World Tree MUSH

    The radio broadcast was tricky to nail down, as not everybody heard it and it wasn't blasted across all frequencies. But tonight, after midnight had tolled, at 12:13am, the strange broadcast cued in for a number of people.
    "And I heard- as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying 'Come and see.' And I saw. And behold- a pale horse." Then the music begins, with vocals and guitar work. A ghostly version of 'When the Man Comes Around', just like the rumors said.
    When the people who heard the opening shots in the broadcast finally do track it down, it seems that it is coming from a condemned tenament in the older part of San Jose. If they listen carefully enough, they can hear the faint sound of somebody talking, matching the host on the radio.
    "This is Radio Free Valis, coming to you from somewhere in the city of San Jose. Tonight's program is action-packed, with heroes and villains and feats of daring-do."

    After having tracked down the sound -- perhaps faster than anyone else arriving -- Dolce found a nice ledge at the top of the tenament building, and sat there up on the roof. She gently sways in place, humming the tune of When the Man Comes Around even after the music has stopped. Her flowing black clothing rustles in the wind, darkness shadowing her presence somewhat. It'd be easiest to locate her by the strange warble of her voice, always sounding a bit wrong or corrupted, even compared to the broadcast.

    The strange magical monster doesn't seem in a violent mood today. She just sits and waits to see what happens, like a spectator.

Anna and Spiral are on the case; Anna's only using a weaker form of her Windrunner so that she doesn't glow brightly, so she glides to the foot of the building only at only half of her ridiculous speed. Spiral is perched on her shoulder; each of them is wearing a headset over one ear, and Spiral is holding up an antenna in her paws.

"Action-packed, huh?" Spiral mutters. "That doesn't sound ominous!"

"Yeah," says Anna. "Five'll get you ten they're talking about us and whoever else comes to investigate! Oh, hello ..." She looks cautiously up at Dolce.

Spiral looks up as well. "... That is also ominous!"

"Ordis?" Ash perkedat the wayward transmission, sitting up from where he had been puzzling over his next move in Othello. The gridboard of red and white stones sat forgotten as the vaguely ominous transmission continued and Ash went to check navigation. It seemed he and Ordis both had drifted through several vines.

"Checks against end-times prophecies of a local relegious text." Ordis's voice was calm as the cephelon continued tracing the signal as de-tuned notes of Johnny Cash played. "Second part seems to be a folk singer of local fame. Signal source from an abandoned bilding."

Ash nodded as he settled into the transferrence chair at the back of the orbiter's habitable compartment, "Call local authorities and relay what information you can, see if they can set up blockades while I go in sniff around." Ash's warframe lit up as it walked towards the dropship portion of the orbiter, "Better me risk my neck than locals if it's another doomsday cult."

"Notifications being sent... Good luck Operator."

* * * 

Ash would drop from the landing craft a dozen meters above the ground, landing feet first in a crouched landing before doublechecking his weapons. He spotted Anna and though neither her nor Spiral could see the smile, Spiral might feel the bit of positive emotion associated with the action. His reaction to Dolce was... less enthusiastic as he finished checking his throwing knives, "I hope you're not here to drive us all deaf again. You arne't related to this whatever over there," A vague gesture with his warframe's left hand to the abandoned building, "Are you?"

    Dolce doesn't answer Ash verbally. She simply raises her hand and points down at the building she's seated on, and giggles aloud. She waves to Anna and Spiral, too, enthused by the way they seem so intimidated by her just singing to herself.

Strange messages only transmitting at a certain time frame? Usually that's some manner of code or covert signal. Which means secrets. Which means either wealth, or something that could be used as leverage.
At least that's a pirate's way of thinking on the matter.

Such pirates have now sailed in over San Jose. No, you read that right. Over. A raider ship suspended beneath zepplin sailed the dark sky above the city as if itself were a sea. In the midst of the boat a contraption of clockworks and arrays had been hodgepodged together to track the peculiar radio transmission. For the most part it just sounds like a late night talkie of some kind, but that 'heroes and villains' line get Maven and Lindsay to peer at each other for a moment. But it is enough to home in on the vicinity the signal is coming from. "We're almost right atop it, Captain."

