World Tree MUSH

A crime wave is afoot in the old town of Anchordeep.

The oldest part of the city shows its wear and tear - a solidly medieval place that looks like it's been aging away for centuries or more, its urban landscape interrupted by occasional buildings that stand out in how obviously new they are compared to their surroundings. As time and the World Tree have acted upon the city, new urban development has filled in gaps that have formed as buildings have been torn down or collapsed.

Here, in the wee hours of night, one of those buildings has been roped off - or rather, what remains of one of those buildings. Blackened timbers still smoulder subtly amidst a heap of rubble and ash. At this time of night, no one else has thought to linger at a crime scene - and yet, there's Neviah, a cloak pulled over her adventuring gear, hood pushed back to let her curls free as she looks over the wreckage.

"This is the third arson in as many nights," she explains as she moves along the rope line separating the rubble from the street. "They have been oddly contained. This building went up in flames very quickly, yet there was virtually no damage done to the surrounding buildings. That should be unheard of, especially with so much wood around here."

Neviah knits her brows. "There's one more thing that bothers me. All of the buildings have been constructed in the past fifty years. None of the oldest buildings have been touched."

    CRIME IS AFOOT.
    Lether is... Well. She kind of doesn't care until Neviah starts showing that she cares. So she's here too, wearing a thick hoodie under her armored and studded leather jacket, the hood pulled up over her head to hide her features from passersby as she stuffs her hands in her pockets.
    "Three in three nights huh?" She mutters, pursing her lips.
    "So what exactly are we supposed to do about it? We're not the Guard." She does point out. Even if the Guard haven't been able to find the culprit.

    "Always comes in threes." says Dante, hands tucked in his pockets while following Neviah. Old Town's name is well earned, Dante is pretty sure a sneeze could knock down some of these buildings even if they weren't torched by mysterious criminals. Dante keeps his sword in the ol' guitar case, content to pass as a wandering minstrel of some kind rather than be openly armed per Neviah's preferences.

    He knocks aside some rubble with the ease of pushing curtains away, inspecting the crime scene with carefree manners that'd make any trained cop wince. "Gotta do our civic duty, L'il Crocky." He says to Lether. "So I guess we're gonna do our good deed and sleuth."

    "This's real suspicious, yeah," Kanna replies, frowning at the blackened remains of the building. The swordswoman has her arms crossed, following along with Neviah; she's been hanging around the city recently, more or less using Trollskull as a base of operations, so it's been pretty easy to get ahold of her for a job - especially when she kind of lives paycheck to paycheck as an adventurer. "Especially when it oughta be the other way around. Older buildings go up like dry grass while the newer ones are more likely to survive."

    She glances up at Neviah briefly, then back at the ruin. "You think maybe someone's putting up wards, stop the spread? Or maybe just being real careful about how they set the fire to begin with?"

"I'm not sure," Neviah admits with a look down at Lether. "I have an odd feeling, though. A normal fire would jump to adjacent buildings and spread out of control. The fact that it's so oddly controlled, and so targeted...." Trailing off, she looks down the street as if searching for a thought that has somehow slipped away into the night.

"...I think there is definitely magic at work," she finally finishes the sentence with a nod towards Kanna. "What is bothering me is /why./ It's almost as if they are trying to send the city back in time."

The professor looks back down the road, then finally nods firmly. "It is as Dante says. We'll walk the Old Town for a little while and see what there is to see." Starting forward, she gestures to the group before pulling her cloak around her.

Even in the dark, it's clear that the situation gnaws at her. She looks up at the street periodically, but she's otherwise half-lost in thought.

    Kanna nods her head faintly, then unfolds her arms, letting one arm rest on Shinsatsufuu's sheath. However, when Neviah mentions walking the town, the red-haired ronin glances upward, then asks, "Want me to go rooftops and follow along? I can see what I spot from up there."

    "I'll go with her." Dante offers, following Neviah. "Could use a little time up and about."

    "Magic." Lether mutters, tugging her hands out of her pockets.
    "Well I got nothing." She's a sneak and a thief, her knowledge of magic is that Neviah casts the spells that make people fall down. ... Ot get back up if she's healing them.
    "Aite." She says. "While you two play on the rooftops I'll stick with Neviah."
    And protect her.
    By way of stabbing anyone who might threaten her.

