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Bloody Revelations     With 'possibly one of the most competent and insiduous Deathlords on the map' with 'general competence and vast resources and infrastructure' taken out of the picture, things are on a roll. It also seems to be time to bounce back to one that Bloody Revelations holds in utter contempt (more than the usual grade). One she expects to knock off the table quickly enough to be 'the last piece' before the others less astute than the Bodhisattva start taking notice and get serious. She also seems to believe that the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears possesses something or other that will make that fact some irrelevant; some snowballing chess piece that will allow the team to challenge the other Deathlords directly, almost head to head.

    Despite apparently having a critically low opinion of the Lover, though, it still isn't quite the case that she'll suggest kicking down the doors to her private citadel and picking a fight with her in the throne room. For one, she doesn't quite trust that the Lover has *actually* been doing sweet fuckall for a couple of centuries, as it would be an extremely convenient facade for everyone else to believe. Two is apparently that she has the second greatest number of constantly active Deathknights with experience out of the whole bunch. Three is that she (very very begrudgingly) admits that the Lover is apparently an actually hypercompetent Necromancer of some stripe, and she wants to be able to prepare targeted countermeasures.

    As far as it goes though, the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears seems to have very few holdings of note. Bloody Revelations intends for the Elites dead set on purging the Deathlords regardless of method to hit up each one of her operations, some of them small, some of them larger, to glean whatever information they can, and take whatever small footholds and sabotages are available.

    That is all necessary explanation of why the *fuck* you are headed to a circus of all damn things. A traveling circus in the shitty-ass cold north. At the very least, it's the northeast, caught between the Elemental Poles of Air and Wood, so it's less of an icy wasteland and more of cold steppes and still-frosty boreal forests, but it's disappointing that it didn't even have the dignity to be a grand carnivale in a major city with lavish accommodations and snacks.

    Though, for a traveling circus in this crappy, cold, rural, flat, relatively barren climate, what you end up running across, stopped in a small, rustic, obviously fairly poor farming village, is far from expectations. A circle of a dozen huge wagons has been parked around a series of impressively large silk pavilions, in of themselves circling the smoke of a great bonfire that manages to warm the whole area to 'above zero' in the proximal township, and to a toasty degree past the wagons. Signs have been hammered into the ground and banners hung from poles with elaborate script declaring "THE CIRCUS MORIBUND: Exotic entertainments, pleasures, and thrills beyond compare! All comers welcome to the circus seen all across Creation!"

    Those expecting clowns and lion tamers will be either disappointed or impressed, depending on their inclinations, because neither tame and hackneyed entertainment is to be seen. Even just from the first cursory entry, clouds of opium smoke and unrecognizable drugs waft through the humid air, between-act cages are filled with the hulking shapes of bizarre chimerae and twisted, goblinesque humanoids in captivity. Stands give out platters of absurdly luxurious comfort food, like the kind one would see at an opulent feast, for flat out free, and a pit dug in the ground is clearly host to what appears to be a bout of gladiatorial combat. The sounds coming from some of the tents are even less reassuring. There is a persistent tingle of . . . unwholesomeness about it. It's not the heady fumes of liquor and narcotics and even of blood, but something distinctly more supernatural.
Haguro It's been a bit since Haguro last worked with Bloody Revelations. She had gotten herself killed in the last campaign, but with the new gear and increase in her fighting capabilities since then, the Cruiser is feeling much more confident in her ability to function in a fight!

So of course the first mission is to visit a circus. To be fair, it's not a conventional circus by any means, and everything about it screams shady, but it's still a circus in name.

That's why Haguro is doing her best to fit in, snapping pictures of everything left and right while dressed up like a tourist. Her guns are hidden inside large coat sleeves that make her look vaguely like a homeless person, but having clean hair and brightly colored sneakers alleviate that somewhat.

First things first: Trying to figure out what the main attraction of this whole thing is. Haguro looks for signage, ticket booths, larger concentrations of people, anything she can straight up see that might be drawing more attention than the rest.
Lezard Valeth Lezard Valeth is, of course, on board with murdering more Deathlords. The more of them that die, the easier it will be for him to make use of the power of death in his own special way. What does he care if Creation slides into Oblivion? It's not like he lives there.

He arrives at the circus in question, undeterred by the cold. Such minor things are not the concern of a sorceror. He doesn't partake of the food. He doesn't ogle the deformed creatures. He doesn't observe the bloodsport for more than a moment as he walks through the area, his nose and ears telling him plenty even before he opens his senses to the local flows of energy.

This is quite obviously some form of honeypot for ignorant dupes. The question is mostly what form it truly takes.
Starbound Flotilla "Leave this one to me. I'll call you when I need you."
"It would be wise that we allow him this moment."
"Huh? Why?"
"Clowns."
"Confused. What?"
"Clowns."

