Scene #6674: Crest Gun of Lia Fail

Owner	Pose
Haseo	Delta: Blurry Obsessive Slacker These are the keywords specifically chosen to reach the Crest Gun of Lia Fail, provided by Haseo and shamelessly stolen from Atoli. The field is a rather small collection of grass covered islands, chained together by various bridges with the main thing standing out being some sort of temple off on one of the larger masses. There's also trees littered about, some of them suspiciously shaking as if there's something hiding in them. And of course, the Crest Gun way off in the distance where no normal player would be able to reach, obscured by mist but almost impossible to miss even so. If there were monsters, they've long since been mopped up, probably in preparation ahead of time. Given the rather low level of the place, it's not really much of a feat. The most stand out things to note at the moment is Eggman's Egg Carrier floating menacingly above the mass of islands up above, and Haseo just leaning against a massive sword and just... Texting on a flip phone? Playing a game? Passing time? it's hard to say, but he's getting his mileage out of the thing ever since buying it.
Eggman	The massive shadow of the Egg Carrier falls across the island. It is a huge vessel, cutting a swath through the sky in a way that little else save the rotating mummies of The World 1.0 ever did. It is a weapon of battle and war, an unmistakable flying battle fortress bristling with weapons and accompanied by flying drones like flies. From a throne in the Egg Carrier's bridge, the nefarious Doctor Eggman guides it all. The Concord has been directed away from most of the Egg Carrier. This isn't out of a desire for secrecy - indeed, Eggman is happy to have a robot minion show people around and point out all the elements of genius - but a desire for their comfort. The Egg Carrier's innards are harsh and difficult to navigate. Eggman does not feel that having people wandering around amidst all the space dedicated to robotics is productive for either his forces or them, and so he has had the Concord directed to the Chao Garden, an on-board, personal beach island complete with sun, sea, coconuts, surf, and small little blue things that run around happily playing with beach balls and other such niceties. The Egg Carrier's girth is such that it even holds an island and a convincing oceanic horizon. Still, once they're properly over the cannon, Eggman's face appears on a holographic screen in the Chao Garden. "Ah, it seems we've arrived. Shall we be off?" One dispatch shuttle later (shaped, conspicuously, like a horizontal egg), and the party has landed outside the cannon. Eggman's brought along his own flying hoverpod in order to give himself more vertical ability to work. The pod hovers along behind the party as they go. Eggman's not a tank, don't look at him like that.
August Kohler	Out in the water is an unusual sight for The World R:2. It's a speedboat. A cheap and kind of crappy model belonging to the Watch. August Kohler is behind the wheel, approaching the island that holds the Crest of Lia Fail. The Egg Carrier helps August know that he's at the right location. He's not concealing himself in any way - the Concord will probably notice his boat sooner or later. He got here the easiest way in the world, too. The redhead just asked Haseo's guild how to get here, mentioning that Haseo and Atoli had mentioned the place. Worked way too easily. Hopefully, the Concord doesn't immediately try to shoot August. He keeps his radio at hand, in case of need.
Atoli	Atoli has just spent the last very long time petting Chao. And giving Chao names. And feeding Chao weird energy capsule things, no doubt, that Eggman surely has in ample supplies, considering they drop from his robots. She liked it a lot. She also liked the airship in general, of course; it's quite a sight, unlike anything she's seen before, and definitely an unique experience she couldn't have experienced and now hopes to experience a lot more often. You make a very good first impression, Eggman. Second... third, technically. Of course, leaving the Chao Garden is the worst part of this trip so far. And so the party has a HEALER, hanging in the backrow and holding onto her staff for safety. "Do you think this place is going to be full of really high level monsters? Or maybe we'll get in trouble with the admins..."
