Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Bloody Revelations	Reaching the so-called Ocean of Unending Night is a very different experience depending on which side one is on. Absolutely true to the Silver Prince's 'predictions', the pocket of mad stability that is one of the Labyrinth's 'amphiskopoloi' is reported right away to be their opposition's first target, and they're sent well in advance by what should be almost twelve hours. The Silver Prince assures that the metaphysically underground 'ocean' takes half a day of travel to reach from the only majorly traveled and stable entrance to the Labyrinth there is, and given that he nominally owns the area, a built warpgate is easily provided by the spectres under his employ there.     Elites heeding the call are sent through a Gothic arch of matte black jade, wrought in somewhat baroque renditions of both human skulls and strange and unidentifiable sea life. They're deposited on a small island of thick and tangled grey vegetation like a web of mangroves having tangled together and accumulated enough silt and gravel to form a sandbar, surrounded on all sides by soot-coloured brackish water, pierced by the upper edges of a bleached white reef that is partly exposed at low tide. Despite the fact that they're definitely underground, the stars are visible overhead in a 'night' sky, albeit dim and worthless for navigation, and the horizon vanishes long before a wall can be seen in any direction. The primary source of light in what is part ocean and part swamp is the thousands of bioluminescent fish (hopefully they're fish) that effuse pale blue from the depths, and equally luminous giant, fleshy flowers that bud on water plants and pads big enough to stand on.     There are other islands. Probably hundreds of them, though only a few are ever visible at a time in the gloom. Most are lit by pale bone lanterns and inhabited by a range of squatters from crazy hermit shack-looking buildings, to obvious fishing wharfs, to entire madly built shanty towns, built on an economy of who knows what. Lantern boats and skeletal kayaks patron the foggy waters in dead quiet, some with nets, some with harpoons, some with stranger things, all crewed by disheveled, scrawny, and waterlogged ghosts, who stop and stare when passed, and follow at an unnervingly close distance until the group has their ride, being a black cutter obviously styled as belonging to a Deathlord.     The boat rows itself. Oars without oarsmen take them across the grotto for a great distance, out into the dark until all the remaining islands fade into the dark and the fog and the tangle of huge black trees that grow straight out of the water. It's a while before they find land again, where a huge tract of barren grey earth stands almost completely uninhabited despite its size extending beyond visible range, easily broad enough to build a city district on widthwise, and probably an entire city lengthwise. It is instead surrounded by a massive, ramshackle network of rickety wooden towers, bridges, platforms, pontoons, and fences, propping a city up on stilts around it rather than on top of it. It has its own entire set of docks, mooring scores of ships, from lean corvettes to absurdly top-heavy and over-equipped battleships nailed together with soulsteel.
Bloody Revelations	The sheer number of spectres --especially gaunt, hollow-faced, twitchy and unstable ghosts-- makes it obvious that this is their stop, but it takes a minute for a thundering geyser of water, the size of an empire state building, to erupt inland and impress that something that could pass for the southern shore of Scotland is, in fact, a fraction of the legendary hekatonkhire's head poking out of the water, just enough to get its tremendous blowhole above water level while resting. It's a good thing they came here twelve hours in advance.     They get thirty minutes.     For the others who had come here, the experience had been entirely different. Apparently, the 'main entrance' to the Labyrinth, known far and wide as the only safe, stable, and reliable one, is far too boring and tedious. The Elites collected by someone arguably much worse than the Silver Prince are unceremoniously shepherded through a pitch black cave mouth by the inky still coast, through the scent of salt and blood and down rocks slick with something vaguely acidic, until pushed out to a fast-flowing underground river of what very much appears to be dark, deoxygenated gore. A perfect stereotype of a Stygian ferryman awaits them, on his own skiff of bone and sinew, classical cloak covering all features. When he stops the Elites at the riverbank and demands 'a memory as payment' however, discussion of what they'll have to give up is cut short by one word.     "Row."     They are silently let aboard without incident and transported for free, down winding tunnels at gradually increasing speed which becomes an utterly breakneck pace that may be defying the laws of physics, nauseating even to someone with the worthiest sealegs. The skiff exits out onto the same, silty, greenish-black and sooty waters, gliding a ways into the grotto, bumped by several alarmingly large things with glowing spines and tendrils along the way, and makes its way just to the very edge of the cetacean ghost-behemoth's visible form, where the questionably constructed towers and stilt-shacks are suggestions in the fog, identified more by their lanterns than anything else. The ferryman(?) itself will go no further.
Ryouma Sakamoto	"Ah, I spent so long thinking about what I'd say to the First Whale that I didn't stop to think about what else to do," Ryouma admits, standing on the edge of the black boat's deck as it closes in on the massive undead beast's head. The pillar of water further impresses the size of it upon the man.     Oryou, idly, floats behind Ryouma, having spent that entire time taking in the refreshing air of the Underworld. She's somewhere between a dragon of darkness and a vengeful spirit, so of course she finds it unnaturally refreshing.     "Oryou could go say hi," she offers.     "Ah... maybe you two would relate better than I ever could, that's true. Well, we should probably all go, anyway. Do you think it can hear us if we don't shout?" he ponders.     "Probably," Oryou reasons.     Ah, nevermind how creepy their ride here had been. Ryouma took it all in with a smile on his face, despite the sights on the seas, the obvious presence of undeath, and the ghostly retainers about them.     Ryouma clears his throat.     "I would like to speak with Orcinus Rex, the First Whale, and any who pledge allegiance to it! I come bearing news of a threat and an offer from the Silver Prince."     That should do it.     "Oryou is also here," Oryou adds, idly.     "Yes, Oryou would also like to speak!" Ryouma adds.
Tomoe	The Ocean of Unending Night was not sure what to think of it, the Silver Prince had been on the money of it being a pocket of stability in the madness that is the Labyrinth. She would take a moment as they first arrive to bite down any fear she could and steel her self for whatever was going to come, there seemed to be a pretty solid plan from Ryouma and she knew sadly she was a bodyguard and muscle. She could plan and act but not on the scale of creation which also operated on alien modes of thought to her own world which basically ran on autopilot. Well until Cardinal started her thing at the very least, but she is making notes of everything along the way they don't have long they maybe a short span of time in which to act before things hit the fan. She did her best to look imposing while she also kept an eye out for anyone who might seem to be trouble for her party. She was glad to not be alone and have the likes of Ryouma, his wife, and Gawain along for the ride. As the Heroic Spirit does the talking she would keep observing the area looking for trouble. She will then say quietly to her companions. "Do you want me to scout the area for anything that could be trouble?" She'll look to Gawain and Ryouma in turn. Heck she even takes a look over to Oryo
Starbound Flotilla	"A refresher briefing may be useful." "Hmph." "Yeah, I wasn't paying much attention." "Exasperated. George..." "Run it again, 'Bert." "Our task is to secure the allegiance of Orcinus Rex and its legion of spectres. Find and convince the Nephwrack 'Never Ending Silence' to help us. Diplomacy and violence, either work." "Floran wantsss violence!" "Of course. But we will certainly not approach in such a way." "Guess that's that, then. Let's go talk to Joan of Arc or whatever." "Disgusted. Anything to get out of this 'water'..."     The STARBOUND FLOTILLA are here, in their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a divine-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow runes and inscriptions lighting up on stylishly gleaming golden armor and robes. Albert the monkey-man is wearing what looks like lab technician gear with extensive sets of tools and chemical protection, which integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.     Undoubtedly a bit crowding to someone like Azure Armature in such a small boat, but the alternative of being at partial power was unacceptable, so maybe they'll just bring a Blue Snake Summoning Flare if she's not feeling like sitting in a dinghy with five intergalactic wanted criminals, a less space-efficient robot, and a man in a cloak that definitely doesn't have access to a washing machine. All six disembark directly onto the gore, and for reasons that are unclear, wind up standing on the water/gore like a photoshoot for the biblical figure convention. They head immediately for the "landmass", surging over it with fast-deployed hoverbikes, moving at a slow speed to deal with the fog. If the ferryman won't get closer, they'll ride the rest of the way, albeit more at a stable pace than a rush for now.     They'll arrive there when that thirty minute countdown hits zero, but the energy signatures or the results of scouting will mark their approach a while before. Their formation is tight. Their armor is active. They intend to be either extremely, extremely convincing, or extremely, extremely brutal, and one can see it just in the way their signatures move.
Lezard Valeth	Lezard Valeth looks much like he always does. He has a preferred appearance, after all. There is one change, however. On a trip into the Abyss, one does well to show one's own familiarity with the Darkness. And so Lezard arrives carrying not his book, but a long black staff tipped with gnarled branches in an unearthly twisted formation. The sign of the ancient power of the Dark, Manus, reforged to fit Lezard's less... massive stature. While not as outwardly imposing as the sleek and deadly Flotilla's Power Move: Approach Like A Boss Squad, the Sorceror of Midgard draws shadow and death along in the wake of his hand, floating over the remains of the gore as they emerge and reach their landing point. Unpleasant trip, but, well... It's fast. And effiient. And surely wouldn't have potentially resulted in them getting cast into some ever-consuming maw if they took a wrong turn. The beacon of Dark approaches the operations team, keeping behind the Flotilla.