    George is here, to visit the Circus Moribund. He's not especially disguised, but he doesn't stick out around here anyway. He can wander in, look like he's terribly fascinated by everything, and look around for the beating, awful heart of this. Not with his eyes, but with his ears. Haguro's got their focus on the infrastructure, but George is looking for the people. Specifically, the performers that speak with authority, the things being played up most by the callers, the most enticing scams and shows, the sort of things that make up the signals dancing between the nerves of this whole matter.

    But particularly, for some reason, he examines the bonfire. As if the heart of the place could be found in its heat, and as if it would all dry up the moment he calls in some swarm of ships to dump water on the whole thing.
Staren     Staren is a robot today, although with the need for stealth he doesn't wear armor -- rather, a vaguely military-looking outfit including a white coat and boots and black pants that hopefully makes him look like an off-duty soldier who happens to be suspiciously clean. Also, it was simple enough to detach the tail and put on normal ears so he looks human.

    Staren's not sure what he really expected. Bloodsports? A menagerie of necromantic creations? Well, okay, it sounds like they've got the bloodsports but they're also... just giving stuff away for free?

    Staren tries to imagine the various ways this could be used. Revel gave him safe food in the underworld that one time, but that doesn't mean there /can't/ be cursed food that binds people to a necromancer's will. And of course, partaking in... activities not only potentially spills fluids usable for sympathetic magic, but might have ritualistic significance. Staren flips on his essence sensors and looks around for any suspicious flows to follow -- Failing that though... all he can do is wander around looking for anything that seems... mystically suspicious. If he can find someone who looks local and isn't... busy, he'll introduce himself as a traveler, admit he's never seen the circus before, ask them if they've seen it before and what their favorite part is so far.
Azure Armature There's a lot of excellent reasonings, plannings, and buildups that lead the group to...

The Circus.

Indeed, no small amount of prep had gone into infiltrating... the Circus... and when the group arrives, through the strange mists of drugs and booze and supernatural sex magic (at... the Circus...) there's a shimmer in the air that looks more like a moving mirage than any cloud of drugs. One of the strange Circus Hookers hanging around is stalked up to by the moving mirage, and...

Throttled? And dragged behind a tent.

Then, reverse-fading into view, Azure Armature (in a Cliche Dancer/Entertainer garb) adjusts one of her armlets, frowning, with most of her lightly-glittery-blue skin visible.

It probably looks just exotic enough to pass as normal in this strange fairy fuckfest carnival of...

Circusry.

"I don't recommend eating, smoking, drinking... or breathing. If you must, report any strange feelings you begin to feel."
Bloody Revelations     It'd be difficult to say what a 'main attraction' is. Heading further into the circus grounds, it quickly unfolds into a chaotic wonderland of festivity and debauchery, the air charged with intense, tingling, palpable excitement, wonder, tension, and even a little bit of fear at the same time. Once past the tends, it becomes intentionally disorienting and difficult to get a lay of it, closing off all view of the village and most of the position of the sun in the sky, laid out with the science of a casino to make a visitor lose track of how long they've spent there.

    Except it doesn't seem to be there to squeeze pennies out of peasant pockets. If anything, the lack of toll or ticket booths, registers or safe boxes, is genuinely suspicious. The stalls and lines and exhibits take a pittance even a farmer can call 'a month's pocket money', claiming it's all they need for operation, though no doubt the village feeds them while they play host. George can walk right up and claim tender veal, southern spices, tropical vegetables in honey, exotic caramelized fruits, and vintage wines worth hundred of credits, without question, from almost manically smiling carneys with half masks or painted faces. Even the gambling houses, full of cards and roulette and mah-jong and tile games, are rigged the *opposite way*, giving the villagers a taste of unrealistic odds and hot streaks that leave them addicted to playing.

    The direction of the crowds is a racket, disorienting and mystifying on purpose. Men and women, all of them extremely attractive, direct any who will listen to view shows of exotic beasts from across Creation and Wyld-tainted chimerae and physical oddities and novelties, to watch bloodsports between barbarians of the north, savage tribesmen of the east, pirate raiders of the west, and desert warriors of the south, even having gladiators as exotic as a Lintha or Hobgoblin or two in what seems to be a state of trance, even competing against giant beasts. They call to decadent dens of powerful and rare narcotics, bringing to this tiny, backwards, and uninitiated village a taste of the lifestyles of satraps and sultans.

    There are shows of elaborate and even superhuman acrobatics, sorcerous tricks, acts obviously assisted by summoned lower demons presented as perfectly tame and safe to villagers who don't know better than to question it, and absurd escape artistry, sword juggling, and freakish contortionism. It seems there are more than a few tents filled with expert courtesans and escorts as well, only a few for things as harmless as decadent tea ceremony and gambling, and others quite clearly for luring men and women away from their wives and husbands for inappropriate and enthusiastic orgies. Nobody here seems to think it the least bit strange. They're enraptured. Enthralled. Unnaturally so.