Renya leans over the bow railing just enough to peer at the condemned buildings below. "Not the most spectacular of lots is it." But she shrugs, stands, and kicks a lever with one foot. Chains rattle as the blimp-boat's anchor drops to catch near the target building, likely audible as it catchs and/or tears into whatever it snares. "Full stop mates! Let's see what this has brought us to, aye."

    The voice continues. "Do you like pirates? How about ninjas, listeners? We've got both here tonight, along with our usual menagerie of youthful mystics. Tonight they're trying to track down the protagonist of our series here, the voice of Radio Free Valis. Quite a mystery to crack, dear listeners."
    The tenament building is covered in scaffolding, as it is being renovated despite its condemned status. It's only ten stories tall, short compared to the majority of high-rise apartment complexes in San Jose. There's no lights visibly on.
    Elsewhere in San Jose, Aurelia grumbles as she rolls out of bed, pestered by her 'cat'. "Bloody-! It's after midnight! On a school night!" Seems she'll be late to the party.

"The Transmission is changing, attempting to narrow down the source. Be wary of spotters."

"Copy," Ash looked about and shrugged, "So you," He pointed to Renya, "are likely in search of loot, persons, or information." His finger moved to Anna, "You're here because creepy thing in the middle of the night and this is kindof your job," Then a finger at Dolce, "You I hope arne't causing trouble."

"I'll see if there's anything up ahead," Before waiting for objections, protest, or any other plan there was a brief cloud of smoke and Ash was gone. There might be a soft shimmer in the air, or a faint sound of pitter patter, but Ash was now running ahead, hopping up the side of the building looking for any convenient entrances he could exploit.

Anna and Spiral both perk up, the latter more literally than the former. "Oh, hi, Ash!" says Anna. "Uh ..." She frowns as he fires off his rejoinder at Dolce, and tenses up even more.

But not as much as she does when Renya's airship arrives. She knows what that's all about. "Hmm ... wonder what she's here for ..."

"Probably the same as the rest of us," murmurs Spiral. "Except more piratical."

And then she pauses and puts a paw on her headset at that last comment. "... Oh great."

Anna smacks her forehead. "Yep, I was right! And, yeah, not quite my actual job, Ash, but, uh, basically yeah!"

The last few lines from the transmission gets all three of the other crewmembers to stare at the device now. It's suspicious enough that Magnum is actually standing -on- the ship wheel's console to do so and make up for his short stature. "This is sounding more and more like a trap by the moment," he grouses, while Maven pulls a smaller device out of the large one and tosses it to the vixen.

"Aye. It is." Renya isn't oblivious to that. Deterred by it? That's another matter. "But some traps be meant to be sprung!" she quips, then hops over the railing to debark the skyboat and slide down the anchor's chain to get to the ground level. Only to find a few other familiar faces. Sort of. What passes for it in Ash's case. "Well well, if it ain't the space rogue. Fancy crossin' ya path out here." To his accusation she can only hold her hands up and shrug. "No hidin' from ye it seems."

A snap of the wrist flicks open the bonavox device, now modified to track the signal as well as play the transmission. "That fella's just gotta be at the head don't he." But that means less people pointing directly at her, so on we go. The device bleeps, and Renya saunters towards the condemend yet weirdly externally structured building. "Let's not keep our mysterious host waiting."

    The easiest entrance is a broken window. Or the door if one can pick the lock. 
    Anyone who manages to gain access would note the disused look of the place. The hallways of the tenament have peeling wallpaper and dust bunnies big enough to eat knights in plate armor. One should provide their own light, as there aren't any inside. Large footprints indicative of construction workers marr the dust, and there is evidence of some new work going on from the supplies stacked about as well as how some of the rooms on the 1st floor are either in the process of being stripped down or have had materials replaced.
    "Not everybody in this world gets a golden Wonka ticket. Magic's a strange thing and the monsters are real. Regular listeners know all about the likes of the slenderman or the doppelganger. But what you don't hear about are the ordinary folk who get warped by magic. The lost, the damned, the misbegotten..." The radio voice seems to have deviated from a coherent narrative for now.

