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Bloody Revelations     Given a few moments of relative silence after pulling that hideous trick, it seems that none of the Lintha 'aboard' are any the wiser. It's a secret kept between only Empty Tidings and the wood of the hull, and one of those isn't likely be be around for much longer. Both she and All-Seeing Eye are deposited between the ribs of the partially submerged greatship's belly, held steady and low in the water by veritable mounds of jade and gold, artifacts and curious, books and maps and scrolls, weapons and magitech, and things that might not have left this hold since the Shogunate era, including a few odd golems of green brass.

    Literal bricks of jade currency are stacked to the ceiling in places, and yet the place is barely patrolled. There are a handful of guards standing only token duty, likely usually quite bored, but tense and antsy now with the sounds of battle outside. No doubt there is little need for them at a treasure hold like this. Drilling or cutting through the hull would immediately endanger a prized cultural relic, and trying to get down the stairs means going through some kind of city hall already. No doubt it's also said to be cursed and that ancestor ghosts will punish thieves or something.

    It probably is and they probably would.

    Meaning those positions are pretty much ceremonial at best, drudgework or punishment at worst, none of the handful of guards seem intent on stopping Empty Tidings while she looks that brusque and intimidating. Nobody for a couple of decks really is, as the loot becomes less inordinately valuable but more accessible and necessarily practical. She's up to the deck that is finally full of sea charts and ledgers before someone stops her and asks who the fuck she is exactly because she'd come from belowdecks rather than outside.

    Distantly, All-Seeing Eye can probably pick up more of the discussion at this point. More of an argument really. Someone seems to be absolutely adamant on responding to the assault by heading down to that crypt and calling in ghostly reinforcements, citing that there are thrice as many ghost Lintha and they're thrice as well armed, but the Lei Kiangi seems to very staunchly and solemnly refuse.
Bloody Revelations     Topside, things are more explodey, but temporarily less eventful. With a lull in the chaos as Lintha flee from the sea monster (very different from a sea demon, important) and the attacking Elites, they have some time to sit around, heal up, get some of the poison out of their systems, and choose a new heading.

    Gawain really has his choice of high vantage points, given the number of riggings and crows nests around here. He can see most of the wreckage labyrinth for miles. It'd definitely be wiser to go along the outer perimeter, where they'd already cut down the archers and the rest had moved inward to respond to Oryou, rather than cutting through the thick of it though. There doesn't seem to be an especially obvious place to blast. It's all pretty much a gigantic mess. He might as well coordinate it with whoever plans to come through it.

    The demons all over Oryou are persistent and bloodthirsty, biting and thrashing wherever they can manage to find a grip somewhere on her scaly hide, but they are for towing ships and wrecking other ones, not pitched demon-to-demon combat. Oryou rips them up with her claws and teeth where she can bend her neck and legs to shred them, to say nothing of her 'hair', spilling copious quantities of demon blood into the already red water, mingling it sickly green, until they gradually slow and weaken from blood loss and are pried free.

    Unfortunately, or maybe just predictably, Ryouma is right about sleeves full of aces. Boats have fled en mass to that dinky grey-blue island which surges with sickly, tainted Essence, crowding its beaches and small docks. Sorcerer-savants are among them conducting some kind of fevered ritual. It doesn't seem like they've near finished before a massive stone, wedged against a cliff face at the beach, flashes brilliant emerald, and then explodes into a million pieces, showering the Lintha with pebbles and rock dust as it sends them flying back.

    Behind it is a cave, or at least some stone edifice that has a mouth and a throat that look a little too much like their namesakes. Lit from within by streams of eerily flickering emerald light, even were one much closer, it'd be impossible to see inside. What steps out is just one additional Lintha, but one who is somehow leagues more obviously demon-blooded than the others, to the point he no longer looks as if he has anything to do with humans. Easily seven feet or taller, he has a strangely gaunt, angular body, dark sea-green skin, pointed ears and teeth, visible gills and finger webbing, and blank white eyes, like some kind of amphibious wraith. He shows up clad head to toe in tarnished brass armour, covered in strange and bewildering growths of polyps that sting to look at, and wielding a gratuitously oversized version of the traditional Lintha hooksword, dripping with green-black oil.

    Since the guy with ultra long range sight and hearing is preoccupied, the rest have to be satisfied with context, in that after some kind of discussion, he kills one of the Lintha talking to him on the spot, takes two steps, and leaps the island, straight over the labyrinth of ruined ships, and crashes through two masts to land on an armoury deck near the middle of Bluehaven, already uncomfortably close in the space of a couple of minutes.
All-Seeing Eye      "What a waste of good jade," quietly murmurs the Alchemical with a disappointed nod towards the bricks of jade currency. He follows behind Empty Tidings, keeping a good amount of distance between the two of them--her disguise will do no good if an obvious outsider is riding her coattails. Each pirate she passes has roughly ten seconds before he fires on them from behind. In the case where two are standing within view of each other, he bounces the bolts off of bulkheads to strike as efficiently as possible.

     This continues, until he's able to hear the argument. That discussion causes him to stop, placing his back against a wall to have the jump on any patrols who might be coming down to his level. Tidings will naturally advance a little farther while he's doing this, but her marking of targets provides a decent trail of breadcrumbs.

     It's good that the Lei Kiangi is staunchly against calling for reinforcements, but he can't imagine why. Pride would be a simple answer, but it could also be that she knows of that monstrosity that devoured the Lintha dead, and fears summoning them would attract it. Either way, it's not an option he wants her to have, whether or not she intends to use it. To that end, he takes a moment to inform his allies over the radio.

     With that done, he hurries, quietly as he can, to regain the lost ground. It is during the effort to regain that lost ground that he notices, peering through the patchwork vessel's hull where it isn't blocked by garishly stacked heirlooms and doodads, Tidings' predicament. It forces him to stop, and wait--she can probably talk her way out of it.

     But, just in case, he loads up a targeting charm, scanning the room full of sea charts for hostiles and plotting a trajectory to ensure his opening strike at least takes out the one questioning her.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou withdraws, sinking into the bloodied waters, as Ryouma closes the distance between himself and his partner.

    As he stops on a half-broken hull that hasn't rotted away yet, he is joined by Oryou again, though this time as she emerges from the water, it's in the form of a woman with long black-and-slightly-glowy-red hair, in a black school uniform and with a scaled scarf. She hovers to Ryouma's side, eyeing his shoulder wound angrily.

    "Ah, no, don't worry, Oryou. The ones who did that handled. It's fine, really, I can barely feel it anymore." It was just an arrow, lucky for him.
    Oryou doesn't seem convinced in the slightest, but is kept from acting on it by the appearance of another Lintha, this one fully armored and, evidently, a bit more pinning for a fight than the other ones so far. Which was saying a lot. Or not much? With Lintha, it's hard to tell.

    "Ah, and besides, there's no time for cuddling, see?" Ryouma points out, and Oryou nodnods.

    "I wonder how much longer the fleets will be. And how that tracking-down-the-leadership thing is going. Can you transform again if you have to?" he asks his partner.

    "Oryou can do this all day," she confirms.

    "Mhm. Well, let's go greet our new friend."

    Because talking to the Lintha went so well for him, moments ago. But he is Ryouma, and Ryouma must use his words before his sword if he can help it.
Finna     This is NOT any sort of real treasure! Finna's sure of that. But there should be plenty of time to pick over this place once the Lintha are dealt with, right?

    Unless the place becomes a Shadowland, she thinks the moment later with a frown. Not that a small Shadowland out in the middle of the sea would mean a whole lot... right?

    As she emerges from the vacated lodgings, with that realization in mind, she zips halfway up a ship's mast and takes a gander at the situation. Except now she's adopted fox form, with gleaming claws and teeth. A summer coat of grey-brown though, instead of the winter white-fluffy. Much more suited for the open sea.

    Sure, a fox doesn't belong, but at this point? She's small and not on the offensive, so will hopefully be overlooked. Right?

    "Well. This hasn't been too productive." With no way too coordinate with the others and no idea what they're actually doing, she's not sure who to seek out or where they are!

