Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Krusty     Welcome to Akihabara!

Exiting the warp gate immediately reveals a bustling market street stretching out several blocks before finally finishing with a large ornate building. Simple looking wooden stalls line the edges of the street, selling wares of a wide variety (though food seems to be prevalent). Behind them, buildings with an old look and yet somewhat modern design stretch up, mixing with trees and vines almost harmoniously. Many people of a variety of races walk the streets, shop at the shops and simply enjoy their free lives. Outfits are varied and quite a number include weapons.

Of course, all of this would have been seen already for those who signed up for today's quest. And to that end, a young man wearing a rather heavy looking suit of armour is waiting just a short distance from the warp gate at the appointed time. Eyeing each of the new arrivals as they appear, he waits until all are present before approaching. The group is met with a charming smile as he begins, "Greetings. My name is Krusty and I am a representative of the Round Table Alliance. I will be assisting you today." As he introduces himself he bows politely, hand against his chest.

Straightening again, Krusty adjusts his glasses before continuing, "I'm sure you all have your reasons, but thank you all for agreeing to take on this quest." He smiles knowingly, "It may seem a little trivial, but such quests can make a big difference in the lives of the People of the Land."
Staren     Staren takes in the sights briefly. He might attract attention if there haven't been many multiversal visitors lately -- his armor is clearly not from a fantasy mileu, though Adventurers might recognize it as looking like something from a sci-fi game. He walks up to Krusty with a smile and extends a hand to shake. "'Quests, there's that word again. And 'People of the Land'? What does that mean?" he blinks. "Ah, I forgot to introduce myself... Staren, of the Concord. Nice to meet you, Krusty.
Alexis It's been a while since Alexis has gotten a chance to just deal with a monster problem that isn't some cataclysmic event. After dealing with that as many times as she has over the years it was nice to get something relatively simple like tracking down monsters eating livestock. So she snatched hold of a quest doing just that as soon as she caught word of it.

Though considering this does involve monsters, to avoid any potential misunderstandings beforehand she doesn't actually have any pokemon accompanying her on foot as she makes her way through the market to the meeting place. "That's what we're here for, yup. Name's Alexis." Idly adjusts the strap to her bag with a tug. "Could say I know a thing or two about dealing with monsters," the pinkhaired tomboy gives a nod towards some of the other familiar faces gathering, "as a few of these folks can vouch for if need be."
Kyoko Takada     Speaking of people who don't look like they belong, there's some kind of child soldier in the mix. The East Asian heritage might fit in with the players of naming sense of Akihabara, but less so all the Western-style fantasy. There's at least three different firearms on her small frame, and while she has a short sword of some kind, it's another techno-gadget with what's clearly a built-in power casing near the grip. She looks, for the most part, dusty.
    "Alpha-three-nine," must be some kind of introduction, "mercenary." That she is. More information than that, she doesn't offer, expression neutrally flat, but eyes flicking between the others present without sign of how the other-factional members make her feel.
    If another person were here, there'd be more talkativeness, but Alpha-39's just here to get a job done. And see whether or not this is a good place for "getting jobs done."
Tomoe Tomoe certainly looks like she could be from here, given the mix of plate and cloth armour, the ear and the sword across her back as she goes. After the latest incident with the Dark Lady Quest Line? She was happy to get out and do something hopefully simple questing to get her minds off things. She takes sight of the young man in armour she seems to like the look of him.

"Tomoe, Assistant Guild Master of the Gate Crashers Union. Good to meet you Krusty."

She nods a bit to him and she pauses for a moment.

"The people of the Land??"

the towering Salamander tilts her head a little bit.

"Yes Quests, Staren it's not like you run into those before?"

She'll give a look to Alxies for a moment.

"I can vouch for her partners they are no trouble and smarter than some people I have known."
August Kohler One of the people who responds probably seems out of place for how the world is now, but at the same time, probably sort of familiar. The redheaded teenager is dressed in a hoodie, hood down, with a pair of winter gloves on. A mirrored bracelet is wrapped around his sleeve, visible, and a pistol is holstered to his side besides a small knife.

As they're greeted by Krusty, August just nods, replying. "August Kohler. How can I help?"
Silica     Keiko Ayano, young human woman, sometimes known as Silica the Beast Tamer, steps through the Warpgate. She's got her pet, Pina, set on her shoulder, and she's wearing something very ordinary, compared to normal. Black tshirt, a light jacket and a pair of light trousers and sneakers. She looks almost ordinary, apart from the Little Feathered Dragon.

    "Hello Miss Tomoe!" she offers to the Gatecrashers Tank, then smiles to Krusty. "They call me Silica. Gatecrashers Union Beast Master. It's nice to meet you in person." she says, adding to Tomoe's little bit. "Don't worry, I can hold my own... though I might not look it right now."

    She hasn't 'Logged In' yet, so is nearly at shoulder height to Tomoe, taller than she normally would be at least.
Starbound Flotilla     Normally, the Starbound Flotilla would deploy all members to almost any operation, but this time, only one has come, and it's the one who you would expect on a hunting expedition. Biteblade! The tiny Floran has come, fully equipped in her elaborate, fancy metal, bone, and densewood armor, covered in hunting ornaments and trophies all over. It's out of place in normal Akihabara -- for a given value of normal -- but it's at least not too eye-catching given the armor and weapons on display. Her high-tech bow strapped over her shoulder, and her clearly electromechanical daggers, may be slightly more unusual, but overall, she's fitting in just fine. There's probably a plant race in this game, right?

    "Big shouldersss!!" She declares, her broad mouth full of sharp teeth causing her classic hiss. She seems /fascinated/ by them! "Huge! Hihi Krusssty, Floran isss Biteblade. Fish friend sssaid Floran not allowed to sssay Floran represssent Starbound Flotilla! Glad for asssist. Sssaid, isss hunt? That'sss Floran reassson. Gonna hunt! Never trivial!" Is she even going to need the credits? She sort of hops up and down on the soles of her feet eagerly, her little clawed hands doing twitchy "gimmie gimmie" motions. "We can go hunt now? Let'sss go! Point Floran at zone of hunting, will go!"

    Oh, and of course, greeting the others is crucial. "Cat friend!" There's a hug-like greeting for Staren, obviously. "Tank friend!" And for Tomoe. "Fireghost friend!" August Kohler, of course. "Tamer friend!" Silica, of course. "Tiny sssniper... Friend?" Okay, suddenly greeting the child soldier with actual full-body contact is a more dangerous prospect, so she kinda does that one in a cautious awkward thing. The others will be getting their own similar responses as she goes, as Biteblade is by far the most extroverted of the entire Flotilla.

    And after all that's done, unless Krusty has some reason not to give her a, uh, quest marker...? How does that work exactly? Well, in any case, if she's given a direction, she'll immediately run off with maximum energy, ready to head out into the forest with her fancy sciency scanner and trying to find large monsters and quest objectives.
Krusty     As each person introduces themselves, Krusty is doing... Something... With his pointer finger. Just sort of swiping it several times in the air. Finally as some of the group start up with some questions, Krusty politely raises his hand to stall too many more, "I'm happy to answer any questions you might have, but first." Krusty motions towards a nearby pair of horse drawn carriages, "Transport has been prepared for us, as it's some distance to the quest location."

    Krusty then pulls a stack of notes out from beneath his tunic, "I've also prepared a radio channel for us to coordinate over. So if you'll please join me both on it and the carriages, I'll answer your questions." Apparently the Round Table Alliance has gone to great organization to accommodate the Multiverse visitors. Krusty hands the notes out to everyone, before climbing onto one of the carriages. The drivers wait until everyone is on, before urging the horses forward.

    The carriages roll through the streets of Akihabara, passing through a gate and over a bridge before finally leaving the city proper. The landscape looks quite peaceful, this part of Yamato consisting much of forest. Birds are quite numerous and other normal animals can occasionally be seen through the trees from the road. But there's no obvious sign of actual monsters along the path, suggesting travel is not too difficult.
Kirito Akihabara! Somewhere that Kirito, the Black Swordsman, fits in fairly well at. Chances are high that people may not notice the pointed elven ears all Fairies share, the only thing that stands out as inhuman about the young man with the youthful, soft-featured face who emerges from the warp gate next to the much-taller Tomoe and ambles along.

    By the time Kirito reaches the meeting place, he's picked up an assortment of oddities from the merchant stalls and is idly munching on some of the local snacks and more questionable-looking things.

    With a final gulp, he finishes scarfing it down. Today Kirito's in a pretty slam-bang good mood, if his smile's any indication.

    "Kirito. Gatecrashers Union Guild Master. Dealing with monster problems is a specialty of ours! But what did you mean by People of the Land?"
Kyoko Takada     A few of those present are more familiar to Alpha-39 than others (in more ways than having been a target once), if she's little less wary for it. Still, her reticence toward all things prevents overly overt acknowledgment. "Silica" sounds familiar. She's not particularly looking at August. Not for lack of familiarity, but for avoiding showing it. Staren helped out on her world. So has Biteblade, whose greeting is intercepted in a motion more arm-grasp than handshake, in a way that could easily transfer into ground techniques, but doesn't, for they are that close to being friends. "Biteblade."
    A-39 accepts the note from Krusty, curiously--perhaps suspiciously--examining it before tucking it in somewhere. She has a lot of pockets. She then hops onto one of the carriages, electing for the top rather than the interior, for the easier lookout, directing her attention toward the surroundings. "Very green."
Staren     "Yes I've heard of 'quests' before," Staren replies to Tomoe, "But I don't usually hear pest control referred to as a 'quest'. I think this might be like The World and Aincrad..." Staren's eyes widen when he sees Krusty making gestures in the air, and points at him. "Look, he's clearly using the menus!"

    Revelations are interrupted by plantfriend hugs! Staren's a bit startled by it, but he raises one arm to pat her on the back. "Always glad to have you at a time like this, Biteblade." As she makes to run off, he comments, "Well, every monster in the forest is sure gonna have a bad day now."

    Krusty summoned carriages! "I mean... we could have brought our own vehicles if you'd asked... Probably would be faster." Not that he turns down the ride, because yes, he sure does have questions.

