World Tree MUSH

    On the northern outskirts of Bonne Bon, there is one of the most overgrown and tumbledown regions of the town remaining.

    Its sheer status in terms of weeds, bushes and vines defies the otherwise rapidly desertifying climate, but there is still certainly enough wind to whip the trees and send trails of dust and sand through the leaves.

    At the peak of a hill there is a tree, and at the peak of the tree there is a house- well, ostensibly a temple, and the ruins of other such accoutrements lie here and there covered in weeds, but nobody has worshipped here for a long time either.

    Iron Lotus is here, carefully looking at her new friend Astra, who only recently helped her assemble lightning rods in the face of a terrible storm while they were protected from the prowling depradations of the ravenous Nano Entities. Now a little time has passed and she's going to explore this ... ruin...? With Astra. She stands in front of her, taking point in case there's trouble.

    "So explain to me again why we're here?" she says to Astra.

Emily's taken her "default" form, that of an auburn-haired woman with robotic eyes. Except that she has four arms, and she's dressed in a sort of "sexy safari explorer" costume including a pith hat which looks slightly too large on her head. And, of course, she has an amused and faintly smug smile.

She follows along with the group, her lower hands on her hips; at Iron Lotus's question, her gaze shifts to Astra, before she turns back to look at the ruins, using her upper right hand to shield her eyes from the sun. ... Even though the brim of her hat is also shading her eyes, and she's a robot and she can filter her vision without needing shade regardless.

"We're going to need some extra help if we're going to stop the storms! I should have done this sooner but it would have been difficult to get through here by myself..." She's clearly a bit tired from their journey here, this was more action then she was used to. "I hope he's still here..." It's been several years since she last visited here. The teenager is carrying a bell in one hand knowing that they'll need it later on.

    Strange bedfellows. Nort and Scar have an innate loathing for cyborgs and robots, but Emily and Lotus don't quite qualify. They're close enough that neither the man nor the wolverine is really comfortable staying close by, so Nort is riding on Scar and taking up the rear right now, lost in his own thoughts.

    "I'd ask what we could find here, but with the junk you find in ruins in my world, I guess I can't talk," Nort does say during the approach.

     Krystal heard about what had been going on with the storms and all, but got tied up and couldn't manage to make it here before, but she's here now to see if there is still anything she can do to help the current situation. She lands her ship, the CloudRunner out near the ruins in a clearing, and hops out of the cockpit, landing gracefully. 

     She is dressed in her dark lilac and midnight purple flight suit with matching boots, and her collapsed down staff is attached to her belt at her side. She looks around briefly and begins walking toward the ruins, reaching out with her telepathic senses as she goes to try and learn anything she can about what might be going on at the moment.

    "More help is always good," Lotus says to Astra, offering her and Emily fistbumps. It should be fine since Emily has fists to spare, right? In other news sheesh how could one part of town get so messy? 

    This place feels like your garden you didn't pay attention to for a couple years and it got way way out of control, except maybe replace 'garden' with 'neck of town' and 'a couple years' with 'way way more years than that'. 

    It's worthwhile to note that also while there are a lot of plants here, there also seem to be birds- lots of them who seem to have migrated here since it's one of the only safe places in Van Patissierie left, there are birds in the trees, birds on the ground and even what appears to be a tiny little clockwork bird who is begging another one to wind it up. Lotus takes pity on the thing and gives it a good wind and sets it back on its way. It makes a pretty realistic chirping sound.

    "Well, looks like we've gotta climb, yeah," Lotus says to both Nort and Scar, who she also recognizes from before, "Sounds like it's more of a person than a thing according to Astra."

    An initial telepathic scan of the area reveals the same sort of thing- that there is definitely at least one intelligent mind way up there in the ruined house(temple?), along with an awful lot of animal intelligences(birds) between you and him. Hopefully they're going to be friendly, or at least not the kind of woodpecker that latches onto the side of your head and hits you.

Emily smiles cheerfully over at Nort. "The same can be said of the halcyon remnant where I'm from," she says, and if anyone knows her but doesn't recognize her face, her voice is exactly the same that it always is. "It's how me and a couple others got our hands on the reclamation unit." She gestures with all four of her hands, as if by way of demonstration. ... She's either oblivious to his discomfort, or she doesn't care. Or maybe she feels like needling him over it by being overly cheerful and familiar.

She gives Iron Lotus a fistbump in return, and looks around, peering curiously at the ... clockwork bird? In response to the comment about climbing, she simply rises off the ground, defying gravity. Looks like she doesn't have to expend much energy on the climb, at least.

"Scanning the area ..." She hums. "... I do not detect anything native to the halcyon remnant except me." She turns to Astra. "Quick question, Ms. Alexander. How likely will it be that if the conversation doesn't go well, it'll come to a fight?"

    Of course, Luke offered his help with the storm, at least the electrical part, and while he does not know much science things, he still hopes to offer a hand in any way he can, so he makes his way towards Iron and Astra, with his electric pokemon curiously inspecting the area, sniffing the plants and even meowing at the mechanical birds, seems to be a rather pleasant spot for the most part!. 

     Luke is also followed by a pink and black towering bear, that seems to be content just watching over the boy's shoulder, growling to its trainer and ruffling the boy's hair now and then. "please, I don't need you to watch over my shoulder, I promise!" he replies, a bit of an over protective critter. The trio finally reach in time to hear about climbing, "Where are we going?" he asks, perhaps as a reminder of the plan of the day.

