World Tree MUSH

    They group had been making their way through the facility for the better part of a year, but after a week spent on a single battle which wasn't going anywhere, the Monadnock Adventurer's Guild had to admit defeat. Rather than calling in from another group, however, one of their members came up with a novel idea: put the word out to the World Tree and request outside help -- outside from the Blossom itself.

    Mount Monadnock is the most prominent mountain peak in southwestern New Hampshire, and is visible for miles around. Close to one of the trail heads leading up is an ancient-looking brown structure, seemingly made of some sort of terracotta, but with a flowery curlicue pattern around it which glows a pleasant shade of blue with the occasional yellow highlights; it seems to cast the exact shade of light as the afternoon sun, as if sunlight was redirected from elsewhere instead of being produced by the facility itself.

    The other thing one would notice is that the forest is greener and healthier in this whole area than it is elsewhere.

    Two figures are standing outside the building, waiting for the group of arrivals to solidify. One is a tall olive-skinned elf, her eyes golden and her smile thin-lipped, holding a tablet computer with its logo written in elvish. The other is a gangly young woman with glasses, and with a large but plain cutlass hanging from her belt; she's actually a few inches taller than the other woman, but something in her bearing and general demeanor vaguely gives the impression that she's shorter. Both of them are wearing padding and light armor. There's a few other elves and humans standing around as well.

    "Now, Miss Brando," says the elf, "I must say, this request to the worlds beyond is quite an unprecedented suggestion!"

    The girl looks away. "Well, I mean ..." She has a scratchy and androgynous voice. "... The World Tree's just been, y'know, on my mind, kind of thing." She nervously adjusts her glasses.

    The elf shakes her head. "Oh, not at all," she says. "Really, I will be quite delighted to see how this all turns out!"

    Lady wouldn't mind if Dante borrowed one of her bikes, right?

    She probably would, but it's not like Dante told her or anything. Pulling up to the entrance of the building, where the two adventurers are waiting, he hops off and throws Lex and the elf a salute. "Yo. Heard there was adventurin' to be done. There room for me?" He grins, pulling various weapons off the sides of the bike, from his sword and shotgun to a pair of scimitars and a guitar-scythe thing. All of which somehow seem to disappear as Dante stows them on his person, save for the greatsword anyway.

And then a massive bird flies past, and a horned woman in black armour, with a blade longer than she is tall drops out of the sky and in front of the pair. "I'm Temulin of the Dotharl tribe, registered member of the Adventurer's Guilds of Eorzea. Heard there was a job here." She offers, glancing to Lex, squinting for a moment as though considering whether she's seen this person before. As Dante arrives, she gives the man a nod, "Hey."

    One of those adventurers is what looks like a young Japanese guy with a distinct blue cast to his hair. A modern eye might call his attire a little... old-fashioned, honestly. This would be one Jun Hisakawa, though obviously he's in his magical mode right now. This trouble here surrounds a battle that's been hard to win, so it makes sense that he'll be doing some fighting. Can't do that when he's not powered-up, right?

    Either way, as he notices the olive-skinned elf and the people gathering, he figures that's where they're supposed to be. So he heads in that direction, and bows politely to the assembled group. "Hello. My name is Jun." He decides to leave it at that for now, while pondering over 'superhero names'. Probably needs one of those at some point...

Unfortunately, not everyone had access to fancy motorcycles, or giant birds, even if the later is completely an option for pokemon trainers! he really has to acquire one of those!. No, the method he uses is far more mundane, is still rather special in it's own sense!. The boy reaches the building while raiding a rather large dog!. The creature looks more like a large mix of a Shih zu and a Yorkshire terrier... with a saddle on it's back, and Luke is riding him to destination!. The kid awkwardly dismounts nad makes sure to give the ride a few snacks, before looking around, "Is it safe to leave him here?, I am kinda... renting him for the ride." he explains, before noticing Dante and the others, waving around. The large doggo remains mostly stoic, simply wagging its tail.

    The elf-woman smiles delightedly at the group. "Ah, capital!" she says. "Yes. There is indeed room for 'adventurin'!' Ah, and yes indeed, young man, your mighty steed shall be in safe hands."

    Lex looks up at Temulin, practically radiating nervousness. "Oh, um, hi again," she says. "... Uh. We met in, in Hyrule?"

    The elf woman bows. "I am quite pleased to meet you all," she says. "I am Ezella Eccahta, known among humans as Ezella Hawthorn, team captain for the Monadnock Adventurer's Guild, and beside me is Lex Brando, a team member." Lex waves as Ezella continues. "For those of you who are unfamiliar with this Blossom, the facili--" A pale-skinned elf with golden hair and green eyes chortles, and Ezella shoots her a look. "... the facility behind me is a part of the Atlantean Grid, an elven network constructed thousands of years ago by the advanced civilization of Atlantis. The Grid was unfortunately completely corrupted in the year 577 BCE, which is to say two thousand five hundred ninety-seven years ago, by a computer virus of uncertain origin."

    Lex clears her throat, and jerks a thumb back at the building. "This place has been cleared out from the virus, so Monadnock A.G. has been using it as our base," she says, "and, uh, basically, the mission is in one of the places that hasn't been cleared out, and all that. It's, y'know, basically there's a big robot in the way of the control room, and, it's, uh ..." She laughs nervously. "It's been kicking our asses when we try to go down there."

