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Holly Asturias     It's mountain-climbing day!

    After gathering up at the Sanatorium's Warpgate (and being given water and snacks, if you didn't bring any)), Holly informs you of the rough path up to the theme park.

    It's cold today, but the Sun's out in full force at least. The path up the mountain isn't an awful all-day affair, but it is almost two hours up paths covered in a thin sheet of ice and snow, which are uneven but at least have the courtesy of giving you walls to hug. Less 'roads' and more 'cliffsides' zigzagging up and down the mountains. It could be worse: you could be needing climbing gear and having to use those arms instead of just walking up and up towards a plateau. Another small mercy: nothing impedes you.

    Which doesn't mean there aren't things to see along the way.

    Trees, bushes and... possibly formerly people, occasionally jut the mountainside like grim totems made of scorched, deformed human remains, calcified and with dozens of limbs. From afar you'd be forgiven for thinking they're Horrors - and Holly kindly informs you that they were, countless years ago.

    "Though we call these 'totems', these are some of the oldest Horrors. Plants and people, rooted in place, warped and twisted by the light of the Resurgence. Without the ability to move, most of them would eventually dry up and die like this. Across the Frontier, these are likely to be the most common sight you'll see. You never quite get used to them. Perhaps that's their purpose in the ecosystem. To make people too familiar with the sight, that when similar Horrors crawl in the corner of your vision, you ignore them. Or maybe they're just corpses, after all."

    But occasional spooky decor aside, it's a quiet, if chilly, ascent. Perhaps especially so if people offer shortcuts, but since Holly knows the way up, she's also all too happy to play guide.

    When, finally, the attractions can be seen, past rocky clearings and hills, you're minutes away from the park. It's built like a castle; the architecture reminds of the Sanatorium, and so one might wonder if, like it, it's a building that was repurposed. Old colors have survived the elements, if barely, better than some of the broken down cars by the entrance. There's a large ticketing booth, and big great signs that say DREAM LAND and WELCOME alongside generic animal mascots. The downside of the architecture, though, is that it's really hard to see inside the park.

    Whoever makes it through ticketing first, past the rusty turnstiles that make awful noises when spun, gets greeted by the sight of the whole park ahead, a big, nice map, and... twisted, charred, dried up human (and Revenant?) remains like creeping biomass. Not the whole park, but every now and again the ground is just covered in deep, dark gold bits and pieces of people, of their clothes and armor and mutated bodies, a mix of stone and metal in texture. Mostly it's skeletal, or indistinct growths, but every here or there there's a clear skull, an arm, a ribcage.

    It's like the totems going up the mountain. Whatever the Resurgence - and Resurgence-like events - does to people, it's clearly unpleasant.

    "Well... welcome to Dream Land Park. The Horrors come and go, so be wary of turning corners past here. I usually like to spend some time at the Ferris Wheel, the view from there is fantastic, but there's a map over there if you'd like to look for anything."

    There's signs of battle; everything's in one form or another of disrepair, rust, or having been smashed in a fight. There's long-dried bloodstains that the rain should but hasn't washed away. There's... noises, squirming, groaning, under your very feet, and yet distant all the same.
Angela Love wanted to take Red Hooded Mercenary out today but Angela wanted to run some tests first to try and figure out what exactly happened to her and the Big And Will Be Bad Wolf, so as that wasn't really an option--Angela came up with an alternative, figuring that Holly--whom she now owed a small favor for her help in the book--would appreciate.

And so Love and Roland love with a third companion today: A giant stuffed teddy bear with recently repaired rips and a missing eye and a ...chewed off ear? But he's big! He's very big! And upon seeing Holly, the giant teddy bear approaches and gives her a ginormous teddy bear hug that lasts maybe a moment too long even for Holly.

"Angela said I could bring Teddy along today!" Love chirps at Holly while Roland keeps a comfortable distance between himself and the giant stuffed animal. "Uhh if nothing else, it looks like it's going to be pretty cold so..." He considers outwardly suggesting using the giant teddy bear for warmth should it come to it but can't quite get the words to form on his lips. He's wearing a furry jacket along with his normal gear and gloves to help keep the cold off.

Love skips along merrily during the trip, "Hehehehe! I'm feeling so good today~, I am so happy! I don't um--" She pauses at the deformed human remains. "--Nope, not letting it get me down today! Mhm~"

Roland's face is pale as he's having a harder time keeping up the good mood. "Uh she's really grateful for yesterday. Thanks for the help."

He summons the KNIFE FIST into his free hand since he sort of wants to try it out should a fight happen but he practically has to jog to keep up with Love who is determinedly moving towards the ticketing aisle.

"Wait...! Is it okay to go in? We don't have tickets!"

"I think it's kind of abandoned, I don't think anybody's going to complain..."

"Hm... Well remember, junior magical girls...!" She holds up an index finger, "If you're going to explore an abandoned haunted monster infested amusement park, make sure you don't do it alone! And take a phone with you, so you can call for help in case you run into a youkai that's just too strong!"

"...Yeah. makes sense."
Riku Asakura Riku is here today in his cold-weather gear.  That is to say, a thicker leather jacket, with gloves.  No hat because the jacket has a hood that comes up.  He still has jeans and tennis shoes on for walking.  It was going to be an all-day affair, so Riku came prepared to at least walk a long while.  

Riku takes a look at Teddy, who is a very large bear that Love and Roland took with them today.  "Uh, nice to meet you, Teddy," he says to the large bear.

Riku looks up at the sun, glad for it at least while they walk.  He seems excited to get out on the frontier and at least start helping restore this world to its former glory.  What steals the wind from his sails are the strange plants seemingly made out of people.  Holly explains them as the oldest horrors that died a long time ago, called totems.  It brings down his mood somewhat because it's very sad when things like this are still around.  A reminder of mortality.

Eventually, they get to the old themepark, which looks a bit sad in retrospect.  The faded colors and the stillness of a place that's supposed to be full of smiling faces and laughter.  It causes a shiver to run down his back as he walks towards the ticket booth.  He jumps the gate and turns inside to see the totems on the inside.  

"There... sure are a lot of them on the inside here," he says to the people around him and looks put off by all of this death.  Riku takes a moment, at the map, to get the lay of the land.  "I guess the Ferris Wheel is a good place to start.  We can get the lay of the land there better.  Though I had never climbed a Ferris Wheel before.  Usually I just go up them the normal way."
Petra Soroka     Really, Petra doesn't know why this is becoming a Thing, but it's fine. All she wanted to do was beeline to the park with Matilda and clamber up a Ferris wheel with her, and inviting a whole crowd of people along doesn't really accomplish any of her goals, but, like, it's Love and Lilian and whoever else, so it's fine. But throughout the whole hike, her eyes are set on that Ferris wheel.

WARNING: Once you interact with the Ferris wheel, Petra will temporarily leave your party! Make sure you've completed any other objectives in the amusement park before interacting!

    Seemingly with an inexhausible supply of ironic graphic tees, today's reads I'M HIGH AS FUCK AND HAVE A GUN IN MY BACKPACK, and for whatever reason, she does actually have a small backpack rather than just using her mirror. It's got water bottles inside, which seems like a normal thing to have, and does not appear to store a gun, which would also be a normal thing for her to have given the circumstances. Trudging along at the slow pace of the party rather than just beelining towards a nearly vertical rock wall and scaling it on her own makes the cold feel colder, and she pulls her flannel close and pouts a little bit.

"Though we call these 'totems', these are some of the oldest Horrors."

    "Do these still happen? Or are they more like prototypes, and now the design's improved to be more destructive and less immediately lethal?" Assuming there's a 'design' philosophy to the Horrors is half because of Petra's mindset about the world, and half because that's just how it works in the City.

    The fucked up totems can't really register as 'human corpses' to her, though! She's more excited as they get closer to the park, despite the density of horrid petrified bodies, because that's *spooky decor* for the *abandoned amusement park*! An abandoned park that, even, is built like a weird gothic castle!

"Uhh if nothing else, it looks like it's going to be pretty cold so..."

    "You're a sick dude, Roland." Petra giggles, while patting Love on the head fondly. Frankly, she's not a fan of Happy Teddy Bear at all. That killer Toy Story shit is perverse, and exactly the kind of thing a younger Petra would've thought was Surprisingly Dark and therefore interesting, which makes her resent it a bit. If they had to cut it open and crawl inside for warmth, then Petra would in a heartbeat.

