World Tree MUSH

    The city of Freedale has had a bit of an issue lately. Now, Freedale is a large and cosmopolitan city that blends the old with the new, from short brick homes to tall cell towers, the place has a large and bustling population of mixed species from humans to dwarves, elves, even the occasional goblin or kobold or dragonborn. Most of the people wear modern clothes and thrive with modern amenities like smartphones and cars, but there's also a fair bit of magic in play amongst the locals.
    One such local, Archimedeus the Ochre, is a well known and beloved kindly old wizard known for living on the outskirts of the city by himself, coming into town occasionally with harmless and fun displays that the locals love, having affectionately come to know the old wizard as Grandpa Archie.
    Grandpa Archie has gone missing and his tall tower sitting at the edge of the city has gone quiet. The City Watch wants to know what's up but... To be fair to them, this is a wizard's tower, and wizards don't like their study or their secrets disturbed.
    One of the local constables, a dwarf as wide as he is tall by the name of Thorrim Cragbeard is leading the squad of recent hiree adventurers towards the tower now.
    "Aye then... So Grandpa Archie's a harmless sort, I doubt he'd set up any lethal traps or such but be careful goin' in there anyway all the same." He says as he stops at the tower entrance and frowns. There's a bit of a commotion around back, and looking that way will reveal a squad of local kids hunkered down under a window that's way too high for them to reach, talking in whispered hushes.
    "Think she found anything good?"
    "Unno... It's been a hot minute since she went up there though."
    "Yeah, but it's not like we can follow her, none-a us can climb as good as Letha'."
    Thorrim clears his throat audibly.
    "This ain't a place fer children, run along now!" He bellows, making most of the little rapscallions jolt, jerk, and ditch the scene in a sprint, though some pause to glance back at the lonely window where something seems to peek out... Just briefly. Just long enough to stare briefly, before scampering back into the darkness.

    Illumiel, the Avenging Angel, is wearing her human guise, a young girl in her early years, somewhere between twelve and fifteen. She has a belt with various tools, a sword scabbard and a couple of lengths of pipe strung from them. "Ser Cragbeard... did you hear what they were saying? One of their friends may have gone inside already." she says, looking up at the tower pensively... "I wish my sister were here instead of I... she is more suited to support work."

    That is the widest dude Dante's ever met. Slurping a strawberry smoothie, he shakes hands with the dwarf upon meeting Thorrim, "Yeah yeah, rock'n'stone and all that stuff." He follows along, Rebellion and his pistols boldly open-carried. He just radiates 'adventrurer', clearly he won't be stopped by the local cops for this. And if they did, Dante dares 'em to do something about it. He does quirk an eyebrow at what those kids say, nodding with Lumi. "Yeah, we may wanna pick it up unless we wanna find a pintsized corpse in there."

    Without an ounce of hesitation Dante struts toward the tower door and kicks it in.

    Weiss isn't sure what to make of this. Not the city... that's interesting and has some nice shopping, now that she has a little coin. Or um... HAD a little coin. Doing odd jobs is kind of necessary these days as she has to manage her own funds.

    Hearing what Illumiel says, Weiss decides to break out of her thoughts and speak up. "I guess I can handle support. I'm used to it. My glyphs and summons will handle boosting you from the rear." She taps the pommel of her rapier thoughtfully. "I just hope this group is better about making plans than the some of the ones I've been with."

    And then Dante kicks the door in.

    "... yeah, I'm used to that, too."

    "That is a very Dante approach."

The low, feminine voice comes from off to one side, near a tree by the walk up to the tower. A second later, the source steps out from behind it.

Neviah Younger has changed her look noticeably since the last time she was out and about in parts of the World Tree intersecting the likes of the Son of Sparda. In place of her late Victorian attire, she's gone with a more fantastic ensemble that's somewhere between armour, robe and centrefold accoutrement, consisting mostly of bronze bits intermixed with blue and black fabrics and a blue cloak. Her hair has been let down into loose curls around her shoulders, and she's set her glasses aside in favour of makeup with a vaguely Egyptian styling. The former stiffness of her English accent has rounded off a little into something noticeably more casual. If nothing else, she's not visibly armed.

Stepping into the open, she looks up towards the tower with lips lightly pursed. "I'd heard things about this Archimedeus person. I'd wondered how many fragments of our home branch still exist here. I suppose enlisting the wizard's help is much harder if he's gone missing."

