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Marigold      CITY OF EDESSA, CAPITAL OF ILIA
     Walking the streets.

     For late autumn in Ilia, it's an unseasonably warm day. It's also, perhaps for the coast, seasonably wet.

     The combination of these means that a rain just barely above freezing drizzles down on the cliffside white city, dissolving the remnants of the last fluffy snow in shady alleys like cotton-candy, and dripping down the roof-edge icicles as if they were drooling teeth.

     It's beautiful in a surreal way. The city is alive- there's movement behind the windows, and smoke from the wealthier city-center houses that have chimneys- but its streets are nearly empty, because of how miserable the wet cold is. Occasional harried farmers and Bernish guards barely look up from the cobblestone streets at you, eager to be done with their business and get back inside.

     It's Thea, the pegasus-riding middle sister, who leads you from the warpgate through the streets, having a valuable combination of 'knowing the city' and 'not being too recognizable about town'. She wears a waterproof shawl over a thick fuzzy jacket; probably the ideal local garment for the conditions. She's perkily alert, but not more than moderately tense.

     "It took more than a little convincing to get on that messenger's good side. I'm glad Raigh was there, really," she murmurs back in quieter alleyways, where residual slush crunches underfoot. "Thanks for coming on short notice. I get the feeling our new friends are skittish about us."

     ". . . I hate to see Edessa like this. You never cross the same river twice, huh?"

     Past the market where you'd set up your stalls on the last visit, Thea comes to the edge of a seaside cliff that swoops east towards the manor-castle; she holds up her hand, looks left and right for prying eyes, and then clambers down. Following her down, you find a slightly-unnerving rock-wall-hugging 'path' forty feet above the craggy freezing surf.

     "The rocks are wet. Mind yourselves. Any of you with grabby-magic, stay at the back and ready to catch anybody who slips, alright?" Thea calls up.

     It's half-sidle, half-scramble, but it does avoid both the prying eyes of the castle and the town- only the ships in port could see you, and at this distance, probably only as smudges. That mildly-nervewracking path curves castle-ward for a good eighty feet . . .
Marigold      . . . and towards a little cave that you'd never have otherwise guessed was here, hidden from the sea by an obscuring outcropping. Thea lets out a held breath as she comes to more stable footing at its mouth, and slips inside.

     Inside, a small collection of the locals- smaller than you're probably used to- crowd around a lantern and a map. Varyingly perky-to-begrudging greetings bubble up, and people scoot to make room as Roy rises to slightly-awkwardly shake hands with the arrivals. The mood is a little like you're honored guests; a little like you're blessed experts here to solve a vexing problem; and a little like you're walking in on a minor spat.

     "I'm sorry," Roy says half-brightly, maybe for the weather. "Come on, it's warm in here. Um, or maybe just not quite as cold. I don't think I can tell the difference anymore..." "You do get used to it, Lord Roy." "You do?" "Well, I do..."

     The young orange-haired thief that you'd caught last time- Cath, someone might've said her name was?- kneels over a slightly-damp crude map, flashing a wince-turned-grin at the Multiversals who'd bagged her.

     Raigh, looking just like a more dour dark-clad Lugh, sits next to Cath despite their bickery relationship; Chad stands a good eight or ten feet away from him in the surprisingly-roomy cave, arms-crossed leaning against a wall at a telling remove, and Lucius, soggily depleted, pats Chad's elbow comfortingly while sat even further from the grumpy twin.

     Then the unexpected presences: Niime, the old witch Raigh had apprenticed under, whose gaze he's also currently refusing to meet; Melady, who's been parted from her lady Guinivere's side for this mission for unclear reason; and...

     Sitting opposite the map from Cath, there's someone clearly in a Pegasus Knight's attire, but dyed a near-black midnight blue like those of the High Wingleader's personal squad. She's young, but the bad cut-scar on her face looks a few years old; her dark hair's cut short and straight to jaw-length. That must be the messenger's local contact.

"You didn't say it'd be this many people," the thief says, eyes sweeping the Elites uneasily before fixing back on Roy.
"Please forgive us," Thea cuts in on his behalf. "If you trust us, you trust them, and clearly we need the help here."
"Who said we trust you?" Raigh says nearly on reflex, making Cath roll her eyes.
"Raigh!" "Raigh..." Niime scolds and Lucius reproaches, nearly at the same time.
"You're not even with 'us'," Cath says, nudging him with her elbow.
"Alright, alright...!"

     The scarred, short-haired, dark-clad pegasus knight clears her throat into her fist, then nods at you expecting you to sit around the lantern too. "We're discussing," she says mildly, "how best to infiltrate the castle to rescue Lady Juno and your 'Lugh', given that our previous route--"

     Cath and Raigh both open their mouths to trade blame, but the pegasus knight raises a hand for 'pause'.

     "--our previous route has become compromised."
Nobunaga > "You never cross the same river twice, huh?"

    "Mmm~..." Nobunaga muses over that thought of Thea's with a light hum, "There's a poem to be written about that, later."

> "The rocks are wet. Mind yourselves."

    "Oh ho, yes I see. Let me make this a bit more accommodating."

    Using her cloak to obscure their manifestation, the warlord produces a long stream of-- rifles. The guns float out and arrange themselves along the pathway in tight packs to form easily navigable steps and even sturdy railings. None of them are loaded, so there isn't even any risk of blowing cover with sudden noise. As the staircase builds itself up, following the contours of the path, Nobunaga proves its reliability by going first with a quick, efficient pace.

    "Come on, then."

    Arriving at that little cave at the end of the pathway, she waits just inside the entrance for the rest of the group to arrive, so that she can easily recover and disappear her rifles once again using her cape to conceal the golden sparks of their disappearance. Only with that done does she remove her cap and flick it a few times to scatter water droplets clinging to the cloth, though doesn't bother with her cape.

    She takes a moment to appraise the situation inside, the gathered Eliban leaders and underlings and-- some Ilyans, by the looks of it. She cradles her chin as she considers the clear situation between Niime and Raigh before she catches something of interest from the unnamed Pegasus knight.

> "--our previous route has become compromised."

    "Hooh~?" Red eyes shift her way, then to the map Cath is hunched over, "And what are we going to do about it?" She rubs her chin once more in thought, "Send a heavily armed and prepared 'distraction' that way, then send the real force in via another route, perhaps?"
Angela Roland was asked to come along by a sad grumpy orphan thief boy so what's he gonna do? Not show up? Like before, Roland has brought lunch. Unlike last time, he's not intending to set up shop and that means he's got a case of delicious kimchi pork buns, looking a bit like dinner rolls you might expect at a fancy restaurant but softer and even rounder. "These may be the best pork buns I've made before. Outsider ingredients are top notch compared to the shit back home let me tell you." He's largely babbling to himself here.

With him... is Parker?!...who has already stolen one and is munching on it, a dangerous look in her eyes. She's got a sword wrapped up in white cloth on her back and a black uniform with a feathered collar with faint gold trimming and white wrappings around her arms.

"First time on like a real mission with another agent." Roland asides to Parker.

"They're gonna hurt a kid. I don't like that. It makes me feel that feeling like you just want to rrrrgh...!" Parker says, taking a moment to strangle the air.

"...Anger?" Roland asks.

"Yeah that."

They quiet down as they meet up with Thea, ROland waving a hand--Parker just staring at Thea like she might bite. Parker doesn't really struggle with clambering down the rock-wall, Roland manages it, but he's swearing the whole time until eventually Parker says, "Hurry up, they're gonna catch you if you fall anyway..." She hisses at him. Former Lobotomy Corp agents have a different idea of risk sometimes.

rBut evnetually they make it to the little cave. Parker is practically shoving Roland in and she takes a long look around and sniffs, "Dank, musky? Moist everywhere? I like it!"

rRoland says, "Neeat."

''You didn't say it'd be this many people.''

"Oogh... don't like being on the other end of that." Parker asides to Roland. "I feel like the...thing in those movies Tenannt showed, the one everybody is suspicious of, like, rightly?"

"The rat?" Roland asks.

"Yeah..." Parker laments.

One of the reasons Roland may have been struggling with the cliffside is because of the big box of food he was carrying on his back, but he looks for a somewhat steady and mostly dry rock and places the box on top of it, opening it up.

"Help yourselves." He manages. "If you aren't too cool for it."

But Parker just ends up chucking one of them at Raigh anyway. Not even underhanded.

"How much time do we got?" Parker asks, licking her fingers.
Odette Raskins "I get the feeling our new friends are skittish about us."

"Hard to blame them. We did just kind of show up in their home and make things a lot more complicated..." Odette comments as she follows Thea on the way through Edessa, keeping her hood on over her head to keep her face obscured while holding her cloak tightly around herself to keep the rest of herself hidden. Dressed in her new normal-in-Elibe getup with the blue tunic under the white cloak, the EMT  stops at the edge of the cliff and slips a hand into her medical case.