    "What's goin' on here? You're one of the players, aren't you? What happened? Are you trapped in a death game? Did you suddenly wake up like this? Has there been any communication from outside?"
Silica     Silica steps up into one of the carriages, seating herself primly then making a gesture in the air. She teps the air lightly a few times, then materializes a small back of peanuts, which she uses to pick a couple out to feed to Pina. "I just have one question. Why is the city called Akihabara... that's the name of a shopping district in Tokyo back on my world." she says, mostly into the little device on her head. It covers one eye, and has a small microphone boom running down her right cheek.

    Krusty's reply on the radio makes the girl tense up, her eyes going wide, and the pupils turning into tiny pinpricks. 'The Adventurers here used to be from Earth. This world was just a game.' She goes quiet then, looking a little shell shocked.
August Kohler August climbs onto a carriage, turning on his radio to ask questions. For now, he stares out the window, trying to get an idea of the landscape and what might be out there, as he still recoils a bit from Biteblade's hugs. Personal space, much?! "So, how dangerous would you say all this is?"
Tomoe Tomoe looks to Krusty for a moment she pauses at Krusty for a moment she knows motions like that she does them every day and tends to see such as well. The Salamander nod to Krusty and grins at Silica. "Silicia knows her stuff."

It was strange to see that Silica's avatar was locked at her height back just after they got out of the death game but hey she goes the other way when she transforms.

"Doesn't look like monsters are teaming too hard, that's not a bad thing."

She takes a moment to do some hand gestures and a menu pops up she punches something on it and has a meatball sub in hand for a moment. Which she starts to eat. She waits for a bit before she comments.

"You made some good points there Staren and ya it did look like a menu now that I think about it."
Alexis Alexis takes a note as she climbs up into a carriage. Eyes glance over it for a moment, and then she holds it up by her shoulder. "Syncronize my comm, would you please?" The question seems to be to no one at first, until a rounded pink and cyan bird-like creature sticks its head out from her bag to take the note. "Porygon." < Input Request Accepted > And ducks back into said bag.

That handled, she settles back in her seat. "So, any idea what sort of monsters we might be dealing with?"
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade realizes her own mistake -- both with Apricot and with assuming the quest was right here -- and then quickly and eagerly hops aboard these carriages, chattering briefly with Staren. "Why fassster? Horssse drawn carriage isss good. You get to dessstination, then meal!" She grins widely, and looks /hungrily/ at the horses. No, Biteblade, stop. Anyway, she rambles incessantly over the radio, hissing in friendly ways and now just focusing on sharpening her electrokinetic daggers with some kind of fancy high-tech field-emitting hand-tool of some sort.

    Alexis, suddenly, gets noticed. Biteblade stands dramatically, and points! "Floran remembersss you!" She says. "You hit Floran with ghossst sssword two yearsss ago!!" Her smile gets /double-wide/. She has yet to run out of additional teeth to show off. "Floran remembersss! Good time! Big, tough fight. Dunno what a Falssse Ssswipe, but medical computer had hell figuring out. Floran happy to sssee ssstill fighting after ssso long."
Krusty     The trip doesn't take too long thankfully, Krusty addressing some more specific questions about the quest on the way, "We don't know for sure what monsters we're facing. But judging by this zone, they're more likely to be animal types. From what I've heard about fighters of the Multiverse, you're not likely to have any trouble one on one with an average monster. So this shouldn't be that dangerous."

    Finally the carriages roll to a stop. A farm can be seen not too far down the road, suggesting this is the place. Krusty climbs off the carriage, once more manipulating an invisible menu. A large axe suddenly manifests on his back. He reaches up, drawing the weapon before saying, "The farmer who made the request additionally reported sightings of something unusual in this direction." He turns to look at the gathered party, "Keep alert, the forest is not as safe as the roads. Our chance of encountering monsters is much higher."

    Krusty turns back to the forest and then begins to march into it, axe held ready as his armor plating quietly clinks together from his movement.

    The forest out here is rather densely packed, lowering light levels a little. But apart from the birds chirping from branches above them, and the occasional animal scampering across the ground, there's no immediate signs of monsters. But soon enough, the group stumbles across what looks like a stone path. It's overgrown, but still easily followed. Glancing back at the others, Krusty suggests, "One of the things left over from the game is that monsters like to congregate around points of interest. This may be what we're looking for."
Staren     "Biteblade, no, don't eat the horses." Staren protests. "We'll need them for the ride back. And their owners will need them for future rides." He doubts the human sentimentality angle of seeing certain animals as pets rather than food will work, so he just goes straight to appeal to practicality.

    Staren listens to Krusty's explanation over the radio. So this world's situation bears some resemblance to incidents of the past, but it's not the same.

    Staren nods at Krusty's assessment of the danger. When they disembark from the carriage, he readies what looks like some kind of sci-fi sniper rifle When Krusty remarks they may be getting close, he stops to look around, trying to see if he can make out any distant parts of the path through the trees through his rifle's scope, searching for movement.
August Kohler "Not worried about my safety. Worried about the safety of the locals." August replies, moving to draw his gun and turn the safety off. As they come to a stop, he leaps forward and moves forward, attempting to get to the side of Krusty - not letting him solely take point. They're looking for a monster, which is probably nearby. It doesn't appear to be visible...so they need to lure it out. The quickest way to do that is...

"Keep watch for movement, now!"

August aims the gun in the air, slightly diagonal and away from the party, and fires. He's hoping that the gunshot will cause the monster to react one way or another, whether coming at them or fleeing, and they can pursue it from there.
Kyoko Takada     They come to a stop, and Alpha-39 gives one more look around through a scope, and then descends after whoever was in her carriage has disembarked. She lets others walk in front, Krusty if no others, and takes the time to reattach the scope to her anti-material rifle and sling it once more. "Unknown dangers, probably animals. Got it."
    They reach a stone path, but no obvious signs of enemies. "Getting a vantage point." They're in a forest, and while A-39 hasn't spent a lot of time in forests, she has spent a lot of time climbing. Equipment secured, gloves donned, she takes a running leap, plants a foot against a trunk and scales upward, planting her hands when the initial momentum is gone, and proceeding with all four limbs like any practiced ranger.
    Once up there, the trees will still obscure much of what couldn't be seen from the ground, but she can leap from that eagle point when she comes to it.
Silica     Keiko nods a little, as the carriages arrive. She steps off, makes a little clicking sound with her mouth to Pina. The dragonling lifts up into the air, and hovers beside the woman's head. "LINK. START!" she says imperiously. Wireframe unfolds from the device on her head covering her entire body, before it fills in with textures. The Cait Sith Silica emerges from the transformation, ears flicking, then folding down as August fires his gun. "I was going to send my pets out to look... but I guess that works too." she scoffs softly, then summons the other two. Hibiki the wing serpent, and Nana the Ice Boar appear in flashes of light around her, while the beast master draws her own dagger, ready to fight. "I have healing magicks, and crowd control, and I'm pretty handy with my dagger as well."
Alexis Alexis snorts softly. "Been around the Multiverse long enough to not count on anything being typical beforehand," she replies with a smirk. Though 'animal' does help to clear a few thoughts when it comes to considering tactics ahead of the game.

As they climb out of the carriage she takes a few steps, then grabs one of the red and white spheres from her belt, twirling it for an idle moment. "But it's good to be ready." She flicks the ball, letting it bounce off the ground before opening and spilling otu a flash of energy that solidifies into a stocky dog-like form, orange fur swiped with black strips and matched with off-white fluff for a tail and beneath it's throat. "Groooowlithe."

Alexis catchs the pokeball bouncing back to her. "Even brought my own hunting dog."
Tomoe Tomoe says "The Round Tables seems to do it's intel gathering well so far." Tomoe notes she'll look otAugust for a moment nodding in agreement. "Right we should keep an eye out for Locals with that in mind. She looks to the foods and will draw her sword and then summon and odd shield which materializes in her off hand, the shield in question has names carved on it and some of them shimmer out. Up top is the name Mai and a few others but lower ones shift from moment to moment, curently up is Diavel and Hikari X.

She watches as Silica transforms and she tilts her head.

"I'll see about moving to bait whatever this is out, I'm a Tank more of less if you know the term."
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade practically somersaults out of the carriage. "Huuuuunt!" She calls out, drawing her bow. "Let'sss go go go!" She's already set out, jogging down the road and ready to go. It looks like August is pulling the aggro for the group, so she pulls out some kind of fancy holo-displaying slapped-together piece of scrappy sci-fi technology, which gently pings, trying to detect any more strange signatures that an anomaly scanner might pick up. Weird types of motion, strange elemental energies, the works, though it's unlikely Biteblade would be finding much data about magical aspects.

    Sadly, she doesn't get all her cool racial buffs from eating fresh meat from the horses. Unfortunate! She'll just have to focus on getting that fresh meat from the animals. "If animal, and predator, then will look for prey! Burning ghost friend maybe can draw in like that, yeah. Then, Floran gonna make monssster into prey!" She says, seeing if she can note any activity around... And of course, pointing her high-tech super-bow in the direction of any she can find, ready to open fire the moment Krusty's suspicions are confirmed. Otherwise, she'll just keep following closely alongside.

    She attempts to suppress the urge to try to jump onto his pauldron and sit there like a turret. It's successful! We'll see how many more of those saving throws she can make successes on. For now, she's moving with him to the point of interest, and she'll be opening fire with her bow the moment anything turns up from the group's monster-attraction efforts... If they work. This thing is more like a bow-shaped railgun that fires thick tungsten rods than any kind of actual bow, and she's eager to get into the meat of the matter. Literally the meat of the matter!
Krusty     The gunshot echoes through the forest, a number of birds getting spooked by it and flying off in a flutter of wings. The sound of the shot finally passes, leaving an ominous silence behind. Then it can be heard...

    Growls.

    In the lower light, pairs of red orbs begin to appear, eventually revealing the forms of wolves as they stalk closer to the party. August's gunshot has definitely attracted some attention.

    Krusty instinctively raises his axe in preparation of fighting, but also glances over the wolves. He then visibly relaxes somewhat. Perhaps this is a good thing?

    As the group prepares for the fight, Krusty calls out, "Stay calm and focus. Tomoe should be able to draw most of their attention, letting you get your attacks in." Yes, he's familiar with tanks!

    The wolves stalk closer and closer... Until they reach an invisible point and suddenly all attack at once, charging forward with fangs bared!
Staren     Staren turns around when he hears Silica say 'Link Start' -- He's never actually seen an Augma transformation before, and he watches it analytically. And then August draws his attention with a sudden gunshot... Staren nods. The logic is sound. He resumes watching for movement...