Neviah gives Dante a look, again. There's a momentary tightness around the corners of her eyes, but she manages a small smile. "Nice to see you haven't changed much."

For the rest of the little gathering, she waggles one gloved hand casually. "I hope you don't mind one more. I also have a stake here."

    In terms of population, this city is more cosmopolitan than Hyouka's Tokyo by a considerable margin. Not that she doesn't have elves and dwarves and such wandering her home city, but the ratio is much, MUCH more skewed towards humans. It's pretty interesting to walk through a city like this! Especially when it means people /won't/ be staring at her pointed ears openly on the streets. Not that she's bothered by such things, of course - she's just used to it, so the absence of stares becomes interesting all on its own.

    Not that she's ignoring the briefing from Constable Thorrim, no. This concerns her quite a bit; a kindly wizard beloved by the locals, going missing? That's not something Hyouka Kiyama will pass on. "If it comes to it, my body is pretty tough. Superhumanly so. I don't mind taking the lead." Without missing a beat, the familiar voice of DARGN chimes in, "Hyouka, there are many things magical traps can do which aren't elemental damage or blunt force trauma. Even you might have some trouble if a trap teleports half your body three meters to the left."

    Hyouka's voice is a little quieter when she replies. "W-well, the defensive enchantments should let me resist things like that, shouldn't they?" DARGN replies with a dry, "Possibly."

    Hyouka doesn't try to stop the kids, but she does keep looking between them and the window. And when Dante decides to knock rather forcefully, Hyouka is right there behind him, declaring, "Fisto, ON!" Her arms clack and clatter, unfold and open, and a pair of huge black techno-magical gauntlets assemble themselves from inside; as each one finishes assembling, it lights up with lines of blue light.

    There's a brief glance over her shoulder at Weiss, an apologetic look. "Sorry, I'm not really the planning type. Especially when a kid might be in trouble."

    Normally a wizard's tower would have a very sturdy door, probably enchanted or even bolstered against physical assault with warding glyphs and strengthening runes but. Well.
    Dante isn't just a normal cambion. He's THE son of Sparda. The guy's strength is about as legendary as his dad's and when he kicks in that door there's a *very obvious* sputter of magical energy of a spell just being broken over someone's knee and utterly failing.
    Way's open, folks. At least this party isn't being stopped by something like a door and the ... Well the door *was* guarded by a mighty seal, but not the animal-kind.
    The first thing everyone will notice on the way in is that the tower is MUCH larger on the inside than it is on the outside.. The entry foyer is a massive circular chamber, there's a coat rack by the door, a fireplace, cozy hardwood floors and a few windows here on the inside that were not visible or even EXISTED on the outside, showing... That no one has been here in quite some time.
    There's dust on the furniture and *something* scrabbles up the stairs to the darkened floor above.
    On the wall are hastily scratched words...

    'Deeper. Deeper and Deeper. Deeper and creeper. Creeping they come. Up from the place that isn't a place. They come to feed. Feed on what I know. So I hide. I hide away. Away in the secret dark. Secret and dark, like all that I know I shouldn't know! ... Know... Know know know what I know... What you don't, what you couldn't find... Not so much as a trace of magic in your line, not even the girl who ran away.'

    Illumiel selects a length of pipe from her belt of weapons, and hefts it, limming it in Blessed Flame as Dante picks the door lock. "... I could have done that." she says, then follows the Cambion inside. Blue eyes snap to the upward stairwell. "Child, come back, we are not here to harm you or the wizard." she calls... but doesn't go to follow without the others, only moving to the base of the stairwell and looking up, trying to spot movement.

    As they step into the tower, Hyouka frowns. "For someone who hasn't been missing all that long, this room looks like it's gone unused for a /while/. Kind of weird..." She steps into the room slowly and cautiously, massive smashfists up and ready - but they lower quickly when she lays eyes on the makeshift inscription along the wall. "...that's..." the elf mumbles. DARGN chimes in with a curious, "Hyouka?" The faux elf shakes her head. "...nothing. Just... reminded me a lot of something. Weird coincidence." She's visibly a bit rattled, stepping over to the stairwell beside Illumiel.

