World Tree MUSH

    The Wyld is a strange shifting place, harmful to the senses and self. It is fortunate that the savants aboard the Starstriding Engine had devised small protective devices to keep in a pocket; pocket watches whose rythym was synched with the Loom of Fate, keeping the deleterious effects of unwilled physical change at bay. As per the briefing, with the press of a button on the device, the wearer can be rip-corded back to the island of stable creation.
    The kaleidoscopic churn of matter, sound, smell, and sight envelopes the intrepid group as they push through the literal tracklessness of unformatted reality. And then...
    The caverns surround them, glinting with light stolen from the ruined monuments and bric-a-brac of forgotten empires. A moai head here, an ophidian statue stewn across the floor there... The litter of countless dead and forgotten civilizations form the party's surroundings, the low light creating sinister and gloomy shadows from their features. Whispering voices drip like water, speaking in lost tongues.
    Syd squints as he bids his anima to life, a half-filled circle glowing on his forehead as he provides light for everybody to see by. "A grave of empires?"

    Right so, Rebecca has been busy in Night City and all, but it's about high time she sees the bigger picture of this World Tree deal and see what it can offer her. So when she heard of a job to go out and steal something massive from a bunch of fairies her answer was pretty straightforward:
    'Holy shit, Fairies? I wanna see fairies, sign me up!'
    That's why the plucky, vertically-challenged, smart-aleck solo is here today, various weapons slung across her back, a garishly pink and green painted shotgun held loosely in a lazy manner in her arms.
    Every now and then she pulls the pocket watch from her pocket to peer at it curiously. It looks so small in her massive mechanical hands.
    Huh. Neat.
    But then they arrive? Sort of. Passing through the Wyld is pretty strange enough as it is.
    "... That was a trip." She mutters, pink-green eyes squinting at the caverns and the monuments.
    A grave of empires though?
    "Spooky."

    The pokemon trainer has to wonder if he has to get one of those for each of his pokemon!, he promises to return the wondrous little things later of course. He looks around curiously, flanked on one side by his Electiger, given they were wandering in a cave, felt something able to produce light, move quickly and get him out of the way of trouble if needed seemed smarter. 

    Luke seems more inclined to admire the myterious collection of forgotten and lost monuments... was that one of those mysterious Regi murals from the "Sealed Chamber?" of course, back home it was more of a tourist spot now that... the legends related to it were taken care of. He tries to snap a photograph. Meanwhile Dynamo keeps right next to Luke, fur on end, sparkling and glowing brightly, something about the barely audible voices speaking in forgotten tongues makes the large tiger pokemon uneasy. "It seems a collection of forgotten relics and empire stuff... I think I saw something from back at my world, how can that be?"

Daisy follows Syd, scanning around with her cannon, the 'landing lights' on her helmet turned down to their lowest intensity, providing light that isn't blindingly bright and designed to light up a landing zone from 200m. Instead it's a similar intensity to a common flashlight, two beams canted slightly apart but close enough together to cross.
"Same, man." She agrees. "Then when I turn to look at it... wait, there!" 
She points at a satue on tall column surrounded by lions. "Nelson. I once climed up and put a traffic cone on 'is 'ead as a dare, before I got my wings installed."

    Syd marvels as well, gazing at the many artifacts. "My wife would love this place, all the lost peoples she could learn about..." He slowly moves towards a glint of light that reflects from a crevice between several stone statue heads, shoving his hand into the crevice. "... a Hyperion key!" He strains, trying to pull whatever that is out.
    There's a crackling roar from somewhere, echoing everywhere at once, the sound of an approaching forest fire or great flame. There's a wave of searing heat that blows down and through the cavernways, carrying with it embers and flickers of shadows. The fiery sound is approaching from a flickering glow down the largest passage as though a bonfire was the form of the foe.

    Really though, relics and monuments from places long gone make these caves feel more like a tomb than anything else, and Becca isn't liking it in the least. Daisy points out a familiar one. "... You recognize that one? Geeze, that's nuts." She mutters before her attention is pulled elsewhere.
    "What's a Hyperion key?" She asks as Syd struggles to pull it from between the statue heads. But then the blazing echo of something akin to a monstrous bonfire can be heard.
    "... And what the hell is that?" The solo asks as she slings her shotgun.
    "Aite, grab the key thing quick, we should probably bail." She decides as she puts her big mechanical hands on the various statue parts and grunts, straining against the weight of old stone for but a moment before pulling them apart with relative ease, so Syd can grab the thing and they can bail.