Ash slid in through a broken window, treading carefully as the smokescreen ended. Rather than recrate the effect Ash instead scanned about looking to see if there wasanything more than just the appearance of a run down broken home. He would kneel at hte footprints in the dust and the new tools. "Ordis you recording this? See if you can get in contact with Renya's... ship..." Ash kept any grumblings over the worthiness of a glorified balloon being called a ship of any sort to himself. She had proven an adaptable able sort. 

"Copy," Ordis would attempt to relay what information he could about hte building's contnets; TLDR was there really wasn't much of value beyond carpentry and construction supplies so far.

The transmission itself was more interesting and curious. "Ordis can you put me on that frequency?" There was a pause and an indicator in Ash's hud winked. "Alright look. It's obvious you want people here for a reason." THere was neither compassion nor anger in Ash's voice. "I'm here. I'm not part of this world's magic cycle, war... or whatever. I'm here simply as a matter of interest." Well that was only half true. Ash was here because the radio voice and source gave the creepy 'cult doing witching hour sacrafices to the dark and forgotten Gods' routine. "I know you lot in the magical side practically thrive on dramatics, but come out with it. You want an audiance and here I am."

He punctuated the statement by intentionally putting boot to a closed door and shoving hard. Given his warframe's strength and mass unless doors in this dimension were built like bank vaults either lock, door, or frame would give in. 

Foolishness? Or was Ash intentionally trying to draw attention to himself and away from everyone else? Maybe both!

Anna considers this, and shrugs. "Fair," she says, and starts to head on after Renya and implicitly Ash.

"Yeah okay," says Spiral. "This is just getting more and more ominous!"

"I wonder what this person has against magic-users," says Anna in a low voice; her androgynous voice sounds even more androgynous when she lowers it. "Or whether they mean 'world' as in 'blossom' or 'world' as in all of them as a whole." She glances down at her brightly-colored magical girl costume. "I mean, you'd have to already have a pretty bad opinion of magic or superheroes if this ridiculous getup gives you a bad first impression --"

Spiral raises a paw as Ash speaks on the radio frequency, and then just ... groans. "He's doing something ridiculously reckless and attention-grabbing, isn't he."

    The pokemon trainer learned of the transmission after his Pangshi (and Dynamo) both started to get attracted to something, trying to pull him towards a particular attention, a cursory check on the radio landing the mysterious transmission mentioning heroes and villains... the fact that police seems to be involved (plus how the ghost panda gets interested) cements his determination to get closer, following them towards the place in question, "Pangshi!, wait, where are you going?" he calls, even as the vampire panda float/wobbles towards the front door of the abandoned looking house.

It's not hard to bridge a signal to the skyboat (Ash is perfectly right in not thinking it as a ship. She left the real airshape somewhere less obvious) which then connects the signal to the device Renya's been using to listen to the radio transmissions while they prowl around the building exterior. Huh. Just makes the location choice all the more odd.

Oh look, there's a door. Renay gives the handle a jostle. "Locked? What kinda bloody poor trap is this? You want people to walk in. I swear." Though even as she's muttering she pulls a small case from her, ahem, 'hiding spot of feminine wiles' and clicks it a few time to deploy the various little dodads and dinglehoppers and gets to work on the lock. Of course she has lockpicks. How else do you get chests of booty open?

After a bit of fiddling, she finishes by giving the door a swift kick with a bootheel to dramatically swing it open after it's unlocked. And equally dramatically pose, holding out the tool like it was some grand artifact. "There be no door nor hatch that can keep Captain Renya Rimehart behest for long!"