    Still sipping his strawberry smoothie, Dante waves a hand at Neviah, "Sup! Loving the new look, real 'arch foe's sexy witch sidekick in a Conan flick' energy." He grins cheekily, before he draws Ebony and sweeps the immediate area with the blase energy of a drunk who's heard a noise in his apartment. He advances toward some of the furniture and stows the pistol before running a finger across the dusty surface of a table. "Hmmm. Looks like nobody's had a chance to sweep down here, disgraceful really." He says, before sneezing so powerfully the table is knocked away. Oops.

Neviah can only sigh lightly. Dante gonna Dante. "You really haven't changed, have you? I appreciate that."

The former professor steps over the threshold with a click of a bronze-plated heel. Immediately she stops and looks upwards, then around. "I see someone's grip on sanity has diminished somewhat with time," she murmurs as her attention travels along the scrawl of etched words. The last bit, however, leaves her squinting in thought.

"From the way people described this Archimedeus, he doesn't seem like the type to harm a child. At least, not through reputation." She looks up towards the stairs, as if trying to get a better look into the darkness.

Neviah shakes her right arm out and murmurs a few words. A subtle radiance dances between her fingers before spreading up her arm, surrounding her like a faint halo, then winking out of existence again, all in the space of a few seconds.

"Be careful. Magic can do things to the mind that you might not expect."

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> Neviah drops a Protection from (Evil? Good? Not-Conflicted?) spell on herself.

    Weiss peeks in behind everyone else, and hmms. "It does look like it's been a while. Maybe they just... aren't very good at housekeeping? If they don't have an apprentice, I'm sure wizards end up with their nose in a book most of the time. Isn't that how it goes in the stories?"

    She walks up behind Neviah now, because that seems like a good idea for some reason. Maybe because she's less impulsive than Dante. "He might not want to harm a child, but if something went wrong, the girl could be in a trap, or a spell gone wrong, or something. We should be careful I think, but not stand around either." She's also trying to make sense of what's on the wall, but doesn't want to say anything about it. Because she doesn't get it.

    There's only one way to go, and once the party has had their fill of the foyer there's the set of stairs where... Something scrambled up pretty hastily. It's a good thing Neviah casts protection from jerks, because this tower, with its kindly master missing, may have had who knows what crawl in.
    The stairs head up and then to a door.
    The door leads to what appears to be an ornately decorated hall. Several suits of magical armor gleam with a perfect shine, and the walls are lined with ornate decorative swords and daggers.
    A keen eye might notice two simpler daggers have gone *missing* from their mountings.
    The hall progresses before it splits...
    To the west is 'Library'. To the east is 'Laboratory'.
    And shredded into the carpet between the two paths are more words.

    The heiress with nothing to claim heirship to... Tis a cold cold fate she suffers! Everything now belonging to her brother!

    The door to the library is cracked ajar. The door to the laboratory is wide open.

"He could well have tapped into something his mind couldn't handle," Neviah opines, looking back towards Weiss. "It happens sometimes."

Nevertheless, there are the stairs. Up they ascend, Neviah peering ahead to try and catch sight of something through the darkness. Her attention drifts to the walls, towards mounts filled with weapons. Towards one that she spots with no weapon in it.

Her eyes narrow slightly.

A split hallway. More words. Neviah scratches her cheek with a painted fingernail. "Someone has definitely gone a little haywire. And someone was definitely expecting visitors. This all feels very theatrical. Whatever you do, keep aware of what's around you."

Giving the open door to the lab a moment's attention, she nevertheless pivots and begins to make her way west, towards the barely-opened door to the library. Neviah doesn't bother looking behind her - she'll go in whether she's alone or not.

    Illumiel's head snaps around when Neviah casts her protection spell. Blue eyes glare balefully at the 'divine' power. Her brow twitches, but with others around she feels she wouldn't have their support if she were to strike out.

    Instead, she takes a moment and then heads toward the Library. "Wizards and books." she explains as she walks.

    'It happens someties' is something that really makes Weiss frown. That seems pretty nonchalant! The slender aristocratic girl doesn't say anything about that, instead loading a dust cartridge and preparing for trouble. She advances cautiously, but without any real idea of what the place is supposed to look like, she doesn't notice the missing knives. "She's probably scared," she starts to say.

    That's when she stops and bites her lip, staring more at the carpet than anything else. She WAS following Neviah closely, so much so that the woman might presume she's still following. But in fact she's halted for a long moment.