Sumiko	Earlier, in Mac Anu. Mikoto is wondering out of the Chaos gate area, to which she starts looking around, obviously looking for someone. Or something? She crosses her arms, frowning, thinking that this would be more difficult than she thought. Well, maybe she could just stick around at the shops, obviously, she would be by /eventually/. A strange beastman player waves at her, and she waves back. Well, if she was going to stick around for long, she might as well make the most out of it. "Hi," "Hello!" Gaspard says, as energetic as ever as he returns the greeting. "Looking for something specific?" he asks, trying to be helpful, a smile on his small dumpy face. "Oh Nah, I'm just killing time while I try and find someone. Do you know someone named Atoli?" Now, the Chaos Gate activates. "That was a nice guy, gave me the address...though having to talk with that jerk is going to annoy me. Maybe I can just beat him up for the information..." She muses, before looking straight ahead. Then there was Haseo, but there was also Atoli. She immediately ignores the former and walks towards the latter. "Hey!" she says, with a lot more energy than before. Of course, she looks around, noting there were a lot of other people here. "Uh, is this some event?"
Staren	Staren is brought to... the Chao Garden? This is on a flying fortress. Why is this here. What are the blue things. There are so many questions. In the end, Staren decides to take his armor off (underneath is a bodysuit which somehow reshapes into his usual outfit) and take Eggman up on the tour offer. Given the size of this thing, he probably only gets to see a tiny portion of it before being called back to suit up and depart. Hoooooly shit the Crest Gun is huge. Huger than almost anything he's ever seen, and certainly than any weapon. Perhaps the Union's small-asteroid-throwing superweapon was up there, but that was a series of disconnected accelerator rings rather than one... big thing, and it didn't have to hold up under gravity. Staren may have worked with a lot of weapons, but he's glad to have Eggman here. The man clearly knows how to work on things of SCALE judging by the Egg Carrier. Speaking of which... Orange, translucent energy wings appear behind Staren's back and buzz like an insect's as he flies up to the pod and extends a hand. "Good to finally meet you in person, Dr. Eggman."
Lezard Valeth	Lezard has been paging through various information sources for some time, making use of some kind of holographic projection that seems to feature a significant amount of information on The World R:2. Looks like he's doing research as opposed to paying attention to the Chaos. By the time they arrive, Lezard has dismissed the windows of lore and is walking on along with the others, a clear demonstration of DPS. "You won't know until you're there." He says simply. If he's impressed with the size of the gun, he doesn't show it. Instead, he simply frowns to himself. "I trust it will be a mark of your genius to make this a viable asset, Doctor." Lezard states. "It seems far too clumsy to be useful in most situations."
Eggman	"My dear Sorcerer Valeth," Eggman says as he shakes Staren's hand, leaning out of the pod enough to show that he is in fact a giant egg-shaped gentleman, "Of course it will be. I can already see the purpose of this weapon as clear as day. Thanks to our discussions about the coded nature of this realm, our foray into the glitched cathedral, dissection of the code stored within the statue, and my own personal ingenuity, I've already several ideas not only to repair it but to ensure it remains useful to us for the forseeable future. But first...get a load of this!" Eggman snaps his fingers. High above, the Egg Carrier's bays open. Vast mechanical doors pull backwards, releasing small, egg-shaped drones. They have large eyes, bushy moustaches, and nothing else. They come down towards the cannon from on high, their eyes scanning over it with sweeping green lights. Then, when they find damage, arms pop out of them - many arms, with many tools. Buzzsaws, wrenches, the whole nine yards. Eggman's own pod ascends away from the group as tool arms sprout from it in the same manner, though far more of them and far more complicated. "Why, indeed!" Eggman spreads his arms as he ascends, "With only a few adjustments to its internal power flow, I can improve its efficiency tenfold! And then, all I'll require is a few boosters and thrusters..." "And the Egg Cannon Island will be ready for liftoff! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Staren	Staren retracts his helmet visor to see Eggman face to face... so Eggman can see the clearly-impressed look on his face as he watches the swarm of Egg Repair Drones descend over the massive structure. Staren gives an impressed whistle... and then looks /more/ impressed when Eggman explains that he intends to turn this thing into a MOBILE powerplant and manufactory as well as a giant gun! Staren lands, and continues to stare at the work in progress with interest. He's /slightly/ put out that he's not involved, but Eggman's right -- his tools and his process are optimized for working alone.