Gawain	Gawain is here. Gawain is in full armor throughout the boat ride, not liking the Underworld and being prepared for their enemy. The knight is quiet, calm, thinking. He's waiting to have to fight old allies, those he worked with in Thorns and other places. Whent hey reach 'land', the large mass of Orcinus Rex. Gawain takes a breath, inhales, and gets in position. That is, the highest point he can find that they'd allow him to climb. From there he'd watch, and wait. Thirty minutes of prep-time to him is nothing when he doesn't need to prep. He has no special plan. His goal is to protect Orcinus Rex from those allied with Bloody Revelations. So, when the Flotilla approaches at the end of those thirty minutes, Gawain frowns slightly. He likes members of the Flotilla, especially Seft, but if they're the enemy...he recognizes Lezard Valeth vaguely as well. Who else could be with them? Gawain leaps from his post, landing down in a crouch before he stands up proud, facing the imposing members of the enemy alliance. He puts out his hand. It's a universal gesture. Stop. When they're in earshot, Gawain speaks up. "Come no further! If you seek a fight, I will oppose you. If you seek to talk, you can do it from here. Let us hope for the latter!"
Bloody Revelations	Because Ryouma does the thing they're ostensibly there to do, and steps forth to proactively begin explaining and negotiating the situation, he is the first recipient of something useful. Oryou is also there too. Their presence (or rather specifically, Tomoe's and Gawain's) draws a lot of attention very very suddenly from the hoard of spectres working the sodden and splintered teak towers, fixing them with expressions that veer too many degrees towards 'hungry' to be comfortably assumed as curiosity. The two speaking actually stand out the least, the latter even less than the former. If anything, Oryou is closest to the 'average' denizen of the Labyrinth (it isn't ghosts).     For a little while, there's nothing but a bunch of chain whispering and awkward shuffling out of the way, until the nephwrack (an *especially* twisted-looking ghost, barely recognizable as human rather than some weird, ghastly effigy, even with his corpus either warped, sculpted, or mutated to include, huge hands with webbed fingers) that is supposedly the representative of both the Silver Prince and Orcinus Rex in these waters appears, carrying some kind of heavy tome in a black velvet sling over a fine mesh of soulsteel chain and waterproofed black leathers, standing out tremendously amongst the spectral rabble.     "Ahhhh, yess, you'd be the new hirelings I was to expect from the 'Silver Prince'." he enunciates, both with a slightly slurred his, and also with great distaste for the Creation-facing false name of the Bodhisattva. "*Speak* to him? My you've come for ssomething very strange. I can't understand how you anticipate that will help, but it issn't mine to judge. What harm could it do, hmm? Hmm? Oh very well. Before I go through all the effort of halting construction and rousing him though, you could at leasst explain what you're doing here to *me*, yes. The Father of all Whales is a stalwart and magnanimous ally, not my 'boss'. There will be no going over my head, ssince that isn't possible!"     Gawain climbing up on the surprisingly sturdy, if haphazardly aligned, wooden lookout towers, anchored in silt a building's thickness under water thrice that, is immediately surrounded on all sides by alarmingly attentive and not-entirely-friendly looking spectres, invading his personal space very quickly and all too quietly and purposefully. It's only when Never-Ending Silence namedrops the Bodhisattva that they quickly back off; clearly they know who their real boss is. From that high up, he has a much more significant range of vision, given that the entire 'Ocean' is completely flat, with no curvature of the horizon. Of course, the towers are pretty high and lit with more of those weird lanterns of chalky grey-white wood, so he probably isn't hard to spot from afar either.     The ferryman remains behind as the various Elites take off of it, not urged to go any further by the Abyssal. Instead, she steps off the edge, and the midnight black splay of uncreated wings carries her off without touching the water, strangely driving the glowing fish away from the alien glitter of unreal stars. "Temper that eagerness with a little efficieny, would you? I'd like to conserve my power should Orcinus Rex or his devotees be 'uncooperative'. Binding a beast like that with force of will and magical might is a time-consuming and tiresome effort, so I expect *zero* interruptions when you're done." she says, finding her way to the edge of an intermediary reef. Admittedly, that's part of what underlings are for. Conserving her Essence pool for the eventuality of having to bludgeon loyalty out of the whole fleet with magic is probably a smart failsafe.
Ryouma Sakamoto	"Ah, of course. I have no wish to disrupt the established protocols!" Ryouma answers the man who speaks up, politely removing his hat. "I'm merely concerned we might be a bit short on time."     Oryou glances about at the specters, musing idly. "A witch wants to turn you against your Father," she states simply, to which Ryouma panics a little because that's skipping ahead entirely too dramatically.     "O-Oryou, please slow down! B-But, she's right. There is a powerful Deathknight called Bloody Revelations who is on her way here, possibly with allies. She has subdued beings similar to the First Whale already and will attempt to do so here too. We were warned, even if she cannot turn the great Whale, she possesses powers that could turn his denizens against him and authority over the dead. She may settle for slaying the First Whale if she can't make it yield."     Well, that's abrupt, but it should work.     "I'm terribly sorry to suggest this, but... we were sent to ambush her when she comes to claim him. I don't know that we have the power needed to stop her, especially to stop her from using her powers on all of you. Do you think it'd be possible to ask the Father of all Whales to take you all somewhere else? To leave behind a decoy for us to use as a trap, without putting it at risk? We don't have long, sadly, it'd need to be... well, right now."     Oryou shuffles closer to Ryouma, looking down towards the Whale rather than the emissary. "Oryou thinks it could handle fighting, Ryouma. The minions are the problem. It needs to evacuate the liabilities if it's going to stay. Otherwise it needs to go," she concludes.     Well, that's all easier said than done in their timeframe.
Azure Armature	The boat is unpleasant, but that's not for the Starbound Flotilla's reason that Azure Armature finds the whole thing distasteful. The boat is so disgustingly analog. A vessel like this could be pressurized, rigged for silent running... They could go into the bay of the Silver Prince and commence covert operations, before... Snapping back into reality, the Vermilion party makes landfall on a prepared battlefield in the Labyrinth. It's a fortress, really, if roughshod. As the Flotilla fan out, Armature steadies herself on the edge of the ferry with a thunk of her booted foot, the sun knight's proclamation coinciding with a heavy sigh. "What are you doing?" Is her first question, flat affect unwavering. "I can't believe this. Explain yourself - why are you there? You stood with us against the Mask of Winters. Wasn't that your goal? To see these tumors be excised from this world? Wasn't that your oath?" Armature blinks out of existance in a flash of math, reappearing crouched on the wooden parapet like a shitty ninja, legs bowed and perched on a pinhead with her boot-tips. Her elbows rest easily on her legs, and her hands hang down. Again: Shitty ninja classic. "You can't tell me that you can be cowed by 'lesser threats' or alliances of convenience. Can't you see, Gawain? Or do you lack the clarity?" "If you weren't willing to go the distance, then stand aside. This was always the plan. No compromises." She slides down the parapet with her heel, alighting inside the walls, and attempts to just walk Right The Heck past Gawain.
Starbound Flotilla	"Urgent. He wants us to stop! We should--" "Shall I announce our presence?" "You're always a fan of announcing." "No." "Huh? What isss problem, bird friend?" "I think I can do something a little better." "Tense. I don't like this." "Is it the true believer approach?" "It's /Pavo/, I dunno what else it would be." "...Proceed."     "O noble dead legions! O Never Ending Silence!" Comes a voice from the mists. Pavo has supercharged her hoverbike; it is beginning to take off like a fighter, and her armor is spreading glorious, shining wings from her armor. Her voice booms with tremendous amplification. "I come with a gift. How long have you waited, serving lords who use you in feuds against your fellow dead? How long have you hungered for a tribute that would let you unthrive, not just unlive?" Holographic golden feathers fall, each visually marked with dramatic painted bone patterns. Pavo has gone all-out on looking like a divinity in service of Bloody Revelations.     "Today I come to you with a gift, and a promise. I come to you offering the chance to take your own destiny into your hands! I come to you offering a path unbound by petty lords and infighting, a path towards a sacrifice for the noble dead that has greater and grander worth and power than anything your lords have ever deigned to allow you from the scraps of their table! Even now, agents among you, those who serve masters with shorter sight and lesser dreams, those who do not respect the dead as they deserve, offer you the pitiful tributes of no sacrifice, only preservation."     "I ask of you, legions of Orcinus Rex, will you grant us the opportunity to do as you deserve? To sacrifice a lesser loyalty to a lesser cause of preserving a lesser world, to grant you something greater? To push you towards a grander path, to show you a new way forward, where all you deserve is finally sacrificed in your honor? Will you set aside the petty feuds of old lords and follow a new Bloody Revelation of things that may yet come? I ask of you, Never-Ending Silence, will you seek the sacrifice you and your legion DESERVE?"     Her voice is loud enough to echo throughout much of the landmass, mostly because she installed heavy-duty speakers on a cluster of drones around her. Her voice surges with religious zealotry. She doesn't look like she's going to stop for Gawain -- none of the people here do -- though she'll be flying low enough that the defenders could take a swing at her, as will the lower-flying hoverbikes reaching the shore shortly.
