, you might say? She is an enlightened woman, with great talents of spiritual communion, and frequently takes it upon herself to mount these little ventures, where she claims the gods lead her to all sorts of valuable things can be found underground. This is simply the shortest route to where my liege believes she is by now."

    His only parting comment is: "And please, do forgive Chui his taciturn nature. Labyrinth guides don't have easy careers, you see, and guiding the living through it is even more difficult. Do not split from the group." From there on, everyone else has to deal with the steep, rocky descent into the coastal cave, where the deep, airy thrum of underground air currents quickly swallows up any other sounds, and the feeble light outside disappears utterly, replaced in short order by a ghostly lantern produced from inside Chui's many coats.
Bloody Revelations     For the most part, it's an unremarkable climb down. The atmosphere is cold, humid, and oppressively heavy, with no sight of the wind that must be making that distant, background hum. The odd shelled creature skitters away at the approach of the light, as do swarms of skittering, translucent spiders. The skeletal horse keeps its cloven footing as surely as a mountain goat, prancing over the layered rocks, and mercifully keeping its cackling trap shut, in favour of the heavy jangling of the bags. With swords out and torches up, nothing steps forth to oppose the group.

    That is, until Chui takes a well-rehearsed right into a blind passage nobody would have noticed otherwise, and arrives at a door. Of all things, it is a plain, laminated wooden door, with a brushed steel handle, easily able to blend in to a budget public school hallway, save for its many centuries of repulsive stains. Chui mutters something under his breath about "weird this time", before twisting the handle and ushering the group into . . .

    A hospital corridor? There's really no mistaking it. Squared corners, laminate tiles, electrical cables and pipes running the ceiling, vents set into the walls, and convex mirrors mounted at corners to warn of oncoming traffic. It looks like one of those old construction buildings from the 80s, where energy savings were the big trend, and thus built to naturally insulate heat. It is, however, cast into a thorough state of disrepair. The wallpaper is peeling and moldy, the floors stained with ancient bodily fluids, and the pipes rusty and corroded, squeaking eerily as people pass. Cobwebs hang thick from the frayed and occasionally sparking cables, chewed through by spiders. The rooms that people pass by are vacant, save for rotted bedding and yellowed bags of blood and IV fluids covered in dust. Only one is occupied by a wasted, emaciated corpse, plugged into what must be a dozen empty bags, with a name scribbled on the plaque in recognizable, but heavily faded kanji, and some rusted hunk of metal obscuring their face.

    Chui meanders the corridors without a coherent word, pulling out and consulting a scroll of its own. It looks like a parchment map, but is covered top to bottom in dense layers of spidery black script and astrological symbols. He constantly checks it at corners and crossroads before deciding where to go. At one junction, he looks ready to turn left, before looking at the mounted mirror, and seeing the shadowy figure of a bespectacled man in a lab coat at the end, whereupon he promptly turns right instead, saying: "Ignore it. We can go around."
Staren     Staren is also taken aback by the screeching horse. Great. That's just great.

    He looks at Lin with concern. He understands there's some problem with her Solar power here, although he's not too clear on exactly how that works. He hopes it doesn't make her powerless. She wouldn't be foolish enough to fo somewhere she's powerless, right?

    Staren nods at Yoti's explanation. As they set off towards the cave, he clips a box to his belt which drops a tiny bug-sized device every once in awhile which can be detected by radio.

    "What are those?" Staren asks of the shelled creatures. "Are they ghosts of animals?"

    And then... "Did a /hospital/ die? I mean, get demolished? Wait, this isn't Creation architecture..."

    When they have to 'go around' the Doctor Ghost(?), Staren says, "Hold on. Why do we have to go around? It's just one ghost. What aren't you telling us? If we get jumped by shit you didn't warn us about, it'll kill you too... Right?" He looks to Lin, pointing a thumb at Chui. "Can he die again?"
Yuuki Konno     Yuuki seems to pay little heed to the oppressive atmosphere as she bounds along behind Chui and with the others. She'd walk alongside Tomoe, but of course Yuuki never walks when she can skip, run, or dance. Still she seems to spend more time approximately around Tomoe than the others, if only because she knows the fellow video game refugee better than anyone else here. She has a hand on the hilt of her sword, but she doesn't clutch the hilt. By the look of things she's probably just holding it to keep it from jarring about while she bounces.

    That cheerful bounding step diminishes once inside the hospital though. Yuuki looks around, abruptly subdued by the new location. When she speaks it's quiet, not at all like her normal forceful self. "Okay, I don't like this place." she states. "Can we get out of here? Quickly? Or maybe go back and go around?" she asks. "I mean, it sounds like things change here, and this building is way different from what's outside. Could we go back and go around? Or, you know, pick up the pace and not spend so long in this creepy place?" she asks.
Starlight Bandits     The journey is an oppressive one, but the Bandits remain jovial, likely because they're not sharp enough to realize how bad this place is. Irvine performs tricks with his torch, occasionally borrowing Molly's to do an impromptu fire dance that sends shadows whirling, and occasionally comes close to setting his own hair on fire.

    When Chui makes that divergence into what they two thought to be wall, the two gasp in unison. "That's amazing Chui! How did you know this was here?!" Irvine gives the fellow a firm clasp on the shoulder before declaring, "Such well-honed trailblazing senses! I, of course, noticed it immediately, but I'm impressed that you did too. You can be my rival in navigation!" He's probably bluffing, but he sounds very confident, and that's what matters.

    Stepping through the door into the setting v ery alien to where they came from takes the two off guard. Molly breathes in the air through her nose, before clamping hands over it and whining softly. Irvine runs a finger along that name plaque and nods, as if he understands something.

    And then they see the ghost around the corner. As Staren starts arguing, Irvine pats him on the shoulder. "I remind you that Chui here was entrusted with guiding us true. That means we owe him at least the courtesy of listening to what he says! If he says to avoid this medical man, then we avoid him. Lead the way sir!" Molly meanwhile is still pinching her nose, but she also gives Yuuki a comforting pat on the back. "We'll be out of here soon~ Have faith in Mister Chui!"
Staren     Staren blinks at Irvine. "I'm not saying we shouldn't listen. I just want to know what dangers are here, in case one attacks us."
Lin Staren manages to elicit the FREAKIEST noise out of the skeletal mount, causing Lin to swerve out and give the thing a wide berth. Already somehow having managed to not impress her employer hasn't been lost on her, so this time she strives hard to maintain a straight and professional face.

    Nevertheless, nervousness creeps in as she slinks along with the group, staying near the front... and blinking with pause only at the sudden right turn to seemingly nowhere. "Eh...?"