    The police presence is pretty minimal. A squad car is sent by and the officers get out at the sight of a zeppelin and some oddballs gathered near the front of the house. "Yeah, this looks like a... Special Cases thing." says the older officer. 
    "Special Cases?"
    "Look, when weird shit happens, we call in a 1313 and let Special Cases deal with it."
    "What if we try to hand-"
    "Last cop I knew that tried to handle a Special Cases thing landed in the morgue looking like he'd been shoved through a garbage disposal. His poor wife..." The older cop shakes her head sadly and tosses the radio microphone at the younger officer. "Call in a 1313."
    The foyer greets Renya, Luke, and Anna. Dust swirls within the faint light of the hazy orange streetlights. Old post-office box type mailboxes are faintly visible, as is the floral linoleum print of the floor.
    As the sounds of "This Ain't No Place For A Hero' finish up, the voice comes on again. "This is... Radio Free Valis. Listeners, we have some noisy guests tonight. Bad-ass door-kicking guests. Please welcome the heroes and villains for tonight. Their hearts are in the right place even! In their chests."
    Ash sees the central room of an abandoned apartment, faded places where the furniture must have been. The kitchen is missing any appliances, removed for the sake of safety.
    The signal is strongest in the basement...

"Operator providing ne wwaypoints." Ordis's voice was calm as Ash swore under his breath. He was supposed to be the speartip to this. Anything happenedit would be to his warframe, and he was most likely to be able to evade. Plus there was who or whatever was on the radio making mockery of him.

As he made his way to the ground floor by varying gymnastics he grunted, "Who said anything about me being a Hero?" Nevermind the fact he wasn't expecting or even wanting to get paid for his services and he had every intent on minamizing the loss of life. He wasn't feelign safe qualifying himself as 'good' or 'heroic.' 

Ah well, he wasn't going to worry over it too much. Especially not when Ordiswas cheerfully relaying the transmission's likely source to Renya and crew.

Nothing but dust and an increasingly annoying radio 'host' tugging at the strings. Renya looks outright disappointed that they're not immeadiately attacked or some lethal contraption sprung on them, ears flicking back a bit as she closes the lockpicker and tucks it back in it's fluffy hiding spot. "Lazy. Bloody lazy. All that build up, and only--"

She stops as the bonavox beeps with more relay from Ordis. "Well, that makes sense at least. This way mateys, we be goin' below decks." Aka the basement, the vixen pirate leading the way as she's guided by Ordis' transmissions. Though she makes a face at 'villains'. "I prefer antagonistic anti-hero thank ye very much!" she huffs. It's not like she's evil! Morale ambiguious and more interested in wealth and fame, sure. But not evil.

Anna glances back at Luke, and smiles and waves over at him. "Hey, Luke!" she says. She just gives Renya a look in response to where she stores her lockpicks, but doesn't comment and just glances at Spiral as the group steps in. "Anything?"

Spiral points her device this way and that. "... Pretty sure it's -- yeah, the basement, like Ordis said," she says. "Guess we have our destination. Also, um, is it really necessary to kick the door like that?"

Anna just cheerfully follows Renya. "I'm definitely a hero, I guess." She doesn't have the slightest problem working with someone like Renya regardless. ... Even though their first meeting had Anna defending from a raid by Renya.

    The trainer does not quite need a fancy device to detect the transmission! There a small floating panda insistently tugging Luke through the front door, literally! Renya and Anna see a Jiangshi panda just phasing through the door, with Luke being dragged up and until the solid obstacle. 

     "Pangshi! I can't go through walls!" he calls in protest. It's then when he spots familiar faces, smiling, "HEy! you also heard that transmission?" he calls, approaching the magical girl and the pirate. "Pangshi seems to be really curious about something inside that house, so I figure I should join the investigation."

    The voice goes off on a tangent again. "Did you hear about the Tower That Ate People? Ah well- that's something I'll tell you about another night." There's a long and awful howl. It is not from the radio- the transmission is suddenly cut off while the howl happens. Then the host voice whispers, "Oh. Oh... They've woken it up... _Maybe_ somebody will do something about it... Are you listening, heroes? Watch out for the... grendel."
    SOMETHING is coming up the stairs from the basement. A dark and monstrous shaggy silhouette, seemingly more shadow than real, reeking of rotten meat. The grendel seems to be sniffing the air, trying to locate its prey.

Spiral takes one look at The Grendel, and darts back away towards the front door, nearly dropping her radio device in the process. "Over to you, Anna!"

Anna stares at the Grendel. "Right," she says. "A stinky shadowy monster with no eyes. I can get behind this!"

