This Thing Don't Look So Tough

[China]

Myst pulled him through the gate after her, even as China continued to fight to restrain himself. He didn't want to disappoint master. No, he must not disappoint master. He needed her, more than he ever had his first master. Being abandoned by the Archmage had meant being exposed to a world of unknown dangers and horrible scary things... but being abandoned by the Hell Fairy would mean no more shiny lights that made him feel all good inside... and that was clearly far worse.

The thing was, he was now afraid that he already had disappointed her; he had had such difficulty not eating the touchy-feely girl that he hadn't even noticed that Clownpiece (and that evil, mean, nasty friend of hers, who wouldn't be nice even to someone as wonderful as master) had already headed off for the gate without him... what if she thought he preferred the company of Cassa... Sassa... Indra...? He couldn't remember her first name. It was too long, and not made up of nice, simple words like his master's...

Anyway. Given how upset Clownpiece had been by Dane touching the touchy girl, she really might get angry if she saw China also touching her... what if she started thinking that everyone preferred this other person to her?

She might even think that he was as mean and horrible as Dane was! But what could he do about it? He didn't want to yank his hand away from Myst, unless he accidentally broke her... then the Hell Fairy would certainly be upset; with all her magic, his master surely could have easily killed this person herself if she had actually wanted Cassomething dead. The fact that she had not done so could only mean that she must not want to slay her, even though Myst being around seemed to result only in unhappiness for Clownpiece...

Oh yes, his master was such an amazing and kind person... in fact, she was so generous that China felt the sudden urge to make sure that this touchy-feely girl knew just how lucky she was to have been allowed to accompany the Marvellous Clownpiece and her friend, the Great Dane, on their journey.

“You-you so much-many lucky, yes-yes.” he said in a tone as close to a growl as his breathy, whispering voice could produce, whilst turning to look across at Myst, his one remaining eye narrowed. She walked beside him as they followed the others through these cloudy, wet and windy plains. With him no longer needing to try and stand tall to intimidate the fast one, China had reverted to walking on all six limbs, and so at this point he actually had to look up slightly in order to meet the girl's gaze, “Master is many kind-nice for not kill and-and eat such tasty yum-yum as soon as meet-find. So Myst-person better be good and not steal-steal all touch-touching away from master, okay-yes?”

"Oui... Oui Afrátos..." Casanova replied, her voice timid and soft, as she backed away a little, her small hand slipping from his grasp as she finally seemed to realise that he was actually a dangerous hungry person and not just some adorable little prey food for her to play with.

The others could hardly have failed to notice her sudden change in demeanour, or the way she had backed off rather than continue walking forwards, even if they hadn't all heard the words of the Ceramic Beast for themselves. As they had all been within a couple metres of one another, however, even China's quiet voice could travel that distance, despite the rain falling all around them.

Dane turned slowly to face the Ceramic Beast, one hand falling to the shortsword which hung at his side. Before he could speak, however, the Hell Fairy beat him to the punch.

“Sh-shut up, Afrátos! Don't go saying dumb stuff like that! I'm a fairy of Hell! It's not like I really care about silly little things like head pats. Now, c-come over here like a good boy!” his master's cheeks had turned slightly red as she spoke, which China – who knew nothing of embarrassment – could only assume meant she was angry at him... an assumption which was seemingly supported by the volume of her yells.

Cowering more than a little, the Ceramic Beast slunk forwards after Clownpiece, head hanging dejectedly and both tails between his legs... he had only tried to do good, but had instead managed to point out her enjoyment of physical contact to everyone... he had noticed this himself, so he had simply assumed that it was something everyone would know. How moronic of him! It was absurd to think that in the extremely short period of time he had spent in this strange place, he somehow could have forgotten how much more intelligent he was than the two-leg foods.

Of course people as simple-minded as Dane, Casablanca & Renko would never pick up on something that had taken even a brilliant thinker such as himself so long to deduce... and now he had accidentally given up his master's one and only weakness to these untrustworthy people. Dane, especially, seemed like the sort who would be cruel and callous enough to exploit such knowledge however he could.

“Nooo, silly-silly me, why have go say stupid-fool thing like that! Dumb-idiot people all know super hidden secret-secret now... poor master. Me feel-feel so much bad-nasty...” China muttered to himself as he stared glumly at the muddy grass at his feet, not even seeming to realise that he was speaking aloud.

The Great Dane simply rolled his eyes and turned away, starting moving off towards their destination – wherever that was – once again, whilst Renko did her best to innocuously sidle into a position which put the fast one between her and the Ceramic Beast... just to be on the safe side.

As they followed him, China heard a quiet cough from his master and glanced over and up at her; given the long, wet grass and mud through which the rest of them were striding, she had understandably chosen to fly for the time being. He noticed immediately that she was still slightly red-faced, and then spotted the hand that she held outstretched just a little in his direction... as though inviting him to hold it. Tentatively, and after using a tuft of wet grass to clean mud from his palm, he reached over and took that tiny hand in his own, much larger, one. Though she said nothing in response, she did appear to relax a little, which in turn calmed his own fears of being hated by her...

They didn't have much longer left to travel, though, it turned out, with the plains soon being replaced with abandoned fields, and then, a little later, actual fields, which had clearly seen use recently. From one of these the little group crossed over onto a pathway that quickly led them into some sort of walled city.
Had China been able to read, he would have realised that the signpost just a little way outside proclaimed the place to be named 'Darkshire'.

[PepsiYuuka]

Ah, Darkshire.

Renko couldn’t say she’d made any prior mental associations about the place- though she had heard of it, vaguely. That is to say, she wasn’t sure if it was more or less shitty than she had initially imagined a place named “Darkshire” to be like. However, she could certainly see the darkness it had gotten its name from, at least. And at least she could say that it was, supposedly, the safest place to be in this deathtrap of a ‘verse.

The feline creature in front of her was bickering with the fairy, something she didn’t want to end up dragged into considering she was not at all supernaturally inclined enough to defend herself from them. Instead, she gave her all at placing both of the other humans(?) between her and them. Perhaps it wasn’t really any safer, but it at least made her feel that way. And if that was all she could manage, she’d do that.

Walking the streets of Darkshire was quite unlike walking those of Coruscant- they were much more scantily populated, and much, MUCH quieter… To the point where she felt like she could hear every little word that escaped the mouths of those having their casual conversations on street corners. While normally she’d tune these conversations out, in the name of getting a little more familiar with this new area she’d never visited, she instead paid even closer attention to them.

For the most part, the residents were talking about the usual things- Dracula, crop failure, which one of the residents may have secretly been some horrifying fantasy beast in disguise. At least, Renko presumed these were the usual things for a place called Darkshire smack in the middle of a land full of dangers.

However, there was one conversation topic more common than any other, squeaked out with even more urgency than the rumors about their neighbors being werewolves. It spoke of some terrible, great beast that had somehow revived itself from death recently that would certainly soon be menacing the whole town. While this sounded a bit far fetched to some residents, at the same time, Renko didn’t really know what to think of it. She had expected as much of a run down, spooky place like this, anyway.

Perhaps that was her Coruscant Privilege talking.

”Well, it seems like Afrátos here will fit right in.” She thought aloud, glancing towards the ceramic creature as she did, though continuing to keep herself walled behind the two other primes. ”But, other than that, I can’t say you guys have picked a very nice vacation spot. What were our plans here, anyway?” Honestly it was a testament to her own naivety that she had taken long enough to even get to Darkshire to ask this question and hadn’t done it straight away when the Primes had selected a gate.

short post but i'm not really sure what to do with her atm so it's just kind of introducing: darkshire. :V

[Dane Regan]

Short post cuz I suck. Was gonna add more, but I wanted to get stuff out for you guys. We're splitting up to look for clues, gang! Dane and China; Myst, Renko and Clownpiece. PM me if you need me to edit or w/e.

"Oh, y'know. The usual." Dane shrugged. "Probably go kill some monsters or something - see if there's anything to be done here." He took a few quick steps forward and spun around, stretching his hands behind his head. "Aaannyway, you two are welcome to sit back." He gestured to Myst and Renko. "Me and Clown got dis, brah... Although, it might be better to split up while we're in town: cover more ground, meet more people, that sorta thing." With a forced yawn, he composed himself, reverting back to his commanding posture and tone. "Come on, Afrátos. You're with me. Clownpiece, you're with the others. We'll meet back at the town centre in a few hours."

China squirmed, hiding behind his new master and shaking with fear. Dane resisted the urge to smile, even as Clownpiece began her objections.

"Hey! You can't just take him away and leave me here. We're staying together." The hellfairy hovered in front of his face, crossing her arms and protesting.

Seeking the easiest solution to the problem, Dane reached out and pushed her down to the ground by placing one hand on top of her head. Purposely, he ruffled her hair, causing her to pout. "No. Someone's got to keep an eye on those two - it can't be your china pet, and you didn't seem fond of it being me. Anyway, I want my guy's night out, yo'. Promise I'll return him to ya in one piece," he smirked, "if he behaves."

"I-" Clownpiece gritted her teeth, glaring up at Dane's smug expression while he fondled her hair through her hat. "Fine." She glanced back. "Afrátos, you're going to be with Dane for a while. Just... do what he says; you'll be fine."

Dane moved to pull away, only to find his hand still pinned to the girl's head. "Won't he?" For all intents and purposes, the girl was smiling cheerfully, although her iron grip revealed a few key undertones.

Two could play that game. "Finer than the smoothest sand on the beach - except he won't be in one hundred million pieces." His voice was surprisingly sweet-sounding, tone devoid of any threats before returning back to a plain factual drone. "Seriously though, I'll sooner let someone chop my own arm off than smash his."

"You'd better." Clownpiece let go, finally, and Dane willingly patted her head afterwards before spinning around.

"You heard your master, kiddo." He waved one hand over his shoulder, beckoning the beast to join him as he began to stroll down a side street. "Get over here."

---

Thud. Scrape. Thud. Scrape.

The duo walked in near silence, and Dane could almost hear China chattering in fear with each step. He'd forced the beast to walk in front of him so he could keep him in his sight.

"Shut up." Dane glared at its ceramic back. Despite China not saying anything, he sensed a comment coming. It always spoke its thoughts aloud. Always. He'd never sensed a coherent - or almost understandable - sentence form inside that thing's head. At least, not when it wasn't talking at the same time.

As if the beast couldn't restrain itself, it spoke anyway. "Me not speaking to mean-master-friend. Me want yum-yums yes-yes so mean fast-food lucky not-weak so me can't eat. Miss-miss me do yes master nice. Mean not-food scary-mean."

"You want food, 'eh?" Dane raised an eyebrow, then reached out and grabbed one of China's tails. "Fine, we're going to a Tavern then."

China flinched and screeched, digging his claws into the cobblestones.

"I'm giving you food, you dolt. Follow me," Dane smirked, amused. He was going to force that thing to eat up a table like a civilised person, and maybe give him some booze to go with it. He didn't think China could get drunk, though. He did consider that unintelligent monsters might be banned, but there wasn't a sign by the side door, so that wasn't his problem. 

Letting go of China's tail, he pushed open the door by the side of the alleyway, causing the entrance bell to ring. A burly bloke stood behind the bar, and a group of three and a group of four sat at the tables.

"Come on." He twisted his head to glare back at the beast, becoming him to come inside. Moments later, Dane was already at the counter, ignoring his tool of a companion. "What's on the menu?" He asked. "Got any meat?"

[Clownpiece]

Clownpiece simply watched stoically as Dane made off with her pet, arms crossed over her chest and an attempt at a serious look on her face. She watched their retreating forms, waiting until they were far enough away, watching.... As soon as the two were out of earshot, the little fairy giggled cutely, hands on top of her head, adjusting her hat that the swordsman had messed up. With a grin on her face, she spun to face the two she was stuck with; Renko and Myst. She stared up at the two, standing tall and acting as though she were in charge despite her short stature. Those who were good at reading expressions could see the child’s grin suddenly turn smug as she cast a quick glance directly at Myst, before she turned to address both of them equally, her smirk returning to normal.

“Alright! You heard the man.” Her tone was confident and authoritative. She had no doubt she was the leader of their little party. “We’re gonna ask around and find some things to kill! Any questions?” Clownpiece eyed both of them closely as she asked that. At the mention of killing things, a look crossed both of the brown-haired girls’ faces. Renko seemed to almost regret tagging along, while Myst’s expression was much more bewildered. The college student opened her mouth, as though to protest. But before she got so much as a word out, Clownpiece hopped up into the air and began to float way with a cheerful “Good! Follow me!” In the opposite direction Dane had gone in, of course. She didn’t want to get in his way....

***

“You heard me! What is there to kill around here?”

Clownpiece took the very direct route, harassing everyone in sight. Her current victim was a man easily twice her height, his back nervously pressed against the wall of the alley she had dragged him into. She was right up in his personal space, her face inches from him, her arms and legs planted against the wall behind him, sort of pinning him against it, but if he had fought back, it wouldn’t have been that hard to push her out of the way. Behind her, Myst and Renko looked around nervously.

“I-I don’t know what you mean....” The man answered her nervously, repeating his line from last time.

“We’re looking for something strong! Something to test our mettle!” Her tone was aggressive, straightforward, but not loud enough to draw attention.

“I-I’m sorry!” His voice was very obviously panicked, nervous, He hadn’t the slightest clue what to make of this attack, and as soon as the dissatisfied frown appeared on the hell fairy’s face, he slipped out beneath her legs and fled like a bat out of hell. Her dissatisfied frown turned positively unhappy, and she slowly turned to face her two underlings.

“So, four dead ends...” she said slowly, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned around. “What can we do better?” The fairy really didn’t want to go back to Dane without a single lead. So she finally enlisted the help of the two people accompanying her.