Neviah nods back at Kanna and Dante. "That would be helpful. If you see anything, let us know."

The streets are quiet tonight. An occasional night watchman ambles past, but most of the city sleeps. Fifteen minutes pass, then thirty.

Keeping to the lower level, Neviah stops at a street corner and takes stock of what's around her. With a low sigh, she looks down towards Lether. "Perhaps this is a waste of time after all," she murmurs.

Dante and Kanna are high enough up to notice that it is not. A couple of streets over, there is a flicker of orange light, then another, as smoke begins to waft from the windows of a three-storey tenement building.

    Kanna glances Dante's way, then back at Neviah; when she gives the go-ahead, she turns and gives Dante a brief nod... then just runs straight up the nearest building's face. She's careful to stay in sight of Neviah and Lether, walking along the edge of the roof at a steady pace. Her eyes are drifting between the skyline and the street below, so it takes her a second to catch sight of the orange light. But when she does, there's a brief grimace.

    Quickly, the Crimson Wind brings fingers up to her lips, then whistles out a quick double note. As soon as Neviah or Lether looks up, she points in the direction of the fire and yells down, "Got one!"

    Then, she leaps across the street and goes building-hopping straight towards the fire.

    Dante zooms up the side of a building faster than you can say 'Say less', using a mix of parkour skills and superhuman agility before he takes to the roof. By the time he gets up there, Kanna's pointed out the next fire. He follows after Kanna, rushing and diving over gaps between buildings with ease.

    "Quiet night." Lether comments mildly, blowing a soft breath through her razor sharp teeth.
    "Neviah, I've been thinking..." She starts to mumble, before-...
    'Got one!'
    "You know what, maybe later." She ultimately decides as she starts moving to hustle and follow Kanna and Dante's leaping silhouettes.

"Hm?" Neviah looks down at Lether with a tilt of her head.

But then Kanna calls down. Neviah starts with a quick hiss of breath, looking off in the direction she's pointing. Her eyes grow wide. "Come on," she urges Lether before breaking into a run. By now, the fire is beginning to spread, licking out of windows and crawling up the outer walls of the structure - and yet it goes no further. To either side of the tenement are old, battered-looking buildings that look like they've been standing since time immemorial. Dante and Kanna can see it first; Lether and Neviah will notice only when they turn onto the street and approach the building.

The smoke and flames move as if they're somehow /confined/ to a rectangular chimney. They fill it up, swelling through the building and blooming into the sky. Yet they go no further. Neviah screeches to a halt a few buildings away, looking on with her mouth open. "What on Earth--"

    You know. That's pretty odd.
    See Lether doesn't know much but she knows that fire tends to spread. Not remain stuck in a 'single building chimney formation' like that.
    "... So that's happening." The 'gator girl says.
    She's not a member of the fire suppression force, she can't do much about it but...
    Suddenly her eyes dart to something in a nearby alley.
    "No words, Lether just turns on her heels and sprints into the darkness.
    Her hand is already stuffing into her jacket for one of her magical daggers.
    There's no way what she saw can JUST be a coincidence. She moves fast. She moves silent.
    She moves to catch up to the unnaturally moving hooded figure trying to slink away.

    It's so obvious that for a few seconds Kanna can't believe what she's seeing. And it shows in her face. But she doesn't even slow down; the building is on fire, and for all she knows people might be inside. So without hesitation, the swift swordswoman leaps down from the rooftops and dashes for the front door of the building - and if it's not open, she'll just cut right through it to get inside.

>> SUMMARY[Kanna Ouji] >> Mortal peril and lives to save? Sign me right up.

    Dante doesn't need much convincing. He rushes towards the fiery scene and drops to the ground, and into the building itself. He uses a shouldercharge to burst through a door, "We're here to help!" He calls out to whoever's inside.

From closer in, what looked like a tenement from afar seems to have been at least partially in use as commercial offices; there's even a lawyer's sign hanging from an upper-floor window. Kanna and Dante rush inside just in time to find a panicked middle-aged man trying to rush to safety with a cat in his arms. A quick survey will reveal that he was the only one in there.

