World Tree MUSH

    It's been not TOO long since the fireball erupted outside of Trollskull Manor. But some things did come to light.
    "So it turns out," Lether says, leading the way through the cosmopolitan city streets of Anchordeep, hands stuffed in the pockets of her leather armor jacket. "That the description of the killer matches the Nimblewrights usually seen during the Day of Wonders Parade."
    "The House of Inspired Hands, holds this parade. They worship some kinda... God of progress or something I donno the details." She shrugs leading the way to the corner of Seawatch and Shark Streets in the Sea Ward of the city.
    "Anyway no weapons, and no acting sketchy. We're just gonna ask a few questions." She says, as ever favoring subtlety over everything.

"More gods in Anchordeep? I should have found my way here years ago," Neviah muses as she follows Lether along.

Parade or no, Neviah's adventuring ensemble is flashy and fancy enough for a festive environment, and she's even left her rifle behind (though her Tranter's tucked in her capelets somewhere). She's otherwise content to let Lether take the lead. By now she's come to trust the little lizardlady's instincts when it comes to navigating social situations of the common variety.

    The words 'No Weapons' are what bring Kanna Ouji to a halt. The Crimson Wind has not been seen without her sword once in the entire time those present have known her, and the prospect of leaving it behind seems to immediately put a sour look on her face. "...that's gonna be a problem. I ain't gonna draw this thing in the middle of a place of worship, but I sure as hell ain't leaving it behind. It's part of my religion." Curiously enough, she doesn't seem to be cracking a joke when she says that.

    Dante WAS going to make a crack about religion, but Kanna up and says it seriously. He'd look like a major asshole if he said it now. "Fiiiiiine." He grumbles and keeps his guns in the guitar case with Rebellion. "If I catch fire in there, it's not my fault." Dante says.

"Gond." Jo took a last pull off of her cigarette before dropping it underfoot and kicking it off into a nearby drain gate. "I did some digging but I didn't find out much more than the basics. Progress of the technological variety mostly. Smithing, machining, invention, innovation. That sort of thing." Her eyes scanned the crowds momentarily, peering under a Hammerpoint baseball cap suitably modified to fit those rather large Jolteon ears. She first looked to Kanna, a small glance mid stride. "Should be fine. This place is like Unova. No one cares if you're packing as long as you're not being stupid. Besides, not like I didn't bring a little insurance either. Not going to chance it with a ye olde terminator on the loose." She patted the side of her jacket for emphasis before her eyes turned to look up at Dante. "Should we have brought marshmallows?"

    When Kanna says her sword is a part of her religion, Lether pauses. Slowwwwwly the lizardfolk girl opens her jacket revealing the row of knives hidden in sheathes in the lining. "I ain't saying you can't have it WITH you I'm just saying we're waking into a church. You probably won't need to use it." ... Pause. "Probably."
    "I don't think you'll catch fire, Dante, this is a god of like... Science or something, not a god of 'fire and brimstone'."
    Then it appears Joanna did her homework.
    "Yeah that." Lether says with a nod to both statements. God of innovation and 'weapons are cool in the city just don't be a jerk'.
    The House of Inspired Hands looks like a cross between a temple and a workshop. The silhouette of a humanoid shape can be seen perching on the temple rooftop. It extends an arm releasing a tiny metal sparrow into the sky. The mechanical bird does a few loops in the air then veers down out of control. Unless someone does something or Joanna is quick on her feet it's going to fly into her with a surprising amount of force.

Having a pistol on hand, even if out of sight, helps Neviah feel slightly better. Small, but better. While she's pretty sure she could get a few spells off, she's not sure what she'd have to do or feel to do it, and that troubles her more than a little.

"I thought there was a parade happening," Neviah murmurs to herself as she slips into the temple with the others. It occurs to her quickly that the parade isn't now, but these are the people behind it nevertheless.

Neviah's brain is not working at full speed today. Forgive her.

Something comes zipping in, and Neviah gasps. "Oh no, a heavily-laden swallow!" she exclaims.

    Kanna glances between Joanna and Lether for a moment, before giving a tentative, hesitant sort of nod. "...alright, if you guys say so. This sword was given to me by my goddess, so I ain't keen to hand it off." It looks like she's fine with accepting that, and makes no more comment on the matter... though she does stick a little closer to Dante.

    And then they arrive at the temple, and a clockwork bird swoops down out of the sky. In the blink of an eye, the redheaded ronin is skidding back a few feet and dropping into a ready posture, hand hovering over the grip of her sword in readiness. Of course, that thing isn't aimed at her, but she's still getting ready to deal with an unexpected attack, just in case.