    "Dante." The devil hunter introduces himself casually, arms folded as he glances up at the tower. "Robots, huh? Sounds managable." He says, with a cheeky grin. His head turns to spy Luke, and he grins as he wanders over to ruffle the kid's hair. "Hey you, long time no see!" He says, chuckling at Luke's choice in ride. "Wow, they breed 'em big, huh?"

"Ah right, that's where I saw you. A pleasure." Temulin answers Lex before listening, "So long abandoned magitech by a civilization likely destroyed by its own hubris?" Temulin asks, "Sounds familiar. Makes me wonder if Atlantis was anything like Allag." There's a faint sneer when she mentions Allag, but she doesn't seem inclined to elaborate.

"Robot is the common term for a class of forgekin, right? Sound like an automated guardian kind of thing?" She asks, trying to put it into context, looking towards the others to see their reaction before responding, "So if you tried to fight it a few times already, surely you have more to tell us than 'big forgekin, real mean' about what it does and can do?"

    Jun turns to stare a bit at the 'mount' that Luke comes in riding. He blinks, not... quite sure what to make of it. But it's not interacting with him so... well, he doesn't have to deal with it at the moment. So! Yeah. Let's not think about that! Because he's not quite sure his brain can take it. So instead he just greets Luke, who he has not met before, with a nod and a polite smile.

    Fortunately there's some exposition in the offing, so that also aids in distracting Jun from the weird giant dog. Though the whole 'Atlantis' and 'ancient elves' thing has him giving that look again. Ancient elven robots? That's... holy crap, what has he gotten himself into?

    Well, water and electronics don't mix, right? So maybe he can help with it. So he nods, trying not to look too concerned about all this. "I think I can help with that," he replies, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. And he did! A little...

    Temulin does seem to have a good idea, and he looks to her (while trying not to stare at the horns; either that or convincing himself that they were just on the helmet) for a moment before looking back at the woman who seemed to be in charge of this whole operation.

    The boy is relieved, and directs the dog to follow the nice folks willing to give it shelter, "Thank you, I promise he will behave." he says, before reaching to ruffle the big boy, "Will be back soon, Stoutland!", to which the pokemon just borks, and wags. Luke lets out a laugh as he is ruffled, nudging Dante a bit, "Hey, glad to see you again." before nodding, "They do indeed, I am just lucky people in Alola rent some pokemon for trainers that don't have their own special rides, still planning to getone myself eventually." he explains. 
     HE listens closely to the story lesson from the elf lady and Lex, rubbing his chin, "So we have to fight that robot?" he asks, "Is there any info you can give about it... for combat?... it might help me handle things a bit." he says, nodding to Temulin as she as well asks about the opponent. 
    Of course, Luke grins and greets Luke, "Hi!" he offers, quite the polite boy, "I'm Luke.", then points to the dog, "That guy is Stoutland."

Ezella nods in greeting to each of the group in turn. "Just so," she says in response to Temulin and Luke. "And yes. Guardians, Sentinels ... If everyone is willing, we may adjourn to the command room in order to get a more full briefing ...?"

Going through the inside of the building is like being inside a forest. It has the exact same atmosphere and lighting; it's just that it's a corridor with terracotta walls and a patterned floor, and the light is coming from a ceiling with the same sort of flowery curlicue pattern and is constantly from directly overhead. There's also a gentle hum of machinery instead of forest sounds. Down a staircase leading below ground, and nearly all of the walls have roots sticking out of them at regular intervals.

The control room is much the same, and it's a mishmash of modern technology and ancient magic and tech; elves and humans are standing around various consoles and stations. In the corner opposite the entrance, there's a large platform covered in magic runes. There's an orange hologram hovering above the center of the room, showing a somewhat maze-like three-dimensional map labeled "Floor 99" in both English and elvish, with a few points of interest labeled: "Control Room" with a single entrance, a small room labeled "Transport Node" next to "Stairs up", and a red line throughout labeled "Sentinel's path."

One of the elves, a platinum-blonde man wearing a headset who appears to be in his forties, smiles as everyone enters. "Hi, I'm Dalér Laurefindele, or Dalér Goldenhair," he says. "Welcome to Monadnock A.G. headquarters. I'm gonna be guiding you from here through the duration of this mission, and my brother Daheru is going to patch you up if anything goes wrong."

He hits a button on his console, and the hologram changes to an image of a spherical robotic monster which seems to be made of the same brown material as the machine, with eight spidery legs that seem to have shields attached; it has the familiar flowery curlicue pattern around the center of the sphere, but glowing an unpleasant shade of orange, with sixteen eyes at regular intervals just above it. "Short version," says Eldalér, "this Sentinel is doing everything in its power to keep people from entering the control room." He makes a face. "Technically doing the job it was created for before the Atlantean Catastrophe, but, y'know. It hits like a falling boulder, its eyes shoot lasers -- anything from a huge intense beam to smaller, short bursts -- and it's fast enough that it can get anywhere in Floor 99 in about one minute, even with people holding it back."