    She wrinkles her nose at the signs of passage through this area, but it does match up a bit with what she expected...

    ... But not what's behind the door. "What?" She's seen similar scenes in Njorun earlier, but why this in the Underworld?

    At a few points she risks getting on her tip toes to glance at Chui's scroll, but finds no meaning in it.

    She ends up falling in next to Staren and answers his question. "... Ghosts are not beyond harm. But strong, established ghosts will not be destroyed just with ordinary violence. But NOTHING down here's ordinary... we're all in danger if we get carless."
Bloody Revelations     "Plasmics." Chui grunts to Staren's first questions. "They're not real animals. They're critters made of the same stuff as ghosts. Big difference." At his second question, though, Chui briefly stops in his tracks, looking around at the architecture through foggy lenses. "This is a /hospital/? Hell . . ." He continues again, this time grumbling even more feverishly than before.

    "Picking up the pace is good. Can't go off course though. Have to watch the map." Chui says to Yuuki, slapping the back of his gloved hand on the scroll. "Only good for one run. Useless tomorrow. Expensive too." Staren can probably tell why Yoti had urged him to take care of the guide, as well as understand the context of that statement. The first bug he had left tells him that it is 300 miles away. They've been walking for maybe twenty minutes. What's worse for Yuuki, though, is that the hospital, decades outside her time period, feels very unnervingly familiar, like she just barely remembers it as a figment from a long forgotten bad dream.

     Stopping to look at the Kanji, Irvine will get a brief glimpse of the corpse's wearable electronics, plugged into a wall socket. Chui answers him eventually. "That first passage is always there. It's real rocks. Doesn't change. This is all different every week. Every day, sometimes. Gotta follow the map." He makes an affirmative sounding noise at what else the two Bandits have to say, in regards to Staren. "Trust me, you don't want to go near it. Not a ghost. Ghosts don't live down here. Don't look at it. If it says something to you, ignore it. Can't hurt you if you ignore it."

    He checks the mirror again as he walks past. The black figure's glasses gleam ominously in the dark, clearly watching the group as it passes by. "Matter of fact, don't talk to anything you see here. The things that want to eat you aren't a problem if you have a good sword. The things that want to talk --those are the real trouble." The horse starts cackling again, echoing harshly in the claustrophobic corridors, until Chui shuts it up with a snap of its reins.

    Footsteps can be heard loudly following the party, but after a while, they eventually stop. Constantly muttering and double checking with the spawl of unintelligible symbols, the guide arrives at a set of badly corroded slat stairs, trundling down them without a second thought, despite their loud, horrible rattling, adeptly stepping over some that, if someone else steps on them, snap and fall away immediately. He hums to himself on the way down --loudly-- as if trying to drown out a noise only he can hear, and then almost walks straight into another door, with the kind of wheel usually found on a submarine airlock. He twists it open with an awful, metallic screech, and an inch of cold water gushes through. On the opposite side of the door, the letters N.G.R are stencilled in worn and peeling paint.
Bloody Revelations     The halls beyond are all concrete, just as pitted and time-eaten as everything else. The water makes every footfall splash loudly enough to grate on one's nerves, but seems to have little to do with what appears to be a military bunker. Great brown stains can be seen on the walls at regulat intervals, like old blood that splattered against them at high velocity. Further in, rows of bodies can be found systematically lined up in black tarp bags, before another airlock leads into a rounded room where cadavers pile in the corners with bags only spared for their heads --sacks really, going with the zip ties around their wrists. None of them appear to be entirely human. Some posses multiple limbs, or gills, or fur. Shell casings clink and clatter under the horse's trot.

    Even further beyond, the route Chui picks becomes a massive, pitch dark hangar, sprawling wall to wall with now-unrecognizable machinery, broken into a million twisted pieces. The cause isn't immediately obvious as anything but an ambient noise like slithering, scraping sand and steeling tinkling, like iron filings being passed through a sieve. Going further in, the machines are covered in ants of some kind, six inches long, and made of bronze and copper-flecked steel. They methodically chop what appears to be mounds of scrapped robotics into bite-sized chunks, carrying them off into the dark.

    Chui stops dead. He refuses to go any further, waving his lantern in aggravation at the swarm. The ants stop what they're doing, and turn to the troupe of intruders, suddenly letting off waves of rattling, screeching and scraping noises, converging on Staren in a heartbeat. "Drive them off! They'll take you to pieces!" Chui urges him, trying to demonstrate how by fumbling inside his robe for a glowing crystal, and chucking it at the swarm. It explodes into a ball of ghastly white fire, melting a large section of them into a flat, gleaming puddle of metal, but that only makes matters worse.

    From out of the shadows, some of the jagged shapes stagger upright, rising easily nine feet tall. Hulking, humanoid silhouettes can be made out about them, but the scuttling noises they make as they race forward are distinctly unlike a human gait. Emerging into the edges of the lantern's radius, they are revealed as hairless, grey beasts with only barely humanoid torsos atop a splay of carapaced legs like the body of a massive beetle, armed with massive, crab-like claws in place of hands. Their faces are barely more than flat jaws and empty eye sockets, set into triangular, neanderthal craniums. They lunge forward at Yuuki and Karal at the front, letting loose guttural howls of hunger to go along with the violent snapping of their pincers. One leaps the front line entirely, jumping high enough to crash down right in front of Irvine.
Tomoe Tomoe Says "Thank you, and we are in the same adventuring guild."

She does think Yoti had a lot of life to them. she's in as best spirit as she can be and soon they will be getting ready to head out but first she listens to the responses to the questions she takes note and will get ready to head out. She's quiet for the most part as she is out of her social element with her and the fact Chui warns them to not split up as they get ready to set out? That speaks well but only as they head on does she start to get an idea about this place. It's not much but why they were told to not split up is clear.

She's used to Yuuki skipping along she's not certain anything could /get/ Yuuki down really at this ponder after knowing for as long as she has and she does not mind having a reliable fighter at her side at all.

"Man this is a style that was old ... when my dad was a kid."

She looks at the 80sish style of this run down place.

"I got to agree with Lin, this isn't ... exactly standard."

The party continues on as Chui bring up the Plamsic she makes note of it.

"So Phantom animals more or less and yes it looks like an older style of one from my world but this building style fell out of favour before I was born."

She looks around before moving tying to take point well as much as she can given they are being guided though this place.