"I hope everyone's got good traction... Well, I've got painkillers if anyone does slip, but still. Be careful...!" She warns while starting the cliffblimb as well, moving at a fairly brisk if slightly hasty pace. She's already paranoid enough about being dead weight in a fight, so she's not about to take it slow and drag everyone else down!

After only two close calls that were totally intentional, Odette makes it down, and she waits near the bottom for everyone to get down safely before continuing onwards to the meeting point. Inside, she lets out a relieved sigh at seeing all those familiar faces before realizing that some of these familiar faces aren't regulars!

"It's not that cold, is it? Er... Or is it warmer back home?" She asks Roy, looking over at him with a curious tilt of her head as she opens up the cloak finally to cool off after all that climbing. Like routine, she does her rounds to ask after everyone's health and make sure they don't have any wounds that she can't offer some treatment or medication for right on the spot, and she makes doubly sure to check up on Niime after what happened the first time she had seen the older witch.

Also, Niime's here. "Ah... Ma'am? Did you make that climb, too?" Blinking owlishly in surprise, Odette steps back briefly when both Niime and Lucius scold Raigh, then snorts lightly under her breath before clearing her throat and taking a seat by the lantern (favoring Lucius' side, as expected).

"S-sorry if it's a little cramped! Er. Yes, we're here to help with... Um. All of this." She tries to offer some reassurances, pursing her lips slightly at the bad news about their previous route being closed off. "Do we have any other routes available, then? Or is this a... Are we going to be looking for a new one, then?"

She sweats slightly hearing Nobunaga's suggestion about distractions, rubbing her neck after a moment and nodding slowly at Parker's question. "If we don't have much time, then that might be our best bet. Has any news come from the castle that would need us to rush that much?"
Riku Asakura Riku comes prepared today; he's got a heavy coat with gloves to help him deal with the cold.  The coat has a hood on it to protect himself from the rain.  He's still got jeans and sneakers on, though.  The coat itself is black leather, and the gloves are blue and made of wool.  Overall, it's very warm looking and perfect for a day like today

'The rocks are wet. Mind yourselves.'

"Oh Boy, I didn't think to bring boots today..." Riku says mostly to himself.  However, Nobunaga has this handled by use of her rifles, unloaded, to help get them down and across to the cave itself.  "Thanks!" he says brightly to Nobunaga, forgetting she was a demon queen of war for the brief period of time.  

At the entrance to the cave, Riku pulls his hood down and shakes his hair out.  His hair is short, so it's not much to shake out, but it's enough that it feels good to get out of that enclosed space and let his ears breathe. He moves closer to a place of warmth to try and get some of his heat back.  

'I'm sorry,'

"Don't be, we know the risks and generally how it's not going to be great weather-wise.  How are you doing, Lord Roy?" he asks.  He wanted to make sure the leader of this expedition was doing well.  Riku is as bright as Roy is, trying to take things one step at a time and trying to see the best in any situation.  "Still injured?" he asks quietly and concerned.

'--our previous route has become compromised.'

"Oh?  Is there another way, or do we have to think of a way around this compromise?" Riku asks, unsure of exactly what route was being discussed, having just arrived.  He also gives Roland a sideways glance.  He's not sure about working with him after the incident at the Library or with what happened with the foundation.  He doesn't say anything, but his glance is enough to see he has reservations.  
Flamel Parsons     If you're looking for Grabby Magic, well, perhaps Flamel and his dozen giant mental hands is the ultimate manifestation. He makes sure to keep those translucent digits on-call and quick to resolve a slip, alongside pulsing the clairvoyance regularly to expose handholds and footholds used in the past more clearly.

    "Feel free to distrust me!" Flamel is eagerly offering as he enters. "I'm an acolyte of a vague yet ominous order, so please *do* actually keep me at arm's length in your considerations, examine possible bad outcomes of me knowing anyone, exclude me from key information, and generally refuse to depend on any aid I'm offering. It's traditional!" He adjusts his sunglasses and beams!

    ..."Are we going to be looking for a new one, then?"
    "Send a heavily armed and prepared 'distraction' that way, then send the real force in via another route, perhaps?"
    "Don't forget our man on the inside. Let me take a look at that." He heads over, to get a good look at the map. "I'm pretty good at infiltrating -- *and* I'll know any of the things Lugh will likely have set up while he's in there to try to help us, since I know his exact training level. We have to trust him -- depend on him the way he wanted us to." He spreads a small variety of Merit Badges over the table -- Basic Braining, Pyrokinesis, Ciphered Messaging, Mental Wellness, Mental Defense, Mental Connections, Marksmanship, and so on -- to distribute around the map.

    "Now, what we're looking for is... In standard Psychonaut protocol, there's three key stages to this specific scenario. A signal should draw us to a particular location. Since he'll know I'll come after him with either invisibility or remotely invading memories, it'll be something visibile from a main road." He places the Basic Braining badge on the wall nearest the main entrance. "Whatever the signal is should draw us towards an area that's not usually travelled much, or is mostly inaccessible. But he'll have left something there to help." He leaves the Mental Connection badge on the table. "There, he'll know how to leave psychic messages. He's not a psychic himself, but I've taught him enough about how clairvoyance applies to his work that he'll know how to leave something just for me." And then he leaves the Ciphered Messages badge.

    "He knows the tactical composition of the League." Flamel taps the Ciphered Messages badge. "So whatever he tells me to do with his message will be the best way to get the League through the door and as near as we can get to the VIPs. But he won't expect all of us to take that route. Look for gates and entrances that need one simple action to open that Lugh could leave for me in a message. That'll be where we want our main force ready." He taps each wall once with the Marksmanship badge, but, unable to decide things or know this part for himself, he offers it to Raigh. "Any ideas? I know it's..." He pauses for a long time. "It's a lot. But it's what I think."

    He is *utterly focused* on getting Lugh out of there. But, startlingly, he's assigning... a truly massive amount of competence to the boy. Is that smart? A quick glance to Lucius shows how he's a little self-aware about that. Is the psychic equivalent to a Boy Scouts program really enough to train Lugh in coordinated infiltration tactics? Well... Flamel seems to think so. He won't approach this situation with any lack of trust in the kid.

    For example, Parker gets a quick reply. "I want this done pretty much as soon as possible." He says. "Every day Lugh's in there is a risk. Espionage without an exit route is nearly suicide."

    His tension with Lucius and Raigh is somehow higher than his tension with Riku, someone who Flamel spent a long time shooting with his beams. Riku somehow just winds up with a friendly wave and a beaming greeting, despite the fact that Flamel and Geed have had maybe the fourth-most tumultuous relationship of anyone here. Maybe fifth. Why is 'righteous fury about mass death as a result of Flamel's lies' so low on the rankings...?
Desire Stars      Ace and Neon both took the opportunity to buy some local clothes after last time; each is still recognizably themselves, but it's just as dry and much less conspicuous than walking around in DGP-branded jackets. Ace wears a timeless brown hooded traveler's cloak, of the sort that stops a little past the waist rather than at the ankles, with faded green leggings tucked into comfortable-looking boots. Neon has opted for something similar to Thea, though her jacket is lighter and not fur-lined--she seems a little chilly for her decision.

     The slippery seaside wall draws a smile from Ace, his eyes shaded by the hood. "I visited a place like this not too long ago. Funny how this one's less remote, but more private."

     "I... definitely don't have grabby magic."

     "Me neither," says Ace, shrugging before making his way down the path with irritating relaxation. Even when he slips, he manages to find a handhold along the wall.

     Neon is much more methodical, in a timid, ungainly way, but eventually finds a rhythm of gradually planting her weight into each step to be sure any slips are eased into rather than barged into.

     Inside the cave, Neon breathes a sigh of relief, not only at seeing Roy or hearing that it's less cold, but at having trustworthy ground. "Trust me," she says with a mildly harrowed smile, "I'll take what I can get. Hey," she says, her eyes alight with recognition at the sight of Cath. "How are you settling in? Cath, right?"

    Ace flips up his hood and flashes his most grating smirk at Niime. "Hey there, wise one. Sorry about the accomodations. I know they're a little more threadbare than you're used to. I hope my retainers have been treating you well."
Petra Soroka     Raigh is someone who's given Petra an uneasy feeling in her stomach ever since she first learned about his existence at that small village when landing in Ilia. The awkward avoidance Lucius and Lugh have when talking about him, the tangible outline of the way his absence puts their past actions into perspective, leakily twisting and intensifying their feelings about the war-- archetypically for a dark magic user, she figures, his absence has been more of a factor than his presence would have been. Raigh's absence has followed the Lycian army throughout each step in Ilia, and it's only now at the clear ending of that arc that Petra puts a finger on why he's occupied her thoughts so much.