Haseo	Haseo might be the edgiest motherfucker this side of the server, but he's surprisingly 'nice' around the Chao. Maybe it's because they're basically toddlers and only monsters hate kids, or maybe it's because his edgelord personality is just an act. That said, the moment anyone so much as looks at him he returns to his usual self. There's a few missing textures and weird skybox issues during the ride, but unlike Atoli's attempts, reaching Lia Fail doesn't cause some sort of catastrophic system failure that resets their position. If anything, reaching the landmass causes things to pretty much stabilize. Almost like the place was intended to be reachable at some point. The cannon itself, as to be expected, is very huge, though that's probably be expected considering it's a cannon that in the game's lore was built on top of a city. It's also very detailed and textured for something that apparently was nothing more than something that most people assumed was just part of the skybox. A preliminary inspection from Eggman reveals something strange. Even though it's not designed to be fired in the game, setting it up to do so wouldn't be that hard. A bit of afternoon tinkering with some tools and maybe a bit of coding and it'd probably be good to go. The bigger issue is finding something big enough to power the gun, as much like it has been stated in the game's DEEP LORE, this cannon has no power and there's absolutely zero indication that there's currently a power source that could fire it anywhere near by. Another very hard to miss detail is the various entrances around the cannon itself, though it makes sense considering the whole city thing. There's a distinct blueish glow coming from with the dark halls inside, but it's a ways down and hard to make out what's exactly making it.
Haseo	August, being the rebel that he is, brings a dingy boat. He gets an extremely less pleasant experience with the missing textures, chunks of missing water, and some weird rubber banding issues, but he makes it there in one piece. He is also cursed with having to take a bit to traverse the landscape a bit to actually reach the cannon once he reaches land, but the size of of the landmark and the lack of any actual encounters make this pretty nontrivial.
Atoli	It's about now Atoli is starting to wonder what they want to use this cannon for exactly. But the thought quickly dissipates in an effort to be NICE and also POSITIVE and SMILING. Also Eggman's robots are impressive. "Wow, I bet you must be some kind of hero with that many repair robots! When places have earthquakes or tsunamis you can just... bam! Save everyone!" Yes. Yes that is clearly what Eggman does, and he doesn't inadvertently cause those things in the first place. Taking a look around the surroundings of the cannon, Atoli finally surmises: "I guess they never set up encounter tables for this place, huh... that's convenient! We can get around without having to fight at all!" How convenient, right Haseo? A blue glow calls to Atoli, though, and so she bumbles about in that direction.
Atoli	Mikoto! Atoli takes Mikoto along to explore the OMINOUS BLUE GLOW, because glows must be explored at all times. "Hi! No... well, maybe? If this Field exists, maybe they intended it to be an event one day... or an expansion pack zone?" She's not sure. "We'll find out! It doesn't look like there's any enemies here, so come on! I bet it's even prettier inside!"
August Kohler	It is an uncomfortable trip, August kind of seasick at the end of it after the rubberbanding, but he makes it to the shore. The traversal of the landscape is easier - August manifests Dietrich with his mirrored bracelet, the redhead wearing a thick jacket and bearing a revolver and a combat knife. Riding on Dietrich's back, they boost around the environment, getting closer to Lia Fail, and the Concord. As August approaches, he actually...hails? <"This is August Kohler. Kindly don't shoot me?"> August wants to see what this gun is all about, and if it actually works. And to do so, he has to not get into a huge fight with the Concord, who are probably the only people who can repair it. If he decides he needs to steal it from them, he'll do that later. For now, he's going to make sure the Concord will, in fact, not shoot him, and then start following Atoli as she approaches the blue glow. Mikoto will also be with her, based off radio - it's the safest direction to start exploring, with the friendlier people. Though if Mikoto wants to talk privately with Atoli, he'll give physical distance. "This place certainly is impressive, isn't it? Wonder what sort of stuff we'll find inside."
