World Tree MUSH

    Clear skies and calm waters surround one of the myriad of islands in this world. The crisp salty air from the sea wafts in while the hustle and bustle from the small port town, small frigates dot the island while one ship stands out above the rest. A tall ship and quite large, white sheets curled up while in port and the many gun ports are closed. "Alright crew, let's stock up for our next voyage!" comes a bright voice, tinged with a slight gruff of a leading person coming off the ship.

    The strange tracked vehicle drives down a ramp, clear glass showing off a fish-tailed person, a small crew of about thirty following right behind, all human. "Alright crew, get to it, get to it. Salted food, fruit, etcetera. Go go go!" The mermaid leans back in her tank and smiles, the crew announces, "Aye aye, Ma'am!" before dispersing in an orderly fashion. "Ah, it's good to be a captain."

    A petit, human-looking girl peruses the dock-side stalls, picking out items and placing down small coins, procured from doing some local cleanup job or other. Lots of folks need things doing, and those jobs usually end up being 'kill this weird creature' or 'I need 20 bear asses, but not all the bears around here have an ass'. kinda deal. Weird how that works even outside of the Hyperdimension. "Anything else we need before the next ship leaves, Bravette?" she asks, her companion looking over a list on a floating holoscreen. "Um... bottles of water, or replacement filterse for the purifier... might not be able to source those here... uh, dried food, and Miss Levery needed a fish from the market... a Greater Hale Carp... we should talk to the fishmonger, the fishing ships look like they're coming in now."

    Someone's sitting by the docks. A woman with midnight blue hair, dressed in an admiral's outfit which appears to be made of absurdly expensive silks which nobody has any business whatsoever wearing on a ship where they're likely to come into contact with the ocean spray at the very least. As usual, Emily Nyx has glowing purple eyes and four arms; unusually, she's holding a plastic flower with glowing white petals, staring pensively and unhappily.

    At the sound of the mermaid captain barking orders, she perks up and adopts her typical amused and faintly smug smile. In defiance of all laws of aviation, at least as they concern humanoids, she rises up off the ground to get a better look at the goings-on. In a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, a spaded devil-tail materializes, and twitches like the tail of a cat.

    Islands!, he is used to them, and he enjoys visiting them from time to time, he likes the sea breeze, and beaches, and even just watching boats nwo and then. Sailboats are a bit of a novelty to him, being used to seeing.. the more modern kind, or even large cruises, the one time he saw one around Alola. So, the kid is lingering around the docks, and he doesn't stand out too much, just a youngish kid. The one thing that makes him a bit out of place, might be the fact he is being joined by a weird creature, a small black and white bear... likely a panda, standing on it's hindlegs, and it is wearing a costume of some sort!. 
    The boy seems to be speaking to this 'pet' of sorts, and the duo's attention is drawn by the arrival and the captain. The small bear suddenly begins raising in the air, floating up, until it 'perches' on the boy's head for a better poitn of view. "Seeing anything interesting, Pangshi?" he asks, chuckling a bit before moving a bit closer as well.

    One of the fishmongers gets a good look at Uni and shouts, "Hoi, Pigtail girl! Over here, over here!" he shouts out, "Overheard you need fish. We don't have what you are looking for but, I think we have something that could be equivalent!" he calls out, pulling out a large fish. It's vaguely carp-like. "Whatcha got for trade?" Strangely enough, everyone on this island looks human and in their older teens younger twenties. "You look off world, so I'll be willing to cut you a deal!"

    Meanwhile, Nadia stretches out from the tank and moves to breach the water a bit, looking around some. "Mmm, so many offworlders." she whispers to herself, turning to get a look at Luke and Emily in turn, more so with Emily approaching. She ducks back into the tank and turns it around to face the devil-tailed girl, "Hmm? Haven't seen you before. What brings you here?" she questions, a grin upon her face as she slowly drives the tank forward, "Is that one your friend?" as she makes a motion towards Luke.

    Uni blinks, perking over at the guy calling over at her. "My client was pretty specific, if you could point me to where I might be able to get what I'm after I'd appreciate it." Bravette does turn the holoscreen toward Uni, it doesn't say 'No Substitutions' for the fish, but the CPU Candidate waves it off. <"Look, we're still new here. They might have different customs on this kind of thing."> whispers Uni to her companion, who just shrugs helplessly.

    The Shinki then lifts off of the CPU's shoulder and flits off to collect the other items on her list while Uni negotiates. The Shinki ends up floating close to the group around Nadia.