"Is it okay to go in? We don't have tickets!"

    Petra stops before the turnstiles and swivels around, holding up a finger as if she's going to give Love a lecture. What comes out is, before waltzing happily through, "It's okay because we can do anything we want. There's monsters in there that didn't pay for tickets too."

"I usually like to spend some time at the Ferris Wheel, the view from there is fantastic, but there's a map over there if you'd like to look for anything."

    "That's such a thing to say!" Petra calls over her shoulder, while scampering towards the map. "Just for the view, huh? Why do you 'usually' come to this fucked up little ruin?"
White      White seems content to accept small snacks, but politely turns down water by pulling a strangely cute bottle out of her sleeve-portal; pink and hazy plastic like frosted glass, with a few robust-looking stickers (the kind that can tolerate a bit of moisture without melting!) of various round little creatures from monster-collecting games. If anyone looks close enough though, they might notice the bottle doesn't actually have any liquid in it yet... White is basically just flashing it like a membership card to show that she came prepared and dismiss the question politely.

     Seeing Roland, Love and the big ole teddy-bear, White seems to spend a moment looking Roland over first. She starts at the top, glances down his face to his chest, then leans on one foot to the side like she's peeking around his arm at his back from a slight distance. She seems to mentally buffer for a moment, then observes him holding the KNIFE FIST; without looking away from him, she turns her body to the side and brings up her hands in a very loose boxing stance, throws two lazy jabs into the air, and tilts her head thoughtfully before lowering her arms again and just... Moving on, having satisfied whatever she was thinking about, maybe? She sneaks in a head-rub for Teddy while it's preoccupied with hugging Holly, then gives Love a little thumbs-up like she's rating Teddy's softness highly or something.

     It soon turns out, White actually kind of likes hiking these days! Maybe she doesn't care for when things get too cold (she has her braid wrapped around her neck like a scarf again, and has her patched up jacket on), and maybe she doesn't care for super bright and sunny days (she has her hood over her eyes), but there's a very slight bounce in her stride regardless. Normally, she walks almost as slowly as possible like she's worried about messing up her skirt, but as soon as everyone's out on the mountain path she takes up a comfortably longer stride that makes it easy to clear any bits of debris that might be on the trail. Those boots she seems to love wearing certainly seem decently suited for the outdoors anyway.

     She doesn't even linger at the back of the group today! She actually drifts from the back to the front, picking up her pace when things at the fore grab her attention so she can get a better look, then naturally dropping speed to let the group overtake her again as she lingers. The first time, it's probably just a plant she hasn't seen before. The second time, it's to look at one of those 'totems', squatting down while brushing her skirt out and staying there for only long enough that the group has begun to move on.

     Really, if anyone's particularly a cat person it may kind of feel like she's... Patrolling? She passes the group on the left side and falls behind on the right side, keeping watch for any weird movements among the totems while giving off an air of ease and comfort.

     Arriving at the park itself though, that does change. The tension rises a little more, and there's more practical things to do than just pace the periphery of the group. White draws out her scythe proactively, laying it over her shoulder like a thug with a crowbar while she fishes her phone out to snap a few pictures; of the map, and just of the attractions in general. After forwarding the map to as many people here as she has the numbers of, she... Starts to get down on her knees?
White      Her scythe is laid flat and she lowers her face right next to the ground, opening her eyes and gazing through into the underground space that she can hear the sounds from. It might be hard to make out specifics if there are multiple, separated layers of material inbetween her and the presumably living creatures making that noise, but maybe she can get an idea if this is a 'big hive of lots of critters' kind of situation, or a 'creepy fleshy mass growing like mold' kind of situation? If not, it's not like there's nothing else for her to do; she's already looking forward to the view from the tops of the walls and visible attractions she can see from the entranceway. In fact, some of her 'agents' are sneaking out of her dress and scattering to try and climb some of the nearest ones even now!
Foundation Scions     Matilda, simply, is not going to miss the exciting opportunity to explore a (possibly scary) abandoned amusement park! Not after how this one's existence first crossed her mind, and especially because learning more about Ferris Wheels will certainly be a helpful tool for later. So, she's here, and excitedly buzzing about!

    The great Matilda Bouanich is always prepared for a refreshing hike! Today, with the chilly weather, she's out here again in a preppy grey-blue winter jacket, double-breasted, scarf, and non-negotiable skort ensemble, in what's starting to be surprisingly late in the year for such weather necessities! Usually, she'd be packing this all away for the springtime and summer, just around the corner, at the Foundation, but, chilly weather has its charms!

    The great Matilda Bouanich is always prepared for a little adventure, too- though she gladly takes up any (packaged, for easy pocket storage!) snacks, she's come with her own, and water, (does Holly's water possibly have blood in it? Matilda won't risk that again!) and a lot of knick-knacks in her orbuculum carry case (obviously including the heavy crystal ball itself.) It's rough to carry that thing everywhere.

    The great Matilda Bouanich- has not met the Magical Girl of Love, but others seem to know her, and that's a social pressure source to make sure Matilda waves at her and confusingly says, "Your bear is very large! And you are very pink! Hello!"

    "Doctor Asturias? The snow up on the trails, I do very-much hope is being softened up by the sun! It makes a better noise to tread in while so!" Also it's less uncertainly-slipper, but that's secondary! It's squishier rather than crunchier! It's a little more novel!

. . .

'Though we call these 'totems', these are some of the oldest Horrors.'

    Quiet, unnerved, "Is that only because of their similarity to carvings of stone, or, from a role they serve to whoever decided such a name?" Matilda tries to convince herself to look closer at one, at the material itself, as if to try and convince herself it's just perfectly normal stone, but- "Non, c'est tout simplement trop effrayant!"

'You never quite get used to them.'

    Matilda sure isn't getting used to them, on the hike! Scary! The second any of them emerge around the trail's corner, or she just looks over and there is one, out in the floor or the wall, she jumps like a surprised cat, before shying away from them. Something about them is just not right!

. . .

    Matilda gasps at the front gate- "Ah-hah, this, it is a small bit exciting! Do you think the musical sound-systems are still functioning..?" Carousels, at least, have to have those! "Proper, I must say, to fashion a land of dreams after what could clearly only be a French-styled cathedral, reminiscent, of course, to none other than Notre-Dame de Paris..." Well, sort of..?
Foundation Scions 'There's monsters in there that didn't pay for tickets too.'

    Exhaling, almost a giggly huff-pout, "Perhaps they should be scolded for such!" Not that Matilda is eager to have to!

'There's a map over there if you'd like to look for anything.'

    Matilda is already scampering to go look at it! Calling back, excited, "Ah-hah, and there is a carousel! 'Swan's', to be precise? Who is 'Swan'? And, a carnival of magic-? There is so much to see, no? Quelle excitation-!" Then, taking a step back, she realizes the extent of how many stone-bone monstrosities abound, and, kind of just whimpers for a moment, slowly looking for a spot in the plaza to stand that is as far from the piles as possible, while deliberations are made (or she and Petra just bee-line the Ferris Wheel.)

'If you're going to explore an abandoned haunted monster infested amusement park, make sure you don't do it alone!'

    "Ah! That is in fact a good tip! Foundation Guidelines expressly encourage Investigators to not work alone in critter-infested, or Manus-controlled, territory!" Matilda doesn't know what sort of tip-scheme giving advice to 'junior magical girls' must be, but she knows tips-for-a-type-of-person too! Look at Matilda! Acknowledge Matilda! She's so smart, that Matilda!
Lilian Rook     Lilian doesn't bring water and snacks because that's Petra's job. And Petra is currently under threat of violence if she doesn't deliver a third time, courtesy of Arthur's four hour sokoban bullshit furniture marathon. She only begins to doubt this assignation of tasks once she actually hits the trail, and sees the first human . . . 'totem'. Then, Lilian begins to think of this ridiculous trip as more analogous to a mission, and suddenly feels naked without more field gear.

    Resultingly, Lilian spends the first leg of the climb opening the second side of her bag for a change, and revealing, separated by the internal divider, that she just keeps her little cellphone-sized carry cases in there with the harness folded up, and spare hexagonal stacks of metal amalgam and a cleaning kit in the other half of it. Nifty. That must be why she keeps all of her vials and pouches and burnable sticks in the same compartment as her makeup, moisturizer, phone and charger, IDs, tablet PDA, sterile gloves, sanitizer, her book of the day, and-- well maybe the utility knife is a giveaway. Frankly, that makes it a little more hinged that she so often has her gun strapped to her thigh.