    Staren's question is almost useless. The villagers all appear to be totally overwhelmed by so many things that they'd otherwise never even dream of experiencing in their lives. They rave, ramble, even practically gibber about what they've seen and experienced so far with wide eyes and ecstatic faces, a great deal of them extremely high or drunk. Many of them try to tug him along to one of the tents or another, cultishly trying to include him. It seems only the children are kept out of the worst of it, and then only just barely, and only by the parents still paying attention.
Bloody Revelations     Lezard doesn't find that there is so much a sort of ambient magic, but that each display, each performance, each enthralling singer and bawdy blood show, is home to a subtle and insidious sort of low-key mental influence, the perfectly practiced motions and sights and sounds themselves part of a sort of pseudo-magical ritual into which ecstatic observance and the suppression of higher thought is subtly woven in. It's not really the channeling of Essence itself, but a sort of 'low magic' collective ritual designed by some exceptionally gifted architect of bending minds for its sheer complexity.

    Nobody notices Agent 47^5^5 Azure Armature dragging an 'exotic dancer' off. The whirl of mad colours and music is already too much to keep track of. It doesn't take long for her to start getting hassled by intoxicated men for her time. Staren's Essence sensors, in fact, pick up on only three significant sources; there are two minor sources of Death Essence, one at the arena, and one preparing what looks . . . uncannily like an execution stage, and one major source seated at the top of a colourful little windmill tower, dressed head to toe in festive red gymnast clothes, her face covered with a porcelain painted mask, watching the scene unfold. Her eyes are immediately tilted towards him. She motions vaguely towards the gladiatorial Essence source, who subtly nods, and he sends out a couple of burly looking . . . beastmen? in ill-fitting carnival attire and festive masks towards Azure Armature.
Lezard Valeth Lezard does not fall for the siren song of this debauchery. Most of it is simply overdone in his opinion, he was never much for games of chance, and let's just say his other interests are VERY SPECIFIC. While not spartan by any means, he knows better than to partake in the delights here.

As he sees the shape of the subtle ritual workings, the way everything is designed to keep people lost in the neverending carnival, the Sorceror's fingers twitch. Something about this bothers him on a deep level despite the marvelous complexity and skill needed to do this in such a manner, and it inclines him to solve this problem.

Explosively. The presence of the rubes mean nothing to him, of course.

Bloody Revelations advises him about the situation. It gets worse? Oh, of course it gets worse. This is a mere shadow of the powers of the Lover, undoubtedly. This will not be the same battle as that agasint the Silver Prince. Not at all.

but it is time to put them to the test. As he stands amidst the crowd, he reaches into the space between space and withdraws the Philosopher's Stone. It flips open before him and he spreads his hands, engaging in his usual blatant behavior as he openly begins dragging in Essence from the surroundings, the magical circles drawing themselves below as he speaks.

"This travesty has gone on long enough."
Haguro Haguro gets lost in the throng of people going about the circus and enjoying themselves, distracted by all the confusing and weirdly exciting sights before her. It takes her a fair bit of time just for her to extract herself from it all, the temptation to just stay in there a while longer not going entirely unheeded by Haguro. Alas, she has allies counting on her, and they've been warned of the danger already, so she's able to pull herself out of there!

Her attempts to figure out where everything starts and ends just leaves her more flustered than before, though. Just where is she supposed to even look? The distances between everything doesn't make sense, and she can't even tell how long it's been since she last spoke with the group.

That very confusion, however, is what makes the most sense to her so far. The actual location might not make any sense, but Bloody Revelations' warnings about the Lover's methods have some of the pieces falling into place. <<"If she shows everyone what they could experience here, she could win them over willingly instead of relying on conquest and death.">>

Undeterred by her initial confusion, the Cruiser ventures further into the congregation to try and figure out if they're moving in any particular patterns towards something, or if they really are just going every which way towards nothing. She does this all despite hearing something going on somewhere vaguely behind her, too. Lezard did mention fire, but surely he meant it figuratively!
Staren     No eating, breathing, smoking, or drinking? Staren gives AA a thumbs-up.

    It is kind of disturbing how everyone he talks to is too high to be coherent. How does this not bother any of them?

    Somehow, he suspects that this circus never comes to the same town twice; it's worse than he feared, there's probably nothing left of the people after.

    Death essence, though... at least that's a trail he can follow. For now he makes his way through the crowd, gathering a plate of food so at a cursory glance people might assume he's eating, and settles in in the vicinity of AA, watching those beastmen to see where this goes.
Starbound Flotilla     George lights up a cigarette, and begins to smoke. "Well, I'm down to go the red licorice approach if you are, Val." He mutters. "Excuse me if I don't go all fire and brimstone for it though, yeah?" And he moves to do what George does. With his own cigarette full of combat regeneration stimulants instead of narcotics, he keeps more of a clear head but blends into the drug-addled crowd. He shift in and among people, and does the one thing that one should never do around the drugged and disoriented.

    He starts doing his god damndest to give them a bad trip.