Gawain	As Azure approaches Gawain, he seems a little shocked. He wouldn't have expected her of all people to have been on the opposing side. It seems clear how little he really knew her. "Blue...? I- why are you working with Bloody Revelations?" He also seems disappointed, as she tells him off. Maybe at another time, Gawain would have taken it and felt bad. But he can't. Lookshy happened. As Azure Armature blinks forward, and then moves to walk past Gawain, he moves to intercept her. "You are right. I am making an alliance of convenience with the Silver Prince. To stop the greater threat. Bloody Revelations destroyed Lookshy! I saw the shambles their people are in...can you truly accept working with her? Was this really your plan all along?" Gawain summons his sword into hand. Galatine shines even in the Underworld, but Gawain doesn't move to strike her. He speaks up, clearly. "But if we follow my path, when this is over, we can stop the rest of the Deathlords. We can protect Creation! I have faith. You can still change your mind, come, join us." His other hand is held out. He's putting his faith that Azure Armature might be able to see 'reason', as he views it. She probably has a chance to strike him in return. The Flotilla and Lezard can get past Gawain. He's too focused on trying to recruit Azure to his side.
Lezard Valeth	Lezard Valeth approaches, nodding as the Flotilla makes their own play. He nods in approval. A suitable speech and recruitment attempt. However, the Sorceror looks up and stares at Gawain as he is challenged. "Foolish." He replies to Gawain. "We have come here for a purpose. It does not require slaying the lot of you. You are free to quit the field if you wish, or you could assist if you are willing. But we must accomplish our goals. If you stand in our way, the only choice will be battle." Meanwhile, Lezard does not make a grand speech. He makes a statement of power, instead. He slams the butt of the Catalyst down into the gory ground, and energy coruscates around him, Darkness rolling up as he draws upon foreign magics. Around him, a host of black motes rise, Tiny, potent, hungry fragments of Dark that seethe in the air about him like a cloud, beady white eyes staring forward in a search for the warmth of life. The gesture is clear: Come get it if you think you're hard enough.
Finna	At this point, the fact that Finna is going to tag along with these hardheaded, fearless, and utterly too reckless do-gooders seems to be a foregone conclusion. Every time she tries to figure out WHY she's tagging along with these people, she can't reach any conclusions that makes some sense.     The only thing left is a conclusion that doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. The Lunar simply wants to see these people succeed.     And upon realizing that, something remarkable happened. Her apparent fear of the dead and the Underworld began to be overtaken by curiosity.     And that's why, for the journey in the long boat ride, she spent a lot of time on decks looking out at the bleak seas... and only sometimes poked the animate oars to see if they responded to anything like that.     When taking human form during the journey, she's been daring enough to adopt an all-black classy dress of what appears to be high Skullstone fashion.     "You just leave the scouting to me." The foxgal states confidently, stepping forward and off the boat when they finalyl reach 'shore.' Such as it is. She's definitely aware of the fact that everything has thus far been arranged by the Silver Prince. If he somehow wants to trap them down here... she'll have to get creative. But conservatively creative.     This is the Underworld.     "Gggggggggyuck. I hate this place. It's cold in ways I have no words for. Cold in the soul. And I feel... weak. Luna has no power down here. Not going to get up to anything too crazy. But I can scout!" And talk, of course.     Since Ryouma's spoken up though, Finna currently busies herself with examining the array of specters and her surroundings. Because this 'father of whales' is HUGE, and she's quite impressed by the place.     This state of affairs continues all until...     Oh of course. the rivals arrive. And they're people she's met before. Once or twice. Finna scowls, slips both hands behind her back, and puffs out her cheeks while listening to the two arguments.     She doesn't feel NEARLY confident enough in this dark and dreary environment to display her usual spunk.
Tomoe	The party gets some serious attention as their face aka Ryouma get to work hopefully they will have enough time to get something done. One of the local dead speaks up but noticing the soulsteel bits on their person makes Tomoe shudder internally a bit. She knows how that stuff is made and even that for whatever she thinks of Bloody? that Bloody won't make more of it if she recalls right. The name drop comes and she will wait. Ryouma gets right and blunt to the point. This may either get them very far or get them chased out of town. She'll make ready for more trouble and going full info dump may be the best way for what they have to do here. "I would be willing to aid in defending your flight from them. Then it seems they are out of time as Azure and other arrive for a moment. She sees Azure make ready to go for Gawain, she has faith in one of the ones whos legend kept her mind from shattering to a thousand bits in the death game, seemingly so long ago. "You think we'd keep working with her after Lookshy?" She is not screwing about as she's not got the Dawn Breaker out, she's got Caliburn in hand and it's already burning with a white holy fire about the blade as she makes ready and it's fairly heavy hitters coming to, very heavy hitters when she thinks about it. "As for getting out of your way? Bring it." Then comes Pavo and the Starbounders. This is bad news and it gets nearly to levels of losing bladder control bad, as Lezard is here too. With Gawin tied up with AA? She's got to intercept some of the worst people possible to fight in the sector. She starts to chant golden runes fly about her, she really does have to work on her Nordic if she can find Inga at some point she's going to darn well do so. Then comes rays of light bending and twisting flying right after Pavo and any of their comrades who are coming ashore. One thing she's not doing is? Banter it seems right now.
Bloody Revelations	Ryouma and Oryou are indeed being rather sudden with their assessment of the situation, but far from scoffing rejection or egotistical contrarianism, the Nephwrack seems to take them deadly seriously. It might be that he is well aware of the legitimacy of their claims due to his association with a Deathlord and having some fathoming of the level of power they can exert over the dead, or perhaps it is due to what he has seen in the Labyrinth and what of the Deathknights unlucky or insane enough to come down here. Even with his skeletal face and sunken, pinprick eyes, they can tell he is taking them deadly serious. He doesn't entertain 'let her try' or 'as if she could do something like that for a second'. He knows how Necromancy works, and how ghosts don't really get a save against it.     "I ssee. That is indeed dire news, though not unexpected entirely. The minions of many masters move against each other like pieces on a board often enough, and very few are so enlightened as to reach us down here. I have heard enough of the Whispers in the cracks and pools of thiss place to know our true lords have ssome 'interest' in this one, but the Perfected Principle of Consumption remainss faithful to his disciple yet, if he indeed agrees it to be an unacceptable blow. Very well, very well, very well. I cannot make up the Whalefather's mind, but you are correct that these salt-encrusted fools are no match for the warp and weft of the Circle of the Void!"     With the demented-looking ghost-freak actually just taking Ryouma at his word and cooperating, mournful-sounding bronze bells toll like the warnings of rough weather dinghies, a sort of step below 'all hands to battle stations' as the spectres begin abruptly packing their tools, dropping their work, and shuffling out of their work stations, reminding viewers more of their ghostly nature, despite their believable solidity here, by floating out of their places and passing through the complicated structure that begs the question of why there were ladders and platforms to begin with. The jungle of rough hewn ebony and barnacle-studded teak and its pale lamps is left a no-mand's land in minutes, but the whale, even visible as only the tip of an iceberg, doesn't bother to stir. It is only a gradual reversal in the direction of the faint, humid breeze that alerts those nearby that the gargantuan creature has finished exhaling and is now taking a breath, with a resting rhythm on the order of double digit minutes per breathing cycle, further hinting at the colossus beneath the water.
Bloody Revelations	Or at least it would be if Pavo weren't riding in like a vainglorious angel of Ancestor cult-validating spectacle. Never-Ending Silence himself looks on grimly, immediately knowing exactly what this means, and being far too smart to give a real answer either way. Crazy as he no doubt is, given the reputation of his kind, it's in the quiet, canny, beneath-the-skin way that knows to pick the winning side when obvious and remain ambiguous until then. Many of the evacuating spectres stop when called out specifically, pausing their wrapping up to stop and stare and hang on Pavo's words, glancing back and forth between the Elites, their boss, and the cetacean landmass that could wake up at any moment, unable to quit the field just as a huge spectacle has broken out that is entirely unlike the usual dreary, repetitive life of a ghost.     There aren't enough of them to serve as a real army on Pavo's side, and they seem cowed and put off as the Nephwrack himself turns around in a whirl of leathers and begins chasing them off individually with orders and beratements, carefully wording his bite-sized tirades to be about dereliction and ignoring him, rather than loyalties, but there are enough hanging around the platforms, or at least not fully vacating the area in their boats, to form a broad ring of potential obstacles and able arms that could go either way, enclosing the grotto in a sort of arena of hungry eyes anticipating the spilling of blood and a shift in power.     "Well? You're here aren't you? Get to work. We'll have all the time in the world to discuss once I see some evidence that your wordss are genuine." he says, unsheathing the giant book at his side, and still carefully hedging his words such that they could technically apply to either side, but sound like he could only be addressing the listener. Truly, allegiances and Deathlords aren't quite as simple as they'd sound, especially where no leash of dark magic exists to enforce loyalty.