The warning is heeded, she'll not look at it and if she has to she'll focus on a old cat commercial to mentally block out anything said to by it. She keeps ready though as they now are in a stranger place still. She on edge more and more they push in and she sees all the bodies lined up. She trees to not focus on them and she notices as Chui halts, she does halt as well she looks at the ants come? She starts chanting as she'll move up front, gold runes dance about her body and then her sword bursts into flames, as Karal and yuuki are assaulted? Tomoe throws herself in the way attempting to protect them and keep /them/ from harm as best she can.
Staren     The possibility that this is pulling from one of THEIR minds and that the corpse is wearing VR tech isn't lost on Staren. But he's juggling a lot of possibilities. And concern for the breadcrumb positioning system not working. He nods at everything Chui says, seemingly much more content to have some explanation and warning.

    He attempts to skip the stairs by flying down over them.

    And then there's a freaking submarine?! "Oh come--" he starts to comment, only to stare for a few seconds at the letters.

    But he's never SEEN an NGR sub. He doesn't even know if the New German Republic HAS subs. Staren looks a bit more closely at their surroundings now. D-Bees? He doesn't recognize the species, but that doesn't mean anything. Weird that there's no humans, though, if this is supposed to be from his world...

    Perhaps he's reading too much into it. Now there's bugs. The ants are too small and numerous for his current loadout, though, so he reaches into his bag for an SMG... only for the crystal grenade to draw a few big creatures. That's more like it, honestly! Staren starts firing bullets and beams alike, and then when one jumps close he tries to impale it with an energy sword. Shocking it with electricity too, if he's able to drive the 'blade' all the way to the hilt!

    No words needed. Fighting monsters he can do.
Yuuki Konno     Yuuki isn't afraid. Few things actually scare her, and none of them involve places. She's just horribly creeped out by the hospital. She doesn't much like hospitals in the first place, associating them with curtailed freedom and with sickness. Excessively creepy and familiar hospitals are just worse.

    She takes comfort in the presence of others, even giving Molly a brave smile of appreciation, and follows along. "I just don't LIKE it here. Doesn't mean it's the wrong way, I just don't like it." she mutters, pulling somewhat ahead of the others in impatience before falling back again to allow Chui to lead.

    In truth the whole idea of the place would be fascinating if it weren't so damn creepy. Ever-changing routes, memories of dead places, monsters trying to eat you, things that want to mess with your head. It's like a good horror VR game, and Yuuki's tried one of those. It was a whole lot of fun, even if not exactly her game of choice. Of course this is no game.

    Yuuki seems to relax once they leave the hospital for the hangar, a certain bounce returning to her step. She doesn't even seem bothered by the ambient noise. This is creepy but compared to the hospital this is more like the atmosphere of a horror game. Just something to set mood rather than something actually unpleasant.

    She pauses, studying the robotic ants. At Chui's warning, she draws her obsidian rapier. It's not the most effective of weapons against that sort of thing, but she grips the hilt with eager anticipation. "I won't let any get past me!" she promises, though she doesn't charge forward. Instead she waits, poised and ready, eyes narrowed and almost closed as she remains still.

    When the beetle-like humanoids attack, it's only at the last possible moment that she begins to move. Her blade comes up in a powerful sweeping counter as she sidesteps the charge, evading the pincer and cutting up into the creature's torso as she yells a piercing, wordless battlecry in answer to their howls.
Lin This ENTIRE EXPERIENCE is getting Lin jumpy. The weird sounds that repeatedly end up without source, strange things down here that make no sense to her or anything she knows about Creation - which isn't all that much - are having a dangerous effect of TUNNEL VISION - stay near the guide, and do not look or touch ANYTHING they're not doing...

    This state of affairs continues up until they all end up in the hangar, and she exits her tunnel vision funk... and beholds FREAKY THINGS forming out of... robots and bugs?!

    "Nothing in this place makes any sense, does it--AAAAHHH!!"

    Reacting swiftly, she brings forth her blade quickly. The steel flashes from its scabbard faster than the eye can see and draws sparks upon connecting with the THING assaulting her... which is thankfully reduced to just two thanks to Tomoe's interposition.

    She drops swiftly into the practiced stance of the Single Point Shining Into the Void Style of swordsmen. With flickers of steel and hurricane-like winds to match them she rushes forward in a low dash and batters back several of the creatures as best she can... and even attempts to dice a few into pieces with strokes quicker than reason.

    "These things better know when to quit... or I'll TEACH THEM!"
Starlight Bandits     The Bandits stick close to Chui, one on each side of him as they progress through the hospital. They ignore the figure in the reflection, the loud footsteps, the mutters, instead carrying on their own conversations. Drowning everything else out with stories of heists in the pass, tales of pleasant times and stupid jokes.

    When they transition to the submarine, it's like they've gone home. "Ah, this is a familiar stain. See it all the time back home when we go a-plundering." Irvine says as he examines a brown stain on the wall. Molly treads through the water, dragging her platform shoes through the shell casings in the hope of treasure becoming apparent.

    And then from sub to hanger, swarming with large, strange insects. "Aw, they're kind of cute, don't you think?" Molly asks, bending down a little to get a closer look at them. Irvine gets a very close look when one leaps their front lines to fall at him! He backsteps, letting crash down before him before drawing Playing Mantis. With a vicious downward stab, he aims the blade at a join in their metal shape to pierce it! "As cute as they are, they stand in our way. I'll steal you a soft toy of them later!"

    Molly pouts, but nods before running at Irvine who is still crouching over the one that attacked him. She leaps onto his shoulder, and he rises up in a single motion as she jumps, launching his partner into the air! Mid ascent, she draws her revolver and starts lining up headshots on the insects before fanning the hammer!
Bloody Revelations     The steel ants are numerous to be certain, and their jaws are clearly capable of slicing apart solid armour. They'd be a nightmare for a traditional party of sword-wielding mercenaries, but with flaming swords and beam sabers in the mix, their metallic construction seems to be a bane more than a boon. When they start being melted through with passing swings, they are wise enough to retreat, carrying away their salvaged metal. They don't bother Molly at all, even when she gets really close. Seems they just want Staren (for his body).

    That leaves the stalking crab-creatures as the real threat. When one clashes against Tomoe, it slams into her with a considerable amount of momentum, clearly weighing a lot, and being as strong as their hulking, muscular torsos suggest. Its claws attempt to reach around her shield, one finding purchase on her arm, before her flaming sword cleaves it right off. It hisses, shrieks and spits, staggering back as dark, viscous blood pours from the wound, recoiling in abhorrence of the light magic.

    Not that facing down Yuuki is any more sensible. Probably even less. Shelving her uneasiness at the hospital setting, Yuuki's well honed blade comes out so fast that the creature can only stare dumbly at its blurring edge, having thrown all its weight into the strike that she had dodged right at the last second. The high-level gear cleaves straight through its torso, sending it face first into the ground, where its beetle legs kick and twitch in what she can hope are its death throes.

