World Tree MUSH

    Lake Merced is a hop skip and a jump from the Pacific Ocean in San Fransisco. It's has been described as an island of wildlife in an ocean of development: all around it is the heavy-constructed suburban environment of the city, but the park around the lake itself is relatively undeveloped except for a couple of golf courses. It's a prime spot for fishing, although it's not the most common activity in the evening.

    Regardless, nobody takes note of the plainly-dressed blonde woman with an oversized fishing bag as she makes her way into the bushes at the edge of the lake. The elf known as Ilmaredh Liantassetië, or Ilmaredh Vineway, is wearing a bandana which covers the pointed tips of her ears, after all. It's just getting dark enough that she doesn't need to wear sunglasses to hide her emerald-green eyes, too. She moves out of sight, quickly gets changed ...

    The first sign of trouble is that a number of Vines are suddenly redirecting themselves. Their new destination is the parkland around Lake Merced. The second sign of trouble is the sight of an elf dashing through the park leaping from treetop to treetop, dressed entirely in black with orange trim, her face concealed by a white mask bearing an emblem which looks like the sun rising over the horizon except upside-down. She's carrying a five-foot-long high-tech curved sword with a gleaming blade and a glowing orange edge. ... She's holding it in one hand.

    (... And anyone with any sort of supernatural sense might detect that the sword carries a curse, one which seems actively hostile to all life and to nature itself.)

    Brilliant orange wings of light manifest from her shoulders, full of the energy of the sword's curse, and she flies over to a concrete bridge bisecting the southern tip of Lake Merced. With a swing of her sword, a slice of orange light knocks over several trees on the eastern edge of the bridge, and she lets out a delighted laugh as people start screaming and fleeing the scene. She flies over directly above the center of the bridge, and she hovers there.

    Waiting.

    Tirsiak is in Lake Merced.

    No, not just in Lake Merced National Park. Not by the shore of Lake Merced. She is in Lake Merced. A small girl-shape under the water, before a sudden flurry of motion and a spirit-goddess rising triumphantly from the water, a trout wriggling and squirming in her hands. A bestial bite is taken out of the fish, killing it instantly, as Tirsiak savors the fruits of her hunt.

    Not the Hunt, this time. It's a perfectly sunny day after all. She just felt like hunting something.

    As she rises up above the surface of the water, dripping wet, her ears suddenly perk and her gaze snaps in the direction of the elf... or, well, the blade she's wielding. As she comes to 'stand' on the surface of the water, Tirsiak is letting out a low growl...

"I left my heart in San Francisco. High on a hill, it calls to me." Off-key singing can be heard from above, "Well, we made it to San Francisco. Now we just need to find which hill the lich left his heart on!" It seems like Holly's came on a field trip to find a certain magical artifact.

 "Um Holly, I'm pretty that sure that's just a song. Like a ring entrance theme." Lavaux floats next to her as her tries to inform the witch she's looking for something that doesn't actually exist.

 "No, it's a powerful magical chant, he just disguised it as a song to fool people!" She seems to be convinced regardless.

 "Well regardless, I'm pretty sure it's not anywhere near a lake." Servis points out what they're flying below and the witch looks down. She does notice there seems to be some kind of destructive anti-life magic off in the distance.

 "That must be the lich!" She steers her broom quickly changing direction.

Usually, Temulin doesn't mind when she ends up somewhere unexpected. Commonly, such an occassion indicates the opportunity for work, and so she immediately begins flying around to detect the source of the problem and the likely person to pay her for her time. As one does, as a career adventurer. While flying around, she suddenly finds herself leaning forward, eyes closed as one hand steadies herself on Denhes and the other steadies her forehead.

    This little tiny paradise in a city, complete with a lake... it's the perfect place for Jun, really. And he doesn't really have a home to go to anymore, so he tends to wander the World Tree. Currently he's sitting in the grass somewhere, probably near the lake. Of course he's in his maho form, there really isn't any point to not to be, unless he runs out of energy or something. He doesn't look particularly weird, just his clothes are a little funny.