Azure Armature	"I believe I was clear, Gawain. This was always the plan. Elimination of the Deathlords - removing of the corrupt elements in the world. If you thought the solution was take the first more palatable set of words? The more finely-crafted platter of offal?" "Don't lecture me. I already know your side." She almost snaps, her shoulders setting. "Think back, and maybe you'll see. The Silver Prince has filled your head with convenient half-truths. Ones you don't want to see past." He extends a hand and Armature looks down at it. Oh, he's ready for a fight, but he's hesitating. "Deathlords cannot be killed by simply ending them. They will return. They must be ended, permanetly, and before that, must be killed. What weapon will you use against the Prince? Tell me, and I may believe you. Swear on your word that you, at this moment, have a weapon that will for-certainty destroy the Silver Prince and ensure your victory." "Conjure it from the air. Or reflect back at Lookshy. See it as it truly is." "Acceptable losses." Armature enunciates, bringing out a cylinder that seems vaguely like a sword hilt, with an activation stud and an emitter hole. "Without doing what needed to be done, the Mask would have two armies, and you would have no choice. Your luxury of conscience is granted at the cost of blood." With a flash of sapphire spiderwebs around her, resolving into circuitry that hangs around her body in a corona, Armature's hair fills with a healthy gold, and her face lifts in a bright, favored radiance. A sap-hiss of golden light spills from the cylinder, resolving a long, broad blade, etchig itself with a blue set of accents. A broad T-hilt opens up with energy, and it is unmistakeable. A Copy Excalibur. "I can swear to you that thing. The ultimate weapon against the deathlords is one you know the power of." She swipes the sword up, to fiercely slap away his offered hand - or worse, as it is a copy of the Holy Sword of Victory and a mailled hand. "Its name is Bloody Revelations, and you are in her way."
Ryouma Sakamoto	"Ah, thank you, thank you," Ryouma says, grateful.     But he'd expected that half a hour wasn't enough to evacuate a beast that size. Not if it was as vast a city as implied. Still, there are less of them in play to be used against the First Whale, and that's... good.     Hopefully.     But the Whale, predictably, hasn't stirred.     "Oryou, I need you to go handle that man with the glasses. He looks like he's readying something. I'll join with you shortly, alright?" Oryou nodnods.     As Ryouma leaps off the ship and onto the First Whale, his weapons appear at his side, motes of blue light forming into the sheathed katana and holstered revolver. "Ah, I don't know if you can hear me, o First Whale, but the ones who would see you slain or bound in chains are here. Your children won't be able to resist their call, but it'd be very inconvenient to us if you fell, too, so..."     So what? He's not sure what to ask.     MEANWHILE.     "Oryou's love love comet punch!"     A comet crashes onto Lezard.     No, wait, that's not a comet.     That's a dragon waifu trying to punch him in the jaw with sudden and absurd speed, coming from above.
Starbound Flotilla	With a glorious flash of brilliant light, Pavo flaps those big mechanical wings. A storm of feathers rushes around her. "And with poison words and weak tribute, they'll cry out that you should defend a lord who keeps the living in a cage, keeps you on a drip-feed of their prayers, and sends unprincipled so-called heroes to strike down the chance for a better, brighter, more plentiful tomorrow. Will you succumb to the will of a ruler whose greatest dream is a status quo?" She flickers with sudden motion, parrying the many strikes with a swipe of a gleaming cutlass, and those feathers fall to the shore. These ones aren't holographic, but rather the remains of an elaborate, refined nano-hyperglass array that enhanced her movements to avoid the strike from Tomoe!     "They are weak in will, weak in spirit, and weak in what they offer in prayers and sacrifice. But o noble dead, you know more than any! They are weak in flesh and bone as well!" Albert is surging up behind her, launching an array of drones from his vehicle, and pointing a laser targeting system right for Tomoe! Biteblade readies a heavy bow, launching a huge arcing shot, and it passes right through the array of drones that swirl behind Pavo like a halo, and then emit a massive gush of energy themselves. The combined attack takes the form of a massive energy strike wrapped around a thick conductive mag-bow bolt moving at unthinkable speeds, and looks like a strike from a god itself. A brutal first impact, followed by brilliant cosmic energies in a continuous beam. It's pointed right for Tomoe, and intends to follow her with the sustained blast! "Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?" "Diplomacy is about showmanship, to a degree, but they will not be insubstantial foes. Take caution, there may be more on the field than these two, and they are hardly a negligible wave to crest." "First impression's the best impression. Tear them apart." "Yeahyeah! We'll make tribute to dead with enemy blood!" "Conflicted. But, Tomoe? And Gawain, even...?" "They chose their side. Defending death-warlords earns consequences." "Well, just be careful you don't buy your own hype so hard you get slit." "Floran likesss how nephwrack friend talksss."
Lezard Valeth	The Flotilla is doing all the speeching that needs to be speeched. It's a good speech by Lezard's standards, but then he dramatically monologues all the time so his opinion might be suspect. No, Lezard is here to back up Starflot with power. Power enough to keep attention off Bloody Revelations. Hence when Oryou comes in with her punch, Lezard looks up and takes a waifu fist right to the face. There is a moment, perhaps, as Lezard might take some additional Irony-type damage from being decked by a Ghostly Waifu. However, this becomes an issue for the dragon-waifu as the forest of hungry eyes explodes out around him, rolling in a Dark Itano Circus that streaks in to collapse right onto Oryou in a wave of homing pains in the ass. Individually they're not all that bad, but in aggregate, well... "BEGONE!" Lezard yells, already gathering power for his attack while the counterstrike comes down.
Gawain	Gawain failed again. This time, in recruiting someone he thought would be a good ally. As she rejects his hand, summoning her own version of his sword, rejecting his hand, Gawain turns Galatine over, taking it in both hands. "I don't have any such weapon. You are right about that." Gawains wallows, as she moves to strike him. He quickly lifts up his sword, the blade sliding against his gauntlet and cutting into it, injuring his arm but prevented from cutting him open with that beam. "But Bloody Revelations isn't the only option! We can find another. I cannot abide what she's done in any way..." And then, Gawain pushes forward, metal on his gauntlet still burnt. He moves to push Azure Armature back with a swing of the sword, and move to slice into her if he gets a chance. This is a fight now. They will not be allies. "Nor can I accept the thought of her actions being 'acceptable losses'! You have a point that he would have just grown his army...but we still could have beaten him. I /know/ that we could have beaten him. Even if it took my life, the Mask of Winters would have been slain, and there would still be heroes." Mid-swing, Excalibur Galatine sets alight. Fire versus beam, clashing head to head. It's backed with superb swordsmanship, Gawain knowing the best timing, the best place to impact another blade or strike an opponent to wound them. "So, in the end, we'll have to fight. I will not allow you further!" Faith versus pragmatism. Gawain's not sure which will win...but he can hope.
Tomoe	Tomoe pops a number of her defence buffs right now as she knows the counter-attack is going to be coming back for her, she knows she in for a hell of a fight but the look on her face is like Stone. She takes the hit this a bright flash of light as the blasts hit her she brings up her shield with helps defect a good portion of the blast around her like a rock in a river making the water part around it. She's clearly been hurt but she's still standing. In reply to anything she says nothing, not sounds come from her lips at all of it. She lets Pavo keep talking even as the others do, and then she's moving rapidly with super human speed. She's already mentally going over which starbounder is the biggest danger. Seft is conflicted, Pavo is doing her cult thing, Biteblade is Biteblade. Moonfin is being himself it comes down to Albert and George. Albert would seem like the obvious choice, but that's not how she sees it. The old man of the Folitta is the dangerous one he's a man who has lived to be old in a line of work where you often /do/ not make it very long. He's the sort if you ignore him you'll end up in the ground. She'll spring on him launching into a Sword Art. The rapid powered strikes come fast, before she'll flip away and turn her attention to Albert, she'll attempt to Shield slam him into the ground.
Ryouma Sakamoto	"Oryou doesn't take orders from wizards," the floating lady replies, having stopped in mid-air after the punch to glare at the alchemist curiously.     She looks around, the gathering darkness a pretty good hint of what's coming. Oryou braces herself, and takes it on the metaphorical chin. Credit to her, she's... tough. Lezard'd be a fool not to notice the subtle cues - her inhuman eyes, her scaled scarf, her flight, her tone and accent. No, actually, the tone alone might be enough to tell Lezard she's a dragon, considering his history dealing with them in the Confederacy. If not that, just the way she feels, magically.     As attacks ram into her and she stands her ground (despite flying), the number of followers crashing into her is eventually too much even for her defenses. Bites draw darkened blood and pierce her divine clothing, which seems to annoy her quite a bit.     "Oryou will burn that magic away, then the wizard will just be her snack," she says, entirely too confident.     She flies back a few feet, to put the still-incoming attack and Lezard in the same cone direction, in front of her. She takes a deep breath, and then...     Breathes a cone of nasty-looking blue-black flames, which on top of being fire, also try to set Lezard's magical reserves ablaze, for maximum awful.
Azure Armature	Grinding up against Galatine, Copy Excalbur is a shockingly 'tangible' sword, reacting in all ways as a physical blade but humming with a tangible magical aura. Of course, Azure is more a knife fighter, not a swordsman, and doesn't have Gawain's physical power - even hampered, in the Labyrinth. So her impassive mask, lit by Gawain's own weapon-data power, draws close, towards the larger man, as the singing beam-blade and the holy sword clash and grind against each other. "Hope doesn't win wars. If you refuse to lie, then first stop lying -- to yourself!" Armature surges into a step-knee, before shoving her two-handed grip in her sword up and lateral - essentially a crackling two-fist punch to his face. As long as Armature can keep the fight in locked CQC, she'll retain the upper hand-! "You don't GET the point of acceptable losses, Gawain - you speak of it yourself! Lookshy was lost! At Revelation's hand or the Mask's, it would have been her army!" "You agree with me!" "Don't chase your foolish conscience when there are real costs on the line!"
