World Tree MUSH

    South San Francisco is not really a city so much as a region encompassing a few smaller suburbs of the much more famous city. There's a rush of new developments as San Francisco proper slowly builds the crowded streets upwards into an arcology-like structure, and one of the new real estate ventures is a new music hall called the "Vince Guaraldi Music Center". As appropriate for a venue named for a man who made jazz famous, the inaugural concert is a set of jazz standards played by local artists. Right now the hall is filling up with people, both natives and outworlders alike. The building itself is in an art-deco style, with photos of other famous San Francisco Bay area musical venues, portraits of native musicians, and art of the SF Bay area hung on the lobby walls.

Serrah can't run 24/7, so she usually rests for a little while at each world she visits, and this place seems like the perfect place to spend some time. There's no vampires here (except her), the music is pretty good even if it's not necessarily her preferred style, and she has no particular reason to think anything too outlandish will happen (by the admittedly lax standards of the world she came from). So she's just made herself another face in the crowd, dressed in a black T-shirt and plaid skort, and hoping that her unhealthy-looking skin, red eyes, and fangs won't particularly stand out among other more outlandish offworlders.

Having a sentient radio as part of your ship's communications crew does have it's perks. It can at least choose what ads from the airways of many worlds to play and at least try to keep them of relative interest. Part of pleasing the Captain is knowing what she likes, and a new music venue would certainly be a satisfying stress reliever... and while the Captain is away, the rest of the crew gets to relax too.

"Well," after nudging and elbowing her way through the crowd Renya pauses to readjust her tricorn, "At least with this crowd of offworld landlubbers I ain't gotta worry about blending it." One end of her scarf is tossed back over her shoulder, and she looks for a spot for optimal acoustics.

It's kind of sad that a steampunk air pirate is not the most outlandish appearance in the audience.

    Uni's here. Mostly to sample local culture, maybe ingratiate herself with some locals to start another little 'cult' to supplement her little shinki followers. She's wearing her normal CPU Candidate outfit, the black dress letting her kind of blend into the background shadows. With the limited time she's had in the Tree, she's learned not to take anything at face value, and so, even while the musicians play her red eyes are keeping a watch out for anything that might be called 'out of place'. She's deployed her Shinki into the ceiling to keep a birds eye view of the place, visor scanning thermal signatures.

While some might blink at seeing a short, horned woman in entirely black armour standing near the entrance; Temulin is taking her job seriously, observing all who come in with a careful eye. She doesn't care about the music, so long as everything goes smoothly.

    As the guests settle in, the first musicians come out, a trio composed of a bassist, a pianist, and a drummer. The pianist introduces themselves as the Burlingame Jazz Trio, explaining that they're local to the area and how Vince Guarldi's music for the Peanuts cartoon specials inspired them to become musicians. Fittingly, he says, the first set of the night will play tribute to the venue's namesake. They take their places.
    "One. Two... three!" And they begin playing in earnest the first song of the night. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zypc_LhnM)
    The setup for the evening is not really a concert hall, but more of a social gathering with tables and chairs on the main floor in front of the stage. Wine and non-alcoholic drinks are served alongside appetizers by waiters moving between the tables. It seems very relaxed tonight.

Serrah catches sight of Uni, who's basically the only familiar face around here, and starts heading over to her. As the music begins, she smiles, and begins nodding along to the beat; it seems that Peanuts was popular in Hartford, too. Her course happens to take her close to a refreshment table ...

... and then suddenly, as abruptly as if the proverbial video had skipped ahead, she's several feet further away from it, holding her nose. She drops by another table, grabs a slice of cake, and continues on her walk. "Hey," she says as she nears the goddess. "How's it going?"

Renya Rimehart quirks an ear. No idea why anyone would make one of those moving drawings about legumes or how that's related to music, but that's not really important once the trio starts playing the actual song. She plucks some snacks from a passing tray with one hand, a glass of wine from another with the other hand, and snags a chair by the leg with the crook of her foot to yank it out and put her floofy posterior in it. The tip of the white fox's tail twitching along with the song the entire time.

As the event begins, Temulin begins to take around around the outskirts of the main hall, taking a good look at events that go on; but not paying the music any heed; beyond trying to ensure she doesn't make too much noise while walking, anyway.