    Someone who is enough of a pevert can, in fact, watch as she grudgingly fills the contents of the former with the contents of the latter; five amalgam rods in one, six vertically stacked runestones in another, then a third, then four vials each into two with built-in foam padding, each containing a different metal powder or ground dried herb mixture, then assorted incense in half a case packed in with a lighter, compass, sharpener, and flaregun, then a thirty-piece deck of paper talismans in another bifurcated case, dividing blessings from curses, and finally, one of them just already has a pocket first aid kit in it, which the knife is then slotted in beside.

    Four to a belt, two to each hip, two crossed belts, and a temporarily sour attitude. Mostly because it was keeping her mind off the grotesquerie of the trail, and once Lilian clips the last buckle, she has to look at it again.

    'You never quite get used to them. Perhaps that's their purpose in the ecosystem. To make people too familiar with the sight, that when similar Horrors crawl in the corner of your vision, you ignore them.'

    "I've seen worse." she says, and then makes a face that says 'but only barely, and only rarely'. "I can't even begin to imagine the mechanism of the Resurgence. It sounds like 'a big burst of light that arbitrarily inflicts as much horror as possible'. Even what I'm used to has some sort of . . . theme, for a lack of better word. A mechanism."

    'Just for the view, huh? Why do you 'usually' come to this fucked up little ruin?'

    "Why do you sleep in the woods?" says Lilian. "Come on. She runs a hospice."

    Unfortunately, there's excruciatingly little else to talk about. She even asks White at one point, "Did you box at one point?" She withholds 'your form is a little rusty' because she'd sound so stupid if not. She can't talk much shit about Matilda wearing skorts again because she showed up in the same outfit she'd used for camping with Matilda, which was slightly too warm then and slightly not warm enough now. The fact that she's failed to make use of its fucking pockets is such an indicator of how unused to pants she still is.

    'Well... welcome to Dream Land Park.'

    "I'm making a note to come through her for a thorough burn." says Lilian. "If you insist those 'totems' aren't biohazardous, I believe you, but they're hideous and this space is right outside your door. With a simple vertical cable life, you could--"
Lilian Rook     §What? Expand? That giant mansion that's barely at half capacity? What would she even build here? The Horrors show up here, but not on the mountain face where the springs are, right? She doesn't have soldiers. She doesn't have tech. She isn't planning expeditions. You're just defaulting to thinking of a Forward Operating Base. She isn't in your faction. Come on girl.§

    "Well, never mind."

    'Ah-hah, this, it is a small bit exciting! Do you think the musical sound-systems are still functioning..?'

    "I bet they do, and the music plays in a suitably distorted-wilty fashion." Lilian says. "In fact, if it suddenly comes on by itself, you owe me twenty sharpadonties." She glosses over the fact she's not wagering anything in return.

    'Ah! That is in fact a good tip! Foundation Guidelines expressly encourage Investigators to not work alone in critter-infested, or Manus-controlled, territory!'

    Lilian's eyes widen. "Oh my god I nearly forgot you're actually a proper agency with a paramilitary." Looking over the group, she thinks about how she'd organize them according to familiar doctrine, and says distractedly "Three first, one second, two third, one zero . . . Sort an unbalanced composition." She crouches down by a blood-soaked corner and touches her fingers to it, slightly surprised that they come away dry. Looking back over her shoulder, she says "Do you have to kill your way up there every time, Doctor Asturias?"
Angela Roland absolutely would cut open Happy Teddy Bear if it meant not freezing to death, but he is a little uneasy about mentioning it all the same because--

''You're a sick dude, Roland.''

Of course he's going to get teased about it! He grimaces as if Petra just inflicted a 200x combo finisher on one of his loved ones and says, "Well, we did dress warm." He can't quite look her directly in the eye even while trying to dodge the implication.

''White observing the KNIFE FIST''

"Oh--yeah, you weren't there--" Roland interprets her gaze and air-boxing an attempt to determine whether the KNIFE FIST is incredibly stupid or not. "Arthur had this 'Alchemiter' thing and he demonstrated it by combining a gauntlet with a knife I usually used with the gauntlet so now it's--fused and--well I figured if we were attacked by monsters I could try it out."

The teddy bear is incredibly soft! It's a wonder it's able to crush people to death at all--really, the whole murderous element of the teddy bear is hampered considerably by the fact a lot of the people it tries to hug can just sort of take it.

Though Love does gently nudge it away from trying to hug Matilda since her bone density hasn't been confirmed yet and you never really know for sure.

The Magical Girl of Love is always happy to meet new people though and she waves back at Matilda. "Oh thank you! I am a pink magical girl so I gotta wear pink!" She offers Matilda a v-sign across her own eye. "My name's Love and I fight for love and justice! What's your name?"

She giggles at Petra's headpat and looks up at Petra. "That's a good point... The monsters didn't pay at all."

Privately Roland does think it's a little weird to go to a place surrounded by Horrors just to enjoy a fucked up ruin but he's a little surprised Petra's commenting on it, since she's exactly the sort of person he can imagine going to a monster infused world for a nice view. 'I guess even in a situation like this you gotta make something out of it."

"What kind of magical girl are you?" Love asks Matilda. "Do you also fight for love and justice?"

She studies Matilda like she's trying to figure out what color uniform she'll be wearing while fighting some object or person turned into a monster for the week.

''Perhaps they should be scolded for such!''

"You're right." She says solemnly. "An amusement park is for families to enjoy themselves, even if they are spooky amusement parks."

''Look at Matilda! Acknowledge Matilda! She's so smart, that Matilda!''

"Wow!" Love will always think a girl is so smart if they participate in tip-giving and also agreeing with magical girl advice. What do you take her for, an amateur? "You already knew that? That's really smart, do you usually find yourself giving advice to your fellow magical girls?"
Holly Asturias "Angela said I could bring Teddy along today!"

    "Why hello!" Holly is MORE than happy to hug the giant teddy bear! Is it supposed to be weird? It looks quite normal to her! A bit worn down, but nothing a good needle couldn't fix. "And please, don't mention it, Roland! Rather, I wish I could have done more, but really, Red was in good hands already."

Though I had never climbed a Ferris Wheel before.

    "Ah? It's surprisingly easy. Though, if I had a choice, I'd much prefer to ride it up myself. We could probably restore power to the park easily enough, but the state of these rides... I doubt most would survive being used." She looks at the rollercoaster railing going all across the park, perhaps especially so the missing chunks of it. "Or that the average rider would survive for that matter..."

"Do these still happen? Or are they more like prototypes, and now the design's improved to be more destructive and less immediately lethal?"

    "Resurgence events are thankfully very rare. We're talking one per decade. It's quite unclear what causes them, but sites where they happen, besides looking like they were bombed, will frequently have similar sorts of protrusions and growths. When we say people 'disappear' in that light, well... that's more than likely what happens to them."

"Just for the view, huh? Why do you 'usually' come to this fucked up little ruin?"

    "The view," Holly insists, before adding a short: "But not the landscape. You'll see. It's hard to miss."

White's gaze.

    The ground is in fact pretty gross. But it probably isn't a *threat* either. It'd be wrong to say the land is alive, broadly, everywhere, but the park's got a pretty bad case of even the hardened, frozen mud starting to mutate, several feet lower. It's far too cold for it to do anything, and it isn't as though it's 'people'. But it isn't great news, if it spreads.

    Her agents have more luck; there's movements, down by the 'Monster Train' attraction. A few humanoid shapes shuffling about, inside the rusted remains of the once colorful train. And there's something by the Ferris Wheel too. Something much larger, obscured and inside by one of the ride's compartments. It's breathing, and humanoid for sure, but perhaps asleep, and it might not bother you if you don't bother it.

"Is that only because of their similarity to carvings of stone, or, from a role they serve to whoever decided such a name?"

    "The similarity must surely be why the name caught on. If they serve a purpose, we've never seen them do it. I think they're just corpses, really, but in poor enough lighting or when high on adrenaline, they'd scare you all the same." She's surely not speaking out of experience! Surely not.

    How embarrassing would it be to constantly turn corners and be spooked by an inanimate object thinking it's an enemy? Ha...

"Ah-hah, this, it is a small bit exciting! Do you think the musical sound-systems are still functioning..?"