    Dante shuffles toward the lab once he's done sneezing up a storm. There's so much dust he kicks up. "Guh, need to check if I got allergies..." He grumbles to himself. It seems like he's the only one headed that way, so he calls out at a fellow meathead that is Hyouka, "Yo, wana hit the lab? Maybe we'll find a killer gator."

    Normally, Hyouka Kiyama is a bit... well, straightforward. But she also has superhuman senses, and she's a lot more aware of her surroundings than she first appears. The magitech cyborg is trying to decide on her destination when somewhere behind them, one of their number stops walking, and audibly ends a sentence prematurely. She frowns, turning to glance back at Weiss, then at Dante. "I'll catch up in a moment."

    It doesn't take more than a couple steps to put Hyouka beside Weiss, looking between the heiress and the floor. Her brow furrows; the ingrained urge not to pry goes to war with a growing concern, and a growing suspicion. Eventually, the latter two win out. "...I don't mean to intrude, you don't have to answer, but... does this inscription hit a little close to home, by any chance? That's why I was staring at the one downstairs."

    DARGN's voice somehow manages to convey an arched eyebrow. "Unusually perceptive for you, Hyouka." The cyborg just huffs softly in response.

    Dante heads to the laboratory, we'll start with him because he seems to be the only one headed that way and that's okay. He's a big boy, he can do as he pleases.
    Like the rest of the tower it's pretty dark, but a few candles gutter to life as soon as the threshold is crossed. Something is scratched into the lab door though...

    His first demon killed at age ten... A killer he's been ever since then...

    Something here has been... Reading the party. And leaving little love notes where they're sure to find them.
    The lab though smells like formaldehyde and science gone bad. There's an alchemy set and a chemistry set and a big electron microscope.
    And don't forget the jars of *body parts and organs* that line the wall.
    Now, Grandpa Archie may not have been evil (supposedly) because most of the parts seem to be animal in nature, there are notes spread around on homunculus and golem making.
    Something twitches on the table. It's a potted plant with the shape of a human face. It is labelled 'Mandragora'.

    Meanwhile in the library... Books are scattered everywhere, papers strewn all over, torn and shredded from their bindings sprawl all over the floor. Books on everything from the basics of magic to advanced magic secrets. And there's something here.
    Something hunched over a scroll, tittering furiously as it seems to have stopped to *read* the scroll before it turns about to see Neviah and Illumiel entering.
    With a HISS it focuses it's baleful glowing green-gold eye on Neviah, a ray of necrotic energy lancing out from its gaze that...
    Does not harm the cleric who has cast Protection From Evil(??????) on herself.
    With a snarl it levies that same necrotic gaze at Illumiel, and if she's not careful it will *rot her skin* the longer it stares at her.
    Up until something silvery whips through the air in an arc. A slendr throwing blade of masterful and elegant make embeds in the creature's side earning a shriek of pain.
    "Found you." Whispers a voice from the shadows nearby as two golden eyes open up in the darkness. Along with a big row of teeth.
    "I've been waitin' like hours for that shot."
    The creature however snarls and gnashes its teeth as it clutches its wound and tries to retreat into the shadows as well.
    "I know you... I know what you serve. I know what you *regret* cleric!" It grouses at Neviah as it throws over a bookshelf.
    "You don't *truly* favor Zehir!" It cackles as the tossed over shelf drops a few books on... Oh dear. Demonology.
    The formerly sealed scrolls and books flare to life as several imps and quasits are suddenly buzzing around the room like the angry distraction it needed.

It doesn't immediately occur to Neviah that Weiss isn't hot on her heels. At least, not until she catches a few snippets of conversation behind her. She looks back, catching two things: A glaring angel, and Weiss and Hyouka putting their heads together over the inscription.

Then it's off to the library to discover... that. /Up/ go Neviah's eyebrows. "Is that a /Nothic,/" she exclaims as she reaches back into the air for something, only for that eye to come to focus on her...

...ineffectually. There is a pulse of magic in the air around Neviah. She smiles a thin little smile, only for the expression to cut off as someone else throws a blade into the mix.

It's not enough, though. The creature gnashes about and hurls a bookshelf over - and /speaks./ Neviah clicks her teeth together as the bookshelf seems about to topple onto her. She's momentarily obscured by a flurry of books and a halo of buzzing imps and sundry minor demons.