    But maybe from here she can see something.
Empty Tidings Note to self, thinks Tidings. Mark where this goes down so that she can loot it later.

The menacing demon-marked Lintha woman prowls the ships from below. She doesn't spare more than a cursory glance and maybe a snarl to the guards as she goes, and her stride is a swagger with the usual gait of someone quite comfortable on sea-legs. Everything about her oozes danger, and it makes passing the guards remarkably easy. She brushes against a wall or a bit of stacked loot once in a while, a gentle touch that leaves a smear of poison indistinguishable from water... unless you've got some kind of super magitech senses, anyway.

As far as private signals to murder almost-people go, it's a pretty good one.

Actually getting up to the charts and ledgers deck is a bit of a feat. Tidings is glad she hasn't had to personally murder anyone up until that point. She glares daggers at the one who stops her. "Jinsei," she says, in a rough, irritated voice, picking a name out of thin air. "The scoundrel was supposed to alert the Covenant and come back with --" She stops, growling in clear frustration at having had to repeat something a million times. "I don't have time for this. I'll do it myself."

She grabs the Lintha who stopped her by the throat, dragging them close with ease. Her hand is clammy with sweat. The sweat is actually a sort of supernatural poison, a toxin that encourages fear and obedience above all else. It will be lethal later. "/Where/."
Tomoe Tomoe had a chance to breathe, get an antidote in her and even chug a healing potion which might help somewhat with the punishment she'd taken in the fighting so far. She does not think too much about loot right now no she's more thinking about the next wave the next fight, and how for them to pull off their mission.

"Gawain I'm going to get back into the fight now if you need anything, do let me know."

Her wings would flare out again, with her HP back into the high yellow she was ready to engage once more. The Salamander took flight once more, and in the back of her mind? How did her life come to this? Why didn't she just walk the hell away from this life, it wasn't like she was lacking in having her needs met. It would be a question with no answer today as the battle would continue.

She's making for the big bad armoured Lintha for the moment though she will let Ryouma do his thing she takes this moment to refresh her defence buffs on herself and any allies in range.
Finna     Now that someone's thought to coordinate with her, Finna decides Eye has the right of it. Preventing GHOST REINFORCEMENTS is a very important thing.

    So the fox dives off into the drink, sleekly turning into a dolphin a moment before hitting the water!

    And she's off, swimming at maximum speed for the location Eye described. An underwater mausoleum? How creepy can things get.....
Gawain All healed up, Gawain looks up at his various vantage points, and asks Ryouma where he should fire. Ryouma suggests that it might be useful to hold off, so Gawain decides to do that...and when he notices the leader-y Lintha in armor with a special sword, he decides that may be immediately more important. Especially as Ryouma and Oryou are heading in that direction.

So, Gawain moves to join them, flicking the fire off his sword. He can't really negotiate, due to the promise he gave to Empty Tidings that he'd help kill the Lintha, but he can be there for when negotiations fail (maybe they won't, he thinks hopefully and naively).

When they approach, Gawain calls out when they're close enough. "You there! You must be a Lintha champion to come alone, with your power. I am Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun. Name yourself so that if we must battle, we can do so honorably." Excalibur Galatine is gripped, but Gawain doesn't move to fight. He's not going to take the first blow, not before he knows his opponent's name.
Bloody Revelations     The poor guard brave enough to do his job pays for it, siezed by the throat and immediately flooded with horrific neurotoxins that immediately seal his doom. Frankly though, so have all the other guards behind them too cowardly to do theirs. It's still technically stealth if all the people who might have seen you are dead, so goes the logic.

    "U-upstairs! F-four decks! Th-the hold of th-the ancestors! P-please don't! It's very serious! Y-you'll be cursed!" he sputters and chokes, thrashing in terror and also the need to breathe in 'Jinsei's palm. "A-any minute the Lei K-kiangi will see reason a-and open the Coffin Vurjawna! I-I don't want t-to be here and n-neither do you!" The Alchemical can shoot him in the face if he really wants to on the way past; he won't be in any shape to rouse the alarm.

    The directions are of course solid, and once they're above sea level, Empty Tidings' disguise reverts to being useful again as Lintha presume she's an important matriarch called in for the increasingly chaotically swelling meeting. All-Seeing Eye, meanwhile, has a harder and harder time of it as the guard starts getting way too dense to shoot every single one of them (or at least, were he to trickshot twelve at once, four more would walk in and discover the bodies in thirty seconds anyways).

    Empty Tidings is stopped one more time as she reaches the actual council chambers, of which there appear to be many, but the one chosen is a dim hold with a high ceiling, filled with rows of small monuments and shrines and filled with candles and heavy incense smoke. This time she's held back simply because she isn't supposed to go in. The Lei Kiangi isn't difficult to visually distinguish from the other eight, slightly elderly women, just by the sheer amount of gaudy decoration she is wearing, but even could she not see a thing, the fact that the entire rest of the council is arguing against her makes it easy enough.
Bloody Revelations     "See sense would you?!" "It is the duty of the honoured Lintha dead to defend their ancestors! Such as it been since the Confirmation!" "Kal Pol would be spinning in his grave hearing of this!" "It's nearly morning gods dammit!" "Open the Coffin and we will see the filth destroyed in short order! Do you think them somehow a threat for those weapons not seen since before the Primordial War?!" Apparently they don't have authority even as a unanimous body to overrule the Lei Kiangi's position though, as she continues to stonewall them.

    "Have some backbone. Of course they've caused plenty of damage. It's impossible to prevent losses shortly after a complete surprise attack. That says nothing about their strength. If they slipped in, there can only be a handful of them. We have over two thousand warriors in Bluehaven. Let them exhaust themselves, and let the Sword Brother who claims a head be honoured by his brethren. If they truly are agents of the Silver Prince, no doubt that spider plans on exactly that. Letting the dead rest will not lose Bluehaven. Rousing them risks throwing our ancestors to the dark magic of Skullstone. Or worse."

    Finna, closing in, will have no doubt the weird pile of fused skeletons must be the 'Coffin Vurjawna'. Not only does it reek of Death Essence, the bones that comprise it look as though they were fused together by Wyld energies, by her qualified estimation. The oldest look easily hundreds, if not thousands of years old, and so Bluehaven has been careful not to build close to this site for a very long time.

    Ryouma actually goes out the extremely auspicious figure screaming all kinds of 'really significant' even from a massive distance, and up close, screaming even more signals pertaining to 'sick and wrong'. Even if one assumes his look is just what really pure-blooded Lintha look like, the things he's wearing and holding, and even just the air around him, is subtly nauseating in this strange and acerbic way. Staring at him feels like getting pool chlorine in the eyes. Breathing in smells like bleach and sea salt. The thought of eating him would be revolting even to Oryou, like it'd burn a pit in her stomach more than anything.

    "Who might you be?" The guy actually just asks Ryouma. He exudes a certain level of that understanding that 'the most dangerous soldiers are the ones who don't brandish their weapons'. "And why are you here, come to think of it? I could ask you to leave, but our Mother wouldn't accept it, and you've already troubled our Sister so. I'd like to know, before I have to kill you. Don't take it personally. It's not as if I have much of a choice in the matter, though I will enjoy it."

    "Lintha Ng Hut Dukantha, servant of the Sea That Marched Against the Flame." he says to Gawain.
Ryouma Sakamoto     "Ryouma Sakamoto," the man introduces himself politely, before motioning towards Oryou. "And my wife, Oryou," he adds.
    "Oryou doesn't think he's edible, Ryouma," she notes.
    "Ah, maybe not, they can't all be, right?" That smile is so odd. Ryouma's got that dorky, sincere smile only an idiot could possibly have in front of such an opponent. It might be he can't grasp the nature of what he's standing in front of... or it might be he does, and that's why he has his best smile on.

    Or maybe he's just very, very happy that this guy, unlike the last one, isn't going on about maiming and murdering people.

    Maybe, all of those things at once.