[China]

Despite lacking a nose, China made sniffing noises and moved his head about as he crouched before he bar, by Dane's side. As much as he may have been frightened by the master's friend, he had finally gotten it into his head that the man was trying to feed him... and China had never been one to say no to an easy meal.

“E-er, sir...” the big, juicy, tasty-looking meat behind the counter said to Dane, licking its lips nervously... sadly, this yum-yum was one of the two-legs variety, so he knew he wouldn't be allowed to eat it. Whatever 'meat' it was that the fast person wanted, it was presumably procured from a type of food with the correct number of limbs for consumption, “I'm afraid we don't, uh, don't allow pets in here. Your... erm... dog... will have to wait outside... please?”

Dane stared at him coolly for a moment before asking, “Does this seriously look like a dog to you?”

Before the frightened two-legs could respond, though, China was all of a sudden up in his face, two of his arms clutching the wooden bartop with enough force that his talons actually dug into the wood slightly... not that the food was of any mind to pay attention to this minor detail, though.

No, its focus was wholly occupied by China's head. Whereas before his face had been flat and expressionless, his mouth had now appeared once again, in the blink of an eye, and had opened wide. Despite the gleaming, blue, razor-sharp teeth, though, the Ceramic Beast couldn't help but notice that the two-legs' gaze seemed just as drawn to his missing eye as to his vast maw.

He had never really considered his injuries as any sort of intimidating feature... yet for some reason this food seemed genuinely scared by the fact that China had a massive hole in his head... perhaps because he seemed not too bothered by it? Now that he thought about it, most foods were actually really fond of screaming and wailing whenever they lost a body part. He didn't like losing pieces either, but he had to admit that it was a little odd how worked up they got about that sort of thing.

“Me is not-not dog-thing, silly yum-yum, me is Chi- no-no, silly-stupid me, not forget nice new name-thing from master. Me-me is Afrátos, not dog-dog, no. Me is master pet, and this-this master friend.” with one of his free hands he pointed towards Dane, whilst bringing up the other to hold up beside his mouth as he ducked his head to the side a little, so that he could whisper into the food's ear, “Master friend not very nice-friendly, though, when me-me make him angry-mad he smash big hole-hole in face. Better watch-look out for that-that if not want same-same happen to you.”

China nodded vigorously to punctuate that last statement, then both he and the yum-yum glanced over at Dane, who was staring at the Ceramic Beast, wearing an expression of mild annoyance.

“Ah-ah!” China suddenly darted back, away from the bar, and sunk down even closer to the ground than usual... almost prostrating himself before the fast person, “Me-me sorry! Me be good-nice! Not do-do anything without Dane say so, promise-promise!”

Before Dane had even had time to formulate a reply, though, the porcelain creature had turned its head to one side and begun muttering to itself, “That-that what he believe-think, anyway. What master and master friend don't know-realise won't hurt-harm them... me just wait-wait for chance then sneaky-sneak off into house-buildings, look for soft-tender baby food, yes-yes, such tiny yum-yums, foods probably not even-even notice it missing. Oh yes, me-me, you such smart-wise hungry person.”

“D-did your pet just say it wanted to eat a baby?” the meat's tone was mostly horrified, though with a hint of genuine confusion... as if he found it difficult to comprehend what he was seeing when he read China's mind! It was bad enough that Dane could apparently do that, but now this food as well? The Ceramic Beast hissed in frustration, before looking back at the swordsman and whimpering and cowering before his glare. Yep, there was no doubt about it, Dane was somehow reading his mind as well. Curse all these two-legs and their magical ways!

“No. You misheard. It didn't say anything like that.” the swordsman stated flatly, then spoke to the golem, “And you, keep your mouth shut unless you want me to break off your jaw.”

That said, he relaxed his tone a little, turning to face the food once more, “Now, back to my first question; you got a menu?”

“O-oh, yes! We do, of course we do, good sir!” the food was sweating now. China's vision may have been hampered slightly by the loss of one eye, but he would have been able to tell that much even if he were completely blind. He could smell it on the yum-yums' skin. As it spoke, the two-legs' terror-stricken gaze darted between Dane and China, whilst its hands fumbled wildly around the counter, in search of a copy of their menu. Eventually, it was forced to avert its eyes long enough to locate the folded piece of parchment which it was looking for, which it then handed off to Dane, noticeably trembling as it did so.

Dane unfolded and peered down at what he'd been given, wearing the sort of focused expression that two-legs often had when looking at those squiggly things on bits of paper or on wooden signs... China knew that this was called 'reading', even though he couldn't do it himself, as his first master, the Archmage, had just loved reading... the Beast wondered if this sort of reading was the same as 'mind reading'... was it simply a matter of understanding these squiggles that allowed the foods to know everything he was thinking?

Before he could decide whether a power like that would actually make it worth putting in the effort to learn to understand squiggles himself, Dane tossed the parchment back at the delicious, meaty prey, “We'll take two steaks. Make his rare... actually, just leave it raw. Oh, and get us some ale while you're at it.”

So saying, he turned his back and headed over to a random table, whilst the yum-yum immediately rushed to busy himself with the task of preparing their meal. The table Dane had chosen was already occupied, which was hardly surprising, given that there were only two of the tables in the place. The one he sat at had three foods there already, one female and two males, as far as China could tell... he was no expert on two-leg biology, but he was fairly sure that only the females had those tasty lumps of fatty tissue that they called breasts...

“Come on, sit up here like a real person.” Dane ordered, patting a chair next to the one he'd taken, completely ignoring the dark glares that the three were giving them both... though mostly China. As he complied with the command – sitting awkwardly, unused to using an actual seat – he glanced across at the other table as well, and got more glares in return.

He hoped that they also hadn't read his mind when he'd been plotting his daring scheme...

[Little Rose]

It didn’t matter if you were fifteen years old or if you were two centuries old; It does not matter what decade she was in or even where time no longer separated people. Rejection was the worse feeling. Myst hadn’t been very talkative, to begin with, but she was notably more silent after Afrátos’’ comments to her.

With the clarity of isolation she able to understand the situation a bit more from the outside. It would seem that Dane and Clownpiece had some form of a relationship that was only put in jeopardy because he had petted her. This upset the imposing creature, and thus, she found herself standing on the outside like she normally did.

Always on the outside…

She blinked and it felt like she had teleported there in that alley as the little girl in the American flag outfit threatened a seemingly growing list of people. She stared with her jewel green eyes but was so out of it that she could not hear them. She was far too busy feeling like she was at the edge of a fissure which was growing by the moment.

She hasn’t felt this lonely in a long time. She remembers this feeling though, as she recalled it was the same distant feeling when she watched the fires engulf whole parts of her town. The same as she watched other people mourn for her and her family’s death. When her Master had to prove to the younger and more stubborn Cassandra that life as she understood it was never going to be the same life she had. When she had locked herself in her room for days because she’d been so depressed.

While Renko pulled out some kind of device Sandy didn’t recognize, the vampire turned around and looked at their surroundings. Grey, cloudy, chilly, a drizzle that left small beads of water in her hair.

Nothing seemed really important as she did, except a man in the doorframe of one of the buildings was smoking a cigarette and staring at her. She pushed the bright red colored plastic eyeglasses up her nose before lowering her head and walked away from the hell fairy and the other rather normal looking girl.

She came closer. “Bonjour.” She spoke, gently. The man in the door frame was gigantic compared to the short brunette. He made eye contact with her as the only acknowledgment to her approach. She waited for a returned greeting that never came.

He took a long drag of the rolled up cigarette, “Your friend, the one in the red, white, and blue? She is loud.”

Sandra scoffed at the word friend, looking at the ground sadly. “Oui.” She nodded, before looking up. “Do you ‘ave another one?” She asked, pointing to the cigarette in the man’s hand. The man looked just as grumpy as before, but fished out a box from his pocket and tossed it to the younger woman. “Merci.” She replied, tapping the box against her wrist before pulling one out and putting the filter end in her mouth and fishing out a match from the book that was tied to the pack with a rubber band. She struck it and cupped her hand over the tip before puffing on the filtered end. When it took the flame she took a big drag and blew it out the corner of her mouth before handing back the pack.

He took it, but then nodded behind the French woman. “Why has she threatened 4 people?”

Myst was busy taking a long drag of tobacco, having to look back to realize he was talking about Clownpiece. “Did you say quatre? I was not counting..” She lied, then shook her head and blew the smoke into the air, her hand wrapped around her chest and the other held the cig close by for more smoke. “I zink she is looking for a bête zat she, ‘er pet, and another person can fight. I guess zat is what zey like to do, fight zings zat are bigger zan zem. I guess zat is… What do you call it? A hobby?”

The guy eyes the woman again, enough for her to look up at him again. “Well if you are looking for big…”

-

Cassandra came back to Clownpiece and Renko looking into that object from before. The fresh scent of the smoke on the French woman alerted both to her approach. “You stink.” The hell fairy commented right away, then saw the glowing end of the stick as the French girl was finishing it off.

“I needed a quick break, iz all, Mademoiselle.” Smoke came out of her mouth as she spoke, she dropped the last of the cigarette onto the muddy ground, her polished red show steps and grins onto it while a steadier stream of smoke flies up in the air. “I ‘ave a lead as well.” She said, then pointed them towards the direction the man told her. “It is over here, a grand et craintif monster.”

[Dane Regan]

Dane twiddled his fingers, amused by the ceramic beast - but he couldn't let that show, he had to be seen as stern. The thing was stupid, so it wasn't surprising Clownpiece had bent it to her will. The real question running through his mind was whether or not to let it try whatever plan it was currently devising. Naturally, having it kill someone was bad, mindless, and it wasn't his style. And, should someone die, he'd have to silence any witnesses - quickly. Getting a bounty, or having Afrátos get one, wasn't exactly on his to-do list. But, should someone attack Dane, or Afrátos, that would be forcing his hand to fight back, even if the beast started it. As long as he reasonably couldn't have known. After all, he did say it was going to obey him. Why should he believe otherwise?

Striking first wasn't his style, and he was itching for a bit of a bar fight. Of course - he had no proof Afrátos was going to do anything and, intuitively, he guessed the beast was more likely to run away if the 'baby eating' comment was anything to go by. As such, he couldn't let the china thing out of his sight - killing was only fun if they thought back, watching their face drop and all hope fall from their eyes. For fighting primes here, it wasn't the same. They came back and most of them knew it. Secondaries though, he wondered if they'd display the range of emotions he desired.

It wasn't like he'd ever done something unjustified. Everyone he'd ever killed back home had either threatened or attacked him - or someone else he felt the need to protect. Or, letting them live would jeopardise an important goal, like when he'd killed a mostly innocent witness before. He was just very good at driving people to attack him without resorting to violence himself. When they inevitably died, it was their fault, not his. They'd still chosen to draw their sword or swing their fist. It wasn't his problem if they were overconfident.

Most people would probably still call him a psychopath - probably because he was - they just didn't understand the sophisticated level of mental gymnastics taken to at least flip his actions from 'evil' to 'neutral' on most moral spectrums. At the end of the day, it wasn't much different from simply stabbing someone - but it was much less fun. He'd heard about free will many, many, times. It was all an illusion. At least in the sense he cared about. With or without predesignation of actions and events, people could be manipulated. The only reason free will was 'free' was due to limited information. Person A would always do reaction X given situation Y. If you knew what Y gave a specific X, you could get anyone to do anything by putting them in the right situation. Some people wouldn't do X regardless of what Y they were given. So, while the situations he could create were limited, and thus the subset of people he could manipulate was reduced even further, he still always had plenty of targets. And, there generally tended to be a correlation between the types of people he liked killing and those he could kill 'morally' in this way - morally referring to getting them to try to hit him first.

Obviously, if he outright killed someone, the worst case scenario was everyone else in the bar attacking him. That meant the barman, three people at one table, and four people at the other. With a quick strike, he could probably kill two instantly if they weren't expecting it, but those would have to be the ones most likely to run. Avoiding backup was necessary, and he didn't want notoriety. Chances were, some people here already recognised him from Dante's Abyss, so he'd instantly be branded as a prime and put high up on the local 'to kiss/banish' board. If he had to guess, it would probably be the scrawny guy on the further table, and maybe the woman on the one closest to him. If a third ran away, he could exert himself a little, but that might leave him tired for the remaining four (eight total, one killed in the first scuffle, three more killed for running). But... killing so many quickly was liable to cause even more people to flee. 

In short, he had to get as many people to attack him as possible, otherwise, he'd never manage to keep an eye on both the monster and any people fleeing. He could assign Afrátos a role, but he didn't know enough about its capabilities. And, it was a coward. If he gave it the task of killing anyone trying to flee, he wasn't sure he could keep it close. A lot of this also depended on how a fight began. But, he could try to guide that first. Thinking more carefully, there were two exists (ignoring windows) and the curtains weren't fully shut. Screams would attract attention. A passerby could look it. There were a lot of variables to keep track of. Worst case outcome: he died or got sent to the Underverse - the place Tearen went. Dane was confident he could escape if that happened, he just wasn't a fan of losing.

Best case scenario: everyone in the room dies and him and Afrátos both gone before anyone outside can react, with no one seeing their faces. The real question was how to achieve that efficiently and within his constraints. It had to be quick, he could only kill people 'willing' to fight him (or those that risked giving him a bounty), no one could survive - or, at least, remember. Forcing his companion to kill someone counted as him killing them, it had to be provoked in such a way that made it seem like the beast had escaped his control - unless that person was about to strike first. Lawful neutral murder spree - or chaotic, depending on how one looked at it, although anyone who wasn't Dane would probably see it as evil still.