Bloody Revelations	For being described as a 'ghost-behemoth', setting foot on Orcinus Rex himself, Ryouma finds his footing very much sturdy. He'd have no way of knowing that he is standing on something technically floating otherwise. Rather than something organic, it feels like standing on cold, water-slicked iron, walking on the hide of an immeasurably massive beast in torpor, once thought of as essentially invincible, before the Solars invented stranger weapons to slay it countless millennia ago. Even standing on its head, he can't see the blowhole responsible for that titanic blowhole from earlier anywhere around him. It's like a vast plane of smooth and rippled stone, broken up only slightly by pale coral growths and translucent algal buildup.     The whale doesn't respond audibly, but with a vibration through his feet; a torporous rumble that rattles his Servant bones all the way up to his inner ears, where the pulses of subsonic sound through his chest cavity and skull vaguely form geologically slow words.     m o v e ,   t i n y   t h i n g .   n o   s u c h   t h i n g   i s   p o s s i b l e .   t h e   S i n s   o f   D e a t h   a r e   a b s o l u t e .   m y   c r e a t o r   s t i r s   a t   t h i s   m o m e n t ;   H E   i s n o   f r i e n d   o f   S H E .     The footing beneath him starts to rumble in an entirely different way, this time caused by the unimaginable volumes of water sloughing from the great cachalot's sides as it glacially rises, even the slowest elevation causing mountains of seawater to fall from its sides at such height as to crash back down like raging waterfalls, creating boiling grey foam to every side. It looks like it's barely moving at all, due to the trick of scale, but Ryouma can see the waves created by the motion vanishing away as if he were on top of a turbo elevator. Some of the scaffolding snaps and crumbles away as the widening cross section of the hekaonkhire exceeds their limits, revealing endless tracts of inscrutable black patterns visible under its skin all up and down its flanks, like rippling murals of some aquatic scene devoid of any even vaguely human actor. The process of 'getting up', even slowly and reluctantly, rapidly doubles the amount of whale-island there is, and casts out miniature tidal waves that batter the coasts, boats, and platforms used by the Elites all around, driving away the spectres hungrily circling the place and hanging on Pavo's word.
Lezard Valeth	The fact that she simply MOVES the way she does is enough of a hint that Oryou is not what she appears to be. The Sorceror of Midgard grimaces despite watching the Followers pummel into Oryou. He follows it up with a couple quick blasts of bead-like, heavy Dark Magic like some kind of magical shotgun to try to ward he off. As one might expect though, Oryou is nimble and able to keep harrying the mage, which causes some problems for him, perhaps, as the incoming flames bathe him. There is a shout of pain as his body is burned... But not just his body, but his voluminous magic power. The energy scorches out of him, possibly more painful to him than his flesh being crisped a bit, as he hurls himself out of the fire in perhaps the least expected direction. Straight ahead. Lezard erupts from the flame, his clothing scorched and blackened, as he simply... tries to club Oryou over the head with the terrible, gnarled, thing. "You would not be the first dragon to say that to me, and you will not be the last." Lezard replies, hissing between pain-clenched teeth. The nerd hits a lot harder than it looks, though.
Starbound Flotilla	"Star Six, incoming!" "Urgent. George, look out!" "Ghhhh-- Shit!"     George sees her incoming. That blade's heading his way. He surges back on his bike, letting the metal of his quick-summon hoverbike blunt the impact. It slams hard into his armor, but with no edge to it, the sharpness of the blade having been spent slicing open the vehicle's engine. "Fuckin' hell, tough girl aren'tcha?" George rambles as he tumbles, then scrambles. "Take it easy! Don't you know I'm the EX secret endboss? You can't just go right for that fight, you gotta earn it kiddo!" He does his best to get out of Tomoe's comfort zone of close quarters, which is good, because she exerts that power slamming Albert head-on. But the monkeyman, despite being knocked clean off his hoverbike, isn't knocked off his feet! His reinforced science-armor and personal self-augmentation means he can stay standing, shoulder-checked against the shield, albeit a bit bruised.     "Ghhh... ARMSTRONG! You're still turned against the only option that stops the Deathlords. For what? A doomed city that committed diplomatic suicide. It got a faster death. You don't have the nerve to do what needs doing." He shoves his head forward, as if intending to crash against Tomoe's forehead over her shield. "You're not going to stop us. You're too weak. The moment the bodies pile up for the sake of what needs doing, you turn away and give up. You'd do the same for the Silver Prince." "Dutiful. George! Hold on!" "Get him to a distance that he can operate best from." "Not a big fan of dealing with her up close!" "And that is a fault in your own taste. I shall show you." "Star Two! Move in and strike!" "With pleasure."     Moonfin surges in from behind. He's taking advantage of the slam, and moving into a range he can deal with more, intent on striking and slicing Tomoe! "Fourth Sea Hylotl Style: Rapids Upon Harsh Stones!" He intends to move in with a flurry of blows, while Albert draws a heavy pistol and tries to start unloading around the shield! Pavo's drones unleash more laser death from above, whipping thin golden lines of pain around! Seft moves fast, trying to cover George's escape, while Biteblade ditches her hoverbike to start charging in, both heavy daggers drawn! She'll get here /worryingly/ quickly! "Shall you truly defend such a broken land's flaws? So deep and so vast that they become such monsters as this? We would purge this world of its monsters, and transform it through grander ambitions into something more beautiful, something greater than it has ever been. Armstrong, this is foolishness driven by what seems simply more heroic in the narrowest views and the shortest foresights!"
Ryouma Sakamoto	Ryouma regrets many of the decisions that led to him being communicated to via HIS BODY RUMBLING, because wow that was seven kinds of unpleasant.     Also kind of cool, judging by his giddy grin.     "Very well! My apologies for underestimating you, Father of Whales. I will leave you to your dealings and go do what I was tasked!"     What else could he do? Talk back to the giant whale that could casually crush him? Pass!     Way over there, Lezard whacks Oryou with his... staff? She doesn't bother blocking, because what's a puny little wizard going to do to her?     Oryou is pummeled straight down.     Lezard may as well have broken a few of her teeth, judging by the blood she spits when she stops herself. She looks furious, and incredibly surprised.     "A wizard couldn't hit Oryou like that. You're not a wizard," she concludes. No indeed, we all know Lezard is No Mere Mage.     But it isn't the dragon who delivers the next strike.     Ryouma leaps off the First Whale, drawing his katana. He comes in from above with an attempt to slash into Lezard's side, and before he can fall into the water, Oryou catches him into a princess carry.     "Ah, sorry I'm late, Oryou. Sorry, but I can't fly or walk on water, so would you mind?"     Oryou nodnods, and her hair sprawls out, strands of darkness that Ryouma seems comfortable enough to just... stand on. He smiles, angling his katana back towards Lezard. "That's better. My apologies for the sudden entrance. Might I know your name? Mine is Ryouma."
Gawain	The blade Azure Armature is using is strong. It's a copy of Galatine, after all. But Gawain does have more skill, as he pushes against her...in swordfighting, not in CQC. That's where she has the advantage. The two-fisted strike comes into his face, cracking his nose. Gawain staggers back, one hand coming off Galatine as the other moves for a guard with the sword, realigning his nose with a mixture of strength and healing as blood wipes onto his gauntleted hand. "Once I sacrificed hope and allowed my anger to reign. Once I sacrificed some of my ideals, and allowed my pride to get in the way..." Gawain suddenly pulls back, his legs powering up into a leap. "At Camlann, the kingdom fell." Gawain surges upwards and backwards, gaining distance from Azure Armature without ever turning his back on her. It should be difficult for him to get back to her...but he points Galatine in her direction. "It took me years to get over it, but I promised myself I'd never sacrifice my hope again! I'll continue believing, even if it won't win!" "Take this!" Suddenly, little thrusters on Galatine light up with flames, as the sword rockets Gawain forward, straight at Azure Armature. He moves to pierce her with the sword, trying to stop her CQC superiority and force her back into a swordfight, where he has the upper hand. The blazing orange light of Galatine moves to burn her in the impact, possibly even damaging her armor and creating openings for Gawain to expose. "And so, even if it's foolish, I'll still fight. What drives you, then?!"
Lezard Valeth	The underworld shakes around Lezard as he strikes the Dragon. Sadly, not even his ego can attribute that to his counterattack. No, instead it is something much worse. He slides back as the massive beast begins heaving itself up from the water, gritting his teeth at this complication. Hopefully, Bloody Revelations will have the cover they need in order to make this work, because Lezard is not equipped to stop Ryouma AND the horror. At least, not at this engagment range and time allotment. Still, there is the matter of Ryouma and Oryou. One (Two!) problem(s) at a time. "Did you think burning away a fraction of my power would keep me from harming you?" Lezard replies. There is a thrum of energies as Lezard begins using the Catalyst to draw up power around him, this time the bright lines of his own sorcery as he prepares his next assault. This earns him a slash across the chest. He might not be a Mere Mage, but he bleeds like a human at least, as crimson fluid splatters into the waters of the Netherworld. "Gggh!" He reels, floating back for a moment to recover himself as Man and Waifu reunite. "Lezard Valeth, Sorceror of Midgard." He replies dryly. "So, it is to be the both of you? So be it. LIGHTNING BOLT!" He cries, falling back on a Classic Wizard Spell. The Catalyst begins spraying out a massive series of crackling bolts, crashing down through Ryouma and Oryou's position.