He looks around at the group. "Your options are either to destroy it, or to stall it for the two minutes it takes Ezella to patch in the antivirus. Any questions?"

"Naturally," Ezella interjects, "you will all be compensated financially for placing yourself in danger like this."

    Dante follows in, but he doesn't have much to interject at this point. He's way better at breaking stuff anyways. "So who made these things?" He asks, folding his arms as he inspects the holograms.

"The local equivalent of the Allagans, by the looks of things." Temulin answers Dante, "I think they called them Atlanteans? Same kind of approach to things though, smart folks focused on artifice with little consideration for the dangers of their works." Yeah, she's making assumptions based on similarity. Bad habit. She examines the console, "I'm an expert at keeping people protected." She offers when it comes to strategy, "I'll make sure it doesn't get a chance to disrupt the client if it gets close, maybe smack it around a bit if it gets close, and you guys try to beat it up all proper?" She glances to the others

    So just... just act like it's all normal, right? Jun listens to the explanation of where the horse-dog-thing came from, and what it is. A rented ride? Well... the kid does look pretty young... maybe he's too young for a driver's lisence, and that's the answer. Now it's starting to make... marginally more sense, so it's easier to brain. Still... whether the side of a draft horse or not, it's obviously a dog, and Jun likes dogs. So he can't be too terribly scared of it...

    Ah, a briefing. Good, that will make things clearer. Of course, during the trip, Jun has to constantly jog to catch up with the group, because he's staring at things on the trip. And probably at a couple people. It's the look of a wide-eyed tourist, at least, so he doesn't actually mean any disrespect.

    He does actually have something possibly useful to offer, however! When the mention of Daheru patching people up is made, Jun pipes up, "Oh, I can... help with that, a little." He looks like he wants to add more, but decides against it. Now. This spider robot thing. This just... even the hologram is just unpleasant in every visual way he can think of. "...Ugh, I'm glad I'm not arachnophobic..." he mutters.

    Temulin's statement gets a blank look. Yeah, he has no idea what an 'Allagan' is. Sounds like 'allergen' to him. And from her tone, Temulin seems like she's pretty well allergic to them. Of course Jun doesn't say that out loud. He does however nod to Temulin's words. "I think I can manage to help everyone smack it around a little," he agrees.

     Luke listens closely to the explanation, especially of the offensive abilities of the robot, "So... should we try to just stall it if possible? or it really doesn't matter the result, as long as the way ends up clear afterwards?" the boy asks, poking at a weird portable device, adn checking on his belt, "I think I can help defend against the laser blasts, or at least, try to draw it's attention, if you need something for defense..." he muses, then looks to Temulin, "That is a relief, and will make it easier for me, mind if I stick near you? my pokemon will fight more easily if they don't have to worry so much about my safety." he asks.

    Lex notices Jun's staring. And she can't stop herself from glancing curiously back at him, either. Still, though, she doesn't say anything aloud on the subject.

    The response to Dante's question comes from the green-eyed elf, who followed them in. "The elves of Atlantis," she says archly. "And no, Ms. Temulin. The purpose of the Atlantean Grid was the same as any other construction, whether industry or living quarters. The Atlantean Catastrophe was a special case." She smiles faintly. "Oh, forgive me. I'm Ilmaredh Liantassëtië." She glances at Ezella. "Or Ilmaredh 'Vineway'. I'm just here to see how this turns out."

    Ezella gives Ilmaredh another look, then turns back to Temulin and Jun. "That is good to hear, on both counts," she says. "And I either option is acceptable, Mr. Luke. We have no particular purpose for the weapons of old, and no way to change their programming and behavior regardless. Which is probably just as well."

    Dalér nods. "All righty then," he says. "If nobody has any objections to just jumping right in, you can just stand on the transport node over there ..." He gestures towards the platform.

    Lex and Ezella get right on; Lex preemptively draws her cutlass. Once everyone's on, a human at the nearest console pushes a few buttons, and then Lex hits a button on the wall next to the platform.

    Everything turns blue for a few seconds. And then the party is somewhere else.

    It looks like a small room in a very similar building, except ... everything's wrong. The curlicue pattern on the ceiling is glowing that distressing shade of orange. The air is stuffy, and the background machinery sounds are audibly distressed. Oh, and everything shows obvious signs of wear and damage. Even the few surviving tree roots are sickly and decrepit. A hallway in the same sort of shape is visible just outside the room, and a relatively fresh-looking scorch mark is visible from the platform. Thudding and terracotta clanking is audible further in.

    Ezella holds up her tablet; the map from before is visible. "Well, here we are," she says. "Monadnock A.G. headquarters, do you read?"

    Dalér's voice speaks up, sounding distorted and staticky. "No worse (fzzzt) last time," he says. "I'll try to put (fzzFFFFFzzt) your map, but with (fzzzt) spotty (fzzzzt) ..." A red icon depicting the Sentinel appears on the map. It's twitching slightly this way and that; there's obvious connection lag going on there.

"Sure they were." Temulin answers Ilmaredh, "And I don't much like honorifics, but if you insist, do it right. I'm a knight." She glances to Jun's clear confusion, but shrugs and moves on. "Sure, Luke. Stick near me and I'll keep you safe." The moment they step into the transport node, Temulin draws her blade and darkness begins to emanate from her, creating a visible aura of energy.