    There.

    He does not need to be told to fire. Predatory monsters that surround a group of adventurers and growl hostilely? Normal wildlife should have fled, like the birds. These are monsters.

    They don't seem particularly threatening, though, so he switches from burst to semiauto mode and, as the wolves approach, calmly aims and fires. The laser itself makes no sound, but a wolf having enough light energy focused on it to flash-fry or outright explode most natural creatures probably will!
Silica     Silica settles into a combat stance. "Wolves, Canis Lupus, they're dangerous in packs, be careful." she relates as the first monster steps out of the shadows. She makes a clicking sound with her mouth again, a different one than before. The three pets around her focus on one of the wolves closest to the tamer. Nana paws the ground, then lets out a squealing shriek as it charges, tusks down in attack position. Hibiki flutters higher, and twists around itself, unleashing a flurry of 'Wind Blades', while Pina stays close to Silica.

    The Cait Sith herself isn't idle though. She charges in after Nana, blade of her Dagger glowing as she charges up a Sword Skill. "GLACIER SLASH!" she leaps into the air, shifting the blade around to drive it down into the wolf's back, as Nana scoops underneath to drive its icicle-tusks into its underbelly.
Kyoko Takada     Alpha-39 glances down in time to see Silica transforming. She pauses for a moment, then continues on. Vague familiarity. But then, people had been talking of "game" worlds. It's probably just that.
    Nothing assaults her on the way up, and August's aggro-gaining attempt was successful. Finding a good, stable enough perch, A-39 fits in the lightest ammunition she carries for her AMR. That should do at this distance, and minimize risk of shock breaking any of the branches holding her up. There's no time to turn this into a little sniper crow's nest.
    She takes aim, intentionally aiming for the furthest-out wolf she can, steadies, aligns through the scope to the creature's head, and squeezes the trigger. Even minimum-impact rounds from her main gun are supersonic, so this is going to be pretty damn noisy in any limited area. She doesn't wait, but shifts to a second target, and then a third, smooth and swift in firing one round at each before she gets through her magazine and has to stop and reload.
Alexis Tank is gonna tank... but that's a good thing, if they're going to take most of the attention. But as the wolves move to charge as a group Alexis also makes a move before they can break their grouping up too far. "Blazemore, use Flame Burst!"

"Growwwwwl!" Not the least bit intimidated by the wolf monsters being bigger than the fire pup, he hunkers down to brace himself, and spits out a rather sizable ball of flame from his mouth. It arcs like a mortar to come down near the center of the pack of wolves and upon striking will burst into several smaller globs of flame scattering at the other wolves close to it.
Tomoe Tomoe sees the gunfire has drawn the attention of the monsters she does not take long to get into action she pops several abilities as she nods to Krusty and charges on in the first thing is a defence buff to the entire party, if they don't try to fgight it of the next thing she pops a taunt yelling at the monsters s she moves to dive right into the middle of them.

"So you want some of this your mangy flea bags? Well come get some!"

She seems to be in her own elment and she seems confident in her allies. Krusty has also left a pretty good impression on her so far even as she sees Silica sick her own monsters on the wolves. She is quick and brustla in her actions to take them diown but htere are so many she's glad to have the help today.
August Kohler Wolves. That...attack when they hear a gunshot. This is definitely a video game. August moves his eyes to his sleeve as they come forward, shouting at the exact moment they pounce. "Persona!"

A flash of blue energy surrounds August, before the Tin Soldier, a dress uniformed robot soldier in burn scars with a rifle for a leg appears. It tanks a wolf coming at it, August staggering back at the Tin Soldier blocks it, before the rifle lights aflame and moves to burn the wolf to a crisp. August doesn't retreat from the battlefield, motionless as the Tin Soldier fights.
Starbound Flotilla     "HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT!!"

    Biteblade flicks a heavy tungsten arrow straight into her hand in a simple clean motion, drawing from some kind of wrist-mounted quiver, and immediately opens fire! A flurry of shots, released with rapid-fire draws, meant to pincushion incoming wolves with intense aggression. But she doesn't intend to stay even close to the backlines, she's moving up hard and fast, drawing her own arrows from the bodies of the dead, and even leaping onto the wounded or freshly dead to chomp into their flesh, like some kind of animal; her fancy powered armor even has some kind of bite-enhancing apparatus folding over her jaw! As she reaches the front lines, she brings out both heavy electrokinetic daggers, ditching her bow in favor of close combat.

    She seems to entirely disregard wounds taken from the claws and teeth of the wolves; their flesh, unless it's unusual, seems to trigger some kind of regenerative property when she bites into them! She's dashed in close with Silica, dodging and weaving around Staren and A-39's gunfire to always keep out of their way elegantly in a sort of tribal dance sort of agility, and effectively works on digging into the concentrated packs with heavy damage meant to follow up viciously on Alexis' power! Where she can't secure a kill, she's more than willing to try to slice out tendons on these predators and set up kills for August, too!

    And, of course, all throughout it, she bellows out tribal war-cries, guttural and savage, between moments of trying to bite down on the wolves to recover from the bruising and slashing that get through her power armor.
Krusty     Krusty doesn't participate in the battle himself. This is partly because his job here is as guide for the visitors. Another reason is that he's interested in watching the group fighter. Nothing he sees particularly shocks him... As a gamer who's lived in both a modern and a fantasy world, he's familiar with most of what he sees, even if some of it was fictional from his perspective. Yes, the Round Table Alliance has done its information gathering, both about this world and to some degree, the Multiverse. With the likes of Shiroe, Krusty and its other members as its leaders, they don't rush into things blindly.

    The wolves are thoroughly destroyed by the party. Tomoe's taunt causes the majority to focus on her, charging at her to bite and swipe. But ultimately they don't do much damage to the tank. And as each one is struck, whether it be bullet, knife, tusk, fire or bite from one of the stranger party members, they let out yelps of pain before glowing with light and bursting into bubbles of light. It doesn't take long until the wolf pack has been defeated, the bubbles floating up into air and disappearing from sight.

    In the aftermath, Krusty just nods in approval, "Not bad." What he doesn't say is the monsters were only level 30 and that the Alliance's research had suggested the average Multiverse's elite fighter could solo a level 80.

    Krusty swipes his finger at his menu... "But we're not done. It appears there is still more." He raises his axe up to rest it on his shoulder as he resumes walking through the forest.

    Following the stone trail takes the party deeper and deeper into the forest. As they move through it the spacing between the trees is getting closer, the tree tops blocking out more and more light. Finally there is an opening in the tree line ahead.

    Stepping through the opening might feel like walking between two different worlds. The normal sounds one might expect in a forest are oddly absent. The warmth of the sun has been greatly stifled by a low-hanging smog, which also reduces visibility to some degree. It's unpleasant to breathe, but not dangerous. But from what can be seen, it would appear the party has walked into a clearing in the forest. Though what it lacks in trees it makes up for in long grass. Much of the clearing is covered in it, the tips of the blades reaching up past the average person's waist. The only clear patches in sight are where the stone path swerves through the grass towards the center of the clearing.

    A child's scream suddenly reaches the party's ears from that direction.

    Following it will lead everyone to the center of the clearing. The sight revealed through the fog is a troublesome one. The tall grass ends to reveal what looks like a broken tower. Round in shape, with a large spiral extrusion running up the side of the base. The top half has fallen to the ground, large blocks strewn around the opening in the grass. Wall-clinging plants almost entirely cover the top half of the tower, suggesting it's been there for quite some time. The base is oddly free of them.

    And just in front of the tower two children, a boy and girl, are cornered against it by a pack of somewhat large snakes. The monsters are hissing at the children, jaws occasionally snapping at the stick being wielded by the girl. Meanwhile the boy is lying behind her, the red streak down his leg indicating he's been bitten. The girl is trying to keep the snakes from advancing, but it's a battle she is quickly losing.
Krusty     Krusty is the first to act, having been at the head of the party. He moves fast, perhaps somewhat surprisingly given the apparently heavy armour he wears. Quickly closing the distance, Krusty's axe glows with light as he lets out a battlecry, swinging the weapon in a wide arc. The snakes are all caught in the slash, their bodies separating in half before exploding into bubbles of light. Krusty kneels down on front of the two children, asking, "Are you alright?"

    Distracted as he is by checking on the children, Krusty doesn't notice as the tower behind them begins to slowly move. Or rather, not the tower, but the creature that had been wrapped around it. Quietly raising its giant body up from where it had been coiled around the tower, the massive form of a giant snake begins to reveal as the low hanging smog magically recedes. Stretching its body up into the air, the giant snake is easily several stories in height. But it doesn't end there. Towering over the clearing and the party within it, large reptilian wings spread out from the snake's back, casting a shadow from the now revealed sun over the entire party.

    From his kneeling position, Krusty looks up in concern, before informing the others in a solemn tone, "A raid field-boss... Winged Serpent." This could be troublesome.
Alexis Nothing gets someone to hustle like the sounds of children in distress. But while Alexis and her pokemon are hardly slow, Krusty is able to get there and act in getting rid of the snakes faster from the start of the group. Seeing him erradicate the serpents and stoop down to check the children, she slows down to a less hectic pace and actually takes a moment to observe the difference in the environment. "Somethin's off here..."

"Growl growl! Growliiiithe!" That's when Blazemore starts barking, ears perked and hackles bristled as he glares at the tower, and the plants... Nix that, it's not plants wrapped around it after all. Pretty big wings, too.

"Yeah. Interesting." She grunts, and stoops down a moment to pick up the Growlithe. "Let's get its attention away from the kids. Ally oop!" Alexis spins around once for some extra momentum and then flings the firedog intot he air. As he hurtles towards the winged snake her does a somersault, his entire body cloaked in flames making it look more like a minature comet than anything else.
Silica     Silica's ears perk up at the scream. She takes off quickly, close on the heels of Krusty as he attacks the snakes. She lets out a Kiai and slashes at one of the others while Krusty takes the most attention, helping clear the trash mobs quickly, like a good DPS. She kneels near the children with Krusty, then flattens her ears, tail puffing out as that shadow looms. "That's a lot bigger than Hibiki." she muses dully. "How are the children? I can try to heal them a little bit while the others engage, then join after?"

    She nods a bit as Krusty replies for her to focus on the party instead, and hops back, doing some backflips to get back behind the group, her wings appearing to add some loft to the final leap.