    Dante gives Lether a look, "I'm half-demon, genius. I'd probably get set ablaze for not being 'logical' or whatever." He points out, hanging close to Kanna. "I'll tell you later." The cambion asides. It's a very long and messy story. He follows besides Kanna, and motions for the guitar case when he notices the swallow. "African or European?" He asks Neviah without missing a beat.

The combination of a mysterious figure from a high vantage point and a small object 'thrown' from it was more than enough to set Joanna on alert. She didn't draw her weapon, though her instincts screamed at her to do so, but she was still not exactly too keen on getting close to that drone. It *vwipped* overhead, Joanna's reflexes quick enough to avoid the worst but the metal bird still knocking her baseball cap askew. 

 "Give that thing some distance, just to be safe." 

 Joanna made sure to take a good few steps away from it, its potential in her mind of carrying a grenade overriding her want to poke it with a stick. Still, she looked up to the thing on the roof either way. 

 "Your thing broke."

    Lether sticks her tongue out at Dante. "Don't call me a genius, dipshit." She says with a... Surprisingly good natured laugh.
    But then... AN UNLADEN SPARROW.
    But Joanna manages to avoid the worst of the impact, it... It still breaks; the mechanical sparrow buzzing and twitching almost sadly with whir of tiny gears and clockwork before it ceases to function. By the time everyone looks up, the figure on the roof is gone.
    "... Weird." Lether comments but leads the way inside. "The parades in the autumn season," Sas a woman who approaches the group when she overhears Neviah.
    "My name is Valetta, I am an acolyte here." Says the bronze-scaled dragonborn woman with a bow. 
    "How may I be of service?"
    "We had some questions about the nimblewrights here," Lether says.
    "Oh?"
    Now is probably the best time for questions as she starts leading the party further in.

"Metal!" Neviah answers Dante briskly.

She looks up to the roof again, but is soon enough distracted by the nice dragon-lady. For now, she lets others take the lead on asking questions. She was a little distracted when the fireball had gone off, after all.

    The steampunk sparrow seems to target Joanna, but ends up being... mostly easily evaded. On seeing that, Kanna stands herself back up, relaxing her stance and absently resting an arm on the sword at her left hip. "Crimson Wind," she offers in reply. "I'm, uh... I guess I'm kind of an acolyte of another goddess. Sorta. It's complicated." She shrugs, but shifts her weight to a more relaxed posture in the process. "I'm still kinda new to this whole group, so I ain't got any questions to offer."

Joanna took a moment to adjust her hat. Her ears had stopped it from flying off of her head, but it had been sitting on it at a funny angle either way. "Anyone get a good look at that guy on the roof? Sun was in my eyes." She still wasn't keen on the idea of poking the bird-drone with a stick, but all the same she gave it a decent lookover, at least, from a distance she figured would be safe enough. "Mechanical bird. Mechanical people. And a guy on the roof doing a vanishing act." 

 She took a picture of it on her phone. Click. 

 "Say, Valetta, wasn't it?" She jogged a few paces to catch up with Lether and the rest of the group that had gone ahead. "Joanna. Do you recognise this? Small mechanical bird, nearly hit me in the face on the way in." Phone screen show!

    Valetta is more than happy to start showing the group around the temple.
    "Oh? What kind of goddess?" She asks Kanna earnestly. But then Joanna catches up and shows her the phone picture of the metal sparrow.
    The dragonorn woman clicks her teeth and sighs. "That Nim..." She huffs. "Building things again. Well... I am sorry for that. We have been trying to keep it under control but it does get so bored." This is where Lether interrupts her.
    "A while back a figure similar to a nimblewright was seen in Trollskull Alley. There was kind of... A bad accident."
    "Oh goodness. We only currently habe Nim here at the moment, it was gifted to us by a wizard from far off. But I suppose if you'd like to see it..."
    She leads the way up to a higher floor of the temple and pauses at a door.
    "... This lock wasn't here before." She says when she tries the door and finds it locked.
    Lether blinks sideways as the woman knocks.
    "Nim? Nim open up please."
    Lether gestures a 'should I pick the lock?' motion at the group. Or maybe someone else can figure out how to get in or reach out to the being inside.

Sliding a notepad out from her draperies, Neviah begins taking notes as Valetta explains things. She jots a few things down, as if collecting what information she can about a slice of Faerunian history that seems like it's partially been preserved.

There is, however, a door.

Neviah blinks once. Blinks twice. Then sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger.

"Lether, I think you might be uniquely qualified for this."