    "I'm just here because I can't stand by ruthless pillaging and murder. I don't suppose we could be the ones to ask you to leave? Maybe reconsider your life choices, put your powers to better use?"
    "Oryou thinks it's pointless to ask. Dukantha is bound by family, yes?" the floating woman observes, moreso than asks, as she looks at the Lintha.
    Ryouma scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "It's always worth a chance."
Tomoe The huge possibly pure strain Lintha? Is hard to look at, she's not felt wrongness like this outside of a few places such as the Underworld and dealing with Chaos from the Imperium of man's neck of the woods. She doe snot like this she closes with Ryouma ready to protect him. She does speak though when asked who they are.

"Tomoe."

She looks to Ryouma this mad maybe even of the odds are long on his attempt she can respect it hell she does respect it she simply waits to see how this will go and makes ready to defend him as there are high odds of a fight.

"I'm here for much the same reaons I seen what your people do and this man is giving you one last chance."
All-Seeing Eye      There are no witnesses. Of course Eye is going to shoot him in the face.

     Fwip.

     He smiles as the body crumples, stepping over it with a pleased little sigh. His preferred method of stealth becomes less and less viable the further up he travels, however, and he is far too differently dressed (and pretty) to pass for a Lintha. He does spend a moment huddled against a wall, surrounded by the bodies of slain pirates. What's his best option here?

     He spends a moment in brief, hushed conference with Tidings. The result has a smile once more spreading across his face. His golden eyes fold up and away to reveal lifeless, black Soulsteel nodules. The Exalt pushes off of the wall and confidently strides up the stairs. Should a Lintha happen to be at the top, he or she will find a steel cable whip greeting their neck and yanking them forcefully down the stairs, whereupon their face will be met with a blast of lethal Essence fueled lightning.

     As Tidings said over the radio, the time for subterfuge is behind them--and Eye's ascent is anything but subtle. Crossbow bolts and blasts of lightning alike bounce off of bulkheads and tables, tearing maps, sea charts, ancestral portraits and flesh alike.

     As Lintha rush down to meet him, he makes sure to have some sort of answer, and makes sure it is as loud as possible. He makes no effort to kill silently, and even uses his whips to throw whatever is close by, aiming to divert Lintha forces away from Tidings and towards himself.
Gawain Gawain respects that Dukantha is not immediately trying to kill them, and is even willing to give his name and title. Gawain will probably have to fight him to the death, but he's at the least the most honorable Lintha he's ever met.

As Ryouma moves to negotiate, Gawain doesn't strike, not just yet. He's preparing for the moment all civility might end, and while he's doing so, he watches Dukantha. He first tries to sense if the man's weird aura and sensation is magical, though only if it's obviously magical can he really tell.

Additionally, Gawain tries to get an idea of what sort of stance he might have, how he holds his sword, if from the way Dukantha stands and acts if Gawain can tell at all how much of a threat he might be. He doesn't have any specific skill suited to this, but perhaps years of familiarity with swordsmen will help him out.
Finna     Oh what the HECK is this?! Dolphin-Finna can feel the disturbing cold slithering down her back. A small Shadowland, or is that abominable MESS simply that steeped in the stuff? Or... perhaps it's both.

    She can't be sure, but either way her instincts tell her to NOT approach that pile of bones. As a dolphin it's hard to tell what she's thinking, but a series of high-pitched clicking gives her a detailed image of the distant bones...

    ANd as she swims, she LASHES from side to side in what might be an expression of disgust.

    The only question is... is anyone actually here?

    Keeping her distance but circle-swimming around it, Finna uses the Dolphin's natural abilities to their fullest and attempts to click-ping for anything moving that's person-sized!

    But in-between that, she keeps stopping and aiming dread-filled looks at the bone pile...
Bloody Revelations     Whether it be his odd, out of place smile, or just his words, Dukantha laughs for Ryouma. It isn't even a villainous cackle or a derisive howl. He seems to /genuinely/ think it's funny, laughing hard enough that some of his tied back white hair becomes entangled in a pair of horns that seem to not actually be part of a helmet. "You could certainly ask, but this is -or used to be- my home you see, and one doesn't ask someone to leave their home. I must respectfully decline. I've already dedicated my life to the Great Mother, three and a half centuries ago. I wouldn't turn away from her loving embrace simply because someone asked very politely. You are an amusing human."

    His grin slowly starts to slip with the others joining in, becoming less and less amused (despite a small but significant chunk of Bluehaven burning, and apparently this having been serious for him to have shown up). "If only you had such amusing company." he says. Gawain notices his grip change imperceptably on his ridiculously huge sword, well into the realms of taking a superhuman to lift it at all. Muscles tense beneath his equally heavy brass and bone plate. He is very much far beyond the class of person who even tries to look intimidating. He oozes a level of confidence that can only come from having killed every single challenger he'd ever met. If his words are to be taken at face value, he has had centuries of experience, and his body language makes it believable. He also has to be Exalted of some persuasion, because Essence is already coursing through him as he hefts his blade up from its resting position.

    "I'll thank you for giving me some time away from Malfeas. This is a memorable day." he says, before he abruptly bursts with a towering pillar of acid green flames. All at once, his presence seems to triple in size, not physically growing any larger, but feeling as if he looms over the Elites like a burning giant, submerging them in his shadow. The sensation of drowning in barely diluted chlorine spreads to all five senses, even becoming visible as an oily green-black liquid patina in the water itself --even the air around him, hanging as a film of corrosive Essence that spills from him as a pure side effect of his power.

    Without moving a foot, Dukantha becomes a sideways blur of black and green, tracing a perfect circle of hissing flames around the gathered Elites, where two of him seem to converge behind them, his liquid aura and black cloak torn in opposite directions. A flick of his colossal sword shreds the deck in half right down the middle of their formation, causing it to explode along its length, like he'd just thrown a line of green C4 at them, to say little of the shrapnel. Whether they dodge to the left of the right, he blurs out to meet them, clashing blades with strength sufficient to bat them from the ship at bone-breaking speed. Where the edge of his massive sword meets weapon, shield, or armour, it sprays that black oil all over them, which might as well be lava for how quickly it melts things.

    The Lintha hadn't just called out their strongest warrior or something. This guy is an extremely old, extremely powerful Exalted, apparently personally accountable to a Yozi. They plan on him stopping the entire ensemble cold. Just looking around, one can see that every other Lintha has fled the entire mile surrounding him, and continues to gain distance as fast as they can.
Empty Tidings Tidings stops. She shares a moment of hushed conversation, turning away briefly to speak to Eye about the situation. The time for subterfuge has passed. The fierce-looking Lintha smiles faintly. She turns on her heel, smiling more widely as she faces the guard. She's still smiling as she makes a quick, dismissive motion towards the guards that bar her way, apparently flicking seawater at them.

More poison, like the last. Worse; it's faster. "Move." She steps past them. The moment they blink, she's just... gone. Reality flickers again, for just an instant.

She's standing within the council chamber, near the gathered, somewhat elderly women. Her Lintha guise is gone. She's a raven-haired Tengese woman wearing red silks. Brass bells are tied into her hair in a pattern like a whorl. Her hands are covered in pale leather gloves that is very clearly not from any normal animal. "Honored council. Please forgive the interruption -- I mean no disrespect, but must speak of a matter of grave import." She bows low, her gloved hands clasped like they were cupping something small and delicate between them.

"I come bearing tidings from The Sea That Marched Against The Flame." She smiles broadly, beaming at all of them. She's standing behind the Lei Kiangi, a step or two from her so as not to loom improperly. Her shadow is cast as if in flickering light regardless of the illumination in the chamber. She raises her hands. "A message that our wonderful, glorious Mother has seen fit to convey to all of you on this auspicious day!" Her hands open --

A swirl of spiralling seawater rises up from her palms, twining together in a delicate, beautiful pattern. It rises towards the ceiling, and then spreads. She lets her hands fall as it seems to form itself into something like letters, Old Realm characters resolving above the council's heads.

They break apart. The acid sea-water of Kimbery plunges downward onto everyone but the Lei Kiangi in a torrential downpour.