    It's because, like any form of empathy Petra manages to mimic, she's thinking of herself. Seeing how reflexively angry he was at everything only confirmed it. Storming away from home to seize power at the cost of his self for a perceived lack of 'soldiers' around him-- really, the main difference is that he did it before the threat came and went, rather than after, which makes him more comparable to the people Petra wasn't, which only makes her feel more uneasy. Her talk about narrative arcs in the radio wasn't just for show. This moment today feels critical, not just for saving Lugh's life, but for justifying Raigh's.

    So in conclusion, she's got to lock the fuck in. Her outfit is similar to last time's, with a white linen shirt laced up in the front and the fantasy-adventurer's version of cargo pants, and the dull cloak she's pulled on over top makes her blend into the muted colors of the city. Her boots, at least, are waterproof, but the heavy cloak gets heavier with rain in just the time it takes to get from the warpgate to Thea.

"I get the feeling our new friends are skittish about us."

    "So, same as always, then?" Even though Petra's taken Lilian's word about calling Elibe as a world 'near-death', she still can't help but think of Zephiel each time the recurring theme of trust issues comes up during the campaign, justified or not. "At least, between you, Shanna, and-- well, and Lugh, we've got a pretty strong case to make for why we can be trusted."

    Petra doesn't need any kind of help on a slippery cliffside path at all. In fact, she actively avoids getting help, from Nobunaga's stairs or otherwise. It's a little bit of enrichment she needs, to scuttle along a narrow seaside path and being careful not to slip or be spotted by the boats in the harbor, and she can just politely avert her eyes from a magic gun-conveyor-belt-with-handrails that would completely trivialize the whole endeavor.
Petra Soroka "Come on, it's warm in here."

    Petra pushes her the hood of her cloak off and shakes her head, flinging away water that soaked through into her hair. She pushes wet bangs out of her face and gives Roy a little wave. "It's warm enough. 'S not really all that bad out there, even." She looks at her fingers in the lanternlight and observes that they're purplish from cold and scraped up from the rocky cliff. "Hm."

"You didn't say it'd be this many people,"

    Petra sighs. "You get used to it. Some of them aren't much more than warm bodies, but they're shockingly hard to kill, so they're not all bad if you need meat shields."

    Petra invites herself to join the inner circle around the lantern, squatting down and folding her arms on top of her knees. "Anyways, what this many people gets you is mostly 'options', right? And we're kind of in need of those, if we're gonna do anything in a timely way at all."

    Gesturing towards Raigh without dipping her tone an inch below 'professionally focused', and then also remembering to do that with the knight, "How much imminent threat do you think Lugh's in? And Lady Juno. Like, are we talking indefinite medium danger, or are they rolling them onto the executioner's block as we speak? If we 'go loud' before we've got anyone inside, by having a distraction like Nobunaga says, is that going to immediately get heat on those two?"

    "The way I see it," Petra counts out on her fingers, "Lilian and Parsons are both capable of getting in there quickly and quietly, as long as there's literally any way in at all, and Riku, Nobunaga, and I are all capable of keeping a bunch of people occupied at once. But that's sort of first thoughts off the top of my head; I don't know anything about the layout itself."
Odette Raskins "Feel free to distrust me!"

"Well, when you put it like that..." Odette can't help but giggle again at Flamel's enthusiastic declaration of his mistrustworthiness, although that's somewhat tempered by remembering what had happened back in Chicago not so long ago. Should she be doubting him? It's not like she'd have a reason to doubt him here, at least, but knowing that there's at least one place she should be wary about his presence is enough to get Odette to question things she knows she shouldn't be right this minute.

"S... So we should keep our eyes open around any access grates or side doors that we might able to just pry open or get through kind of simply enough, right? Or maybe soemthing that we..." Odette pauses, then looks straight at Flamel. "That you could pull down for everyone? S-since he knows you've got the psychic hand thing, that might open up some more openings that anyone else inside wouldn't really think about."

"I hope my retainers have been treating you well."
Ace's comment gets a confused look from Odette, followed by redirecting Odette's gaze towards Niime again. Notably, she's staring right at the old witch's mouth. She doesn't remember paying particular attention to her teeth before...

Wait. Do they really have a similar enough mouth shape for that? Her gaze goes right back to Ace's mouth a moment later, although it might look like she's just kind of gazing at his lips instead. She is, at least a little bit.
Angela ''If we don't have much time, then that might be our best bet.''

"Are they really stupid? If they're really stupid then maybe we can do a big distraction fight while we send people to rescue him but if they aren't really stupid they'll know an attack from us elsewhere is a ploy to rescue him." Parker says.

"I haven't really known the people here to be that dumb." Roland says. "I mean they'd figure out we were there to rescue him, so if we do a distraction, whomever's breaking in better be ready to block a headsman or whoever in a flash." Roland isn't entirely certain Nobunaga just wants more decapitations in general but he looks over to Parker. "Do you have an idea?"

Parker wrinkles her nose.

"Well?"

"I wasn't the planner!" Parker protests. "But if we have to go as soon as possible, the distraction shouldn't be obviously ''us''. We should be pretending to be something else, some other problem, that isn't obviously a 'loud and soft' smash and grab."

Roland drums his fingers against his chin. "Some of us are pretty high profile, but so long as there's some plausible deniability that we're multiversals, I doubt they'd rush to executions or doubling the guard or anything."
Lilian Rook     One day, sometime soon, Lilian has got to get one of those cure-all environmental immunity and comfort suites that she hears about annoyingly often. And while she's at it, an extradimensional storage space too, which she sees even more. And if she's doing that, then why not a magical costume switcher? Oh, and maybe a dime-a-dozen reason to not get hungry and tired like one in two Elites seems to have, and...

    Walking the cold and slushy streets of Edessa is an experience that wins the dubious honour of encouraging Lilian to extensively contemplate her own continued humanity; a topic that she typically avoids. As usual, the meandering examination of the trivial yet deeply impactful conveniences that she never seems to get around to sourcing from offworld leads her all the way back to an itemized list of every little petty grievance she has with existence, and a weak resolution to decide which are important enough to seriously pursue later. Also as usual, Lilian is still just as cold and wet as she was at the start of it, and no more happy to be here. Her justified dislike of the topic increments by one more notch.

    Wearing her cloak (fur-collar variant) is just to cover up her armour, which has the virtue of being hydrophobic. Pulling her hood up over a pair of earmuffs and a scarf certainly helps keep her head warm, but there just aren't acceptable options for bodywear available at a moment's notice, and Lilian has had her caution about being attacked in the streets elevated to a gradually decaying peak lately. 'Grabby magic' elicits a brief smile and a puff of fog from her, but as soon as she's squeezed herself into the cave (only after magically nullifying her gravity) Lilian is back to clenching her muscles tight enough to not show it if she's shivering.

    'Come on, it's warm in here. Um, or maybe just not quite as cold. I don't think I can tell the difference anymore...'

    Grateful to have a stationary place to be, Lilian breathes out, snaps her fingers, and conjures up her will-o-wisps. Pinching her finger and thumb around something that looks like a warm coal of the same ghostly green magic as the flames, grinding it down to sparkly dust intensifies the glow through shades of green-yellow, daffodil, and finally amber, until several ordinary small flames hover at fixed places in the air; something she couldn't do under her cloak, because then it would catch fire, obviously. A bad habit might be catching, since she says "cad a déarfá leis sin?"

    'You didn't say it'd be this many people'

    "If it has to be few, then you could always stay behind; I don't mind doing it all myself." says Lilian, would would in fact really mind that, but has an automatic parry for this sort of thing. For those first few seconds, she's busy taking in the small crew that's already within the cave.

    'Who said we trust you?'

    This type of thing from this type of boy activates another one, of a different stripe, and it goes: "I didn't ask."

    It's not a difficult process to figure out Raigh's deal, nor his relation to the others. Lilian glances at Niime with an unsubtle look of 'glad you're here' mixed with 'my condolences about your apprentice', and falls back into thought again.
Nobunaga > "...Riku, Nobunaga, and I are all capable of keeping a bunch of people occupied at once."

    "Ahaha--" Nobunaga crouches down near the lantern, hands resting on her tucked up knees, "I can't speak for anyone else, but I was going to nominate myself for the 'distraction' part of my little recommendation. There are few who can demand so much attention as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven." Her eyes slide sideways towards Riku, "Though the Ultraman certainly catches one's eye."

> "The distraction shouldn't be obviously ''us''."

    "Hooh! A good point from the New Face," One hand lifts from her knee to cradle her chin again, glancing over Cath's map again, "Where might they store something particularly volatile? Lamp oil, black powder, or the like?" She isn't sure what exactly Elibe would have that's fairly unstable and explosive or highly flammable but chances are there's *something*.
Lilian Rook     'We're discussing...'