    Mysterious beast approaching, fire?. That was something the pokemon trainer was more prepared/used to, rather than spelunking or treasure hunting. The boy didn't even have to give a command, his pokemon already moved ahead of the group, growling loudly as energy builds up around it, glowing brightly, arcs of electricity visible over its frame, clearly powering up, perhaps even trying to look like a bigger target than the others!. Meanwhile, Luke rushes to figure how he can help Syd and the others, his left hand on his pokeball belt, ready to bring a second one out if needed.

Daisy peers around and blinks, Reason clack-whirring loudly as rounds rattle down the shoot from the ammunition drum and into the revolver cannon's cylinder. "Syd, my man, I really need to teach you some tropes!" She says, cheerfully. "In a place like this, never try to steal or take anything until you understand the rules of the place. Basic dungeoneering 101 like. Haven't you ever - no, of course you haven't seen or read Aladdin or Arabian Nights they're from Earth... there's some books and movies I'm gonna /have/ to send you my dude. Still, could be worse, at least it's just a giant fire monster rather than the whole place comin' down around us!"
She swings her gun in that direction. "Hopefully it's as simple as blast the thing until it's dead or runs away, but... I doubt it."

    The thing resembles some kind of roaring fire, constrained by flickering shadows in a vague bestial shape like a great hunting cat or dire wolf, filling the passage way. The intensity of the heat grows at it approaches, stone glowing red as it stalks along the tomb-like place. It opens its maw and the roar of the fire blows hot and staticky, the blue-white flames of its interior leaving spots on ordinary eyes. It goes for the crackling form of Luke's pokemon, taking it as a challenge to its own might, pouncing.
    Syd grunts as he pulls a basketball-sized object that resembles nothing more than a star caged in gold filigree the glimmers with all the colors of the daylight. The star within hums with shackeled power and banishes all the shadows for hundreds of yards, threatening to sear away any and all impurities in the stones and metals.
    Including the Shadow and the Flame.
    The beast lets loose a deafening crackle-roar of surprised as the outer shadow-shell of its form are banished, exposing the true flame of its body. Its internal fire pulses in time with the hum of the Hyperion key.
    Syd stares at the effect the device has on the fey creature, finally answering Rebecca's question. "... it burns away impurities in magical materials."

    Syd pulls the Hyperion-thingy from its confinement.
    It is very effective.
    At least it seems to be on the fiery monster approaching the party.
    Rebecca levels her shotgun.
    "... That's not a fairy is it?" She asks.
    Rebecca has never seen a fairy before.
    Regardless of the fact that it's actually 'Fair Folk' and not 'fairies'. But she doesn't know that.
    "... Should I shoot the fairy?" Pause. "Fuck it. I'm gonna shoot the fairy." She decides, squeezing the trigger and starting to unload shell after shell from her shotgun into the flaming monstrosity.

Daisy flinches ever so slightly at the bright light before her helmet and cybernetic eyes' flare shielding kicks in. "Woah that's neat!" Daisy says to Syd. She nods at Rebecca's words. "Shoot the fairy. Worst case, we just piss it off."
And Daisy suits actions to words, entering a rough guestimate of the range to the beast into the firing computer before letting off a string of five 27mm rounds, each report echoing around the room and causing the little possum to rock backwards sligtly. After five rounds she's got to stop and re-adjust her footing, or she'll push herself over. If she's guessed the range right, the rounds should airburst around the fire-creature, peppering it with shrapnel or even detonating inside it!

    Rebecca's blasts of scattershot pellets bring with them rushes of air that part pieces of the flames, as do the airbursting muntions of Daisy's cannon. These holes 'stick', for want of a better word, like wounds in the fire-that-is-flesh of The Shadow and The Flame. It seems the Hyperion key removed some crucial element of the emanation's defensive capabilities, due to some quirk of the unshaped lord of chaos' internal rules.
    Syd steps to one side of Daisy and Rebecca so the key isn't directly in their eyes, his own eyes squinting hard at the brilliance of the thing in his hands. He quickly banishes an errant thought about how hard it is to judge distance when there aren't any shadows nearby. At least for him; he has no augmentations to his vision to help. Syd then sets the blinding bauble down in a nook at his feet and begins shaping a sorcerous incantation. As he does so, black flecks of obsidian begin to materialize and hover about him. It's clear this will take a moment.
    The beast itself surges forward like a gust of wind from a hot oven, attempting to sear Daisy with a swipe of a car-sized forelimb of fire. Clearly it is very upset at this turn of events.

    Let it not be said that Becca remains in one place to get hacked up. Even if the fiery beast is going for Daisy, the diminutive solo pauses her fire to tumbleroll away from the possum and the claws that go sailing for her.
    She doesn't bother reloading though, simply stowing her cherished shotgun on her back and unslinging a pair of assault rifles, one-handing them both in her big metsl hands.
    "Looks like we're hurting it!" She calls out. As long as that Hyperion key shines on the thing, anyway, she starts to unload, both guns chattering loud on full auto as she sprays a load of lead at the fire monster.