"Mother loves me best," Empty Tidings says, still smiling.
Bloody Revelations     True to the Lei Kiangi's demands, Finna finds that nobody from above has rowed out here to tamper with this abominable monument quaintly termed a coffin. Either nobody is dumb enough to go against her, or nobody is dumb enough to touch this thing while not under whatever protections, physical, spiritual, or verbal, that might be needed to do so. Even so, her enhanced senses constantly pick up little pings of motion from inside the monolith of bones, as well as eerie, infrasonic frequencies that remind her of someone or something speaking in a hundred times slow motion, until the variance in pitch is barely comprehensible anymore. It's eighteen kinds of spooky that would definitely be very bad very fast if disturbed, and yet the Lei Kiangi fears what would happen to /them/?

    The currently escalated level of clusterfuck is probably the best time All-Seeing Eye has to immediately go loud. The inner sanctum quickly becomes absolute chaos as the alarms are sounded, soldiers rush shoulder to shoulder to meet him, and thus importantly away from Empty Tidings. The Alchemical is stuck battling ranks of excessively bloodthirsty swordsmen and spearmen practically frothing at the mouth to stab him, meanwhile the Infernal slips in basically unchallenged as the door guards fall to either side, already screaming.

    The Septian Covenant is understandably shocked, but being the old women they are, with no strong arms immediately forthcoming to their aid, the most they can do is a series of "What is the meaning of this?!" and "Who sent you?!" as well as other such useless expressions of outrage before it all just becomes more screaming joining the rest, when they're left to stumble and roll and clutch at their melting flesh. Only the Lei Kiangi holds any kind of nerve herself. "I expect you must want something from me if I'm not dead already." she hisses.
Ryouma Sakamoto     "Your home? I must apologize then, it really is disrespectful of me," Ryouma says, sincere, although moments later, words are cut short. He draws his katana, but Oryou is faster, putting herself between Dukantha and Ryouma.

    Green flames and explosions wash over her skin and outfit like they're the toughtest of steels. Her hands even move to catch Dukantha's blade, which has much more obvious effect on her, her hands visibly scorching - and even her strength being put to the test. The dragon in a woman's body is as strong as they come, and as durable as they come, but everything has limits.

    And a corrosive oil-spewing greatsword being swung from a titanic Exalted does well to test those limits.

    Ryouma, "safe" behind Oryou, adjusts his hat with a laugh. "Wow, did he just get really big?" he asks.
    "Oryou thinks it's just a perception effect," she answers, though the fact she strains to keep Dukantha at bay tells a different story. "But Dukantha's strength is massive nonetheless," she adds.

    "Ah," Ryouma says.
    "Is Ryouma going to help Oryou," she asks, annoyed.
    "Oh, yes, yes, sorry Oryou, I was just gawking a bit. He's very scary." Among other qualifiers.

    Ryouma pulls his revolver out, and immediatly takes two quick shots for the Lintha Exalted, blue flames spewing out of the barrel along with the powered bullets. Shoulder shots, to try to weaken his arms.

    Oryou doesn't try to hold him in place any longer than she needs to for Ryouma's shots to land. She might actually lose her hands if she does. She floats back suddenly after letting go, pulls a fist back, and swings a fiery punch right for Dukantha's jaw.
Tomoe It seems thing are going to get very crazy really fast here she also sees a lot of the locals are running? If they are running to get clear? That means this guy is going to have some serious area of effect ability in all likelihood. Or maybe they just don't want to get snacked on as fuel for his peoples. There comes the horrible green fire, ya it's time to fight and this is going to get darn well messy. She's glad she's popped buffs beforehand this is going to be bad hell she's afraid of what will happen to her or any of her allies if they fall here. Bad things happen to souls here in Creation which is something she knows all too well.

The fight is on and she's already taking damage the green fire does bad things to her, it also hurts it hurts a hell of a lot and she's got to push forward now. She moves in before more attack come, keeping the mourning wall up to block what she can while her other hand moves with her sword attempting to dash in close and get several hits in with her blade as fast as she can she's going to need to keep up close and time herself with her allies ranged attacks and the other close combatants. The shattering of the deck has left her with no illusions if she gets caught by a direct hit of how bad it will go worse her gear is taking durability damage from the oil and she's got a damage over time dot with a good deal more pain. This is going to be a bad day to be a Tank, thus a bad day for Tomoe.
All-Seeing Eye      An Autochthonian in cramped quarters is a dangerous opponent. Eye's whips seem no less useful in the repurposed ships than they would abovedecks. Moreover, his fastidious application of Essence up to this point means he has plenty of reserves for the evening's entertainment. Eye retreats to the nearest corridor, coralling the ranks of Lintha into a choke.

     Four whips--two of steel and two of lightning--lash out in graceful double helix patterns. They strike the hands of his attackers, retreat, and snap right back in to wrap around spear and sword alike. Whether he's able to snatch them away or not, the point is the minute distraction of being made to struggle for one's own weapon. It leaves them open, however temporarily, for the real attack.

     The choke point becomes a hall of deadly projectiles, a flurry of them bouncing off of walls, the floor, the celing, and zipping through bone and flesh. Lightning and crossbow bolts rapidly dart angry paths between hostile Lintha, marking their path with ribbons of blood, scratched wood, and scorch marks.

     He keeps this process up until there are none left, or until they devise a different strategy than just running into his attacks. The odd Lintha that manages to pierce the wood chipper and strike him is met with both the sight of his black, oily lifeblood a patronizingly congratulatory grin before being struck with vicious counterattacks. Slowly, but surely, he attempts to force his way through the throng of bloodthirsty Lintha, gradually accumulating nicks, scratches and cuts.

     His goal is to grind their forces to nothing, and, eventually, join Tidings in the council room to hear the tail end of her speech.
Gawain Dukantha's going to be a serious threat, Gawain can tell. He couldn't defeat the man in a one-on-one duel, he believes, not without serious effort. Luckily, there's several of them. But when the fight moves to begin, Gawain turns into a defensive stance, as the chlorine sensation bleeds all around him, distracting him slightly...but not too much as he splits the deck in half. As it explodes and the shrapnel shells into Gawain's armor, the knight shifts and weaves to the right of it, before rapidly moving to bring his sword up and clash when Dukantha moves to meet him, digging his feet into the ground so he doesn't go flying backwards. Despite the oil, Excalibur Galatine does not melt. It's a holy sword, granted to him from a lake, something so magical and storied it won't just melt like that.

His flesh and armor, on the other hand, isn't so resilient. The oil bleeds into his hands, corroding away skin, which leaves the knight in pain but lucky he can heal it. His armor is also melted through around his arms and sides, burning into him. The knight grunts in pain, and then flicks the wrists holding the sword as he moves to push Dukantha back enough to flick his wrist and set the sword alight with holy flame.

Dukantha is Lintha, even if he's Exalted. And that means he's probably weak to the fire. Gawain steels himself, and moves to rush the Exalted when he gets a chance, trying to slice into his arm or his side, whichever he gets an opening to. He wants to try and weaken Dukantha, get a good hit in on him, but he's not aiming for a direct strike because he feels that's more likely to be blocked or deflected. "You're very good! It's a shame that the first respectable Lintha I meet must be such a foe, but that is how this world sometimes works." No big heroic speech or grandstanding from Gawain tonight. Just respect from one swordsman to another.
Bloody Revelations     "Interesting." Dukantha remarks at Oryou choosing to catch his sword. "I wonder where you found this one. I hadn't detected any sorcerous bindings." He wouldn't have, of course. With Oryou holding him still, he's promptly shot twice. One smashes on the heavy brass and copper plating over one shoulder, the other hits a weak spot and punches through. Dukantha grunts and then starts to bleed. Oryou's hand slips from under his blade, clenches into a fist, and smashes him with a direct hit, sending his entire body reeling back, yet without quite falling over, bent at an unnatural angle like his feet are glued to the deck.