    "I should think so, but who knows what the cabling is like after all this time." She peeks at the map, then, regarding the Carousel that allegedly belongs to Swan. "I... had never noticed that. I thought it just said Swan, not Swan's. A typo, maybe, or an awkward naming scheme?"
Petra Soroka     Seeing White mime out boxing after looking at Roland, Petra skips over a dozen thoughts that don't need to be voiced aloud. As explanation, framed in a way that she's pretty sure White is uniquely predisposed to understand, she nods, and says, "He got it from squishing two things together."

"And you are very pink! Hello!"

    Petra practically lifts Love off the ground to show her off, like a funny little dog or toy. The moment Matilda's attention lands on her, Petra grabs either side of Love from behind and wiggles her a bit, which makes her hair curlies bobble and confused little cartoon hearts pop out.

    "Matilda! This is Love! The Magical Girl thereof, also. Love, this is the great Matilda Bouanich." A pat on her shoulder causes another puff of hearts. "She's one of he people that lives on Hydrochoeria after the stuff with L-Corp."

"It makes a better noise to tread in while so!"

    Isn't she just the best? Petra may have been drunk at the time, but she stands resolutely by her conclusion at the hot springs-- Matilda *can* pull! It's unfair that she hasn't! Today, Petra must instruct her on the ways of capturing a woman in a situation where, theoretically, she could refuse your advances, but due to environmental context, probably won't! For the sake of love!

"It sounds like 'a big burst of light that arbitrarily inflicts as much horror as possible'."

    "City-style," Petra agrees, sagely. She's offering water bottles to Lilian at regular intervals, both because she knows she's in danger of getting a third strike, and because this gives her timing to drink water on the hike herself, rather than getting caught up in running around.

    "But, um, I don't think there's any need to worry. I mean, I could've used the Beauty of Ash to get up to this park in like five minutes. And it was my suggestion to come here! So, I'll take responsibility and do the work myself if anything happens." She claps her hand on her bicep to indicate, 'I'm strong!!!', but it can't quite distract from the terrifying shadow of Petra saying 'I'll take responsibility'.

"Do you think the musical sound-systems are still functioning..?"

    "Oh my god. You're so right. Hey, hey, where do they keep those, in an amusement park?" Petra excitedly wiggles her fists, scanning over the map. "You'd think they'd be corroded to shit, but those things have a way of sticking around way longer than you'd think. Ooooh, imagine if the *rides* have little speakers for narration? There's gotta be some story-type rides in here somewhere."

"Ah-hah, and there is a carousel!"

    "Carousel," Petra immediately decides. "From there, we'll try and, find a more involved ride that's sort of holding up decently well. I'm thinking-- god, I haven't been to a real amusement park in forever, but like the Bloodfiend Manor at LobCorpLand, that sort of ride that takes you through a building with animatronics. I wanna see some fucked up animatronics."
Holly Asturias "I can't even begin to imagine the mechanism of the Resurgence."

    "You and I, then. And surely, everyone who's labored to try and end it. 'Indiscriminate horror' does fit the accounts. If it's more than that... there are countless people who'd make you a queen twice over for that information, I imagine."

"I'm making a note to come through her for a thorough burn."

    "I won't stop you if you want to. I've always thought, if I could, that I'd like to restore this place. Give the children somewhere they can come to to still make happy memories like I had the chance to have. But until recently that thought was ridiculous. Now... I might be able to secure the hands needed, but to what end? No one would travel this forest for this." She pouts a bit. "I can dream, though. Of the forest healed and this park's music filling the air again."

"Do you have to kill your way up there every time, Doctor Asturias?"

    "Heavens no," Holly laughs. "I usually avoid them, if I can help it. But it's happened a few times, and I do have to mind the fact if they came down the mountain they'd be my problem anyway." The blood, Lilian finds, is at least years old. It isn't just a stain; it's slowly, very slowly, eating into the rock, spreading golden cracks not unlike Holly's many accessories.

Matilda scampers!

    Everything's so unsteady! But Matilda's quite used to it. Broken rocks and stairs and little pathways that haven't been disturbed in years crack under her steps, and suddenly she can swear, something is looking at her.

    It's the 'Kitten's House', off to the right, a half-broken little building next to the food court. It's something... round? Completely, fully round, almost like a floating ball of flesh, and when seen, it slinks behind a wall.
Riku Asakura 'Ah? It's surprisingly easy. Though, if I had a choice, I'd much prefer to ride it up myself.'

"Mm!  Me too.  Rides are for riding, not climbing," Riku says, but the rest of what Holly says doesn't go ignored.  "Yeah... even if the power came back, this place would likely need to be repaired quite a bit before it could be restored to its former glory and become a place where people smile again.  Never mind the horrors..."

'Carousel,'

"You sure..?" Which is to say Riku isn't so sure about hitting the Carousel like Petra is.  This place is dilapidated and potentially has monsters running around it.  Going to the Wheel to see what's going on seems the smarter choice, but splitting up seems like a dangerous idea in a place where they don't know much about anything.  

'I've always thought, if I could, that I'd like to restore this place.'

"What do you think it would take to restore this place?  And keep it clear of horrors?  I imagine it'd take more manpower and something to ward off the horrors...but if you have an idea, I'd love to see this place restored and for it to be a place of laughter once more."
White              *On the Trail*

     Along the way, White is surprised that Lilian would even assume that much credibility from her 'boxing' after all the times White has admitted her previous difficulties with... Let's just say force control. Still, she shakes her head lightly at the question. "... No. I just... Pick things up... From watching others. Boxing... Is straightforward... Isn't it?" You've got your jabs, straights, hooks, uppercuts, some weirder variations on those, a few guards, and she's always heard things about how much of boxing is just footwork and good training. If there's more nuance to the subject than that, she hasn't paid enough attention to figure it out. "It's not... Very useful... Against monsters, anyway. Except... Small bugs, maybe." She holds her hands apart to indicate the size of a small bug, which is apparently about half a foot wide and almost a foot high by her reckoning.

She does remark, "Cool pouches." after Lilian has her gear arranged and affixed properly, though. She's probably not a pervert about it, but watching someone do that kind of preparation from start to finish kind of gives off a professional air, and White was *just* saying the other day how 'having everything under control' is cool.

     As for Roland's explanation of the KNIFE FIST, White actually seems... Relatively interested? She even opens her mouth a little, though the 'ohhh' doesn't actually reach anyone's ears in practice. "Item crafting..." She pauses a moment while Petra simplifies the idea, then decides to share, "I actually... Made my scythe... By just... Tying one of my leg-blades... To a dragon bone, with webbing. Then... D thought it was... Funny, I guess. So she turned it into... Something with actual Stats. Maybe... You should get a god... To bless it." ... Easier said than done! Ostensibly White could do something like that, but she's still in her fail-god era; this stuff doesn't come with instructions.

             *In the Park*

     It seems like White's main concern upon hearing noises from underground may have been for nothing; finding no observable underground chamber or concealed nest of unpleasant meat-creatures, White becomes just uncomfortable enough keeping her face that close to the corrupted ground to hop back up to her feet and brush her skirt off again, before picking her scythe back up. Maybe that was weird, but being weird is kind of part of her persona; it makes her look cooler by contrast when she notices something important! Even if it's not an *immediate* threat.

     So, she basically just mumbles to whoever happens to be right next to her in the moment, "The ground is... Corrupted... A little ways down. Watch out... For patches... Where it might reach the surface." She doesn't know what might come of it, but if it's spreading, that means it's close enough to a living thing that she wouldn't trust the odds that it won't try to absorb someone who touches it too. Then after a few moments to figure out what she's seeing through her scattered agents' eyes, she looks at her phone again and scribbles some really simplistic drawings onto it; a cluster of little stickmen by the bit of the map that marks the Monster Train, and then what looks like a fourth grader's drawing of a really fat cave troll with a couple of Zs next to its head. She forwards the updated map to the others again, starting with Petra.

     From there, White turns to Holly. She looks like she wants to suggest something, but hearing her talk about preserving the park and maybe fixing it up someday seems to stop what White was going to say on the spot, and it takes her a few seconds to find a substitute. "... Should I start... Hunting? Or... Is there something specific... You want to find..?"
Foundation Scions 'My name's Love and I fight for love and justice! What's your name?'
'Matilda! This is Love! The Magical Girl thereof, also. Love, this is the great Matilda Bouanich.'

    Matilda, watching the being-wiggled Love, adds, "Not only am I great, but, a prodigy diviner, as well, among many other talents! Yes! It is good to meet you? What magic do you perform?" Matilda, mimics the V-sign, and giggles.