    She lands with a skid, then begins to chant, Words of Power appearing around her, and locking into place as they're spoken. Oss Sér Ulma Eimi Lind Og Sveró! The last word locks into place, and a 'dome' of hexagonal blue energy panels appear around every member of the current party, before fading to near transparent. They're still there, and will hopefully blunt incoming damage, but not block it completely. "That's the best Shield I can manage, I still need to work on my Water Magic skill." she says, then gets ready to start tossing heals out.
August Kohler Once the wolves are down, August moves forward with Krusty, at a decent pace...until he hears the screams of a child. His pace speeds up, as the Tin Soldier disappears and his gun is drawn again. When they arrive at the tower, August moves to try and shoot the snakes, but he's not quick enough. Krusty's faster, and slices straight through them, kneeling to help the children. August watches, silently, analyzing him. This means August also does not notice the snake move until it's already uncoiled, shadowing over him. He turns, taking a step back as he reflexively calls into his bracelet again, "Tin Soldier, to me!"

When the Tin Soldier remanifests, it points its gun /at the party/, and fires. There's a click as energy washes over them, increasing their physical and mental combat ability before it swerves, moving into defense so that Krusty can treat the children before it can attack them.

"Everyone, focus on the snake! He'll handle the kids. Go!"
Staren     That was easy. Too easy. Staren notices Krusty's lack of participating. So it's a test, then. Well, he doesn't care. Not like they can't see what he did in old WMAT recordings. He has nothing to hide.

    Deeper they go. As the forest gets dense and foggy, Staren slings the sniper rifle over his back. Not as much use for such long range now. At least he doesn't have to breathe the strange fog.

    At the scream, though, he manifests wings like a Cait Sith's and takes flight towards the sound. He reacts with Krusty, flying close to the children to interpose himself between them and the snakes, trying to mentally sort out who's got the best healing...

    But it turns out the snakes weren't the real threat. At least, not those particular snakes.

    After over a decade of Multiversal shenanigans, a giant winged snake isn't exactly intimidating. Not that Staren assumes it can't threaten him, but he's not going to get /worried/ until he sees it do something that could actually be a problem.

    <"Someone get the kids out, or I will."> Their lives are the priority here. Even in the worst case scenario, the elites can simply retreat and come back with more people and firepower. Krusty's got it, though.

    Staren opens with firing the twin beam cannons on his right arm at the beast -- Not aiming for a weak point or anything, just checking how generally resistant its hide is to damage, while backing away once Krusty and the kids are clear.
Tomoe Tomoe seems pretty pleased as the wolves go down but she does seem to not be shocked by the way the monster burst apart into motes of light.

"Thanks Krusty, though it seems humm they were not too much of an issue for us."

She doesn't seem mad, she has her ideas about why they were called in but none of them are ones that presume anything really shady on the Round Table's part. She does watch the menu for a moment.

"Oh more? All right lets get back to cleaning up then shall we?"

She grins a bit as she falls in to take point or nearly so. As the terrain changes she doesn't like it and soon the feeling of dislike turns to concern at the cry of a child.

"A kid?!"

Tomoe is looking around for a moment then sees the strange broken tower.

There isn't much thinking as Tomoe is quick to act after Krusty as she is near the front but not quite as close as he is.

"The boy could be poisoned from a bite like that. I don't know the local monsters but it's best to assume that...."

A chill goes down her spine as she looks up.

"Oh not good. RAID BOSS!"

Tomoe is already knowing there's not much time to act she really fortified herself. With that out of the way? She launches her shield at the boss like a boomerang and it /works/ even if it misses it will bounce back to her, but hopefully she can get that first taunt heavy hit in to keep it focused upon her.

"Presume it has a poison bite or breath of some sort! Watch for aoe effects too and for the love of everything watch out for tape whips!"

Also at this point red see through wings flare out as she takes flight to try and really cheese off thise thing.
Kirito Another person who didn't see much reason to get involved just yet is Kirito. It's weird because normally he'd be quick to rush up into any action, even against trash monsters! But there's a ton of people here today...

    And seeing Krusty, despite being all geared up, not getting involved has him wondering Just Why.

    So the Black Swordsman began scanning the wilds with some concern. The distant treeline has his attention far more than the wolves, with some worry...

    And the scream tells him exactly what he was worried about. Spriggan wings flare into existence and thrum up to speed, and swiftly send him hurtling towards the scream. At first he's moving towards the kids... but with Krusty taking that opportunity, he twirls away and loop-de-loops into a different direction. TOWARDS THAT LURKING SHADOW!

    And the moment it's revealed to be a giant snake... Elucidator's drawn in an instant. The blade glows... and the instant his feet hit the ground he launches into for Savage Fulcrum, a four-strike Sword Skill that causes an explosion of icy buildup! Slash slash slash slash!

    Ice might be effective agaisnt snakes, right?

    "We've gotta get the kids out of here. Who has cure magics? Antidote Crystals?! Please tell me we have something!"
Kyoko Takada     With a trace of reluctance, Alpha-39 drops down from her perch, half-sliding down the trunk on the way, yet still landing lightly at the end and into a steady trot forward as she follows the party. She reloads on the way, glancing over where the fallen wolves should lay, and faintly surprised to find that there really is nothing. She shrugs, accepting the unreality of it for the moment, and resecures her gear.
    Krusty rushes forward, and she watches, judging the situation. She's not an expert on plant life, but something overgrowing only the top half of a fallen tower strikes her as odd, and as it's more of a default state, she doesn't need a reason for wariness in the first place. "Incoming," she speaks softly into her radio pick-up as she slides her mask on over her face. Red eyes shine softly for a moment, and then fade as she drops herself into the grass. Above-the-waist for most people is even higher on her, lending a near-perfect field of stealth. "Circling and closing in." She sets off at nearly a right angle to the target, but is distracted by further talk from the radio. Not just injury on those they've found, but poison. She's not sure what kind of poisons they have around here, but if Krusty doesn't have anything specialized for it, she figures she's as good a shot at handling it as anyone. She keeps through the grass, but comes out where Krusty, Silica, and the pair are, keeping her hands off her weapons, and pulling her mask off again once she gets close and needs a close look at what they're dealing with.
    "Stay still. Give me a minute." She keeps supplies for a variety of purposes, under that broad umbrella that is "survival." A lot of that involves everything in her world being inimical to life. It's practically Australia. If you want to eat, you have to learn to deal with that. If you want to survive injury, the same applies.
    She pulls just what she needs out of the first aid kit, antiseptics, sterilized instant-adhesive wraps, and most importantly, her own anti-venom concoctions. It's the safest variety she can give based only on having seen what the snakes looked like just before Krusty and Silica killed them, and whether the game-like nature of the monsters will muck that up, she has no idea. "Take this." Still, she tries.
    And with that, she fades back into the grass, mask back over her face. Her efforts won't actually heal any injury, restore any lost blood or whatever passes for spiritual vitality, or do anything else but likely prevent disease and further effects of poison.
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade is almost sad that Krusty's taken the smaller enemies. Almost as sad as she was when she found out that the monsters here leave no corpses. She's going to have to get all her meals /before/ they poof into light and deny her all that fresh meat! Luckily there should be plenty of opportunities to deal with this fresh foe.

    "Don't let essscape!!" Biteblade calls out, urging the party on here with a shout. She plants one foot heavily on the ground, charging the power systems in her armor intensely. Jets reorient, electromechanical parts glow brightly, her blood boils with the intensity of the biochemical reactions incited by her fresh meat and she starts to sort of "collect" the energy emitted by August Kohler's Persona. "HhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRR..." She starts, the beginnings of a battle-cry. As she shifts down to placing one clawed hand on the ground, Silica's chant washes over her, though the dome may warp a little as it interacts positively with Biteblade's newly activating shield system. "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..." Her voice builds and builds its tone and anger, until with a sudden, intense shout, she LAUNCHES!

    "RAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Behind her, she leaves a pair of small foot-shaped craters and a spiderweb of cracks cut into the ground. She winds up linking with Alexis' outgoing canine projectile, using it as a point of auto-navigation, her power-armor's microjets causing her to sort of orbit around the whirling orb of fire. Her entire body twists in a whirling, razor-sharp projectile, and she attempts to smash daggers-first straight into one of the wings with enough force to bring down a small spacecraft, something she hopes will be enough to make sure this creature can't get away.

    If she can land a strike, piercing or no, she fires her booster jets at full strength, trying to force the wing back and hold the creature open for Tomoe's shield smashing taunt! And, hoping desperately that the Taunt will land, she attempts to rush along the wing with quick, feral clambering, towards the body, daggers blazing with green light as she tries to dig into the spine of the beast like a combination of a blender and a drill.
Krusty     Krusty gives the scared children a reassuring smile, "It'll be okay. Let's get you somewhere safer." He accepts the first aid kit from A39, before carefully picking up the boy, shifting him to hold him in one arm. His other he uses to grab the hand of the girl and starts to lead them away from the coming battle.

    The party engages before the Winged Serpent has a chance to act. Blazemore's firery smash combined with Biteblade's jet charges knocks the boss off its tower perch, sending it falling to the ground and leaving scorch marks behind on its scales. Staren's beam cannons have much the same affect on the scales, running across the large snake's body. Kirito's strikes clang against the boss's body, almost as if its scales were made of metal. The creature is definitely quite armored, which is probably a given considering its size. The ending blast of ice also knocks the boss around a little.

    The large snake rises up again, only for a flying shield to smash into the side of its head. Shaking off the blow, it turns its gaze towards Tomoe. Recovered from the initial assault, the Winged Serpent hisses quite loudly as it prepares its own. Rising up on its tail, its wings start to flap. Then with a combined blast of air from those leathery appendages, and a springy push from its tail, the large snakes launches itself through the air towards the group. Focused as it is on Tomoe, it's large, coiled body makes the resulting impact just as dangerous for many others of the group, mitigated by the buffs that have so far been provided.