    The sense of something just being very Wrong -- with a capital 'W' -- gets his attention just before the screaming starts. His first instinct is to run... and then something else takes over. It's visible the instant it does, too; he turns away from the screaming, but just... freezes. Slooooowly turns his head toward the sight of the curse-winged creature. And then the rest of him turns as well, just as slowly, hesitantly.

    The Beacon Society has stepped up patrols to watch out for Metallia Luna, sending Aurelia out today. She got a message from another Society member who can sense magical auras, and headed to Lake Merced via using her metal control to fly. She is wearing a heavy metal suit of armor, after all, so Aurelia hauls herself by her metal boots so to speak.
    Aurelia dives for the elf hopping among the treetops, since that's pretty odd. "Hoy, what're you doing here?"

    (The vision Temulin receives is of a clandestine sword-building operation, somewhere in in a facility with brown walls and a glowing floral curlicue pattern on the ceiling, much like the adventurer's guild and the other ruin she visited on Atlantean Earth; the light is in the natural colors of a sky in the day or night, but it's tinged orange at the edges, like the ruin was when it was corrupted. The ones responsible for building it are all elves, dressed in the same uniform as the attacker, but unmasked. A worker lifts up the completed sword. <Number seventeen is complete,> he says in Elvish.)

    The attacker waits above the concrete bridge as the various others start to approach her; her gaze lingers on Tirsiak, Holly, and Aurelia, since they're showing the most obvious gravity-defying abilities at the moment. In Elvish, she replies, <My name is Ennahotsë, a warrior of Áralanta.> She gestures with the sword. <I'm here to try out Calamitta Otoquë.>

    The sword speaks up with a distorted electronic girl's voice. "Translation for you humans," it says brusquely. "'I am Vanguard, warrior of the Dawnfall. I am here to test Lightshard Seventeen.'"

    The elf-woman then makes a darker pronouncement, which prompts the sword to adds, "Translation: 'Your fall will be a suitable demonstration.'" Vanguard then flourishes the sword, in a gesture which is both a salute to fellow warriors, and a promise of a swift death. She then swings the sword, sending another of those orange slices towards Aurelia!

Temulin gets out of her vision before the answer, and she makes a point of answering in what in this world gets mapped to Mongolian, though it needs no translation; her meaning is clear despite the foreign language used. <Your corrupted blade needs not translate for you, and do I look human to you, Elezen?> The blue-skinned Au ra answers. <Your death will please me.> And with that, she draws her own blade, clads it in darkness and rushes forwards as darkness begins to form an aura around her.

    Tirsiak makes her way towards the bridge, floating lazily above the water. She's not making any aggressive movements yet, simply taking in her surroundings as the elf starts just wildly attacking people. Tirsiak doesn't really care - she doesn't know who Aurelia even is, so why should she? Either Aurelia will vanquish the nature-defying elf, and Tirsiak won't have to do anything, or she won't.

    Tirsiak's head snaps up as she smells a familiar scent on the breeze. Temulin Dotharl. ... Not now. The nature destroyer first.

    Tirsiak makes her way to the shore, then onto the bridge. Still floating above the surface, still seemingly not in any real hurry.

"What did I tell you guys. She certainly doesn't look like a lich, just some blonde chick with an energy sword." Lavaux knew it was it was just a hoax as the trio got closer to Vanguard.

 "She is using some kind of undead magic though, maybe she's working for the lich! Aurelia, look out!" The witch is having enough trouble keeping in her broom in the air letting alone pushing the other girl out of the way. Instead she ends up nearly crashing into the elf.

 "Regardless, we need to get that sword away from her. Any ideas?" Servis looks at the others trying to be the voice of reason here.

    A low peal of thunder answers the elf's challenge as Aurelia summons her Atlantean mageblade to her hand, the diamond glittering like starlight in the evening hour. If the elf's Atlantis was like this world's Atlantis, she may recognize the armor Aurelia is orichalcum, a metal closely associated with the lost civilization in this world.
    Aurelia can't veer away fast, only recently figuring out how to move this much metal at once. Instead the young woman focuses on trying to unbind the magic keeping the slashy light thing intact. She's so focused on this that she will likely crash into the bridge by accident.