Staren	Atoli says Eggman must be some kind of hero. Staren's expression becomes a bad poker face and he deploys the visor again. Then August and Mikoto arrive, and the latter says she's here to talk to Atoli. "Do neither of you have a private radio? Here, I'll give you--" He turns his head back to face Atoli and she's running towards something glowy on the Crest Gun. "Hey, be careful!" He runs after them, stopping at the tunnel entrance only to throw some drones outside to keep watching Eggman's work. Not that he doesn't trust Eggman, this all just looks really cool.
Eggman	Atoli calls him Some Kind Of Hero. Eggman does The Grin. It's the Grin that casts a shadow on the ground. The Grin where you don't bother to ask 'why do his teeth not have shadows' or 'how can the light pass through his eyes.' The Grin distinctive enough to cast a silhouette of his own face across Atoli's body as it falls on the ground. "Dear girl." "I am Doctor Eggman." "I am the greatest supervillain the world has ever known."
Sumiko	"That sounds like a good idea," Mikoto says to Atoli, following her along to see the blue glow. She follows behind, hands behind her head as they walk down the new dungeon(?) area they discovered. What will be here? She bets it's a new weapon. She really wants a new weapon. It's got to be jade though. "Huh, well maybe we'll get a rare item. I hope it's a jade sword. I really like jade and swords. They go best together." She hangs her head back towards Eggman. "Aw come on, don't get so down on yourself. You've got all this science, and want to rule the world because you're the best at it. That kinda makes you a hero," She says, giving the man a thumbs up. Gota support people, no matter what they want to do. To August she gives a nod and a bow. "Nice to meet you in person," she says before finally turning back to Atoli. "So...the other day. I want to apologize for that. I was going through uh...some depression. What he was doing was making my mood even worse..." she says, with a frown, "So I shouldn't have spoken up for you like that..."
Haseo	"Wait a minute, don't just go wandering off without thinking! Didn't I just say that's a good way get hurt?!" Staren, Atoli, and Mikoto (and August) go wandering off inside the derelict cannon, and Haseo reluctantly follows after them. It's extremely dark, damp, and rather unpleasant inside the cannon's interior. Lighting up the place with some sort of tool like a flashlight isn't hard though, though it also reveals some oddities. The main oddity being they even bothered to model the inside, but also the strange graphical glitches. It starts off minor, mostly being relegated to small pieces of floating static and some weird weird green floating hexagons. The intensity of both amps up the further the group moves in, but it never does reach the same level as the place Atoli dragged them to. The group discovers the source of the blue light. A Chaos Gate. An extremely degraded Chaos Gate form the looks of things, to be precise. Its missing massive amount of textures, and there's string of gibberish 1's and 0's surrounding the it. But other than that, it appears functional. Eggman's repair work in the meanwhile, continues to go smoothly. Somehow. It's pretty amazing that he hasn't unleashed an Earth shattering catastrophe considering he's messing with a supposed God killing relic.
Atoli	"Maybe! I guess I don't really play this game for the items or the levels, so if we find a rare item you can have," Atoli responds to Mikoto, all smiles and happy until Eggman claims to be a supervillain. Atoli pauses for a moment, and then laughs. "That's a very funny joke! You know, a lot of players in the World roleplay bad people because they just want to get even with life, but I don't think that's the right way to let those feelings out." Ohno. Well, it's okay, Atoli is gone from Eggman's proximity as she enters the depths of the guncity, so he won't have to hear more of that. "Oh look! It's a Chaos Gate!" she says. She approaches it, because of course she does. What a strange noise it's making. "Do you guys think it still works? Maybe it brings you to other parts of the cannon, since it's so big." Hub cities need their own mini-Gates, after all, though those are green usually. Huh.
Sumiko	Mikoto makes a thinking noise as she examines the Gate. She guesses that the apology was accepted and just isn't going to be dwelled on. Atoli makes a guess about its function, and she shrugs towards the cleric. Haseo chases down after them saying that they shouldn't just wander off. "So what NOW you're concerned about us?" Mikoto says towards Haseo, without much thought before giving the Chaos gate another look over. Maybe it did lead to somewhere else here..? She puts her hand out to it to access it because this is the best idea.