He closed his eyes for a second, playing it out in his mind. First: a comment referring to how everyone was stupid to be afraid of the china thing would probably piss off at least one of the drunker guys. Dane didn't exactly look strong, so if no one recognised him he could see a few threats coming his way. Naturally, daring the one or two assailants to go through with it seemed like a good idea. Second: let them back him into a corner or start roughing him up, perhaps even dishing out some empty sounding threats he planned to follow through with. That left Afrátos's actions. If he ran, Dane would abort and follow - but, he potentially had a way to avoid that happening. If he did nothing, Dane would kill anyone who acted physically aggressive. If he helped Dane, Dane would start killing as planned. He figured that two people would be dead quickly.

Next, if the barkeeper wasn't about to start fighting Dane, he'd teleport and knock him out. That man was the only one easily able to flee - the windows were closed and he was the only person with quick access to the back door. That would leave five people. In the heat of the moment, he reckoned he could push himself enough to take out two quickly and possibly a third, but that latter was unlikely. That would leave three. If Afrátos got one, that'd leave two remaining, hopefully within barely a few seconds. Assuming they'd both drawn their weapons, he could probably muster enough mana to break through their defences and deal a killing blow. Without teleportation, he could probably have managed four or five. Maybe more of them, but it would be a much more drawn out fight - if he met Tearen again, he'd definitely have to remember to thank the guy. 

Leaving those ideas in the back of his mind, for now, Dane fell back into his seat, shaking the table and reading provoking a lot of disgruntled stared. He yawned, making a point of seeming uncaring. Thinking about how to kill people as almost as fun as actually doing it. He'd considered how easy it would be to backstab Clownpiece, Myst, Renko, and the china thing in the recent past - not that he'd actually do that. They were beneficial companions, for now. Flicking his growing hair out of his eyes, he firmly placing a hand on Afrátos's back. The main reason for the gesture was to easily keep track of him without looking away, but also as an assertion of control - the others at the table would be watching Clownpiece's pet warily, or perhaps waiting for an excuse to be aggressive. As fun as a fight would be, he wanted one to happen on his terms. 

Experimentally, Dane reached out with his mind, probing and prodding, deftly glimpsing surface thoughts. Compared to trying to read his own mind, or Clownpiece's or Myst's, it was surprisingly simple. All three of the other humans shaving his table had had an immediate dislike towards him, as far as he could tell. As for the china thing, both of the men would smash him if they had the chance, but the woman didn't seem the care; she definitely wouldn't complain if someone else were to smash it though. The other table showcased similar opinions, except for one person just wanting to eat his food in peace. No one seemed to be drunk, perhaps a little tipsy at best, but that wasn't surprising. The barkeeper was out of sight, so he couldn't tell what that man was thinking.

The real question, though, was: should he? Should he try and execute his theoretical plan. It posed risks, but risks were fun. They were part of the thrill he achieved from making irrational choices. He could have collected 13-Jzall's bounty with a lot less self-destruction, but he wanted to see how stupidly he could fight and still win. Apparently, the answer to that was 'very'. At least against a non-melee combatant. But, he hadn't gone to The Moors just to kill people. He wanted to slay big scary monsters. So, being the dumb foreigner, he decided to try and glean some information first.

Rubbing and petting Afrátos, moving his hand up to the thing's head and shushing it, he smirked at the guy sitting next to him. "So, any fun things to do around here? Preferably of the killing variety. Y'know, like monsters and stuff." He patted his hand, causing the china to echo faintly. "This guy, but bigger."

"Keep heading further from the Nexus gate and you'll die eventually," the other bloke interjected bluntly. 

"How... cryptic." Dane shrugged. "And why might that be?" Admittedly, strolling randomly into danger had its perks, but he didn't feel like dying again. He wanted to know the odds of risk before he took it. In the background, he noticed a couple of guys from the far table move to the counter and talk to the barman. In his peripheral vision, the buff man straightened his back a little before beginning to head over.

"Go an see for yourself." The man gulped down some ale. Dane was about to reply when the two flagons of ale arrived, along with and a large uncooked slab of meat on a wooden board. He guessed his food would take longer since the barkeeper was actually cooking it.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Dane paused for a moment before looking up and speaking to their host. "Hey, so, this guy won't give me a straight answer. What sort of monsters are there to slay around here? Any quests? Anything to kill?"

He received a grunt in response. "What do I look like to you?"

"A barkeeper who doesn't know how to shave." And, strangely, he seemed a bit less wary both visually and mentally. Not wanting to risk prying too deep, Dane only glimpsed the surface thoughts, but he could feel a slight nervousness further inside. 

"And what does a barkeeper do?" He towered over Dane, each of them unphased by the other.

"Sell food and drinks at the tavern." It was at that point, he realised he had no money.

Whelp. Guess these people have gotta die now.

"And does that include giving people quests?"

"Well... I just figured you'd be in on all the gossip-" Dane spoke a bit sheepishly. Skimming over the barman's thoughts informed him that this was a regular occurrence. 

"You figured wrong. Go to a guild, or the guard, adventurer." He let out a sigh a moment later, mumbling the word 'primes'. "Did you really think people like me sit around all day waiting for someone to throw money at for killing monsters? We have soldiers for a reason. Now, stop pestering my customers and drink your ale, or get out."

It was at that moment Afrátos had the brilliant idea to pick up the slab of meat and slurp it all down his throat in one go, making some disgusting sklurking noises and drawing the stares of everyone. "Me-me think raw food-meat not fresh. Must go eat little-people-food yes-yes." In the following silence, everyone heard his muttering.

"And keep that thing under control." The barkeeper glared, although Dane could tell it was a little bit forced. Like a show of authority.

Dane sat up a little straighter, shuddering intentionally. "Come on, are you guys really stupid enough to be scared of this thing?" he laughed, trying to add a slight guise of nervousness to his own voice. People often laugh when they're scared - he wanted them to think that was the case. Admittedly, it was all an act, but he was very good at provoking people - maybe that was his nerd heritage or something, he'd been told his face looked very punchable in the past.

Apparently, the bloke next to him got the idea, and simply reached out and grabbed him by the collar. Afrátos let out a hiss in surprise, cowering back at the show of force. Dane fell limp, grinning internally and letting it happen. "I'm warning you, if you touch me, that thing will kill you." Forcing shakiness into his voice always hurt his pride a little bit. Luckily, Afrátos also kept up the image. Dane could almost hear it shaking. He reached out with his mind, mentally trying to spur the ceramic beast to help him, trying to mask the thoughts he implanted as the things own.

Clownpiece-master would be much happy-proud of him if he helped Dane-friend. Dane-friend maybe-might give Afrátos people-food-eats. 

The idea of how tasty the barman's jugular looked was very appealing to the beast. Or perhaps one of the other nearby people gathering around Dane.

"I thought you said we'd be stupid to fear it." A rough voice called out from the far table.

"Well... I didn't really mean it. I swear." It took all of Dane's will to not start giggling right then. He noticed china claws flex, it was forgotten in the background by the others and given the perfect time to strike. He kept up his mental barrage, hands straying close to his sword hilts. Everything was going to be just perfect.

[China]

Bad!

This was bad bad bad bad bad. This was why he had never liked hunting whole herds of prey; that bunch in the forest hadn't been so scary because there was lots of cover he could duck behind... but out here in the open? With a whole room of them targeting just him and the master's friend? And with that 'friend' intent on making China out to be the more threatening of the two of them?

It was horrible! It was terrible! It was a nightmare! Or it would have been, maybe, if China had actually been capable of having nightmares. It was what he imagined a nightmare would look like. It was very, very scary.

But even as he sought to sink into his seat, whilst also trying to map out the quickest, safest route to the doorway... or at least to a window... he had a sudden thought, then, which appeared in his mind as if by magic, and whimpered slightly when he realised that, as usual, his genius mind had hit the nail on the money; Clownpiece liked Dane a lot, and so wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him. She would be pleased if the Ceramic Beast were to heroically save him from danger... and very sad if he ran away and left her friend.

And if she was sad then there was no way she would use her happy special magic thing to make him feel all nice and safe and big and strong. If this master cast him aside, as his first had, he may never feel good again. China whined, knowing he would have no choice but to fight if anyone started anything... but maybe there was still hope? Perhaps there was a way of convincing these foods to let them go without violence?

On second thought, though, that big guy who had given him the meat did look so very juicy... much, much fresher than the food he'd been given. They all did, actually. These were a fine collection of foods, he had to admit... he could have sworn that they hadn't looked all that special when he'd walked into the building... but now, for some strange reason, they seemed much more attractive prospects...

“No! No! Bad-bad me! Bad self! Think-think before say-speak! Must not-not fight-fight! Master be much happy-pleased if-if me do smart-wise thing and talk way-way out this.” China turned his head away from them all, looking off to one side as he 'thought' to himself and absolutely did not speak those words aloud, before looking back and facing the man holding Dane, raising his whispery voice slightly, “Yes-yes! Fast-quick person right-correct first time! Me eat all yum-yums unless... unless...”

He trailed off, unsure what to actually say. If he were to simply demand that they let him and the master's friend go then it would be obvious that he was just trying to avoid conflict... yet if he asked for something they would never give up, then the herd would just stampede and crush them both. He absent-mindedly scratched the still-intact portion of his head with one hand for a few seconds, before realising that the sudden chorus of discordant screeches which had sprung up was actually being caused by his own claws carving deep grooves through his porcelain carapace.

At that point, he hurriedly stopped and hid the offending hand behind his back, as if that could somehow conceal what he had just done from the room at large.

“Yes-yes! Me has it!” he cried in a voice so loud that it might even have been audible had someone else in the room been speaking quietly at the same time, “Such brilliant-genius idea-thought me has had-had, oh yes, all you yum-yums need-must do if want-want not be eaten is-is give baby-little food for me snack! Is small-tiny demand, me know-agree, but me-me feeling kind-nice today.”

He nodded several times as the inhabitants of the tavern stared at him in silence.

He wasn't quite sure who started it, but suddenly all the foods were yelling and moving, most of them in his direction. For an instant he was frozen stiff, almost unable to believe it was happening. He couldn't work out why they all seemed so worked up... and then it hit him. Ugh. Of course, it all made sense now! They didn't have any babies with them. It was an extremely minor and subtle detail, so it was no surprise that even a mind as great as his had failed to pick up on it until now, but it wasn't actually possible to trade something that you did not actually have.

In hindsight it seemed so clear that he could have slapped himself in the face for not thinking of it sooner, if it weren't for the fact that actually doing that would shatter both his hand and most of what remained of his head into hundreds of little pieces.

Instead, he gave a squeal of fright which was thankfully lost amidst the din of charging, roaring foods, and leaped off his chair, knocking it to the ground as he scrambled backwards as quickly as six primary limbs and two powerful tails could drive him.

He had jammed his one remaining eye shut in terror, but could still hear them coming, their heavy feet pounding on the wooden floor, the nearest he knew to be the one Dane had called 'barkeeper', but whom China still thought of as the meat-bringer... he had seemed less obviously afraid than before when he brought the Ceramic Beast his meal, but now he actually laughed as he approached, as if he had been amused at the sight of a supposedly fierce predator falling gracelessly to the ground and beating a hasty retreat.

Hearing one footfall almost directly in front of him, the golem let out a frightened moan and lashed out with one hand.

The laughing stopped instantly.

He waited. There was still noise, coming from over nearer the door, he thought... though with his eye closed and having forgotten where the door actually was almost the moment he looked away from it, he couldn't be too sure. The people headed for him seemed to have more or less stopped, though, and the number of yells had died down considerably.

Tentatively, he opened his eye.

The first sight that met it was that of his own blood-drenched talons; the hand he'd taken a wild swing with having apparently connected in some way.

The second thing he noticed was the substantially paler barkeeper, holding its gut with both hands, as the food tried and failed to keep sanguine liquid from pouring down his front.

Finally, he took in the other three yum-yums who had headed his way. They had stopped dead in their tracks, staring at the bearded wall of bulging muscle which had just been taken down in a single, clumsy swipe.

At last, the big meal realised that it was dead and fell to its knees. The force of the impact knocked its hands loose and as it slumped to one side, a mouthwatering pile of organs poured out from the wide slit that ran all the way across the food's belly. Suddenly intoxicated by the wonderful aroma, China grabbed fistfuls of intestinal tract and began stuffing them into his maw, slurping them down surprisingly noisily for a person whose speaking voice could hardly rise above a whisper.

This sudden urge to consume consumed him for only a couple moments, though, before he remembered his predicament and came to his senses, looking back up at the three opposing him, checking to see if they had been trying to sneak up whilst he was distracted. A trail of guts still hung down his chin. All three looked faintly nauseated and wholly terrified.

He was just about to start congratulating himself on having scared them off when two of the trio gave terrified wails and charged straight for him. One held a small yet sharply pointed knife, of the sort that the two-legs liked to use to eat their meat, whilst the other had picked up a chair. The former may have been a much scarier weapon for any ordinary meaty, fleshy creature, but with no blood or organs to lose, the Ceramic Beast had much less to fear from it than from even the most inefficient of bludgeoning weapons.

He therefore shied away from the chair-wielder, who was coming from his right, and – dropping the last of the lovely guts for now – darted towards the one with the blade. China grabbed him with both sets of arms just a fraction of a second after the knife plunged into his stomach. A few small, new cracks spread outwards from the point of impact, but that was all. With no capacity to feel pain and no innards beyond a black and empty void, he had little to be concerned about.

He spun, moving the yum-yum around to place it between himself and the dreaded chair. He then closed his eye and mouth, and could tell that the knife-wielder was confused; the way his scream trailed off uncertainly made that clear enough.

And then, after a pause that lasted two long seconds, he opened his maw once more, though not to its full extent. This would have looked a lot more impressive, he thought, if a large chunk of his face had not been missing... but the food wasn't mentioning it, so he must be doing okay even despite that minor flaw. Instead, it seemed transfixed by the hovering, pupilled orb that hung without support inside the dark abyss of his cranium. Unlike his primary pair of eyes, which were nothing more than some sort of magical paint, lacquer or enamel, this one was a truly three-dimensional object.