    That orange slice at Aurelia is what prompts Jun to finally move. In the direction of the attacker. Everything about this person wielding that sword is just... no. And then he shows some gravity-defying abilities of his own, rising up into the air, collecting some of the lake's water to shroud himself in fog. Not to actually hide himself, mind you. He just feels better when he's got some fog around him while he's in the air. That's a little weird, yeah.

    He'll get there in time to hear Servis's question, and answers, "This person's just casually trying out a death-sword, displaying disdain for every person here. I don't think reasoning with this person's going to see much in the way of success -- you can't reason with stupid or arrogant, particularly not with both at once. My suggestion? Beat them to a pulp and then destroy that sword."

    Vanguard jerks sideways through the air, and parries Temulin's attack with a light strike, applying as little force as she can, intended more to deflect than to block; brilliant sparks fly where the two blades meet. She swoops backwards through the air to dodge Holly, and attempts to kick her to send her careening towards Temulin. "Humans and those even lesser," she answers Temulin in perfect English, before she swings her sword to send a couple of slashes of curse-light towards Tirsiak.

    When Aurelia suddenly dispels her slashing attempt, she lets out a growl, although with the voice-distortion from her mask it just sounds weird, and she sends another sword-slash towards her as well. But when Jun speaks up, her head jerks around to look directly at him. "I," she purrs, "am going to take the time to enjoy destroying you." She pauses. "And your energy looks interesting, too. Otoquë!" ('Seventeen!')

    A burst of light erupts from the sword, and then coalesces to form what appears to be a golden-haired girl made out of hard light, surrounded by an unearthly orange aura of the curse, and wielding a ghostly copy of the sword in Vanguard's hand. She has a blank expression -- she almost looks faintly uncertain -- and in the voice of the sword, she says, "Combat form manifested." She then charges forward to attack Jun with her sword directly!

    Tirsiak continues to just sedately float towards the battle... but then she's attacked. She moves quicker than the eye can see to dodge the blades of cursed light, and lets out a low growl.

    She darts to one side, reaching out over the side of the bridge to grab a handful of twigs from the top of a nearby tree. Another dash backwards, and she gathers more twigs, tying them together with a string taken from her clothing. She draws her hands across the faggot she has created, squeezing it together and somehow turning into into a wooden shaft, around four feet long.

    She spins the wooden pole before jabbing it against the concrete railing, then yanks it and a chunk of concrete out - somehow adhering a wickedly sharp shard of concrete to the end of the pole to make a spear.

    "Your station is no higher than that of a human, elf. You are meat." And then she runs right at the elf, ignoring the hard-light manifestation completely.

<Like these so-called Elves? I've never seen anyone more pathetic than you, relying on cursed blades made in corrupted halls to give yourself an unearned edge only to find yourself dead at the hands of someone you look down on.> Temulin answers, and then the golden-haired girl appears, and she sighs. Her next word comes with righteous fury. <And of course you resort to the corrupt art of summoning. Your death shall be a mercy you do not deserve.>

And with that, Temulin turns and flies up, making it look she intends to do another flyby pass and strike, but instead she seemingly falls down the other side of her mount, only to come swinging from below to attempt to grab hold of the elf in mid-air. Just in case, Denhes prepares to swing back and catch Temulin if needed.

"Lady, if I still had my body I would take you on myself." In fact the only reason that Lavaux hasn't possessed Holly is that she would go falling out of the sky. Thankfully for the witch, she's only kicked by Vanguard, if she used the sword on her it would be much worse. It likely qualifies as anti-magic after all. She manages to avoid crashing into Temulin but ends up in the water instead. Good thing she doesn't melt in it. Her asking what's wrong with summoning is instead replaced by gulping for air as she resurfaces.