    Karal is brave enough to assault them head on, which Chui seems to take as credible reason to back up and away. The things do their best to encircle her, but her blade does an adequate job of battering back their pincers, though taking on multiple at once, it's more difficult for her to land wounding blows. Staren flying in is what saves the day, blasting them with a barrage of firepower the type of which isn't ever seen outside of long-forgotten magitech, catching the brutes by surprise under a hail of firepower which punches most of their innards into the floor. They can't even fight back against him as he takes to the air, one losing a pincer to his beam saber.

    When Irvine flips out of the way, his aggressor only turns its attention on Molly. One human is as good as the other, it seems, and it's mere moments away from getting its arms around her when a pair of bullets go through its brain, thankfully in its head. It drops like a rock on the spot, followed by three more that Staren had injured. Chui manages to get out one more fire crystal, and with a second explosion, the surviving stragglers flee in the face of the sword-wielding girls. The scuttling, and ensuing silence, is cracked by another round of grating, tittering laughter from the horse, cantering and cackling in an almost derisive tone, as if mocking the fleeing beasts.
Staren     "Nice shooting." Staren compliments, since he happens to be with Molly in the back row. Accurately shooting while fanning the hammer is hard!

    After the creatures are driven off, Staren clips the (deactivated) beam saber to his hilt and reloads the SMG. Bristling a bit at the horse's messed-up laughter. "You ever seen creatures like those before? Or are the monsters FROM these..." he gestures to the hangar around them, "foreign places?"
Yuuki Konno     This, appropriately enough, is why Yuuki signed up. Rewards are nice, and certainly she can appreciate helping out a noblewoman in trouble. Even if she's a ghost. To a certain extent she did this because it's her sort of thing, accepting quests involving great danger requiring a skilled sword etc etc. But when it comes right down to it, it's about the free flowing excitement of melee.

    Yuuki only remains still in the moments leading up to that first strike. Her poise is that of a samurai, katana at the ready, waiting for the perfect moment to end the fight in a single strike. Once that first strike is made, the rest of her fight is whirling slashing ferocious motion.

    As the remaining creatures retreat, Yuuki flicks her sword and brings it back up, sheathing it in a single fluid motion. She glances over at the 'horse', more puzzled than annoyed by the grating laugh. She shrugs, looking around, looking more cheerful than ever before in this grim place. "Where to now?" she asks, her voice practically chiming with childlike amusement.
Lin "Hyaaaaargh!!" Lin's a ferocious devil of flashing steel, surrounded or not. With her great speed she's easily fending off quite a group... and herds them straight into Staren's aim. She grins almost ferally at the destruction his weapons manage in this godsforaken place... and backflips back to the group the moment that Chui gets the last few survivors skittering away.

    ... to land perfectly with the group, covered in perspiration and breathing hard... but filled with renewed EXHILARATION. "HAAAAaaaahhhh... okay, NOW I'm feeling like myself again!"

    Catching her reath, she looks once again Staren's way... and shakes her head. "It's true then... the Labyrinth is similar to the Wyld. It changes. Constantly. However it wants... how does anyone find their way in here?!"
Staren     Staren glances to Lin. "I imagine they have some way of divining the layout, although not appearance, of parts of the 'Labyrinth' at a given time. Thus the expensive map."
Tomoe Tomoe is slammed into, she's taken the hit hard it hurt, it might have hurt her friens worse but she is not getting out of this unarmed. She's able to however hurt it back and the blood? She's not sure about it and will try to keep it at bay with her blazing sword. She keeps at it she's moving to try and finish the thing off and keep it's attention on her as bes she can.

"You want some of this fine!"

She'll make sure to attempt ot finish the thing off as quickly as she can.
Starlight Bandits     Molly lands with good form, and performs a proper curtsey to Staren. "Why thank you~" she says as Irvine wrenches hi gunblade from the beetle before him. "Ahhh, nothing like the adrenaline rush to get you limber!" he says, bouncing on his heels as he watches the remainder scuttle away. "And you deal with things such as these as an honest living, Chui? You impress me further still! If this lady we're being sent to rescue comes down here a lot, I'm recommending you as her guide on retainer! Oh don't you worry, I'll do it free of charge. My words carry significant weight, you know!"

    He gives the man and his horse a wink and the two finger guns.
Bloody Revelations     Chui finally lets slip a gravelly grunt of relief as the hungry things retreat to their dark holes, seemingly slightly more at ease now that Yoti's assurances that his tourists of the day are actually skilled warriors. "Hng. I had my doubts, especially about the little girl, but it looks like you can handle it. Especially the little girl." He looks away from Yuuki to Karal. "Isn't that a Terrestrial style?" Followed by an unhelpful, antagonized gesture at the map. "THE MAP." he reiterates to Karal, angrily slapping the thoroughly un-maplike parchment.

    "Should be nearly there though . . ." he returns to grumbling, jerking the horse along again, picking his way over the metal fragments without looking. "Found some good landmarks. Could have taken two days. Looks like we did two hours. Not bad Chui. Not bad at all. Might charge extra." He stops only briefly, looking to Irvine as he waves his finger around as if playing eenie-meenie-miney-mo. "Not many people actually say thanks for this. 'preciate it. Not sure if /she/ would ever take me on though." He jabs his finger at a deeply shadowed corner, and leads the group to one more door that was previously impossible to see.

    Through it, the corridors return, growing narrower and narrower as military architecture slowly blends into the sickly whistling of broken down steam pipes and creaking tick of cobweb shrouded clockworks. Before it the terrain can fully transition into something new, the boilers and gears end very suddenly, and the walls fall away. The group is left walking along a flat, orderly row of basalt tiles, perfectly squared and only barely rough, to either side of which there is only impenetrable darkness, as if the pathway is floating.

    "Don't like this." the guide begins muttering, loud enough to hear at all. "Don't like this at all. Right place, but it's all wrong. Too stable. Boundary too harsh. Can't see the junction at all." He trudges along anyways, thick, leather-soled boots clapping loudly on the basalt. "Map can't be wrong, was made this morning. Y'think she . . ."

