World Tree MUSH

    ON THE LAST EPISODE OF THE MAGIC KINGDOM Z: Morrigan and the Hex Fighters invaded a church for information. What the found was... Well something, alright as Neviah encounterd a Cthulhu, and Morrigan seemed to find something else.
    Well, anyone looking to investigate the magic kingdom of Veldora will soon enough find themselves in Morrigan's inn room, various maps and papers and parchments strewn over the table with a full blown Pepe Silvia style conspiracy theory board on the nearby wall.
    "Okay everyone, let's get up to speed here." The Warlock says, "Then we can do some sleuthing."
    Dumping more parchments on the table reveals... A series of papers with weird runes that might give people a headache if they look at them for too long.
    "While you were all chatting up the vicar I snagged these!" ... "I have no idea what they say and they make my head hurt. But I also found some other leads." She says.
    "He had this:" This being an invitation to the royal palace. "And this:" And the second this being a map of the country with a dot marked in a place that isn't on other maps of Veldora.
    "SO which way are we headed, gang? The palace or the dot?"

    "You wanna tell me what the hell you found in there?" Dante asks breathlessly as he carries Neviah carefully in his arms. She's so secure, like a princess.

    One exposition dump later, and several pots of coffee (Dante drops some bourbon in his just to make sure)...

    He grabs a seat and chugs his Irish coffee mix from the gutter as he listens, rubbing his head with a grimace at the rune magic papers. "Gnnngh. My eyes are itching just looking at that." He mutters.

    He thinks for a moment, balancing his cup on one finger deftly as he glances between the two options. "Let's go for the dot. Much as I wanna make an entrance at the palace I ain't dressed for courtly intrigue."

Investigating Veldora has taken on more urgency for Neviah. At least, now that her mind is beginning to clear.

"Really, it's fine," she manages to protest weakly, blushing at the fact that she's been princess-carried into the room like a lump. She ends up slouched in one of the chairs, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them as if to compress in on herself.

Morrigan tries to outline a few things. It takes Neviah a minute or two to catch up to the rest of the group mentally. Closing her eyes and then opening them again, she reaches out to pick up one of the runed papers, squinting at it intently.

Neviah's been studying the history of her lost and broken world long enough to have simple proficiency in more than a few obscure languages that lie at the roots of some spinoff ones. She has no idea if any of them apply to the runes, but she leaves others to determine between dots and castles.

    Once more, Matsu and her attendants are present. After last time, she'd probably fussed and bothered over Neviah rather a lot, filling in any healing and purifying gaps that Magilou's spells hadn't been able to cover. She's here with both attendants again, and staring at the map with a faint scowl. "...While I am dressed for coutly intrigue, I want nothing to do with it when I can help it. More importantly, I think this location on the map is also probably something he'd want to keep hidden. I agree with Dante." The elder of her attendants gives her a very gentle nudge in the shoulder. She turns to glance back. "What. We're not at court, and he's not the type to care about being called 'Lord Dante'. I'm not being rude."

    Magilou didn't get quite as much a blast of magic as some others did, though she'd managed to sense some of the spikes coming off the artifact. She's going to start looking at the runes, mostly out of curiousity - it's very unlikely at best she'll be able to translate any over without some sort of dictionary, but she might be able to get some sense for the culture that would have made the runes.

    Her healing efforts are very much rudimentary, so there'll be plenty of work for Matsu's attendants. Magilou, not looking up from the papers, will make her vote. "Royalty kind of are awful. We should wait until we're ready to slay the king or queen before we go there, right?"

    Michiru wasn't around for what was found. She arrived late, after hearing something was up. She currently looks human, instead of her part-tanuki look that she normally wears, because she's not so sure how beastmen will look around her. Which means she's just a little lost, but she can make do.

    "Uhhhh... I'm really not dressed for a party in a palace," she admits, eying Magilou. "I guess that's something we should be more prepared for?" Also, that means she won't have to wear a dress yet.

    So it looks like the crew is eschewing castle investigation for the sake of the myterious dot.
    "Mary, please do the thing." Morrigan announces, prompting her shinki familiar to poke her head out of the Warlock's backpack.
    "Yes, Master! The current time is: 7:32 PM." She announces before disappearing back into the bag.
    "Well lucky for us the place marked on this map is about three hours away so it's time for some midnight exploration... Alright gang, to the mystery machine!"
    A pause.
    "Neviah, try and get some shuteye in the van." She does suggest gently as the party piles into the Warlock's beat up grey Ford Windstar.
    Three hours of driving later and it's about midnight. And Morrigan has reached the dot on the map.
    It's a fenced off area guarded tighter than a military installation.
    "... Huh. So any bright ideas how we're sneaking in there, guys?"