Neviah, left behind outside, looks after Lether with a gasp. She spotted the fleeing figure too. "Be careful!" she calls before whirling towards the building. Without thinking, she levels her hands and utters a few words of power, attempting to draw out the power of a rainstorm and douse the flames.

There is no surge of magic. Nothing happens. Neviah blinks a couple of times before looking down at her hands.

Lether bounds after the hooded figure. The assailant seems to know they're being followed; their pace picks up as they glide down the alley, turning into a street beyond, then down another laneway. Even from behind and through the cloak, though, Lether can tell something is off. There's a natural motion of the body that comes with running - the way the head moves, the shoulders and legs pump, the way clothing flows around the limbs.

This is different. The figure almost seems to /creep/ at the speed of a fast runner. There are no footprints left in the dust - only odd scraping patterns.

    Kanna doesn't spend long in the building. She's fast, and between her and Dante, they can easily suss out that only the one man was present. So soon enough, she meets back up with the Son of Sparda, and offers a simple, "Gonna head outside. See if I can find what's containing this."

    And that's exactly what she does. In a blur of red and white, the girl darts outside, and begins dashing in an orbit around the building, slowly working her way up from street level, looking for any signs of objects or glyphs or other 'anchors' that could serve to keep the fire contained to that one building.

    This guy's fast... Putting on speed but moving so... Strangely.
    It's odd. Lether doesn't like it. And while Dante and Kanna burst into the building and Neviah tries to call on her god...
    Lether puts on SPEED.
    Breaking into a full-tilt sprint, she clenches her teeth as her arms pump, crocodilian tail lashing behind her as she moves to intercept the hooded figure.
    "Get BACK here." Snapped irritably.

    Dante nods, "Don't stay outside, curfew's at 11." He says dryly, before he goes to rush the old man to safety. "C'mon, you and Mr. Whiskers need to get the hell outta here!" He says, ushering the two outside.

    "You got an idea what caused this, gramps?"

Calling upon her god didn't work out as well as Neviah had hoped. "Damn it all," she hisses, fumbling into her cloak for the pistol she used to carry on a day-to-day basis. There's more than frustration gnawing at her. There's something more to it.

Kanna, at least, can feel that there's not so much a ward as there is a specific /scope/ to the spell. Whoever woved it /intended/ for it to affect one building and one building only. The energy driving the flame is intensely focused and controlled, like someone has erected an invisible smokestack around the building.

With Kanna and Dante seemingly affirming that the building is clear, Neviah calls up, "I'm going to try and keep up with Lether!" She whirls and takes off after the little lizardgirl. She's a ways behind her; it's going to take her some doing to catch up with someone so small and fast.

Sprinting down the alley, she is just in time to see Lether sprint and lunge. The little rogue zips, moves, leaps --

The cloaked figure suddenly /curves./ It is a deeply, /bizarrely/ unnatural curve. The entire middle of its body simply swings to one side in a perfect arc, its upper half bent almost ninety degrees to one side and extended upwards. Where a body might otherwise have stopped her, Lether goes soaring through the now-empty space like a show dog through a stunt ring.

Once Lether's whisked by, the figure snaps back like a rubber band and seems to twist around. Its upper half cranks, looking back, the hood turning to spot Neviah. Picking up speed, it jukes down another alley, vanishing into what looks like a dilapidated shed.

    No wards, no anchoring objects, not even a scroll... but something is nagging at Kanna. A vague sense in the back of her mind. Something that feels familiar in a way she can't quite put her finger on. Almost like...

    Seconds after Neviah goes sprinting off, she's joined by the Crimson Wind, running in a way fit to keep pace. "Whatever's containing the fires is divine. A god, or someone borrowing a god's powers. Don't ask how I know." A faint grimace. "Not something I want to explain right now. But my instincts are telling me it's divine."

    Lether lunges and---...
    PEOPLE DON'T JUST SUDDENLY TURN LIKE THAT WITH THAT MOMENTUM!
    She's no physicist but she understands as she leaps through empty air...
    "Motherfu--"
    Lether's thoughts and curse are interrupted as she tumbles into a pile of trashbags with a crash.
    It is a very cranky looking 'gator girl that picks herself up from the trash heap with a bellowing grumbly-rumble.
    "Where'd he go?" She asks. Neviah saw where he went right?
    Right?