    Uni spots Serrah approaching, not partially because Bravette put a marker on the vampire because she's at a sufficiently lower bodyheat that it flagged on her search parameters. "Hey Serrah. Not too bad. I'm mostly here helping out with security." she says, gesturing to the tiny form of her Shinki. "Eye in the sky, and I'm not exactly intimidating without my weapons out, or in my HDD form." she comments, foot-tapping along with the music. It's pretty catchy, after all.

    Bravette frowns a bit. <"Master, I'm picking up heat signatures moving in the vents... permission to investigate?"> radios the Shinki over closed link. "Granted, remain in contact." replies Uni, before returning to her conversation with Serrah.

Benedicta arrives to the concert hall late, she's been rather busy the past few days and could stand to take her mind off everything that's happened. At least she doesn't stand out that much here. The music seems somewhat familar to her but she's not instantly able to place it. There doesn't seem to be anyone here she knows here either pre or post transformation.

    The band progresses to playing another famous tune by Vince Guaraldi, this time one called 'Cast Your Fate To The Wind'. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAh4gYZdDUg). The crowd continues to mingle and socialize, many simply enjoying the melodies being played on stage. Even as sinister things begin moving, attracted by the crowd and music.

Serrah nods. "I'm just moving around the World Tree, trying to stay ahead of that duke who's got his grip on me," she says. "Again." She gives Uni a lopsided smile. "And yeah, this is a nice place." She gestures with the plate of cake. "Good food if you can avoid the garlic, music that hits me in the nostalgia even though the source material is, like, two or three times as old as I am ..." She shrugs. "Might have to slow down my running, at least while Vincent is still recovering from that double-blast he got."

She is blissfully unaware of the movements of any sinister things.

Temulin reaches for her head as she seems to lose sense of her surroundings for a little while, when she recovers, there's steel in her eyes and she takes the opportunity to use the radio Ash gave her to discretely inform the organizers, "I'm picking up some kind of transformation magic, turning a person into a monster; haven't located the culp yet but she appears to be an organic-metal lady. Please prepare for evacuating the premises."

The shadow on the roof got Benedicta's attention but she doesn't get a good look at it as she goes inside. As long it doesn't try to cause any trouble she's not going to bother as she enters. Is that carrot cake she smells? The rabbit girl is going to go get a piece before it's all gone, not aware of the chaos going on elsewhere yet.

    Bravette radios, <"Contact. Something big and hairy is in the vents."> the shinki maneuvers to exit before she gets trapped between two of them. She's armed, but the small nature of her weapons means they';ll most likely only annoy something that big.

    Uni nods to Serrah, then presses a finger to her ear. "Hold on... This doesn't sound good. I'll let security know."

    Uni apologizes to Serrah then approaches one of te security guards. "There's some kind of creature in the vents, my Shinki is tracking them with thermal."

Renya Rimehart makes a mental note to get a list of the songs played later. And see if she can't get Lindsey to learn to play them, this song style would be perfect for keeping high spirits on voyage without getting -too- rowdy. She leans back her chair so she can put her feet up on the table in front of her, likely getting a few annoyed looks from other guests but as you can probably guess, being a pirate, she doesn't really care.

    Temulin's radio crackles. "What? Magic? Ah jeez, outworlder crap." Security does mobilize though, and starts quietly making sure the exits are cleared. Bewildered people are confused as to why security seems to be mobilized. It's only a matter of moments before they start realizing why.
    The shinki's presence attracts the attention of the thing in the vent, and it reaches out for her with an unnaturally long arm that ends in knife-like talons, unnaturally quiet in its motions. Its attempt is somewhat clumsy, constrained by the vent (and yet somehow the huge thing fits in the vent, these things being a bit of a paradox if one doesn't know they are magical creatures), meaning the shinki should be able to escape easily. In any case, there's a loud echoing series of noises from overhead, interrupting the music as the general public wonders what on earth is going on. Things seem like they're about to come to a head as a hush falls over the crowd and eyes gaze upwards at the acoustic ceiling tiles beyond which the racket emanates.

Serrah frowns as Uni indicates she needs to leave. "Dang, okay, talk to you later, then!"

And then her eyes flit up towards the ceiling as the noise begins. "... wow, I sure spoke too soon!"

She considers leaving. Whatever is going on, the security detail is necessarily more than adequate to handle the situation. Right? R-right. There is no reason for her to get involved. Right? No reason for her to get involved.