The orb twitched, the pupil flicking up to look over his prey's shoulder at the two others behind it; the chair-wielder and the other scared food, who still had yet to make a move. The one with the chair held aloft lowered it slightly, bringing it into a more defensive position, unnerved by the sudden change in the landscape of the Ceramic Beast's face. China focused again on the two-legs he held.

And then he stretched his mouth as wide as it could go and shrieked.

This noise was so much drastically louder than his normal speaking volume that when he had first discovered himself capable of this – over a century ago now, during his 'exciting' (read: terrifying) and dangerous travels of the world, long, long before he met the little light-person and arrived in the white place – he had actually choked, coughed, and fled in terror from the prey he had been screeching at. It wasn't until a short while later that it had actually sunk in that he had been the one making that sound, not his would-be meal.

Back in the present, his victim opened its own mouth to scream back at him, though its agonised wail was rendered completely inaudible beside China's mighty shriek. One of the two-legs yum-yums' hands still clutched the knife embedded in his body, and at this point  it began yanking the blade free and stabbing with it, again and again, as best it could given that its upper arm was held pinned in place by two of China's own.

The Ceramic Beast paid little attention to this, though, his eye darting around to monitor the rest of the room as he screamed. The chair-person had dropped its improvised weapon, had backed off several paces, and along with the unmoving food, was now holding both hands pressed tightly to its ears, in an attempt at blotting out the awful racket China was making.

Past them, Dane and the female-looking two-legs still fought, though he had already slain both of its companions. Despite him clearly having it on the ropes, having given it several shallow cuts already, whilst it had yet to so much as nick him, the woman fought on seemingly without fear. It wielded a pair of long, slim knives with amazing skill, its hands darting out to block blow after blow as the swordsman rained them down upon it.

With its own blades being so much shorter than his, though, and Dane himself being skilful enough not to leave even the slightest opening for her to close the distance, China didn't really see how it could possibly fool itself into thinking that it still stood even a ghost of a chance.

On top of that, it quickly became apparent to him that the swordsman had far greater reserves of stamina than his foe did; despite its skill, its build was clearly more curvy and soft and tender and juicy and tasty than the stringy, wiry muscles of a person like Dane. Already it was panting heavily, and shaking with the impact of each of his blows as it blocked them, being forced to back away, step by begrudging step.

The inevitable conclusion of their combat must surely have been just as obvious to the knifewoman as it was to China, yet she fought on regardless, refusing to even try to flee or plea for mercy. It was stupid. Utterly, mind-bogglingly foolish... and yet, at the same time, somehow impressive. Seeing someone so hopelessly outmatched, but refusing to back down even so, made him feel small. Small and empty and unimpressive.

He noticed then that he had stopped shrieking, and that his captive had ceased stabbing him in the gut. He could hear the sounds of their combat now, the clang of steel loud against the sudden silence in the wake of his scream. He shifted his pupil back towards the yum-yum in his arms. Its own eyes had rolled up into its head, its arms hung limp by its sides, and thin trails of blood ran from its ears.

He dropped the still-warm corpse at his feet like trash, regarding the two foods still facing him from his full height. He blinked, his vertical maw briefly snapping shut over his floating eye before opening again. He then flung himself forwards. He could likely have ignored them and just started eating, and they most likely would have turned to flee of their own accord... yet he suddenly felt this strange urge to prove himself. He wanted to show that he could charge fearlessly into battle too... even though he knew that to be a boldfaced lie. He was only able to do this because he now had realised that these prey foods were even weaker than he was... which of course meant that attacking them would prove nothing at all.

Even so, he did it. Bearing the former chair-person to the ground, his powerful jaws clamped onto either side of its skull, and then, before it could do a thing to defend itself, they closed with a mighty crunch, as he bit all the way through the bone. With only the one eye at the moment, which was covered whilst his maw was closed, China could not tell how the other two-legs was reacting to this sudden takedown, until after he had swallowed, raised his head, and once more parted the two, fang-lined sides of his head that served as his mouth for the moment.

The final fellow – a scrawny, straw-blond meal with a wispy moustache and bags under its eyes – was staring in abject horror down at the Ceramic Beast's latest victim. His own eye flicking down to follow its gaze, China noticed that having bitten off only the front portion of his food's head, he had missed out on half the brains. Scooping those up in one paw, he looked back up at the scrawny survivor, watching it as he tossed them down his gullet.

It had tears running from its eyes, it was pale as chalk, and it shook its head slowly, as if unable to accept that this was happening. Then the spell on its mind seemed to break, and it turned to bolt.

It managed a whole two strides before Dane's longsword licked its throat. The prey stumbled and fell, a gout of red lifeblood bursting forth from its severed jugular.

As the master's friend crossed the floor towards him, China's eye darted back over to the woman. Fallen now, of course, its succulent body having been practically hacked apart. It was mind-boggling to think that it could have endured so much brutality without ever turning to run.

He felt bad. Empty. Worthless. Insignificant... and worst of all, he couldn't even understand why he felt this way; the actions of that two-legs' were objectively incorrect, there could never be any point in fighting a battle one was doomed to lose. So why was he suddenly so ashamed of not sharing that same, suicidal trait called 'bravery'?

As always when confused and disheartened by something, China's response was comfort food. Or it would have been, rather, had the swordsman not chosen that moment to speak up, “No eating. We don't have time for that now. It would have been better to destroy the evidence, but since you've most likely alerted half the damn neighbourhood with your screaming, we'll just have to leg it and hope for the best.”

The master's friend's heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and then, somehow, inexplicably, they were in a different place.

China blinked, and stumbled, falling onto all sixes, a wave of fatigue washing over him suddenly, along with an abrupt spell of dizziness.

He could do nothing more than gape like a goldfish, his throat being too worn out after having screamed so loudly for him to actually form words, as he swivelled his head madly around, taking in the cobbled pavement, grey, stone walls, muddy puddles and various bits and pieces of assorted refuse. This was some sort of dingy alleyway, it seemed, with the only light coming from the sky above, what little there was of it that could penetrate the thick, dark clouds above.

He noticed that the blood had vanished from the fast person's clothes, and looking down at himself, saw that he was also clean. Not healed, though. He still had a battered and broken head and numerous small holes and interconnected cracks running across his stomach, as well as the usual heart-shaped hole in his chest. For his part, Dane now had a shallow - but long - cut along his ribs on the left side of his chest.

It was pretty obvious that they had been in a fight. If anyone spotted them, making the connection between these two and the tavern massacre would hardly require a huge leap of the imagination.

Dane spends 1 SP to activate his Tier 1 Utility Super Move 'Blink', then uses one instantaneous 80M teleport. He has 4 blinks remaining.

[PepsiYuuka]

Darkshire, for everyone's reference, was in fact really fucking dark.

It was in stark contrast from her trip through the Nexus- dreary, kind of smelly, cloudy, and most of all goddamn boring. Yep, just like she remembered it was the first time. Idly she groaned, stretching her back. Sure, it wasn't too far from the gate to Camelot, and the trip hadn't taken too long, but still. She felt like she was going to go snow blind the whole time walking through the presumed center of the Omniverse, even with a distinct lack of snow to be found there.

And the Moors weren't a whole lot better, even if they were the inverse. She was sure there may have been some place deeper in the verse that would be more to her liking, but near the gate, she felt more inclined to groan about needing "full sun" to be her fittest. So, as she strolled through the streets, she had to remind herself she had come to this city for a reason. She may have been a bitch, but not enough of a bitch to turn back when texted.

Okay, well, maybe she hadn't been texted HERSELF, but what was she gonna do? Sit back and let Reimu have all the fun? Last time she did that was always. And what could possibly go wrong, her death? Did she even care about herself dying?

She thought not.

And so, this splash of gaudy colors and self-centeredness given life, henceforth dubbed "Yuuka Kazami," stalked the streets of Darkshire, hunting down her target.

--

"C'est une... how do you say...?"

"You mean the Tarrasque?"

The fairy and the frenchwoman both turned to Renko in surprise, only to see her still flicking through her phone as if it was nothing. Noticing their surprise after a moment, she turned her phone- similar to a smartphone of today, though in a case with a grainy shot of the Loch Ness Monster printed on it, and with a phone charm of the Tsuchinoko attached- around to let them see the screen. On it, in big, red letters was a notice on some forum. "ENORMOUS MONSTER MENACING THE PALE MOORS ONCE AGAIN," it read, under a picture of some enormous, pointy... thing.

"They really need to work on their web design," commented the secondary, almost off-handedly. "It's, like, totally 1990s... And they didn't even link the damn thing on the first page of Omnislist." Again, at this, she sounded disappointed. Maybe if they had just linked this to her first, she wouldn't have had to make that stupid thread which was constantly attracting spambots(? she hoped nonsense name was a spambot) and elderly women with dementia.

The hell fairy, for her part, zipped up close to get a better look at the monster, with a huge grin on her face. "Awesome! That's PERFECT!" If she had ever had an indoor voice, which Renko had a feeling she didn't, Clownpiece had forgotten all about it. "You know which way it is?"

"Eh... Should we not be waiting for ze other two?" Interjected Myst, taking a step forward herself. Thankfully they had at least one voice of reason here, even if she wasn't the loudest one. "Zey will be looking for us here, no?"

Renko nodded, clicked off her phone, and pocketed it. "I guess you're right... Before finding this thing, it would be best to find-"

"Found you."

The words were somehow terrifying in their quiet intonation. They were doubly so when combined with the hand slapping into the nape of Renko's neck. All this, probably combined with the stress of having to deal with the Dataverse at its worst, startled Renko terribly. Losing her footing, she stumbled forward- which she could have recovered from, had Clownpiece not simply moved out of the way. Instead, this eventually sent Renko crashing to the ground, landing on her butt as she tried to turn to look at the Christmas-colored newcomer.

"Yuukaaaaaa! ...That was quick." The fairy zipped to the flower youkai's side, as said youkai took a moment to snicker about knocking over some average college student without even trying.

"Was it? I mean, I was certainly hurrying, so of course." Smiling brightly with all of her composure still completely intact despite her bold faced lie, the Youkai took her time investigating the other two girls. "I see you found some friends. Or snacks?" Horrifyingly to the poor secondary, Yuuka didn't hesitate at all before the second part. She legitimately couldn't tell if that was meant to be a joke or not.

"...But... I thought I texted Reimu."

"Oh, did you? Well, forget about that. She's no fun anyway."

Renko had the strangest feeling that this woman was about to prove to be far more trouble than she was worth.

[Dane Regan]

Partial overlap with China's post

Dane was dragged to the side, still pinned against the wall while half of the bar converged around Afrátos. "Your pet attacked us," one of the women next to him spoke, toying with a pair of sharp knives while her male friend held Dane in place. "We had no choice but to kill him."

Dane could only smirk inside. She knew how to play this game. Heck, Dane would have stated a similar lie in her place, watching his prey crumple was always so satisfying. Yet, as submissive and scared as he looked, Dane's muscles were relaxed and he was prepared to tense them at any moment - his mind and magic steeled and ready to strike out. "T-that's a lie." He kept up the act, waiting and trusting the beast's china claws. Just one swing, that was all it needed to do. He could handle it from there easily.

It delivered, sharp ceramics tearing through the gut of perhaps the burliest man in the room. The hand around his neck relaxed, and Dane could finally let out his suppressed laughter, flicking his shortsword into his hand and driving it upwards into the nearest man's neck. A fraction of a second later he was behind the other nearby bloke, his longsword already in his hand and his short sword stabbing perfectly into the man's heart.

That left the two women - Afrátos seemed to be faring well so he didn't intervene, as easy as it would have been to stab his aggressors in the back. He felt somewhat disappointed to only have two targets left already, one of which was already starting to flee. Hefting his longer blade, Dane plunged it straight through her back of her neck, only to notice his arrogance had left him open to knife girl. He dodged quickly to the side, her daggers slicing through the air and barely missing his skin. With a smirk, he pulled his sword out and flicked some of the blood in knife-girl's direction, already swinging both his swords swiftly and precisely towards the weak points in her guard.

She surprised him, succeeding in dodging and avoiding both, but his weapons had more reach. It was then that a horrible animalistic screech echoed throughout the tavern. Sparing it a quick glance, Dane returned his focus back to the fight at hand.

Fuck.

Before that, the normal yells and violence could be dismissed by an average passerby - one on the main path anyway. But that, the noise Afrátos was making, was sure to bring down half the guard. Dane really needed to step up his game - although a bounty wasn't so bad, that wasn't the point of this. He sped up, exerting himself a little more and forcing the woman to do the same. In all honesty, she was pretty good. Just, not good enough. Kicking out, he pushed her back, focusing for a moment and leaving a slightly hidden but purposeful gap in his guard - something a novice wouldn't spot, yet something the woman clearly would - unable to see the trap.

She lashed out, but Dane retaliated. In her new proximity, it was too late to avoid his strike. All of his mana channelled through his arms to enhance the speed and strength of the blow. His longsword cleaved straight through her skull, severing her brain from her body and shattering the bone. It was the best shot he'd had at finishing this quickly - give her a risky opening to attack him, and strike back when she did. Yet, as good as the plan was, it did come with a slight flaw. She'd left a parting gift, a long thin slash across his chest, her dagger easily cut through his weakened skin like butter. If he'd delayed barely a fraction of a second longer, he'd be dead.

But he didn't - because he was better than her. With a shrug, he prowled over towards Afrátos's last pray, dashing to the side and slicing its throat as it tried to flee. The whole encounter had lasted longer than planned, and he could already hear approaching shouts outside. Ideally, he'd have gotten the china beast to eat all the bodies - but without any witnesses, they'd probably be fine, they just had to get out of the place quickly. Dane voiced his opinion and focused for a moment before grabbing Afrátos and teleporting the duo to an alleyway he remembered passing. Luckily, they ended up in the right place - if Dane hadn't estimated the distance and direction of the location correctly they could have ended up squashed inside a wall.