    Rushing off after Neviah and Lether, Dante sees the mysterious figure curve like some kind of cartoon character and disappear. He skids to a stop and draws both pistols. "Anybody else see that guy /bend/?" He spies the direction of the shed and begins to approach that way. "Get the feelin' he went that way."

Neviah purses her lips as she throws herself around the corner, just in time for Kanna to catch up and dump the bad news on her. "Something feels wrong," she manages between breaths as she sprints to try and gain ground on Lether. The hooded figure's looparound at least bought them some time. That moment of evasion helped the others get the steps they needed to rejoin the little lizardgirl.

As Dante catches up, Neviah checks her pistol, then looks down the alley with a frown. "...I think right, yes," she confirms, breaking into a run once more.

The alley is narrow, but the group isn't attacked as they turn to the right and approach the old shed. The scraping patterns in the dust are still there. Neviah looks down at them with a bitten lip. "I do not like this," she murmurs as she readies her gun. Setting her shoulder to the door, she pushes through and levels the weapon.

The inside of the building is long, and there's an odd scent of sulphur in the air. A side door has been propped partway open. A pair of figures can be seen standing near it. One of them is facing away from the group, a human shape in loose pants and with flowing black hair with a subtle blue gloss to it.

The other figure is sliding open the very cloak Lether saw earlier. It is obvious immediately why the person moved like that. Its shoulders and arms are perfectly normal. Everything below /that/ is the long, winding body of a great snake. The figure's head, turning towards the arriving group, is equally serpentine, long and blunt-snouted and with slit yellow eyes.

    "I saw it." Lether grouses at Dante. She saw that swerve all too well as she pulls a banana peel out of her hair with a disgusted growl. But she slows her pace as she starts quietly hustling to the shed.
    She gestures for the shed and Signs at Kanna, Dante, and Neviah.
    'I see two'. "..." ... ... 'one is a snake.'
    She looks like she can't believe she just Signed that. But she did, before she BUSTS INTO THE SHED.
    No words. She hurls a dagger at the snake-thing before lunging at it, jaws wide to try and clamp down on something with bone-breaking force.

    Dante kicks the door down with the subtlety of a bomb going off, "FREEZE! CITIZEN'S ARREST!"

    Before anybody can question whether Dante has citizenship here or not, he's opening fire on the humanoid fire with a barrage of gunfire. "Dance, DANCE!" He aims deliberately at the cloaked man's feet, intenting to get him to surrender by threat of bullets to the feet. The snake, Lether can handle fine. Deathroll her, L'il Crocky. Do it.

    Rejoining Lether is easy enough for someone as swift as Kanna, but for once, she's not rushing ahead; she sticks with Neviah until they all catch up, and only when they move to enter the building does the girl start to move up. She's getting into the shed about the time Lether goes lunging in teeth-first - and opts to follow up Dante's gunfire by lunging in towards the humanoid figure as well, blade sliding free of its sheath. She won't cut down whoever it is... but hey, assuming they don't move, a blade at their throat won't hurt them much.

'one is a snake'

Neviah bites her lower lip, hard - and then Lether is off, and so is Kanna. "No, don't!" she shouts, reaching after her. It's too late. Both of them are hurtling in.

The other figure snaps its right arm up without looking. There is a surge of magic -

-and Lether and Kanna's leaps are suddenly cut off as slashes of energy suddenly come dancing out of the walls and ceiling to intercept both. It would take superhuman speed to avoid harm. They form a wall of magical blades that cuts the room in half, and even slipping through them without harm will mean redirecting one's leap away from the duo. Dante's shots vanish into a couple more coiling blades of light. The bullets fall to the ground in two halves.

The other figure turns partially to give the group a look. Where the first shape is just blatantly a snake, the second man is humanoid in frame but snakelike in aspect: Pale blue skin with a distinct scale pattern and angular, serpentine eyes defining an otherwise humanoid frame. The Yuan-ti snorts towards Lether before giving Neviah a flat look.

"Rot to the World Tree." The voice is low, sibilant, but distinctly /certain./ "Faerun will be Lord Zehir's."

The blade wall continues to dance between the pair of Yuan-ti as they head for the open door. Neviah just stands there with her mouth open and her face draining of colour.