    Having reached the edge of the clearing, opposite the beginning battle, Krusty gently puts the boy down, leaning him against a tree. A combination of the anti-venom from A39 and a local healing potion, that Krusty pulls out from beneath his tunic, helps the boy recover. Eyeing the two closely he says, "It's not safe to leave yet, so just say behind me. You'll be safe." Krusty then stands, turning around and planting the end of his axe in the ground in front of him. With a keen eye he watches the battle unfold.
Silica     Silica crosses her arms over her face, lifting into the air and pulling away from the lunging strike. Her yellow wings pulse faintly in the sunlight, trailing little motes of light. "It's got a long reach, don't think you're safe if you're far away." she notes, probably obviously to anyone else present, before she holds her hands in front of her again. "Su fylla heilagr austr brott svalar bani!" she intones, sending a wash of healing water over Tomoe to mitigate the damage from that strike. "Go for weakpoints... hnnn." she turns her magenta eyes over the giant snake, locking onto the beady little eyes in that massive head. That could work.

    She readies herself, pulling her dagger from its sheath again, then clicking to her pets. They form up, Nana taking a stance on the ground, while Hibiki and Pina form around the floating Cait Sith. Clikclickclukclok.

    Pina begins to charge a breath attack, Hibiki coils up, like before when firing Wind Blades, while Nana hunkers down, the ground around it beginning to frost over. Looks like Silica's planning something big.
Kyoko Takada     The buffs are... odd. Alpha-39 would call this another "game-like" effect, except that it's Silica and August causing it, so she can't blame it on this world. For someone with little appreciable armor and no superhuman endurance, anything that increases her defense without hindering her mobility is welcome, if the efficacy still suspect. She's not going to experiment with getting hit to see how well it holds up. The Tin Soldier's ability, conversely, she's going to put to as much testing as possible.
    The mask's filters keep the unpleasantness of the fog out, instead giving her its own long-familiar scent. It's still not the most pleasant, but there's little helping it. An expanded spectrum of light filters through to her eyes, helping her keep track as she makes a long circle around, silently thankful for others having engaged the raid boss's attention. Her blades are near-silent in their humming as their power charges, the edges heating, unnoticeable as combat is joined, though visible enough once she should draw them.
    Silica's buff ends up getting used anyway. Despite keeping well away from Tomoe, A-39's still in range of the shockwave from the serpent's landing, diminished by rolling side over side through the grass rather than stand against it. Actual injury is minimal, the effect more a delay and shake-up. Rolling with the blow makes her position more visible for a moment, but the tank(s) should have this by now, and so she immediately jumps back into a low run, using the loud sounds of combat to stay oriented on her target. She just has to get fully behind it, and then run forward, dagger-sized blades in either hand and glowing a vibrant blue-white.
    The masked soldier leaps. The serpent is quick, but she's used to that. She aims for whatever part of its body she can reach, impacting with her daggers, planting her feet, and running as far up its body as her sense of balance and quick movement can take her, using the energized blades as climbing hooks should she fall.
August Kohler With the kids safe and the buffs up, the Tin Soldier instead turns to focus its gun on the giant bird-snake. There's another click as it buffs itself, before it begins firing a hail of bullets, attempting to assist in putting the pressure on finally killing the bird.
Alexis Alexis catchs Blazemore on the rebound. "Good boy. Good b-ack!" Despite everyone laying into the thing the winged serpent recovers quickly, and throws itself at them in a high speed air powered charge. One of those wings is enough to make impact, even with the protection buffs, and send the trainer sprawling with pokemon not far behind.

"I think we need a bigger hit," Alexis grunts as she uses one hand to push herself back onto her feet, reaching for her belt with the other. "Stay down, bow." A pokeball is plucked free, and flung across the ground. "Maulatov, I choose you!" The pokeball splits open as before, but this time it's a much bigger discharge of energy to take form, burly and rotund. "EMBOOOOAR!" The pig-like beastman flexes, then slams his fists together as flames erupt around his lower jaw like a brilliant blazing beard. <Oh yeaaaah! Who needs a whoopin'?!> Alexis points behind the winged beast and makes a gesture, indicating its tail.

There's a thud to his burly steps as Maulotov hustles around the creature's side, going to grab it's tail with his big beefy (or would that be porky?) arms, while digging heavy heels and clawed toes into the ground. <Now ya been HOGTIED!>

Terrible pun aside, it's clear what the Emboar is trying to do, with a combination of strength and weight to try and keep the creature from just flying into the air again.
Tomoe With Krusty taking the kids out of harms way, she's able focus more on the crazy monster thing.

"A raid boss in a location like this??" She hears about not letting it escape from Bite blade and the plant blender is certainly proving herself here. She keeps flying about and she's clearly got the thing's attention. This was good for the party, but not so good for her, such is the life of a tank after all. The snake impacts with Tomoe it's a food deal of damage but her own buffs and the other support she's got keeps things from getting worse. There's a sporch of red wireframe at the impact site but Tomoe isn't down yet and she's recovering. Still that hurt a heck of a lot if someone pays attention to the look on Tomoe's face.

"Ha!"

Got to keep the thing, thinking the hit wasn't as bad as it was as she follows the advice. The heal from Silica helps a fair bit and she's zipping up going to make a strike at one of the snake thing's eyes.

"Hey over here slinky!"
Staren     The beams scorch its scales, but it's not clear that any real damage is being done by such attacks. It's heavily armored. He has armor-piercing missiles, sure, but what good is putting a small hole through a giant snake? Unless...

    <"Gnh. Does anyone have some kind of detection magic that can locate its brain or heart? Maybe if we could snipe such with an attack powerful enough to pierce this armor... Or... Do monsters in this world not have physiology?

    Krusty replies: <"They do. It might work.">

    Staren takes advantage of his flight to get clear as the snake tries to land on the group. It might catch him with a wing or something, but impact damage is probably negligable compared to crush damage, especially when he's trying to fly away from it.

    Once he's flown above, with the serpent focused on Tomoe, he can get a look at the top of its head. There's a brain in there /somewhere/. He googles a diagram of snake anatomy through the Multiversal radio, and targets his six best guesses: A half-dozen tiny missiles, the size of magic markers, launch from his armor's forearms, doing their best to use optical tracking to home in on the spots Staren selected. Once within a few feet, they airburst -- rather than a conventional explosion, they concentrate all their energy to superheat and direct a thin, focused jet of plasma that would disperse after a few meters. Great for poking holes through tanks and the like.

    Staren watches the snake with anticipation. Could that actually kill it?

    If not, he's already thinking about how to get attacks into its eyes or open mouth or, failing that, how to dump a massive amount of damage over its body to try and kill it through pure HP loss...
Starbound Flotilla     The bodyslam's impact, even if it's not directed at those besides Tomoe, still winds up hitting Biteblade hard just because of her close proximity. The impact slams her off of the body of the creature before she has any chance of digging through that thick armor and piercing vital parts. She's launched hard, slamming with a brutal cracking noise into the ground as her armor's impact reduction kicks in and keeps this from snapping her in half as it might normally.

    She's on her feet before she loses the last of her momentum, her clawed hand gripping the ground to halt it. She doesn't wait a moment, though; with a massive leap, she re-engages the creature now that it's stuck at close range with Tomoe! There's two key things here: First, the tower itself is a useful piece of terrain, and second, the others need a little more stationary target. If Biteblade's daggers aren't good for piercing here, she'll go with a different option: Immobilization! She discards her daggers and draws a pair of GRAPPLING HOOKS! Launching one to the tower, and one against the ground, she does a rocket-powered swing low below the serpent's head, meant to wrap those nanotube tethers right around the snake's neck in a way that, armless as it is, it can't evade! One hopes this will not only enhance A-39's own efforts to climb, but ideally keep it just enough in place that Silica and Staren can get their huge attacks to land with full power and full impact!

    Then she floods her energy straight into the grappling hooks, overloading them to make them try to choke the beast violently!
Kirito CLANG! is not a thing Kirito likes to hear when he's slamming a blade into a boss. "Ghhh---" Both wings snap out and provide quick thrust backwards, as he falls in next to and a bit behind Tomoe, ready to act as DPS to her tank.

    The creature taking off with such huge wingflaps does bufet him back a few feet... but Kirito tapes at his menu shortcuts...

    Skills -> Celestial Blades -> Enable, Equip -> Dark Repulsor.

    Energy fizzles across his back, second sword forming and quickly drawn into his left hand.

    "Get it away from the kids! Further away!" To prove this point, he leaps up into the air, wings flaring to life again... and BOTH blades ignite with shining blue-white starlight.

    HUGE torrents of non-elemental energy flare from the blades as he swings around up down left and right unleashing hyper slashes, each strike resulting in a small burst of glittering starlight and crescent flares!
Krusty     By the time the party begins their next assault, the Winged Serpent has already righted itself after is attack. It's not too hard to target the large creature, given its size. Although striking weakpoints is going to be another matter. Thankfully they have August's accuracy buff assisting.

    Getting up close and personal works for A-39, the snake not paying much attention to her and so she is given free reign to run up its body. Those few times she might lose her footing, she manages to find points between the boss's scales to plant her blades, adding to the damage that is piling up. Likewise, the bullet spam from August's Tin Soldier rattle across the Winged Serpent's body. Alexis's choice of pokemon is a good one, Maulotov able to get a good grip around the giant snake's tail. It attempts to struggle against it, flapping its large wings to try and add lift, but ultimately the pokemon's strength proves greater. The Winged Serpent is officially grounded, for the moment!

    Still drawn to Tomoe, the large snake moves its head fast to snap its large jaws at Tomoe. This ruins her aim on the boss's eyes, as well as Staren's beam missile barrage. Tomoe's swing and Staren's beams still inflict considerable damage to the boss's head.

    Unfortunately for Biteblade, her plan doesn't go quiiiite as expected. The grappling hook launched at the ground digs in, taking hold. Meanwhile, the one fired at the tower reaches it, only for a barrier of light to manifest along the tower's surface. The grappling hook freezes in mid air for a few moments, before suddenly being fling through the air away from the tower.

    A flash of interest appears in Krusty's eyes as he watches from the edge of the clearing. But for now, he remains there, protecting the children.

    Still, Biteblade's plan still works to some degree as the second grappling hook embeds itself in the ground as well. The tethers then wrap around the snake's neck.

    Pokemon holding it's tail from behind, anchored tethers wrapping around it's neck, the snake is briefly immobilized! And then Kirito comes in, unleashing his combo of energy strikes against the snake's body. The concentrated assault does better at cutting into the armored boss. And if the others could see the boss's HP bar like Krusty can, they'd see it falling quickly...