Daisy grins as her shots appear to strike home, at least in some sense. Only for it to come for her. Well, piss. She sweeps her wings down and takes to the air, her cannon awkwardly swinging her off-balance as she attempts to dodge out of the thing's way vertically. Thanks to Reason, it's more of a diagonal, and that saves her a lot of pain.
As she gets out of the way in a direction it's probably not expecting, the creature's burning claws catch a glancing blow off her thigh, throwing the little Possum to the side to crash into a stack of... something, she doesn't get a chance to see what, which comes down on top of her. From the string of cussing it's not hurt her too bad, but it's going to take a moment to dig herself out.

    The assault rifles are distracting and painful to the beast. The Shadow and The Flame unleashes an ugly hiss of sap popping inside burning logs and attempts to swallow the solo whole with its incandescent maw, the ungodly heat unleashing visual ripples around it.
    Syd says the final few words of a language that sounds like concepts being spoken aloud, the black flecks taking the form of innumerable obsidian butterflies that surge forth into the great fire for a hundred yards. The sound of shattering glass echoes as the conjured insects smash themselves against the ruins making up the confines of this place. The flapping of their volcanic glass wings leaves wounds in the flames, marking their passage in its flesh. The beast stumbles and staggers, clearly left on its last legs.

>> GAME >> Syd Fortis spends an Edge for: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Daisy's stack o' crap shifts and moves before the little possum forces herself out of it and to her feet in another shower of cussing, mixed in with noises like someone trying to start an asthmatic, badly-oiled chainsaw or a demon gargling windex. In other words, the sounds of an annoyed Virginia opossum. She makes another rough guess at range and, bracing herself against the wall, lets rip in a sustained barrage of fire that doesn't stop until the remaining 55 rounds in the drum are empty, the creature dies, or it runs away, whichever comes first. There's no way in hell she's letting it eat one of her team-mates if she can help it.
The stream of curses and angry possum noises doesn't let up until then either.

    Oh. Oh this time it really is coming for her.
    "Oh SHIT." Becca declared rather unceremoniously as she dives aside, skin and samurai jacket searing from the heat in passing as she scrambles away as fast as she can, dropping her guns in the process.
    She doesn't bother picking them up, she has more. ... She has plenty more as she draws a pair of garishly pink pistols from her scorched jacket.
    "Motherfucker!" The solo declares seriously as she starts unloading both guns into The Shadow and The Flame like they were full auto.
    She's pulling those triggers real fast.
    The only thing that pauses her is the flight of black butterflies, causing her to briefly stare at the enacted sorcery before she resumes shooting.

    The fire dies, guttering into little wisps that wink out as the butterflies, pistol fire, and barrage of bullets finally extinguish The Shadow and The Flame's corpus. In the blinding light of the Hyperion key, the cavern floor is littered with the shattered remnants of the obsidian butterflies, making it very hazardous to walk around without sturdy footwear.
    The vista doesn't linger very long before the trio find themselves in a black space, ankle deep in crystal clear water, the sky filled with stars and nebulae. At the center is a kind of throne with a hooded figure, both stark white with equally stark black shadows. Syd finds himself empty-handed, scowling at the apparent loss of an extremely useful tool.
    This vision in white speaks with a sonorous and commanding voice. "You have conquered The Shadow And The Flame, Pattern-born. What boons would you have?"
    Syd collects himself. "A weapon worthy of the new daystar, the Midnight Sun." The hooded figure's shadowed face turns towards Rebecca and Daisy, awaiting their answers.

Daisy  blink-blinks at the voice and looks around. "Woah, you look cool! Uh... man I don't know I'm just here to help Syd." She admits, examining the scorched gouge in her armour a moment. Shoulda worn the re-entry-rated gear. "I'm not... really a boon sorta possum. Can I get back to you later? I understand if not and it's a one-time sorta deal, so... um... give mine to one of these two if it is?" She shrugs a bit self-consciously, embarrassed that she can't think of anything.

    With the fiery beast monster brought low, Rebecca starts casually reloading her guns. Right before the scene changes and she's being asked what boon she could want.
    "... I want a new jacket. Mine kinda got scorched."
    To be fair... It's actually a really humble request.

    The figure in white produces a spiked chain whip, approximately seven yards long, made of a strange sooty black iron, and bids Syd to come forward. "It is called Lost Memorials To The Fallen. Whomever is lashed by it is burdened by the last moments of those they have killed."
    A package appears at Rebecca's feet, containing two jackets like the one she lost. "I do not understand what it was made of, so these are made with the hide of a leathery behemoth. They should be the same otherwise. And as per the beast woman's request, I double my boon to you."
    "Now... leave my sanctum."