Absolutely no reason for her to mutter, "I left my baseballs outside ..."

She vanishes altogether, once again like a skipping-ahead video, and reappears much closer to the entrance. Now there's a small sports bag hanging around her waist, stuffed to the gills with baseballs.

There is absolutely no reason for her to do that.

    Bravette scoots back from the knife-like talons, summons an SMG and fires a burst of shock rounds to make the thing recoil, if only for a moment. She makes a hasty retreat out of the vent and returns to Uni, looking terrified. "Those things aren't natural..." she comments, her voice contrasting her expression by being emotionless.. if a bit breathless sounding, despite her not needing to breathe.

    Uni looks to her partner, nods a bit, then looks to the security response. "Guess it's time to gear up, whatever's making that noise is probably not friendly." she remarks, then summons her own bullpup rifle into her hands, flicking the selector to Electric damage and getting into a good firing position.

The shift in atmosphere and security scrambling into a frenzy of motion fails to get Renya's attention on it's own... But you live around a professional musician long enough, and you know that they -do not- just randomly stop playing in middle of a performance. That's why the trio stopping is what finally gets the vixen to pay attention to her surroundings again, almost cussing at the band for stopping before she starts getting that 'about to be raided' feeling some pirates hone.

"Hells and high water," the Captain hisses under her breath, and kicks her chair back from the table to drop her feet to the floor and bolt out of the seat. Then pulls the peculiar swordgun combo from her side, which might get a few gasps when people realize it's not just a prop for an elaborate cosplay costume. "Some landlubber's gonna be ridin' the hemp for interrupting me shore leave!"

Benedicta's head perks up at the noise above her, is there something going on above? Maybe she should followed that shadow after all? She wonders if it's still up on the roof and decides it's worth investgating. It seems like everyone else is leaving as well. She heads out outside and builds up some speed before she makes a running jump onto the roof.

Temulin takes the initiative, maneuvering to the stage and claiming a microphone. "Hello, everyone. I am security, we have small problem; and I need everyone to leave the premises in an orderly fashion. Don't run, don't rush past eachother. We have this under control, but for your safety we cannot take any chances." She instructs in a serious tone. "Any volunteers from the audience skilled in emergency response with offworld dangers are encouraged to come join me to assist. However, I must repeat, do not panic; we have this under control." The fact that a darkness begins to surround her surely does nothing to undermine her point

    As Bravette scoots back, the thing lunges for her. And then the duct work gives way, spilling the thing downward through the ceiling tiles in a spray of dust and debris, revealing the thing to the crowd and people present. People start scattering at the disturbance, guided by Temulin and other members of security, perhaps thinking an earthquake or something was going on.
    The grendel pulls itself up out of the wrecked duct and bits of tile, snarling loudly at the people. Although it is heavily hunched over it stands about eight feet tall, light seeming to slip off its dark shaggy form. It looks like somebody mixed up the nastiest parts of a person, bear, and wolverine. Something made to prey on people. It leaps purposefully for the stage, not to menace the musicians but for the shadows behind the curtains.
    Benedicta sees a hulking hunched figure pacing on the roof, the growing shadows of the evening clinging to it like a fog. It doesn't seem to have noticed her yet, but it seems to be keeping an eye on a hole created by an air conditioning unit ripped from it. The ruined machine is nearby, bearing gouges from large claws where it was ripped from the roof.

Serrah facepalms at Temulin's announcement. And then when the monster drops in, she adds her other hand to the facepalm.

She turns around to head out with the rest of the crowd -- in a much more orderly fashion than the panicked crowds running around are doing -- then immediately turns back around and rises off the ground to float over to the stage. "Why do I keep sticking my neck out for this crap," she mutters to herself, pulling out a single baseball and then pitching it at the monster at perhaps a hundred miles per hour.

    Uni sets into a steady stance... but the rush of people running from the creature means she can't safely open fire without hitting bystanders... so she expends a little Share Energy and leaps up onto a few platforms made from black energy which form for her. She gets above the crowd, and fires a burst of electric bolts at the fleeing Grendel, trying to slow it down at the very least. "Everyone, keep moving, head for the exits, but don't rush." she commands, projecting her voice like only someone who's meant to be in charge of a nation someday can.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Facepalm x2 COMBO! + Baseball pitch.