    He doesn't get to finish the thought. A piercing, inhuman scream fills the deadened air, crackling and breaking as if it had blown out a speaker in expressing itself. For a split second, the shape of a human skull with massive ram horns swept in satanic style, is visible against the darkness, if only by the hellish glow of its open, shrieking maw. The next instant, the horrible apparition flies out of the dark, and smashes into Chiu at breakneck speed, spilling a torrent of ghostly ichor as its horns cut through all his coats like butter and its weight sends him tumbling meters across the floor, sliding across the trail of his dark and cold blood.
Bloody Revelations     The flying skull is gone, off howling into the darkness. When its shrieking fades, rounds of raucous laughter replace it, growing louder by the instant as an invisible audience collapses into mad fits of lunatic giggling and cawing. The lights come on (from somewhere), and the group is left standing in the middle of wide, circular plane of basalt, scored in a perfect grid, beyond which is a deep ravine of utter nothingness, and then rows of floating stone benches, rising up and out like a Roman Colosseum. Seated all over them are what must be dozens, if not scores of cackling ghosts, clearly once-human, but all of them hideously ugly and malformed, with warped and twisted frames, gaunt, skeletal faces, and feverishly burning eyes.

    One final light comes on, and seated at the head of the risers, facing the entrance, is a woman atop a basalt throne, flanked by the specters on either side. This one is very clearly living. In fact, she practically glows with the kind of unnatural health that screams 'eternal youth', but a fair complexion and luxurious black hair don't go all the way to making her appear noble. Her clothing looks like obsidian woven like silken thread, encompassing a martial, rather than formal, style and cut of cheongsam, long gloves and stocking boots, that look like they were spun around her body by a tailor that went crazy at the end, and left large parts of its weave in utter chaos. Even from here, the faint perfume of funeral incense is obvious, as is an aura so overpowering that it drowns out the unsettling malice that emanates from the chattering ghosts, practically drowning the arena in her suffocating presence.

    She seems pretty amused too. "Ohhh, what bad luck~" she says, fingers crossed together. "He wandered in /right/ as we were cleaning up the last round. If he dies, he'll have to come all the way back!" Her silken voice quiets the tittering horrors, which all turn to look at the gathered Elites with skeletal grins. "So! Travellers. We don't see any of the living down here, so tell me! Are you here to compete . . . ?" The ghosts stifle their renewed laughter poorly. "Or are you here to learn the truth?" The woman pronounces the last word very heavily. "Do you seek power, or enlightenment? I can make an exception in either case~"
Yuuki Konno     Yuuki tries to look indignant at being called a little girl, but she's too pleased by Chui's comment to pull it off. Besides she really doesn't mind being called a little girl. If someone thinks less of her for being herself, that's not Yuuki's problem!

    "CHUI!" Yuuki abruptly screams, unable to do anything to defend the ghost. Well, he IS a ghost. She rushes towards his, for lack of a better word, body. Only to realize that there's nothing she can do for him. Even if he were a living being, she's no healer.

    Instead she draws her sword, the obsidian blade coming forth with a chime of steel unsheathed. She sets herself to defend, standing nearby to ensure nothing else can come at him while giving enough room for someone else to heal him if they can. She glares angrily out at the audience. This, clearly, is a Boss Room. Well okay perhaps not, but the woman on the throne's giving off very Bosslike vibes. And the talk about competing, well...

    Turning her glare on the Boss woman, Yuuki speaks up. "I don't usually turn down challenges, but I'm not looking to gain power." she claims. She has all the power she wants, and she never sought any of it. It just happened. Besides, power that someone gives you is their power, not yours. "We're just looking for someone. You're... not her, are you?"
Staren     Staren nods appreciatively as Chui comments that he doesn't get thanks. "I get it. We just... We're not from here. We had no idea how dangerous it really was." He replies.

    The clockworks get a 'Hmm...', but then they go away before Staren can see where the landscape is going with this.

    Chiu remarks that it's TOO stable. Staren looks to Lin. "Would that wyld-shaping technique work on the Labyrinth?" And it didn't occur to him until he said it that there might be a connection between here and the Wyld, but that's an EXTREMELY UNNERVING THOUGHT.

    And then there's a scream to match! He fires his beam cannons at the skull and then rushes over to Chiu. Applying nanobandages to his wounds, but who knows if that'll work? "Any idea how to heal a ghost?!" Staren asks Lin.

    To the mysterious woman, he says: "We're here to retrieve Lady Vermillion." Which gives him time to remember he's not supposed to talk to the things here. At least he didn't ask for power or knowledge...

    He also sends the 'I may be about to die' emergency signal so his friends will know something is up, although who knows if it'll even reach the outside now.
Starlight Bandits     "A man with talent should be acknowledged! I suppose those you work for have been blinded by this utter darkness," Irvine says, nodding to himself as if that makes perfect sense.

    And so they go on, squeezing through cramped tunnels, the two quietly marvelling at how Chiu's mount can fit. And then... the sudden transition to a new environment. Even these two notice how jarring it is. Both have their weapons drawn as Chiu rambles that this is wrong... and both gasp as something slams into him, sending him flying to land in a pool of blood.

    Immediately, Molly is by his side, checking on him. "Chiu? You'll be okay, I promise. You can't just die here... you've mastered this place! You can't let it beat you!" She's honestly tearing up.

    Irvine meanwhile, just glowers up at the woman who talks down at them, at the jeering ghosts who spectacted this. "I am Irvine Lune, one half of the Starlight Bandits! We were sent by Alabaster Yoti to track down Lady Vermillion, so she might report home... I take it that you're her." He points to her, eyes narrowed. "If so, I don't even care. Your foolishness has hurt a rival of mine, and I won't stand for it. So send your little pawns you and your friends so enjoy, and I'll carve through each and everyone one of them. And then I'll come for you, and drag you back by the ear!"
Lin "Single Point Shining Into the Void Style." Lin answers proudly and deftly, sheathing her blade smoothly into its scabbard with a noticeable little *schhhhh-click*. All while frowning. "My name is LIN! Not little girl. Karal Rei Lin!!" Grrrrrr. Flustered, she seems to be grinding her teeth at this insult. But just a little.

    Even though she then falls back into line, not yet pushed to a point of totally losing her cool. There's a lot of danger here, more than she knows what to DO with...

    And on and on... into steam pipes and clockwork?

    And screaming skulls that - "CHUI-!" Lin leaps to the guide's defense - but is a hair's breadth too slow. BOOM, he goes down... and she's left taking a defensive stance at the head of the group.

    She can only stand there and watch as the chamber reveals itself in full... her eyes traveling all around and finally to the throne.

    "... We seek a woman... the Lady Vermilion, on behalf of Alabaster Yoti, aide of Sixteen Nights Silence. It..."

    She takes another good look at the surroundings. "I'd normally be all for going a round or two!" She barks with full sincerity despite the surroundings, "But business does come first."

    Her expression wavers from the usual fierce adventurous look she wears to slight awe and wonder... which itself has her expression then screwing up. WHAT about what she sees is at all wonderful...?

    "Uh... lovely dress, too. Realm fashion, underworld style...?" She offers, trying to sound friendly.
Tomoe Tomoe seems to relax a bit as they drive those things off and he looks to Chui for a moment.