It bothers Neviah to no end that she's having to rely on healing from others. It drives home one of her most humiliating realizations about herself: She has nothing to add to an adventuring party. Her own healing magic is so basic that even secondary healers can equal or surpass her.

    /That's why they all have to dote on me, isn't it?/
    /I'm just a drag to them, aren't I?/
    /Pathetic... I'm bloody worthless./
    /I'm just a... a forsaken, godless load!/

Neviah is quiet on the trip to the dot. She spends most of it resting in the back of the van, quietly rotating through a cycle of self-reproving thoughts. By the time the group arrives, she's still sitting in the back, her focus drawn inward.

That changes only when Morrigan prompts them for a solution. Neviah leans against the back window and looks out, teeth catching her lower lip. She's silent as she takes stock of the place's defenses, assessing each element within sight range.

"If we try the bad-novel idea - dress as guards - we will be recognized as not part of the normal complement," she muses with a pensive frown. "And trying to remain unseen may be impossible considering we do not know the layout. We need to know what manner of people from outside might be authorized to enter."

    Magilou will also nap in the van, or at least try to. She's not exactly used to vehicles, and also she is an incredibly rude passenger who takes her shoes off and props her feet up on the dash in front of her in a failed attempt to get comfortable.

    This is why she doesn't get invited places.

    "Hmm. Well, I vote I just go up to them and ask for a tour of the place, and say I'm thinking of signing up with the military here, maybe. You'd be surprised how often that kind of thing works, I get attacked for it way less often than you would think." By which she means it worked once and thus she wasn't attacked every single time. Just most of them. "Otherwise, I'm kind of useless here, so maybe I'll just stay in the van?"

    The thing is done!

    Dante is too wired to catch a nap, so the ride is pretty boring until he thwacks the radio and music begins to play. It's still gonna be boring as hell.

    SPEAKING OF BOREDOM...

    Dante stares at the military installation and torques his jaw. Stealth is soooooo not his bag. "Uhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh..." It's too late to backpedal, so Dante sighs gets out Nevan. "Neviah gives me an idea." he says, before ambling along. The nearest guard checkpoint get to see Dante, acting very drunk, staggering along. "Can't believe the band ditched me...fuckerrrrrsh...I made that band! How dare they!"

    The guard who dares to go and confront Dante will get a karate chop, and is dragged off.

    Matsu probably spends the entire time they're in the van glancing Neviah's way, with a faint frown. She doesn't know what's going on, precisely, but it's obvious something is deeply bothering the woman. There's not much time to ask about it once they arrive, though. It's time to get down to business and... oh dear. Sneaking.

    There is a deep sigh, and then a soft, "If I need to play the role of VIP, I will. I can act the part well enough. If we can figure out what kind of VIP I am, we can-"

    ...

    There is a hissed, alarmed whisper. "Dante. Dante what are you doing-"

    Michiru listens to the argument and just... well, Dante does his thing. If nothing else that's a distraction. While that is happening, Michiru sighs, "I'lll figure something out." She hurriedly sprouts a tail and ears, then her fur ripples into scales... and she takes on a chameleonic look, her thick tail curling around her front so she can use it as camouflage since her shirt doesn't change color.

    She slips off while Dante is doing that, then boosts her legs to leap up and over, so at least she's on the other side of the fence to look for a place to open up for the others, if Dante doesn't get them in his way. Hopefully chameleon skin is good enough.

    "First off put your shoes back on in my car. Second off get your feet off my dashboard. Third off, get out of the car, you're coming too, missy." Morrigan says to Magilou as the party...
    Starts being the party.
    Morrigan however also does a double take when Michiru goes Beast Mode, boosts over the fence and goes chameleon.
    "Uh. So that happened."
    Off goes Dante and the guard that emerges to shoo him off from the guard station goes out like a light and gets dragged away.
    On the bright side?
    Dante gets a guard uniform and Michiru can access the gate controls to let the party in as...
    Morrigan emerges from the van dressed in a black suit.
    One must dress for success after all, and Mary Contrary is settled on her shoulder dressed in a little skirt-suit as well. When they found time to change?
    Don't ask.
    "We should probably get scooting before a patrol sweeps by."
    It's a good idea and with the party inside the gates, this leaves several places to explore: A huge domed building to the north, or a smaller series of pre-fab buildings to the east.