Staren	Atoli thinks Eggman is a roleplayer? What? Did she not believe them about the Multiverse? That's a talk for another day, though... "You can repair it?" Staren asks Haseo. And then Atoli goes right for the gate. "Hey! Don't be so cavalier abour broken teleporters! Haven't you ...played any stories where a teleporter accident is what kicks off the plot? Only, this isn't a story! If you get ripped into parts or combined with a monster we might not be able to fix it!" And then Mikoto's the one to touch it, but the same words apply!
Haseo	Haseo rudely snickers at Atoli's comment at Eggman being a roleplayer. He's not going to correct her, especially since he sees where she's coming from. It'll be funnier when she tells it to him herself anyway. "I mean, I can't fix it but I can-" Haseo cuts himself off as Mikoto goes to access the Chaos Gate. He can't really stop her. The Magical Girl gets several pop up messages, the text mostly corrupted, though the words SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR is definitely legible along with several nonsense names like Carmina Gadelica and Fort Ouph. Whatever Mikoto did, the entire area feels it. There's a weird pulse throughout the land, followed by static. The various minor glitches that had previously been contained to just inside the cannon are now affecting the whole field. Though at the very least despite all this, the Crest Cannon still seems to be completely intact and 'fixed'. Probably the most discerning thing is that something steps out of the Chaos Gate shortly after this. A headless monstrosity covered in various glowing hexagons. There's a nameplate above the creature, but whatever it is is just as corrupted as everything else now.
Atoli	Atoli just tries to see the positive in everyone, OK? Don't ruin her. At the sight of the giant, glitchy mess of a headless knight, Atoli takes a step back, suddenly very nervous. She's about to use a Smoke Screen to try to reset the encounter when people say they want to fight it. Welp. The Harvest Cleric settles in behind Mikoto, raising her staff up. With a green and white light, she sudden throws a round of buffs out, giving Mikoto increased strength, speed and a damage shield to go with that! Then she moves as far as she can. Which is pretty far, because the range on her skills is really high.
Staren	Some kind of weird pulse goes off. Staren's drones see the corruption spread. He glances over himself to make sure none of it got on him. And then... It's... a monster! Staren takes aim, but Haseo says it's a friend. Then he explains that was sarcasm. Staren sighs and hits it with his beam cannons while the others are working out a battle plan. "Hey, I'm here too! We don't have to treat this like an MMO fight!" And then Eggman wants to... capture it? Ah. Well, the others seem willing to go along with it, so. Staren starts backing away towards the place Eggman indicated, but making sure he still has visual contact with the creature. "Can either of you see how big the aggro bubble is?"
Sumiko	Mikoto jumps back at the arrival of the data bug. This was unexpected, such as the names of Carmina Gadelica and Fort Ouph. The SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR thing wasn't super surprising, this was obviously to do with an admin controlled area. After some communication, some talking, and annoying noises at Haseo, they have a plan. Buffs pour into Mikoto, who grins. Her hand comes out... There is a shattering of crystal under her hand, as what looks like a Jade Sword appears entrapped in Crystal. There is a light, as the transformation takes over her body. The jade spreading out across her form until she is completely covered. With the shattering, her magical girl clothes appear, and the Jade sword is now in her hands. Now tougher, stronger, faster, and with a shield, she grins. She gives the monster a good wack with the sword, to gain its ire, and leaps back some distance. Her sword stabs into the ground as the area around her shimmers. The energy shimmers into... BEES. My god. Hundreds of bees swarm out from her and towards the creature. They attempt to sting, annoy, buzz around annoyingly, and generally TAUNT the monster. She stands back up grabbing the blade and makes a 'bring it' motion towards the monster. She waits for it to charge, and will start trying to draw it back.