"We should not delay long it would be unwise to do so."

She keeps her weapon out now a they mnove ahead for the moment and she'll trust in their guide as Chui has done a good job at helping them get through this alien plac ebut then when the naive talks about not liking something? Tht leaves her very worried she's on her edge and it's too late she's not able to act fast enough as something lunges in towarc them all and for Chui she calls out but it's too late. There's nothing she can o and she doens't look very happy at all the thing that attacked is gone before she can stike at it and she's looking very unhappy.

"Damn it."

hat else can she say but now comes something before them all and she looks to Chui and staren.

"I'm afraid I don't."

Staren is Chui's best chance so she will hold off him and turn her attention now to this stange woman? She looks at them for a moment.

"We are here seeking the aformention Lady Vermillion."
Bloody Revelations     Chui is . . . alive? It's hard to tell without a pulse or respiration, but it seems like a ghost wouldn't linger around as a ghost-corpse if they died a second time. He looks very badly maimed, however. Underneath the layers of coats and jackets, Yuuki, and then Molly can spot pieces of concealed chainmail, which still failed to protect him. Had he not been wearing all of it, he might be a stain on the floor.

    Staren's total lack of medical experience with ghosts is certainly unhelpful, but as it stands, it seems like, at least here in the Underworld, those ghosts are material enough that a nanobandage can stick to them, and do its most basic level of work. He stopped bleeding, at least. The baggage horse seems like it couldn't care less. The horrible satan skull thing doesn't come back, flying up, up, up and off into the dark at a very great height. Something about the direction 'up' feels . . . ominous.

    When people start using the name 'Lady Vermilion', the audience starts hissing and growling; some actually start clutching their ears and babbling inchoately, as if trying to drown out the offending words. The woman on the throne cuts them off, removing one hand from her chin and twirling it lackadaisically. "They really don't like it when you use my court name. Down here is where I /truly/ belong, so you should use my real name." she gently, but firmly, insists.

    When they start explaining the situation though, she starts to look bored and irritated, huffing loudly. "Really? That's it? Five living people make it all the way down here to play my game, and instead it's just to tell me to come back? Boring! You're all so boring!" then she pauses just long enough to crack a smile, pointing to Irvine just long enough to shift her tone. "Except him~ I like him~ He's got guts~" And a brief glimpse at Karal. "You've got a good eye, but don't flatter yourself. No way you can pull this off."
Bloody Revelations     She only shifts it right back, taking on a pitch that could be termed 'charismatically vexed'. "Don't you understand? This game reflects human nature when confronted with the Void. It's not just for /fun/. If you stayed and watched a while, you would see it's beautifully tragic parallels as well! To watch someone who has already died once, grasping at the promise of power, even though he knows he'll never succeed. To see someone who thinks /he/ is different. /He/ can succeed where everyone else as failed. That /he/ can endure however long it takes to snatch that infinitesimal chance of victory. To watch them totally disregard all their peers and common sense warning them not to, and then, inexorably, after they suffer defeat after defeat after defeat, realize the inevitable, and surrender themselves to Oblivion."

    "Isn't it just incredible? Isn't it such fascinating insight into the minds of people work when they're confronted with an impossible challenge? It's like a mountain nobody has ever climbed, or a lost city nobody has ever returned from, where they keep trying and trying for generations, letting the dead pile up, but except it doesn't stop when they die just once! You can see them finally realize the ultimate truth: that there is no escape from the end. Isn't it /beautiful/? It's like watching the end of the world come early, just for one special person at a time!"

    While she speaks, the hideous ghosts lapse silent, and if one looks at them just right, it seems like they even adopt expressions of outright awe --religious ecstasy, even, as if entranced by a powerful sermon. Eventually though, she relents. "Oh what's the point. They didn't tell you anything, did they? I bet my liege just told you that I was missing and to come bother me. No respect for enlightenment, as always. I feel like I was /this/ close to a new level of understanding too." A deep sigh follows. "Well, I can forgive you for listening to Yoti. He's adorable isn't he~?"

    "Are you really sure, though? You don't want to appreciate even one round? You don't want to support your friend there~? Mister Lune~? The competition isn't against /me/. All you have to do is survive twenty minutes with /him/~" The woman takes a moment to gesture upwards, into the pitch black overhead. "Buuut, if you're really sure, I can let you off the hook. You can't escape here on your own, unless you can read that map. You'll be lost forever. Tell me what it is you want from me and I'll send you back. First though, I want to know who you're communicating with." Her luridly red eyes narrow.
Staren     Hmm. He's done what he can for Chui...

    Staren turns to Lady Vermillion. She's giving some supervillain monologue, and she's clearly wrong about oblivion being wonderful. It's hard not to just completely tunr her out. "I can get plenty of knowledge and power elsewhere. You've just admitted you believe you have neither to offer us."

    "If you won't come with us, we can take a message to our client for you. We already told you, we were asked by Alabaster Yoti, aide of Sixteen Nights Silence."
Yuuki Konno     All the talking has Yuuki confused. Not that she's stupid or anything, she just isn't a very complex person. She can understand life and death on a personal level, but she doesn't get much insight from thinking about others facing death.

    Finally she shakes her head. "You're right, he just said you were missing and sent us to find you." Yuuki says matter-of-factly. "And if you really don't want to go, I don't really see any point in dragging you. The reward doesn't mean anything to me." she adds, shrugging.

    "But if you think I'm afraid of competition, you have another thing coming!" Yuuki abruptly says, spinning and levelling her blade accusatorially. "Chui did a great job guiding us, and I'm not going to leave without him!" she adds, looking upwards. "All we have to do is survive twenty minutes? That doesn't seem too bad. But tell me, what happens if we beat him before that time's up?" she grins cheerfully, a playful glint in her devilish eyes.
Lin No way she can pull this off? Lin's teeth clench and grind even more from before. her whole body shivers with a fierce flame reawakened, the urge to rise up and prove herself.

    Her WHOLE BODY is screaming at this chance. Not just for the thirll of it, but because something just seems FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG with the message being preached here. The gospel of the Void is stirring up a deep and Essential opposition in her spirit.

    "No way I can pull this off...?! You're gonna eat those words!"

    Lin has had ENOUGH of people talking down to her tonight. There's only so much her spirit can take. And at this point, it crackles golden-white in her palm, with hints of orange and red. The chamber's baleful illumination is rapidly under assault by light that stops just short of true sunlight, as a bonfire corona blazes around the Dawn Caste and the circle with eight rays mark of her status gleams and glitters on her forehead.