    Where it had been struggling against the holds on it, the boss now goes still. The Winged Serpent's scales begin to separate from its body as it begins to shed its skin. As they separate, they begin turn to dust. The dust then swirls around, forming numerous small clouds. The clouds each shrink as a solid form generates within them from the gathered dust. The shapes become obvious as they form, long and thin, very snake like. After a few moments, their creation is complete. Several dozen much smaller Winged Serpents now hover in the air near their creator, wings flapping. The party only has a few moments to react before the mass of monsters begin to swarm them with bites.
Silica     Silica watches Kirito go to work. She smiles wanly, even in the midst of combat. "... It's been a long time since I last saw Starburst Stream in action..." she murmurs, picked up by the microphone and transmitted to the radio. She doesn't have long to wander in nostalgia though, as the giant serpent begins to spawn minions! This doesn't change her plan though, the attack she's charging up takes time to get there, it's nearly complete, but it only hits a single target... that target is the main serpent. "ADDS!" she cries as she watches those dust clouds forming new monsters, but returns her focus to the Boss. "Mister Staren, Miss Alpha, if you could follow my lead."

    She clicks her tongue, and Pina breathes out her Bubble Breath at the Serpent. This is meant to stun it for a moment. Hibiki acts next, striking the Dagger in Silica's hand, charging the blade with Wind Magic. Nana is up last, covered in a shell of ice now, it shrieks, breaking out of it and hurling dagger-like shards at the Serpent's head. "My Original Sword Skill! Serpent Rapier!"

    Silica launches forwards, hot on the tail of the ice barrage. her blade glows green, adding her Sword Skill to the Charged Magic. "HYAAAAAAAA!" She stabs, rapidly striking six times at the Serpent's eye, using the last strike to flip herself up and over the head to land the other side, before the Sword Skill Stun sets in, locking her in place for a moment.
August Kohler The bullet spam is working...but there's more monsters, and they come forward. The Tin Soldier doesn't react fast enough to not get bitten up, and August is bitten himself being in range, forcing the Tin Soldier to pull back and throw the ones biting the Persona back. The rifle starts up again, and then starts spraying torrents of fire, moving to immolate as many of the winged serpents as possible. It roars silently, miming pain as it's bitten, as the flames roar. "Let's see how you /burn/!"
Alexis That worked in pinning the boss down for the time being, along with the other efforts to restrict it's movement. "Hang in there guys! It's starting to come apart!" .... Except it wasn't a death animation(?) as she first thought, as the shed bits start turning into smaller winged snakes. Crap. Time to think quickly. "Maulotauv, use Defense Curl!" Which results in the pigmon huddling himself around the tail, both to keep his anchoring grip on it and while he can't stop some of the mini-snakes from swarming him it gives them less vulnerable spots to bite at. Keeping the snake in place for the heavy hitters is more important, it's a practical tag-team tactic.

Then Alexis turns her attention back to her Growlithe. "Get back in the fight." "Grow!" The firedog starts bounding back into the fray. "Just like last time. Flame Burst!" As he's running closer Blazemore spits out another fireball at a mini-snake, that upon impact will splatter flames to try and catch several others as well.
Tomoe Tomoe fires off another taunmt to keep the thing focuysed on her. She's able to get a darn good hit on the boss it's clearly hurt it but it seems that one the thing is very tough, worse? It's got adds. It's always adds on this, and mentally she hopes there are no packs of eggs they have to avoid being thrown into. Keeping to the air Tomoe will watch the adds somewhat but her focus is on the boss. Gold runes start to dance about her as she chants in badly accented norse, then comes a rain of rays of light mostly focused on the monster and it's head.

"Come on and get me you over grown rock snake!"
Staren     Well, it's not DEAD, but... it's... shedding its skin?
    Is... is this how this species reproduces, or are they temporary summons? No matter, someone's got a plan.

    Staren flies around to the same side of the serpent as Silica. Follow her lead? "But what's the plan?!" Are they just going to all hit the same spot? Does she need him to use more of the same missiles? His armor doesn't have any more loaded. Staren draws a missile launcher from his bag...

    Ah. The eye.

    He drops the missile launcher, pulls the sniper rifle off his back, and fires a three-pulse burst of intense light -- megajoules intense -- at the eyes. He'll fire again if the stun lasts the few seconds needed for it to cool down.

    Could their combined attack really be enough to finish it? He sure hopes so, Silica getting caught stunned is bad...
Kirito BANG! That's more like it. Kirito can't see this creature's HP bar - probably, anyways - given the difference in world, MMORPG-stylized or not. But he can tell it's Hurting.

    He swoops away before it has a chance to counter-attack... and is treated to seeing a pattern shift. And lots, and LOTS of new problems splurting up all over the battlefield. THAT puts some dread on his face.

    "Crap. ADDS!"

    His thinking was more or less along the same lines as Krusty, for he kicks into action a few seconds before the instruction and starts hacking and slashing and whirling through them as fast as he can with the Area of Effect Sword Skills from Celestial Blades. Double Circular, Spike Myriad, Shining Radial. He's going to have a good pile of the things down... and then be disadvantaged and overextended for a bit. It's Kirito though... he probably has a plan, right?!
Kyoko Takada     Even in the best of circumstances, running up the back of a huge monster is usually a poor idea. If she were on her own, and still willing to face a raid boss, there's no way Alpha-39 would have gone this route. Explosive traps and sniping would carry that hypothetical scenario, but in this, she has several, uncommon advantages. One is the accuracy buff from the Tin Soldier, noticeably improving the dagger-strikes she's using to stay on point. One is all the attention-grabbing action happening up front, like Kirito's shiny sword-work. One is the physically-grabbing action nearby, like the Emboar, and like Biteblade's grappling hook.
    Things take a turn for the enormously worse when the serpent starts shedding. A-39's about to abort and leap for the ground when she realizes just what's happening, and Krusty and the others confirm over the radio they'll take care of it. She'll grant them the chance to do so before making her attack and getting out, but she's gritting her teeth beneath her mask. "Work fast." If it were something other than poison, she might not even be this confident in her safety.
    Whatever she was expecting, "Silica charging the boss's face" wasn't it. Still, there's no time to confirm the effect. Apart from wasting any stun time the boss experiences, it gives the adds more time go after her. In the end, A-39 barely pauses in her upward ascent long enough for the Cait Sith to strike before she leaps the rest of the way. Her daggers are sheathed, their role in her climb finished, and the largest blade at her back is drawn, likewise with that blue-white glow. She strikes directly at the center-line of the head as her leap lands, a downward thrust with her left hand over her right, adding to a single push in to try to reach the monster's brain. Her focus is refined to pinpoint accuracy, the buff continuing to assist her here, to avoid a strike to one side that would let the blow deflect.
    Stabbing, pushing in, shoving forward with armor-melting blade, then pulling out again, and with that, Alpha-Three-Nine would take this chance to get out of the line of fire, but Staren's likewise focused attack saves her the trouble. If there aren't any explosions incoming, and the party keeps the adds off her, she can set to her butcher's work in ease.
Starbound Flotilla     What the hell? Some kind of invisible wall? God damn game devs.

    Biteblade manages to get part of it working, even if she's accidentally triggered some kind of glassesflashing realization in Krusty. But now she's got other matters to deal with. Namely, the creature is struggling in a way that makes it a little irrelevant how hard Biteblade yanks on the tethers to choke it to death. Fuck! More swarms!

    Thankfully, this is something Biteblade likes.

    "Sssquare cube law! Can't have as much armor as bossss fighty guy!! TIME FOR EATIIIIIING!!" And the floran leaps off of the creature's body and straight into the swarms. They smash and bite and tear and crash against her armor, ripping gashes in it, crashing plates, bruising and lacerating her beneath it, but she just frenzies harder and harder. If these creatures are smaller, they have to have less armor, and that means she can get at their /delicious flesh/ and start ferally devouring it. The others are bringing out flame, something Biteblade is sorely reluctant to get near, but those monsters not caught up in the clusters being burnt alive, Biteblade is well intent on chasing down, drawing as much of as possible, and just trying to spear them with her power daggers over and over and over, before going right for their throats to try to bite chunks out with power-armor-assisted bites!

    Without her fellow Flotilla captains here, she turns her coordination abilities to the others. Kirito and Tomoe are the primary anti-add melees, and they almost constantly find Biteblade's back to theirs at some point or another; even A-39 will frequently find her rushing, stabby, savage crashing about the battlefield takes her in close to make /damn sure/ they get cover, and to use them to cover herself.
Krusty     The rays of light launched by Tomoe strike the Winged Serpent, causing it to make another snap at her, practically the only person in reach of its head right now. Distracted as it is, this allows Silica to act without interuption. The bubbles breathed by Pina pop against the Winged Serpent, their affect taking hold almost immediately as its movements cease for a moment. This gives Silica the opening she needs, charging the head she's able to get several good strikes in. The final one finds her target, her dagger stabbing into one of the boss's eyes.

    Utilizing the stunned status of the boss, Staren's sniper bursts strike the snake's head, ripping into its other eyes and destroying it. Finally A-39's blade comes stabbing down into the snake's head. It's a solid strike, striking the brain. As Krusty suggested, the snake doesn't die like a normal creature would. However it's obvious from the boss's actions that the three have struck critical points. As the stun ends, the Winged Serpent begins to struggle wildly against its bonds.

    Flames engulf many of the boss's spawns, courtesy of Blazemore and the Tin Soldier. Weaker than the boss that spawned them, the much smaller winged snakes burn to a crisp, not even releasing bubbles of light like the monsters before. They just vanish in puffs of dust. The same happens to those spawns that are met by Kirito's swirling blades and, unfortunately for her, Biteblade's chomps.

    The adds are quickly taken care off, leaving just the Winged Serpent left. The boss is still struggling, finally breaking free of the tethers around its neck. In what looks like a blinded-panic the boss continues to whip its head around before finally raising it up high. Opening its mouth wide open, it convulses and a large burst of a sickly dull-green liquid is unleashed into the air. The fountain of poison spreads out across the entire clearing, beginning to rain down on the party. Those without cover to hide under will find themselves poisoned by the AoE attack.