    She'd felt bone break, and when he draws himself back up, his jaw is indeed pretty much pulverized and oozing blood. Stroking it with his left gauntlet, he forcefully snaps it back into place, and the bleeding suddenly stops, both from his face and shoulder, as his wounds seamlessly regenerate. "Now I'm /very/ interested. Especially in why this one is serving you, instead of the other way around." It doesn't stop him from trading blow for blow however. He tosses the hooked grand daiklave into the air, necessarily drawing attention in most cases, though in the same blink he clenches his fists and strikes what appears to be eight simultaneous times at Oryou, leaving the image of a ring of six spectral green fists all hitting her at once along with his.

    He catches the weapon when it comes back in time to parry Tomoe, slapping aside her attacks with so much force that stringing together a combo is incredibly difficult, as it'll outright cancel her sword arts by throwing her out of position. He throws out his other hand to blast a scatter of boiling acid bolts at her allies, quite possibly intentionally provoking her. The second she moves, he turns into another surging acidic streak and hits her from behind.

    Dukantha is surprised for the second time in one night, even if only by the subtle widening of his eyes, when Gawain successfully blocks him, and Galatine surging with sun-bright flame instead of melting in his hands. A fast exchange of sound barrier-shattering blows follows, throwing sparks and airbursts back and forth between the two of them, until Gawain slips just under his guard and pierces his side with Galatine. If anything, the Exalted is /even worse off/ for the flames than any mere Lintha had been, eliciting a sound of strained agony from him as he rips himself free and kicks Gawain with an explosion of green fire. Where he clutches his side, the skin is burnt black, and doesn't seem to regenerate at all.

    "I agree." he hisses to Gawain. "It is a shame that not all my Brothers and Sisters can be like me. The bloodline thins in this degenerate age, and only service to our Mother will restore it. Perhaps I've underestimated the reason I was allowed to leave her side." he says. It's not just the water around him that darkens now, but the water beyond that, and beyond that, and beyond that. The sargasso melts and boils away in plumes of toxic steam, and the untreated portions of Bluehaven's structure sizzle and crumble away at the bottom. The oily slick spreads out almost more quickly than the other Lintha can outrun it, bubbling and popping and releasing a sick, otherworldly Essence into the air like flammable gas.

    The corrupted water begins to surge and swell, giving birth to liquid tentacles of acerbic vitriol. A dozen of them arise around the already sinking battlefield ship alone, lashing at the Elites aboard with tremendous force. During the opening, Dukantha deftly backhops three storeys up to the mast of the ship, draws a horned bow of greened copper, and looses a burning arrow straight down that craters and shatters the remainder of the deck around it, snapping the ship into multiple pieces that sharply angle down to dunk the fighters into the sea.
Empty Tidings Empty Tidings slipped in like a shadow, unbidden and unannounced. How very... appropriate.

The Septian Covenant burns. Their flesh sears and melts. She smiles faintly while they do, watching them unblinkingly for a moment longer. Then, her eyes turn to the Lei Kiangi. Her smile widens. "Yes, you must expect that. The great Lei Kiangi, the greatest and most holy position of the Lintha. Your hold is packed with treasures; surely there is something there I desire. Treasures of the First Age. Of the Primordial War..." Her eyes drift away. "Well, perhaps there is."

"But I'll get to that."

"What I want from you is for you to understand," she says. She spreads her hands out towards the rapidly-dissolving Covenant, the corpses and soon-to-be. "I want you to understand /this/. That --" She gestures towards the hull, towards Bluehaven. "An alliance of opportunists. The Realm, Skullstone, and others from beyond. Heroes that want to see the end of the abominable Lintha Family. They see your demons and your bands of thieves and call for your blood. It's the same as it is everywhere else. People with power stand up and strike down the unwanted and the obstacles. But /this/..."

She changes. She's in black, now, in clothing that seems to have been partly hacked apart by straight swords. Tanned skin is criss-crossed by countless straight, fading scars. Piercing green eyes framed by raggedly-shorn scarlet hair stares down at the old woman. She raises her right hand, peeling off the glove and exposing skin that is not skin at all. Her hand is black stone inlaid with brass, with fine etchings of blasphemies carved into every square inch like a litany of oaths to the monstrous things she serves. She was not lying about her patronage.

She takes the Lei Kiangi by the throat and lifts her into the air. "I am called Empty Tidings of Brass and Verdigris, but my name is Quan Giang Lanai," she whispers. "You destroyed my family. You destroyed my /life/. You took everything I ever loved and broke it to pieces." She squeezes, steadily tightening her grip. "And all of this -- all of your daughters I have cut down, all of your sons who I have drowned, all of the death and chaos these heroes will spread in the name of their crusade for /goodness/ and /justice/ --" Her left hand's glove creaks as she slowly chokes the life out of the old woman with her right.

"/I/ did it. I did it because I /hate/ you like I hate /nothing else/."

She finally closes her gripping hand. She relishes every second of it.
Ryouma Sakamoto     "Oryou isn't bound by sorcery," the dragon-woman explains. "Oryou is bound by the power of love and the red string of fate. There's no force that can keep her away from Ryouma, not even time itself."

    Slightly overstated, but not entirely wrong either. Ryouma just laughs nervously, but doesn't deny any of it.

    "It's true I'd be much more suited to serving her. In all measures of power, I can't compare to Oryou," he even admits openly. "But she won't hear any of it."

    Blows rain, interrupting words again. Oryou is strong, and tanky, but she isn't a martial artist. She's raw strength, zero technique. She can punch fast and strong, but not /good/, and that's where Dukantha has her beat. Oryou loses ground as the eight simultaneous punches make her recoil into Ryouma, who catches her and pats her on the head. She grunts in pain.

    "Dukantha is really strong," she notes.
    "Ah... ahah, I noticed, yes," Ryouma says.

    But the assaults were only starting. Bolts of acid go flying, and Ryouma and Oryou jump away in separate directions. The waters rebel, and tendrils of vitriol lash out, all the while an arrow blasts the decks of the ships people are using to... well, NOT be in the awful water, for one.

    Ryouma's blade cuts through one, as he finds a shattered tower to stand atop. Oryou's hair lances out, shredding another as she comes to a stop mid-air, less concerned about the water.

    Oryou takes a deep breath. There are no whelps to handle.

    Ryouma does his best impression of an Assassin, parkouring from broken structure to broken mast to half-eaten ships, trying to handle as many of the tentacles as he can with his blazing blue katana.

    Oryou, finally, breathes a massive cone of blue-black fire towards Dukantha and his very large vicinity. She can ruin the battlefield, too!
Finna     All the freakish tinglings in her equivalent to ears from these bones is enough to unnerve the foxgirl right down to her own bones. The dolphin shudders time and again... and eventually decides to put even more distance between herself and the bones!

    Not that this is going to do much good. Because the sea's turning to VITRIOL.

    Luckily for Finna, the Lunar's got both a sharp sense of smell and hearing and when the pinging towards Bluehaven starts coming back weirdly and impossibly distorted by changes in the water itself... and wiffs of BURNING WRONGNESS are carried on the ocean currents, she does the smart thing.

    She dolphin kicks STRAIGHT UPWARDS and manages to break the waterline just in time.

    With a surge of shapeshifting focus, her flesh morphs in a swift swirl, much faster than it normally does. In no time at all, and a dramatic explosion of Essence, she's headed skyward as a seven-foot-tall humanoid arctic fox in summer coat, with upscaled eagle wings sprouting from her back. These beat ferociously against the doldrum air to carry her up and back towards Bluehaven! With little in the way of wind, flying is quite exhausting... but... what options are left to her?!

    "Damn it, I'm never where the action is...!"

    By this point, Finna's noticeable in the skies, if just barely. A faint silvery glow that's slowly approaching Bluehaven. That last stunt just did away with the last of her personal Essence reserves... and now she has to draw deep!

    But this aerial view gives her a spectacular view of--

    "Oh what the hell is THAT...?!" Are the seas REALLY turning to acid? Yes, they are.

    And she's never seen anything like it before.

    SNAPPING her wings back in a way that no bird could, Finna somehow propels herself forward at even greater speed and transitions into a speedy glide... "Can I even help here...?"

    All her pride says yes, yes she can! But her eyes are saying otherwise. And it's making her tremble in the air.

    And so as she nears Bluehaven, Finna decides to capitalize on the one advantage she has left: Nobody seems to have noticed her yet!