    The power she displays swiftly congeals in her grasp into a blade that seems forged of liquid sunfire. For her immediate surroundings, the deep shadows of the Underworld are pushed far away.

    But in this place, she is one torch in a deep cavern.
Starlight Bandits     As the woman rambles, Irvine's expression changes. His normal jovial smile had already vanished when Chiu got hurt, but now the corners of his mouth drift lower, his brow furrows. His teeth clench, and even though he is below Vermillion, he almost seems to be looking down on her.

    Irvine's face is the picture of bottomless disdain.

    "You think you're so great don't you? That you have it all figured out? That efforts are meaningless, and those who try to achieve the impossible are mere fools who should only pass away for your epiphanies and amusement." He turns his gaze on the ghostly audience, snarling every word. "Well, now you're in for a rude awakening. Let's see how you handle it when someone achieves the impossible you think is so out of reach. Maybe you'll all die this time, and rightly so for such arrogance. As for you!" He points at Vermillion, and snarls her name, deliberately. "/Lady Vermillion./ When I drag you back, I'll make sure you can face backwards, so you can watch this little shrine of yours die. Bring on your beast. I'll face it for twenty minutes, an hour, a day, a year. But it will fall, as will this whole enterprise of yours. And I'll savour your expression when it does, just as you have so many."

    Molly puts a hand on Staren's as he tends to Chiu, a tiny gesture of thanks. But then she goes to his horse, and begins taking off all its saddle bags. Holding the straps, she begins spinning them so they wrap around each other, forming a makeshift flail she somehow holds in one hand. Then she stands by Irvine. Saying nothing, but she shares the look on his face.
Tomoe Tomoe pauses as it seems they have found whom they are looking for. The way she talks reminds her of someone and she's on edge things re feeling kind of Ominous here. She hest them caleld bouring and such save for IUrvine at the very least as memories of PoH pop into her head thankfully the woman has not shouted Show Time, at lest not yet. She looked to the ghosts she doens't make a hostile act she moves to sheath her weapon here.

She's about to say more but Yuuki beats her to the punch. Whelp the die seem to be cast for the moment.

"Tch."

She doesnt' seem too happy herebut what choice does she have? She make ready for a fight as they don't have much of a choice it seems.
Bloody Revelations     "Philistines. Unbelievably heathenish." 'Vermilion' huffs at Staren in disapproval. "Hostile towards the arts and no grasp of culture." She blinks blankly at Yuuki though, only just now looking back to the prone and badly wounded ghost. "Oh, does Yoti want him back too? Well I guess if he didn't come here to play, it's not like I need to keep him." She closes her eyes for about five seconds, her brow twitching faintly, as if in deep concentration, before snapping her gloved fingers, where a black spark leaps from them like striking flint. A wash of energy that makes everyone feel like a furry animal being rubbed exactly the wrong way passes by, and as it hits Chui, he rises, coughing and gasping, and clutching at the bandage plastered to his side.

    When the rest look ready to step up to the challenge, 'Vermilion' suddenly couldn't look more delighted. "Perfect! Perfect! I knew you couldn't all be so boring! Normally, this would be the part where I hand you your weapon, but you all look pretty capable, so the rules are very simple! I will commence a twenty minute timer. Every thirty seconds, one of those tiles will fall away, giving you less room to move. At the same time, endless waves of wonderful things seeking to kill you will assail you from all sides! If you get to the end, you win! If you die, you can try again when you're a ghost~"
    Putting her hands on the arms of her throne, she stands up, and then takes a deep, one-armed bow. "The name gifted to me by my masters is Bloody Revelations Spilled from the Nightmare. You can shorten it, if you must, but please use it." Shortly, she begins walking down a set of basalt steps that hadn't been there before. "And your playmate is my new best friend. Say hello~" A coarse, fiery wail the likes of which can scarcely be imagined, hammers down on the arena from above, shaking the stone as a semi-visible wall of red, psychic haze. As the jarring feedback intensifies, and then subsides, like standing at dangerously close range to a concert-sized subwoofer, something descends from the murk.

    It's utterly massive, easily as wide across as a pair of buses end to end, and is barely discernible as anything but a floating fortress of symmetrical, overwrought architecture. Made entirely of warped, black steel, the thing is a flying temple of eerily repeating shapes, where its entire surface, mostly made of individually levitating pieces, is dedicated wholly to gruesome visages of skulls and horns, demonic symbolism, and finely etched panoramas of mass death --a veritable mountain of macabre art, where the very metal itself seems to squirm around a molten red core, deep within, between its six skeletal faces.
Bloody Revelations     HOW DO YOU BID MAN'S FUTILITY, MISTRESS. it's 'voice' is imagined as a sickening pulse more than heard, crackling with occult energy. Its presence is a drowning wave of overwhelming despair, as if it breathes malice and exhales grief. The woman has barely opened her mouth, when Karal distracts her, forcing her to change her remark to "The outfit, you idiot!" and then gasp in surprise as Karal's anima flares.

    Her laughter is matched, and then drowned out, by the hideous, psychic boom of the giant creature before her. HAHAHAHAHAHA! SLAVE OF THE VENAL SUN! WHAT FOOLISHNESS COMPELS THEE TO SEEK SUCH AGONY?! Its master is already clapping her hands though, practically giddy with excitement. "Oh, oh heavens! I can't believe this! No way we can just do a normal round now! Now I have to . . . ooh, I have to-"

    Then, bizarrely, the both of them stop at the same time. Completely in unison, actually. 'Vermilion's eyes flicker and cloud, going dark, as if all thought had fled her body. She starts talking to midair. "Oh. Uhuh. Yes. Oh! I understand. It will be done." Her grandliquent tone dims to a conspiratorial mumble, as if whispering with a close friend.

    "Change of plans." she finally announces after the moment passes, so brightly its as if it hadn't happened at all. "You can keep the ghost. I have to run for now, and so that means you have to go too. Once I've taken care of business, I'm coming back here, and I'll set you up for just one round. A special one~ If you win, I'll tear this place down. If you lose, I get to keep your ghosts. Deal?"

    Then, of all things, she sticks out her hand, and makes an imperious 'gimme gimme' motion. "Give me your radio." Now it's suddenly questionable a) how she knew people were using them, b) how she knew what they were /called/.
Staren     Staren shivers at the wash of energy, but is relieved to see their guide restored. They need him to lead them out of here, after all!

    And then he facepalms as, despite Lady Vermilion telling them, up front, that there was nothing to be gained in her gladitorial games, his allies are all champing at the bit to fight. He's surrounded by idiots, apparently.