    This place is almost solely defined by the mood and atmosphere. But what if that were spoiled? Knock a torch down onto someone disoriented, and then scare the living daylights out of them by telling them their skin is coming off. Find someone intoxicated badly among fine silks, and then ask them worriedly about where those insects came from. Make terrible thoughts. Build awful ideas. He looks as much as he can for unattended food, and poisons it badly with drugs that ought not be mixed. He looks for open and poorly-secured show equipment, and tries to find important pieces to remove. This is a matter of atmosphere; if he can get the most vulnerable into an awful state of mind, he can make sure the place turns into a violent, horrible stampede the moment Lezard hits the threshold, or perhaps even before.
Azure Armature It's not every day that you get to dress up in slinky exotic silks and walk around friendzoning random people who come on to you super drunkenly.

The first one gets led off and immediately tazed and left in a heap of laundry. The second is led off in another direction, is laid out on some pillows, and then Azure mentions she needs to 'get something' fun and wordlessly leaves through the back of a carnival flap.

It's a ballet of diffusing attention while 'blending in', though to those clued in - or with a bird's eye view - her wake is more direct, her pace less compromising, and her tone more clipped than any real entertaier. Then, advancing on her, are a knot of Tough Customers. The Help.

Trogs, basically.

There's no attempt made at playing a bluffing game with the local guards - as they approach, perhaps lifting a hand to get Armature to stop, she grabs it, twisting unnaturally as she moves within the beastman's instep and sweeps out his footing with a twisting shove. The rest are similarly dispatched, a rapid set of motions leaving broken arms or shattered knees and a lot of idiots laid out on the ground with steps, locks, and throws.

Lezard prepares to Go Loud, and Armature makes a vague gesture at George and Staren.

"More security will be coming. If you've found their spotters, take them down. Proceed with neutralizations." She mutters into her earpiece before kneeling down and peeling off one of the masks and rifling through the pockets of the guards, picking them up and dropping them unceremoniously while doing so.

In the middle of the Circus.

Fuck carnies.
Staren     Staren's ready to pounce the beastmen, but Armature has a better idea:

    'If you've found their spotters, take them down.'

    Staren lifts the plate like he's going to fling it at the beastmen... then drops it and, fast as he can, draws his pistol and fires a double-barrel, three-pulse burst at the masked lady.

    Okay, it probably won't kill her, but maybe he can at least get the benefit of a surprise attack?
Bloody Revelations     When Azure Armature goes judo-mangling the muscle, rather than getting shocked gasps and panic, the delirious carnival goes form a circle to begin cheering and applauding at the sight, whistling at the violence. They don't seem encouraging, so much as the spectacle itself of a dancer leaving hulking beastmen writing in agony on the floor is itself inherently pleasing; something that they wouldn't see anywhere else, as is the whole pitch of this morbid circus.

    And morbid it is. The crowd of rustic farmers goes up in roaring applause as a Lintha gladiator defeats his opponent, and then begins gorily hacking his limbs to pieces, chopping his screaming opponent into ragged ribbons, suddenly turning the fight into an execution. Even as far as executions go, the platform set up before is being *used* for one. An obvious Wyld mutant, one of the Icewalkers who had probably survived the shattering of the Golden Bull's nation state, and some sort of tribal warrior, are lead up on stage to the mass jeering of the crowd, obviously loathed here.

    The minor Death Essence user, herself in black jester garb and a skull-sculpted mask of white, begins putting on a stirring show and monologuing speech, riling the crowd of formerly innocent villagers up into a fury, such that they cheer as if for a new queen when the first head rolls, exulting in the fantastic, romanticized show of death, taking satisfaction in the ritualized and razzle dazzle killing. The undercurrent is constant. As much as the Circus extols the virtues of debauchery, it seems to mingle its pleasures beyond mortal means with glorifying death. That'd be where the 'Moribund' part likely comes from. How quickly this humble village has changed with the arrival of the carnival.

    George is quickly turning it exactly to his advantage though. Mindfucked or intoxicated as a great deal of the patrons are, he begins sewing a delayed wake of confusion, then mistrust, then outright panic, drugged farmers swatting and screaming at imaginary bugs, terrified women collapsing over themselves to escape from painted harlequins, gullible field hands vomiting up their food. It quickly becomes a spreading crisis zone, with staff abandoning their duties in a stern, practised response format, quarantining the area and rapidly rooting the crowd to find the troublemaker, with surprising competence.

    Haguro finds that, out of the remainder of the attendees, more and more are heading to the executions, even straight out of the orgy tents, as the concentration of the morbid ritual seems to shift with each act, like a spell executed in stages, unearthly pleasures transitioning seamlessly into snuff drama. When Lezard begins charging his lazor though, the mask in red adroitly handstand flips off her windmill tower, spins down the length of a candy cane striped maypole, and skips over the crowd to him in an instant, suddenly leaning into his personal space while hanging upside down from an unused set of stilted hoops. "How do you do, refined sir~" she prompts in the tones of a smooth and sensual con artist. "All are welcome at the Circus Moribund, and all tastes can be catered to. If you aren't finding the attractions to your liking just yet, I'm sure that I, the Melkin Fool in Red, will be able to find *something* you'll enjoy~" In the middle of talking, a sleight of hand happens when his eyes are focused on the pages or looking up to the speaker, pushing the open covers of the book together firmly.