Once downstairs, she sighs. "I shoulda given the guy a linkpearl to borrow if I'd known we'd be keeping in contact." She complains mildly, but taking point regardless. "Anyone who considers themselves squishy, stay behind me."

    Dante pops his neck. "Let's do this." He grabs his sword, before heading for the transport node. Everything gets all blue for a bit, and he passes by Temulin, the opposite of squishy as he begins exploring. "Not it. I'm good!" He says to Temulin, clinging Rebellion across his shoulders as he starts moving without regard for his own safety.

    He's DANTE, he'll be fine.

    Jun looks up, noticing Lex glancing at him... and gives a sheepish look. She doesn't make a comment about it, so neither does he, but the apologetic look is pretty clear. Maybe he'll get the opportunity to explain it later. For now though... there's a robot spider to smack around.

    Great. A teleporter. More magical stuff already. Jun hesitates, but mentally and physically squares his shoulders. ('Pull up your big boy panties, Jun... you are magical now, this stuff shouldn't be weirding you out like this anymore,') he mentally chides himself. And then he steps on the transport node with the others. Though he can't help a bit of a cringe as his vision goes blue.

    At least it seems to have worked -- Jun makes sure of this with a look at himself. Though he does seem to pout a little bit, for some reason, only for a moment, and then he's looking around. And he immediately cringes again. "...This place just feels so wrong, and I have no idea why..." he comments.

    Here's when he finally draws his weapon. It's a sword... handle? It looks like tiny, hand-sized piece of coral, but metal, with only two branches that curl out to the sides to form the hilt. The pommel is in the shape of three smaller 'branches' holding onto what looks like a large pearl. He closes his eyes a moment, and a blade of white light springs forth from the handle. It's not a lightsaber, mind you. The blade's actually flat and has edges. Just, it's made of light. It's also holy-flavored, for whatever that's worth here, to ally or enemy alike.

    he winces a bit at the connection issues. Looking to Ezella he asks, "Is that just because of this?" He waves his hand to indicate the area around them, meaning of course all the orange and the ICK (not literal ICK, just that's how this whole place has him feeling). "I don't suppose there's any way to boost the signal from here? Wouldn't do to have him cut out in the middle of telling us something important."

    Temulin's dark aura gets a look too, and he blinks in surprise. It doesn't feel nearly as bad as the area around them right now, but it's definitely a surprise. He's about to take Temulin up on that offer when he remembers -- no, he's not supposed to be squishy. At least, he doesn't think he is. So he takes up a position next to her rather than behind her. Not too close, though; he knows enough to realize that being too close means he's in the way.

     Luke tries his best to remain calm as they travel into the building and down the platform, reaching for his pokeballs as it becomes clear to him he should be ready. The teleportation seems to take him by surprise, blinking a few times and looking around, "Guess we are here then..." he mumbles, "Should pick fast." He reaches into his belt to grab one of his pokeballs, and clicks it open. A bright flash of light, and a large, and extremely loud tiger appears with a loud growl, it looks kinda cute!, it even has a lighting mark on it's white belly and chestfur. 
    "Dynamo! we are dealing with a machine that likes to attack at range with energy, and moves really fast all over this area once it senses intruders, we need to take it down." he gives the most abridged explanation he can to the big cat, that looks around at the gathered, and meows happily at Dante, recognizing him. "Use Light screen, and move ahead, I will be safe with Temulin here." 

    The big round feline growls, moving aside from teh group and clearly focusing, yellow energy emanating from it, before a yellow translucent box appears around it, it almost looks like it's made of glass. The big cat, given free reign of moving ahead a bit, decides to stick with Dante, dude seems to know how to handle himself, so tries to keep close, at least as long as they don't get too far from the group.

    Lex can't resist giggling as stands on Temulin's other side from Jun, but not too close. "Oh jeez," she says as Dante just charges forward. "Uh. Luke, is he, uh, is he always, y'know ... like that?"

    She glances over at Jun, and whistles appreciably at his sword. "The 'wrongness' is probably the corruption, yeah," she says. "The Atlantean Grid, like ..." She gestures vaguely. "It's supposed to reinforce nature and life around it, but the corrupted ones ... they do the exact opposite."

    Ezella stays as close to Temulin as she can. "There is, Mr. Jun," she says. "The Sentinel seems to have re-corrupted the facility's signal relays since the last time we were here. My tablet will reactivate them as we pass by." She raises an eyebrow at Dynamo. "Such impressive creatures, Mr. Luke!" she says.

    "Yeah," says Dalér's voice. "I'd love (fzzzzt) more about all of (fzzzzt) worlds once we have the time." There's a ping, and the sound of distortion vanishes, and the movements of the Sentinel's icon become much more smooth. "Okay, signal relay 99-five enabled. Looks like he's about to run into the sentinel right about ..."

    A few turns ahead, Dante is, indeed, the first person to encounter the Sentinel! It nearly fills up the entire hallway, and its movements are jerky and wild, but they seem to have a rhythm amid the chaos. It fires a quick burst of eye-lasers directly at Dante, but mostly it seem intent on charging past him towards the main group. It tries to smack him around with its shield-legs, too, but it doesn't seem particularly picky about that.