    Aurelia is hit by the second slash of light and feels light-headed for a moment, the attack's light playing off the red-gold armor for a moment as it leaves a cooling cherry-red gash on the shoulder piece. This is all the distraction she needs to crash into the bridge with a metallic thump. After a moment, she picks herself up and shakes her head. She watches as people press an attack on the elf and the new golden girl. 
    Too many people to run in, so Aurelia does something to support their efforts. She reaches out with a gauntleted hand and extends her senses to see how much metal was in the elf's sword. Sensing enough metal, her magic reaches out to pull the sword towards her, attempting to pry the weapon out of the elf-woman's grip. "Come on, come on..."

    Jun is a support unit, so he's not about to stick around in place while someone's attacking him with a sword. His flight's not super-fast, but he can easily keep up with a car going the speed limit on a highway. So he should be able to get out of the way of that sword attack in time.

    But there are two more reasons he's not staying to fight, aside from not being the offensive powerhouse that Aurelia is. Firstly, if he's keeping this person's copy(?) interested in going after him, the others will have less attention on them, which means more time for them to prepare attacks and possibly a better chance to launch them, and less chance of being pincer'd by the enemy.

    And secondly? He's leaving a little bit of a trap in his wake. If the hardlight copy(?) decides to follow him and try again, she will find that Jun's hands, trailing behind him, have not been left there just so he can look like a popular anime ninja character widely regarded as cool by a subset of people as he flies. No, he's taking water from the air, crafting it into steam 'bullets', and firing them in his wake. So if she follows, she'll have to contend with that.

    Tirsiak's vehemence catches Vanguard by surprise. She holds the sword away from Tirsiak's spear, and opts for outright evasion, rather than trying to parry it. "... Ce ... cesyaima," she murmurs ... and there was the briefest of uncertainty in her words, as if she momentarily forgot how to speak Elvish.

    "Translation: 'Interesting,'" the sword-spirit adds, before flying directly into one of Jun's trap-bullets. With an electronic-grunt that sounds almost like a beep, she goes tumbling out of the air, then suddenly fizzles out of existence and reappears about ten feet away from Vanguard, impassive-confusedly facing Jun's direction.

    Temulin's words, meanwhile, outright enrage Vanguard, enough that she loses track of what the sword-spirit is doing. She turns directly to face the Au-Ra, and starts slashing at her with careful and precise blows. "Empty words," she says between blows. "The elves of other Blossoms are perfectly capable of being lesser than those of our world, the source of all things in the World Tree!" she snarls. Yep, she's what Lex called a species-narcissist. She tilts her head in a way that gives the impression of incredulous eyebrow-raising. "Summoning!?" she says. "The spirit of Number Seventeen was created as a part of the sword, you sanctimonious -- argh!"

    Suddenly, someone with a metal affinity is trying to pull her sword away; Vanguard is clearly struggling to maintain her grip. The sword-spirit looks between them, then promptly divebombs Aurelia and begins attempting to slash at her in the same manner Vanguard was slashing Temulin a moment ago.

    But regardless, unless the spirit can make Aurelia lose her grip, Vanguard isn't going to be doing anything with the real sword at the moment.

    Which is enough distraction for Temulin to land her grapple with ease.

    "When confronted by multiple enemies, the correct thing to do is keep your back to a wall," Tirsiak notes idly, even as she dashes around to try to get at Vanguard's rear and stab her in the back - she's not giving her a chance, just going for the kill immediately.

    "Or run," she continues, in that same detatched tone, despite currently trying her best to murder the person she's talking to.

    Aurelia needs to concentrate to maintain the pull on the physical sword, so the sword-spirit swooping in for an attack is the perfect tactic to get her to drop her magical grip. She hits the deck of the bridge, the sword-spirit managing to hit Aurelia across the back of her breastplate as she does so.
    Aurelia gets to her feet again. She looks at the hard-light spirit and says "I'm sorry." And lunges for the being with her gladius, again trying to use the weapon to sever the weave of magic.

Like Tirsiak, Temulin is not playing around. Her eyes glow red with the fury of her dark side. She takes the hits, allowing Vanguard to hurt her, blood flows from her wounds but so does darkness <You fail to realize.> She offers as she grabs hold of Vanguard, <A Dark Knight gains strength from suffering.> And So right as Tirsiak goes for Vanguard's back, she uses the pummel of her heavy blade, infused with darkness, in an attempt to cave Vanguard's skull in, putting everything she has behind it.