    It's sure convenient that they found a guard who has Dante's exact proportions! He changes into the uniform and snuffs Nevan for now, doing guard work as guards do. "Hey, it ain't stupid if it works." He says to Matsu with the smuggest grin he's ever smugged.

    "Why good sir! It sure is a good day to be a guard, is it not wot wot?" Dante says in his WORST attempt at being a jolly guardsman as another guard passes by. He rolls to bluff his way through the encounter before heading to the pre-fabs.

    Oh god. Oh this is all going in the most chaotic direction possible. Matsu looks back at her attendants, and waves a hand. "You two, stay with the van. If people approach, hide."

    She then bustles after the rest of the group without a word.

    "This is- for the record, this is an awful idea. I'm not dressed stealthily in the least. What are you doing, slow down-"

    Okay, she bustles after the rest of the group with several words, hissed under her breath in an irritated voice.

Internally, Neviah is piecing together the elements she knows she can work with and weighing them against the unknowns. She's rapidly connecting a web of assumptions and obstacles to a collection of potential solutions, working her way towards a functional strategy.

That lasts until Dante pulls a Jenkins. Neviah stares out the van window with her mouth hanging open.

She lowers her head and sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. "We're all doomed, aren't we," she mutters.

Eventually, at least, she gets out of the van. She couldn't manage a convincing 'guard girl' act even if she tried; she settles for hanging out well behind the group and allowing Dante to draw attention like the conspicuous fellow he is, she herself keeping in the shadows and behind bits of scenery as much as she can.

    Magilou, who only currently owns the clothes that are literally on her right now as her only possessions in the world, is dressed (as a reminder) in a hoodie and skirt combination that might be visible from the surface of the moon. She looks over at Morrigan and waves a hand, but at least she'll get out of the van for now and put her shoes back on.

    No prizes for guessing whether she will on the way back, assuming she's still concious.

    "...I feel like maybe we should have discussed a plan before we got here? Or at least before we got out of the van. I'm pretty sure that was your responsibility, right?" She'll ask Morrigan, who definitely was in charge of making certain Dante didn't do things like this. "Let me know if you want to move to plan set this camp on fire?"

    Opening the gate for everyone, Michiru reverts to... well, her tanuki-girl form. This seems to be most comfortable for her. She huffs as everyone starts complaining, joining the crew for a moment. "Look, you can all argue and stuff, but I'm not going to spend all night debating how to go through a door."

    That said, she isn't going to try to pass as a guard, and will go back to just tailing the group with more traditional stealth attempts, muttering as she goes, "Maybe I can just walk in the crowd and nobody will notice the ears..."

    So the party is in, and Morrigan, like Neviah, does her best to stick to the shadows.
    "Do you really think I have any control over Dante?" The Warlock asks Magilou. "The man is like a force of nature. He does as he pleases." She points out while hunkering down behind a waist high wall as a guard passes by. The very same guard that looks at Dante like he has three freaking heads as he passes.
    Dante i headed for the prefab buildings, so Morrigan follows him.
    And inside is...
    About three scientists. They turn and stare at the 'guard' and the crew of misfits following him.
    "So they have come."
    "Mm mm, they've come."
    "Indeed..." The scientists murmur as though... As though they're in some kind of daze.
    "That one has ears." Another points out, staring at Michiru with glassy eyes, earning twisted giggles from the other two.
    "In fairness..." Morrigan asides to the Tanuki in that moment; "The gate *could* have been trapped."

    Dante stares awkwardly. It's a long silence. "Uh. Hi. What uh...what are you guys up to in here?" He asks, trying to covertly but also clearly state his intent on finding out what's going down here.

    Has ears. Michiru squints. "Yeah yeah. YOU have ears too, you know! They just aren't as raccool as mine." She flicks her ears a little, glowering, then... out of the side of her mouth she whispers, "Is this normal?"

    Then again the last time she was with scientists they were trying to wipe out an entire species. Maybe she's a little more careful now?

    Magilou, whose own elven-style ears stand out a lot more in her current outfit without the loud hat to distract from them, will sigh at Morrigan and say. "Finnnne. See what I care. Come on, let's hurry up." And she will stand up, stride past Morrigan, and yell after Dante.