'If they serve a purpose, we've never seen them do it.'

    A little bit misunderstood, Matilda pipes up with, "Are they not-even used as, say, graves, to the families of... the corpses?" They feel too charged to not be a little bit gentle-scared and hesitant around, like graves, even if they're so exposed and gross.

'I've seen worse.'

    Quiet, a little sympathetic, "You must have seen very-bad..." Matilda super doesn't like the totems!

. . .

'What kind of magical girl are you?'

    "Pssh, I think it would be more-correct to call me an 'arcane girl'? I am a girl, and, I am an arcanist!" Then, with the slightly sinister-greasy vibe that comes from her saying the words, "But I very-much do fight for love and justice, yes!"

'I can dream, though. Of the forest healed and this park's music filling the air again.'

    "Be very sure to do so! It is most-important to dream such ways!" Matilda, sounds very stern in that, actually- it's an action complete with a Stance and an Indicating Finger.

'Ooooh, imagine if the *rides* have little speakers for narration? There's gotta be some story-type rides in here somewhere.'

    "You bring up a good point- I was just thinking of that myself!" She wasn't, she's... not been to an amusement park! What's a story-type ride?

'In fact, if it suddenly comes on by itself, you owe me twenty sharpadonties.'

    "I hope instead it is working normally, carnival music is quite pleasant! But- ah, it would be scary if that happens, a small bit! And then I would owe you money..." She's just, defaulted to accepting the one-sided wager that can only be bad for her! Yippee..?

'Carousel,'

    "Yes! Oh, I hope its mechanisms are entirely intact!" Matilda hops, entering into a little idle animation as the group is about to set out, until, something catches her eye, a little distance off, and she hushes-up and freezes.

    Standing there, mostly still, Matilda stares off at the strange round fleshball floating menacingly off in the distance- quiet, only barely pointing, "I think that is one of the inhabitant monsters, over there! So! Please everyone, be careful? Ah! It is hiding, now..." Matilda fishes out, from her bag, none-other than the orbuculum. Quickly, Matilda breathes out an incantation-

    "Oh boule de cristal, montre-moi quels dangers abondent..."

    It's never a bad time to stop for a little ritual! Even if avoiding any of the lead-up prep to that, is sure to tire Matilda out a decent bit, haste is important! How much scary stuff is there, here, where, and how much should she worry? The crystal ball knows!
Holly Asturias "What do you think it would take to restore this place? And keep it clear of horrors?"

    "Mostly manpower, but... the logistics of then securing the road... it's an ever-escalating issue. Until the forest is safe, there's no realistic way to get people here. Why if that were an option it would make more sense to evacuate people off-world through the Warpgate than have them climb up here for a nice afternoon." For now, at least.

The ground is... Corrupted... A little ways down. Watch out... For patches... Where it might reach the surface."

    "The ground...?" Holly peeks down, but without White's eye, she can't see anything everyone else isn't already seeing. "I'm afraid I don't know how to deal with that. It's not unusual for the ground to 'corrupt', but this far away from people? Maybe it's been festering this whole time."

"... Should I start... Hunting? Or... Is there something specific... You want to find..?"

    "Ah, I don't. But Petra and Matilda really seemed to want to see this place, so I'm happy to tag along. If you're certain you can handle the Horrors, by all means. I can get up on one of the walls and support you from afar. There shouldn't be so many that we get overrun, either way. There's functionally no food for them up here. They'd tend to move on or die off." Tend to.

"Are they not-even used as, say, graves, to the families of... the corpses?"

    "Not to my knowledge. They're... just there. Sometimes Revenant Hunters will destroy them, just to clear the way, but I've never heard of anyone using them as markers like that." She reckons people would rather a proper graveyard than a twisted Horror-effigy.

"Be very sure to do so! It is most-important to dream such ways!"

    "But of course!" It's that easy. Holly smiles. "To cease to dream is to cease to be. No matter how impossible the task, I'll work towards it. Whether it's curing this madness or running a theme park. If not this one? Another one, one day."

The crystal ball knows!

    The KITTEN'S HOUSE is a broken down pet café. The large ball of flesh, the size of a person, seems to have shuffled off upstairs to the second level. It's got a mask on-- a large, skeletal golden mask, exuding a red and blue energy that it wasn't before. Energy that seeps down through the floor, to the first level, where smaller things stir. Cats, or what were surely cats, a long time ago. Their bodies start forming out of nothing, twisted, monstrous, splitting open like hungry beasts, ethereal, blue, semi-transparent, with distinctive burning candles in their open back cavities.

    Is the big ball one manifesting spectral Horrors?
    It's clearly laying an ambush in there. Getting spotted on purpose so that Matilda might investigate.
    It couldn't have known she had a great crystal ball.
Petra Soroka "It's not... Very useful... Against monsters, anyway. Except... Small bugs, maybe."

    Overhearing White on the hike, Petra is forced to imagine a grown woman boxing a tiny bug fully seriously. Something someone said to her a long time ago suddenly comes to mind again, and she's compelled to clench her fist dramatically and mumble, "'I'd tell an amoeba to kill itself if it committed a sin.'"

"We could probably restore power to the park easily enough, but the state of these rides... I doubt most would survive being used."

    "Then," Petra starts, with her tone making her intentions suspect from one singular word, "It'd be for everyone's safety to try and start them up ourselves. If they tear themselves apart, that means they weren't safe for anyone to go on, and we've *disarmed* them from hurting anyone!"

    She's thinking about how cool it would be to start up a busted roller coaster and watch the cars launch themselves off a piece of broken track and blow up.

"Resurgence events are thankfully very rare."

    "Damn. Something to expect when we get to that fucked up city then, huh? A decade is super frequent, isn't it?"

"You'll see. It's hard to miss."

    "Guess I will!" It's so rare for Holly to be intentionally cagey, rather than thoughtlessly cagey, that Petra's inclined to believe her uncritically here. She's already at the park after all, so she might as well see what there is to see without getting *spoiled*.

"Rides are for riding, not climbing,"

    Petra rolls her eyes so hard that it physically hurts her. "Oh, my god! I didn't know! I'd never heard that before! Well, geez, now I really hope there's no Horrors here, because we'll have to wait in line behind them to get on the *rides*!"

"Give the children somewhere they can come to to still make happy memories like I had the chance to have."

    Unfortunately, when it's children's memories being invoked, Petra has no choice but to take the topic seriously, even if all she wants is to bounce around and explore. She should've just snuck in here with Matilda! It's a good springboard for something else that's been on her mind, even if there won't be a chance to properly talk through the whole topic here.

    "Why *is* everyone so spread out? I mean, even with the whole infection situation, you're a *doctor* that *slows* the Horror thing! And then you can just expel or kill them when it gets too bad-- and, like, I'm not downplaying that, but I just mean that it doesn't seem like a reason why people can't collect into a centralized city. You know?"

    "It just seems like everyone would be safer, if people weren't living in tiny little villages and huts on their own to get picked off and slaughtered by Horrors. Why *do* they have to walk through a deadly forest all on their own to get to, the one doctor that there is, instead of there being a village centered around the Sanatorium! You have *extra* space!"
Petra Soroka "You sure..?"

    God. She really should've just dragged Matilda along instead of making this into a whole Thing. The moment she gets a chance, she's dragging Matilda off and getting on top of that Ferris wheel.

    "Feel free to fucking, sternly tell the monsters that they can't murder people because it's illegal, or whatever. I'm checking out the carousel."

"The ground is... Corrupted..."

    Petra is too far away to hear White say this, because she's barely being tethered back to the group at all. But when her phone buzzes, she pulls it out to check and frowns at the map. The Monster Train and the Ferris wheel were the other things she wanted to check out (she wanted to check out everything)!

    "... Whatever, it's monsters. We can just kill monsters! Or avoid them!"

    Petra sighs, stalled again by a horrible floating flesh orb. She idly shifts her weight between her feet while Matilda starts up her divination, running her hands through the top of Matilda's hair like a dog until she gets too bored of doing that. The Silver pours out of the bottle on her hip, coiling and snapping into shape in the air as a floating lance beside her.

    Then, aimed right at the floating flesh orb, the pure metal spear rockets through the air at blistering speed, smashing through the wall it hid behind like tissue paper. When it connects and pierces into its flesh, it blossoms into a sunburst of metal spikes to shred outwards, erupting into a cloud of flechettes that keep swirling around the vicinity, as Petra starts walking towards the carousel.