    Lilian absentmindedly reaches for one of Roland's pork buns, and bites into one as the mysterious ~kamen kishi~ explains where things are at. When she makes an approving noise by reflex, she has to scan for a second to figure out who she took them from, and once she's swallowed her first bite, actually speak to Roland. "Somehow I don't know whether to be surprised that the difference is that large. Though, I hadn't taken you for the domestic type to begin with." She is studiously ignoring Parker's existence. She started doing that pretty much since Odette said something about painkillers, actually.

    Once sufficient time has passed for Lilian to actually hear some suggestions, the remainder of her pork bun vanishes, and she interjects smoothly into an opportune gap in the conversation. "As classic as 'let me blow everything up and call it a distraction' is--" she begins, then dourly segues to "--and as effective as it often is, for that matter--" Why is that anyways? "Let's please keep in mind that they are holding people they'll suspect of treachery the moment that things begin exploding."

    "A distraction won't be necessary until the risk of being compromised is actually elevated, and it won't be while a handful of operatives simply sneak in; getting them on guard before that is only going to shoot us in the foot. It will be once we begin extracting untrained personnel of importance." Lilian says, carefully not using 'VIP' too casually. Flamel calling Lugh their 'man inside' makes her smile. "I've nothing to add to Parsons' assessment of how well Lugh can inform us from within; the intelligence operative training has been all his doing." she says, meaning 'psychonauts summer camp'. "The only issue I see is that Lugh would have to have gone above and beyond to get himself close to Juno first. We'll need at least two separate pints of infiltration."

    'Lilian and Parsons are both capable of getting in there quickly and quietly, as long as there's literally any way in at all, and Riku, Nobunaga, and I are all capable of keeping a bunch of people occupied at once. But that's sort of first thoughts off the top of my head; I don't know anything about the layout itself.'

    "Indeed. I'd like to see more of it." Lilian says, turning to Cath, and sort of deigning to include Raigh provisionally in the same cone of vision. "We need to know where to draw guards to if it's going to be away from Juno's and Lugh's exits." She allows the thought to rest for two beats. "And I wouldn't mind knowing what else we can do while we're in there."
Marigold      "Same as always, then," Thea echoes back to Petra, as you all step into the cave. "I wonder if it was like this during the Scouring, too... do people suddenly start trusting each other if the end of the world is a little more obvious? Maybe we just didn't write down all the bickering they did."

     "It's not that cold, is it?"
     "It's warm enough. 'S not really all that bad out there, even."
     "Where are you two from?" Roy asks, mildly aghast. "It's--" Well, he's about to continue being aghast, but then Riku asks his freezing-soggy self how he's doing, so he has to put on the dependably-earnest smile and pivot smoothly into a hypocritical "--I've been fine, I think. Nothing really to complain about, except being worried for Lugh."

     Roy, please . . .

     "Ah... Ma'am? Did you make that climb, too?"
     Niime chortles at Odette, in that hwuh-huh-huh! way old women sometimes do. "What else was I going to do? Leave my apprentice unsupervised? He's had enough of that."
"I've been doing just fine without your supervision, Niime."
"Oh, have you now!"
"Nnnh... don't you start in front of them."
"Yes, let's not, boy."

     She clucks her tongue, sympathizing with Lilian, and shakes her head. Lucius grimaces slightly at Niime's sternness; she doesn't seem to notice, and if Raigh does notice it doesn't endear him to Lucius any more.

     He's rather too busy glowering grumpily in Lilian's vague direction anyway, hands shoved under his arms for warmth. But he does give Petra a peer-acknowledging nod, once he recognizes her voice, and scoots sideways just in case she wants to sit, you know, in his vicinity.

     "To tell you the truth, I am very happy just to have warm bodies," the dark-clad pegasus knight says, looking sideways from the map for just a moment. Her fingers rub together, trying to keep warm. She seems more youthfully-anxious than her role as ringleader-regent should allow; she's conscious of it too, clamping down on her own fidgeting. "After the attempt on Sigrun's life, we have had too much of cold ones."

     "How are you settling in? Cath, right?"
     "I wouldn't say I'm very settled at all," the sprightly young woman says with a flip of her hair and a gesture over the map at the scarred pegasus knight, "but Talia here says my services are absolutely needed, even though I'm not being paid up front..."
"Consider it a trade for Lady Juno's pardon," 'Talia' responds, without looking up.
"I don't need a pardon! I needed that silver more than she does, and she knows it!"
"You are quite lucky that she needs an expert at breaking into her own house."
"And she's lucky to have one, excuse me!"
"Please excuse our Catherine, Otherworlder--" "Cath! Nobody calls me Catherine!" "--I assure you, she pulls her own weight."
"Well thank you. But, ugh, I should've listened to dad. Lady, if you can help it--" now she's speaking to Neon, again-- "never get caught up in the doings of nobles."
"Isn't that the truth," Melady murmurs from her heretofore-silent spot nearby.

     ... Wait, 'Talia'? That name might sound familiar.
Marigold      To answer questions about the previous route, Cath clears her throat dramatically, and then smooths the map flat even though it really doesn't need smoothing.

     THE MAP: https://i.imgur.com/9fQkShp.png

"Did you have to add birds?" Raigh asks.
"Shut up!" Cath snaps back.
"Oh, um, I like them actually."
"Oh. You sounded--"
"I just sound ways sometimes."

     "A-ny-way! I had been accessing the dungeon- excuse me, the wine cellars- through a secret entrance connecting to the caves here," Cath explains, pointing to the dark back of the cave. "But after I was caught smuggling Raigh out, due to-- er, well, I guess it's not really important whose fault that was-- they went so far as to cave it in. That tunnel's just solid rubble now. I'm sure they'd hear us trying to mine through it, too."

     "Otherwise, you could get in through the front door- that's going to be heavily guarded, though- or through a roof landing, like the pegasus knights do, but Bern's refurbished the ballistae from when this place was a real sea fort... I guess in case any knights get funny ideas."

     Talia looks up with a small wry smile, but doesn't go on.

     "There's the treasury, down on the ground floor on the cliff-facin' side. A good amount of Bern's contractual pay to the local wings goes through here to Sigrun, every couple weeks. I guess that's why she stops by sometimes." "That, and to speak with Galle," Talia interjects. "The castle is Bern's informal seat here. General Galle isn't in residence, but he comes by more often than anyone would like."

     As for Lugh's likely whereabouts, and the time-frame... Raigh doesn't need any prompting from his two buddies to speak his part. He pats his own chest and stands up.

     "Right. They're not killing him tonight, but I don't think we have a week to spare. If Lugh's blown his cover real bad, he might be down in the cellars with Lady Juno. If he hasn't, he'd still be in my study," he says, pointing down at the map.

     "They wanted me to be working on a ritual that could heal the dark dragons, if they get maimed real bad. Apparently some've'm have gotten cut up with the fighting in the west, and they can't spare their 'Dark Priestess'." That must mean Iðunn. "I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'm not stupid enough to hand Bern something like that. Thing is, Lugh can't string them along like I could, 'cause he doesn't know a thing about dark magic. They were already riding me pretty hard, saying they were gonna lock me away if I didn't give them something soon."
Marigold      "Which means," Talia prompts him. He looks confused for a second, then-- "Oh, right. Which means there's at least one dragon probably in the castle somewhere, to test his results on. If there's a big open fight or distraction, you'll probably have to deal with that, right next to the town." "... And we haven't put one down without collateral damage yet," Roy concludes uneasily.

"Where might they store something particularly volatile?"
"Uhh. The wine, maybe? What they didn't drink, they moved upstairs..." Cath starts, but Niime has a better idea. "If you can get me up to that old study of Raigh's, I can show them something. Raigh, were you holding onto that other copy of the weather ritual?" "What, do you think I spent it, granny?" "Next time just say 'yes', boy."

     Niime snorts and looks over at Ace, rewarding him with a smile. "Oh, your 'retainers' have been much sweeter to me than my apprentice. That Merlinus fellow especially! Why, if I were twenty years younger, I'd be all over him."

     Raigh makes a Face at her, but at least he's placated by Roland's pork buns. Even though he'd said he didn't want snacks before, now that one's in his hands, he eyes it suspiciously before popping it in his mouth. "... Huh. That's not bad, mister." For a second there, he almost sounded like Lugh...

     Lucius returns Flamel's meaningful glance, then nods, soberly. "I... Lugh is capable of a lot. I trust him. If you've trained him as you say, then..." "Hmph." "Raigh, please, I don't mean to say that I trust you any less." "Well that's good, then."

     Begrudgingly, coaxed by Petra's companionship and Roland's buns, Raigh engages with the surely ridiculous puddingverse of 'what if Lugh were competent'. Begrudgingly, he picks up a badge...