    Even at the edge of the clearing, Krusty is not immune from it as he quickly steps over the children, covering them with his mountainous armour. As the poison drops splash down on him, the poison effect slowly nipping away at his HP bar, he maintains his composure and focus on the bonus. He reports to everyone, "It's almost dead. One last strike should be enough. Destroy it!"
Staren     Suddenly, poison everywhere! Staren doesn't actually KNOW that it's poison, though. It could be acid or something! So he doesn't complain about the unreasonability of poison eating away at his forcefield as he gets splashed all over. With the damage from the impact before, this might even be enough to drop the forcefield... But even if it is a strong attack, it's only the second he's taken today, and it looks like the boss is about to take its last. Krusty's shout confirms some sort of game logic is going on here -- Staren tries to weather the poison and focus on aiming and shooting, just trying to hit anywhere on the serpent's body with his laser!
Alexis "Gross!" Alexis is no stranger to having poisonoust things spit at you, but with the thing spraying all over the best she can do is hold up an arm to keep it from getting in her eyes. Other than that, not much to be done about a poison status.

Growlithe deals with this a little better, by virtue of being a dog, and rapidly burrowing into the ground to avoid the splay of sickly fluids. Down side being that Dig isn't going to be able to hit a winged boss so it's entirely being used as a defensive tactic here.

Even being behind the monster doesn't save one from the toxic deluge, as poison spew splatters down the Emboar's back. Fortunately Poison doesn't kill your attack strength like other status effects do. It does aggrivate him though, getting up from his previously hunched position. < Now you listen here big ugly wing snake freak! Not only is that gross, it's just downright rude. So rude I should kick your ass for it, but you're a snake, and I can't tell your pansy ass from the rest of your back end. So I'm just gonna do-- >

Maulotauv lets go of the tail, if only to grab farther up the winged snake's body, lifting it over his head. < --THIS! >

And smash the portion of snake body down over one knee with Superpower.
Silica     Silica grits her teeth, nervously watching her status effect timer. Those five seconds last a lifetime, and get a poison one added to the group before the stun wears off. Craaap. Silica staggers as the stun wears off, and she falls to a knee, heaving dryly as the poison affects her system and eats away at her HP bar, and the health of the girl beneath the avatar too.

    The three pets aren't unaffected either, though Nana manages to duck under another ice shell before being gotten. Pina and Hibiki are poisoned too though, and fall to the ground, writhing in pain, their own HP bars ebbing away, though they shake off the effect quicker than Silica does.

    Nana, sensing its master in danger, breaks back out of its defensive posture and charges over, aiming to ram its ice tusks into the serpent's underbelly, unleashing a burst of ice magic from the impact points that erupts from the other side of the monster's body.
Kyoko Takada     Alpha-39 gives one, last stab to the monster, not even remarking on its partial resilience against brain-damage. She's more or less figured out how these things work by this point, but can no longer focus on that point when the poison cloud has overcome her mask's filters. Between that and her built-up, innate resistance, she's less susceptible than most, but nothing on the level of immunity to an attack of that magnitude. Toxicity comes down to a matter of degrees.
    Still, the game-like nature might save her, here. If the rule is "using anti-venom cures the 'poison' status," then she can work with that. She has plenty of it for her own use, enough for a small group in light doses, and Krusty already confirmed that it works, settling that nagging doubt about cross-world applicability.
    She pulls a couple of convenient capsules from one of her pouches, downing a dose while moving over to Silica, mask askew. "Silica." Determining her ally as at least partially incapacitated, Silica will get treated to Apricot's lacking bedside manner, purely practical in grabbing and righting her just enough to get the antivenom in her mouth in a position from which she'll naturally swallow rather than scatter it beneath her like her ailing body is already attempting to do to the contents of her stomach. The soldier is good at maneuvering bodies, just not all that gentle about it.
    With time after that, if the boss is thrashing hard and there's a chance, she'll get away from the site to recover, taking Silica along if she doesn't protest. Someone else can deliver that finishing blow.
Tomoe What ever she might think of some of the flotilla the crew of space mercs are good support if they are on the same job as you, which Biteblade is proving wonderfully right now. There's not much time for more thoughts as the beast is still snapping at her. She is able to weave out of the way this time and looks to size the thing up as the warning that it's almost dead is given by Krusty. He's proving to be a pretty good raid caller she muses inwardly as she now gets ready to go all out.

She throws herself at the thing even with some of the poison catches her, her HP is going down and it's pretty nasty it's also painful but she keeps going.

She lets out a shout and keeps going, the sword combos come smaller sword skills chained together, again and again as she flies all over the thing attacking and striking with her sword Dawn Breaker and she doesn't seem intent to let up at all.

"Hey Kirito Silicia keep it up!"

Alexis has proven why she survived the war and today? August has not done a thing to get her annoyed at him at all, this is a good change as far as she's concerned.

"August? Alexis this shouldn't be much longer just pour on the damage!"

As for Alphs-39 she is blissfully unaware of what she did to her and it's likely for the best she doesn't know.
August Kohler The Tin Soldier continues to fire after the smaller birds are down, moving to further burn the larger Winged Serpent and assist in the damage. August is just trying to bleed through the pain from before, for now.
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade's really gonna need that Crescent Burger at the end of this.

    Her armor is environmentally sealed through elaborate field projections, but that doesn't mean that it's proofed against all biochemistry. The gush of poison eats away at the gaps torn by the previous foes, it gnaws at the integrity of the fields, it decays the integrity of insanely intricate fancy carbon-based constructs, and generally makes a huge fucking damage over time countdown. It's now or never, and it's never never with Biteblade.

    Out of a burst of poison, Biteblade leaps, drawing the pair of daggers, screaming one more time. She shortcuts through the battlefield sliding between Staren's legs as he fires, grabbing onto Nana's flank briefly to accelerate her back to running speed and pull her back onto her feet, and then breaking into a dead sprint, her eyes gleaming brightly. She takes the momentum into a dramatic, stylish flip directly over A-39 and Silica, one timed perfectly to cross with Tomoe until she lands opposite the Emboar and whips back around.

    Using her smaller stature, she goes for a dramatic uppercutting SWING to slice upwards, trying to use the downward momentum coming from Alexis' strike and Tomoe's combo to pierce the creature's spine, or even the brain!
Kirito Kirito doesn't have TIME to get behind cover. With a ferociously desperate look on his face, he turns about to face the on-rush of poison and... raises a blade up across his body?

    It takes on an emerald flare of wind and he... steps forwards TOWARDS THE RUSHING POISON RAIN.

    And that's when the Sword Skill takes over and he starts spinning the blade at hyper speeds a second before the gunk reaches him! It transforms into a blurry disk of swirling winds, catching the poison and reppelling it haphazardly back the way it came in globs from all the freakish winds. As well as left, right, up, down... everyhere, really.
Krusty     Given Krusty's words, it's pretty clear how this is going to end. Lasers fired by Staren, back-breaking move performed by a Emboar, ice-tusk charge from Nana, sword combo from Tomoe, bullet spam from the Tin Soldier, and a stylish and devastating strike from Biteblade's dagger. They all find purchase on the boss, which struggles under the assault until it finally goes limp.

    The Winged Serpent falls over and crashes down to the ground, before finally exploding into the bubbles of light that signify death in this world. Left in the boss's place is a small pile of loot, primarily gold coins but also some weapons, equipment and other miscellaneous items. Nothing too unique. The smog clears up, light and warmth returning to the clearing as the poison rain subsides.

    Krusty watches as the bubbles that were once the Winged Serpent float off into the sky. He then turns his gaze on the collection of heroes that defeated it. Krusty smirks a little, pushing his glasses up his nose.

    With the battle over and the danger gone, Krusty walks the two children back to the center of the clearing, where the majority of the party are. Stopping, he smiles down at the children, "These people worked hard to help save you from the monsters. You should thank them."

    Gazing up at the armoured warrior, the two children nod a little before looking at everyone else and bow, saying in unison, "Th-thank you for saving us!"

    As the children thank the party, Krusty turns his attention to the tower. Now more easily visible in the clear light, it's obvious that it is no normal tower. Unlike a traditional tower, it has no interior and is instead solid stone through-out. Additionally the stone itself is a little odd, the dark material looking pristine despite its apparent age. Of course, the most curious part is the patterns of dim light etched out in lines along the surface.

    Krusty walks up to the base of the tower and presses his gauntlet-covered hand against its surface. A small ripple of light spreads out from the point of contact, similar to when Biteblade's grappling hook struck it. Thankfully though it doesn't throw Krusty away. Definitely some kind of barrier protecting the broken tower. Krusty's expression is a mix of curiosity and confusion as he studies the tower for several more moments, before finally removing his hand and stepping away.

    Krusty briefly checks something in his menu, then nods in satisfaction, "The main quest objective has been cleared. Though we now have an additional objective to escort the children back to the farm." He looks up at everyone, "I believe we can manage that, yes?" Towards the loot pile he nods, "Also feel free to select any items you might want to keep. I will claim the gold and whatever's left on behalf of the Alliance and their value will be added to your reward Credits."

    Given that the boss has been defeated, it's unlikely that the party will encounter any further trouble. Which means an easy walk back to the farm, where the farmer energetically thanks the group for defeating the monsters and rescuing his children. All that remains is the rewards, which are provided upon the party's return to Akihabara. The sun is already setting by this point, magic lights popping up around the city as it shifts into another of its fun-filled nights.
Staren     The discs on Staren's armor spark and sizzle as his forcefield fades. He casts a curious look at the loot, but is more interested in what it can tell him about this world than the loot itself. Krusty brings the children over. He turns to them, and smiles at their thanks. It's not what he works for, but recieving sincere, heartfelt gratitude... is nice. Heroes don't get it as much as you might think.

    Staren bows to the children. "You're welcome! If there's anything else you or your people need, let me know!"

    Barring any immediate demands, he scrutinizes the tower -- obviously a magical device of some power, but to what end? -- and the loot, and then heads with the others back to the carriage.
Kyoko Takada     Alpha-39 spends her post-battle time checking up on her own wounds, as she'd expect everyone else to. There's no more immediate danger, probably, so she puts away her tools, cutting the power and letting her blades cool down. Her firearms are checked, but remain in good working order, having seen no use in the boss fight. Her mask filters are changed out as soon as they exit the clearing, with the old ones to be cleaned when there's a chance. In an ideal world, she'd just throw out the old ones, but her world is far from ideal. She almost has to smile at the thought.
    She glances to Silica a few times in the process, and at least once to the obviously-wounded Biteblade, but offers few words. The children, should they greet her in particular, just get a nod. Krusty gets stoic professionalism, belying her apparent age. But then, professional conduct is a matter of experience, and experience is forced by circumstance, as he may be well aware.
Tomoe Tomoe comes in for a landing when the boss finally goes up, the shield vanishes back into her inventory. She'll worry about the loot in amoment she's checking the kids over and grins at them. "Your welcome, I'm glad we arrived in time to help you."