And then, from behind it, there's a thunderous "THOOM!" and a brilliant flash of light - and a force roars out like a storm of thunder. The bookshelf splinters into pieces. Tomes tear into shreds as they're hurled violently back from the sudden thunderwave. The force of the storm wave slams out, lashing at the imps and quasits, at the Nothic, at the walls of the too-large tower.

Neviah steps through the hail of destruction, hail and cloak billowing around her. Electricity arcs up her right arm, hand held up like a set of claws. Any air of glibness is gone from her face, replaced by a bleak, focused scowl.

"You see much, aberration," she states grimly, eyes focused. "Now look at me again. /See/ what else you can tell.

"For I can live with my regrets, if they mean /you/ will not."

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> THUNDERWAVE KABOOM

    Dante zeroes right onto that message the second he spots it. He remembers the gargoyle as it stalked him. The way it snarled "SOOOOOOOOOON OF SPARDAAAAAAAAA" was etched into his brain, a nightmare that won't leave him. He narrows his eyes before scoffing, "Cute, you're reading my memories. This isn;'t the first time somebody's pulled that routine, won't be the last either." He says aloud, as if whomever's trying to psych him out is in the room.

    He tosses his smoothie cup into a wastebin before drawing Rebellion, the massive sword he skewered that demon. He's killed countless hellspawn since, too. "If you think I'm torn up over it, you're mistaken."

    Illumiel's reflexes are honed. Even as the thing turns a necrotic ray on Neviah, the Angel is surging forward. She deftly sidesteps as its eye turns on her and she goes for an uppercut with the pipe... only for her strike to miss as the knife from the other person in the room strikes home and sends the thing staggering in pain... her sandal-clad feet skid across the flagstones, and she gathers herself up to spring again... when the imps and quasits start emerging from the various scrolls.

    The Angel fails her saving throw and gets knocked back by Neviah's thunderwave, grunting as the force knocks her back into the table, dislodging the stuff on top of it and interrupting her attack.

    Weiss snaps her attention back up, then shakes her head. It isn't to deny what Hyouka asks about though, it's just to clear her thoughts. "I'm fine! My dad is a huge jerk anyway, I'm not ashamed about it! I just... never talk about it so how...?" She trails off, trying to piece that together. Too bad she doesn't have the time now.

    "What's a nothic?" she shouts, as the whole situation rapidly deterioates into exploding bookshelves and hissing monsters. Myrtenaster leaps out of the scabbard, cylinder spinning, but she doesn't use any of her Dust Glyphs.

    Instead, Neviah will find herself backed up by a shimmering glyph of silver-white, from which a ghostly but quite physical oversized wasp emerges, buzzing angrily toward the nothic.

    "I think someone else is in here, too!"

    "The same way it knows I went looking into my own family tree," Hyouka replies, her tone dry. Anything else she might have to say is drowned out by a sudden eruption of violence. And in situations like that, there's much less room for hesitation or doubt.

    With superhuman speed, the faux elf charges in, through the door and around Neviah, past Dante - and it's not hard to see what they're opening up on. She doesn't take a second thought, barely even a first; just leaps right in and swings one massive FISTEAU unit, the lines glowing with a burst of water-aspected mana.

    Illumiel goes for the Nothic.
    Because that sure is a Nothic.
    "Heeeeeeh..." It hisses, leering at her.
    "Two from one... I wonder where is your other half, little aasimar?" It sneers before-- oop thunderwave.
    The sheer sonic force of the spell launches the aberration half way across the room before Weiss and Hyouka follow up.
    Raising its clawed hands to fend off the summoned wasp and its menacing stings, the Nothic tries that necrotic ray again on Weiss' summon and then at Hyouka herself.
    It... Doesn't go well for the dizzied monster when the faux-elf cyborg comes in with that water aspect haymaker, which launches the beast close to the shadows where those golden eyes are lurking. It looks up just in time for a slim, runty, kid-like figure to emerge from the darkness, scaley ebony skin, wild white hair, golden malice-filled eyes as she stares down at the aberration.
    "Ah... You..." It sneers through bloody teeth.

    "No one has *ever* loved you, your whole life."