As soon as news arrives that the sentinel is moving their way, Temulin's darkness thickens and she shuts her mouth. The dark knight advances slowly, carefully; better to take a while than to lose track of her charges. The moment she sees the sentinel, the darkness begins to cover her blade; and the way she holds it, she's clearly planning to use it as a shield as much as a weapon.

    Dante IS indeed like that. He doesn't seem too interested in chatting tonight. He sees the sentinel ahead, and before the lasers can fry him, he dodges out of the way with a blur of movement. Then he takes after the Sentinel, moving at top speed as he draws one of his guns, opening fire on the robot. "Alright, tin-head, suck it!"

    ...Okay now that's not even fair, Jun decides, as Luke's round electric tiger appears out of a small red ball. Monsters are not supposed to be that cute. Jun pauses, to stare at the creature a moment, before getting his mind back on the situation at hand.

    Seeing Dante go on ahead, Jun winces a little. "Oh... be careful, okay?" he calls up to Dante quietly. He's got that tone you hear from the worrywarts.

    Jun nods to Ezella's explanation. "That makes sense... it's not just corruption of nature itself, but also like a computer virus, possibly transmitted through wifi..." he reasons. He suddenly sounds a lot more certain of himself, a lot less hesitant-sounding. It's actually a few heartbeats before Dalér warns them of the approaching robot that Jun tenses, holding the blade at the ready, locking his gaze on... precisely the direction the robot charges at them from!

    With Temulin acting as the tank, Jun acts as DPS! He'll try to get around to the thing's side -- if there's room; if not he'll just try not to get lasered. Steam starts to form in the air around him -- not a huge amount, and it won't make it difficult for anyone to see. A cutting motion in the air in front of him sends wisps of that steam streaking at the robot's legs.

    Now... that's steam, not just fog. It's very hot water, and he's focusing it into small pin-needle blasts. He's hoping that they'll cut into the thing's armor, or at least weaken it for someone to take advantage of.

    Luke smiles a bit, "I'm just Luke.." he says, rubbing the back of his head, "But, thank you, raised him since he was a Tigrette, he is very, very strong, so I am not too concerned." he manages to say, before the giant spider manages to appear. He is glad he sent Dynamo ahead!. 

     The big cat doesn't seem too scared of the monster, seems more prepared to try to take care of it, joining on the onslaught on the massive creature. Lacking any creative input from Luke, it inmediatly retaliates with a good fallback move, the cat roars as electricity flares around it's form, moving closer, and unleashing a large arc of electricity towards the big monster, being so big and metal, likely to hit. The energy simply phases through the curious 'glass' cube around it, without any issues!

    Dante's guns pockmark the Sentinel's plating, but there doesn't immediately seem to be damage. Up close, it's easier to see that the thing has pockmarks and scratches all over, most of them relatively recent.

    Of course, from the Sentinel's perspective, the nice part about having eyes in all directions is that it doesn't even need to turn around to fire back at the half-demon. It does, however, let up its backward assault in order to fire at Dynamo, Temulin, and Jun in that order.

    There basically isn't a whole lot of room to get beside it. However, it actually takes a half-step back from the steam-blast attack, and the lightning actually causes it to stagger slightly! It swings a shield-leg to try to slam Jun into the nearby wall.

    "Impressive!" says Ezella. "Ah, we should be turning the other way at this junction ... But, yes, spells of that caliber are quite rare -- Oh dear, it's charging up a stronger beam!"

    The Sentinel's eye nearest Dynamo begins glowing brightly, and after a second or two, it fires a single brilliant laser at the pokemon!

Temulin partially blocks the assault, taking one hit, darkness seeping out of the wound and reinforcing the already present protective cloud of darkness. Then, when the Sentinel begins charging its laser, she raises her blade and goes for a vertical swipe from sufficient distance that it couldn't possibly hit. Of course, it doesn't. But what might connect is the flood of shadow that is released from her weapon. "Just give me directions, I'll stick between you and the guardian." She answers Ezelle, "So long as you stick close to me."

    "ACK!" That would be the sound of Jun getting 'winged' by that blast it shot at him. He hadn't expected it, and so it managed to hit his arm despite him trying to dodge. He's left in a bad place for the leg-shield slam, too -- and the next sound Jun makes is a loud, "Oof!" as the wind is knocked out of him.

    He's down, but not out. And he's also managed not to drop his sword. Somehow. He's even got some ideas! "Try to knock out some of its eyes!" he calls to the group as he gets his second wind, his voice a little raspy still.

    And that's what he's going to start doing too. He probably can't reach the eyes with a physical attack now -- either he's too far away or he's pinned against a wall -- but he can do that little steam trick again, this time aiming at one of the spider-robot's eyes.

     The electric pokemon seems quite full of energy, even after launching such a large electric blast, the electric aura around it's frame growing even brighter as it runs around. The Sentinel's attention is welcome, the electric tiger releasing a burst of smaller electric attacks, and the warning about a charge is answered with the pokemon redoubling it's defense, roaring a challenge at the machine. "Dynamo, use protect!" Luke manages to call. 