    "Idiot! You're not supposed to leave behind the people you're escorting, are you? What kind of a tour for a prospect is it if you just go leaving them behind?" She'll ask, then, once she catches up - if she catches up - glaring at the scientists. "And you three, you seem to just be slacking off! Is this your break hour? Did you clock out for it, or are you just ROBBING the peasants of this kingdom blind by SLACKING on the job?"

    Matsu stares at the guards for several seconds.

    And then, silently, she takes out a strip of paper with arcane sigils all over it. Magical flames seep out of her fingertips, flowing into the strip of paper, and then with an almost casual movement, she flings the strip of paper at one of the scientists. He'll get a full dose of purifying flames, suited to purging corruption, curses or disease, carried by a talisman made to ward against malign supernatural entities.

    It's more or less a test to see if something's affecting their behavior that she can purge or lessen.

Neviah ends up, appropriately, in the shadows with Morrigan. She glances at the other woman with a dubious expression.

Nevertheless, they end up following Dante. As they slide into the prefabricated building, the professor continues to lurk at the rear, moving to stand beside the nearest piece of furniture in the hopes of somehow losing herself behind it. She settles for just peeking around.

As the scientists giggle at Michiru's animal traits, Neviah pushes her glasses up her nose and squints, taking stock of their body language and vocal cadence. When she does speak, it's to Morrigan, in a whisper.

"Something is wrong with them."

For a moment, she considers, before holding a hand up discreetly and murmuring a word that's unclear. A subtle glow shimmers around her fingers as she murmurs the Healing Word, a small pulse of healing magic emerging with the faintest of whisps around one of the scientists.

    "That is absolutely not normal." Morrigan replies to Michiru as the trio of scientists titter to themselves. The Warlock cringes at how loud Magilou is, but well, if Dante is their 'escort' she'll let it slide. This has already gone hellishly chaotic. Thankfully no other guards come looking to investigate the shouting.
    It is between Neviah and Matsu working in tandem that one of the scientists seems to SNAP awake from his fugue state.
    "What? What is... Who are you all- I ... Oh God- oh God oh God... You all need to get out of here now before it enslaves you too."
    "Enslaves you too." The other two scientists drone after him, not realizing he's no longer One Of Them.

    Dante just takes the berating like a champion with his best poker face. Trying not to laugh challenge (impossible) gone wild.

    "Until what does?" Dante's silly mood is gone as he leans in to the scientist that's briefly freed. "What exactly do you mean by 'IT'?"

    When the purification and healing actually work, Matsu glances sidelong at Neviah for a moment, then looks back at the man with a stern expression. "I am a shrine maiden of Arashi-no-Moto, possessed by the goddess of healing and purification, Suzaku. That won't be happening." She takes out a pair of ofuda just like the first one, and begins filling them with more of those purifying flames, with another glance Neviah's way. "Let's free the other two."

Neviah blinks as she realizes that the magic /worked,/ somehow. She looks down at her hands.

Straightening, she blinks once at what the scientist actually /says./ "What enslaves us?" she asks quickly, stepping forward out of the furniture's penumbra even as she heads for one of the other scientists. This time she holds her hand out again, letting a tracery of magic extend towards the individual.

"Do you mean... the spirit in the fallen star? Like a horrible presence in your mind?"

    "Oh, this really sounds like it's going to be something horrible, doesn't it?" Magilou says, sounding way way way WAY too cheerful about that prospect, a smile on her face.

    "We should make certain that the people here get freed from this, and then we probably need to kill some kind of queen. It might be that artifact, or the actual queen, or..." She shrugs, looking over to the others to see if they might have a more specific idea, or a way to get the information from the scientists, but she's not actually very helpful here.

    "Probably," Michiru agrees with Magilou, giving Morrigan a weird look. "Come on... let's free at least the other two and get them out of here. If we stay too long we'll probably have to fight a giant three-headed dog that shoots lasers or something, and I'm not really cut out for that."

    She considers shifting into her human form again, but maybe the distraction helps, so she quickly starts looking for an exit. "I can carry one or two of them if need be. Will getting them OUT of here help you think?"

    Whatever 'IT' is it can't be good, judging from the scientist's stricken and pained look. Despite being released from its grasp he holds his head with a groan, before he grasps Neviah by the lapels, a wild look in his eyes.
    "Yes! Yes yes, that's it! The star! The fallen star is not what it seems! It gives power but at a price!" Hissed hastily. "It wriggles into your head, like fingertips on the surface of your mind, and then embeds them deep- deep- deeper until it has you." He shakes his head. "The Queen? The Queen can't be trusted. She turned the country over to it on a silver platter."
    Another scientist is freed and- immediately collapses to the floor whimpering and holding his head. Morrigan frowns. Deeply.
    "... Why a laser-cerberus though?"