Astra fistbumps Iron Lotus with her free hand. She looks a bit surprised upon seeing Krystal, it seems that word is spreading about what's happening here. "Once things have returned to normal I really should do some gardening. Or invent something to help at least." Her attention turns towards Emily, "It's pretty unlikely but I never expected things to get this bad either. To see an old friend who should be able to help us." Hopefully the Roshtonari didn't beat them here or they would be in trouble.

    "Good question," Scar replies to Luke with a grumble. Scar ALWAYS seems grumpy, but he also doesn't seem too uptight about the clockwork birds. Unlike Nort, who is glaring at them balefully. This must be a pretty intense glare, because it can be felt through the helmet.

    Nort repliess to Emily then, "Odd place to live, but I've seen worse I suppose." He holds on tightly to Scar as the wolverine LEAPS, landing on two tiny jagged outcroppings yet keeping his balance somehow. His climbing is slower than the floaters, but it shouldn't be a problem. Nort apparently lacks such agility and would prefer to save his jetpack charge, so he stays atop the wolverine.

     Krystal tries to pick up the pace, realizing she's certainly not the only one here. Before long she makes it to within sight, and finally, comfortable speaking distance with the others in time to hear the question about getting into a fight if the conversation doesn't go well. She offers a kind wave in greeting as she speaks her assurances on that note. "Hi, I'm Krystal. Hopefully, I can help keep it from coming to that by using my telepathic senses to see if there is any way to resolve this diplomatically."

"I'm glad we have things in common," Lotus observes, tilting the clockwork bird this way and that to show it off to Emily before sending it back along its way. She taps her foot on the floor to indicate that there is at least some sort of path for them to follow, disrupted and overgrown as it is. Lots of weeds are even bursting their way through the stonework, in that impressive but downright annoying if you're a gardener way. As she thinks about this, Lotus seems to share a braincell with Astra and she toes one particular weed growing through the stone, remarking simply "Yeah."

    It's worthwhile to note that while she is ostensibly full of metal, Lotus toes the line when it comes to the idea of being a robot- she's clay turned into flesh and blood, but she also has an awful lot of magical metal in her body as well as crystalline circuitry and arcane robotics. She's also probably got memory banks and servos that can ache and stuff.

    "We're going up!" Lotus replies to Luke, their savior from earlier when they were catching lightning bolts, clapping at Nort who seems to be ahead of the game as far as climbing goes. This area is especially hilly and outcroppy and has a winding path to the top which circles around the hill.

    "Alright!" Iron Lotus says to Krystal when she introduces herself. "That should come in handy if the person we're planning to meet is a little, uh, less inclined to recieve visitors than we were hoping. No idea what he's going to be like when we get up to the top here."

    She brushes her way through a bush, which is just one of... probably hundreds. "Alright people, let's mosey."

    Luke waves to the others, especially the new faces, like Krystal!, his electric pokemon moving to casually sniff at the foxlike creature, while the Bewear near Luke just waves even as the boy introduces himself, "I'm Luke, nice to meet you." he says with a grin. IT seems that Mort is not the only one with a friend to help him climb, the pink bear spendign a few moments 'talking' to Luke and pointing at the wall with those odd round paws of his before the trainer nods and carefully climbs on the bear's back. "If you are really confident... I don't even know how you grab onto things with those paws!." He returns Dynamo to it's pokeball, since the big round cat might not be at it's best at climbing. 

    Seems the Bewear can handle the wall just fine, somehow grasping onto the outcrops and rocks without trouble, "Let's go!" he cheers, easy to be so eager when he is not the one actually climbing.

Oddly enough, Emily's mind is exactly like that of an organic magical being. It's just that in her body, her mind seems to be located in something cylindrical in the middle of her torso. And her cheer seems to belie something ... different. "Hey there," she says aloud. "I'll defer to you, then, since my diplomatic skills are approximately negative." (... which isn't entirely honest, either.)

She smiles, and simply floats up and up, just barely high enough that her feet lightly brush over the foliage. Those who were here last time would know that she can go much higher. Yeah, at the moment, her general amusement and faint smugness are more-or-less genuine.

    Scar grunts, but Nort seems more amenable to the telepath and the kid than anyone else. Nort is the one who speaks. "I'm Nort, this is Scar. We're zoologists from another world." He stops talking so Scar can take another leap without interrupting him.

    "What kind of help are we talking about, anyway?"

"Hello Krystal!" Getting inside of Astra's head might not be the best idea. "Well, I'm not sure if you would pick up the Roshtonari if they're here. This place is certainly rougher than I remember." Her attention turns towards Emily, "I'm assuming that's intate, and you can't teach me." She can't help but to laugh a bit at that. "It must be so wonderful to be able to fly..."

    Lotus makes a point to stay away from Bewear, she's heard rumors about that thing's hugs being able to send you to the next world and she's kind of busy occupying herself with this world right now, thanks. It seems however that the bear is not going to be accompanying us for this first leg of the journey, as they have some climbing to do first.

    True enough, the first obstacle that the group is going to encounter is that the path is so overgrown with thick vines and roots that it's going to be easier to climb straight up to a higher level than it is to trace the first part of the trail along the mountain. Lotus stretches her fingers and prepares the torque so she can grip onto things most fiercely, and then she begins to climb along with Scar and Luke. Our first objective is to make it past this climbing obstacle to the upper part of the path!