And then she zips forward at breakneck speed, attempting to dart around behind it as she gathers up Heart Power into her hands! She then proceeds to collide with the hallway wall before she even reaches it, and lets out a not-particularly feminine squawk as the Heart Power dissipates.

Spiral facepaws.

>> SUMMARY[Anna Freeman] >> Anna cannot get behind this.

The 'look' doesn't go unnoticed, but all Renya does is give Anna a coy smirk. "Only a foolish man would try to take those 'way from me there." Alas, the moment of levity isn't going to last long in this atmosphere.

At the howling Renya's normally fluffy tail does a bottle brush thing not unlike a startled cat. "That was definately -in- the building." With a mutter she clamps the bonavox back on her belt, and draws her weapon, the gunblade deploying once she has it clear of her own person.

Then Anna goes bolting past... only to run into a wall. Sigh. "Super speed don't play well indoors lass."

"At least this show finally got interesting," she continues to quip, even as she levels her calisaber out at arms length and firing, sending a plume of freezing mist billowing towards the approaching grendel. "And where the bloody hell did Ash get off to?"

Ash started chuckling, "I know all about that one. I know about the pale and beautiful who wanted to live forever." Another soft laugh. "Remind me to tell you about-"

And then howling. Ash froze before pulling a pair of throwing knives as he rounded a corner to the basement. Tight quarters, many friendly targets. Enemy that might be immune to his attacks. 

Instead he again disappeared in a puff of smoke. Emotion drained away, his heart deadening to what he saw as defense against all the fears of maybe. He marked the Grendal for assault just before a pair of smoke wreathed copieso f his warframe appeared for brief moments, just long enough to stab nd slashat the creature before the energy and smoke of their bodies dispersed.

    As soon as the very weird, monstrous thing appears, Panghi's adorable form poofs out and it begins waddlig rapidly towards Luke, trying to growl menacingly at the monster, while behind the boy trainer. "Pangshi, stay back." he calls, reaching for one of his pokeballs, "Agniiii!" he calls in a bit of a... hurry?, panic? nah... he is a trainer, of course he is not scared of the shadow monster. 

    A massive (almost polar bear size) bear of orange, cream and black appears, growling loudly, looking around for a moment before facing the creature, "Shadow claw!" he tries, the bear launching towards the Grendel, purple aura surrounding it's already large forepaws and claws, causing a ghostly 'glove' of sorts to form around it, trying to smack/slash at the beast with it, quickly pushing through the frozen mist, certainly not unaffected, but not very bothered by it.

    Just as the grendel lunges for the fallen Anna, it is struck by the round from Renya's calisaber, giving it pause. The grendel is more visible now with a frosty rime coating its thick matted fur. Then it snarls, its attention drawn towards the vulpine pirate captain, the pokemon trainer, and the pokemon. The stench of rotting meat grows to eye-watering levels as it lopes towards them. Agni meets the half-real thing midway, the sound of two beasts slamming into each other echoing dully through the empty foyer and a cloud of choking dust kicked up. Agni pins it down, likely by finding the wound that Renya had inflicted, allowing Ash and his smokey duplicates to put some serious hurt on the thing. With a surge of strength and a blood-curdling roar, the grendel bursts free and slashes at the warframe with razor-talons. It moves like it is seriously weakened by the combined assault of the present players.
    Meanwhile, Radio Free Valis sounds like it is playing some kind of work gang song. "... strong, united, working 'til we fall! And we all lift! And we're all adrift! Together~! ..." It sounds like the rhythm section is sledgehammers striking railroad spikes.

Anna scrambles to her feet, gathering up Heart Power once again as the Grendel charges towards Luke and Renya. "My favored enemies are mindless eldritch abominations living in distorted spaces which are bigger on the inside than this entire building!" she says. "GAH that SMELL!"

She throws the pale blue blast at the creature, doing her best not to hit any of her allies. Her aim still isn't that precise, but again, these are much closer quarters than the ones for which her skill set is optimized. The good news is that there isn't really any splash damage, even if it misses.

Spiral frowns at her radio. "... hmm. Is the song supposed to be a hint?" she murmurs. "'We all lift' ... or ..." She shakes her head. She, too, is too used to dealing with mindless enemies.