    And she's putting them into some kind of death game. That's stupid. (The flying metal skulls construct is odd but he has to focus on how to get out of here now.) He starts planning how to grab Chiu and clear them a path out of here...

    And then she cancels it (yay!) and tries to make a deal (boo!)

    "I already made a deal about where my ghost goes, so I can't."

    He raises an eyebrow at her demand. "First deals, now one-sided demands? What will you give us, in return for a radio?"
Lin Lin was expecting a MONSTER to drop down... but what did appear and slam down into the battlefield dwarfs any usage of that word. She SHIVERS and takes a half-step backwards, yet tightens her grip on the Glorious Solar Saber despite the fear... and steels her will such that her defiance of the thing's raw malevolence is all but palpably hanging in the air.

    Then the misunderstanding hits her. ... Oh, that was about an outfit? She gapes... and grinds her teeth again. "I don't care at this point!" She yells futilely at the thing. All this over a cheongsam!

    What's the point anymore?!

    "Rrrrghh....." Slowly, she lowers the saber... but maintains it. "Grrr... we're here to get the job done. If you're returning to your liege... then I'm going home too."
Starlight Bandits     The Bandits are unflinching, even as Revelations revives Chiu, even as horrible sensations wash over them by the rising titan before them. The only thing that might be interpreted as an outward display of concern is the two taking each other's free hand and squeezing them.

    But then the match is called off, as she seems to be talking to no one. "Oh, is your master calling? Do they need their /Vermillion/ foot rest?" Irvine calls to her, still sneering. Molly gently touches his shoulder to cool him off... but she also points to her eyes, and then at the colossus that was summoned by Revelations.

    Without a word to the others, they go to Chiu and his horse. Molly puts the saddle bags back on the former and grips its reins while Irvine helps up the latter. "Come along, my fine fellow. This place is too good for the likes of you."
Yuuki Konno     Nothing to gain? Gain isn't the point! Yuuki has never duelled for something so trivial as gain. Profit is and never has been her motive. She fights because that's who she is, and to turn her back on this challenge - and these people - would be to risk who she is more surely than would the fight itself.

    Yuuki readies herself to fight for her life. For her SOUL, most probably. The faces of those most precious to her, several of them already passed from this life, flash before her mind's eye. It's a prayer of sorts, but to people rather than to the divine.

    And then, a pause. Despite the absolutely horrible sensations caused by the monster - and it's not feeling like a game any more, that's for sure - this Lady Vermillion seems to want to call it off. Well, for now at least. That might not actually be a bad thing. Yuuki doesn't fear death. She's made peace with death once already, and it doesn't hold any terror for her any more. But endless service to madness as a ghost, well, that's pretty terrifying. Fear or not though, she doesn't really intend to back down.

    It seems though, the fight is off for now. She sighs, relaxing her sword arm slightly so she's not quite in a fighting ready stance. She's still almost as ready, especially with her speed, but it's not so aggressive a posture. "Our radios are ours. They have special channels for our friends and stuff. You'll just have to get your own!" Yuuki insists, more than a little annoyed. "If you want to speak with Yoti or something, I suppose I could relay it?" she offers instead, not entirely unkindly.
Tomoe Tomoe does not like where this is going oh she doe snot like where this is going. She looks to 'Vermilion' She braces her seldf and then well comes thing that chill her somewhat there's just something wrong about this but she hers the rules out and they fon't have much of a choice here. She makes ready sghe looks t the dropping platform mechanic as it were, lovely. She'll have to not sit stuill int his fiht she looks to Yuuki, and she can't fly either well she's got three seconds and she's going to /save/ that for when it's needed.

Then everything change she stares blinks and has never quite seen that much dramatic build up and suddenly changes.

"We best not delay."

Before the rules change again.
Bloody Revelations     "Oh whatever you say, tin can. Go get someone to wind up your springs or something. I know perfectly well those things are basically worthless trinkets to you. They tell me you give them away all the time. Hand one over and I'll even let you take the short way out, instead of having you drag a wounded Labyrinth guide around on the very scant time you have left before the next Nightmare Wave hits." If Staren is going to scoff, it looks like she'll scoff right back. There's a very distinct divide here between her behaviour when they had entered, and now.

    She actually outright rolls her eyes at Karal, though the effect is a little odd when she's still standing so much higher up. "You're not a very bright one are you? Just in case it isn't obvious, I can't afford to just leave you alone. If you're not back here at the time I expect, well then I can't be held responsible for my actions~"

    A much more irritated glare goes to Irvine, as he keeps pressing it, maddening the hideous specters into bouts of furious gibbering. "Don't be an idiot. My /liege/ probably wants to talk about why you all are here. Multiversals." Okay, again, how? "My /masters/ are beyond your comprehension" She very clearly enunciates the two different words.

    On the way down from her throne, she reaches out, and snatches up what appears to be a sword --an uchigatana, by the looks of it-- in a black scabbard covered in red calligraphy with an eerily spinal motif. Coming down the steps, her other hand clutches a hilt that isn't entirely visible, and steadily draws a couple of inches with the slow rasp of steel. Upon her brow, a solarform brand identical to Karal's appears, save for its blood red colouration.

    The sword springs free in an arcing cut too quick to really see --or rather, the sword itself wasn't really visible at any point, like the sound of sharp steel had been an auditory hallucination and the scabbard was empty all along. Regardless, where she swung her arm, the air splits and bleeds, oozing inky blackness from a gaping wound that steadily widens until it is as tall and wide as a man, and resolves as a transparent window, beyond which the mouth of the cave is visible.

    "You should be happy they asked me politely to waste the Essence on you. They can see everything, you see, and I'm sure they like something they can see in the future~"
Staren     Staren is impressed that she knows that much! "Fair enough." He reaches into his bag, pulls out a tablet, and tosses it over.

    She has a mark like an Exalted. So she must be one. Great.

    "So, does this demesne of yours have a name?" She can reply, or not. Either way, he's out of here!
Lin "The Dawn Mark?!" Lin barks in disbelief, ignoring the comment about her intelligence. It hits home though - she's pretty ignorant and she knows it. The Solar's anima dies down. "Gh... I came here on mercenary work." And it - including that HORROR that was screaming at her about being a slave of the Sun - has left her pretty rattled.

    "Just my luck this lady turned out to be a Deathknight... I'd rather no part in this. I'll take you up on your offer and leave you to your own business. Wh-whatever twisted Underworld stuff that might be."

    EXIT STAGE AWFUL-PORTAL.
Tomoe Tomoe just get the idea it's no good to sadss things right now. She gets more nervous with Bloody reveltions words, she does not seem to be wanting to stay around much longer. she will look one last time there's a look of legit fear on her face and then she's out right after Lin.