He crouched, then gripped the ceramic beast, hoisting it onto his back and being careful to avoid its claws; he had to manually hold its wrists instead of letting it grip by itself.

Footsteps. Hard soles against the cobbled ground. And some were heading his way. Instinctively, Dane clicked his fingers, sending a 'ping' ricocheting off the narrow walls and around a bend away from him, aiming to draw any attention away from him and Afrátos for a few moments. He'd never killed that many people at once before in such a short timespan, although usually he didn't have the ability to teleport away quickly.

Focusing his magic, he wrapped it around him and his payload, shielding them from sight. Hopefully, no one would be able to detect them - any life signatures they gave off would be incredibly weak, especially with Dane actively suppressing them. But, he didn't want to take too many risks.

He reached out with his magic, silently, looking around for a destination. Breakthroughs were often made in combat, but it was annoying when one occurred right at the end - after it would have been useful. If he overloaded what mana he has just right, he could drastically speed up his teleports - like how he's escaped the tavern so quickly. Shrugging lightly and securing the shaking china on his back, he figured now was as good a time as any to test out his new discovery, regardless of the regrettable impact on Afrátos. It looked like it would puke if it could, but the void inside it always seemed to be empty, regardless of how much it consumed. At least, that's what it looked like through the cracks.

...Clownpiece was gonna be so mad.

As his mind talked to itself just like always, he spotted a far away roof, just within range. Still hidden from sight, he merely blinked when bam. He was there. Already. No focus. No linking locations. Just an instinctive 'blink'. He panted a little bit before executing another, and then another, and then another. He was already a good three hundred metres from the alleyway, and only a few seconds had passed. Without focusing, he tried to repeat the action, only for nothing to happen. His breaths were laboured, each teleport taking a toll on both him and Afrátos.

With another light shrug, he closed his eyes, restoring the active mana and reconfiguring his mindset. That did the trick. And, just as with the first time, it allowed for five quick, soundless, hidden teleports. Legs shaking, he burned through his mana pool, surprised at how far it was taking him. But, fatigue and mana were temporary - and he wanted to know his limits - so he pushed on, uncaring for the semi-conscious chattering mess he was carrying.

By the time his momentum faltered, he was already at the city exit, by the gate. How far had he gone? Almost a mile? He coughed, then silently hopped off the last roof, dropping Afrátos on the ground once he'd landed. Magic waning, his cloak of stealth faded from his body, and Clownpiece's pet's. Slumping and rubbing his head, he breathed deeply. Sprinting the whole distance would have been easier, but could he sprint a mile in under half a minute? Nope. 

Idly, he flipped out his phone, then laughed reading a message from Clownpiece. A childlike crayon drawing expanded to fill the screen. A monster thing? His artist representation wasn't much better, but he did wonder if she summoned crayons just for that or already had them with her. Regardless, he fired one back, then got to work making a makeshift bandage after tearing off part of his shirt.

Picking himself up, he dragged Afrátos out of the alley they'd landed in, making a point of standing out in the open by the gate while he waited for his friends to arrive. He still had to manage his breathing, and felt a bit lightheaded, but managed to maintain a good enough posture that no one would notice. At least, if anything, he was a master at running away. This 'monster' thing wouldn't stand a chance.

Dane spent 4 more sp (0/5 sp remaining) to use T1SU - Blink to teleport lots of times in quick succession (4 teleports left from China's post, then 20 more in this post - all 80m range). He's also pretty tired (bit of an understatement). And Dane has taken a minor bit of damage. China has taken a bit more. They're probably be chill in a couple of hours though. And have definitely got too far away from the tavern to be considered suspects for the murders there.

[China]

Nausea.

Queasiness.

Biliousness.

These were all words that did not cross China's mind as the world vanished and reappeared before his eyes with each sickening lurch. These words did not occur to him not because they did not apply most aptly to his situation, but rather simply due to the fact that the Ceramic Beast was not exactly what one might call the most erudite of fellows. On the contrary, in fact; even the word 'sick' was a stranger to his mind, under normal circumstances... though he had at least heard it used by others on occasion, and so knew enough to recognise the malady now plaguing him.

Being able to digest any organic matter nigh-instantaneously had left the golem never having once experienced illness; no matter how small the bacteria or virus, it had always been consumed, just like everything else, which meant that to him this horrid, roiling, unsettled sensation in his gut was something entirely new. Something he had never felt before... and something he never wanted to experience again for as long as he lived.

It was only with the greatest effort of will that China managed to keep from digging his claws deep into the flesh of the master's friend in an attempt at holding himself steady as reality folded in upon itself around them.

He jammed his mouth shut, covering the hovering eyeball within, though the lack of sight made him feel little better, and as if that lurching sensation – like a vast, empty, weightless gulf had opened up all around them for just the tiniest split second, before normality returned – alone wasn't bad enough, with each new torment he found that more and more vigour was leeched from his body. He could feel the noticeable, yet inexplicable drop in stamina that came with each convulsion.

To refer to his current state of mind as 'terrified' would have been an enormous understatement, somewhat akin to calling an ocean 'pretty deep' or the magma chamber of an active volcano 'kinda hot'. China was more petrified than he had ever been in his life, and more confused as well.

He had experienced a great many things in the past which comprehension of had eluded his mind, but this was something on a whole other scale entirely; not even the Archmage, his great creator and his first master, had ever done anything such as this. What he felt now wasn't the same at all as a simple, ordinary, everyday fear of death... no, this was much, much worse; for all he knew, the world might well simply get tired of disappearing and changing and coming back, and instead simply settle for vanishing and remaining vanished. What would he do then? Lost in a void more infinite that his own innards, with no food but for a lean and scrawny swordsman? He would be dead within the week, he was sure.

Or he would have been, at least, had he actually known how long a week was.

All the while, as this horror unfolded (and refolded and twisted and squirmed) around him, China babbled incoherently. There was no noise that came with each of the sudden shifts, so even his low voice was easily detectable... though not necessarily decipherable. As shaken as he was, the Ceramic Beast could barely string together a coherent word, much less a sentence. The one clear thing he did say, repeatedly and frequently, was, “Master!”

He wailed – or at least, came as close as his soft whispers ever could to being called 'wailing' – for her, knowing that somehow, in some way, if anyone could restore this cursed place to any sort of normal, rational state, it would surely we her; the Lady of Lights, the Inferno Infernal, the Star-Spangled Sorceress... surely, if anyone in this strange- no, this freakish land, could keep him safe, it would be her. He could do nothing but cling as tightly to Dane as possible without eviscerating him – lest the master see what he had done and simply decide to leave him to his miserable fate – and wait for her to show up.

At last, though – at long, long last – reality roughly reasserted itself with a whooshing of air and a sudden jolt, as if they had just fallen from some height and the master's friend had absorbed the impact by landing on his feet. China felt himself being dropped, then, but with hardly the energy or inclination to even open his maw to see what was going on, much less the capacity to do anything about it, he simply fell limply to the ground.

There was a slight crashing noised as he struck the hard, harsh stones of the paved alleyway, and what remained of his face caved in, scattering shards of broken carapace and little, blue, ceramic teeth all around. The cracks all across his chest and stomach had spread as well, though as of yet, no large shards had broken off down there. It was a telling mark of his exhaustion that China didn't even worry about how he was supposed to eat without teeth.

Though that may also have been partly to do with the fact that his stomach still felt as though it were auditioning for the role of a circus gymnast, flipping and rolling around madly inside of him, somehow, despite the fact that his innards were nothing more than a dark void.

Finding the strength from somewhere to push himself up onto all fours, he began retching quietly. His body digested its sustenance far more rapidly than any two-legs' digestive system could ever hope to, though, and so despite having eaten just a minute or so ago – though it felt like a age past to the nauseous golem – there was nothing left to come back up.

Barely a moment after he had begun this, he was moving once again, his hands, feet and legs producing an awful screeching noise, like chalk on slate, as he was grabbed by one upper arm and dragged out of the narrow alleyway and into a larger street. With so much of his face obliterated now, little was hidden from the gaze of his solitary ocular globe... or it wouldn't have been, rather, had his head not been lolling weakly, his eye pointed straight down, dully observing the stones that paved the street as his limp form was hauled along by Dane, still convulsing occasionally as his gut tried and failed to eject his last meal.

When the fast person at last came to a stop and let him go, the Ceramic Beast simply slipped back to the ground, though this time he found himself with his head oriented at a slight angle, rather than entirely face-down. Some small amount of light found his pupil, and that great, staring, lacquered eyeball turned to regard the vista before him; a wide pair of wooden gates, swung wide to reveal a well trodden mud and dirt path, leading off between two fenced-in fields. Beyond that, there were rolling hills in the distance, out beyond the farmlands that surrounded the city; with no fog or rain to blot out the landscape, the Moors were clearly visible, even with such an overcast sky.

By the side of each gate stood a man armed with a steel-tipped wooden spear; a common two-legs weapon that the golem remembered from his own world. They both were glaring at the swordsman and China with expressions of utmost distrust... as though they for some reason regarded it as rather unusual for a man to come strolling almost casually out of an alley, dragging a semi-conscious Beast along at his side. It wasn't too long before they opted to leave their posts to cross the short distance from the gate to where Dane stood.

“Apologies, sir,” said one food in a voice not remotely apologetic; it straddled the line between boredom and annoyance, “but we don't generally permit monster hunting within city limits. We get enough of the fucking things sneaking in here of their own accord, without amateur adventurers deciding it'd be fun to chase them through the streets. If you're looking to collect a bounty, post a picture of your catch on the Dataverse to prove you got it, like everyone sane does... don't go hauling around dead or dying creatures everywhere you go.”

The speaker had ginger hair and several days worth of beard growth. Its iron helmet and leather armour alike were scuffed and worn with use, yet seemed thick and sturdy... so far as China could tell, at least... not that he had ever been all that interested in the silly garments that these sorts of foods loved to clothe themselves in.

“A bounty? Nah.” Dane responded casually, his voice sounding a tad tired, though otherwise seeming no worse for wear, despite the hell that they had just gone through. The golem found himself thinking of his master's friend in a whole new light; this wasn't simply a food that had elevated itself to personhood through strength and speed and the favour of a higher being... no, Dane was... was... a monster. It was the only word that China could use which seemed in any way an adequate descriptor; his ability to endure such madness and still stand was amazing enough, but to seem not even the slightest bit shaken by the horrors they had both gone through spoke volumes about his mental state, “This guy is a friend of mine, he's just... had a few too many drinks, that's all.”

The guardsmen stared for several silent seconds at the Ceramic Beast's now-unmoving and much abused body.
Neither reacted when China's eye flicked up suddenly, focusing first upon one, and then the other.

“Riiiight. This thing was drinking.” the ginger man drawled. The doubt in his voice hardly hidden... though he didn't push the subject further. China hadn't even been in this strange, new land for a day yet, and already he knew that there were all sorts of weird and exotic foods and things roaming the place. He doubted it would ever be wise to dismiss anything out of hand around here, no matter how absurd it may seem.

“Say,” Dane continued amiably, “while we're on the subject of monster hunting, do either of you recognise this thing?”

China twisted his head around to look up at the swordsman, who seemed to be holding out a small object towards the two foods, who peered at it intently, their eyes narrowed, for a few moments.

“What in the everloving fuck is this shit supposed to be? Did you draw this crap? If so, I wouldn't recommend giving up the day job, mate.” the other of the foods asked. This one had slightly higher quality gear, if China's lone eye was any judge, and some sort of badge pinned to its chest that may have signified a rank... or may have been nothing more than a meaningless affectation, for all the golem knew. Despite this, its garments were just as weathered as its comrade's, and it bore a scar that trailed from the bottom of its nose down across its lips, just left of centre, all the way to its chin. Its hair was black as jet and its upper lip was moustached.

“No, of course I didn't. It was drawn by a kid... she didn't tell me what this thing was actually called, though, just that it was big and scary.”

The gate guards looked at one another exasperatedly. The dark-haired man sighed and muttered something that might have been 'tourists' under his breath before responding, “Look, you're not from around here, I get it... but 'big and scary' could describe practically anything out there on the Moors, and this piece of crap ain't gonna help you identify shit.”

His partner nodded and voiced his agreement. Dane said a few more words to them, one said something else, Dane gave his response... the golem had ceased to pay attention. He had noticed that the sickening sensation in his stomach was subsiding slowly, and so sought once again to stand.

He managed to eventually get himself up onto all sixes, with only another few convulsions ravaging his body as his movements caused his stomach to swirl some more. Limbs shaking, tails hanging limply behind him, his vision dim around the edges, the Ceramic Beast couldn't be sure how long had actually passed since he began his struggle to get up, but he now noticed that the gate guards had gone back to their posts, whilst Dane simply stood and waited once again, looking back into the city.

Just as he was beginning to feel a little spark of curiosity lighting up the back of his mind, as he began to wonder what it was that the swordsman was waiting and looking for, he heard her voice.

“Hey, Dane, look! I texted-”

His master drew up short the moment she noticed China's current state. No sooner had he spotted her than his claws were scrabbling madly at the paving stones as he rushed clumsily towards Clownpiece like a faithful hound, whimpering softly as he did.

“Maaaaaster!” he wailed as loudly as his breathy, whispering voice could manage, and the moment he reached her his arms were thrown around her, bearing her down to the ground. He paid not the slightest heed to the others around her, “Please-please not leave again! Me-me so scared-frightened! Please! Me beg-beg! So much-much nasty!”