    Staren just fucking shoots at her. As if she'd already seen it coming (she might have been watching him in the crowd, she's wearing a mask of course), she reverse limbos out of the way and triple flips gracefully from the ring, landing on both feet and striking an encore pose as if it were all part of the show, drawing immediate applause from the crowd. All part of the act, woven into the expert facade.

    Azure rifles through beastman pockets and finds pills of extremely suspect nature, some iron keys for some lock or another, and small amounts of money.
Staren     Staren hoped that would work, but he's not surprised she dodged. He lowers the pistol for the moment, turning towards her. "I'd enjoy if this circus never made itself known to any world ever again." Then he levels it at her again, but there's no point in shooting when she's watching him. "Somehow I doubt you're willing to grant that, though."

    He tilts his head slightly. "I could ask why you're doing this, but I don't care, and you're not going to be talked out of stealing... whatever it is from these people, so let's just get to the big fight, huh?"

    He smiles slightly. "You can consider it one last show, your final performance, if you like."
Haguro Getting deeper into giant mob is not making things better at all, Haguro finds. Instead of making more sense of it, all she can spot is the weird pattern of people shifting from one attraction to next, complete with mood swings and ups and downs not unlike a rollercoaster made of sex and death.

... Maybe that's the pattern after all. After observing the them for this long, it'd be weird if she didn't notice that much! What's more, the people attending the circus and running it alike all seem to be rather okay with all of it. The people being okay with it is weird, yes, but the people running it are the ones she really has her eyes set on.

For now, that's going to be the one accosting Lezard. She's worried about the one Staren's shooting at as well, but the wizard is more... Wizardly. She doesn't know how good that book is in close range!

Finally getting away from the crowd, Haguro maneuvers through the crowd to get to the masked figure calling herself the Melkin Fool. She doesn't announce her presence, instead trying to maintain the element of surprise in her approach. Should she get close enough, she'll just go for the legs, trying to grab the lady by her ankles and yank her back down to eye level to hold her in place!
Starbound Flotilla     George has lived this a hundred times. Each time is more likely than before to be his last. As the troublemaker so often needing to be rooted out, he has to be subtle. He can't let anyone see his face while he's causing the problems, or while he's taking out pursuit. He can't stay in one place for long. He has to spread them thin, keep in motion, avoid patterns, and encourage chaos. Enforcers are only as good as how fast their alarms travel. George keeps going.

    He starts leaving presents behind. Quickly injecting people freaking out with combat stimulants, so that they violently start speedballing while he leaves them behind, needing more people, being harder to manage. He's got little flashbang and incendiary grenades rigged up to mousetraps, ones that he leaves behind near food a little too obviously poisoned. He keeps a hand clasped firmly on a silenced pistol; he may not be a real stealth expert, but at the very least he can use that while there's more social cover, and if anyone gets too near, he goes for shots to the throat.

    He's trying to get people off Lezard, off of Staren. And off of himself, too; if he can, he's going to be joining them shortly. Fucking clowns. Fucking honking pieces of shit. He approaches with ambushing intent. He can't grapple a clown, because they are, every last goddamn one of them, too fucking slippery for his old-man hands. But thankfully, there was no shortage of delicious food elsewhere. Staren tried to /shoot/ her. He sorely misunderstands the nature of the issue at hand, and its fundamental funny-damental nature.

    George has found a good, big, soft piece of food. Hopefully a nice pie somewhere. His opening salvo of the ambush is to sling it at the Deathknight's face. Ideally she won't realize there's a live incendiary grenade inside it until it's very late and very, very funny for her to do so.
Lezard Valeth The circus rapidly begins to start having problems. The confusion and chaos intensidies. Lezard simply continues gathering power as he prepares his move... And then she interferes.

Lezard stiffens as the masked woman appeoaches him, and addresses him. His eyes flick up, looking into that mask with hard, burning eyes. "I would very much enjoy the dissolution of this place. But I will not need your assistance for that."

At that, he releases the gathered power into a surging wave of sorcerous power. "The time of exorcism is at hand!"

At that, snakes of flame surge up around him, rapidly expanding outwards in a roar to consume those not spared by Lezard. Which basically means 'everyone not on team Bloody'. Simultaneously, great balls of flame begin to rain down upon the area, exploding on contact. "Venomous servants, unleash thy dark flames!"

The inferno rapidly continues to expand, rolling in waves of flesh and steel-melting heat until a great crescendo of explosive power detonates outwards.

                             "CALAMITY BLAST!"                              
Azure Armature The pills and the petty cash is collected into a pile, while the crowd looks on and... cheers?