Ryouma Sakamoto	Lightning, and with very little room to maneuver too. Of course, Oryou is a devout wife, and volunteers to take the magical bolts straight to the face so that Ryouma doesn't have to. As she uses her body as cover and puts the full might of her defenses before Lezard, the electrical scorches and burns her quite badly, dampened, just a nudge, by a field around her. Magic resistance of some kind? Probably not surprising to the alchemist.     But clearly not enough to matter against him either.     "I'm afraid it is," Ryouma says, glancing at Oryou. "Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods, refusing to show pain.     "It'd be rather neglectful of me to let her fight alone, after all," he says with a smile, sheathing his katana. "I would rather we not need to battle at all. I don't suppose I can convince you to withdraw?" It's always worth a try.     Ryouma quickdraws his revolver, and lets loose a single, flaming blue shot towards Lezard's chest! It's just a magically-punchy bullet.     It is, however, followed by a mass of Oryou's hair suddenly slithering all around the wizard to try to constrict him - and yet again, tap right into his massive magical reservoir. This time it feels less like fire and more like acid, as liquid shadows literally drip from the woman's hair.
Azure Armature	Gawain bids for distance out of the lock, leaping back across the wooden palisade and charging his power, and taking is measure as he does. With unnatural grace, Armature frontflips after him, her grip shifting to hold Copy Excalibur at her side in her left had, glove tight, as her right glove burns away on her palm, revealing a twinkling crystal, which begins sending out tangible 'beam shots', chasing him through the air with spiralling half-charged shots of amber essence. Gawain's power flares i response, and he renders unto the starmetal operative the cliff's notes of Camlann. "Your failures should teach you lessons, Knight of the Sun." "Pride has no place on a battlefield." He lands, and Gawain shows Armature what she already (vaguely) knew - that Galatine was more than a nice sword. With a rather ocular flash, both eyes flashing a light-lingering red as her right hand's fingers splay out, a three-sectioned barrier appearing before her to take the piercing strike. -- and with the shattering of glass and voxel chunks of her shield, rocket-Galatine keeps coming, Gawain attached. The sword comes in, and scrapes, and bites, and burns into Armature, but she spins as she's struck, bleeding off more momentum from the strike until it is just that: a strike. Not a finishing blow. Her backswing comes singing into reality, an off hand swipe born out of her tactical pirouette, burning through the air towards Gawain's shoulder. "You failed your mission because of your pride. Then, from that, you decided that hope was the answer?" "Pathetic. You were never a knight, then, if all that you weild is hope and ideals." Armature grips her sword tightly, pressing in again, her voice cold and scathing. "Or perhaps that is what Knights are. Paragons of romance and story. Not soldiers. A kingdom led by romantics will fall, because nobody is there to win the ugly battles. If you only do what's 'right', you'll never do all that's 'necessary'." Armature angles her sword down, pushing to be eye-to-eye with Gawain, her optics whirring narrow - obviously mechanical. Lines run down her face, small seams. Her skin glimmers like she had bathed in a fine crystal powder. "I am Azure Armature, Chosen of Estasia. I fight the battles that are necessary." "Get out of my way if you're not."
Lezard Valeth	The Magic Resistance of dragons are well known. Thankfully, few have it at a high enough level to stymie Lezard completely, and he zaps Oryou as is her duty as waifu to not let her husbando get goddamn electrocuted. She's very devoted. "I will not withdraw, but you are welcome to do so at your leisure." Lezard replies. "I have no need to kill you." His eyes suddenly widen at the production of the gun. The bullet fires, and Lezard is already trying to hurl himself out of the way. Sadly, he is not The One, and the bullet strikes him. He tumbles in the air, bleeding some more as he pauses, as if expecting something... When it doesn't happen, he almost seems relieved. However, Oryou follows that moment of PTSD weakness with HAIR ATTACK. The lash of the hair constricts around him, trying to lock him down and devour his energy. "Do you MIND!?" He yells, his body begins to dissolve under the onslaught, little sparkles rising into the air around him from some rather unpleasant interactions. "FIRE STORM!" He cries out, and there is a detonation that engulfs Lezard's hair-bound body. Again, he steps out of the flame, his expression grim. "You are TESTING MY PATIENCE!" He shouts. "DARK SAVIOR!" He cries, black blades manifesting all around the pair and diving in, striking in a seething hail of shadow-stuff to try to shred the pair.
Tomoe	The Iron Lily moves, Tomoe finds herself under assault from all side and she not shocked Albert isn't knocked down he's tough and he uses the name Armstrong, there's not even recondition of a name she does not really hold as her any longer. She listens to Albert as he keeps going and she's damn sure it's a distraction, a very big distraction when all is said and done. She shied as Moonfin is coming in after her and she'll be damn well aware. The laser from above is deflected her shield. Tomoe has Bit Blade to worry about soon. Which has opened her up to Moonfin she's caught up close there's a fury of blows some get through and cut into her body leaving jagged red lines in Moonfin's wake. They Starbounder do talk a lot, and the shots from Albert have taken a toll as well but she's still going, she's moving to get after George and speaks but not to them, more spell work? They have seen Tomoe tank, fight up close but never have seen her use much more magic than to 'pull' things. She's chanting again her voice is strong as she chants out the runes, what's she doing now? She's a Salamander they all have fire and she is no exception the magic this time is focused on Biteblade as pillars of flame explode outwards from her seeking out not only Bite Blade but the others of the Flotilla as well. If she's got this what else has she never used before around the Flotilla and their allies? Too weak to do what was done? She does not think about how many Laughing Coffin she helped kill the day, the Clearers and Army raided their hideout. She keeps such memories to the back of her mind and focuses on the fight at least she's keeping the Starbounders off her allies. She keeps moving to keep her weapons ready for all the good it will do her under this much assault. She is also certain if she falls they will finish the job. Her lack of talking in a fight is fairly aliens given what the Starbounders have seen of her. Or maybe she considers an attempt to engage in talking back an attempt to distract her to better take her down as she's trying to verbally engage with them.
Gawain	Azure Armature's blasts come flying at Gawain. He tanks most of them with his armor, holding them back, though one pierces his defense and really hurts him, causing a grunt. But in the end, he pierces, and goes in for a blow...that isn't quite finishing. But it's effective. Up until Azure Armature does a backswing into Gawain's shoulder, sword slicing into armor and impacting hard against the knight's shoulder. There's an oof from him, but he keeps going. "You're right. Pride has no place on the battlefield...and I am no soldier. But you're wrong about something." Gawain's sword suddenly moves up to push Azure Armature's back, before the knight clutches it with two hands and throws a power strike to push Azure Armature back, before flipping back into a one-handed stance and moving to strike again, a flurry of blows. "I am not pathetic, for if that made me pathetic, my king would be so, as would my kingdom. And they were not." The flurry of blows is suddenly spun around, as Gawain makes a round slash, straight into Azure Armature's chest. "I wield my kingdom even after it has fallen. It pushes me, and with your words, I do see 'clarity'. I see what this fight is, and I wear Camelot as a banner to help guide me." "This fight is necessary, because I cannot let Bloody Revelations succeed. And if you are with her, I can never let you succeed! However, Azure Armature, I make you a promise!" Another push of the blade... "If I survive this fight, I will find another way. I will push all my effort, all my resources, into finding a way besides Bloody Revelations. I will wield more than hope next time we meet. And I'll show you what how far a knight can go!"
Starbound Flotilla	Fireblasts. It was sort of something logically expected, but hardly one that they were looking out for. Biteblade takes the blast of fire dead-on, howling with a combination of tribal bloodlust and pain, but doesn't stop. Her body is visibly blazing with the heat of the impact, still aflame, but her armor is dousing as much as it can. Albert is blasted back, and to be honest, he's not the best in a close-quarters engagement either. Moonfin is much more resistant, able to slip to the side of the blast at him, though still not expecting it nearly enough to be able to dodge. Seft and George are protected behind Seft's tower shield, but Pavo is the one who descends hard from above. Biteblade, Moonfin, and Pavo are all engaging her in close quarters!     "Accustomed to the nature of games and their conflict, you see costs only in effort, not lives. And yet, as such games are wont to show, the prices for results are often higher than mere effort can buy." Moonfin says, flicking his blade through the air with a trailing mist of armor fire suppression to put out the flame on his body, before surging back in. "Fifth Sea Hylotl Style: Terrors of the Deep!" He rushes in for jabbing shots from below, meant to move the shield badly beyond what Tomoe can conveniently block with!     "Isss not easssy! But hasss to be done. Underworld isss much better! Floran hasss ssseen! Floran watched spooky friend transssform ghossst life into /better life/! Creation isss blech! Isss bad! Life in it isss no good!" She moves in, intending to tackle ONTO Tomoe's shield, latch on, and start lashing out with those daggers, making it incredibly hard to block or dodge!     "You want to stand up against the blessings we're here to make? I've always wanted to see if any old soul could get made into a ghost down here." Pavo calls out, descending with a heavy cutlass stab from above, and then launching into a flurry of swipes. "Get out of our way, blasphemer. You think these people don't deserve something better? Something more than the mess a bunch of jumped-up divinities afflicted them with? The trash-heap of a world made by self-righteous sons of bitches, who killed the makers of the world, declared themselves rightful, and turned Creation into a wreck of suffering? We've got one chance to make it better. If you want to get in the way of the blessings of a god to her people, I won't wait a moment to smite you."     "You're not going to fix this world by helping egotistical demigods playing house and arguing with each other just because it looks like it serves a heroic status quo. Every minute you spend on stopping us from making this place better, more souls die, more people are wiped out, more of this world gets lost to the fallout of a disaster of godly arrogance. Get /out of our way/, Sheena! The doomed and the dead deserve better than what you're condemning them to!" Every sentence is punctuated by a particularly brutal, heavy swipe of her power cutlass. This three-way attack is a constant rush from more angles than they hope Tomoe can deal with!