    "Emily, watch our backs," she says faintly as the other girl simply hovers above them all. She's counting on her, "Watch out for angry birds. They might be round or they might be pointy."

     Krystal smiles at the greetings given by Lotus, Emily, Astra, and Luke, giving the electric Pokemon a gentle pat, which lets her feel the power it holds through a bit of static that makes the fur on her arm stand on end a bit. She looks up at the climb and grins a bit. "Maybe I should have tried to Parachute to the top from my ship." She jokes as she gets to climbing along with the others.

    "Angry birds, eh?" Nort nods, missing the possible joke there for various reasons. Scar manages to get up next to the vines, but here Nort sighs. "I don't have any defoliants with me, I'm afraid. I guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."

    That is, Scar's claws will start on the vines, helped along with a few surgical zaps of the laser beam eyes.

Iron Lotus needs to get her optics checked! Luke /is/ climbing with pink bear assistance after all. How could she confuse such a big pink fluffy thing?

    "Apparently we're going up here to get assistance from someone Astra knew in the past," she says, and her eyes whir as she does so. "Which is interesting, because I think I can sense the flows of Essence around here, which is something I'm far more familiar with..."

    "I have to admit, it would probably be easier to start at the top and work your way down to the bottom," she says to Krystal, "But you can't trust the winds around here to not be full of ship-munching nanomachines. That's the big problem."

    With Scar's help to clear through the worst of the foliage, there's going to be less of a problem making their way up, but what might be a problem is the fact that not all of these birds are indeed going to be the sort to be friendly and chirpy.

    A big pack of Raptors were displaced from their home elsewhere in Van Pat and let me tell you, these things are the biggest bullies in the neighborhood. They've got razor-sharp beaks designed for crunching skulls and they're like nothing the current environment can adequately support, so they've been eating other birds with abandon now they've had to... well, abandon their home. And they're coming this way!

    Emily will notice them bouncing and flapping over so you get a warning, but be on the look out for a bird attack!

    https://i.imgur.com/ubUwe2w.jpg

And the instant Astra speaks up, Emily's mental state becomes one of embarrassment at being unfair, though it's not visible to anyone who isn't a telepath. "Yep, it's innate, sorry!" she says. "If I had a working knowledge of the principle, and it wasn't based on technology that's built-in ... heh." She simply shrugs.

She simply nods to Lotus, looking around. Her senses allow her a slightly broader field of view than others, and her observational skills are second to none. (Her conclusions, not so much. She doesn't even notice when she jumps to the conclusion that a gap in the foliage a little ways down was caused by fallout from distant industrial magic exploding, which is something that's only likely to be the case in the halcyon remnant.

The thought does occur to her that she could summon a blade of her own, but ... no, her current position as lookout is pulling her weight in a different way.

Speaking of which! "Incoming!" she says. "Releasing capacitor seals three and two!" She's surrounded by three distinct auras, one gold, one silver, and one pearlescent; the first two shatter, and the third one fades away. In a swirl of silvery glitter, she shifts shape so that she looks markedly younger, she has short silver hair in a ponytail, and she's dressed in a green longcoat, a black bandeau bikini-top, black jeans, and combat boots. A falchion sword materializes in each of her left hands. "Angry birds is right! Boy-howdy those dudes do not look happy!"

    The large bear pokemon does not seem to realize it is being avoided, and focuses on carefully climbing higher and higher, letting out some soft noises as someoen mentions about dangerous birds, looking over its shoulders a few times, while Luke tries to reassure his friend that it's safe for now. "Don't worry, I'll let you know if something happens, not going to fall." he repeats. The big bear seems quite deft at holding onto the rocky outcrops, and even manages to snag onto the troublesome vines. Despite the lack of visible claws, it seems to tear some of the more troublesome things. 

    Of course, the menace of the massive birds causes the bear to pause on it's ascent, while Luke begins to panic a bit, "I don't think I can help much right now... none of my pokemon fly... at least the ones able to really fight, and Bewear is kind of busy holding onto the wall.

"I wonder if I could reverse engineer it...then again I would likely need access to the technology that created you...those shouldn't be here!" It seeems like the world's ecosystem has been greatly been thrown off because of the lightning. Astra can't really do anything to defend herself at the moment, so she does the only thing she can and that's climb faster.

    This is a bad situation then. Emily is flying at least, but... with Luke busy, that makes it hard to defend. "Heads up girls and guys," he says after Emily warns. "Kid, you might want to bring your Bewear up here and take over for Scar, we'll cover you."

    A leap carries the wolverinee aside, letting Nort steady himself after and lift his blaster rifle. A snap-hiss of several shots head for the birds. The alternative would be giving dangerous weapons to a young boy, but he isn't TSAB.

     Krystal looks more than a little worried at the mention of ship-munching nanomachines. "They better not munch my ship where I landed it, or when I fly it out of this place... I really don't want to have to go to Fox or Wolf and beg for one, because I really don't have the credits to replace it if it's destroyed, it was a gift in the first place..." She says with a frown, glancing over to where she landed, though it's harder to see from here. 

     With a sigh, she goes back to focusing on the here and now, and with good timing as Lotus warns about the incoming killer birds. She holds tight to a vine and reaches to grab her staff from her belt, and instead of extending it, which would just get in the way up here, she uses it as is, it's tip opening up to reveal an energy blaster as she aims to shoot down any raptors that get too close for comfort for her or anyone else in this expedition team.