    "Come onnn! Everyone's being boring!"
Lilian Rook     'Resurgence events are thankfully very rare. We're talking one per decade.'

    Lilian turns to look at Holly without an ounce of subtlety. "A decade?" She leaves the pause hanging, as if she demands an explanation somehow.

    'there are countless people who'd make you a queen twice over for that information, I imagine.'

    §Don't say it.§

    "Of what? This?" Lilian says, then suddenly sighs for no reason.

    Her attention to the wall eventually ends. She stands back up again, then puts that sanitizer to good use. While she works it into her hands, she asks "Do the Horrors have the same gold blood as Revenants? Is it really only humans that bleed red?"

    'City-style'

    "God I wish I could laugh at that." Lilian moans.

    'So, I'll take responsibility'

    She takes a weirdly deep breath and looks away quickly, slightly wide-eyed.

    'There's gotta be some story-type rides in here somewhere.'

    "And we're back to stories." she says. "Opposite of City style."

    'I wanna see some fucked up animatronics.'

    "You're begging to get killed by a freaky Horror in an animatronic haunted house." Now look who's being narrative brained, hmm?

    'I imagine it'd take more manpower and something to ward off the horrors...'

    "I'd think that if Horror repellant existed, everyone would be using it." says Lilian. She decides to start walking right about then, because it helps her think. "It's typical where I live for places with minimal access to magic to rely on automated weapons that will shoot anything that isn't human. There aren't any animals to trigger a false positive, so hearing them is like an alarm. If it's Spirit Class or lower, they'll typically drive it off all by themselves. If you hear them keep shooting for a while, that mean it's Giant class or above, and that's the early warning for whoever has to fight."

    "Of course, magical means are vastly safer and more convenient. Radar works very well as a warning until it suddenly doesn't sometimes. You always want to complement it with visual and thermal motion scanning. With proper wards, though, you can get the alert and keep it out and soften them up considerably, if not trap or even eliminate them. Depending on what magic you've woven into them, your guys will be fighting on favourable ground, too. The ones I've seen in Japan even do this fascinating thing where the geomantic arrangement of the buildings amplifies--" Realizing how long she's gone on, and how weirdly enthused she's started sounding, Lilian coughs to interrupt herself. "But this world doesn't seem to have access to much of any of those things. I'd imagine it comes down to natural barriers alone.

    'You must have seen very-bad...'

    "The virtue of the Frontier appears to be that it's a controlled space. Despite falling apart and slowly being overrun, I imagine it's twice as bad outside of it." Lilian frowns, distantly. "I still haven't managed to forget London." Specifically, one building, on the second tour she'd been on there, years ago.

    'Pssh, I think it would be more-correct to call me an 'arcane girl'? I am a girl, and, I am an arcanist!'

    "Try not to get sucked into the magical girl discourse." Lilian sighs. "You'll never escape."
Angela ''And please, don't mention it, Roland!''

"Well, I'm pretty sure she just wanted to show you how it all worked." Roland asides to Holly to reassure her. "It was your first time dealing with that sort of stuff, after all. Once I went into a book of one of the easy ones and uh--well, she needed to bring me back, I'll say that much."

The lesson is to always be nice to Laetitia who has never done anything wrong.

Love is easily liftable and dangleable, she enjoys displays of affection like this as is her right as a pink themed magical girl, she ehehehs and her cheeks turn pink but she doesn't seem to be unhappy! "Wow...the great Matilda Bouanich..." She of course buys into this instantly because she tends to assume sincerity especially from Petra specifically but also she's already feeling like Matilda is pretty great since she's clearly someone who gives magical girl lessons and that's an important service to the community! Even if she calls them Foundation Girl Lessons (she doesn't call them Foundation Girl Lessons).

Roland actually is pretty curius about what White has to say about boxing. "Boxing still has some rules, at least if you're talking about it as a sport, and there's a bunch of boxing types like infighter or southpaw, techniques like clinching..." He trails off before adding, "Yeah. uh. Item crafting. Yeah. ... Uh, I don't know any gods, I don't think." He pauses. "Wait aren't you a god? Do you want to give it a go? I don't know if I'd trust a god I don't know really well." Oh no he has turned the pressure back on White!!!

Love is mostly along for Petra's ride here, though, and not just because she's been dangled by her. She mostly wanted to show Holly a big bear as thanks for all the help and to have fun in an amusement park and maybe blast a monster or two? She is feeling a little put out by the job with Red involving no blasting on her part but she knows better than to blast a friend unless they really really need to be blasted. And Red only needed to be bonked a little bit, she didn't need a full on blasting.

''What magic do you perform?''

Wow, she's good at v-signing... she really is great, Love thinks. "Usually finisher moves." Love tells Matilda. "I can shoot stars out of my wand, or hearts, sparkles--that sort of stuff. And then I have a giant pink laser, that sometimes comes out of my mouth, but only when I'm a big snake." She pauses. "Oh! I can turn into a big snake too. I can give rides!" She beams happily. "But wow, I've never heard of a magical girl that's a diviner before, usually the people who specialize in that sort of thing are queens, though sometimes magical girls do get visions while sleeping..."

She thinks for a moment and then her eyes widen. "...Are you a princess??" She asks Matilda with wide eyes.

''It would be more-correct to call me an 'arcane girl'?''

"Arcane...arcanical girl..." Love tries it out with her mouth before adding, "Well arcanist works too, we get our powers from 'Arcana' too, but maybe it's because we're from different worlds so the styling is a little different."

She places her hands on her hips. "And that's okay! Because so long as you fight for love and justice, our differences don't matter at all!"

"You're a friend of Petra's too?" She asks. "Petra's been so nice to me and helped me out so much and gave me a home and extra clothes and sometimes lets me chase after rodents."

''Because we'll have to wait in line behind them to get on the *rides*!''

"If horrors are in front of you in line, don't cut." Love tells the children she's imagining watching all this. "You'll get your turn if you just be patient."
Lilian Rook     'Boxing... Is straightforward... Isn't it?'

    Lilian looks at White from corner vision. "You'd think so." she says, and leaves the rest implied. "Sporting gloves make it so much easier that it's a different thing, though. Boxing bareknuckled is much trickier. Once you reach that point, you're relying on hand forms to fit what you're aiming for at the time and more complicated interceptions because you can't guard as effectively, plus your fingers are free, so they start getting used in clinches." Girl nobody cares.

    'Cool pouches.'

    "Thank you?" Lilian says, pausing as she struggles of what to think of next. How did Strawberry do it again? A quotidian observation of a quality that stands out, right? ". . . They're bulletproof?" She raps her fingers against the outside, though it doesn't make much noise with the outer lining and all. "And the harness is more or less bladeproof. It'd be miserable if it all came off like that." Suddenly remembering something interesting, she pantomimes a tote instead of a cross-body. "Like, could you imagine if someone just knocked Sundew's bag out of her hands right before a fight?"

    She didn't miss her staring at the ground, though. Lilian was unclear on what to ask. She only knows that 'eyes open' White means something more serious.

    'The ground is... Corrupted... A little ways down.'

    "Corrupted how? Is it toxic?"

    'I just mean that it doesn't seem like a reason why people can't collect into a centralized city. You know?'

    "I guarantee you it's political." Lilian says. "Not only do you have your usual vampire bullshit, you have caged human racial tension and never-ending internecine violence allegedly not long in the past.r
    '... Should I start... Hunting?'

    "If we're just here to clear it out and take a look, I don't see why not?" says Lilian. She lazily unhooks her pendant as she walks, twirling it around her finger absentmindedly while she scans the buildings.

    'I think that is one of the inhabitant monsters, over there! So! Please everyone, be careful? Ah! It is hiding, now...'

    Lilian draws Winter Crow so casually that she only has to pivot the step she was already taking to get into shooting stance; the sidelong, because her pendant is Night Mist and thus she hasn't processed that it isn't currently occupying her hand. She aims at the first floor, having only seen a meagre pointing gesture and motion below, but then fails to pull the trigger.

    "Oh come on . . . why cats?" Lilian whines, squinting unhappily at the signage. "It's a cat café! Why?! What's your problem?!" Even if they're horrid little mutant zombies(?), Lilian was just talking about getting a cat together with Tamamo after the wedding. "Well, let's test if this works." she says, sliding her semi-empty hand into the correct pouch by memory, withdrawing a particular design of ofuda, then throwing it towards the congregation of spectral horrors.