She will take a look at the tower after a moment and then stares at the barrier here.

"Sounds fair to me on the loot Krusty."

She'll grab ab interesyting sword and of all things what looks like a decent boot knife, bnefore she'll join everyone else is hiking out.

"You know any good Taverns to eat at Krusty?"
Krusty     As they walk, Krusty nods in reponse to Tomoe, "I can point you at a couple of places. Also if you wish to redeem your Crescent Burger coupon reward, I can show you their restaurant. The Crescent Burger is the best burger available in Akihabara. It literally created a food revolution throughout Yamato."
Tomoe Tomoe says "I think I'll check out Crescent Burger, can only guess how food's we'd know would change a place like this." She seems pretty pleased and in a good mood too. "Maybe we can swap some stories over the food?"
Krusty     Krusty gives Tomoe an apologetic smile, "Thank you for the offer, Tomoe. But I'm afraid I have some lingering Round Table duties I'll need to attend to after we return. Another time, certainly."
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade's first interest is in redeeming the coupon, because dealing with the nightmare of DISAPPEARING CORPSES is especially bad for someone whose entire gimmick is savage, feral, tribal devouring of meat. Having expended so much effort, she'll now have to trudge back, no doubt complaining about the lack of meat produced by these terrible creatures. But as she does, she calls out, "What wasss tower, pauldronsss friend? Remindsss Floran of Cultivator artifacts. Essspecially barrier. You have Cultivator in this world too? Floran hasss Starbound Flotilla friendsss, can dig /down/ and sssee how far tower goesss, maybe find good part. Great for digging. Floran hasss mining beamsss!"

    It's now going to be /even harder/ to convince her not to try to eat the horses. No, Biteblade, not even "just one leg", of course not.
Krusty     Certainly one of the odder creatures that Krusty has ever seen or heard of. But he can't help but smile at the direct, but unique name that Biteblade uses for him. Could get confusing if they spend much time around any other Guardians...

    But Biteblade's question about the tower makes him look thoughtful. And after some silence, he replies, "I'm not sure what that tower was. I've not seen one like it before, nor heard of it being in the game. It's possible that it's a new feature..."

    Krusty briefly considers the offers. Despite all the 'futuristic' knowledge they have, so far they've only been able to introduce technologies equivalent to the steam age. And even their real world was not quite as the level of 'mining beams'. However... "Thank you, but I don't think we're quite at the stage of digging it up yet. I think I'll have one of the crafting guilds do some research on it first."

    Krusty glances at the Floran, "Though, who or what is this Cultivator?"
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade makes a disappointed hissy sort of noise. "Mehhh!! Well you will tell Floran if you need digging, Floran isss great for it. Flotilla isss great but Floran isss bessst." She says, in a grouchy sort of way. "Floran hasss ssseen thing like tower. Wasss sssolar gate, made by Cultivator. Barrier isss to pressserve for millionsss of yearsss with atomic shadow-recursssion, glowy writey ssstuff isss becaussse half of time, not 'sssolid', actually weird ssspace magic leaking between computational sssmart-matter." As if those could ever be relevant here.

    "Floran thinksss, probably old ssstrong magic for big tower. Magic sssnake wasss doing myssstery thing with it. Watch how monsssters poke! You will find out." She says, then makes a series of sort of haughty know-it-all tribal noises. Then she handwaves vaguely! It looks like she doesn't really want to take up anyone's time with Cultivator topics. "Cultivator isss like greenfinger tribe-chief for entire universsse of civilizationsss Floran came from long time ago. Disssapeared becaussse myssstery. Probably not who made big tower. Cultivator loved monstersss though, wouldn't ssssurprise Floran."
Staren     Staren doesn't seem to mind talk of the Cultivators at all! In fact, he listens attentively. He doesn't have much insight to provide, though. "It does seem unlikely that they're connected... is there anything like the Cultivators in this universe? But what was the purpose of these 'solar gates'? Do you know?"
Krusty     While the specific details of Biteblade's words probably aren't applicable in this situation, the general context might very well be. Krusty rubs his chin, "There's certainly logic in what you've said..." However Krusty nods in agreement, "I didn't think your Cultivator specifically was involved. I was just curious about it. Some elements might have been similar to something in this world."

    Krusty explains, "This world does have a history, old legends, what we called 'lore' when it was just a game. It's possible that something, or someone, in that history is connected to the tower. However at this stage, I don't think we have enough information about this world yet to make such a connection." He pauses for a moment then amends, "Well, not me personally." Krusty goes quiet though to listen, just as interested as Staren in learning more.
Starbound Flotilla     "Big vault for pressserve biodiversssity in pocket dimensssions, in cassse horrible universsse death thing." Biteblade says, making big, broad motions with both of her hands. "Floran goesss to hunt EXOTIC MEAT! Weird ssspace arcology. Alssso good for warpgate link, for ssspaceship." That's one way to use the functional equivalent of a nature reserve. "Entity like Cultivator, makesss building like that to exert influence over loooooong time! Sssuper long! Whatever doesss, probably further weird alien agenda from long time ago."

    That's partially to Krusty, of course. "Yeahyeah, wasss already gone before Unified, ssso can't be. But sssame kind of sssocial dynamic? Missssing creator thing. Floran think, ssstart with monssster and go from there. Monssster connecting, either you learn how worksss or you learn sssomething mysssterious about monssster, yeah?" She's making the most emphatic gestures when she rambles this way, sheesh!
Staren     Staren facepalms when Biteblade says she went to someplace designed to preserve biodiversity and ate it.

    At her assertion that the Creators couldn't have been here, he holds up a finger: "There was travel between dimensions before the Multiverse. My parents did it all the time -- When I began my multiversal travels, I ran into a friend of Dad's, and also the daughter of another of his friends, and they didn't unify here at the same time as my Earth. So multiple worlds in the Multiverse can have had a previous connection, although it's vanishingly rare."
Krusty     Krusty chuckles at thought of this odd creature using what sounds like some kind of specimen storage as a buffet, "You do what you feel like doing, admirable."

    More seriously though, the suggestion about the monsters is a good one. There's no confirmation yet that the monsters are connected to the tower in some way. But the Winged Serpent did seem oddly close to it, "Monitoring the tower and surrounding monsters could provide useful information. I will organise something when I return."

    Of course, the intricacies of the Multiverse escape Krusty's understanding at the moment, but he understands enough, "Interesting... Honestly a lot of this sounds like something out of science fiction. But then being drawn into the world of a game I was playing once seemed impossible too and yet here I am."
Staren     Staren shrugs. "I wouldn't know. Where I come from, magic came back to the world 300 years ago, at the end of the 21st century, and now Earth has both what you'd consider science fiction high tech, and the supernatural, and aliens and monsters from other dimensions, and friendly beings from other dimensions too, and... really, it's kinda like already being part of the Multiverse. So I dunno what it's like, to feel like something's 'out of science fiction'."

    He smiles to Krusty. "It's not like I'm never surprised though! Finding a world where the locals actually push around clouds to control the weather, I never would've dreamed of that, for instance."
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade seems to be quite pleased by the acceptance of her suggestion. "Good, yeahyeah! Floran hasss great ideasss. Preymonssster can know weird thingsss Floran can't, ssso Floran ussse! You do too. If you wanna know world myssstery, ussse the monssster who already /know/ world myssstery!" She does a little bit of confident laughter here. "Floran isss like a legend kind of ssstory! About a cool warrior but alssso really sssuper sssmart!" How humble. "Make sssure you never get apathy. Bad! Jaded isss another word for ssstupid. Impossssible should blow mind alwaysss! Floran makesss sssure to never disssregard, otherwissse you misss detail! Pauldronsss friend can keep fassscination, Floran isss sssure."

    And then she bothers at Staren. "Noooo!! Don't! Cat friend isss gonna do thing again! Ssstop obsesss about horssse! Cat friend isss like tiny human girl! Find new worldsss for example!!" Bap bap bap. But friendly bapping!
Staren     Staren is bapped! He rolls his eyes. "And you see how unique of an example it is because you knew exactly which world I was talking about! Whereas if I'd said 'That time a video game became real life' you'd have to ask 'which time?'" He looks thoughtful though. "Okay, how about the world where each continent is on a giant orrery and the sun is a giant bird that flies around the whole thing! Is that better?"

    Also, he looks at Krusty. "You know, if the monsters know something you don't... is there any way to talk to them? Like a druid class or a speak with animals spell...? Even if not, there might be someone in the Multiverse who can." He snaps his fingers. Or at least makes a finger-snapping gesture. It doesn't make much sound, because he never learned. Or maybe it's just hard to snap fingers in armor. "Ainsley, she might be able to do it. Kinda."
Krusty     At the mention of all the strange things Staren has apparently gotten used to, Krusty does briefly ponder if the same might happen to him... Although perhaps Biteblade is right. Krusty can't be sure either way. But for now, the Multiverse is definitely turning out to be an interesting place.

    Of course as Staren starts getting bapped, Krusty watches on in confusion, scratching his cheek, "Ehehehe..."

    At the mention of talking to the monsters, Krusty hmmmms, "There are some monster types which aren't immediately hostile. And even intelligent, to a degree. Plus some classes can control monsters, like Summoners. But exchanging complex ideas with them... No, not that I've heard. However, finding someone who could do so may be worth trying."
Starbound Flotilla     "Cat friend doesssn't ussse that one all of time, ssso yeah, for sssure." Biteblade says, nodding firmly and accepting that. "Floran misss Murasssame. Floran had better paycheck back then. Bleh! Hate multiverssse blowing up." She sticks out her tongue like she was grossed out by something!

    "Floran doesssn't talk to monssster, but watch sssometimesss." She says, gesturing vaguely. "Part of hunt isss underssstand why monssster doesss monssster thing. /How/. You know? You wanna know about weird world you're in they know! Know bessst! Ssstudy even enemy if enemy knowsss sssecret! Maybe talk though. Sssome can. If can, try that? Eh. Not Floran department, Floran'sss table not round enough to make big decisssion."