    Yep, here they come all crowing and spitting!

    Lotus flips herself onto the higher ground with a grunt of effort, using a moment to augment both of her hands with a pair of mechanized brawling aids for the approaching Raptors. And just as soon as she gets herself ready for it, they're upon her! The things look as if they could breathe fire and although this one doesn't, its beak appears to be quite hot on impact when it tries to bite down on Lotus, forcing her to use her hands to try and pry the thing's mouth open and stop it from crushing her!

    She's going to have to do her best to protect Luke who isn't back up at the top yet, although some of the Raptors are going to start swooping down at him to try and take 'potshots' with their needle-like claws and reinforced wings. Who designed these things?!

    Nort begins to lay into the birds in earnest, snapping off shots here and there to knock into them and send them rolling around in the dust, but some of them who were able to jink the shots are only incensed by being fired at and come in fast with their beaks snapping like lawnmowers.

    "Sorry, we'll explain the nanomachines a bit later, birds now!" Lotus shouts to Krystal as the latter prepares her energy blaster staff. If she coordinates with Nort she should be able to lay down a pretty good barrage of counter fire that will do a good job of an opening salvo against these aggressive encroaching species and soften them up for the full force of a concentrated attack from the others.

Emily ... floats downward towards Astra, and more-or-less interpolates herself between her and the approaching birds. With a wave of her right hands, she summons a small phalanx of glowing golden bolts, which launch forward at the birds. As they get within melee range, she starts slashing at them with both of her swords, before tossing the one in her upper left hand to her lower right hand and flipping it around as she gives it a flurry of slashes and punches.

There's no time for doubt and uncertainty now. She's physically endangered, and there's other sentient beings to protect (but they aren't Masters, comes the objection from a part of her which is fortunately small and easy to ignore); now, it's time to act.

    Nort and Scar don't need to say it twice!, the large bear pokemon seems to trust the pair, given it quickly rushes towards them, even before Luke says anything on teh matter, just holding tight to his pokemon and grumbling about needing to train his Ghost for situations like this!. The bear is pretty durable adn does not even seem to feel the bird's attempts to dislodge it with those claws or beaks, only getting at best some tufts of thick fur for their trouble, waving one arm to try to shoo them away as they finally climb close to their friends. "Thank you!" the boy exclaims.

Astra blushes a bit as Emily protects her, she really should try and craft something to defend herself once she gets back to her workshop. She safely makes it to the top of the hill unscathed. She looks down to make sure that none of the others are having trouble fighting off the birds.

    Last time, Emily and Nort were able to coordinate. He's trying this time, but his priority is protecting Luke, while Em handles guarding Astra. This leaves Krystal up for joining his shots with hers, trying to keep the air around them clear.

    While he does this, Scar starts to take over talking for the pair. He snarls as one of them darts in close enough to open a gash along his shoulder, but he doesn't look crippled thankfully... because falling would be bad. Might make his little leaps more careful though. "I don't suppose your friend is a bird lover?"

    Emily protects Astra! Hoorah! Lotus seems to be the only one who's currently engaging these birds at melee range, as Emily begins to summon up another ranged weapon and barrages the birds with it from a distance too far away for them to engage. So too do Nort and Krystal, all of them showing remarkable collective thinking as they do their best to keep the birds at a distance and knock them all down without any chance for them to get close.

    Red-hot beaks and crushing pressure don't mean a whole can of beans when you're dealing with energy bolts and slugs, allowing the group of them more than ample chance to kite, blast and just generally keep the birds at a distance while collected energy fire drives them off. And as strange as it may seem, Luke's bear buddy does even better than Lotus does at drawing their fire so that the shooters have their best chance of thinning the horde!

    Meanwhile Lotus is only able to wrestle her way out of the Raptor's grip, slam its beak shut and begin elbow dropping it into the ground a few times, eventually kicking it away once it seems to be unconcious. 

    "Maybe he's got some sort of animal magnetism for birds?" Lotus suggests to Nort, with a shrug.

    In any case with a bit more blasting it should be easy to get rid of the last of the Raptors, which means that the remainder of the climb is going to be relatively more easy. Just a winding path along the cliffside, with crumbling ground to deal with as they approach the top of the hill.

     Seeing that Nort is also shooting at the birds, Krystal gets an idea. She focuses her telepathy on him and tries to pick up on where he's aiming and firing and adjusts her aim in response so that their shots will be more difficult for the birds to avoid. Once the last of the raptors is blasted out of the sky, Krystal puts her staff in her mouth, holding it with her teeth as she quickly works to finish the climb, and finally catch her breath a moment once she's at the top. "Well, that was fun. Everyone alright?"

Emily shoots a quick smile at Astra as she focuses on fighting back against the birds. She does raise her eyebrows and risk a quick glance at Nort. "Now there's a possibility I hadn't thought of!" she says, as she watches Krystal take care of the last one. "If this was caused by Astra's mysterious friend ..." She lands on the edge of the cliffside next to Iron Lotus. "Well, if it was Astra's friend, let's just say, why don't I just not reapply the capacitor seals I just deactivated."

She does, however, dematerialize her swords. "Not a scratch, Krystal!" she says. "All of my nanomachines are in tip-top shape." Beat. "I'm made of nanomachines, by the way." (Another half-truth ...)