    Not built to be thrown at all, it catches the air and flutters up above them instead; where Lilian shoots it with the full chrysopoetic array engaged; only briefly visible in place of a muzzle flash. A solid gold bullet that shines too brightly to look at strikes the paper, and the magic bursts like an explosion of daylight. For a few seconds, it wipes out every shadow in the area, invoking mythopoetic connection to a sun deity in order to sledgehammer anything that reacts to 'sunlight'.
Riku Asakura 'Mostly manpower, but... the logistics of then securing the road... it's an ever-escalating issue.'

Riku nods at this. It's going to be a long time before a place like this could be restored.  Riku takes a breath and wonders how many people they could physically get to guard this place, patrol the roads, and clear the forest out.  It honestly seems like a long-term project.  "I suppose you'll need to cure turning into a horror first.  Still, if we had enough people..."

'The ground is... Corrupted... A little ways down. Watch out... For patches... Where it might reach the surface.'

"That's not good, I wonder what could be done about that..?" He asks nobody in particular.  It just seems like yet another problem piled on the problem of trying to restore this place to its former glory.  

'Well, geez, now I really hope there's no Horrors here, because we'll have to wait in line behind them to get on the *rides*!'

Riku winces a bit at first, but throws off the sarcasm and gives a forced smile to Petra.  "Well, we certainly can't cut ahead of them.  It'd be rude, and we might be kicked out for doing so!" he says a little tongue-in-cheek.  "Besides, Holly did say the rides were dangerous to ride..."

'Why *is* everyone so spread out?'

"That's a good question. It would seem that people living in one large city would fare better than being in smaller villages," Riku says, a city boy who thinks the larger cities are better than smaller villages.

'Feel free to fucking, sternly tell the monsters that they can't murder people because it's illegal, or whatever.'

Riku winces again and puts his hands on his hips.  "Alright, sure... let's just be careful."

'I'd think that if Horror repellant existed, everyone would be using it.'

To Lilian, he nods.  "That's true," he says, though as she explains how her world does things like dealing with horrors, he listens attentively and nods.  Though she eventually stops, and explains this world doesn't seem to have access to that sort of magic or firepower.  "That's also true.  It really just comes down to a lack of manpower to make this world better.  It's so sad..."

'I think that is one of the inhabitant monsters, over there! So! Please everyone, be careful? Ah! It is hiding, now...'

"You saw a monster?" he says, and looks around but sees nothing.  It isn't until Petra uses the silver to pierce the wall and strike it that he sees the direction it is coming from.  "Yikes!" he says, though he grabs his greebles to start the transformation should things become more dangerous.

'Lilian's anti-ghost sunlight bomb.'

Riku covers and closes his eyes to avoid directly staring into the bright light as the spectral cats are exposed to the effects of the light.  He takes a step back and waits, as he blinks his blurry eyes back open and attempts to look around.  Does he need to transform, or do his allies have things under control?
Holly Asturias Once I went into a book of one of the easy ones and uh--well, she needed to bring me back, I'll say that much."

    "Oh. You've... died, before?" Holly inspects Roland like she expects to see a scar or... really, any indicator. He's quite overdressed for her to, either way, so she settles on circling his head and humming to herself. "How skilled of a doctor Angela must be... and she didn't mention anything about this! Unique circumstances?"

"A decade?"

"Damn. Something to expect when we get to that fucked up city then, huh? A decade is super frequent, isn't it?"

    "It isn't as though we've figured out what makes them happen. There are theories, ranging from 'too many Horrors in one place' to 'too many hungry Revenants in one place'. Sometimes people even blame humans for it. But it just sort of... happens. Once every ten years is better than every five, two or one. We'll take it."

"Why *is* everyone so spread out?"

    "The logistics of moving. Large crowds on the road for days attract Horrors. You're right. I have room to house dozens of refugees. And if they make it, I'll house them. But they don't tend to. There *are* some larger shelters though. MagMell Island comes to mind. Last I inquired, Valentin told me that they don't have space for more people. That's likely another factor." It visibly bothers her though. That much is obvious.

"I guarantee you it's political."

    "And, well, there's that too," Holly nods to Petra. "Many humans are still afraid of Revenants, and many Revenants are concerned too many of them in one place will translate to a blood shortage. Which, to be frank, it usually will, unless there's also humans coming in with them. The momentum you'd need to unite multiple small communities like that... I'd like to have it, but I simply don't."

Petra's Silver.

    Guided by Matilda's divination, Petra scores a critical surprise hit against the fleshy blob. Which... was defenseless, really. It splatters everywhere, and with its death the cat-horrors shriek and lose their ethereality. That's not how you fight those! You're supposed to struggle for a while until you realize there's a bastard that keeps reviving the things!!

"Oh come on . . . why cats?"

    This is followed by Lilian unleashing concentrated sunlight into the first floor. Weakened by dreadful PHYSICALITY, the spectral Horrors evaporate. They leave behind candles that smell entirely too much like blood. If you lit them, you get awful nightmares! Don't do that.

"Of what? This?"

    "Well, not this, no. But I understand your meaning. I can't much think of what people here might have to offer you that you don't already have, or could get."

"Do the Horrors have the same gold blood as Revenants? Is it really only humans that bleed red?"

    "Mhm. It exhibits similar properties, turning gold when in contact with oxygen. It's quite red while inside them, or when extracted as Ichor. Another little thing we haven't been able to puzzle out. Even the Horrors born of humans and animals and whatever else exhibit this trait."

"But this world doesn't seem to have access to much of any of those things. I'd imagine it comes down to natural barriers alone."

    "I believe MagMell Academy was researching the use of Formae to do exactly what you speak of, before it was repurposed into a shelter. Some people there might still be working on it. Another question for Valentin, I'm afraid."
Holly Asturias FERRIS WHEEL.

    With all this NOISE, the Ferris Wheel creaks loudly as the creature resting in it stirs. The metal strains, you can hear screws and bolts clanking unhappily. The Horror doesn't seem in a hurry, but it IS now starting to claw its way out of the steel cabin it'd been in.

    It's also growing as it does so, revealing more of its bloated humanoid shape as it shreds itself free as though coming out of a cocoon.

    It's got a MASK on, golden, split open like a face lifting its skin down the middle to show the skull. And... eye contact is sickening.

    Actually, physically sickening. Looking at that thing's mask actively poisons you. It's radiating Ichor out in the air.

    Holly breaks eye contact immediatly, ducking behind an old food vendor cart. "That wasn't there last time I came! A bloodline mask, really? Here? Avoid eye contact! Horrors born of powerful Revenants sometimes sprout these. Toxicity, toxicity... that should be... the Invidia bloodline?"

    On the bright side it hasn't seen you yet. You COULD hide, before it's done emerging and wanders on over.
White              *Earlier, on the trail*

     White certainly doesn't have a complete understanding of boxing, but Roland listing off boxing terms does have her shift her posture just to represent what she knows about them; 'Infighter' has her raise her hands back up and do a little dip-and-swoop, lowering her head as she steps forward. 'Southpaw' has her shift her weight and draw her right arm back while she nods, though the way her left hand loosens up and goes a little more slack at the wrist kind of gives away that she's copying something she saw in an anime once. She doesn't drag the bit out much more, she's just in an unusually confident mood today.

     Unfortunately, when Roland spins the subject of a blessing back on her, White jolts a little and even blinks her eyes open by accident. Crap, he remembers! Now what..? If she just refuses, it'll bother him. If she has to talk down about her own godliness, it's going to bother *her*... She looks a little distressed for a moment, glancing to either side like she's looking for ideas, before eventually getting her shit together again and relaxing.

     Without saying a single word, she reaches over to grab Roland's arm loosely, pulling the KNIFE FIST closer. Closing her hands around the blade, she weaves a little white bow of her silk around the top of where the knife's handle would have been previously, then releases him. If Roland touches it or looks closer, he can see that it's actually woven with little gaps and dense threads, like... Like a small fishing net? It has absolutely no special powers or 'blessings' whatsoever, though, outside of the meagre hope that Roland never goes hungry. He'll have to do the hard part of making sure that's the reality, himself. How very godlike of her!