"So, who or what is this Nim?" Joanna stopped herself from pushing any harder or inquiring if terrorism was included in its hobbies beyond games of mechanical angry birds. She wanted another smoke, her fingers drumming slightly on the pack of cigs in her pocket. 

 "Depends on if it's going to get us in trouble."

    Dante inspects the sparrow, picking it up and looking confused. "Metal? What, are we up against Skynet now?" He says before following after Joanna, bird in hand as he fought the urge to make a joke about bushes.

    At the door, Dante shrugs helplessly toward Lether. "I dunno, this is your wheelhouse."

    Someone is actually asking about her goddess. Kanna's expression goes from her usual, casual demeanor to something a little more formal - including her word choice. "The Goddess of Just War, Kaminagi-no-Tachi Kiri-no-Musume. Kaminagi for short. I'm not the most religious person, but She..." The redhead trails off for a moment, as if deciding how to word things. "...She gave me what I needed, when I needed it."

    Eventually, they discover that there is a lock in their path, and Lether gives them a look that seeks some kind of answer. The crimson-haired ronin just shrugs a little; Neviah's words are pretty much exactly what she was thinking. Her own solution would just be to break open the door anyway.

    "Considering the circumstances..." Valetta considers. "This lock is new and was put here without anyone's permission. Which means Nim has likely been very bad,"
    As soon as she says this something rattles on the other side of the door like it was trying to hastily hide in the room beyond.
    Lether sighs and picks the lock. While she works on that Valetta speaks some more.
    "Nim is our nimblewright. It likes to build things- like the sparrow." She says before smiling a bit.
    "Sometimes the divines give us what we need, when we need it. Like your lockpicking friend in this case."
    The lock pops. The door opens.
    It's a messy workshop of metal bits and bobs and...
    A brass humanoid figure-- which can be recognized as the figure from the roof is trying to hide in a pile of metal with its butt sticking out.
    "We can see you." Lether points out- which makes it jump and... It begins to gesture with its hands.
    It's not Lether's sign language. Which means.
    "Ah. Nim will answer your questions. ... You aren't here to hurt it, right?"
    A pause.
    "What is Skynet?" Valetta does ask though.

"Yeah, it does seem odd for a lock to just show up. I guess that's someone being silly," Neviah concedes, folding her arms beneath her chest and crossing one ankle in freont of the other.

Lether, of course, is a clever gator. The door pops open -

Neviah's eyebrows go up. "We are not, in fact, going to hurt you," she assures with a shake of her head and a smile she doesn't really feel. "But we do have some questions for you. Something about a little incident near Trollskull Manor?"

She opens the floor to Dante and Kanna.

    Kanna, as it turns out, has only one particular question. "...I dunno. What's Skynet?" she asks, looking between Dante and Lether.

    Dante places his face in his hand. "I'll tell you guys later."

    "The hell IS Skyne--..." No that can come later, Lether rubs her face as she looks to Nim.
    "Why'd you fireball Trollskull Manor?"
    This prompts Nim to jump and gesture frantically. ... And Valetta frowns DEEPLY.
    "Nim says it didn't do that. ... But that it built ANOTHER nimblewright because it was lonely and that one ran away." She huffs. "Alright. No more building things for you." She decides and the poor thing looks absolutely aghast and dejected as it reaches into a pile of scrap and produces a brass tube with an umbrella-like contraption atop it and gestures some more.
    "... It says this will help you find the other nimblewright you're looking for." Valetta sighs.

    Oh, so Dante does know. Kanna gives him a look somewhere between curious and suspicious, but then turns back to Lether, Nim and Valetta, and crosses her arms. So Nim didn't do it, but it built the being that did. While it offers up a means to help track the wayward nimblewright, the swordswoman frowns, lowering her head slightly in consideration. "...so if you're intelligent, and the one you built is intelligent too, that would make it like your kid, wouldn't it? Sounds like you got some responsibility in this mess. Anything else you can offer us, beyond just having us find and deal with the problem child for you?"

Neviah blinks once. Then blinks twice. "You built /more/ of yourself?" she echoes.

She pushes one hand through her waves of dark hair and breathes a low sigh. "I suppose that's the best outcome we could hope for, then. If anyone knows how to find it, it's the culprit's creator."

    "Looks like it built a kid and that kid became our problem." Lether grumbles at Kanna's assessment. Nim sags when Kanna puts it that way though, and shakes its head slowly. The locator device is the best it has.
    Especially as Valetta leaves the room and returns with several other acolytes that begin stripping the room of tools that it could use to build anything new.
    "I kinda feel bad for it, but it made things a huge headache." Lether mutters before shrugging. Well. we'll have to start canvassing the city with that doohickey."