    As soon as reasonably level ground is reached, Nort slides off Scar and checks out the wound. "Cauterized by the beak," he says simply. "Not bleeding, but don't do any acrobatics until it's healed up a little better. You might reopen it." Scar nods, and Nort looks up to the others, and gives them a nod too. "Looks like it isn't that bad. I'll take over for the grunt work just in case though. Looks like we got off easy."

    He eyes Emily, then shakes his head and turns back to the goal here.

    Seems the only thing that was close to actually bothering the bear was the heat, and the few birds that manage to upset it, get slapped by a fluffy limb downwards with surprising force. Thankfully, the cover fire kept him and Luke from getting too hurt, even if there were some burned patches on that fur. "We are fine, Bewear will heal rather quickly." he says, finally pulling around and spraying some kind of medicine on the more visible marks, while the large pink bear nods and growls a bit, apparently backing up what was said. "Sorry you had to cover for me like that."

"What does it feeling like at a celluar level, Emily?" Astra can't help but to be curious as she mentions that she's made of nanomachines. "I'm pretty sure he didn't cause this! There's not many safe places left on Van Patissierie." She figures they should get moving before more birds show up.

    Once again it's teamwork that makes the dream work. Just like when they were fighting the nano entities, Nort Scar and Emily put their skills together in concert with Krystal and make it so that they can easily eliminate the Raptors without an awful lot of fuss.

    "Heh, it's just because you guys are an unbeatable team when you work together," Lotus says to Scar and gives a thumbs-up to him as he makes the medical diagnoses that make the dream... oses... nope that one didn't work so well. 

    "It's fine Luke, we each watch each others' backs when the other person needs it, right? You helped us out with the lightning rods and we help you out here."

    And so, off they go to finish off their climb...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REcwVBHIsek
    Sanctuary Zero - Tower of Heaven
    Flashygoodness - 2009

    https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/echomage/cards/ALA/175060.crop.hq.jpg

    Like I said, tumbledown sanctuary or what? The front door's not even connected to the rest of the building...! This is a really run-down apartment, forget cleaners this place should just be bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch. Whoever's living here, I don't want to see their table manners, put it that way.

    Lotus clears a vine out of the way and wanders inside, pulling the thing down with a snap. She waits for Astra to figure out what they should do next.

Emily considers Astra's question as she follows Iron Lotus. "What does it feel like?" she says. "Convenient, mostly." She shrugs; with four arms, there's a lot more to shrug. "I can just shift into whatever shape I want, whatever clothes I want, if I feel like changing. I mean, it's not like I'm any good at actually impersonating anyone, though?" She shakes her head. "But, like, I've never been a human, so I don't really have any frame of reference with which to compare it."

She has just the slightest bit of hesitation at the doorway; she has ... boundary issues, but one thing she does understand is the concept of "this is someone's home." On one of the other hands, she isn't entirely convinced that it's not the home of someone who just attacked them, and she's very tense mentally, if not necessarily visibly.

    "Wait here, buddy," Nort says to Scar. "If it looks like it continues for a while, we'll make a bigger door." ALMOST inseperable, but apparently Nort can go inside and leave Scar standing guard? He is... steadfastly not asking Emily any questions, but neither is he heckling her. He worked with her, got the job done, and she seems non-hostile, but getting over his problem will take a lot more time.

    He does leave his armor on though, even if he tucks his rifle away. Nort notes, "Scar will stand guard, let's go."

"Wow! That's amazing. Having extra arms certainly must be helpful, hold on a moment there's something I need to take care of." Astra excitedly rushes inside the building or what's left of it ringing the bell, "I know it's been a while but a lot happened and I haven't had a chance to visit are you still here...?" She sounds a bit concerned. If he wasn't this was about to get a lot harder.

    At least, now that they are no longer busy climbing, Luke and his pokemon might be more useful!. "I appreciate it, I just feel awkward being unable to help." he muses, while the Pink bear moves near Luke and pats teh boy's back 'gently', the group moving to the door, and the bear helps on clearing the doorway for Luke, before they get inside. "Should I leave one of my pokemon outside to help keep guard?" he asks as him and Bewear slowly get inside.

     Krystal smiles, glad no one is seriously hurt, and most of them made it through that attack unscathed. As they move forward and reach the doorway, Krystal blinks a bit at the ruined entrance and decides also to let Astra go in first and go from there, but she does probe ahead with her mind, wary of walking into a fight particularly after dealing with those birds.

    Even before the bell rings, when Lotus and Nort make to enter, there's an odd event. A stirring breeze, that resolves into a stiff wind. Fresh air blowing... out from the entrance? It swirls around the small group, agitated but not torrential(yet). A faint glimmering aura seems to show a cluster of furiously beating wings, and Krystal's probe will feel that the cluster of wings has a mind... an ancient, yet very troubled and confused mind, emotions jumbled.

    The bell rings with a chime that carries through the air, and the wind... stops. No, it hasn't stopped, but it's calmer. That cluster of wings grows more solid, and then forms a steady shape, resolving into a handsome man of indeterminate age, with large, lovely feathered wings upon his back.

    He taps his chin. "Ah... Astral? Astra! That was it." His wings lift in surprise and apparent pleasure. "Did you fly up here with these others to see me?"

    Lotus is very interested to see what she ends up seeing here! Her sensors indicate that... "Not only is this a foreign god, but it's one that's native to my ... well, my universe, I guess? It's an essence-using god from Creation. How fascinating."

    She looks a little concerned as she looks around, thinking. "I... don't think we will need more than one person to guard us, I don't think we have that much to worry about from those birds. And even if we do, ranged weapons are better than Pokemon at keeping them away from us."