     For what it's worth, White does seem to understand what Lilian's describing about the difference between having and not having the padded gloves. She looks at her own hand for a moment, shifting between a closed fist, a half-fist with the second row of knuckles presented, a sort of 'paw' shape presenting the palm, and a few other less logical combinations of finger-extensions including a flattened hand. No, White. That's a Karate thing, not a Boxing thing. "Hmm. I've never... Used gloves. But that... Makes sense. So it's easier... If you wrap them..." Oh no, that sounds like she's having ideas.

     In any case, White seems placidly pleased with the reaction to her compliment, though the look on her face and the upward tilt of her chin seems to imply that Lilian's reasons for the materials in her equipment are just things White's never had to think about before. Like, how's a spider supposed to use a utility belt, right? "Spatial storage... Is nice. But sometimes... I don't want... To put things away out of sight. I used to... Forget what I had stored... Until I started posting... An agent, inside the space." Is this too much pandering over some cool pouches? Maybe. But she's trying to be *relatable* now! Her aspirations are ever-growing, now that she knows people will listen to her sometimes.

             *Presently, in the park*

     It seems like folks are starting to split off to focus on different stuff, most notably Petra and Matilda. With Holly's permission to just do her own thing White is already getting some ideas in her head, but Lilian does have a pretty fair question before White can get very far. "Can't examine it... That much, through the ground. But it's... Sort of alive, sort of not... It's spreading... Just really slowly. So it might try... To absorb someone... That touches it. Pure guess." She throws in a Big Shrug for extra emphasis.
White      Now, that handled, she waves a short-term 'goodbye', although she won't be all that far away really. She only neglects to teleport because then she might have to tell the others where she plans to be, so out of an ironic sort of laziness she instead just... Picks a wall and plants the bottom of her boot against it before starting to leisurely walk up it. Her hood falls down immediately and part of her hair falls off her shoulders to dangle behind her, but otherwise she looks completely unchallenged by walking straight up a vertical surface until she reaches the roof overhang and has to put her hand on it to pull herself around and onto the top. From there she picks up into a light jog, hopping from high spot to high spot, trying to get a vantage on the Monster Train attraction from well above ground level.

     Her 'agents' likewise start to adjust their positions, shifting to different sides of the vantages they've chosen to get half a dozen different angles of view on that particular attraction. White figures the others can handle whatever's at the Ferris Wheel just fine with how many people are here, and smaller targets are a little easier to play proverbial tower-defense against... Which is more or less what her plan is. She prepares any of the walkable paths between the Train attraction and the rest of the Elites by laying out sticky webs to make sure her antics don't cause a badly-timed spillover of danger for the others. She prepares a generous number of Black Spear and Black Bullet glyphs in advance, activates the Heavy Evil Eye to make sure the horrors are at their slowest as they come out of shelter and into view... And then starts throwing little rocks and bits of bone at the train from really far away.

     She would *prefer* to just blow up the ride with all of them inside, but she's being considerate. As things stand, she's hoping she can annoy the horrors enough that they rush out of their shelter into a slightly less delicate part of the park trying to reach her, then just bombard them with dark magic while they're trying to adjust to the weight-raising debuff. Classic stuff.
Petra Soroka "There are countless people who'd make you a queen twice over for that information, I imagine."

    Petra swivels around to interject herself in the conversation between Holly and Lilian just to announce, "I'd do it for *free*." As if she hasn't put Lilian on a throne already.

"Opposite of City style."

    "Even the City's got that kind of thing! I mean, people make stories no matter what even if their circumstances are stupid senseless horrifying bullshit, in order to make sense of it and try and imagine their future. Even the City can't totally stop them. And also,"

    Because Lilian is probably as unfamiliar with the typical features of a mundane children's environment as Matilda is, "I mean, like, a slow roller coaster that brings you through hallways with animatronics of characters in them. And it's like, a little story. That would be *so* spooky with all the rust and blood and everything."

"You're begging to get killed by a freaky Horror in an animatronic haunted house."

    "I'm begging to *almost* get killed." For someone who's finally reconciled with the idea that she wants to live indefinitely long, she sure can deliver that line while looking *really* excited. "But, I'll survive! I've been training ever since I was a kid to fight off killer animatronics if it ever happened."

"But wow, I've never heard of a magical girl that's a diviner before, usually the people who specialize in that sort of thing are queens, though sometimes magical girls do get visions while sleeping..."

    Most of Love's chatter about magic and girls is background noise to Petra, who doesn't see any reason to reduce the amount of attention Matilda's being bombarded with. Instead she just leans over to add, to Matilda's benefit, "She's such a good diviner, she managed to cripple one of my villainous boss machines without me noticing. Lower tier magical girls have to figure out the monster's gimmick *during* the fight."
Petra Soroka "I guarantee you it's political."

    Petra clicks her tongue-- not because she's irritated, because she wasn't invested enough in the thought to feel annoyed that something petty is in the way of it, but because she's *interested*. "Yeah, probably. Could be fun to make a tour around the Frontier and see how the actual people feel about it."

"There are theories, ranging from 'too many Horrors in one place' to 'too many hungry Revenants in one place'."

    "That's kind of the worst equivalency ever to make." With the number of things that directly equate 'Horrors' and 'Revenants in a bad mood', Petra feels like practically everyone in the world should be coming to the same conclusions as she has! 'Sometimes people blame humans' makes her scoff, because of fucking course they would.

    "I guess it would kind of sour the idea literally forever if people gathered up into a stable city and then all got turned into evil stone by the horror light. That kinda thought would totally make people hesitate."

"Oh come on . . . why cats?"

    Petra winces and gasps, restless and fretful as if *she* did something wrong. With the Horrors already vaporized, the most important priority shifts from jumping around on broken amusement park rides, to trying to improve Lilian's mood.

    "A-ah-- y-you know, there's a lot of cat cafes like that around! This one's just a ruin and all, but places like that are sort of like foster homes for cats that you can visit and hang out with, and they're perfect places to go to find one to adopt? So, I could find a nice one sometime for that!"

"A bloodline mask, really? Here?"

    Petra, finally soothed from the Horrors being dealt with, White on patrol, Lilian not *too* unhappy, and the path to blissful urban exploration cleared, groans in deep-seated exasperation. A bubble of Silver expands in the air between the group and the Horror, shielding them from eye contact, and she grabs Matilda to pull her into cover.

    "This is so annoying!!! Matilda! Is there some way we can *not* fight that thing today?"
Riku Asakura 'The masked creature stirs.'

This causes Riku to duck with Holly, as she explains the situation.  Well, sadly, Riku can't remain hidden to use his powers.  He grabs two capsules and then starts his transformation sequence.  

"I go!" He says, activating an Ultracapsule, causing an image of an Ultraman to appear next to him.  It's silver and red in color.  "You go!" he says again, activating a second capsule.  Both capsules are loaded into a holster.  The image of this Ultraman is similar to the first, silver and mostly red.  

"Here we go!" he says, and scans each capsule with the Fusion Riser.  He brings the Fusion Riser up into the air.  "Time to let my courage burn bright!" he says, before pulling the trigger on the Fusion Riser and pulling it over his chest.  "Geeeeeeeeed!" Upon this, a blue-white flame pours out of Riku's body, as the two images of the Ultramen fly into him.  

FUSION RISE!
ULTRASEVEN!
ULTRAMAN LEO!
ULTRAMAN GEED SOLID BURNING!

Ultraman Geed is already out from behind the rubble, Holly was, and growing in size to match the masked horror that came out.  His hand strikes out first, aiming to punch the mask squarely in the mask, and attempts to flip the creature onto its back first.  The punch is flaming, very hot, and attempting to burn the mask with the strike.  
Angela ''Oh. You've... died, before?''

"Uh twice? I think." Roland frowns. Both times it didn't really feel like dying, he mostly remembers waking up after being restored from book form. ansi243,"Angela's not a doctor though, it's magic bull--") He remembers Love is around. "It's magic stuff." He finishes, lamely. "I think it's essentially turning me into a book at the moment of death or maybe right before and restoring me back to health from it. I don't know how that works though."

But then... Roland remembers!!

He can see that White is distressed--he's been around her enough times that he's gotten better at reading her--and he's trying to figure out a polite way to say 'oh don't worry about it' but White gets his arm before he can.

He receives... a little silk bow on his kind of grim looking weapon! Naturally, he has no way of telling that it isn't actually magic but after White's period of distress, he's too nervous to ask what the bow actually does.

They say that the gods help those that help themselves, it's true.

"Thanks, I'll uh--let you know if it gets me out of a pinch someday." That's appropriately vague enough to show that he doesn't have expectations, right?