>> GAME >> Temulin Dotharl spends an Edge for: Darkside Temulin is here to kill racists and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum.

"You're so lucky Rue's not hear to hear that! She would likely turn you into a cockroach or something." Holly knows her roommate wouldn't take that insult well. She tries to think a way to get the sword away from her and then suddenly an idea comes to mind. She points her lollipop shape staff at the water and begins bubbling all of a sudden. Hundreds of spiders are launched from it at Vanguard. They're not poisonous or anything but maybe she's afraid of bugs?

    Jun uses Steam Bullet! It's... super effective?

    He's confused too; he didn't expect that to work so well. Could it really be that easy? Surely not. Then again, the copy did just reform, so maybe it's not going to be that easy after all. But, well. Maybe it is? Probably not, but why not give it a shot, anyway?

    He pauses, stretching his arms out to his sides to collect as much water as he can in a single go. He forms steam bullets out of all of them. As he does, he sees what Aurelia's doing, and gets an idea. He fires the bullets at the hardlight copy in a wave formation. But also the opposite direction Aurelia's coming from.

    Jun adjusts the trajectory of the bullets, to be in an arc behind the hardlight spirit-thing, with a fair amount on either side of her too. He figures the hardlight copy will move out of the way of the steam bullets, and hopes to 'herd' it into Aurelia's attack.

    Vanguard is clearly in a bit of trouble at the moment.

    She swoops forward of Tirsiak's way, but she's currently weighted down by a heavy Au-Ra, and she's more startled than anything else by how well Temulin is handling her injuries. As Aurelia loses her grip, she quickly moves brings her sword to perform the same deft parrying ...

    ... but it's not enough to stop it completely. Her mask shatters, and she lets out a shriek, her wings vanishing as she falls onto the bridge; her face is covered by sweat-stained camouflage paint, clearly intended to make recognition difficult or impossible. But her green eyes aren't completely hidden, and now blood is mixing in with the paint.

    Meanwhile, the sword-spirit is boxed in. "Apologies are unnecessary," she says, inexpertly dodging and weaving through Jun's steam-bullets. "Purpose and curse-directives cannot be overruled by --"

    She gets struck by a bullet, and flies straight into Aurelia's gladius. Her form begins to waver, and she looks even more uncertain. "Transmitting data ... trans ... mission ... comp ..." She vanishes in a shower of sparks; the glow of the sword begins to flicker, and sparks fly from the handle.

    Vanguard quickly drops the sword with a hiss of surprise, undisguised incredulity on her face. All sense of the curse vanishes, leaving only a lingering sense of it in the sword itself. She furrows her brow at the sight of Holly's bug-swarm, but she seems mostly unaffected; she reaches into a concealed uniform pocket, and pulls out and drops an M84 flashbang grenade. An orb of darkness appears around her head, cutting off the sound of her breathing -- clearly, it's silence as well of darkness -- and she leaps away just as the flashbang goes off.

    She's sticking to the ground as she flees. With a head-injury, she isn't going to try to risk going over the treetops.

    Tirsiak does not waste time. The moment Vanguard hits the floor, Tirsiak is charging, spear held in a reverse grip - good for stabbing down at a prone target!

    But then there's a flash bang going off. Tirsiak may be hard to injure, but she has very sensitive eyesight and even more sensitive hearing, so a flash bang is still pretty good at distracting her.

    She stumbles and rubs at her eyes, growling. By the time she can see, the elf has fled, and she lets out a grumble of annoyance.

    And then she glances down at the discarded sword.

    Aurelia was not apologizing to the spirit to change the thing's mind. She was apologizing because she knew there was a possibility that destroying the magic might destroy it. The spirit might have been a bit simple, but Aurelia's empathy is one of the reasons the Atlantean mageblade chose her to wield it back then.
    She uses her magic to pull the discarded Lightshard weapon to her hand, examining it quietly. "Maybe the Beacon Society can fix the spirit inside and free it."