    She approaches Vanileth, looking back at Astra who seems to know him. "Greetings. We're a group of travellers from different worlds who are investigating the problems in this world."

"Vanileth! It's good to see you again!" Astra hugs him happily. She cringes a bit as he mentions flight. "No, I wasn't able to fly, in fact something went horribly wrong, in fact that's why I haven't returned until now." The teenager sounds a bit uneasy at the thought of flight. "I'm sure you know what's been happening though. I need your help."

Emily peers at the wings for a moment. Tentative conclusion: he was too asleep to have attacked them consciously. She starts to relax.

And then she projects a pair of black ghostly wings of her own, which hover behind her seemingly without actually being connected to her.

She raises her eyebrows when Lotus gives her explanation. "Iiiiiiiinteresting," she says. "A bud, I presume?" She smiles, watching the conversation but standing back with her hands on her hips; again, her diplomatic skills aren't really great.

    "Huh... a god," Nort says musingly. "Not how I expected one to look like. Looks more like an angel. Especially that first shape," he points out. Yeah a cluster of wings would match classical angels. "Not that anyone in my world would know it."

    He glances at Iron Lotus. "A foreign god? I'm a little fuzzy on what gods can do outside their worlds, how can this guy help us?" He has some manners and says directly to Vanileth, "No offense meant, old man. Name's Nort, I'm from a Blossom a few trips down the Vines away. This world has a right mess going on."

     Krystal is at first a little confused by what she reads through her telepathy. Curiosity moves her forward, coming up behind Lotus and Nort, and she looks rather surprised when the strange cluster of wings becomes a winged man. 

     She relaxes a bit as he seems to know Astra and doesn't react aggressively at all to any of them, but she does also suppress a grin at the posed idea that they all flew up here, if only. Blinking a bit at Lotus' statement, she looks to the man who is apparently a god, now more than ever hopeful he's on their side. "Greetings, I'm Krystal." She offers warmly as she puts her staff away for the moment.

    "Eh? Of your universe?" Vanileth peeeeers at Iron Lotus. "... not the Exalts I'm used to. You look familiar..." He trails off before losing his concentration, turning to look at Emily's wings. Apparently he doesn't remember the 'prototypes' very well, if at all. So he's looking over everyone else, and surprisingly Emily's wings... do not get his attention much at all, compared to something else.

    "Yes, yes, Vanileth. That's my name. You climbed, hm? I'll need to find a harder place to get to. You really should be in the air, Astra... but it's good to see you." He nods and steps closer, giving passing nods to Krystal and the others, before walking RIGHT past everyone and starting to tap on Nort's jetpack, if allowed. "So what brings you here? Are you going to build something to fly?"

    Lotus does her best to trawl her memory banks for the identity of this god, but she can't recall it off the top of her head. Undoubtably he's something to do with flight... birds...? But right now the details escape her. She knows at least that he can be trusted to be moral with them, so she says "It's okay, I don't think we have anything to worry about from him," but then pauses to consider for a moment, "What a terrible shame. From what I can gather you must have been cut off up here for a very long time, right? This place is in such poor condition you must be too. Without access to Creation to provide you with worship and quintessence... wow, you must really be in a tight spot."

"I've tried but I haven't been able to build anything large enough to get me off the ground since the crash. I'm still not able to remember everything...I'm a bit afraid to try...what if everyone gets killed again?" Astra sounds a bit worried and guilty as she says that. "All of this might have been my fault to begin with...it might be better if you lead from this point forward." She doesn't sound like she much confidence in herself at this point.

Emily smiles. "Astra mentioned wanting to learn to fly," she says. "And I'm Emily Nyx, a Greater Eudaemon -- a techno-magical servant from a dead world. Well ..." She shrugs. "Only mostly dead."

She regards Vanileth for a moment as he goes to pester Nort. Her smile falters ever-so-slightly as Astra talks about her history. But she does her best to press on. "Y'know, I've never met any surviving gods in the halcyon remnant," she says in a conversational tone. "Do you have some sort of domain?" She pauses. "Or is that even how the gods of your world work?"

And then in a swirl of silvery glitter, she transforms into a copy of Iron Lotus except with a generally black and yellow and red color scheme, with black hair with red streaks in it, and looking about twice as old and with glowing purple eyes. Her wings remain, though, as does her smile.

Luke Gray would protest his pokemon are VERY capable of ranged fighting, if given a chance, but he simply doesn't discuss about it. In any case he is curious about the talk of gods, doing his best to remain quiet and simply listen to what is going on, at least Astra seems familiar with this person!. The black and pink bear just hangs near Luke, seeming a bit confused at the talk of gods, Buds and creation. Of course, Luke is confused too, but seems to hide it a bit better. He does finally remember to offer his name to the stranger, politely nodding, "Hi, I'm Luke, and this is my friend Bewear.".

    "Er..." Nort actually looks confused(and his helmet is off now, so this is visible) as Vanileth starts prodding at his power armor. "That's great, but... Astra are you sure this guy is the best one to lead? What is he the god of, absent-minded professors? Does he have a secret flubber lab or something to combat the nanite storm?" Please let that be the case.

    Lotus listens with concern as Astra talks. Maybe, just maybe, at some point they should have a sit down and explain a little bit of Astra's background to everyone so that they're all fully informed as to what this is all about. Maybe. 