As the Grendal slashed and shove d at Ash his voice joined in the song, "Working till we fall." There was pain in his words, both physical and emotional. Ash knew the people that sung, and more importantly knew WHY they sung. 

His sword moved, cold swordsteel glowing unnaturally with energy, prismatic light radiating and contradicting itself as Ash attempted to push back against the beast. 

"Cold." His foot stepped forward, emotion focusing on the thing in front of him.
"The air and Water," If the radio voice was hoping ot inspire dispair in Ash's heart it failed. He knew of the Solaris. He knew of the debt slaves of the Corpus. They had the courage to keep pushing forward.
So too would he.

"Strong United till IT falls."

    Luke covers his nose as the stench reaches his way, shaking his head for a moment, "Agni, don't use fire! just try... to keep doing that." he calls, not wanting to undo the ice damage, or hurting anyone. The fire bear seems quite annoyed, snarling loudly as the beast tries to push it off, shaking it's fur and starting to glow orange, heat building up for a moment, before it cools down, the ghostly claws reappearing on it's forelimbs as it joins Ash in attempting to slash away at the creature facing them iwth a move combining some degree of spiritual energy and brute force.

Renya takes a step back into a more proper stance with weapon bore forth as the creature looms, resisting the urge to cover her nose with the other hand and ruin the otherwise dramatic posturing. But Luke's own monster surges forth to intercept the creature, followed by Ash doing his cyborg space ninja thing.

That their mysterious 'host' was still transmitting was sort of forgotten, until the music starts playing. She tilts her head a bit, taps a foot a few times. It kind of reminds her of a work shanty. Though after a moment she makes a bit of a face. "Cute. But that ain't really suitin' to the mood. What happened to providing atmosphere?"

Yes, she's nitpicking over the music.

Then she's tapping her foot again and swaying her tail a few times, but it's too a different rhytmn to the radio's song. "o/~ The ancient nightmares, the ghostly legends, and fiendish tales.. All the myths are true! o/~" And even with picking up her own more haunting choice in song, Renya steps in to swipe at the monster with her frostbiting blade in a flurry of quick, short slashes. Every kiss of the blade leaving a chilling cold in its wake.
"o/~ Scientist have unearth enormous skeletons.. They think we're disproved, but all the myths are true! o/~"

Then as she half-turns away from the attack she snatchs the bonavox from her belt and holds it up as she mutters into it in a ominous tone "Year after year science finds explainations, scientific reasons behind all the legends. They think this proves that history is not as myth has shown it... But in fact, it proves, that all the myths are true."

In short, Renya is mocking their 'host' by doing his job better while fighting the monster he lured them into the lair of. Because it's the sort of thing attention stealing flamboyant pirates do.

    The song was the hint. By working together, the group neutralizes the hideous supernatural strength and resilience of the grendel, putting it down. It dissolves like black fog on the breeze as it falls. There might be a moment where somebody is expecting the other shoe to drop, but it never does.
    The song ends. "Yeah, all the myths are true. We got magi making monsters like that grendel. We got parade floats coming to life and attacking people. The grendel was a person once. So was I. We lift together, listeners. Goodnight and travel well. This is Radio Free Valis, signing off."

Ash grunts, "Huh." He knelt down to try cutting the Grendal's head off for the sake of thoroughness regardless of what radio voice said. Then it disintegrated before he hada chance, causing him to just shrug before resheathing his weapon. "Gonna have to see if I can find the local supernatural people here," He looked to Anna, faint amusement tracing through his voice, "I mean if your world has magical folk doing this sort of thing and this world hasits own nasties it's gotta have its own people right?"

Ordis would signal to Renya's crew, "Operator Ash has little use or regard for such, but as it would berude to refuse gifts from clients we have a case of whiskey I am quite sure the Operator would be happy to part with as show of gratitude for your assistance."

Anyone near to ash would see the claw marks through the warframe's armored bits, trails of blood and other marks that would look about like picking a fight with a house cat as big as you are. His movements were slow and deliberate, but there was no protest or grunts of pain. "Anyone wanna see why this thing decided to camp here?"