His words trailed off into a series of choked sobbing noises, though with his body being unable to produce moisture, he had no tears to accompany them. He held her tightly, yet was still careful as could be not to break her, and made extra sure not to risk severing so much as a single strand of her hair with any stray talon or sharp edge of his broken body.

“What the hell did you do?” the Hell Fairy demanded incredulously, wrapping her arms comfortingly around China as she looked past him at the swordsman, who was approaching the group at a more steady pace than had their golem.

[Clownpiece]

Clownpiece couldn’t help stare, open mouthed and starry-eyed, at the picture that Renko brought up. A giant, spiky, lizard monstrosity. How absolutely hellish. Everything else came second to how it looked. The fairy didn’t care if such a thing might actually have been as threatening as a stuffed bunny, or an unstoppable force brought about by the wrath of some angry god. Such a thought didn’t even occur to her. It looked big and scary, and that was the important bit. But no matter how big, scary, and spiky it was, there was no way it’d be any match for her, Dane, and Yuuka! The others would help too, she supposed.

“Good job you two!” Clownpiece cheered, buzzing away from Yuuka’s side, fairy wings fluttering as she came up to both Renko and Myst. She gave both of them a quick pat on the head, though for the college student, in her fashionable hat, it was more like a pat on the forehead. “I knew it was a good idea to pick you!”

“Eh... it was Dane zhat-” Myst tried to say, but Clownpiece the hell fairy wasn’t listening.

“Alright!” She cheered, whipping out her phone. Quite an anachronistic and unexpected sight, given the fantastical nature of the fairy. “I’ll text Dane and tell him to meet us at the exit! Just need a picture of the Tar... Tare...”

“Tarrasque.” Renko finished the word for her, already looking down into her own phone seemingly without a care in the world, already recovered from Yuuka’s scare. “I’ll send you one real quick.” Though she said that, it was already too late. Clownpiece cheerfully flew over to the nearest flat surface, namely the windowsill of a nearby house, and slammed a piece of paper and a few crayons down onto it. She sketched vaguely what she remembered with fury, a childish scribble that looked absolutely nothing like what the Tarrasque actually looked like, but something she took pride in nevertheless.

“So you’re Clownpiece’s friend, huh?” Off to the side, Renko started to make conversation, wanting to do more than just wait around while the fairy scribbled with wild abandon.

“You could say that.” The flower youkai spoke with her usual calm, vaguely menacing tone. “And who might you be?” She smiled serenely, red eyes glancing between the two girls. Whether she actually cared, or was simply getting formalities out of the way was up for debate.
“Renko Usami,” Renko answered. “Your friend and her friend sorta picked us up over in the Greens.”

“Je m'appelle Cassandra Myst,” the vampire introduced herself as well, voice thick with a french accent. “Ze new person.”

“Renkoooo?” The lunatic fairy suddenly called out, floating back over to the group, phone in hand. She’s already finished her childish sketch of the Tarrasque, and had been ready to send a text to Dane, telling him about it and telling him where to meet up, but had hit a certain snag.... “What’s this place called?”

“Darkshire.” The college student sounded thoroughly unamused by the fairy’s antics.

“No, not the city here. Like... this world?”

“Pale Moors.”

“Got it! Thanks!” The star-spangled child cheerfully responded, and proceeded to spell it entirely wrong in the text. She sent that and, after a moment of deliberation, decided to send one to Cirno as well, with the same picture attached. The ice fairy would love a challenge like this. With both of those squared away, she tucked her phone away again and turned back towards her group, now four strong instead of three. “Alright, we’re meeting Dane at the exit! Follow me!” Without waiting to see if anyone actually would follow, Clownpiece spun around in the air and floated off. With little choice in the matter, it only took a few seconds for the group to follow suit.

---

“What the hell did you do?” Clownpiece’s voice betrayed a barely-concealed rage. Deep purple eyes shot an accusational glare at Dane, and the fairy slowly lifted herself up off the dirt, small arms wrapped protectively around Afrátos. The china golem shivered in her grasp, hugging her even tighter as its grasp of the ground disappeared.

“I didn’t do anything.” The swordsman replied casually, slowly sauntering up to the group. “We got attacked.”

“Really?” Her expression didn’t change, still as incredulous as ever, still hugging her pet protectively. Dane’s chest heaved as he let out a deep sigh. He didn’t have the energy to deal with Clownpiece at the moment.

“Here, let me show you.” He stared at the child with his deep brown eyes, and already she could feel him probing at her mind, preparing her for what he was about to unleash. In an instant, visions began to flash through the fairy’s mind, her senses of sight, hearing, touch, all fading away to make room for her friend’s thoughts. A bar. Dane asking for possible leads while Afrátos ate a steak. Locals getting scared of Afrátos. A fight breaking out. Afrátos and Dane both getting hurt in the brawl. Rapid teleporting away. The exit to the Pale Moors proper, where they were now....

And suddenly the dark and dreary background of the Darkshire snapped back into Clownpiece’s mind. The subdued greys of the sky, the earthy smells, the dull, echoing miscellaneous conversations from deeper within the city, all replaced the fervent din of the bar fight. She blinked furiously, her eyes were already naturally adjusted to the light, but her mind didn’t fully realize it. For a few seconds, she couldn’t do anything but stare blankly at Dane, still clutching her much larger pet protectively. Slowly but surely, her bearings returned to her.

“And you just let him get hurt!?” The hell fae exclaimed, pouting as she hugged Afrátos just a bit tighter.

“Sorry about that, kiddo.” Dane apologized, ruffling the blonde child’s hair. She wasn’t able to tell, but his voice wasn’t all that apologetic. Just his usual sort of appeasement so he didn’t get in trouble.

“Sorry isn’t gonna cut it!” She said back in her usual, high energy voice, leaning a bit into his hand even as she didn’t accept his apology. “You said you’d lose an arm before you let him get hurt! You broke your promise to me!”

“I know, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” The swordsman casually lifted his hand from her hair, his face almost expressionless.

“You better!” Clownpiece answered grumpily, floating up a bit more so she was at eye-level with her friend. “And you better apologize to Afrátos!” Carefully, she pried the golem off of herself. As much as the shivering beast didn’t want to let go, he had no choice but to acquiesce to the star-spangled fairy’s demands. She held him out, forcing him to look at the one who had caused him this trauma. Afrátos tried to curl and shrink in on himself as much as possible, babbling incoherently.

“Alright,” Dane sighed, knowing better than to fight the fairy while she was in this sort of mood. “I’m sorry, Afrátos....” Upon hearing his apology, the monster looked up hesitantly, his incoherent mumbling letting up, his shuddering growing slightly weaker.

“Master’s Friend says-says he’s sorry?” the beast babbled, wiggling uncertainly in his master’s grasp.

“Yeah, don’t let it get to your head.” The swordsman responded, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. His brown eyes flicked over to Clownpiece. “That good?”

“Hm....” A frown crossed the little girl’s face, her eyes narrowing. She seemed... unsatisfied. “Fine...” She mumbled, “But you still owe me for breaking your promise!” Once again, she hugged the frightened china beast close to her, looking around his side to stare at Dane.

“Sure, sure...” He gave an entirely non-committal answer. “So what’s this about a monster?” He turned to the rest of the group, assuming that Clownpiece wouldn't give him a straight answer.

[Gamzee Makara]

The walls of Darkshire weren't visible until they were. Whatever the motherFUCK that means. Mmmm...

His head was still kinda fuzzy. It had gotten progressively less fuzzy the more fuzz he lost, but he wasn't sure how or at what pace or why the fuzz was de-fuzzing.

What in the motherfucking fuck was he going on about again?

Oh right, Darkshire. Right, right. Right.

Right.

Gamzee kicked leaves and twigs as they walked, idly trying to distract himself as they made crawling progress to their destination. Fsshvsfh the leaves went. Crk-SNAP the twigs went. And they all went on for about two minutes until Straz whirled around and gave his charge a death stare, to which Gamzee just chuckled and winked at him with a little wave. The mage, to his credit, did NOT punch him in the face. Instead, he elected to just roll his eyes and continue the trek. They were almost there, in fact.

Fsshvsfh

Crk-SNAP

-------

"Ohoho! Heeelllooooo chilren! How do ya'll be this fine evening?"

Mama Godwin. What a beautiful, miraculous soul she was. Gamzee has a special place in his heart for Mama Godwin, he likes to believe. When the two mages arrived at her door, she greeted them with the biggest bear hug he had ever received from a woman her diminutive size, one he returned with equal vehemence to Straz's distress.

"Was beginn'n to wonder if ya'll had finalee kicked the bucket! Or well, bout as much as you can in dis world, I s'pose," She muses, welcoming the two into her home, "been praying and ri-chu-wa-liez-in for ya'lls safety and protection. Hopeta be helpin'."

"Of course you do, Mizz Godwin," Gamzee says with a theatrical bow. Straz wasn't sure how much stock he put into such superstitions, but crazier things happen in the Omniverse. He nods, and politely thanks Mama Godwin for her support.

Naturally, Mama Godwin brings them in and sits them down for some tea and roast, making sure their bellies were well enough full. The boys shared some stories of their travels, and Mama caught them up on the goings ons around town. After both sides traded tales, there was a moment of comfortable silence, save for the mildly uncomfortable, knowing, eyebrow raised stare the Potion Lady was giving them.

"...Well, out wit it boys. What sort of powahs ya'lls been messing with? I can sees it, feels it, smells it even. Some sorta aura has touched you boys, 'nd I can't rightfully tell if issa good thing or not."

The two adventurers exchange wary glances, before collectively sighing. There wasn't really an easy way to explain Tearan or his enigmatic ways, but they did try their hardest. The attempt mainly consisted of Gamzee rambling about nonsensical things like miracles and universal energies and constants that Mama Godwin APPARENTLY understood perfectly, followed by intermittent, brief, consistent facts from Strazio. Quite the foils to each other, they were.

At the end of it all, Mama Godwin did nothing but nod and think and mumble to herself.

"Heard things bout dat man. Not much to go off of evah, and I didn't know they was about him, but yep. He poked his head out from da pages of da Omniverse's sordid storybook erry now and then. Ya'lls a lucky lot, to get in good with someone so powahful. Also dangerous, yes yes, very dangerous. But impressive nonetheless. Count yourselves blessed and lucky," She chuckles.

"Blessed, lucky, and marked."

[PepsiYuuka]

Finally. Her moment in this chaos of broken limbs and porcelain.

Renko cleared her throat as she stepped forward. "Apparently, it's called the Tarrasque." Though she was staring Dane in the eyes as she spoke, the others were expected to listen in too. "According to the ad, it destroyed a lot of the surrounding verse roughly a year ago. But then it got killed and all was well."

"And it's back?" The rude interruption was courtesy of the flower Youkai, though Clownpiece was nodding along as well.

Though the secondary had half a mind to say 'no, we're being paid to go piss on its year-old rotten corpse, idiots,' she begrudgingly nodded as opposed to rolling her eyes. "Supposedly. The bounty says there will be some undisclosed gift upon the slaying or banishment of the beast."

"Banishment?" It was the french woman that spoke up, though Yuuka looked equally as baffled. This didn't surprise Renko- if Sandy was new and Yuuka didn't know what the internet was, it was only reasonable they may not have heard of it. Clownpiece seemed to be half paying attention, making her hard to read.

"Well, the fast and loose of it is that you use something to make it unable to revive again, and it gets a fate worse than death. There's much more to it than that, but it seems..." Renko glanced to Dane and Afrátos, who either already knew or did not care enough to pay attention. Then again, she didn't know how much attention Afrátos had to give in the first place. "This isn't exactly the time or place to go into those details."

"You're like an encyclopedia." Yuuka stated. Though, internally, she followed this up with, 'but I can't close the book to shut you up.'

"Of course. Because I know everything." Though her words were... dubious in truthfulness, Renko smirked as she spoke, with an intonation that said she was actually quite confident in that assertion.

Dane scoffed.

"What color is my underwear." Yuuka's question was so sharp it came out more as a demand.

"...Anyway, again according to the post, the current location of this 'Tarrasque' is much further into the Moors. It's at some place called the 'Primordial Scar,' or thereabouts. I have some general coordinates on my phone we could probably use to get there. But, by foot, it seems like it will take a couple days-"

"Daaaays?" Yuuka's tone was suddenly childish, as if she was mocking Clownpiece. However, when Renko turned to look, the woman seemed serious in her annoyance. Her cheeks were puffed out a bit. ...To be honest, Renko was not sure if this little outburst of hers made her less frightening, or a hundred times more. "I walked for hours just to get here, and now you're telling me I'm going to have to walk even more to get to the actual place we're going? What do I look like, some sort of... person who walks?"

"She has a point." The fairy piped up, earning herself a gentle shoulder pat from Yuuka.

"And, eh, should ve take days on ze roads... would it not be best to... prepare a bit first?" Sandy, the reasonable one, as always. Though of course they could summon things during the trek, it probably would be most efficient to do so beforehand...

"Yeah! Not to mention, Cirno's not even here yet!" Clownpiece jumped a little, or jumped as much as a floating fairy could, seeming to remember this all of a sudden herself. "To be honest she isn't very smart, and I don't exactly trust her to be able to find us if we leave." Yuuka snorted at this, but seemed to agree.

"Alright... well, I don't really know what sort of public transportation we're looking at in the Moors, but I'm thinking it may be nonexistent. So maybe we should all just take a moment, sit down, and... plan things out a little better?" Renko offered, to which Dane nodded, Yuuka, Clownpiece and Sandy seemed content, and Afrátos... well, he was still clinging to Clownpiece but she doubted the ceramic beast would have any objections if his master told him to wait. "Then we can figure out some sort of vehicle and route there once we have everything we need, and your friend is here."

[Little Rose]

Myst stood in the shadow furthest away from the ceramic golem, which she had a rough time choosing between that and the closest shadow to Dane - of all people.