    The others are better at investigating... well, this sort of monster, or god, or demon, or whatever it is. It's not something she has direct training for as a miko. Indirectly, though, she's well-equipped; so with the second scientist freed, she uses the other flame-infused ofuda in the task of freeing the last one, waiting for Neviah's help in doing so. She does, however, mutter a soft, "It sounds like we need to destroy the star. Or whatever came to this world inside it."

    Well, Dante expected a head explosion. He does however wince as the guy keels over. "Can you do something about him?" Dante asks Matsu without wasting a beat. "Yeah, we do but one thing at a time."

It's not hard for Neviah to draw connections between the voice of blasphemy and an altered mental state. Even just a moment's contact with that THING was enough to knock her on her bottom. Prolonged contact could easily lead to worse.

It's all too confirmed when Neviah's grabbed. Her eyes widen behind her glasses, delicate hands coming up to the scientist's forearms, but she freezes before she can resist. She doesn't even try to free herself, just staring back with her mouth slightly open at the explanation.

"...Like something abominable," she murmurs, her voice distant and a little throaty with the ache of understanding. She's stared into the abyss... once? Twice? Once was a shock. Twice was a nightmare.

Neviah's eyes track towards Morrigan for a few seconds.

Then she swallows the lump in her throat and moves to help Matsu with the last sciwntist. "...We should get out of here," she says, voice soft. "We need to know more about what that power is. What manner of entity empowers... the fallen star."

    "Why does everything have to get serious so fast?" Michiru mumbles to herself, staring at the man writhing on the floor. Oh, she's over there in an instant, making sure he isn't swallowing his tongue or something. That's all SHE can do.

    "Will removing them hurt them this much or make it better?" She honestly doesn't know if anyone here can answer that question, but probably better than SHE can. This mystical stuff isn't her thing.

    Magilou will point at the scientist. "I did tell you that the queen would be to blame and we'd need to kill her." Magilou also had been uncertain if it was a queen or a king earlier, even though they had been told quite a few times, but she really shouldn't be held to the same standards as a normal person she would argue. 

    "We should probably go before they decide to start shooting us, though. Or stabbing us. Or whatever it is they might go for..."

    When Neviah looks to Morrigan, the Warlock lifts her shoulders in a shrug almost as if to say 'what, dude?'.
    But with the third scientist is freed, the trio huddle on one another for support. They are already staggering for the door.
    "Get out of here... Leave this place as fast as you can." The scientist says while staggering out the door.
    "Don't go near it. Don't TOUCH it..." He says pointing for the domed building to the North while Morrigan rubs the back of her neck.
    "... Still though, why a laser-cerberus?" ... "Oh and we should probably bail, too, now that we know where the star is. Back to the car, everyone!" As for killing the Queen though...
    "We can burn that bridge when we get to it, Magilou."
    "M-master that's not how that saying goes." Mary Contrary says, sounding worried.
    "I know."

Neviah presses her lips together at Morrigan's shrug. She glances away, silent.

"We should leave," she agrees, voice soft, after a moment's thought. "Something serious is happening in this realm and we will not solve it by being discovered here."

    "I agree with Morrigan's phrasing," Matsu says. She also agrees with the prospect of getting out of there, but that part doesn't need to be said.

    "Yeah it's settled. We're dippin'!" Dante is eager to GTFO, if only to go beat up this dumb star now. Whatever it is, it's definitely evil and needs to be blown up.

    "Fine. It's really your choice, anyway." Magilou will sulk, but Morrigan technically hired her for this, even if the pay isn't entirely traditional. She'll head back for the van, trying to at least get a good seat. A nice seat, where she can take her shoes back off and prop them back up on the dashboard.

    She's kind of a monster like that, and hopefully Morrigan won't actually break her toes for it or anything.

    Once hearing they are leaving, Michiru's arms thicken as she hoists the man up, boosting her strength to heave him in a princess carry like Neviah had to endure. Thankfully she doesn't need to maintain that as the trio end up supporting one another.

    "If you'll be okay," she mutters, before hurrying to catch up with the others. She gives Magilou a scowl though. What terrible manners! "If you're going to do that shouldn't you ride on top?"