"Great, she's gone now we just need to find the lich! Maybe the sword or the spirit can lead us to him!" Holly pulls herself out of the water and back onto the bridge remembering why she came here to begin with. Still, she's likely further away from the sword than Aurelia considering she was just stabbed by her and the magic girl manages to pull it towards her before the witch can grab it.

    Jun sighs as the hardlight spirit magic copy-thing finally seems to have been taken down. The sword in Vanguard's hand seems to react similarly too, and Jun blinks at that. They're connected? That's information he didn't expect...

    But then there's a flashbang going off, and Jun yelps, pulling his hands up to cover his eyes. He's a little too late to avoid getting blasted in the face by the light -- and the sound disorients him, dropping him out of the air. Fortunately he wasn't too high up, so he doesn't break anything. He basically just falls on his butt. He pauses, rubbing his eyes and blinking until he can see again, and waiting for the roaring in his ears to subside.

    "Ugh... she got away," he realizes then, and stands up. Pause, and he too notices the sword. "...Didn't manage to get away with that, though..." He thinks. What can he really do with it? Nothing. So he leaves it where it is. Besides, the thing still has that sense of 'wrong', even if it's far less now, and he doesn't want to mess with it.

    Aurelia's suddenly going for the sword (well, more like bringing it to herself) and something she says interests him. "...Beacon Society?" This is not an organization that he knows anything about, given his confused look.

    He's also confused at Holly. "Lich? What lich?" He knows what one is, just... he didn't see one here, and he has no idea what Holly's actually talking about.

Blinded, her target gone. That murderous rage isn't satisfied, and so Temulin turns her gaze on someone else. Red-glowing eyes stare straight at Tirsiak. "You scared off my prey." She almost hisses, "I'll have your head for that." She raises her blade and begins to walk towards Tirsiak, clearly intending to attack the spirit of the hunt.

    Tirsiak grumbles a bit, then squats down and starts... sniffing the air. When Temulin approaches, Hell-bent on reigniting their rivalry, she just shakes her head. "Not now."

    And then the Spirit of the Hunt darts in the direction Vanguard fled in, leaps over the concrete railing, and drops down into the trees below, hot on the elf's trail.

Holly responses to Jun, "Yes, there's a lich in San Francisco. He left his heart in San Francisco High on a hill. To where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars...wait's that about 30 kiometers up...it would be pretty hard to reach it..." She suddenly realizes, "I can't fly that high without blacking out." She's going to need to find some way to get up there first.

    Aurelia puts the blade away into her personal hammerspace. "The Atlantean Beacon Society is a group of mages that works to protect the world from supernatural threats. You should come with me to the Sunset Road and meet some people. You helped with that... Sybil incident and all."

    He blinks as he notices that Temulin and the... monster-y girl seem to be having some issues. He backs away -- it's not going to turn into another fight, is it? He's not quite sure what he'd need to do in such a situation... Then Tirsiak runs! Though he realizes it's in the direction Vanguard fled in. So she's not running, she's chasing!

    Holly's words get his attention then, and he blinks. "That... sounds suspiciously specific," he notes. "I've never heard of that before, though." He doesn't know the song, unfortunately -- in his former life he was almost exclusively into Japanese boy bands, and that's not a Japanese boy band song!

    And then Aurelia explains what the Beacon society is... and invites him to visit? "Oh, uh... y-yeah, that would probably be a good idea," he decides. "I'm really new to all this magical stuff..." No familiar, no guide, little knowledge about what he's gotten into -- that's a bad combination.

    Vanguard continues to run until she reaches the road, where an unmarked van picks her up and promptly speeds away towards the nearest Vine as if there was a spirit of the hunt chasing after them. Meanwhile, a different unmarked van stops by the bushes where she got changed, and picks up the discarded fishing bag which previously contained her Dawnfall uniform and sword.

"Well, if I didn't want people to destroy my heart I would put it somewhere hard to reach too! Then again he must have used teleporation magic to place it there to begin with..." Holly's that's not familar with 20th century American music either, she's from future Belgium after all. "It sounds like that Beacon Society place I might know something about it. Then again I think they would likely have to destroyed the heart by now if it was on this world..."