Dane was by far the worse friend to have. Clownpiece’s madness barely covered his tracks as he walked all over her. Perhaps that was the plan all along. Or maybe she was aware of how much of a scumbag he was but has settled to change it in some way for a time unknown to the others.

Afrátos, China, knew full well of his darkness. First hand the victim of his selfish pleasures of the mind and body. Betrayal followed the wake of his confident laced swagger as he walked this plane. Eventually, the torch of his master may not be enough to blind him to Dane’s mastery of manipulation.

Myst was no less of a fool in his web, her complacency her coffin’s top while she waited comfortably until it was her turn to be used. Her turn to prove her usefulness to the groups uncontested leader and what ever demented plan he cooked up then or later.

However, the wood began to crack under the strain of reality as she stood in the background and watched the show unravel its comedy and drama across the stage. Was Dane aware that she began to slowly understand his position the longer this Act continued? Did he think he could sweet talk even her into delusions spun by his broken mind?

None of these questions mattered in the least… Neither did the answers. The truth was that while Cassandra could grasp that this man that teased the blonde fairy was not the same man that tugged her along, she found no desire or reason to leave with her back turned to them all. The large creature had indeed left her more wounded than the man pulling his mask off in front of her and these other characters. Actors. Her green eyes turned from player to player, committing their names to memory.

For a girl who no longer knew what true friendship was or was meant to be, these people were all she had in this harsh new world. Friends didn't always mean more than allies. Even the man who had made a point to tenderly teach her seemed to have some other agenda. Now it just felt more present. Hindsight, after all.

As Yuuka, composed and serious, looked onto them with her thoughts to herself for now and the others taking in what she DID say. Myst herself only offered as much of reasoning as she braved to. Everyone else was eager to dive right in but the years behind the young and slightly rounded face told Myst to be more cautious.

Years…

How many had it been now? Has Sandy always been this submissive and afraid to accidentally chip at fragile relationships or else they turn out just as Afrátos did? Centuries?

Myst looked down at an empty glass near hand which sat randomly on a surface any drunk would mistaken for a table, picking it up and inspecting its sides for her reflection. Contrary to what those people back in her world believed, the silly fairy tales and movies, vampires very much had reflections. Almost all of the rumored things to deter an undead from killing you was almost complete bull. Especially a Pure Blood.

She preferred garlic to onions, but she could eat both. She had a reflection, she had a shadow, she was truly and honestly here. She wasn’t OCD and could resist very well not to count mustard seeds or poppy seeds if they were scattered across porches. She was very capable of walking in the sun for at least a couple hours - not that this mattered in this place. And despite sending her heart into her throat, water did not physically hurt her anymore. She was deathly afraid of it still.

A stake through her heart would kill her just as easily as it might kill Dane or the others. And it didn't have to be wooden specifically. Blessed water didn't burn her, crosses didn’t send her screaming into the next town, religion as a whole could not touch her. In the depths of her secret thoughts, she even damned God to his own hell for what he has allowed to happen to her. It was unclear if she still had contempt for the heavenly father.

However, the opposite legends were also untrue. Myst was as physically strong as she appeared to be. Mentally she wasn't much better. Her heart, though it had once some time ago hadn’t even been able to beat, was her strongest attribute. Connections were not things a young girl who didn’t age and constantly had to pick up her life could afford. When you were ready to abandon everything but the books you treasure for the sake of stepping around suspicious humans, getting attached to those who’d sooner slaughter or enslave her was not ideal.

Another lesson learned in harshest ways…

Cassie was not powerful in any other way either. She did not have the ability to control these people with just her will. She did not possess anything cooler than fangs that were real. She wasn't dark and edgy. She did not sleep in a coffin. Nor was she all that mythical gorgeous. Her looks were ‘pretty enough’ at best. And that was not because she was a vampire, but because she was from a good family before she had been kidnapped that night…

She put the cup down, a blanket of melancholy wrapped around her like a queen’s cloak draping her.

So far she’s offered the smallest tribute to the conversation. She did not regret that. The French woman instead regrets not having any other ideas to help with. She was afraid to admit she knew nothing of combat. She couldn't even throw a proper punch, hell... Neither an improper punch. However, she had a lot of time. Plenty of time to read. Novels of adventures just like this. Adventures that she’d never normally do even when she lived in the years that some of her authors tried to replicate in their pages. Some of them even succeeded.

Sandy would never have pictured people like the ones before her as the main characters in one of these books. She did see a handsome rogue, but his charm lacked the suave touch most hero’s radiated. She saw the typical other worldly animal companion in the multi-limbed beast being coddled by the comedy relief. The smart one was clearly her first friend. The strong one must be this new girl. Leaving only the annoying and the helpless.

With the broken English of Afrátos’ words echoing through her mind and soul, Myst could only imagine that she filled both of these roles.

“Maybe we should get a room? Rest for ze fight ahead?” She offered quietly. Whether they heard or even took her advice was up to the leaders of the group, which some how felt like everyone but her and Afrátos, those with stronger spines than her. "We can plan privately." She offered, which caused a shadow to duck down behind the window, to which Myst continued to be unaware of.

[Strazio Rockwell]

“I appreciate the warning Miss Godwin,” Strazio said and waved away the idea, “but it ain’t any more dangerous than magick, and I’ve been dealing with that for most of my life just fine.”

To illustrate the point he held up a finger and a small spark of electricity snapped into the air. A thin trail of steam drifted from the tip of his finger and filled their nostrils with a subtle burning scent.

Mama Godwin wagged her finger at him, “that may be, but you understand that kinna juju, you grew up wit’ it, but dis? Dis be somet’in else entirely.”

“I understand it just fine,” Strazio lied.

“Mhhmm” Godwin responded.

Rockwell averted his eyes and pretended to take interest to a shelf full of various baubles. Even after Tearen’s tutelage she could see through him like glass. Sparks flashed through his hair. He wasn’t sure what was worse -- that Mama Godwin knew he had no idea what he was tampering with or that he had only understood a fraction of Wover’s teachings. The ball of frustration that was slowly growing in his gut shot into his legs and screamed at him to stand up and storm out. He took a deep breath. She meant well and she wasn’t wrong. Besides Gamzee had taken a liking to her in his whimsical fashion and he’d feel like even more of a dick if he caused a scene. So he ignored her accusatory “mhhmm”.

“At any rate, we can’t stay for long,” Strazio said and turned to Gamzee, “we still have to meet with Rumford yet.”

“Awwwh Strawso, can’t we stay with Mizz Godwin for a bit longer?” the troll pleaded.

Before Strazio could respond Mama Godwin interjected, “oh chilren! Y’all know the good sergeant?”

“Uh yeah,” Strazio said, and held up his crest, “he’s kinda the one that got me into the Defenders.”

“Bless his heart, he’s been so kind to mah dear Peter,” the potion maker coos, “here since’n y’all gon be seeing him, kin y’all take him a lil care package from Mama Godwin?”

Gamzee and Strazio both shared looks as she shoved a neatly wrapped parcel towards them. Rockwell took the package and gave it a little shake. The chattering of bells and baubles and trinkets filled the air. Gamzee’s eyes went wide and he snatched the package from his mentor. Strazio exclaimed and tried to wrestle it back. Their impromptu brawl was harshly ended by the crack of Godwin’s wooden spoon against the table.

“Now y’all be real careful with that, t’wasn’t an easy feat puttin’ that together,” she said, pointing the implement at them.

Gamzee sat up straight, cradling the parcel with one arm and giving her a faux salute with the other, “don’t worry ‘bout a thing Mizz Godwin, Strawso and I got this.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Strazio huffed, and stood up, “c’mon let’s go, Gamz.”

Gamzee stood and clutched the parcel across his chest, squeezing it perhaps just a bit too tight. Mama Godwin smiled and said her goodbyes. Just as the boys stepped across the threshold of the potion maker’s hut Strazio stopped in his tracks. Gamzee watched in awe as an almost literal lightbulb dinged above his companion’s head.

Strazio turned around and asked, “uh, I actually forgot to ask, you wouldn’t happen to have anymore of those potions you made for us when we save Peter would you?”

She scoffed, “ ‘course I do chil’ what kinna potion brewer would ah be if ah didn’t have no potents, ‘course they won’t come free, but since y’all did save my boy y’all can have the family discount.”

[Cirno]

As Cirno had walked around looking for Darkshire she was getting quite annoyed that she was clearly lost. “God damn it Clownpiece you could of given directions but no! You just have to say go to this specific place i’ve never been to. But i’ll show you because i’ll find it and then i’ll slap you for not giving me directions.” She sighed as she had spent plenty of time entering and exiting each verse only to finally find what had to be the one Clownie was talking about.

She started to walk on the worn and beaten path she felt like she didn’t belong here, every fiber of her existence knowing this was a forsaken place and one that a fairy shouldn’t be in; But still Cirno continued on her way keeping the text in her mind as she would bash CP with it.

She soon reached the wall’s of Darkshire before flying over the walls much to the chagrin of the guard. Once inside she began to look for the telltale signs of the hell fairy, fire, scorch marks, riled up people; you know the usual for the fairy. And much to her surprise there was none of it.

And after exactly a few hours she finally caught a glimpse of the star spangled hell fairy talking to Yuuka and a few others. She walked forward holding her tablet up. “Hey Clownpiece i  hope you realize how difficult it was to get here with literally no information to go off of. It says and i repeat. Pale mores, you Dane and Yuuka were fighting something large, get over here.”

Cirno sighed after saying that but at least she found the others. “Also your drawing was not helpful, what is this supposed to be?” She rubbed her now healed scars  as she had at some point formed a new set of clothing. “Oh and i was dealing with some bounty. Also can someone get me up to speed on what i missed? It seems like i missed a lot.” She crossed her arms before listening and giving input.

[Gamzee Makara]

"Ain't Mama Godwin a sweetheart, Strawso?" Gamzee chirps. He had a pep in his step and his hand in a bag of candy the Mixtress had given to them as a gift. "Y'all share now," She chided after them out the door. It was a bag filled with small gelatinous creatures of all different colors and flavors. Bears, Strazio had called them. Gummy Bears. Gamzee fuckin' loved them. He ate them by twos and threes, delighting at the fusion of flavor.

"She is certainly kinder than most, I'll give her that," the mage says with a nod. In all honesty, it surprised Strazio how caring the woman was. While she made a nice living selling brew, life had clearly not always been so kind to her. She was in the Omniverse, after all. That alone was enough to give lesser people a bitter outlook on existence, but not Mama Godwin. No, she was an endless supply of sunshine and empathy. Even when her son Peter had been lost to the wild, possibly never to be heard from again, the woman was a font of hope and perseverance.

"So, where to now, friendo?" Gamzee says with a light elbow and a gummy bear offering. Straz takes the confectionery, studying its red hue before promptly plopping it into his mouth.

"It's getting late. We need to talk to Rumford. After that? Probably find a place to bed down."

"Oh geez, take me out to dinner first, motherfucker," the troll says with a smirk and a wink. Strazio promptly ignored the terrible joke.

They walk in relatively comfortable silence. Once in a while, there would be a rustling, and some gummy bears would be sacrificed to the cause of Gamzee's sweet tooth. The moon is hung high by the time they reach Rumford's residence. Gamzee goes to knock, but his mentor stops him.

"Note," he says plainly, ripping the piece of paper from the door. It had been stuck into the thick oaken wood with a shiny silver dagger.

"Daggers really just be the knife's more dangerous cousin, know what I'm saying?" Gamzee says. Strazio does not in fact know what he's saying, he thinks.

"Stop thinking, Gamzee."

"Way ahead of you, Strawso."

The mage suppresses a groan and holds the letter up into the moonlight.

Strazio Rockwell

You took too long, you lazy bum. I've finished my business with the day and retired to my quarters for the night.
I know you're a homeless vagabond, so I've prepared a guest room for you and whatever 'lovely' company you dragged along to their doom(s).
Key is in the houseplant next to the ruddy door
Second Room on the left.
Dinner in the kitchen.
7 am sharp.

And with that information, Strazio Rockwell sighed and leaned his forehead against the door, right next to the knife. From behind him, he hears his apprentice make a poor attempt at stifling a giggle.

"You alright back there, Gamzee?" Strazio chances in an exasperated tone.

Fighting through the little snickers and snorts, Gamzee smiles a big, winning smile before saying, "That motherfucker called me lovely!"

Wonderful.

"That sugar better not keep you up all night. I don't wanna have to knock you the fuck out," he says. He only really half-meant it.

[China]

China-

“No, no!” he berated himself, “Must stop-stop think old name! Me-me must use-use nice, shiny new-fresh name new master give-give! Afrátos! That-that right, me! Call-name self Afrátos!”

Afrátos (not China!) clung onto the Hell Fairy for dear life, with arms, legs and tails all, snuggling against her and taking comfort in her presence. No one could hurt him while she was around, he was sure.

“Uh… right.” Dane’s tone was dry, through from his current position, Afrátos could not see his expression nor any gestures or gesticulations he might have made. The golem was staring over his master’s shoulder, and so couldn’t actually lay eyes- well… eye, upon any of their little group’s members. He could still hear just fine, though, “Well, that moronic interruption aside... yes, Cassandra, that sounds like a fine idea.”

Hah! The joke was on him! The golem had been thinking those words in his head, so there was no way any of the others could have heard them! Since surely they couldn’t all have that crazy mind-reading power. Strangely, though, no one commented on the swordsman mentioning an ‘interruption’ which none of them ought to have noticed.

Well, Afrátos reasoned, they were probably simply afraid of upsetting that lunatic… except master, of course. She was just too good a friend to point out that Dane must have sounded like he was a crazy person hearing voices. The Ceramic Beast chuckled softly to himself as he imagined what everyone else here must be thinking of the swordsman now.