     The feline going completely still as it focuses it's considerable energy in a fully defensive way.

    The beam from the machine slams on the original barrier, and perhaps surprisingly, some of the energy from the blast dissipates, even as it punches through, only to run into a new barrier, a glowing green shield formed in front of the tiger, catching the rest of the beam, the energy dispersing around to the walls by the barrier, constantly fed by the tiger's electric output, even pushing the pokemon back, but doing no visible damage.

>> GAME >> Luke Gray commits an Edge for: Dynamo uses protect!

    Gunfire doesn't seem to affect the Sentinel much, meaning Dante is forced to chase after it in order to do any sort of damage. Stowing his pistol, he propels himself into the air like a coiled spring, sword in hand, as he rushes towards the Sentinel. Dante roars fiercely as he slashes at the Sentinel. It's weird how he does so much more damage with his sword than guns, when fighting bigger monster types.

    Ezella carefully leads Temulin back down the hallway towards their goal. At the sight of Temulin tanking the hit, Ezella raises her eyebrows. "Oh my!" At the sight of Dynamo just blocking the attack, however, she exclaims, "I alairë --" This is elvish for "What unholy --" or, if you're feeling spicy, "What the fuck --"

    "Wait, what!?" says Dalér's voice. "Did Dynamo just ..."

    "Yes," says Lex. "Yes, he did." She peers over at Jun. "Okay, is he some kind of Shinewander?" she says under her breath. "Or ... the nearest home-Blossom equivalent, kind of thing?"

    The Sentinel staggers back from Temulin's blast of darkness, which leaves a visible gash -- clearly larger than the scratches it was getting before. Its eye cracks at the hit from Jun's attack, and it once again staggers from Dynamo's electric attacks. And then it staggers forward at Dante's assault from behind.

    Lex and Ezella are grinning nervously from behind Temulin now. "Try to get on our side of it, Mr. Dante!" says Ezella, who seems to be the sort of person who uses honorifics with everyone no matter what. "That way you will all be pushing it away from the control room as we advance!"

    The Sentinel once again tries to smack Dante away, this time using the three nearest legs instead of just one; it's clearly in worse shape than it was before, however, and the physical attacks have slightly less force behind them. Jun and Dynamo each get another small laser-blast ...

    ... and then, since Temulin, Lex, Luke, and Ezella are all clustered together, and are the closest to the control room, it charges up slightly longer, and then fires two of the particularly intense blasts towards them!

    Dante's smacked away, flinging Rebelling out of his hands as it embeds itself in the wall. "Shit!" He calls out, before going back to his pistols. This time, he aims a bit more accurately this time. THose eyes look as good as any for a weak spot, and he takes a few shots at them while evading laser blasts and leg strikes, trying to keep out of its range while he fires at those eyes.

Temulin answers Ezella in a phrase that is somehow clearly understandable as 'Language, there's a kid here' to people, despite obviously being in some language of the central asian steppes. Then, steps forward to the blasts, and rather than try to block them with her sword, she blocks them both with her body, the wounds clearly severe but somehow not killing her despite the obvious fact that wounds are lethal. Then she leaps upwards, and swings her blade in an attempt to take out more than one of those eyes before jumping back. "So, this gig included medical, right?" She asks casually, glancing towards Ezella when she's back in front.

>> GAME >> Temulin Dotharl spends an Edge for: Living Dead

    Jun is in no hurry to tank another one of those blasts, particularly not when there's another smaller one coming at him. This time he's ready for it, and manages to avoid it. However, when he sees what the robot is up to, he hisses, the sound almost serpentine. He makes an 'up' gesture with his free hand, and floats up into the air. Then he quickly tries to interpose himself between the spider robot and where those two blasts are heading.

    He's not about to just facetank that, no. He calls out as much water from the air as he can, silently apologizing to the plantlife that it might have to come from, and tries to construct a literal wall of water. It likely won't completely block it, but it might dampen the attack somewhat.

    Dynamo drops the barrier as soon as the blast ends, and does a big display of being more or less unnafected, besides maybe having been pushed back several feet. "Good job Dynamo!" calls Luke, while the tiger shakes and resumes moving. Of course, any decent observer can notice the aura it was sporting before trying to act as 'target' is fairly subdued, and it is panting a bit, "That darn thing... if I wasn't worried about the lasers this might be a fair bit easier." he grumbles. 

    The energy box around Dynamo shifts a bit, still in effect, and it catches the new, smaller blast aimed at it, pushing through only partially, and grazing along the shoulder of the tiger, causing it to snarl loudly and jump back, 

    "Change of plans, Volt switch so I can bring someone else!". The tiger nods in understanding and launches another attack, gathering it's energy in a yellow orb of electricity, and tossing it at the monster, aimed at the closest 'eyes' and exploding in a bright display, trying to stun and 'blind' the spider as the pokemon runs back to Luke, and vanishes in a flash of light, replaced by a large black and pink 'bear', that lets out a loud, high pitched noise.