    And then Emily transforms into /her/, with wings as well, and Lotus splutters. "Hey, Emily! Turning into a better version of me is so not cool!" she exclaims, balling up her fists and pouting quite a bit! Of course it's faux upset but she wibbles her lip a bit before turning back to Vanileth. 

    She looks around a little, "Creation's gods are... well, he must have come from a bud like me," Lotus explains, "But I guess being away from his home for so long has had a bad effect on a god. I don't know of a good way to give him a charge back up... stuff like quintessence is beyond even Autochthonian science to replicate."

    Poke poke. Tap. "Hmm. Not fully... oh?" Astra is someone Vanileth actually likes, so hearing her frustration gets him right back on track to paying attention to the current problem. "Oh yes. The... right, this world. The storms. I remember now." He turns and frowns sternly at Astra. "But giving up? That's not what you should do! Flying is hard, but anything worth doing is hard, and this is the greatest triumph that mortals can attempt! Failure is part of it. You should conquer the skies... you have the talent!"

    The others get his attention again. "Ah... hmm. Luke? A little young... but some of the Solars broke through early..." He does look pretty... in bad shape. Cut off from worship is not likely to be good for him. "Domain? Yes! Artificial flight! The ships of the sky, the mantas and the battleships of the air, all their crews paid their due to me! And I watched over them! To reach the sky is the height of mortal achievement!"

     Krystal is trying her best to follow all this talk of creation gods and quintessence and Autochthonian science, but even with the ability to read deeper into the thoughts beyond the words everyone is speaking, it's a lot for her to process, so she mostly stays quiet, letting the people who actually have a clue what's going on do the talking. At the talk of ships though, she looks interested. "A god of battleships, the people who fly them, and the skies they fly in? Interesting. I am a pilot of such a ship." She offers with a smile.

    "Well, he sounds like a good enough guy," Lotus says to the room, nodding to herself. She decides to just throw this out there, and speaks to both Astra and Vanileth now, "I think Astra had something important she needed to ask you," she says, glancing again at Astra and then adding, "If you're in a bad way, we can do whatever we can think of in order to help you. We're growing closer as a group of friends and we do whatever we can to help one another out and protect each other."

"I guess...I just don't want to drag you all down with me. The last time I tried I lost a lot of people I cared about and I don't want to lose my new friends. Her attention turns towards Krystal upon hearing she's a pilot. "Really, where did you get your ship from? It certainly wouldn't hurt to have an extra pilot aboard?" Hearing Lotus she's reminded of what she came to ask Vanileth, "I need an airship in order to stop the storms, there's only so much we can do from the ground."

Emily giggles uncontrollably at Iron Lotus's upbraiding. "Yeah, I get that a lot," she says cheerfully. Which means, what, she's in the habit of transforming into modified versions of other people!?

She hmms, looking Vanileth up and down. "So, artificial flight, huh?" Her wings disappear, and a pair of airplane-wings materializes in their place. "Y'know, yeah, every single advancement in artificial flight in my world's history was pretty monumental. It's totally nifty."

She furrows her brow slightly at Iron Lotus's talk of friendship, but she doesn't comment. It's certainly given her food for thought. After a moment, she transforms back into the "human" form she had at the beginning. Still dressed like Lotus, though. She remains silent, listening to the conversation. She can't entirely hide the pensiveness she's feeling.

    Changing forms like that is ANOTHER reason Nort doesn't fully trust Emily, but that's REALLY not a thing for here. "Ahah. You wouldn't like my world," he says to Vanileth. "We lost that art a long time ago and are only just now starting to get it back. It's a long way to go yet. There's even a crashed shuttle not far from my home, but it's already scavenged."

    He tilts his head. Krystal might get in good right? But for now... "I can't fly those ships, but I can help crew one. I'm no stranger to higher technology." He taps his chestplate. "Scar knows it too, but no hands."

Iron Lotus may be a little too forward with her friendship talk. It's always a possibility. Her views and opinions may not reflect those of the group as a whole, but sometimes the person with the loudest or quickest voice gets through the easiest! It's definitely true that Lotus values friendship and teamwork more than anyone else here.

    She takes a moment to consider what Astra is saying, "There has to be a place where the nanoprobes are being controlled from. There's no way they're acting independantly on a level like this, they just don't have the kind of artificial intelligence without something supplimenting it. If we can fly to whatever is controlling the nanoprobes, we might have a chance to turn them off."

    She looks at Nort and Scar as an afterthought. "Maybe this guy could help your people rediscover flight, if that's something you think might be helpful, Nort?" She knows that gods and goddesses are always looking for ways to employ their purviews.

     "My ship was a gift, from the Cornerian Defence Force, for my actions on a planet called Sauria. Long story short, the planet was tearing itself apart and I helped to stop it. It's based on a fighter class ship, but modified to be capable of long-distance trips across the galaxy." Krystal happily answers Astra, and after listening to Lotus, nods. "I don't have any pressing engagements, so I'm happy to stick around and help in any way I can."

    "Hmm! A pilot! Wonderful!" Oh, this is... starting to get Vanileth's attention! A pilot, and someone whose people are rediscovering flight... this is getting his interest. The latter especially, with how thirsty he is for quintessence! The god's wings twitch, showing more focus and animation than he's had so far.