    The pokemon growls loudly as the beast seems to evaporate, a huff of fire at the dark mist as it fades away. Pangshi emerges from behind Luke, chirping a little and moving towards the spot the monster was, looking around, as if confused when the signal it was feeling fades away. Luke finally steps closer as well, "Are you ok Ash?." he asks, spotting the damage on his friend.

'So was I'. That is enough to get Renya to leer at the device as if she could stare at whoever the voice was behind it. But before she can say (or sing) anything else it clicks a few times. Then Maven speaks over the pirates' signal. "Captain, the transmission has gone silent."

"For now." Renya gnaws her lip a bit. "Ye might wanna slit its thro--" She was thinking of making sure but the creature dissolutes into shadow. "--Or that." She chuffs softly, and keeps her weapon drawn as she moves to head into the basement. "Thinkin' the same thing, mate."

Ordis gets a return call almost immeadiately. "Your Operator knows the right way to win the Captain's favor."

Anna's head jerks around. "W-wait, what!?" she exclaims, going white as a sheet. "Did we just ... kill someone!?"

"I don't think so," Spiral says hurriedly. "I'm pretty sure if saving them was in the cards, it wouldn't have just vanished. They were probably too far gone to help at this point."

Anna takes a deep breath. "Right," she says. "Right, okay. I've been ... I was in this world last Thanksgiving, and that was when the 'parade floats coming to life' happened. There was a different type of magical girl there, too." She frowns at Ash's injuries, but shrugs. "We probably should check it out, yeah. C'mon, Spiral."

Spiral nods and wordlessly floats over, settling down on Anna's shoulder as she once again follows Renya.

    The basement is as run-down as the rest of it. There's a ragged pile of clothing in what looks like a nest about the right size for the creature. It's a lot of clothes. Near the nest is a neat stack of driver's licenses and state IDs, surrounded by little bits that make it almost an altar of sorts. There is also an old art-deco styled clock radio, tuned to the local alternative station and playing quietly. The clock-radio has the wrong time and a few claw marks on it. It isn't caked in dust either, looking like a pretty recent addition to the lair.

Anna frowns at the scenery, looking around. "Hmm ..."

Spiral's eyes flicker with pearlescent light. "... That clock radio is radiating magic," she says, leaning forward to peer at it.

Anna's eyes widen once again. "... huh," she says softly. "Well, I guess that's that." She looks like she has absolutely no idea what to do next.

"Got hit worse by an angry wolf-spirit thing awhile back." For anyone like Renya who knew what to listen for there would be hints Ash wasn't just laughing this injury off, but for most 'normal' people that didn't get into fights constantly he most likely came off more distracted, which was entirely justifiable considering. "Then there was that time I helped evac a space station getting pulled apart by a dwarf star," There was a hollow laugh at the memories both recent and repressed that incident invoked. "If I can't take a wee angry monster to the face I've got problems."

Then a look to Renya, "Eh I think a lot of folkthat wander the worlds count as 'post human,' Or at least you're not alone on that front so..." A helpless shrug, "Ordis is offering to drop a case of whiskey I got from a job off for your crew. Figure I'm not gonna drink the stuff may as well go to someone deserving." He wanted Renya if noone else to understand it was Ordis's prompting rather than his since, as much as he admired the cephelon, Ordis was too willing to differ credit to Ash for him to feel comfortable not at least noting it down.

The wounds on his frame started closing. there were still deeper internal issues Ordis would need to repair, but superficial wounds healed fast, leaving little to no outward mark.

As for the basement itself? Ash sighed as he started pulling the ID's off clothing and started reading each off to Ordis, "Send these to local authorities please, have them check against missing persons reports and let them know I'll be willing to stay for a couple days to answer questions and hand over recordings."

"Understood Operator."

Pangshi is quite eager to inspect the source of the weird feeling he is catching, making its way quickly through walls and hovering near the nest and teh radio, one small paw reaching to prod at it curiously, "shi?" it asks, oddly, asking to Spiral, as if expecting the magical 'cat' to understand. Luke takes a bit longer to get there, being corporeal, but ends up near Ash and the others, seeming a bit concerned, "I still think you might need a doctor... I just have bandages and some first aid." he mumbles, "But I can try to help if you want.". The fire bear carefully trudges after the boy, quite concerned about other potential creeps attacking.