     "The front door? No, it can't be that. There's guards there anyway. He can't have left a window open either; there's guards watching the walls, and the ballistae watch the sky... nnnh. Maybe if Lugh sabotaged the ballistae, without anybody noticing him, the sky landing would be open? But that's a big maybe."
Marigold YOUR ASSETS:
Lucius has a single Warp staff use remaining, letting him send or retrieve one person anywhere in line of sight.
Melady is a wyvern rider, indistinguishable from Galle in the sky.
Cath can pick locks and has detailed recall of the Castle's interior.
Raigh is a perfect body double for Lugh.
Niime can create fair or foul weather on demand, if brought safely to the Study.
Talia is, as far as Bern and Sigrun know, a loyal member of Sigrun's squad.
Lugh can plausibly have committed minor sabotage, left one or two doors open, or dead-dropped intel.

COMPLICATIONS:
A dragon is in human form somewhere in the Castle, and will cause collateral damage to Edessa if a full-fledged fight breaks out.
Sigrun and Galle frequent the Castle on short notice and with irregular schedules.
Lugh might either be in the Cellars with Lady Juno, or in the Study, depending on how much trouble he's gotten in.

BONUS OBJECTIVES:
It may be possible to catch Sigrun or Galle under-protected if they are present.
The Treasury contains substantial amounts of gold, intended to pay the local pegasus knight mercenaries through Sigrun.
Nobunaga     > "A distraction won't be necessary until the risk of being compromised is actually elevated."

    "Most certainly the better plan. Something to keep in the wings in case it's necessary." Eyes closing, Nobunaga remarks, "I must admit I typically left more clandestine needs to the shinobi." Well, a good general knows how to delegate rather than do everything themselves. Someone as bombastic as Nobunaga is definitely not going to be good at subtlety of most sorts.

> "But Talia here says..."

    Red eyes open, swinging sidelong at the Pegasus knight now that she's heard a name; and a familiar one at that, "They're all quite worried about you, you know." Straightening her seated posture, Nobunaga's eyes shift back to the map and to her thoughts.

    "Wine, hmm~... That'd be such a waste, and not terribly flammable besides. Ahh, it simply won't do."

> "...through here to Sigrun, every couple weeks. I guess that's why she stops by sometimes."
> "General Galle isn't in residence, but he comes by more often than anyone would like."

    Nobunaga pauses, glancing up with a blink. One can almost see the halogen lamp of an idea start to warm up and emit light. She shoots a look back at Talia, then further-- pasts her, towards Melady.

    "I need a tailor who can keep their mouth shut," is the first thing out of her mouth. The slightly-fanged smile spreads across her lips, focusing on Melady in particular;

    "How are you at impressions?"
Angela There's a sense that Roland would prefer to do this with his life, to prepare food and feed said food to people he cares about than doing assassinations and even, really, plotting rescue missions. That's not really unusual from people in the City, but that standard sort of longing from Cityfolk for a peaceful life where they don't have to do adventures runs deep within Roland, like it's something he's nursed within himself all this time and never gave up on--or at least hadn't given up on it for most of his life--and it now permeates every little cell of his being. His smile widens visibly when Lilian compliments the food. "My partner loves snacks. Our relationship actually started at a sandwich place that had buns like these, so maybe I was a bit partial too. She felt a good meal with the people you love is more precious than most permanent gifts you could buy. It's a lot tougher to steal a sandwich after you've eaten it than some dongle or precious item."

He considers that comment, though, and adds, "I did most of the cooking. She isn't too bad herself, but I enjoyed doing it so it ended up my responsibility and once the kid was one the way, well, she'd say 'you're feeding for two now'."

He rubs at his neck and adds, "I uh. I guess neither of us really seemed the type, to be honest, but it's pretty amazing what you get used to once you've jumped in and give it a try. I'm sure once you settle down it'll be the same way, the stuff you're not sure about you'll fumble at for a while then it'll be second nature."

He doesn't seem to be the type of person who believes talking about your personal life before a dangerous option is hazardous.

''People they'll suspect of treachery...''

The danger of Parker being ignored is that Lilian now agreed with Parker's statement which causes her to blow hair out of her face and be smug about it. She hasn't realized Lilian's ignoring her! Though that might be because she's often ignored (especially now that she no longer is wearing a mask of dried skin on her face) and as such picking out which particular entity is a bit beyond her capability.

''I'm sure they'd hear us triyng to mine through it, too.''

"Man what a time to not have White around." Roland says, not quite aware White would need to see the place first because nobody told him.

''Huh. That's tno bad, mister.''

"Easier to think with food in your belly." He says.

"Not too much food or you get eepy."

"Well okay sure."

''Planning.''

"If we've got a week, I can definitely take the spot of a guard. People don't tend to give me a close look." Roland, the man with the most average face, says. "Could check on the ballistas, see what sort of prep Lugh's been up to, pass it on. Wouldn't take me more than a couple days to get in. Just to get more information on the situation rather than the rescue itself. Maybe then we can even confirm where Lugh is before Flamel and Lilian bust in." He looks to Talia. "If a guard's too risky, well, they gotta have chefs, people who bring in food. What do you think?"
Riku Asakura Riku looks at Flamel, and though it's hard to smile, he does manage one with a wave back at the man with whom he had recently gone into fisticuffs over a different matter.  Relationships with Flamel have always been a bit strained, ever since he lied about the situation at Labcorp, which resulted in someone's permanent death, and the ensuing conversation.  

He looks towards Lilian, who just casually takes the meat bun from Roland and doesn't seem to hold a grudge over the Library thing, nor does Roland.  This causes Riku to reconsider his position and feelings of unease about working together.  Riku even feels a bit silly about it, but maybe it's worth talking to Lilian about another time.  Maybe she has complicated feelings about it, too.  

Nobunaga's comment about the Ultraman being flashy gets a bashful smile from the young Ultraman, who shakes his head.  "It's not my goal to be flashy or anything like that, just to save lives where I can." Riku tries to be careful about letting his fame or power go to his head too much, so he tries to be humble.  

'Which means there's at least one dragon probably in the castle somewhere, to test his results on.'

"If there is a dragon, I would probably be best suited to handle it.  I can fly and come at the castle from the sea.  That is, of course, if we even need a distraction.  Our most direct route is cut off, so it's likely we're going to need a distraction or at least a plan if things go south for the infiltration team."

"Anyway, if the dragon takes the bait and comes at me from the sea, I can drag it there and prevent it from damaging the city."  
Odette Raskins "Where are you two from?"

Odette's stunned briefly as she realizes she has no idea how to explain it without sounding like a crazy person. Then again, Roy's probably seen plenty of that's been strange, so maybe telling him wouldn't shatter his perception of things! But how would she even begin to explain how space travel works?

"I'm from a mining colony, way... Way out further than where most everyone here is from. It's cold all year-round, so everyone's bundled up even when we're inside!" She explains excitedly, pausing briefly as she realizes that might not be giving Roy the right idea. "A-although that's not really the case on the stations since those are climate controlled and a lot closer to this, but it's still freezing cold once you go outside since space is missing... Um. Everything? An atmosphere, for starters, so there's no air to breathe, all the heat gets sucked right out of anything that's not extra insulated, and even hearing anything is next to impossible..."

Realizing she's gone off for a bit there, Odette clears her throat bashfully. "Er. Sorry. The people on the colony are really nice, though!"

"What else was I going to do?"

Snickering lightly at Niime's familiar old lady noise, ODette gives her an affirming nod while finishing off her pork bun. "Good point... Well, don't be afraid to ask for a hand or two if you need them, alright? Then we can make sure we pull this off and get everyone back home safe, too."

"but Talia here says my services are absolutely needed, even though I'm not being paid up front.."

Hearing Talia's name gets Odette's attention, and it takes her only a few moments (and hearing Nobunaga confirming it) to let out a slightly relieved noise. The first half (making sure she's still alive) is already done! All hat's left is making sure she gets through all this alive, too.

"W-we'll be okay. All warm bodies coming back, no cold bodies." On this side, at least. She can't make that same promise for Bern's side, and her arm starts to ache a bit more just thinking about that.

THE MAP

After holding back another quiet noise at seeing the birds on the map, Odette steels her expression as she listens to the assessment of where Lugh could be. "S.. Sounds like we shouldn't loiter, then, yeah. Even if he could string them along for a while, they're not going to wait forever. But if they wanted dark magic to heal a dragon-"

Talia and Raigh confirm it, and some of the color drains right out of Odette's face. "W... Well, if they have one around for testing that, then maybe it's already wounded...?" She tries to delude herself more than convince anyone with that, inhaling slowly through her nose to try and keep her breathing steady.

"Are they really stupid?"
"We'll need at least two separate pints of infiltration."