    Oh they're both snakes. Dante ducks and dives to avoid the blades, running and leaping off the wall in a backflip and pirouette through the air. "Woo!" It's been a while since he got the do some acrobatic gun fu, and Dante jumps at the chance. He opens fire on the other Yuan-Ti again, while he aims at the snake-man's tail.

    "Gonna make some nice new boots outta you when we're through!"

    Suddenly. Blades.
    So many magical blades filling the room, interrupting Lether's taste for blood.
    To the lizard-girl... Time slows. Her pupils dilate as she registers the danger and her reflexes kick in.
    Twisting bodily in the air she hits the ground instead of her intended bit victim and starts rolling, tumbling, swerving, and skittering on the floor to not get hacked apart, before she comes tumble-rolling back out of the shed to land at Neviah's feet, clothes shredded but not a single drop of blood on her.
    "CRIPES." She says sagaciously to the fact that she was almost shredded to lizard ribbons.
    Her hands are trembling as the adrenaline starts to fade.
    Huff.
    She's okay.
    She's okay.
    ... She's okay.
    She'll need to repair her jacket, but she's okay.

>> GAME >> Lether spends an Edge for: Uncanny Dodge

>> GAME >> Dante spends an Edge for: TRICKSTER dodging through the blades! Though Dante's coat may be ruined after this.

    A blur of red and white hurtles across the room. The world seems in slow motion to the samurai. Calm, steady focus reigns in the redhead's mind as she hurtles towards her target, prepared for counterattack but assured of her own speed, of the fact that she can react to just about anything they can throw at her.

    Crimson eyes go wide. A swordswoman whips her blade up, parrying off a wall of energy slashes in a split-second effort to push herself back and out of immediate danger. Her geta skid across the floor as she's driven back, and when she comes to a stop, after half a heartbeat, blood begins to trickle down from a shallow slash on her left forearm, and another on her right cheek. For a second or so, she stands with her blade in a guarded stance, expression wide-awake, alert.

    Then a little grin tugs at the corners of her lips. "Well... ain't that interesting." She lowers her guard briefly, then whips her sword around herself, returns it to its sheath, and murmurs a soft, "...let's go, Shinsatsufuu."

    And then in the space of a heartbeat, she surges forward. The air itself ripples around her, dust disturbed by the flow of divine wind. Her movement surges to its full speed, her grip tense on a blade that simmers with divinity. A dash becomes a step becomes a strike, as Kanna puts her full strength and speed into the fastest and most powerful iai she can muster - and as the blade swings, she releases a 'blade' of wind as well, effectively hitting the wall of swords with two invisibly fast divine slices at once. "TEYAAAAAH!"

    Even if the wall of swords survives, this might not be so great for the structure around it.

Neviah cannot rule-of-cool like Dante can.

The blades aren't about to take no for an answer. Both Lether and Dante make it through without dying. The lizardgirl's biggest success is landing without getting butchered. Dante even manages to get a bullet through to the more serpentine of the pair of Yuan-ti. It hits the very tip of the snake-man's tail. The arsonist hisses and recoils through the open door, uttering something sharp and vituperous in some sibilant language that nevertheless comes off as an obvious curse word.

The more humanoid figure steals a look back and gives Dante a look with eyelids slightly lowered, then points at him with a claw-tipped finger. He drags his thumb meaningfully across his throat. Then he slips out the door and slams it shut behind him, leaving the blade wall to whirl menacingly between the group and the escape route.

Kanna does her very best to break down the wall. There is a tremendous crash as the blade of wind collides with the whirling magic barrier... and yet, somehow, the blade wall /bears it./ The energy arcs concentrate, welling beneath the precise spots where Kanna's slashes are making impact. The entire shed shudders and groans beneath the force of the blasts as the strikes strain against an extraordinarily powerful magic.

Finally, there is a loud *SNAP* sound that reverberates through the shed. The blade barrier ripples and dissolves into gleams of light that soon fade away. Yet it held long enough to do its job. The pair of Yuan-ti are gone.

For her part, Neviah immediately reached down to hold her arms around Lether, checking her over for injuries - but she can't help looking after the pair of snake-men. She didn't come close to the blades, yet her hands are shaking every bit as much as Lether's.