You never show how truely hurt you are. Especially when there may be someone still watching. It's as simple as that.

"That'll definately take some edge off this ill spirited evening," Renya replies. Coming across ghastly things like this wasn't out of the ordinary for her, what with the undead pirates and chimeric monsters running around her world. But that didn't mean it wasn't off-putting. Especially the little shrine of IDs and clothing articles. "Neptune's salty b--" She stops herself remembering there's youth's present and goes with "--beard!" instead. "That li'l horror show was keepin' -trophies-." Now she's making a face of disgust. "Animals don't do that. That thing still had -some- thinkin' in it's ugly skull, especially if the 'was a person once' was true.

    The radio cuts out the music. "Wow! I never expected anyone to actually come down here after dealing with a grendel!" The voice is the same as the 'host', but it's not broadcasting, just... playing over the speaker in the clock-radio. "I've been stuck down here ever since it decided it liked music and that it couldn't eat me." There's a beat before it asks. "Anyone need a clock-radio?"

"Ordis...?" Ash asked hopefully.

"NO!" Ordis's reply was loud enough to be heard by the rest of the group. Ash's warframe, all six foot and change of it slumped like a kid that got shoo'd away from the toy aisle.

He looked about and shrugged. "Well if nobody else wants to take you on I'll see if I can find you a home that isn't some backstorage room or some other holding area." There was concern laced through his voice, "Stuck here for void alone knows how long with a onster for company..."

Anna shrugs. "His Warframe can handle injuries like that," she tells Luke, looking away as Ash's wounds start healing themselves. She winces at Renya's comment about still having some semblance of intelligence, but she doesn't say anything else. She's clearly not a fan of having unexpectedly killed 'someone.'

And then her head jerks around to face the radio. "Uh," she says. She now looks as though she has a negative amount of an idea what to do.

But then she frowns at the radio. "... Hang on, how did you know we were coming?" she says. "And, uh ... do you have a name?"

Spiral blinks. "Oh right!"

Luke Gray seems curious over teh talking radio, moving closer to it as i tspeaks, "Huh, that's interesting." he says, while the ghost panda pokes at the radio again, vocalizing at it again.

Renya Rimehart leans over the others to peer at the radio. "I almost feel bad for tryin' to out music you now." Then rubs her chin. "Don't know mate, you ever consider being a pirate?"

    "I just go by Radio Free Valis anymore. The magician who did this ate my name, so I couldn't tell you even if I remembered it!"
    "Pirate radio, huh? I could dig it!"

    "I heard you guys! I can hear radio stuff! The big guy over there is swimming in it. It helps nobody's really around this neighborhood. Construction guys during the day, some people I assume are homeless, the grendel..."

Ash grinned in spite of it not showing, "If nothing else Renya's crew travels far and wide and could likely set you up somewhere suitable." 

His head shook before he turned to Luke, "Luke I really appreciate it, but I'm fine, i"m actually on my ship right now in a nice comfortable chair piloting this thing." He didn't mention the fact he felt everything the warframe felt. No sense burdening the kid. "I'm gonna go play pattycake with the locals when they show up..." He truded towards the way out. "Ordis'll probably coordinate with your people where to drop things off at. Anyone else want anything while I'm here? Looked like an all hours convenient store not far from here. Easy jog."

Anna sighs softly. "Well, there's no Curse Phantom," she says to Ash, "but I could use a bit of chocolate, if you'd be so kind." The worries about Grendel are still kind of clinging to her. Spiral immediately nods along with her.

Seems no one else is going to take the clock-radio up on its request so Renya picks it up. "Valis, huh? Got a ring to it... Aye. Maybe we'll find ye a place you like. In the meantime, me crew has quite the taste for music, ya'll have no shortage of audience." This is the usual means for pirates to entertain themselves at sea. Music and musicians are as valuable as gold and booze really.