    And so she beats those wings harder and harder, gaining more and more altitude...
Bloody Revelations     It isn't hard to funnel enemies down the steps and corridors of an a ship, even big as it is. All-Seeing Eye has his pick of chokes to mow down violently overeager Lintha until their corpses make the stairs and ramps impassable. They aren't all stupid enough to keep charging at him from one place at a time; they know this ship perfectly well, and are capable of circling around to use different ways down and corridors at different angles, attempting to trap and surround him.

    He can hear them coming from miles away, of course, not to mention just see the through the walls and floor with his x-ray vision, but he'll have to continue to fight backwards and downwards to keep slipping the edge of their net, carpeting each hold with bodies and moving on. He'd really be backed up against the wall when they drive him to the treasure holds, which they must think they have, if he hadn't already shot all the guards dead down there. Pretty soon, the remaining reinforcements start to back off when they've gone down their sixth corridor covered in sprawled out Lintha resting in puddles of blood. The screaming from the council chambers shortly has the stragglers' attention anyways.

    The screaming stops shortly enough though. It's hard to make noise when your throat is little more than slowly softening vertebrae. Acid-bloated skeletons don't make a lot of noise. The Lei Kiangi seems even more surprised when Empty Tidings shifts shapes, and visibly stares at the Malfean hand she exposes, but she doesn't bother to struggle when the Exalted seizes and lifts her by the throat. In the moments she has before she chokes too much to speak, she uses them to say-

    "You and everyone else, filth. Don't believe you're special. Ten thousand of your pitiful race would say exact the same thing right here and now. All you are is lucky enough to be blessed by the same blood that runs through our veins. Lucky enough to almost be an equal to a Lintha. In every other respect, in all the ways you think and feel and act, you're just as pathetic as the rest of your kind."

    The sound of her neck snapping is perhaps less satisfying than it should be.
Gawain The sensation is killer, but Gawain's handling it. As Dukantha replies, the knight gives a 'mm' in response, But as the sea darkens, and the tendrils lash out, Gawain moves to block one, and gets sent flying back for his effort. His armor is further burned, exposing flesh, as the knight just barely lands on part of the ship. But that doesn't last long, as Dukantha fires his arrow.

Gawain, injured and bleeding, takes this moment to run and launch himself off the ship. As it shatters beneath his feet, he's moving to try and use his sword booster to reach that mast, or atleast part of it before he jumps again. He's continuing the fight, as he tries to slam the burning blade into Dukantha's chest. "Take this!"
All-Seeing Eye      Eye leads the Lintha on a merry (for him) chase, ceding ground to them that he might pick more off. He can see them, certainly--but he lets them believe he can't. The Exalt thus always seems one step ahead of them, waiting at the next corridor or stairwell with a welcoming smile on his face and another volley of missiles on hand. By the time they finally retreat, he sends a more figurative attack their way: laughter.

     "Leaving so soon?" Eye calls after the retreating Lintha. It's a cliche, certainly, but he is just so /satisfied./ "Stop by the council chambers before you go," he says, firing a bolt deliberately intended to wound rather than kill. He slowly follows them, whips trailing sedately across the floor, combat boots clicking neatly against it with each step. "You'll /love/ what we've done with the place!" Another shot fired. Again, not to kill, but to torment, to toy with the stragglers.

     "And you know," he shouts, "We're not done! You've been such good hosts this evening, I really want you to /see/ what becomes of your lovely little home. You have given Creation /so/ much, and..." He smiles magnanimously, shooting a bolt straight up to strike at the stomach of a retreating pirate hurrying across the floor above him. "I think it's time we gave back to this community. Now there will be limited seating at this event, so I'll have to choose just one lucky volunteer..."

     His targeting charms fire up again, and his gait increases to a more brisk rate. Tidings can handle a gaggle of scum on her own, but he wants one to see it--to see his home burning, his allies dying, fixtures and institutions he's known his entire life crumbling before him like trash blowing in the wind. He idly picks Lintha off on his way up, striking at them from below and from the flank, dwindling their numbers until he can find that one lucky contestant to leave alive--at which point, he'll be dragged outside, onto the nearest observation deck, that he might observe what's to come.
Tomoe What she wouldn't give for a truck full of baking soda right now given all the damn acid flying about, but such wishes won't come to be right now and things are just getting bad. He actually breaks her sword art and what damage she does is about nill. He also lets slip acid at her allies, she moves to try and intercept them and gets taken from behind doing a good deal more damage forcing her to break off for a moment. The acid is sizzling through her armour.

To her credit si is quick to recover but not the world has gone everything is lava, and it' s just a bad time all around, oh and there are tentacles too? She's making ready to attack with a spell and then comes the volley of arrows, no time to parry them. The deck is shattered in short order from the impacts.

It's time to get airborne long either she takes flight using magic to keep the tentacles at bay rather than risk melting her sword on whatever those things are made of? It likely makes things melt.

She keeps up the barrage of light rays bringing them to bear on the Lintha champion trying to suppress him or at least do some damage before the party is worn down by all this fire and acid.
Empty Tidings "Maybe," Tidings says, her looming shadow refusing to do anything but make her have the last word. "But I'm the one still breathing."

Empty Tidings shimmers back into her 'typical' shape. She discards the corpse, kicking it almost idly under the table. She ends up with a piece of jewelry from it stuck to her fingers. She looks it over, and then tucks it away somewhere as a trophy. It really doesn't feel quite as satisfying, though. She looks at the back of her (skin-covered, now) right hand. She can almost feel that damned goddess's image, burned into the hidden stone between the Malfean glyphs. No satisfaction for someone like her, huh? Did that death-curse really --?

"No time to dwell on that," she sighs. Empty Tidings strides towards the chamber's exit. When she's out... 'she' isn't.

The Lei Kiangi is.

The old woman, bedecked in gaudy finery, flicker has marched out from belowdecks to see the sea without crossing the space between the chamber and the edge. She overlooks distant Bluehaven and the ocean around it. She kneels, regarding the waters. She speaks to it, brushing it with wrinkled fingertips, prayers passing her lips to the Sea That Marched Against The Flame.

She tells it how it has failed her. She tells it how it has failed her people. She tells it of her disappointment, and her hatred; she tells it of better days ahead, once she has taken this city with all her loyal daughters and sons and turned it against the spiteful, wicked creature that spawned them. Their fates are not entwined with that failure of a Mother; they will be free of their burden and their curse, taking this wondrous home of theirs far from this place.

Her hand lifts from the water, the hateful prayer uttered. The thread that is the identity of the Lei Kiangi is discarded as useless after that. Empty Tidings, bedecked in bells and silks with hair like ink, flicker reclines against a protrusion on the side of the ship, tucked into a place out of sight, and exhales a long, tired sigh.

She waits.
Bloody Revelations     The horrid tentacles from the sea -at least /a/ sea- are numerous and aggressive, redirecting much of their attention to chase Ryouma as he cuts them down, doubling and tripling in number in pursuit of him. His katana has little difficulty slicing clean through them, where they then burst into torrents of loose vitriol and crash back into the water, but that only stops them temporarily, before more surge upwards to chase him. Some actually pursue him directly, winding around the woodwork and seeking to stab or slam him directly, while others slash and batter at the platforms he's using, scything through the untreatest upper masts and riggings as quickly as he jumps between them.

    Gawain, taking a similar approach to mobility and going the opposite way, is chased in no such way immediately. His boost from Excalibur Galatine hurls him up to the forest of beams and ropes that Dukantha shoots from, where the Lintha's bow then fades into nothing with a flicker of emerald flames, and his hook-daiklave is likewise drawn from nowhere, seamlessly moved to intercept Gawain's. This time he fences with the Knight of the Round Table more conservatively, using the wide flat of his blade to shield himself from the licking tongues of holy fire rather than take him edge on edge, and largely striking with kicks and offhanded blows rather than put his sword into something he's not sure will hit, being his prime defense against Galatine. A spray of light rays suddenly intercept him mid-counter attack, hammering him down to a knee and allowing Galatin to punch through his breastplate, but doesn't quite skewer the flesh beneath, causing Dukantha to roar all the same at the flames briefly inside his armour before he smacks Gawain away and sends a dozen tendrils Tomoe's way.