Armature begins sneering, disgust barely hidden behind working shoulders as she quickly decides to collect the kokus and obols and scrip of the locals, standing, and driving the ball of her foot into the drugs.

"This party is over. A higher authority has cancelled it. Return to your homes." Armature announces in her best Flat Declarative voice, before aiming her palm into the pile of CQC'ed beastmen and blasting them street-justice execution style. The coldness of it probably still gets the crowd off, but the ruthless efficiency leaves little to be enjoyed beyond the cooling corpses.

Teleporting to the Execution grounds, Azure sweeps a spray of burning oil across the stage, before kicking the guillotine with a shimmering and digital contrail leaving roundhouse move.

Finally, she disappears one last time after sowing chaos in the stage area, appearing kneeling besides Lezard as he rips off his Calamity Blast.

"The Sorcerer of Midgard and I are in agreement." Armature announces as her operations gear burns its way out of Elsewhere on her person, rebuilding itself out of a cloud of voxels (and burning away the stolen clothes as she does so), gesturing with her arm as she rises to take clear interceptory position abreast of Lezard.

"The man said the party was over."
Bloody Revelations     "Stealing? My boy, the Circus Moribund exists to *give* to the humble denizens of Creation! Experiences they would never find in their daily lives! Pleasures and spectacle beyond compare! Rapture and ecstasy that would be barred to them, just once! Our merry band has nothing to take from these poor souls, only that which to share!" the Melkin Fool laughs at Staren. "Oh you really don't understand a thing do you?"

    Complete bedlam starts to spread from George, escalating from mere chaos and unrest to catastrophe. Both of the lesser Essence users, pale and darkly dressed, rapidly lose their affected joy, smoothly excusing themselves in the breaks of their attractions and calling up seconds in command, joining the hunt for George with considerably greater deftness. Bouncers have to crowd around partiers going absolutely ballistic, more than a couple struggling against their clothes already half off, their partners powerless to calm them. The extremely few medical personnel (just two) immediately can't figure out what to do when patrons begin choking and foaming at the mouth. One of the rippling, muscular thugs goes to snatch an entire roasted boar, and is promptly lit on fire, too dumb to do much more than scream and run around, setting a tent ablaze. The jovial atmosphere rapidly disappears as the subtle spell of the circus continues to unravel. People start glancing around fearfully, trying to navigate their way out of the tents and hurry back to the village.

    "I know about you." the Melkin Fool continues. "You're the ones that conquered Lookshy. Congratulations. But, our lady is a little displeased to say the least. The designs of our poor comrade were totally wasted; how disappointing. I only hope that steelclad fool opens our little surprise in Tien-Yu's stead~" she hums in sing song. "You're so wrapped up in your ridiculous little war that it seems you tragically can't appreciate life for what it is. You're blind to the pursuit of wonderful experiences; to greater and greater heights of pleasure, and the understanding that comes when no greater pleasures remain. A pity. What a sad, sad little band of malcontents, unable to appreciate the best of life, nor the majesty and rapture of death."

    When Lezard declares the first line of his magic incantation, she seems quick to act, having her time for examination and strategization cut short. In a single movement, her hand is swept up, pressed to Lezard's chest and a spring-loaded soulsteel dagger snaps out from her sleeve and plunges between his ribs. With a sweep of her other sleeve, a paper capsule full of smoke blows up in Staren's face and rapidly spreads out, and a handful of black needles flits through them, precisely hitting the seams of his armour where they can stick, and erupt in nasty little concentrated fireballs. She nimbly backflips out of Azure Armature's reach when she suddenly teleports before Lezard, looking to get a new angle, but then is suddenly caught by the ankles from behind by Haguro, glancing at the Kanmasu and even from the grapple, managing to contort her body around her, get an arm around her neck, and try to slit her throat with the wrist dagger.
Bloody Revelations     Circus goers are already fleeing from the scene en mass, not needing to be prompted when a fight like this is breaking out, a sorcerer, already loathed and mistrusted by most, is casting a spell, and half the carnival is already complete chaos anyways. George can easily put bullets into the heads of a number of his pursuers as the crowd stampedes and they have to shoulder through them, the suppressed pops easily drowned out in the commotion. It's just the two in black, probably Ghostbloods, chasing him down now, drawing spoked chakrams and short curved blades like a clown would juggle. Azure appears right behind one and collapses the guillotine, which suddenly buries him under wood, rope, and steel with a terrified shout.

    George hucks a pie at the Melkin Fool's head from the side, making good on her name. A few of the more incredibly drugged up patrons, too doped to even recognize the danger, begin guffawing at the sight. Just before the incendiary goes off, George hears the little brass honking of a comically tiny horn in his ear. Turning around, he'll see a man with an elaborately painted face, like a skull with a red nose and button eyes, grinning his most shit-eating over George's shoulder. He rips open his tiny vest, and displays the paper cylinders of !gunpowder explosives strapped around his waist and chest, making a stupid :o face right before he activates his suicide rig on George.