“Aside from taking the time to wait for Cirno, working out what supplies we’ll need and what mode of transportation to use, Afrátos and I – Afrátos especially – could really use some time to heal up after that last fight. I doubt he’ll be much help against the Tarrasque if he can barely walk without falling to pieces, after all.”

“And whose fault is that!?” Clownpiece demanded shrilly.

“... I said I was sorry.” came the muttered reply, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Right! Well, let’s g-” Renko piped up cheerily, seemingly eager to move the conversation along. She was interrupted, though, by the sudden arrival of someone else.

“Hey Clownpiece, I hope you realise how difficult it was to get here with literally no information to go off of. It says, and I repeat, ‘Pale mores, you Dane and Yuuka were fighting something large, get over here’.” turning his head, the Ceramic Beast observed the blue-clothed newcomer coolly through his one, slit-pupilled eyeball. She looked a lot like a tasty food, but he wasn’t fooled, oh no. She had addressed his master by name, and from this tiniest, subtlest of hints, his extraordinarily powerful mind deduced that she already knew her. And, of course, alas, that meant she was a person, not a food.

She sighed, but then carried on speaking without waiting for a response, whilst holding aloft some square thing with a crude and ugly brown scribble on it, “Also your drawing was not helpful, what is this supposed to be? Oh and I was dealing with some bounty. Also can someone get me up to speed on what I missed? It seems like I missed a lot.”

Crossing her arms, demands made, she stood and waited to be brought up to speed. Afrátos fought to suppress a groan. First Dane, with his take-charge attitude and meanness, then this grassy-haired lady who hated walking anywhere, and now someone else who showed up out of nowhere complaining and expecting to have their every wish heeded by the world at large.

“Poor-poor master! So much-much powerful-strong, but terrible-horrid taste at choose-pick friends. This three should bowing and scraping at master feet, not act-behave all rude-nasty and high-uppity!”

“Um… what?” asked the blue fairy, “What did that thing just say, Clownpiece…? And... why is it clinging to you?”

“Oh, don’t mind him, Cirno.” Dane spoke up before the Hell Fairy could get a word in, “That’s Afrátos, her new pet. We found him over in the Tangled Green. I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s monologuing internally, so feel free to just ignore anything he says.”

“Uh… right.”

“So anyway, as for catching you up: we came here looking for something to do, since we figured the Moors always has plenty of monsters around, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something fun to kill. We also met a few other people along the way. These two are Cassandra Myst and Renko Usami,” the swordsman gestured towards each of the pair as he introduced them, then turned to the no-walking lady, “and since Cirno said ‘Yuuka’, I guess that must be you?”

“Yes. Yuuka Kazami.” she introduced herself politely… but then, after a moment’s hesitation, carried on speaking, “Now, weren’t you saying something about beds? Or rest… on beds? At an inn. In comfort. How about we finish filling in Cirno while we… ugh… walk?”

“Sure, why not. The nearest inn can’t be far.” and so, following along behind Dane like mindless sheep, the group strolled off down dank and gloomy streets, always on the lookout for Afrátos knew not what. To him all these stone boxes might as well have been identical, so he had no clue how to tell an ‘inn’ (whatever that was) from any other building.

As they walked – after the Hell Fairy had drifted down to the ground and disentangled herself from Afrátos’ grasping limbs – master and her friend filled in the blue person called ‘Cirno’ on what they had been planning, and Renko used some sort of magic square thing (somewhat similar to Cirno's own) to find a picture from a place called ‘Dataverse’ which she showed to the newcomer, who incredulously commented that it looked not remotely similar to Clownpiece’s drawing. Afrátos had to admit, even if only privately, deep within the confines of his own mind, that she may have had a point. Master of course had many, many wonderful talents, but her artistic renditions, it seemed, were of the... well… unintentionally abstract variety, to put it gently.

After Dane had finished speaking, they strode on in silence for a couple minutes, which was totally fine with Afrátos, who was content walking around on all sixes rubbing up against Clownpiece’s side like a particularly large cat, with both tails up in the air. The others, however, seemed to get tired of quiet before too long, and soon Cirno had launched into a story about how she got paid a bounty for beating up some lady, telling her employer that this had somehow reformed her psychotic victim and made her a decent person, then taking the cash and hurriedly leaving before the guy worked out that hitting people doesn't magically cure severe mental disorders.

After which, there was another short bout of peace and quiet, before the Hell Fairy spoke up, telling her green- and blue-haired friends about the fight in the jungle which she, Dane, Afrátos and that metal thing had had. Once that was all over, and they still hadn’t found a place to hole up for the night, it finally occurred to Renko to look for the answer on this mystical Dataverse thing of hers, since following Dane on his aimless trek had yielded little in the way of results. Unless Yuuka’s pouting expression and frequent complaints about sore feet could be considered ‘results’, at least. A few minutes later, they had found a place.

The swordsman opened the door and walked in at the head of their group, as if he were the one who had actually led them here. Within, they found a skeletal old lady at a desk, behind which a wooden staircase ascended to the next level of the building. A large fire roared in a hearth off to their left, and a furry blue rug just before it covered a fairly big part of the otherwise bare, wooden floor.

“Wha’ d’you want?” the crone demanded, her tone toxic. She had a hooked nose, tanned skin stretched so tightly across her emaciated frame that barely any wrinkles marked it, despite her clearly advanced years, white hair tied back in a bun, and tiny, dark, beady eyes. She wore a thick, leather overcoat, unbuttoned, over a cream blouse. The rest of her attire was concealed by the counter, upon which sat only four items: a glass filled with some sort of dark liquid; an open brown-glass bottle, half-full; and two more identical bottles, completely empty.

“Three rooms for the night.” the swordsman said smoothly, opting to overlook her rudeness. They had briefly gone over this during the journey here. Based on what Renko had read, it seemed that this place's rooms wouldn't be big enough for a large group, so they were splitting up a bit, “One single room, one with two beds, and another with three.”

Yuuka was going to room with the two fairies, and Afrátos was perfectly content to sleep at the foot of his master’s bed like a loyal hound. Renko and Cassandra, the sensible pair, would take another room, whilst Dane would be on his own because he sucked and nobody liked him… well, okay, that hadn’t been the exact reason… something about him being a guy. The porcelain golem wasn’t sure why that mattered, but yum-yums had lots of strange ideas, so he barely even paused to think about it.

The hag’s eyes narrowed as the rest of the band came forwards. Once they were all inside, Myst shut the door behind them. The old lady scowled, “We’re full.”

“Really now?” Afrátos was utterly lost, but Dane seemed to know what he was doing, so the Ceramic Beast let him talk uninterrupted. Judging by their silence, the others all had had similar thoughts.

The fast person held out a hand, palm up. A moment later, an orb of flashy rainbow lights rose up out of that palm, identical to the one that the golem remembered being handed by that strange, white person, after arriving in the dark place. Once it had fully formed, he tossed it to the crone.

“Primes.” the the word was spoken in a sibilant whisper, an ugly sneer twisting her upper lip, as though she were revolted by their very presence. She clutched the sphere tightly in her hand, though, making no move to return it, “And you want three rooms, y’say?”

“Yes. We checked this place out on the Dataverse. That Omnilium should be more than enough to pay for them.”

“Should be...” the old hag agreed with a nod, but then turned her head to the side and spat, before looking back at the fast person, “would be. If we weren’t full.”

“We can always go elsewhere if that’s-” Dane began, but was interrupted by a soft growl from Yuuka, low enough that the innkeeper likely never even heard it. Afrátos did, though, and sidled as subtly aside as he could, putting master between himself and the grassy-head lady. He’d never known laziness could be so scary, “ah… on second thought… I can’t really be bothered.”

Calling forth another shiny ball from his hand, the swordsman tossed this one to the crone as well. This time, his pitch was a little harder, and to Afrátos’ eye, looked to be aimed directly for her face. Nevertheless, the old lady apparently had no trouble snatching it from the air. She seemed surprisingly spry for a senior citizen. Both orbs vanished into her coat with little more than a flick of her wrist. She then reached under her counter and pulled out three small, metal objects, which she threw to Dane.

“Room numbers ‘re on the keys.” that said, the hag gave them a long, penetrating glare, before speaking up once again, “Just one thing, though. If I hear so much as a whisper ’f the words ‘adventurer’ or ‘quest’ from any one ‘f you, you’re all out on your arses. Got that!? I’ve had it up to here with all that crap.”

“Uh… sure.” Dane replied, a tad quizzically. They headed upstairs then. The second floor held ten rooms, but the master’s friend ignored those and continued up to the third and highest level, which held ten more. Their keys, he told them, were all for this floor; rooms number eleven, seventeen and twenty, to be more specific. Afrátos didn't know numbers, though, so these words meant nothing to him. What he did notice was that, based on the absolute lack of noise, this floor was almost certainly entirely unoccupied.

[Shang Tsung]

They were a few days removed from the ‘standard patrol’ when Atelos entered Shang’s office following his characteristic series of raps on the door. Unlike the last time they had spoken in the oaken chamber, the Spartan wore a grim determination on his visage. A five o’clock shadow adorned the lower half of the Grecian’s face, but aside from that, he seemed wholly geared for war. The armor he wore appeared to sparkle—it had to have been freshly smelted. The molded chest armor was the same, but the new set of gear sported additional defenses on the shoulders, hips, and hamstrings. A cloak of red and purple adorned the warrior’s broad shoulders and hung down to the back of his knees. Lastly, the Spartan held a new helm with a high, red plume crest.

“New armor?” The sorcerer asked as he stacked up the papers on his desk and slid them to the side where he kept all of his ‘pending’ paperwork. “Red always suited you. I’m more of a green and orange person. Lovely colors.” Shang had just finished a handful of zoning contracts, and the rest of the material was on trade contracts and some small-scale diplomatic outreach with a few farmlands in the hinterland. In exchange for patrols in their region, the farms would provide a large portion of their food for the civilians living in the city.

“For the occasion,” Atelos remarked as he took a moment to stare the helmet in its empty face slot. “The drow weapons ruined the other set… their weapons…” The Spartan trailed off, unable to put to words the thoughts in his head.

“Enchanted,” Shang grumbled as he stood away from his workspace. Much like the Spartan, the sorcerer was wholly decked out for war. He had known his ally would be coming to retrieve him before the end of the workday, so he had dressed accordingly for the business they had. “Like their crossbows, their blades have a fel magic on them. Corrodes armor and can even get into your bloodstream.” Shang had needed some bloodletting a few days earlier, but the effect had vanished soon thereafter the self-performed procedure. “You are fit?”

“As a…” Atelos paused again. One of his eyes twitched—such a minute movement that anyone else may have failed to notice.

“Fiddle?” Shang finished, eliciting a scowl from the Spartan.

“As a Spartan!” Atelos rebutted as he smacked his free hand to his armored chest. The Spartan turned around before his friend could spot the light shade of red on his cheeks. “Stupid sorcerer and his word play.”

“What was that?” Shang inquired softly, even as he grinned from ear to ear.

“Clearing my throat,” the Grecian barked as he made for the door. “You are prepared to depart? The reports I’m getting aren’t perfectly clear, but we have a list of locations that the monster has been spotted at over the last few… weeks.”

“Weeks?” Shang inquired as he was led through the maze of tunnels toward the back exit of the Town Hall.

Atelos, without looking back over his shoulder, nodded his head. “Best intelligence we have on the situation, but you can trust me, this thing does not move quickly. Lumbers, really. I don’t see it moving much from this area of the Moors… that is, until it’s exterminated everything, living or otherwise, that it can get its claws and teeth around. It’s not hard to track.”

“Reports say it’s a large beastie.”

Although he lacked in the ‘figure of speech’ and ‘pun game’ departments, Atelos was keen enough to detect wit when he heard it from his ally. “Yes.” He grunted as they made their way down one of Darkshire’s main thoroughfares. Along the way, they had to pause several times to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with some citizens. Shang regretted not directing the Spartan to use the route he took from work, which didn’t take them through the business and ‘tourist’ (a lovely label for a neighborhood full of outsiders and riffraff from other verses) districts of town.

After forty minutes of delays, the pair veered off onto a small side street about three minutes from the main gate. Up ahead, both men could hear the rhythmic chants associated with training and drilling on the walls. Coming to a pause, Atelos turned and crossed his arms over his broad, armored chest. “I went to Rhodes once, Sorcerer. They had a statue there that they were building—a colossus.”

Shang smirked. “I recall that from the history books.”

“This creature could have stood on its hind legs, stared that unfinished statue in its eyes, and devoured it.”

“So it’s a seven story monster… so what?”

Atelos grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

The sorcerer suppressed a chuckle. “We’re going ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Aye. I don’t want to draw a force away from the city. Plus, I was able to handle it myself the last time.”

“All by yourself? Didn’t you have help? That little red robot? That woman with the permanent scowl? The ice man?”

With a shrug, the Spartan lifted his helmet and slid it over his sneering visage. “The difference is, Sorcerer, I am here. Those other people are just footnotes in old histories, but I’m the survivor. I’m the Tarrasque Slayer, and I’m about to make a second notch in that belt.”

Shang nodded his head as he tied his cloak shut. There was a slight chill in the air tonight, and he didn’t want to take any chances with the elements. “Are the horses ready for us, Mighty Tarrasque Slayer?”

“Follow me, and you can try your hardest to keep up.”

The comment made the sorcerer smile. Even with the training and several sessions of practice, the Spartan still looked awkward bouncing on the back of a horse. The sorcerer, meanwhile, had spent a few years with the khanate, so he knew a thing or two about horses. He’d also ate enough Mongolians to fill in any gaps in his knowledge.

“Lead on, Tarrasque Slayer,” the sorcerer spoke with feigned bombast as he jogged to catch up to his ally.