Ryouma Sakamoto	Fire shreds away Oryou's hair, causing - pain, apparently, because she snarls in more than just disgust as she withdraws the slithering mass of black and red tentacles. Oryou probably wouldn't latch onto Lezard's magic so much if he wasn't such an obviously threatening magical foe!     On the other hand she's seen not to underestimate him either. Her jaw still hurts.     Speaking of hurting, here comes the darkness. Ryouma's blade swings, cutting down one blob of shadow. Oryou's hands swipe, shredding one away. But they only have so much attention to spare, and Lezard has plenty of magic to fling. Shadows draw blackened blood from Oryou, as she struggles to use her hair as a shield for Ryouma. Some shadows still reach him and knock him off his... hair platform, an act followed by a tendril of hair catching him by the back of his collar.     "Ah, this is awkward," he says.     Oryou, for her part, just snarls at Lezard.     She is obviously very angry, and very protective.     One has to do with the other.     "Oryou will crush Lezard!" she says.     "Personally I'm just glad he doesn't NEED to kill us," Ryouma says.     The offensive belongs to Oryou this time. She surges towards Lezard, trying to catch both of his wrists with her hands and squeeze, hard, as flames (normal flames, for a change!) erupt from her body. "If Lezard likes fire so much, Oryou will show him hers!" she says.     Ryouma just dangles from her hair.
Azure Armature	Azure Armature and her full head of steam on her words, the predatory husk of someone who doesn't just think they're right, but is pleased by how a rather one-sided 'argument' is going. The power strike sends her back, as she has no choice but to cede ground, bringing up her blade to intercept the hammerblow - which avails her little, sending her tumbling back and into a flurry of further strikes, her body bobbing and sword flashing in defense. The sizzling clang of Galatine on Copy Excalibur resounds a few times, before it strikes something dark and hollow, and the sizzle isn't metal-on-laserblade or metal-on-metal, but metal-on-acid, as Galatine is stopped short of a mortal blow by a shadowy broadsword held in Armature's off-hand, her hair split down the center now with her right half a wheat gold, and the left half raven black. Her right blue eye and her red crimson one adjust themselves and track his roundslashl, blocking the staggering blow as she slides across the ground from her cross-block. One hand with Copy Excalibur, edged in blue and with body of glowing gold. The other hand with a Dark Copy "Excalibur", in actuality the shard of nothingness she had borrowed from Bloody Revelations herself, in a hungry black-and red. The blade is made of pure essence, without a Beamklaive as focus, but it's solid enough. "Tell me, Knight of the sun." Armature pants lightly, twirling Copy Excalibur once in her right hand before leaving it low, as her left hand pointed with Cryptcalibur, tip forward. "Did it save you at Camlann? Your determination? Did it save your king?" Setting her shoulder forward, Armature takes a stance with both swords over her right shoulder, power spiralling around the blades as lightning crackles among the weapons, veins of brass and orichalcum and verdisgris coloring her body as she channels not one, not two, but three D-Buster data patterns. One from a peerless knight of heroism. One from a maniac destroying avatar of death. One from a chained tropical storm hammered into the shape of a weapon. "And you're even wondering if you'll survive? If you stay, I'll not show mercy! So make good, Gawain! Make good on your word! Fix this world - or die trying!" The energy unlimbers, a crackling maelstrom of essence borrowed from many sources. "Release - D-Calibur!" The wood atomizes under her as she throws a cliche as shit roaring cannon of energy in a tight cone towards Gawain - and the fortifications behind him. And the terrain around them.
Lezard Valeth	Mental note: Oryou takes damage from hair destruction. Good to know. Still, for all that energy she's consumed, Lezard just seems to bring out more and more, energy surging around him as he begins to shine in the darkness of the Netherworld. Oryou comes in hard and fast, attempting to simply CRUSH THE NERD. Under normal circumstances this would be wildly successful. These are nor normal circumstances. Lezard does not seem to obey class advantage today, as the claws come down. She strikes at him, his body scorching from proximity as Oryou begins to show what she's capable of. He grits his teeth, his body beginning to burn as the claws come in to grip onto him for what would likely become a lethal dragon lucha attack. "Not today." Lezard chooses to meet it head-on, thrusting the Catalyst into the assault and striling Oryou in the chest, with a yell of effort and pain, he twists, diverting the dragonwaifu over his head as his other hand drags out something from a twist in space... And then there is a loud WHOOMP as the Philosopher's Stone hammers upwards, air-juggling the pair into the sky on a powerful impact like they just hit a pinball bumper. The Stone comes down, flipping open as Lezard begins channelling all of that power into an expanding magical circle. "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He cries out as the ecstasy of magic floods through him. "BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!" After that, he begins to intone.             "If ye trust that thy eternal bonds may be broken,"                        "then let my words be as a vengeful blade upon thee!"             The magical signature is apparent... But it doesn't come from Lezard. It comes from above, the starry, maddening non-sky of the Netherworld, as a massive blade hisses into existence. A glowing, rune-covered spear of massive proportions that begins spinning, twisting through the sky and orienting down upon the pair.                               "COSMIC SPEAR!"                               The massive magical lance strikes down with seething destruction, the runes glowing hot as booster flames propel it down to strike at the pair in a dramatic angle.
Tomoe	Tomoe is just being smacked about she's fighting five on one right now and knows she'll be overwhelmed she does not give in or back off on it as they come and soon she's into close quarters with them as they keep talking at her. She keeps fighting matching blows but there are so many of them coming. Moonfin dares to think he knows what goes through her mind or how she sees the world. She kept fighting, she moves she shield and shift blocking several of his strikes as Biteblade comes in. Tomoe knows how up close she likes to get as the attack comes she's struck she's hurt more and she keeps going and she's able to shake her shield lose after a moment as Pavo is now coming for her. She is also very worried where is George he's likely got a sniper rifle and she's going to be in his sights soon if she's not so already. THe powered attacks come in, and Tomoe is able to block several of them. Still, she's being worn down and she's not sure how well her allies are fairing it's not looking very good. She hears every word they say it's clear she's paying attention there's a slight look on her face of horror. She readies another sword art, she has a plan but she'll need to buy some time for it with this one. Her blade glows and she'll end up launching herself into several attacks, going for Bite Blade and Moonfin. As for Pavo? She'll throw her Shield at her like a boomerang and hit or miss the thing will return to her.
Ryouma Sakamoto	What Lezard has also learned today, is that an angry Oryou seems to be rather more reckless. Going straight for him was probably a major mistake! Not only does she fail to inflict any lasting amount of damage to him, for all the effort she put into crushing his hands and wrists, but Lezard's taken personal offense at it.     And that's a lot of magic.     A startled Oryou, with no time to prepare a proper defense, just takes the spear to her chest, interposing herself between Ryouma and it. As the spell grinds against first her magic resistance, the field shatters like glass. And when it grinds against her natural hardiness and divinity, it penetrates.     Oryou drops Ryouma, who actually ends up wasting not insignificant amounts of magic to land on the water instead of splashing down. He catches Oryou, hole in her chest, with a concerned look. She's unconscious, and Ryouma raises the proverbial white flag.     "Ah... mister Valeth, I'd rather hate to see what you're like when you DESIRE to kill someone. But I believe that'll be everything out of us today!"     No sense losing their lives over this.     Ryouma burns some more magic to make fancy leaps away, withdrawing to the ship that brought them there in the first place.
Gawain	Azure Armature means business. As she pulls out the second sword, and activates that energy, Gawain swallows. Her words ring in his ears as she fires up that cannon. 'Did it save your king?' No, it didn't. Gawain knows that. But as he pools over those words, he realizes something. He had set his all into Camelot. And now he had set his all into stopping Bloody Revelations. This was what he swore to do as a knight. He failed once...but he's changed. He's learned, in his own way. He cannot fail again. Gawain cannot die here. Energy starts to swirl around him as the beam flies forward, as Gawain suddenly moves to throw his sword into the air. "Excalibur...Galatine!" As it flies upwards, a miniature sun is formed, and a ray of light strikes down from the heavens. Gawain clutches it, using it as his sword. And then, he swings it forward, just barely in time to intercept Azure Armature's powerful blast. His armor is burnt and melted in the process, even reaching his skin, but the result is incredible. A massive beam of sunfire flies through the region, pushing Azure's beam back. It pushes it back with fiery strength, all of Gawain's strength put into it, moving to diffuse her beam and stop any more carnage. The terrain melts around it, wooden scaffoldings possibly tearing apart, as the fiery beam might even pour diffuse back onto Azure Armature. "I will! I've pledged my sword to Creation...I can't let it down now!" And when the two beams inevitably die down...Gawain desummons his sword, taking a breath. As quickly as he came, he moves to retreat, and moves to allow Azure to do so as well. He's got things to think about. Things to do. Gawain has to find an ultimate weapon. One to surpass the power of Bloody Revelations as the only possibility.