    Oryou's hair suffices in the same fashion as Ryouma's katana; limited exposure to vitriol isn't sufficient to cause some hellish split ends later for her. When she unleashes her breath attack, by contrast, Dukantha elects to move out of the way. Quick as an arc of lightning, he becomes a green-black streak that zips straight up into the air, well over the plume of blue-black flame, drawing and sighting his bow on Oryou, right before Finna divekicks him in the side of the head. The Lintha Exalted is dropped right back out of the air and into the blasts of flames, disappearing along with most of the ship that still remains above the water.
Bloody Revelations     It's then that the signal sounds. With the Lei Kiangi dead (and Empty Tidings wearing her body (and All-Seeing Eye dragging a screaming and blubbering Lintha captain out onto the disintegrating catwalks, covered in crossbow bolts)), the stage is set for the three-part fleet to attack. After a break of thirty seconds, the first, weak rays of sun over the horizon are overtaken by the hundreds of lights sailing through the sky over it, just before a raging torrent of flaming arrows crashes down in a blind volley throughout the perimeter of Bluehaven.

    Considering the distance, the volleys are pretty much blind, fired by mechanical and artifact bows, most with Essence-wielders behind them, but they are then immediately followed by the burning trunks of ballista bolts and hulks of lit oil pots crashing down after them, landing much deeper in, further adding to the portion of the sea-city set ablaze. Not long after, a second volley lands, closer and further in, and then on the third, ten times the swarms of arrows as mortal archers come close enough, breaching through the wreckage labyrinth.

    The casualties are already widespread, but will only get worse as some of the Realm's mightiest ships and Skullstone's most advanced vessels get within range, blasting away with heirloom weapons of the First Age, their hulls reinforced with jade and soulsteel that can withstand the acidic tide, so say nothing of Claslat's own vessels between and opposite those two fleets. The Lintha are hemmed in on all sides by a massive force they had been utterly blinded to in the chaos, and the ships they can detach and send forth against them are random and uncoordinated by comparison, with no fleet mother to guide them.
Bloody Revelations     He stays gone for that little while, leaving behind only boiling acid frothing like a cauldron in his wake. When Dukantha reappears, it isn't alone. The entire space the previous ship had just occupied now bursts into a titanic swell of mingled seawater and vitriol as an /even larger/ vessel appears. What few docks and connectors even remain nearby are splintered and cast into the depths as a ship larger and more horrifying than any other erupts to the surface.

    Made from no wood or steel or magical material or even malfean brass, the warship is almost as if it were the body of some colossal, deep sea jelly creature, opalescent and semitranslucent and shot through with a tapestry of tiny purple veins. Black coral covers much of its hull, rising up to form rigging for membranous dragonwing-style sails, and covering its sides in sharp blades. A squid-like beak forms a lethal horn at its prow, layers of bristling, stinging tendrils writhe from its hull, and emerald crystal spines jut from over the edge of its deck like cannons, certainly charged with enough Infernal Essence to do the part. Dukantha stands at the helm, surrounded by well over a hundred, hideous blood-red demons, like massive, deformed gorillas covered in horn growths, playing the part of crew. It /cuts/ rather than smashes, through the nearest vessel-structure, and comes dead at the Elites.

    It doesn't quite take Empty Tidings' level of expertise to know that Kimbery is watching. Kimbery is /here/. Something very crucial has been breached. Some part of that bottomless, acidic well has eaten through the weave of Creation and into the place where her Yozi mother dwells. It's not just Infernal Essence, but /Kimbery's/ Essence now oozing into Bluehaven, as the seas turn deep black and green out for miles, and Dukantha's personal flagship sets sail to rally the Lintha.

    "I see now! I see it well! I see the day that the Great Mother foretold of, where the seas mingle crimson and emerald! An auspicious day to walk Creation once again! A day upon which to crush that of mankind that still dares sail our ocean, and have them learn once and for all who their masters are!"
Graceful Hands Odd as it may seem, the atmosphere seemed suddenly tight. And not tight in the physical sense of the word, or even referring to the atmosphere of the general disarray, but something tensing the physical world itself. The tightness peaked, and suddenly *snapped* as two blurry figures in red appeared from behind two conveniently placed hidden corners and dashed forwards from behind Dunkantha, flanking him from either side. Both of them made an odd gesture, like yanking on an invisible cloth, and from seemingly nowhere, a curtain came down, obscuring them and the Lintha from view. Oddly enough, regardless of where one was to view the curtain from, it seemed to be at the perfect angle to hide the three figures.

"Right, that's it, you could've woken up the whole of bloody Yu-shan. Have you any idea how much whiplash you get from one of Mercury's chosen yanking you from a hangover and throwing you into an operation because every Unnecessarily Loud Alarm had gone off? I was enjoying basking in blessed ignorance, just moments before now!"

With a grand flourish, a female figure dressed in purple descended from above, turning and snatching the cloth from its imaginary rails to revealnothing. Absolutely nothing. Like the masterful trick of a stage magician, Dunkantha was gone. With a whipping motion, the curtain was too, being there one moment, and gone the next.

"Idiot. He should've known he would've been drawn attention from bigger fish the moment he did what..." The woman gazed amongst the outsiders with sparkling violet eyes, before tentatively peering overboard. "...he did." An accusing finger was suddenly jabbed at the general area of wherever Empty Tidings was, even if she wasn't in view. "You of all people should know how those oaths are structured! Though I'm...what am I even talking to you for? You're giggling with glee. And doing Sun knows what else."

The finger lowered before a shrug was given. "Anyway, don't worry about him, he'll be indisposed for quite a while. Unfortunately, if his patron actually makes some effort, he may be out and about sooner or later. Just not now. Besides, I think you have other matters to attend to right now." Her gaze focused on the "crew" of the now transformed ship, and an open hand took the mere suggestion of a fist. "We shall talk later. Go do your things now. I'll help out. 'kay? Kay."

Anyone listening after that may have heard something muttered about a "Damned Tsunami" and something along the lines of "See if I share any of the wine the next time I steal some..."
All-Seeing Eye      Among the sailing lights of flaming ballista bolts, there flies an enormous metal cylinder with a pointed end, at roughly the same arc as the arrows. It is roughly the side of a commercial lifeboat. Its pointed end crashes into a Lintha vessel, lodging itself like a splinter into the aging hull of the ship. The cylinder slides open. Soldiers in synthetic leather buff jackets swarm out of this cylinder like locusts. Metallic riot shields spring from consoles on their wrists, forming a line of cover for the row behind them, equipped with what appear to be variants of the ever-popular Kalashkinov rifle. Gunfire and the swinging of electric shock batons soon play amidst the cacophony of the raid.

     The source of this cylinder is an arm. Even in the darkness of night, this arm is a thing of clockwork brilliance, of brass, ivory, and orichalcum. It is large enough to pick up and hurl any of the ships which sail alongside it. It is attached to a torso, to which the water of this sea is only waist-deep. The torso bears great, glimmering adamant turbines on either shoulder, which set to whirring with a palpable crackling of energy. Upon its back are two more such cylinders, and one is currently sliding to an assembly affixed to that uplifted arm.

     Thousandfold Radiant Solutions, Orichalcum Caste Colossus, fires the remaining two boarding capsules as he closes in. His pace quickens, and great brilliant Old Realm glyphs flash above his head, providing tactical information to both the Autochthonian boarders and the fleet which he now moves in advance of. When he reaches the labyrinth of shipwrecks which might still present an obstacle to the fleet, he simply bends over, dips his hands into the water, and /hurls/ the crumbling wrecks out of the way.

     Above him, two square hunks of metal carried through the air on burning jets of Essence make strafing runs with repeating ballistae, as suicide doors open to reveal squads of Autochthonian regulars armed with crossbows of the same nature.
Empty Tidings Empty Tidings doesn't get to precisely see what happened, but she has a pretty general idea. She takes a deep breath and sighs. She's sitting on what is probably a ram on the prow of the ship. She dips a foot into the water, mumbling something like apologies, and then shakes the seawater off and gets back to her feet.