"W.. Worst case scenario, they're really smart, so coming in from multiple angles sounds good." Odette nods slowly in agreement, munching on one of those kimchi pork buns from Roland and only pausing briefly when she notices what's actually inside it. She takes a smaller nibble of the bun to try and identify what she's tasting, then goes right back to munching away with a satisfied little noise coming out of her before long.

"If there's a maintenance.. Er. Service entrance?" Odette points at the green section that doesn't appear to be cut off. "I could try and slip in that way as one of the servants. Compared to..." Swallowing another bite of her bun, Odette gestures at pretty much everyone that isn't herself, Lucius, Chad, and Cath.

"... Most everyone here, I don't really have that warrior look, so it should be kinda easy going in that way. It looks like a.. Um. A clear shot to the cellar from there, so I could see if Lugh's with Juno in there. A-and if I see... Ergh. Galle or Sigrun or someone on the way there, I can tail them and... Um. Call out where they're headed so everyone else can go around the other ways?"
Lilian Rook     'Maybe we just didn't write down all the bickering they did.'

    "I guarantee you it's the latter." Lilian says, not above finding the idea a teeny bit embarrassing. "Nobody is going to report that they were petty and annoying and made a fool of themselves later, and everyone who had to deal with them will think of it as snide and small of them to insist on adding it in. Usually." Frankly, that weighty duty usually falls to her, and she is often without the energy to carry it out.

    '--I've been fine, I think. Nothing really to complain about, except being worried for Lugh.'

    Lilian gives Roy a little disappointed frown. Come on.

    Meanwhile, Raigh can glare at her all she likes. Boys just do this sometimes. As long as he understands that she is on Niime's circle, and that Petra is a step below in his, all of the gears are turning smoothly and where they should be. He can keep admiring her pork bun-eating technique for all she cares. Or probably not that actually. Don't.

    'my services are absolutely needed, even though I'm not being paid up front...'

    "Who in their right mind would pay a theif up front?" Lilian says, arching her brow more in surprise than condescension. "If they succeed, then they can always find a way to get paid, even if you don't intend to hold your end of the bargain, and if they fail, well it's not as if they're about to be spending that up-front pay any time soon now is it?"

    'And she's lucky to have one, excuse me!'

    Lilian quietly snorts behind her gauntlet.

    'Isn't that the truth'

    "Even the kind ones can be their own sort of troublesome." Lilian says, nodding sagely and thinking of Guinivere.

    'I just sound ways sometimes.'

    "Oh my goodness you're going to have to work on that." Lilian says, all in one breath, like it's so astonishingly bleak-amusing that she can't even emote about it. And yet, she leans forward, hands on her knees, to orient herself at 'studying the map now; busy' soon after.

    'But after I was caught smuggling Raigh out, due to-- er, well, I guess it's not really important whose fault that was-- they went so far as to cave it in.'

    "Staggeringly, sometimes things happen as a result of actions." Lilian murmurs, nonsensically. This means: she expects the castle security to be non-trivial. "No sense working our way up from the front door for convention's sake." indicates that she actually paid attention to Raigh as well; saying 'up' in the first place, that is.

    "Covert rooftop insertion." she says, half-glancing Flamel's way. "If we have to use the front gates, it should be on the way out. It's already the most fortified spot, so it'd be moronic to throw a 'distraction' at it; and it'll be the place they're most likely to pull surplus personnel from too. Realistically, though, we're better off hustling both VIPs to the cliff edge and jumping off. That immediately breaks line of sight with the ballistae." Moving her finger to the cliffside on the drawing, Lilian forgets, or doesn't care to, change her tone right around the time she's suggesting something that outrageous.
Lilian Rook     "If the alarm isn't raised, even Parsons should be able to move without need of one more person at most. Juno is best left to me; the cellars will have the most substantial guard and I'm the one a noble will be least untrusting of, not to mention best able to transport her."

    '... And we haven't put one down without collateral damage yet'

    Lilian frowns, but doesn't slow her roll at all. "Especially if there's any possibility of being engaged by an enemy dragon. Both Parsons and I should be able to detect one if we're careful." Galle's name makes her more uneasy than the mention of a Bernish dragon, for some reason. "If Galle is coming and going, they won't exactly be eager to start a giant monster fight in the middle of a random hallway; a dragon will move to inercept us outside, or at least on the roof or in a courtyard. That's where Galle will want to come after us if he's there as well; no sense fighting away from his wyvern."

    'Hmph.'
    'Raigh, please, I don't mean to say that I trust you any less.'
    'Well that's good, then.'

    "Pick a lane, boy." Lilian sighs at Raigh. She pauses just to meet Lucius' eyes. "And please don't spoil him. If he had the will to walk out then he should have been prepared to make do with less of your praise." Lilian doesn't make it imminently clear why this is important enough to her to stop and say.

    'Man what a time to not have White around.'

    "That's what happens when you get complacent and come to depend on one person too much." Lilian says, only going on to add in a slightly leaky way, "Though, no one ever says that about me."

    Stopping to stare at an invisible assortment of loosely related things, Lilian closes her eyes, counts all the way to ten, and lets her breath steam back out through barely parted lips.

    "I'd love to make use of Melady, but that first requires knowing whether Galle is home or not. If Parsons and I are reasonably close by, I can relay the message outdoors when he scans the answer from someone inside. I'd prefer not to use up Lucius' staff unless it's an emergency as well; that's tantamount to me being the first and last line of magical extraction for the rest of the war. I would personally only take Cath or Raigh ahead on the advance infiltration, but we can make use of them both as long as we're heading to different locations." She seems to realize something in motion, but keeps it quiet. "If Cath can open the cells downstairs the quiet way, I'll much appreciate her company, but two people really is my limit."

    "Once we are on our way out, I definitely don't want this small of a group of people fighting, potentially, Galle and Sigrun at the same time. Along with a dragon, you people are mincemeat; sorry not sorry." Lilian says next, aiming her attention at the Multiversals much more so than the Lycians. "Bad weather is strictly to our advantage in every way that matters once Melady's and or Talia's patrol is either complete or non-viable. Unless something goes exceptionally wrong, however, I don't intend to be in charge of the study."
Petra Soroka "They're gonna hurt a kid. I don't like that. It makes me feel that feeling like you just want to rrrrgh...!"

    "You've got such a way with words, Parker," Petra casually asides, before double taking. "Wait, Parker? You're getting sent out again?"

    She gives Parker's prosthetic hand a fistbump, briefly gets caught up in thinking about the events surrounding the loss of Parker's arm and Rita eating it, fixates on the crystal clear image of Rita's face in the moment Petra disintegrated the rest of it as seen in Angela's perfect memory, and then recovers from that line of thinking, all in the span of a couple seconds. "Can't believe I lost you the moment you stopped being totally insane. You're ordered to be nice to her, Roland."

"And I wouldn't mind knowing what else we can do while we're in there."

    "Mhm, I mean... in the end, getting Lady Juno out is mostly just symbolic. So's getting Lugh out, really. Neither one's going to do anything about leaving Edessa occupied behind us, which would, like, be bad. Obviously having Lady Juno on our side's good and all for liberating the city, but if the Bernish army's still hanging out in the castle totally fine then that's kind of risking them being able to just, like, hammer down on the city with cannons-- ballistae-- to prevent any real rebellion from going on. If getting caught once was bad, a second rescue's gonna make it *way* harder to sneak back into the castle, and fighting back in would fucking suck."

"I don't need a pardon! I needed that silver more than she does, and she knows it!"

    Petra snickers at Cath's back and forth, resting her chin on her folded arms. That line catches in her head in particular, though, and she spins it around for a bit. There's a level of charm that so many of the people in this world have, and the fact that even someone with essentially no relevance to Petra's internal narrative of the war can still be interesting to her is what fascinates her about it. No one tell her this is called 'caring about people as a whole'.

    "A pardon can be exchanged for more silver," She eventually decides on saying. "If you're quick." Then, elaborating, "I mean, it's all a process of choosing who you'd rather see you as their enemy in the moment, right? Sure, Lady Juno wasn't out here redistributing the wealth to the masses or whatever, but neither is Bern. And if you thought Bern was a better option to have around, there were probably a million safer jobs you could've done than heisting Raigh out."
Petra Soroka "I'm sure they'd hear us trying to mine through it, too."

    Petra shuffles forwards on her knees to get a better look at the map, and runs through all of their options mentally. "Yeah, probably." God, the birds are *really* cute. Petra's spent five minutes with these kids and she already really likes both of them.

"Oh, right. Which means there's at least one dragon probably in the castle somewhere, to test his results on."

    "Oh." Petra's expression twists. "Well, I mean, whether it's now or later, we've got no choice *but* to deal with it. So I guess that kind of inevitably rules out anything but the 'all out war' angle, because we're not leaving the dragon behind. That just makes the question of whether we do it after rescuing Lady Juno, when we won't be split between two things and can focus on it but they'll be more ready for us to start a fight, *or* we kill two birds with one stone and kill it during the rescue."