    "A ship? A ship. Oh... a ship!" Vanileth is suddenly up to Astra again. "You have pilots, a crew, and the need. Now is the time to sieze the skies back! I know of a ship. But I am a god, not a hero. It will be you and your friends who must recover it, and prepare it. I can lend you my blessing, Astra, but not my services."

    Not entirely true, but needs to be said.

    Wait.

    "Galaxy? What is that? We shall need to speak soon, my... fox." It seems like he has JUST NOW noticed that Krystal isn't exactly human.

"Exactly! I wonder if we could place some kind of tracker on one of the nanoprobes? Of course that would mean getting close without destroying it." Astra's not quite sure if that plan would work. "That's more than enough help Vanileth, thank you. Where's the ship located?" It would be best to secure it as soon as possible before it gets disintegrated.

    Lotus continues to think out loud, "But even if we did have something to fly with, it'd need to be protected from the nanoprobes; I mean, like I said, Krystal's ship could just get munched by them if she flies, we need something that can get there safely..."

    And that's when Vanileth mentions that he knows of a ship! Lotus sucks it up and says, "Please, tell us. I'll do anything," making sure not to accidentally say 'we' there because that might not necessarily be the opinion of everyone after all! "The fate of the world could depend on it."

     Krystal almost laughs as this god struggles for a moment on what to call her, and just calls her his fox. Of course, he was probably going for my lady or my girl, or something like that, but it's still mildly amusing. "I'm no one's fox at the moment, you can just call me Krystal." She says with a grin and a knowing wink. 

     But then the conversation grows much more serious as the subject changes to her ship and the nanoprobes munching it like hungry little piranhas. "Yes, maybe we should go check on my ship, I am getting more than a little worried it's still where I left it after all this talk of hungry nanoprobes. Is there any sort of upgrade we can possibly make to my ship to protect it against those buggers?"

Emily shrugs. "And I literally have nothing better to do with my life than ..." She makes a face. "... than schmooze around saving worlds? I 'unno, I'm really not a hero-type. Playing the bad guy would just get my a--" She glances at Luke. "... butt kicked." She smiles at Iron Lotus's enthusiasm about tracking things down.

She hmms at Krystal. "I could show you the device I used to fight the nanoprobes last episode," she says. Wait, 'episode'? "Both for defense, and for offense. Dunno how transferrable the technology is, but I do feel like one personal-sized device isn't really gonna cut it. Ideally we should find someone else from a world that deals in lots of nanotechnology, and who knows better than me how to build stuff."

... and yet, in spite of her protests about not being a hero, she's definitely enthusiastic about helping out.

    A god that is willing to help but unwilling to do everything? Lotus also has a good idea, though Nort balks. "I'll talk to Scar about it, but there's a Reestorationist base not far from where I live that might be interested. I think they're having trouble with bandits though." Oh snap sounds like a plot hook!

    "That said.... I wouldn't mind seeing this ship. The tech here is different from my world's, and I'm a little curious I guess."

    Ideas whirl about in the air, and Lotus does her best to try and think them all through. 

    "I don't know, they're so small it might be impossible to invent a tracker that could work, but maybe if we could get one to stay as one of those shelled-up entities..."

    "I don't know what does or doesn't prevent something from being eaten, so long as you don't just jump into the storms unprotected you should be alright..."

    "You did great with that weapon you got that works against nanomachines, if we just try and replicate the technology on a bigger scale it could give us an advantage..."

    She's crunching the details right now and eager to hear where Vanileth's whim leads them, trying her best to put something together. Maybe they need to pull in more tech from other worlds? Or maybe the answer is waiting for them in this mysterious airship?

    "As I said, it is up to you to find it! No wait." Vanileth stops. "Up to you to RECOVER it! I will guide you there. YEs.... yes, a pilot, and a world that needs me. You can fly me there in your new ship!" Because he... is too lazy? "Hmm. I would fly us there right now but my essence is low... the spells would take far too much, after I materialized. Yes, wonderful!"

    No longer listless and confused, now he's merely eenthusiastic and a little TOO quick to jump into things. "Astra, you will save the world with flight!"

     Krystal nods to Emily and Lotus. "Yeah, I don't have a clue how effective my ship's weapons would be at destroying nanoprobes, but even if they did work, not something I'd want to be flying into alone. Still, if you can help me upgrade my ship for any sort of protection against them Emily, I'd appreciate it greatly. I just got a mental image of me flying into this storm of nanoprobes, they start eating my ship, I eject, they eat me in mid-air. Not the way I want to go..." She says with a shudder and bit of nervous twitching in her tail.

"Could you make a weapon that someone else would be able to use, Emily?" Astra wonders if she can seperate her nanomachines from herself. "I have to agree with Krystal, a ship is going to attract a lot of attention is there anyway we can conceal it?" After all they already know that the nanoprobles can fly.

    Hiding a ship? Nort has a thought about that. "These are robots, and apparently dumb ones," he glances at Emily and grudgingly adds, "No offense." Then he looks to the others. "You don't need to hide the ship, you just need to trick their AI. When we were fighting them before they obviously had a primitive threat model. They don't truly reason as far as I can tell. You don't have to hide the ship, you just have to find their weakness and exploit it."

"Alright! We've got a plan! Let's see if we can sit down, iron out all the details, and see where it leads us! We might need to pull in some help from outside but that's what we're here for, right? Pulling in stuff from other worlds to solve the problems with this one," Lotus declares. "Or something like that. I'm sure it'll all work out for the best."

    She cracks her knuckles. "Time to go shopping for a ship! Ping."