Lezard Valeth	It was something of a risk to hurl magic of this level against Ryouma and Oryou. If she was able to marshal her resistance against the spell and deflect it, he'd be left with little recourse afterwards. It was something of a gamble, one he only engaged in because the opportunity presented itself. As the sparks and remanants of his magical power seethe around him, he breathes heavily, that kind of sorcerous discharge is nothing if not taxing... But he does look on to Ryouma as he catches the heavily wounded dragon. He nods to the sharp-dressed man. "I would much prefer to not have to show you. Good day, Ryouma." He says, trying to remain nonchalant as the man withdraws. It's then that he allows his shoulders to sag, sighing as he exposed some of his fatigue. "That was entirely more exhausting than I hoped." He mutters. "Where does the Multiverse GET these people?" The other battlers doing their thing, Lezard falls back, instead moving to a support position to see if he can help Bloody Revelations with that magical ritual. He might not be directly trained, but he's an evil genius occultist. Maybe he can just throw more energy at it if nothing else.
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo, Moonfin, and Biteblade just keep it up. Strike after strike after strike. Pavo's knocked off her feet by impact, but a quick burst of her wings brings her back up onto them. Moonfin and Biteblade are in firm blocks when she strikes at them, suffering strain to their arms but little else. They just keep up the pain, leaping into and out of her range and never giving her a moment to breathe. Impact after impact after impact, they keep it up like a drumbeat. They can't possibly sustain this forever, not at this level of exertion, but that'll be little comfort to Tomoe right /now/.     "Third Sea Style: Unending Storms!" Moonfin calls out, raining blows from above now. "Have you no principles by which you condemn the ghosts to prayer-starvation and bargaining for sustenance, the mortals to a life of pain and lack, the land to desecration and decay? Have you no reason, no words?"     "Floran doesssn't need wordsss! Jussst need sssalamander friend to /go/! Floran isss gonna make sssuch good, ssstrong place! Not bad awful Creation where everyone isss unhappy!" Biteblade speaks with happy confidence, leaping off the shield to batter at the blades and swipe at Tomoe's arms.     "Fall." Pavo mutters. "Fall. Fall! FALL! Get out of my way! If you're so blindly loyal to some feudal deathlord, you can have a taste of what's on his menu!" She strikes in the gaps of Moonfin's own strikes, trying to take Tomoe off her feet.     George isn't the one setting up the sniper rifle. No, it looks rather different, over in the distance, out of the corner of Tomoe's eye, it's Albert rapidly mad-sciencing heavy artillery equipment, an emplacement that's beginning to glow and crackle with lightning and a concerningly brighter and brighter light.
Tomoe	Over party chat she knows the battle is lost there's nothing they can do at this point, she had planned to try to tire the Starbounders out and then go in for the kill, or if her allies had carried the day, she'd have had a chance there. She's attacked again and again she hears them. She keeps fighting. One moment she's parrying an attack, the next she's blocking them. She was right about there being a sniper but not who. Pavos own strikes are intercepted, but there come the heavy weapons the blast seem to consume Tomoe, when it fades she's still standing but no looking too good there's digital wounds. She finally speaks. "You speak the name of a dead woman, who died long before you ever unified." With That Tomoe will turn to depart as fast as she can move she does not trust the offer to run form any of them save for Biteblade. She has three seconds of flight time in a place like this, she'll flare out her wings nad use it to get that burst of speed to help get her the heck out of here after her fleeing allies.
Bloody Revelations	Like all endbosses do while the party is just reaching the end of Disc 1 yet, Bloody Revelations stands back at a distance that is casually unreachable while also fearlessly close and ominously hovers in the background to watch her minibosses do the fighting. Where the titanic waves of rising Orcinus Rex crash over her, they part violently on an invisible globe of force, blasting to either side of her under her own momentum, no doubt pre-cast. Ethereal midnight 'feathers' of more metaphorical than literally iconographic description drift away and disintegrate from her mid-aerial position from some passive exertion of magic that isn't quite obvious, but she makes no move to interfere. It looks like her side is winning. Not as much as she wants, but enough that watching and assessing this preliminary skirmish of Elites is more valuable than butting in.     Despite the fact that Ryouma is ultimately driven off though, his words by far ring the most true for the more than slightly 'off' residents of the Ocean of Unending Night, and their whale fortress in particular, more concerned with the spectacular violence and dazzling displays of baleful holy power and terrifying dark magic than they are the philosophy of a distant warlord they've never met and a distant witch legendary for her transcendentally radical ideas. Most of them quit the scene en mass, fleeing the rapidly escalating catastrophe as their shanty scaffold crumbles under even the collateral errant blows of the conflict, as well as the stirring of Orcinus Rex himself. They don't stick around to be swayed by Bloody Revelations, escaping into the dark, geometrically uncertain 'corners' of the dimensionally nebulous super-grotto, leaving behind only the skeleton crew ambitions and bold enough to see how it plays out.     She doesn't go after them, because the prolonged battle, even if it is considered only a heroic stall, is both in the way and demanding of attention. Theoretically, the Deathknight might track them down later to enslave them individually, but everyone here should know better than that; if she bothers with them, it will be for revenge for turning away from her, not to make them useful. The Silver Prince won't have them, but neither will she at this point.
Starbound Flotilla	The blasts from the artillery chase Tomoe. Pavo shouts more urgent screams of smiting rage, rising on shimmering wings and calling down more bolts herself with a judging finger pointed contemptuously towards her. "Then let's get you back together with her, you insolent little blasphemer!" She calls out, sending blast after blast, but still unable to keep Tomoe from retreating. The others, for their part, are well content with letting Tomoe leave.     Once she's clear, Pavo swirls dramatically, creating another fresh fall of those same holographic feathers with their dramatic bone markings. "Hear me, o noble dead! We are not weak like the impotent, feuding lords! We are not held in reality's vise like the coward creators! We are not blinded by the useless sun, we do not step backwards from civilization in the moon's fear, we do not serve outdated mortal powers for our bloodline, we do not /scheme/ and /plot/ like the Exalted!"     Her holography grows ever grander, as an array of gems behind her display a tremendous halo that looks like the inscriptions of a mesoamerican ritual. "We are here to strike the heart of the plague of Creation and the Underworld both! We are here to bring all souls into a light that will give them every chance to exceed the flesh and the spirit! We are here to give the dead all they have long been due from an unjust world, until every debt is paid! Will you cling to loyalties to a status quo? Or will you rise to the call of our Bloody Revelation of a greater future? Will you stand as noble dead ought, and take what you are owed?"     She's in her Madness Place, and you can see it in the blazing amber fire in her eyes. It doesn't matter how convincing she might be, if at all, to her, not when half the joy is in saying what she feels in the first place.
Bloody Revelations	The Hekatonkhire itself is a different matter. Where Orcinus Rex rises further from his deep stasis, his revealed length has grown to an easy *three miles* and counting, giving glimpse of glowing lights along his flanks, six tremendous fins, and an a four-split tail that adds an almost prehistoric, prototype air to what could vaguely be compared to a sperm whale for the massive teeth visible even from his closed jaw, jutting out from the water's surface. Where Ryouma makes a canny retreat from the field with practical knowledge of Lezard, Tomoe follows away from the Flotilla's combined assault, and Gawain swears upon his new goal, Bloody Revelations finally begins to advance closer, summoned 'wings' shifting in fourfold configuration, but not beating in any way as she glides as if along a severance of gravity.     "Adequate." she decides, in a way comprehensible to the Elites that had done battle on her behalf, giving no pats on the back for ideological victories out of her sense of self-evident right-ness. "We will have words about why those ones were already here at just the right time, because they will be there again, and there will be more of them." she intones, dark and level. She drifts to a stop before the gargantuan multi-kilometer cetacean Behemoth, floating high enough to be level with its blank, luminous eyes. As ridiculously tiny as she is by comparison, when the two are so close to each other, the 'evil aura' that comes off of her is more than comparable, giving a vague impression of her being 'bigger' somehow. Never-Ending Silence bows as she drifts past, but she pays him no mind.     f r a g i l e  h a l f  d e a d .  H E  w i l l  n o t  g i v e  H I S  b l e s s i n g  e a s i l y.     "I expect less than nothing from the Perfected Principle of Consumption, dear friend. He is too invested in his protoge --his toy-- and all the gifts he has showered upon him with only promises to show for it. Nobody would admit a lost cause like that. I have heard him dreaming. I know of his dissatisfaction and his rages. Whatever the parasite that leeches off his generous beneficence is up to, he keeps so secret, even from me, determined to see it finally work, but I know it will not happen soon enough to please him."     "The fraud is complacent. Meek. Content to fiddle with dolls for as long as it takes, a thousand years or more if necessary, safe and slow and pathetic and unassuming, relying on weak wills, silvered words, and the charity of his enemies. He isn't satisfied. I know it. All that effort for his prized servant just to slack off and enjoy the good life. It's terrible, isn't it? But he'll see it my way. Once I give him everything he wants, just like that, he'll change his tune. I just need to know *what* the fraud is up to that he would never Whisper to me."     "Besides. As much as I feel for him, as much as I owe, as deserving and worthy as he is of better, as much as the negligent toy 'Prince' has failed him, I gave my heart to her, and she wills it. These things are for the Neverborn to work out, not us; not you and me~ Let me introduce you to the others. My darlings. You can be one of them, for a little while~ A page in my legend, deserving of a glorious place in the midnight oceans you will swim, on the other side of Oblivion."     "Let's talk."