A creature crashes into the club, only to turn and lunge for the stage. It doesn't matter what it's really going after, just that from Renya's point of view it certainly looks like it's trying to assault the musicians.
Music being one of the few things she treasures as much as her freedom and actual treasure, the pirate princess is not about to just stand around for that.

Her weapon is whipped out at arms length and fired. As much as it's unusual appearance the calisabre makes a sound like no normal gun as it fires. In part because rather than bullets it fires a burst of blistering cold. "COME BACK HERE SO I CAN KEELHAUL YER HAIRY BEAST ASS!" She's.. really not happy about the show being interrupted. Combined with her usual tendances to 'make a scene' as it is.

"Hey, I don't know what you're doing up here but you certainly don't look like staff!" Benedicta's horn glows yellow and six tentacles suddenly grow out of her back. The tentacles lash out at the hulking beast. If it ripped opened the vent she figures it's not likely frently.

As soon as the monster drops out, Temulin dashes and leaps towards it, drawing her massive sword in mid-leap and bringing it down to bear clad in darkness. It's an aggressive move that seems to have as its primary intent less to kill it and more to demand the creature's attention while the civilians evacuate. "I would tell you you picked the wrong day to attack, but you're not the one who made that choice. Tell me, do you have enough of a conscience left to point us at your creator?"

>> SUMMARY[Temulin Dotharl] >> Turn on grit, plunge.

    Temulin's blow manages to sever the massive arm of the grendel before it can leap to the stage. It flinches as baseballs smash into it at breakneck speeds, and the smell of burnt fur and flesh fills the auditorium from the electric burns. Hoarfrost appears, giving the beastman a twinkling coat across its shadowed hide. It does its best to get behind the curtain and into the shadows, but the trail of blood from the stump where an arm used to be will certainly give it away.

    Atop the roof, Benedicta can hear the crowd exiting, screams and panicked running punctuating the night. The beast grunts as the tentacles grab it, but it seems just clever enough to grab and yank on them, turning it into a tug-of-war match between the grendel and the al-mir'aj. The magical bunny-girl can see at first one then another of the things emerge from the vent hole, the things grunting and snuffling their way out of the building with unnatural grace for their size. They move to assist their packmate, menacing with terrible claws and fangs towards Benedicta.

A nice bunch of clean hits. Serrah nods, and does that abrupt jump to the stage, suddenly holding the baseball she threw. "Guess that was a 'no'," she remarks to Temulin.

She stops, looking over towards the shadows, and sniffs the air. "Oh, great, I can also smell blood more ... strongly than I could as a human." Beat. "... we're really gonna have to follow that thing, huh," she says flatly.

    Uni maintains fire, switching from electroshock rounds to conventional kinetic when the beast slips behind the curtain. "Bravette, targetfeed for me, track the heat signature." she commands, flicking a pair of goggles down over her eyes and linking with her Shinki to follow the beast when it goes to hide. She's aiming to disable, rather than kill, slow it down or something along those lines.

Of course Benedicta has an advantage here and simply makes the tentacles disappear. At least until the other creatures come out of the building serving as back-up. "Oh crap, how many of you guys are there!" She backs up knowing that she can't take all of them on her own. Still there's only so much space for her to move back before she's on the edge of the roof. Sure she could jump down but she's pretty sure they can just follow her. Instead she takes a different approach and her horn glows once again, this time bird wings come out of her back.

Slowed but not stopped the creature bolts off behind the curtains. Okay, now she kind of wants to know what it is after, because monsters like this tend to not just strike at random. And it looks like something a Maw cultist would of conjured up, so it's almost definatelly not a good thing to leave running loose. Renya jumps onto her table and then to the next, hopscotching across several parkour style to get onto the stage.

There she stops for a moment, removing her tricorn and sweeping it down into a bow towards the jazz players. "A lovely show until it was rudely interrupted mates." Then snaps back upright as she turns to replace the hat on her head and strike a pose with calisabre held forth dramatically. "But fear not, for I, Renya Rimehart, Pirate Princess of the Verdigris Skies, shall black spot that bilgerat beastie for its discordant disruption of ye jazzy tones! Weigh and away for the chase!" After the bit of scenery chewing of her own Renya runs off past the curtains to pick up the beast's bloody trail with the other brave souls.

What? Some pirates take their music very seriously! Why do you think shanties and sea based musicals are a thing?