    Petra pokes her finger on the map, drawing a line out over the cliffside. "Surprisingly, I'm kind of in favor of doing it at the same time. If we get Juno out, there's no telling whether they'd just release the dragon on the city anyways right after, out of being afraid that the rebellion's gotten too bold. Meanwhile, it's already wounded, presumably, and between the Beauty of Ash and Geed we're practically matching it in scale. Ideally we'd have an infiltration team be undetected on the way in, obviously, but banking on the exfiltration going smoothly and *then* having enough time to regroup after just seems like a long shot, even with Lilian and Parsons. If we draw that dragon out, that's loud enough even that no one would even bother checking on us excavating the tunnel, which Nobunaga's guys could probably do."

    Petra looks up and around for approval, mostly at Lilian. "So, um, here's what I'm thinking. Roland goes in under a disguise to check whether Lugh's in the study or dungeons so we're not wandering around in there. Lilian, Parsons, and Cath, I guess?, get in from the roofs, either splitting up or not, depending. And once they've got the two of them safely, Riku and I kick the beehive, approaching from the ocean, until the dragon comes out, and then Nobunaga's waiting on this side of the caves to dig out the tunnel. Does that seem, like, sane?"
Angela ''You're getting sent out again?''

Parker doubletakes herself and then smiles. It's a normal smile! She seems happy to see Petra. "Captain!" Despite Parker being barely lucid at the best of times for most of the events of Lobotomy Corp, she seems to have obtained a positive view of Petra somehow. "Yeah, I asked to be able to go on jobs again, Angela was fine with just keeping former agents on site but I'm...fine with books? But I was going stir crazy staying in there the whole time."

''Can't believe I lost you the moment you stopped being totally insane.''

"I went to summer camp." is Parker's explanation, looking over to Flamel before looking back to Petra. "Sasha Nein helped me a lot. And Lugh...was one of my fellow campers. And if anybody hurt a hair on his head--" She smiles. "I'll chop them to pieces." She actually just hates people who hurt kids in general, but Lugh is a kid she KNOWS so she's extra double upset about this.

''You're ordered to be nice to her, Roland.''

"Oh uh. Yes Petra." Roland is trying to say the name Petra like it's the title of an officer like sir, ma'am, or captain. Roland is surprised to get orders from Petra on a non-library mission, but it's actually a bit of a relief. He wasn't exactly planning on being MEAN to Parker but sometimes having a superior officer, even if it's one he's not entirely sure he isn't planning on murdering, is kind of a relief anyway. He was a special officer in the war, not a commander. He likes being pointed.

''Roland goes in under a disguise to check whether Lugh's in the study or dungeons--''

Roland murmurs to Parker to reassure her that he'll make sure she's got a hand in the plan. He doesn't seem to be holding a grudge against Riku either, though to be fair Roland isn't exactly ideologically in line with Angela's plan here. It's his job and he's doing it because he's got his own thing going on. But that doesn't mean he's really thrilled with it. The reason he's able to handle it is because he is a Fixer. His job is to kill people, not worry about the reasons why, so he wonders for a moment why Lulu and Mars were so different all of a sudden, for him.

He notices Odette is examining the meatbun. "Kimchi." He says. "The secret ingredient that is no secret."
Odette Raskins "Along with a dragon, you people are mincemeat; sorry not sorry."

"No need to apologize, Dame Commander. Um. B-but if anyone does get hurt bad on the way out, at least try and.. Keep all your parts with you? It'll be easier for me to put everyone back together that way." Odette jokes awkwardly, trying to inject at least a little levity into the grim-sounding situation.

"Meanwhile, it's already wounded, presumably, and between the Beauty of Ash and Geed we're practically matching it in scale."

Petra's assessment matching her own, meanwhile, gets Odette's posture to loosen up a little more. Maybe it's not wishful thinking after all!

"Kimchi. The secret ingredient that is no secret."

"Oh! Like from the noodles." Odette nods quickly in recognition, looking slightly surprised a moment later. "I didn't know this could go in bread, too... I thought it just went with those pho noodles."
Flamel Parsons     Flamel takes a long deep breath, and plants two fingers on his temple. "Alright. So, if I have this right, what I can do is..." A projection of the imagined future begins to beam out the back of his head, up on the cave wall. It's standard protocol for Psychonauts to engage in a long, extremely focused, sometimes *elaborate* explanation of what they plan to do -- for some reason, when trying to break in somewhere, visualizing it in montage helps prevent all but one disaster.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiK-baih3Nw

    "I'll check the signals at the obvious points. More than likely, Lugh will have formed a gap for me in the ballistae. He knows we've got a number of aerial units. I can't fly anymore, but I *can* fall safely. Ultraman Geed will *fastball me* from a great distance in a secluded area while I'm invisible -- any stray detection won't get properly counterattacked. Covert rooftop insertion, just like Lilian says. That'll leave Melady free to bring in one other person, guesstimating her spare carrying capacity -- Niime. But, having set up a Psychoportal on my mind ahead of time, *Cath* will be astrally inside of *my mind*. And she'll be able to operate my spatial processing, and get me to the study quickly. Once I land I'll take out identity-recognition in the minds of every close-up observer, using some techniques I've picked up from--" He barely avoids glancing at someone. "--minds I've worked in before. That should get Niime on the roof."

    "From there, Cath and I get Niime into the study, bypassing everything that needs bypassing, and that's where she can work her magic. If Lugh's there, we reconnect, Plan A is go, otherwise Plan B. I disconnect Cath from my mind."
Flamel Parsons     "Meanwhile..."

    "After fastballing me, Geed de-transforms to conserve energy -- we need him for the next part. Raigh, Geed, Cath's body, Nobunaga, Angela's team, and Lucius converge at an area just to the front, but not in a major security zone. Talia can't carry anyone since pegasuses can't carry a plus one, but she *can* go in and out. Including the front gate. Once the gate is open and line of sight is established, Lucius can send in either Raigh or Riku. Based on what Cath saw while telepathically connected, if we've located Lugh and he's been good at stringing them along, we send Raigh, Plan A, otherwise we send Riku, Plan B, timing it so that he becomes Geed inside the castle as soon as possible. In both cases, Lilian moves through too, using her abilities and her stealth competencies."

    "*Meanwhile* meanwhile..."

    "The cave-in makes the area totally impassable for humanoids. But it should actually be viable to move at least one of Nobunaga's Nobbu through the caved-in passage, due to proportional gaps -- I'm pretty sure we can depend on Lugh to have left something to hide with there. I don't expect our tiniest soldier to get through all this, but importantly, it should be able to be successfully *captured*. If Lugh is in the cellar, plan A -- and we know *Juno* is -- it should wind up in the same dungeon area. And it really shouldn't be tough for a Nobbu to make an argument for being captured. There, Nobunaga will use it as a radio, to convince Juno and her people, and Lugh, on Plan A, to get ready for what happens next."

    "Now, either Geed or Raigh is inside, and the weather's altered significantly. If Lugh is in play at the study, Raigh is now in play below, on Plan A. We get Lugh to the roof and Raigh gets to the cellars -- Talia may need to improvise to help here, on Plan A. If Lugh's in the cellars, we're in a worse position on Plan B, but, Riku becomes Geed inside the interior. The energy and size involved should immediately move the Dragon to below the study. But while the weather's shifted, the path Cath helped me cut should give me options. If Plan B is in effect, Melady moves to get Petra as a passenger. Combined with some structural advantage from Lilian's runes, Petra carves a vertical path from the roof to where we draw in the Dragon, and strikes it with a high-speed drop of the Beauty of Ash, carving through the building. If we're on Plan A, then the one she brings in is Roland, who can take the same path the roof team took, converge nearer the treasury. If both plans are shot, we bring in Odette to revitalize Roof Team, and on the resulting Plan C, we..."

    The big projection is getting pretty complicated, re-shooting elements of the montage multiple times. Charts are getting dense. It continues in this way for a while -- in Plan B, there's a heavy focus on stunning the dragon aggressively, breaking open the stunned overall defenses with Nobunaga, Petra, Geed, and Angela's more violent forces, and getting out quick with some of the loot (and much of it simply destroyed), while Plan A has a distinctly more stealthy bent, encouraging a scenario where Flamel, Roland, Lilian, and co all carve a path stealthmoded through the place and walk out with more of the treasury bagged up for direct help from the team amassed outside, and more safety for Juno.

    It has a startling degree of intensive planning. It also has minimal resilience to Galle or Sigrun showing up, depending purely on the whole operation being too fast to be statistically likely to intersect with the visit. It's all the type of professional that seems to be entirely dependent on universal competency, including for several literal children. The plans -- by the time he's done, he has plan C, plan D, and plan E -- also all have a go-loud phase that's very specifically and very universally timed, which means a high likelyhood of 'bursty' violence.
Desire Stars ...never get caught up in the doings of nobles.