Just as the Colossus shows up. Tidings is not ashamed to say that her jaw dropped a little when she got to see /that/. She definitely needs to have a little chat with Eye about things like, say, the flatly amazing magitech his people have access to. She'd love to be able to interview their god. Er... boss. Yeah.

There's another momentary flicker as reality stutters. Tidings is abruptly standing on the deck next to Graceful Hands, just out of easy reach. She's got her arms crossed and is blowing a lock of raven hair out of her eyes. "I haven't the slightest idea what you're accusing me of," she says. "And I wasn't /giggling/, I was..." She rotates a hand a little, searching for a word. "...basking. In the triumph of good over evil and the erasure of a scourge of the West." Her delivery is with a little bit of flat affect.

Empty Tidings makes a dismissive gesture at the apes. It's coincidentally coupled with an invisible pulse of Essence that tries to retroactively co-opt the crew into her own servitude and send them all home. "Besides; this was personal."
All-Seeing Eye      Aboard the former Lintha command center, All-Seeing Eye grows tired of the captain's blubbering. "Open wide," he says, forcing the man's jaw open with one hand. The other slips into his mouth, pinches his tongue between the thumb and forefinger, and yanks until the next sound is that of wet, gory tearing. "There we go," he says sweetly. "You won't be needing that for this evening's entertainment." The captain's tongue is thrown casually over the edge into the waters below.

     "Oh," says the Exalt, gingerly taking his hand. "Or these." He squeezes, the motors of his cybernetic fingers whining in an audible struggle against the crunching of his finger bones. The same treatment is given to the fingers of the other hand, via the hard rubber sole of his boot. Lest his audience tire quickly, the Exalt grasps the captain by his hair, forcing him to watch as his home is destroyed.

     "Sorry, darling--but I didn't want you back-talking me. Or trying to take the easy way out! You're going to sit right here, and you're going to watch. You see..." He shakes his head, chuckling warmly. "I've been patient. I've been a good boy! And now, I'm going to get my present." As the rain of fire lands upon the decks, setting Lintha and ship alike ablaze, he grins.

     "Beautiful, isn't it?" He suddenly spits. "/Look at it./" His grip on the man's hair tightens, and he shakes him. "Listen to that sound. Smell the refuse burning in the air. Do you hear your family screaming?~" The question is asked in a sickeningly sweet tone, his fingers possessed of sudden gentle tenderness, stroking his hair. "I want you to see it, to smell it, to hear it. And I want you to remember it. I'm going to kill you now, darling. And if you meet your whore Mother..." His Essence flares, to the point where inhuman, triangular faces can be seen wailing in quiet agony within his expressionless Soulsteel eye-cannons. His grip is again vicelike, forcing the pirate to look into those black, wailing pools.

     "You tell her /this/ is the fate of those who tamper with the Great Maker's creations." The crossbow bolt enters the man's temple and flies through the other side, splattering the deck with crimson. Eye picks the pirate's body up by the scruff of the neck, throws him overboard.

     He sighs, contently.
Finna     Out of the sky, a shining silvery-purple meteor! Down and down she comes at just the right moment, turning all of her diving speed into power and priming her leg muscles.

    Finna is angry. She set out on this quest not just to do Creation a favor and learn more about its enemies... but to work more closely with some folk she wants to get to know better, and maybe reap some treasures from it all.

    And through one happenstance or another, she's constantly been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    But NOT NOW! Dukantha's bow is drawn...

    "Surprise, seaweed-breath!" Is screamed out in the most immature fashion ever...

    As the winged fox just DIVEKICK INTERRUPTS in the most ungraceful, right-the-heck-out-of-nowhere maneuver ever.

    With a sickening CRUNCH from the impact, down he goes, and the Lunar actually HOWLS in triumph, her leg dangling in a twisted direction that just isn't right..

    So yeah maybe that howl's also PAIN.

    Either way...

    With the navies finally coming to the rescue, Finna flaps her wings and soars for the Claslat ships, aiming to come in for a landing at some corner of one, shifting back to her ordinary fox form to stay somewhere out of sight...
Gawain Gawain gets his hit in, but is sent flying back. He can't avoid it, as he's sent towards the water. As soon as he hits it, he uses the sword to thrust his way back out, trying to land on the closest surface he can. And then, Dukantha summons his demon ship. This is bad.

And then, someone comes in and makes him disappear with a magic trick. This is...good?

Gawain will move to leap towards the Lintha on the ship and start fighting them. Though if/when it becomes clear that Tidings is taking them over, he'd stop and move to rejoin their allied fleet. Mission accomplished, at the least.
Ryouma Sakamoto     On one hand: that was Weird.
    On the other, when the threat suddenly vanishes and the cause turns out to not be hostile or an issue, maybe don't look the gift horse in the mouth. At least, that's always been Ryouma's motto. About... a lot of things. Not just gift horses. All horses, really.

    Metaphorical horses.

    That, sadly, does not solve the problem of sudden artillery fire from the incoming fleets, and so Oryou lunges at Ryouma, scoops him up in a princess carry, and then heads upward to float well above and away from the incoming straight-line fire from the fleet.

    Arcing shots are an issue, but for that she's just going to back the Hell up. Tends to work out!

    "Ahaha, amazing! I have no idea what just happened, but I'd love to have that curtain trick in my repertoire," Ryouma laughs.
    "Oryou would've rather punched Dukantha some more," his partner answers, to which Ryouma just smiles.
    "Ah, please, I'm sure we'll see him again, you'll get your chance. In the meantime, let's go back to the fleet, I'd like to see how they're crewed and manned while on-duty before the barrages end. And rest! Especially rest." No, actually, especially see the ships and nerd about them, but Oryou won't take THAT answer.
Tomoe Things are becoming a nightmare of a sort Tomoe will not forget if she's still breathing come the next day. Her light rays strike home giving Gawain some needed support. Still it's not enough to stop this guy, and she's got a dozen tendrils coming the way she's forced to go on the evasive and even then she's getting smacked and her item durability, save for her shield and sword are all now in the red one more good round of beatings and she's going to be left there with no gear on and her defences just about crushed. She braces as there's not much she can do about it.

Then a certain Siderial appears and well the enemy is just kinda of dragged off it seems reality /broke/ from something he pulled and she wasn't sure if it had been or not. After all, this is Creation and she has no idea how half the things work in the end. With the Lintha champion on ice for the moment, she's able to settle down just for the barest of moments. She has no idea what is coming next but it's clear Tomoe is just about done from that hell of a fight.
Bloody Revelations     With the obscenely powerful Akuma gone, Empty Tidings can subvert a 'mere' 144 Blood Apes on the spot -at least, those Gawain hasn't annihilated already with his excessive weakness-exploiting sword- and stop the horrid ship dead in the water as all of its crew disappear. The ship itself is also a demon, and a much stronger one at that, for all that both matters and doesn't.

    With /Dukantha/ gone as well as the Lei Kiangi, the rest of this war is practically a formality. The Lintha still have slightly more ships, but two thirds of them are for slaving, the warships aren't remotely organized, and half of them are still docked. Though the Elites had destroyed only a tenth of Bluehaven at most, and depopulated a sixth, everything of relevance the Lintha had to fight back is now in tatters; the job of burning down the rest of it and cutting down or imprisoning the Lintha themselves can fall to the thousands of marines now arriving on the scene, as the first Realm ship of the Water Fleet ploughs through the debris, followed by the Mist-Veiled Siaka emerging from a shifting safe passage.

    Darktide waves from the deck, radioing to relieve the Elites below. They've accomplished more than their fair share of the commando stage of the operation, and now it's time to rotate out; the second leg will be an all-day operation, and hunting whoever slips past may take days. The deck of any given ship is open to Ryouma and Oryou, who receive a hearty welcome, and medical attention in as much as it could be necessary.

    There will be no coming back from this. Just as a certain ghost cursed them all those millennia ago, the bloodline is as good as finished.