    There's silence for a beat as the girl just stares at it, locking gaze.
    "Heh... Well I guess yer right about that." She says, lips spreading into a menacingly wide grin as a rumbling growl builds in her throat and chest.
    Before the Nothic can move to disengage, she snaps her jaws- and those *rows* of vicious teeth shut around its throat and tumbles VIOLENTLY into a deathroll.
    It'sa bloody mess and it lasts for a good moment before she detaches from the very freaking dead monster and wipes the blood from her lips with the back of her hand, side-eyeing the rest of the party.
    "... Y'all the lot the City Watch called in, then?" She growls.

    DFante storms into the library, rushing with all his might after Hyouka and Weiss, just in time to hear those words; No one has ever loved you, your whole life.

    Dante stops in his tracks just in time to see a tiny gator girl rip apart a monster three times her size in a deathroll. "Oh. Guess I missed the fun part." He says with a chuckle, playing it off. "Yeah we heard something was going on and saw spooky writing. Did you have friends waiting outside?"

Not for the first time, the thrill of wielding power - especially right now, when the Nothic can do almost nothing to her without her express written permission - helps blunt Neviah's regrets.

"An aberrant creature," she calls back towards Weiss as she stops, drawing herself up as though to prepare another attack. "Don't let it look at you - if it doesn't rot your flesh, it will read your secrets."

Sweeping a hand forward, the cleric begins to gather a spell in her left palm. Her right hand hovers at about shoulder level with a small stone chip held between thumb and forefinger. Magic builds around her, until....

...until there is an alligator.

"Goodness," Neviah murmurs as she looks away from the gory deathroll spectacle, hand resting on her forehead. She gives the little fangcritter a moment to finish what it's doing before looking back. There's still gore and it's not pleasant, but at least the thing isn't actively gurgling anymore.

"Let's assume yes. And who is this sassy lost child, then? And who does your dental work?"

    Illumiel's hair actually starts to lift and float as the nothic calls her out as what she is... half of a whole... but she doesn't get a chance to strike, before the abberation is brutally destroyed by the young girl with the baleful yellow eyes.

    "..." her cheek twitches, and she turns to leave... swinging at an empty bookcase on the way out, shattering the shelves with her Blessed Flame-imbued weapon. Seems the thing got under her skin with that remark, and she doesn't want to lash out at allies.

    Fortunately it's the summon taking the brunt of what's meant for her. Weiss thusly doesn't have to worry about the nothic, because it's down by the time she would be exposed. Of course that wasp scatters into motes of light, taking a good chunk of Weiss's aura with it, but she'll live.

    She takes a deep breath as the angel takes out her anger on the area, then follows Dante in. "But what about the wizard..."

    Then she pauses and peers at Lether, now revealed. "Oh... some kind of faunus...? Are you the one who snuck in here?"

    It takes Hyouka a good second or two to figure out what she's seeing, and by then the gator has engaged the Signature Gator Move(tm). "Whoa-!" It's an alarmed and slightly disturbed yelp, Hyouka stumbling back a half a step at the vicious display. She even has her gauntlets halfway-ready again before the girl starts talking like a normal person. "...a-ah, you're... you're sapient. Okay." Slowly, very slowly, she relaxes-

    -and then Illumiel smashes a shelf, and the cyborg just about jumps out of her skin.

    "A-anyway. Yes. What she said," the cyborg adds after Weiss. "What happened to the old man?"

    There is... uh.
    TThere's a lot of blood.
    With an almost irritated sniff, the lizardfolk girl flashes a bloody-toothed sneer at Dante.
    "... 'Friends' sure is a word you used, there." She replies. "Bet they ditched already." She says as Illumiel storms out.
    "Yeah. Snuck in 'ere cause I heard Grandpa Archie went missing." She at least answers honestly. "...Wanted to see what happened to him. Ended up playing cat an' mouse with that *thing* for like hours." She says spitefully as she gives the dead Nothic a hard jab while it's down.
    So what *did* happen to the old man, then, huh?

Neviah jumps slightly as Illumiel clobbers the poor helpless furniture.

Hyouka has a good question; Neviah turns slightly to better bring her into view. "A Nothic is an aberrant creature, something that has no place in either the natural world or the supernatural ones," she explains a bit distantly. "From what I can tell, they are what remains of wizards who delve too deep into the more eldritch sides of Faerunian magic. It may be that what lies before us is all that remains of Archimedeus the Ochre." She sighs and shakes her head.