    The explosions of that and the pie mingle together, as the Melkin Fool goes rolling away from the blast screaming and clutching at her face, ripping off the melted mask halfway stuck to her skin as her hood burns away, revealing a conventionally attractive women with rapidly setting third degree burns, blind in one eye. "You'll fucking pay for this." she hisses, all joviality and showmanship gone from her voice, evapourated like steam. "I'll see you at the Fortress of Crimson Ice, soon, begging for death under the lash." The grass around her feet withers and turns black, and then she begins escaping at superhuman speed, taking fifty meters with a single jump and a cartwheel, and then sprinting dead out like a car, as Lezard begins dropping terrible firebombs on the circus grounds.

    Most of the villagers are already fleeing in a drug-hazed panic, with the collapse of the execution stage, the poisoning of the food, the freakouts of the stimmed up unfortunates, and the general orgy of violence, but those too high, too curious, or too slow, to be out on time are predictably obliterated instantly by calamity blasts. The carnival muscle, both human and beastman mutant, turns to run from him, but are consumed by the flames, as are the tents, the games, and even the terrified prostitutes trying to get out. The cages and wagons are smashed to flinders, their snarling beasts spilling out in a rage, only to be crippled or destroyed by the black magic too.

    Of particular, eerie note, less than a minute after the corpses hit the ground, translucent, ectoplasmic substance begins to rise from their prone or scattered remains, pulled forcibly from the flesh. Rolling like gelatin, the blobs separate and settle into a light head and dark bottom, like oil in water or a spigot of beer. They split apart, the dark corps splashes into the earth, and the white is sucked off into the air, pulled into the sky at such speed that they squash into thin lines.
Haguro "So you know of us. That's good. I'd really prefer if this didn't escalate further, but...!" Haguro struggles with the acrobat in her grip, trying to keep her still as long as possible before finding that the ankles she's holding aren't very... Useful to hold onto.

Mostly because of the dagger coming for her neck. She jerks her head back at the last moment, but not before getting nicked by the blade and spraying a bit of blood that probably looks a lot worse than it feels. Or is it oil? She's spraying something out of her neck for a moment before clamping her hand against the wound to keep it from getting all over the place.

No sense freaking htese people out more than they already are, what with flaming death raining from the skies and poisoned food killing yet others. Haguro should be horrified by all of this, and she does recoil slightly, but only slightly.

It's starting to feel more like a trained reaction than a genuine one. The most genuine reaction she even shows is to the Melkin Fool showing her true anger at their numbers, one of surprise until the Cruiser pulls her sleeve back to reveal one of her gun turrets trained on the retreating acrobat. "Don't you...!" She fires off a shot to try and clip her with it, but it's probably too late.

So she busies herself with taking down the wild beasts trying to escape or attack anyone else.<<"The Citadel of Crimson Ice... Is that a familiar name to anyone else? Um. Besides being our next destination.">>
Staren     Staren frowns when the harlequin says he can't appreciate the search for pleasure. "Hmph." Now's not the time for philosophy, though...

    Suddenly, there's exploding needles in him! he stumbles back -- where his clothes have been precisely targeted, they've started falling apart, as she's expertly targeted the hidden seams between plates sewn inside -- If she went for his face and hands, a thin layer of flesh burns away to reveal the machine underneath.

    It all happens so fast. Suddenly, there's a pie and then explosions. Staren takes a few more shots at her but she's getting away fast...

    So he takes off after her, matching her speed with robot legs, and reaching into his bag to swap weapons, and firing homing minimissiles that explode in superheated fireballs.

    After a few seconds of this, though, if noone /else/ is giving chase with him, he stops for fear of being led into a trap. He's not sure he can take a deathknight out in single combat even if he does seem to have the upper hand for a moment.
Starbound Flotilla     George makes a rookie mistake, the mistake of relishing the suffering of a clown, but can you blame him? His pie does the trick, but he's looking at it too long to notice the clown on his six before the gentle honk and the sound of the fuse meets his ears. He recognizes an enemy before he recognizes the suicide vest. The joke's punchline doesn't hit him until the gunpowder is well on its way to ensuring his death. Sadly, by necessity he was unarmored, leaving him sorely exposed to the oncoming blast that would be better handled with a bomb suit. He has about enough time to suck in a hard breath of his cigarette.

    Time moves terribly slowly in his mind's eye, an effect of the combat stimulants he's always on in these situations, and the adrenaline pumping through his system. George recognizes a horribly lethal scenario. How should he deal with it? He could try an urgent jump-and-turn, but he'd still suffer brutal burns and pressure and get launched a lethal distance. He could go prone, but he'd get most of his skull incinerated. How to solve this, how to solve this... George decides to try for a fast headshot, and then a high-speed grapple on the man's legs to twist him above and use his own body as a shield for the explosion. So he tries that.