"The Cult of Rot," she murmurs. "They want to... somehow kill the World Tree and restore what's left of Faerun. Of my world. That's why they're burning down all these new buildings. They're trying to take anything out of Waterdeep that came from another world."

She swallows and looks away. "...This is my fault. I should never have told them."

    Dante notices pieces of his coat are left on the ground, and he's cut up pretty badly in places, wounds forming on his body. He does however appear just fine, as he mourns the fate of his coat more than any injuries while those slowly heal. The yuan-ti however gets a glare from Dante, and a smirk. "Looking forward to it." He says mockingly.

    After all is said and done, Dante claps Kanna's shoulder and he gives Neviah a look, "How do you kow these guys, exactly?" He asks.

    Fault or not, it's Neviah's mistake to undo. And she won't do that alone whether she wants the help or not.

    Lether is still panting, heart still pounding as she shifts awkwardly for a beat. But no sooner than Neviah's arms go around her she is CLINGING to the woman.
    Lether can't remember the last time she had come close to being butchered alive.
    "Y-yeah well rot them." She spits in regards to the Cult of Rot.

    In the wake of that strike, Kanna remains crouched in followthrough stance, blade above and behind her in her right hand, her left clamped on the sheath at her hip. But the enemy is gone. That actually puts a sour look on the redhead's face for a second or two. She's already mentally cursing herself a little. She could have just gone through, could have leveraged her speed to find a gap... but in that moment, all she could think about was the challenge. Hell, she's still a little fired up, that's why she's so disappointed they're gone.

    The girl finally relaxes her stance, and returns Shinsatsufuu to its sheath just as Dante is clapping her on the shoulder. Dante asks the question she would, though; so she just rests her arm on her weapon's scabbard, and watches Neviah with interest while waiting for the reply.

"They helped me when I was in trouble with Cambridge," Neviah admits as she slides her arms around Lether, pulling the little lizardgirl into her and enclosing her like a bird cradling her chick. "At the time, they said they were studying Faerun too... trying to learn more about it. And at the time, I was so angry at everything that I hated the World Tree too. But I haven't heard from them for at least a year, and...."

She trails off. Looking down to Lether, she purses her lips firmly.

"That one with the long hair. The man," she says, voice softer, but more pinched. "He's a Priest of Zehir. The same god my magic comes from.

"And it's because of me and what I did back then that they were able to know Zehir at all."

    Slowly, finally, Lether calms.
    By degrees things begin to sink in.
    "Wait... You share a god with those guys? Because of stuff you did?" She's trying to parse this.
    "... But you don't want everything to rot and die now, right?"
    Right?
    "Right...?"

    Dante doesn't say anything, for once. He just reaches out and gives Neviah a hand on her shoulder. "Then we make this right." He says, firmly. "Together."

    "So you're taking the blame, huh..."

    Kanna crosses her arms again, eyes closed, and starts to idly walk. "Can't say I know you well enough to know how much you should actually blame yourself, but it sounds like you ain't fond of the direction they're taking things. And at the very least, you better not blame yourself for the choices other folks make. Whether they did this stuff with your help or someone else's, it's still something they wanted to do, right? They would've found a way to do it with or without you."

    Opening her eyes, the redhead plants her hands on her hip. "But sure, whatever. If you feel responsible for what they're doing and you want to kick their asses, I'm in. I love a good fight, even more if it's for a good cause. And..." She rests her left hand on the pommel of her sword. "There's a reason this sword's called 'God-Killing Wind'."

Neviah looks down at Lether, then towards the door. Her teeth close around her lower lip.

"...I used to," she admits, voice quieter. "But I don't anymore. I think I've... I think I've found things that I'd rather live for."

When Dante claps her on the shoulder, she squeezes her eyes closed and bows her head once again. Her curls drape down around Lether like a set of drapes. "I tried to draw on the magic to put out the fire. It didn't come," she admits. "It hasn't come the last few times. I know Zehir has expected me to be heartless, and to destroy things that stand in my way. But I can't do it. I just can't."

    Neviah has found something to live for...
    What could that be?
    Well whatever it is, Lether quietly slides a hand into the cleric's palm and squeezes.
    " 's fine. We'll just stab those Zehir guys until they give up."

    Dante nods. "Like it or not, we're still gonna help you. If nothing else, we can still kick their asses."