>> SUMMARY[Luke Gray] >> Dynamo uses volt switch!, it's Bewear's turn

    Lex peers at Rebellion and ... giggles nervously. "I can't concentrate enough to talk about what kind of sword that is because I can't get over how the ricasso is literally just a freaking skele-torso --"

    And then she and Ezella are just gawking at the fact that Temulin does just facetank the blast. Ilmaredh's voice is audible in the background letting out an incoherent exclamation. "Uhhhhhhh ... yes," Ezella answers Temulin weakly.

    The Sentinel is losing more and more eyes, and so it physically turns its entire body this way and that to look at its targets, first towards Dante, then towards Jun, then towards Dynam-- It staggers back again from Volt Switch. -- towards Bewear. It spreads four of its legs outward, and blindly starts spinning around like a propeller, lowering its limbs with perfect accuracy in order to avoid jamming into the wall. Thereupon, it starts lumbering ponderously towards Temulin's group -- not as fast as Dalér's hype implied; it's clearly not in good shape now!

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> I would have said 'on its last legs' but it's still got plenty of those.

    "C'mon guys, let's put this a-hole down!" Dante says, sprinting towards his sword and dodging the spinning robot spider, reaching to grab Rebellion by the hilt and pull it free, superhuman strength ripping it free where most would be unable to even make it budge. He stows his pistols, and then leaps toward the Sentinel, slashing at its neck to decapitate it right off its abdomen.

    That water is still around -- that's the thing about water, it doesn't actually disappear. It just changes its form. And so, as the spinning robot starts lumbering at the control room group, Jun draws his free hand back. The remaining water draws back as well, moving past Jun a little. But then he moves his hand forward again, and the water follows, his palm pointed at the spinning robot spider, and the water gathers underneath it.

    ('Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work...')

    And then he draws his free hand up again, in a sharp, abrupt movement. And as he does, the gathered water explodes upward like a geyser! He's hoping to flip the spinning spider -- the SPINder, if you will -- onto its back. Or at least onto its side. Something to slow or stop the thing's progress.

Darkness is busy keeping the blood inside Temulin right now, but that won't last forever. Sooner or later, she'll need actual healing. As the Sentinel makes it way to her and the group once more, her next attack is relatively weak, just waiting for it to close in and swinging her blade. "Good, I'd have had to contact someone quickly if it didn't." She offers, before falling to one knee. "Maybe I should anyway."

    The new pokemon doesn't really need an explanation of what is going on, easily seeing the monster they are fighting, and already charging ahead, while Luke tries to figure what to do. "Bewear! smash that thing!, Super power!". The bear nods, doing another adorable, high pitched squeak as it pauses and does what looks like a sped up version of a DBZ powerup, bulking up and aura included, before it jumps forward right at the beast, taking advantage of any distraction or hesitation on the machine to slam down both paws with all the strength it can muster.

    The Sentinel nearly falls off its feet as Dante cleaves the sphere nearly in half. It gets slammed up into the ceiling by Jun's geyser, and Bewear basically just pulverizes it. With all that, Temulin's swing from her sword is just adding insult to injury. The machine collapses, large blue and white sparks bursting outward, and then it goes completely still.

    Ezella is staring at all this as if she can't believe any of this is happening. "Well, now!" she says. "Ah ... Miss Brando, Mr. Jun, would you kindly bring Dame Temulin to Dr. Goldenhair as quickly as possible?"

    Dalér's voice says, "He's on his way as we speak!" Lex promptly rushes to Temulin's side to help her to her feet, or to help carry her if necessary.

    Ezella nods. "Mr. Luke, Mr. Dante, and ... Bewear, is it? Would you kindly escort me the rest of the way to the control room? Just in case. Ah, anything else that's likely to appear is ..." She hesitates. "... unlikely to be any challenge after that."

"Darkness is keeping the blood inside for now. Won't last forever." Temulin explains, leaning on Lex and any others who are looking to help carry her. "Sorry for getting hurt like this, but I got to keep my word. I promised I'd keep you safe." She pauses before adding, "And if I do pass out, don't touch the horns. They're ... sensitive."

    Jun breathes a sigh of relief as the tactic appears to work, and the robot spider falls apart to the combined assaults finally. The water simply melts away into a light misty fog, and a 'dismiss' gesture has the fog dissipating after a moment of concentration.

    And that's when Jun notices that Temulin is hurt! "Oh!" He also hurries over to her side, sword blade finally disappearing. "...Oh, geez, I'm sorry! I didn't realize -- I'm sorry!" He shakes his head, getting himself together. "H-here, I can help stabilize it before we move you," he offers.

    And unless Temulin objects, he'll place his hands near the worst of the wounds, and closes his eyes. He's not touching those wounds though. In a moment, the area between his hands and the wonds lights up with a soothing green light, and he'll be trying to aim that soothing, healing energy into the wounds.

    "No worries, Temulin." Dante says, wandering over before clapping her on the shoulder. He stows his sword and nods to Ezella. "Sure, it's why we're here, right?" He says, fairly unconcerned with any wounds suffered. He'll walk it off.

    Luke just stares at the machine for a bit longer, and finally begins to approach Dante and Ezella, while the Bewear pants and cools down from that somewhat crazy display, bowing and chirping happily when he is called 'Mister'. "Now he will insist I call him mister." he says,chuckling a bit, before the two join Dante on the home stretch. "Sure, let's hope that was the worst of it."