"I appreciate the advice," Neon smiles sadly, hands gently clasped before her, "I... don't know if we still have 'nobles,' where I'm from. But we do have 'influential families.' People who are from one tend to have a much harder time not getting caught up by them. The harder they try to avoid it, sometimes, the more they pay for it." She sighs, eyes shut for a moment, then puts on her best and sunniest smile, which isn't as sunny as she'd like it to be. "I'm doing my best."

we haven't put one down without collateral damage yet

    Ace holds up the Powered Builder buckle, a heavy thing that extends past either edge of his palm, bulky, yellow with black caution stripes and a solid-looking red-gripped lever. "I can mitigate that to an extent," he says. "The dragon won't give me the time to make it look pretty, but I can keep it from making us regret fighting it for that reason. Which I'm sure is part of the point of having a 'dragon' in the first place. Ideally, of course, it'd be best if I didn't have to. It's a pain, and my back hurts from carrying you all the last few times we fought one." He doesn't really believe that, but he can't just pass up a chance to needle everyone at once.

Realistically, though, we're better off hustling both VIPs to the cliff edge and jumping off.

    "If Niime is coming along after all, well--" He looks from Lilian to Niime. "Any chance we can get some thunder with that bad weather? Enough noise and I can make an exit ramp for you on the cliff edge with this," he says, waggling the Powered Builder buckle. "Something like the 'path' we took to get here, but more... user-friendly."

     "I could book us a ship and have it... conveniently pass by right as you're all making the escape," Neon adds. "I'm sure they wouldn't sail *too* close, but if you guys could make it to the far side and come aboard, that's a cleaner getaway than everyone scattering, right?"

Oh, your 'retainers' have been much sweeter to me than my apprentice.

    "It's because they know talent when they see it. They'd have to, to be part of my entourage, of course."
Marigold      "Though, no one ever says that about me."
     Roy, standing a ways behind and beside Lilian, clears his throat. Mmp-hmp. "What a time to not have the Dame Commander around," he says, earnestly as he's able. "This would all seem so much more manageable with her strategic expertise and infiltration skills."

     He attempts an encouraging smile. "... Well, now I feel an odd kind of relief that you are here."

     "They're all quite worried about you, you know."
     "Pardon me? Who's worried, exactly?" Now Talia looks anxiously perplexed. Nobunaga recalls correctly, but that's a scary thing to be told by a stranger!

     Melady, meanwhile, puts up both her hands pleadingly and turns pale as soon as she realizes what Nobunaga's saying. "Hang-- hang on. I'm not dressing up as my awful boyfriend again without some manner of deeply convincing reason," she says, getting tighter in vocabulary but warblier in tone as she goes. "This had better be good."

     Roy quietly absorbs Roland's passion for cooking. He finds himself nodding along. "... Everyone wishes for a simpler life, I think. I wish everyone could get it." Is that really everyone, though...? "He's got a little bit of talent, too," Raigh horns in, which might be the brightest Raigh ever gets.

     "Mmm, smart," Cath says about Roland's plan. "Infiltrating as a guard might be better. They've cut back on the kitchen staff a lot since Lady Juno's captivity started. There's only a couple--" "No, I think Roland being-- uh, disguising himself as a chef is really important," Roy insists. "Oh. Well... I know somebody I could bribe for a chef's uniform, sure!"

     "I'm doing my best."
     "... You are, aren'cha," Cath says with a shake of her head, as if she were commiserating over a medical diagnosis. "I don't know your story, but the 'prodigal daughter' thing is never all it's cracked up to be. Either they give you a rucksack and a pat on the butt, or they keep trying to pull you back in, right? Either way, almost rather not have a family at--"

     Suddenly she seems to realize the local density of Orphan Particles, and swerves course. "... Well, whatever."

     "And please don't spoil him."
     Lucius smiles anxiously-defensively in response to the accusation. "Dame Commander, I... I have, in the past, been 'too much'. I know that."
"Hmph."
"And I can't give Raigh everything he needs to thrive. That's been made... very clear to me."
"Uh-huh."
"But if someone you love leaves, always leave a light on and a door unlocked for their return. ... That's what experience has taught me, anyway."

     Raigh and Melady look about equally awkward about that philosophy.
Marigold      "Who in their right mind would pay a thief up front?"
     Cath stands up straight and rocks back on her heels, asserting her full five-foot-four dignity. "Hey, I'll have you know 'thief' isn't some birth-sign! I am a woman of class, smarts, and agility, who happens to burglarize sometimes when her stomach is empty! I should be paid up front as an informant and cartographer, don't you think?"

     No shame at all, but there's some charm in that.

     "A pardon can be exchanged for more silver."
     Cath cracks an eye open from her proudly assertive stance to look at Petra, then frowns when Petra starts making a little too much sense. Her lips wobble into a frown. "I'm not even from around here, you know," she mumbles in ineffectual defense, as if that's her doctor's note for caring. "I just got roped into all this mess because...!"

     "Because Juno is like that," Thea chips in. "I didn't say that!" "She's my older sister. I get it. ... There is a little strategic merit to saving her. Bern is trying to use her to extort her husband, Lord Zelot, out of his station protecting Lycia. But you're right that it's not as if that will save Edessa by itself."

     Lucius, after regarding the warming flames kindly for a little while, startles to a soft realization. "... Dame Commander? Did you only start using chanting in your magic recently? I've heard tell it can help with certain forms, but I've rarely seen them up close. Trudy's calls have always been simpler."

     The planning goes by with little chip-in inputs from the locals, who follow along with varying levels of engagement, disbelief, and eagerness.
"I'm not dyeing my hair blue and doing that stupid voice. But I can pretend to be Galle's messenger, at least..."
"Don't think I'll fit in your head, with all due respect!"
"It'll torch my reputation for certain. ... I suppose I can't back out now. Just please, think of my village."
"I'm sure we can find other warp staves eventually. The next time we meet with Cecilia..."
"Pardon, what was that about jumping off the cliff?"
"It could work... um, but I'd appreciate it if you'd talk slower, Flamel."
"And wrestling the dragon? Have you seen--"
"You'll make triple-sure you know where Lugh is, right?"
"I'm not fighting Sigrun by the way."
"Oh, I'll give them thunder like they've never seen- er, heard before. Eh, I get those mixed up."
"They call her the 'Chalcedony Devil' for a reason. If you're planning to..."
"It could work, as long as you're quick. I think Cath knows what she's doing."
"It's settled, then. Um, as long as I understand right what 'it' is."
"Come on, just a hundred gold before the job? I'm wasting away..."
"Am I chopped liver?"
Riku Asakura Riku listens to Flamel's plan.  

It goes into plan A and plan B, with other options into C and so forth.  His point in it is simple.  Fastball Flamel in then detransform.  That sounds simple enough, but depending on how things go, either he'll be near the splash zone or headfirst into it.  

"Alright, I think I understand the plan, Flamel.  It's going to be a lot of work..." he says, but smiles at the group, "But worth getting our friends out of there!" And also getting that gold out, probably.  
Odette Raskins FLAMEL'S PLANS

Try as Odette might, she's visibly having trouble keeping up with every variant of his plans. "Having one of those as extra eyes and ears on the inside... Th-that definitely sounds more reliable than just a few of us heading in, mhm. And that'll help us regroup with each other once it's time to break out after we get Lugh and Juno. But doing it with the dragon in the way..."

Odette closes her eyes, then claps her hands over her cheeks. "If it doesn't involve fighting the dragon directly, I can help the roof team, mhm. Otherwise, I could probably slip out with a bunch of extra stuff, too, at least until first aid's needed... After the fighting starts." She adds, sounding and looking like she really wanted to say 'if' rather than 'after'.

"I know somebody I could bribe for a chef's uniform, sure!"

"Make thattwo. Or... W-wait, should I be on infiltration with Mister Roland or on standby with the roof team? Wait, are we doing the roof thing?" Odette's starting to sound confused, undobutedly due in part to trying to keep Flamel's ideas together in her head while also grappling with the idea that there's more than likely going to be another dragon fight going on around the same time.

"There is a little strategic merit to saving her."
"Maybe, maybe not, but... A whole bunch of us wouldn't be here if we only thought about strategic merits. More of us might've just left, too, because that's... It's not the way we'd want things to go, or the way we'd want to work, you know?"

LOCALS' PLANNING

"If we're going to be jumping off cliffs into the ocean.. Oh! I can bring extra breathing masks and pocket air tanks. It won't help you swim any, but it should help escaping by sea if you need to swim out further before surfacing."
"I=I wouldn't recommend wrestling the dragon, though. That's... Um. I still need people mostly recognizable...?"
"D-do they really call her the Chalcedony Devil? Also, what is a chalcedony?"