    Miscalculation, old man. Getting slow in your old age, huh?

    As he goes to bring his pistol up, the clown detonates. Unless someone gets in the way, George is going to get taken off his feet and brutally, badly burned, as well as wracked with the impact of the pressure.
Azure Armature Armature appears after Lezard is stabbed, which is sub-optimal as far as 'preventing injuries' goes, but she was doing her own thing in CQC-In-Cutscenes, so the operative is merely there to support Lezard after his chest wound and to ward away the...

Fleeing Deathknight. Settling up with Lezard, Armathre glances at his wound, and then the wounded Sorcerer. "Apologies. I was tied up. You'll live... correct?"

The tremendous explosion off the way of George and the Pie Folk causes a wince. "Ah."

"I see what the Bloody Revelation meant by preparing ourselves. I suppose our approach..." Azure frowns. "My approach was sloppy. Insufficently covered. I'll check on George."

Zipping away in a puff of math, Azure appears near George's awful pie-bomb crater. "George? Do you still live?"
Lezard Valeth Lezard enjoys the situation. What he doesn't enjoy is the sudden sharp pain in his breastbone. The soulsteel blade chunks into his chest, sinking in deep. It doesn't stop the magical assault, but he does promptly cough up some blood, staggering as he puts a hand to the blossoming red that leeaches out over his front. "I..." He spits up some blood on the floor. "I suppose I should have expected that."

He looks up at the escaping woman and gives a bloodstained smile, letting her escape.

He has other things to deal with. Like not bleeding out. Sadly, this prevents him from doing anything to help George. Gotta look out for Number One.
Bloody Revelations     By this point, the Circus Moribund is completely up in flames. Whatever mysterious purpose the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears has set it up to fulfill, it is over. Such a small and fragile holding. And a single Deathknight? Not even a warrior or necrotechnician either.

    Haguro and Staren actually chase her down, refusing to let her get away. They may be reluctant about it, but it's enough to push the optional objective flag. The gunshots from Haguro are nimbly flipped and cartwheeled out of the way but the explosive shells send the Melkin Fool flying and bouncing across the rough and frozen ground, having to tuck into a stuntman's tumble to try and keep running, though having obviously broken something, sprinting at a limp. Staren can start to steadily close with her, forcing her to weave back and forth to dodge screens of plasma explosives, too smart and wary to turn back and try to arrogantly fight the group that are starting to gain serious notoriety, but unable to do a real vanishing act on the spot. A missile clips her, burning away the top-right quarter of her entire tunic, flash searing the skin underneath and taking her to knee just at about the maximum range where it feels dubiously wise to chase further.

    The last of the soul-stuff torn out of its still-cooling remains rockets up into the air, at a gradually shallowing angle, like their destination point is getting lower. Just as the fuse reaches the ignition cap of the comedically gaping suicide clown's belt, there is a tremendous, thunderous impact right in front of George, throwing him off as feet as much as the explosion does.

    Bloody Revelations, Void wings fanned out behind, stomps on top of the clown from above at tremendous speed, throwing broken ice up into the air with a symphony of shattering bones, splattering George with crimson jelly. The bombs go off, but the explosion is greatly mitigated by the Deathknight who just stands right on top of it, the flames warping and guttering around her, as if they have trouble actually touching her clothes and skin. He can catch the rear angled view of the corner of a manic, fanged grin, and then she's just *at* where Staren and Haguro have gunned down the Melkin fool, snatching her up off the ground with her gloved fingers clenched around her throat, eliciting a terrified gurgle, her fingertips drawing blood.

    There are the faint outlines of black shades flickering in and out of tenuous visibility like TV static 'revealed' in her radius; the barest glimpse of an Anima. The Fool in Red tries to mouth something, and then Bloody Revelations spins 180 and violently smashes the Deathknight's head into the ground several times, painting the grass with blood until she falls limp and unconscious. Snapping her fingers, thick manacles of coarse black and gleaming gold orichalcum phase into existence in her hands, where she spins the chain around her fingertip like a keyring, and then snaps them onto the Melkin Fool in Red's wrists. The readout of her Death Essence begins plummeting rapidly.

    "I regret how late I got here now. This place looks like you really enjoyed yourselves~" she grins. "So. What'd you learn? Did you recover anything important? Interrogate anyone? Spill the details. What does this ridiculous little circus accomplish?" She pops her fingers between her lips to clean off the Melkin Fool's blood.
Staren     They've... got her? Well, she /was/ running... maybe it really wasn't just to lead them into a trap? Staren takes aim for another shirt... and then Bloody Revelations: Edgy Death Angel Edition is there and savagely beating her to death.

    Staren's okay with this. He lowers the seeker rifle and shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. The locals were too drugged to talk, and Azure killed her goons. I have a vague theory, but I think Lezard's the one to talk to." Unfortunately, Staren ran off too fast to notice the higher souls being sucked into the sky. He turns to head back to what's left of the circus with Haguro and their... patron.