Folding her arms, Neviah looks back towards the lizardfolk child. A faint, sad smile tugs at her lips. "In the end, this is probably the only outcome that would make sense. Once it has been changed, the Nothic knows nothing more of its past life, and it cannot be returned. What remains is a thing that would be a threat to anyone it laid eyes upon. As hard as it is to accept, the world is better off without this particular creature."

    "Nasty little thing ain't it?" Dante says as he approaches the Nothic's body, then kneels to the gator girl's level with a little grin. "Actually they were waitin' for you outside." He says. "Anyway, name's Dante. Sorry but..." He hesitates, unsure how to approach this. "Didn't find the old man. Went through the lab and everything."

    Hyouka blinks a few times, looking between the dead Nothic and Neviah. Her face slowly sinks into a deep, troubled frown, and she turns to look downward, in the general direction of the ground-floor door and the town beyond. There's going to be a lot of disappointed people out there.

    It's a troubling enough revelation that she almost misses Dante begin the introductions. "-ah. Er. I'm Hyouka, Hyouka Kiyama. I have an AI assistant with me, DARGN." The AI pipes up with a simple, "Greetings, little one."

    Weiss, paying attention to Neviah, turns a little green and looks away from the nothic. "I... see." It's not like she hasn't seen some horrific things, but she wasn't prepared for this right at this moment.

    Introductions! That's a good way to distract herself. "Oh... right. I am Weiss Schnee. I um... fence." Yeah, let's keep it simple for now.

    Illumiel is standing, waiting for the others, just outside the tower. Arms folded, eyes closed as she leans against the stonework.

    And thus, Neviah explains how baby Nothics are made.
    The lizardfolk girl stares at the cleric with a slack-jawed look of sleepy surprise before the words actually sink in and she looks down at the dead Nothic.
    "Oh." She says sagaciously.
    "Tha' sucks." She says on the topic of the old wizard as she rises from her crouch over the aberration's corpse as she points Dante at it. "Found the old man."
    For a moment. She stares at Hyouka next.
    "So what like... Yer smartphone Moogles stuff for you? Like tha' kinna AI?" Oh no it's a talking AI. One talking at her. "Oh. Neat I guess."
    "I don't fence, I shank." She says matter of factly to Weiss, but... Introductions huh.
    The girl shrugs.
    "First thing I ever heard was 'Not even good enough for leather'. So tha's me. I'm Lether."

With a sigh, Neviah leans back against one of the still-standing shelves and crosses her ankles. "It does suck," she concedes with a shake of her head. "Archimedius likely had no idea how far he'd tumbled before it happened. I'd heard that this was possible, but seeing it happen is more than a little disconcerting."

Introductions are made; she adds her own. "I'm Neviah Younger. I study what's left of this world - the source of the magic that did this."

'Not even good enough for leather.'

Neviah winces.

"Don't let anyone convince you of that. You are as good as you choose to be and as good as you feel."

    "Oh." Dante nods in understanding, unsurprised in the slightest. "Sounds about right." He gives Lether a pat on the head, "Yeah well, that'll fuck up anybody to hear I guess. But I guess appearances are decieving, right? Anyway, screw 'em. You'll find your own worth, kid. Worked for me." He says with a nudge of his foot to the corpse. "So, Grandpa went and poked in the cookie jar of evil magics, turned himself into a monster. That about right? Someone's gonna have to make reports on this." Dante pauses for a beat. "Not it."

    It's a chance to show off a little for a kid - or at least someone who looks like one. Hyouka can't help a playful little smile. "Not my smartphone. My body." She holds up the twin gauntlets, the lines of blue energy dying out - and with a clack-clack-clatter, the twin FISTEAU begin to disassemble themselves and fold their way back into the pocketspace within her 'real' forearms. Then she wiggles her fingers demonstratively. "My body's artificial~. Still got my real mind in here, though. DARGN helps keep my body running smoothly, and she's also a... passable conversationalist." The derisiveness in DARGN's snort is very audible.

    Planting her hands on her hips, the faux elf glances down at the dead Nothic and returns to a frown.

    'Someone's gonna have to make reports on this.' Dante says.
    "Not it." Lether says almost in unison with the cambion.

    "I like this kid!" Dante laughs, jerking a thumb at Lether.