    Lex nods to Temulin as she helps Jun bring her back towards the teleport room. "Um, right!" she says, and peers at Jun's healing magic. "Oh, cool!" She hesitates, and glances between Temulin and Jun. "Also, uh, don't mind Dr. Daheru if he ..." She grimaces. "Well, he's not an elf-supremacist or anything? But he's one of the weirdos who genuinely believes that this Blossom is the source of all life in the World Tree, and our world's elves are the 'original' beings here, and all that. Fortunately, this has never been relevant to his actual healing, and all that." (She doesn't seem to notice that she said "and all that" twice.) A slight pause. "Don't stand between him and Ezella if the subject comes up, because she does not believe in that stuff, and sparks will fly."

    When Lex, Temulin, and Jun arrive back at the Monadnock H.Q. control room, they find a medical gurney waiting for them with a group of obvious doctors, led by an elf who looks a lot like Dalér. "Oh, good, you've already applied an on-site healing spell!" he says. "Let's check her at the hospital wing just to be sure, all right?" He smiles. "I guess Beech Hill is going to look just a little brighter tonight, huh."

    Ezella smiles to Dante and Luke. "Indeed!" she says, as she leads them down the hallway. "And yes, Mr. Luke, I personally guarantee it."

    The control room is in just as poor condition as the rest of it; there's something which obviously looks like a computer terminal, except that it seems to be made of terracotta and wood, with a circular screen which looks like a silver mirror. "The current best antivirus operates via security through obscurity, I'm afraid," she says, holding up her tablet. "That is, it only works because the virus it is fighting doesn't know how it works." A progress bar appears on the tablet, with a countdown starting at about two minutes; the screen on the terminal behind it starts to show static.

    And once it reaches 100% ... the harsh orange lights dim, then cycle all the way through day and a brightly-moonlit night, before settling back on the natural light of the afternoon. As it does, cheers erupt in the headquarters.

"Thanks." The dark knight offers Jun as he helps with her wounds, "Can't be worse than Empire." Temulin answers weakly when it comes to Daheru's position, "And he sure sounds like some of the Elezen I've met, and from what I can tell Elezen are some kind of elf." And then she makes to medical and she just passes out once she lays down.

    Lex's warning gets a blink. Jun definitely understands it, just... even though he literally just did magic, he's still a little incredulous about it all. Kind of operating on some kind of autopilot. Maybe there's some trace of the dragon's personality inside him -- just enough to make a lot of what he does almost second nature. Anyway, Lex's warning gets a nod. "I'm not an elf... and I have no idea what's going on with these other worlds anyway," he admits. "So it's not really my place to say one way or the other. I'll go agnostic with it and say I have no idea." He gives a bit of a smirk at this.

    Jun nods to the elf that looks like Dalér when he says something about healing spells. "Yeah. It's just enough to stabilize her, though -- I didn't want her bleeding out on the way," he notes. The mention of checking Temulin over gets a nod too. "Makes sense," he agrees. "Long as she's okay with it. She's probably safer in your hands anyway; I'm not a doctor, and I'm still new to this magic stuff." As they might have been able to tell with his wide-eyed 'look at everything' attitude.

    When the lights start to change, Jun also breathes a sigh of relief. "That... feels much better," he notes. "I don't feel like I'm wrapped up in a blanket of gross anymore." He smiles, a little weakly. Yeah, he... needs to get somewhere that he can rest too, otherwise he's gonna fall out of transformation and that wouldn't be good...

    Lex chortles at Temulin's comment about the Empire. "Man, every world's got its problems, right?" She nods to Jun. "Nice, isn't it?" she says. "I always feel better after purifying a Grid ruin, not sure why. And this one was right in the town where I grew up, too ..." She glances around, and her tone turns slightly sour. "Where'd Vineway go, anyway?"

    "Oh, she left right after Ezella got to the control room," says one of the doctors.


Outside the headquarters:

    Ilmaredh Liantassëtië, also known as Ilmaredh Vineway, stalks over to a gleaming pickup truck. Her face has a carefully-crafted neutral expression, revealing as little of her inner surprise and worry on as she can. Once in the driver's seat, she gets out her phone and opens an app called "Orange Droid Text Editor." She types a lengthy password which appears to be a mixture of English and elvish gibberish, and then an icon appears over the screen with an image of the sun rising over the horizon, except upside-down. She presses it, and types up a message.


Somewhere else entirely:

    A meeting room in an Atlantean Grid facility. The floral curlicue pattern on the ceiling shows it to be at night here, but it is tinted orange around the edges. A group of six elves are sitting around a table, each of them dressed entirely in black with orange trim, each face covered by a mask which bears the same inverted-sunrise emblem; there is an elvish numeral emblazoned each mask beneath the emblem, numbered 1 through 6.

    A hologram hovers above at the end of the table. A message appears in elvish:

        > They actually got help from outside the Blossom.
        Four in total, though one appeared to be some sort of summoner.
        > The Class 3 Sentinel in floor 99 of the Beech Hill ruin was wiped out with barely any trouble.
        > Their names are as follows ...