August Kohler	August sees the portal. He looks at it with interest, and starts to approach, when Mikoto reaches it first and puts her hand in. Well. /Well/. The giant horrible hexagon monster causes August to leap backwards off Dietrich, and point the Persona forward. "Alright. Let me take the aggro, since I can't really be DPS in a 'capture' mission." Terms Haseo and Atoli will understand easily. Dietrich swoops in to strike its massive knight sword at the big glitched entity... And then waves its sword as it pulls back and starts heading towards the target, sticking close to Mikoto since she's also trying to taunt. "Let's get this thing there, shall we?"
Haseo	The monster was at first content to just stand there, but the first sign of actual movement suddenly aggros it. Go figure. Swords and bees assault the monster, and it lets out a roar and flinching letting everyone know that it's taking damage. Its HP bar doesn't reflect this though, as even though it's 'moving'. There's no real progress. It's all just jumbled up symbols and letters that don't really indicate anything. Powering through the bees the monster swings it sword widely while grasping onto its own head, aiming to knock back August's persona as well as Mikoto. Whether it succeeds or not though, it doesn't matter. The constant assault of BEES are doing its job, picking apart at the monster until something visibly shatters around it. It's a sign to follow up with something, something Haseo has a sneaking suspicion of what it is, but he doesn't. Wouldn't want to make Eggman upset. % The monster stops moving, bending down to one knee in an attempt to gather itself. The bees are doing actual physical damage at this point if they haven't stopped, even if it's at a slower rate than it should be. There's the looming feeling that leaving it alone and not detaining it now is probably a Bad Idea.
Sumiko	Excellent! They're doing it. Pushing it back and leading it towards the aperture is working. The offensive comes at Mikoto, but thanks to Atoli she was more than prepared for it. Her blade comes up aiming to try and parry the other larger blade. The two collide in an explosion of sparks and data glitches. Mikoto goes flying a bit, but lands unharmed. She grins, as the blade in her hands points back at the ground. She could come at it...but with it being downed like that, instead, she lowers her stance... Another animal comes out from her, this time it is a giant bull, this time attempting to 'bull rush' the data bug back into the aperture.
August Kohler	As the beast swipes at August and Dietrich, they're beaten up a bit, but regenerate the damage quickly, putting back together flesh and armor, as Dietrich moves to use its free hand and sheer strength to help the bull steer it into the aperture. They need to fuel this island, after all, if it's going to take off. "So, what are the odds that a glitched power source goes horribly wrong?"
Staren	Suddenly, something changes and the monster can be damaged. ...Honestly, Staren will leave this to the others if it looks like they can handle it. His weapons are mostly lethal and the few that aren't are more of a stun / lock in place type of deal than repositioning tools.
Haseo	The data bug is in the process of getting back up at this point, recovering from whatever happened to it. It's a bit little too late for that to matter though, The bull with the help of Dietrich slam into the glitched monster, sending it flying and into the aperture with very little effort. Haseo's only contribution to all of this is making that it's properly detained once inside, but it's probably best this way. Calling out Skeith now would probably just ruin the whole plan, and there's nothing to really gain at messing up Eggman's plan outside of pissing off everyone here.
Eggman	The instant the monster is inside the aperture, Eggman, high above, presses a button. The opening slams shut. An electrical whirring sound starts up around the cannon, and the Egg Constructor drones begin laying wires from the cannon along the island. Eggman rubs his hands together. "Excellent! The principles are sound. Now..." "To prepare for liftoff!"
Sumiko	Mikoto smiles, well it looks like /they won/! With a burst of magical energy and shining of sparkles, the outfit bursts away into Mikoto's civilian attire, and the sword dissipates. Her soul gem once more returning to a ring on her hand. "Well, that was fun. Wait did he say 'liftoff'? Oh man, is this thing going to /fly/? Also uh, does anyone know anything about 'Carmina Gadelica' or 'Fort Ouph'?"
Staren	The monster is trapped in some energy-generation apparatus, putting an end to the tension of combat. "Never heard of them." Staren looks around. "We should probably hold on to something..."