    Emily grins as Nadia greets her directly, and she floats closer. "Oh, just looking around," she says, putting her lower hands on her hips and gesturing expansively with her upper arms. "Seeing what sort of ..." She goes completely still, turns her head to glance at the plastic flower with the entire rest of her body completely rigid, and the flower disintegrates into that same silvery glitter of nanomachines before she turns back to Nadia and her motions resume. "Seeing what sort of sights there are that might interest me," she continues. "My name is Emily Nyx. Hm?"

    At Nadia's gesture, she backflips upside-down in midair, and her hair falls downward beneath her. Somehow, her tricorn hat does not fall off. "Oh, hey, Luke!" she calls out. "Hi, Pangshi! How's it going?"

    There is not much of a pause when Luke gets to see the captain, he simply smiles and waves to Nadia, when he sees her make a motion towards him, "Hi!", before noticing Emily floating around and chuckling, "Hey Emily!, doing ok." he replies with a broad grin before addressing Nadia again, bowing a bit, "I'm Luke, nice to meet you!". The panda on his head simply floats up towards Emily when greeted, tilting his head and reaching to poke the floating person, waving happily and trying to mimic what she was doing, now upside down as well. The small ghost spots the Shinki and begins to slowly float towards her, offering a wave, curious little thing.

    Nadia moves to drape over the edge of her tank, looking towards Emily and Luke with a curious grin upon her face, "Emily, huh?" pause, look to Luke, "And Luke. I'm Nadia, captain of this fine ship, the Siren Queen. Welcome to my world, offworlders." she thinks a moment and hmms, "I wonder how your hat doesn't fall off there, Emily.

    There's another pause, "So, what can I interest you two in today, and hopefully I can inquire about you two as well should you two feel inclined to divulge information to this explorer? I'm oft curious about the worlds beyond my own waters."

Emily chuckles, and lightly pats the upside-down Pangshi. "Sharing is caring, as they say," she says, "but a trade is fair." She shrugs. "That said, I'm nothing more than a goddamn reprobate wandering the World Tree in search of things that interest me -- just one of the few still-functioning machines of the halcyon remnant of what my world once was."

    She raises her eyebrows. "Though I am curious about one thing," she says, and there's an unpleasant edge in her voice now. "What's this world's general stance on slavery?" She affixes Nadia with a grin which ... okay, she definitely didn't have sharp pointy interlocked teeth until just now.

    Luke smiles to the captain, "That's cool!, a really nice ship." he praises, looking towards the Siren Queen for a moment, while the floating pokemon just wriggles under the patting, the small ghost just trying ot turn back upright to wave at the mermaid. "It's a pleasant world for sure." he adds, grinning. 

    The offer gets a pause from the boy, "I'm just wandering, learning about different places, just a normal boy from my own home, one with good pokemon training skills." he adds, before pausing and going quiet when Emily brings up that topic. The ghost panda begins to float slowly towards Nadia, curious small guy.

    "I mean.." Nadia hmms a bit, "Interesting..." there's a shake of her head and she nods, "Slavery? That's not a familiar term, everyone practically works together, of course there's the captains and the crew but still, everyone seems to work together." theres a twitch of the tail and she reaches out to try to pat the ghost panda, "If there's anything bad going on, well, it hasn't reared its head yet." there's a visible shrug and she hmms, "My turn..."

    Nadia gets this grin on her face, "So what is a 'halcyon remnant' and did your teeth just change? Are you getting towards Leviathan or Behemoth here? Have you decided yet or are you one of those Untouched?" a turn towards Luke, "I appreciate the compliment, it's a wonderful ship. Fourty cannons, three masts, two hundred and fifty men and women, some are Leviathan-touched like myself." she states, "What about you?"

    Bravette blinks at the pandaghost approaching her. She carefully jinks around it, flitting off to her destination.

    Uni continues to banter with the fishmonger, negotiating for information, etcetc. She's not exactly hard to spot, wearing an all-black dress which is clearly some kind of synthetic fabric, unlike a lot of local attire.

    Emily peers her head at Luke. "Where 'ordinary boy' is synonymous with 'pokemon trainer', I'd imagine," she says cheerfully.

    She seems mollified by Nadia's comments about a lack of slavery. "Good to know!" she says. "The halcyon remnant is the world where I was created. It is a world which Blossomed centuries after it had already died. A world where all signs of habitation have slowly been eroded by nature, over the course of six hundred sixty-eight years. The only sign of human activity is the malfunctioning machinery, and Eudaemons such as myself." Beat. "Not the best place to visit, unless you like that sort of thing."

    The other question elicits a theatrical. "Shades of Temulin," she says dryly. "My world doesn't have Leviathan or Behemoth. And as for how my teeth changed ..."

    She seems to explode into that silvery glitter, and reforms as a large black floating robotic orb with a single glowing purple eye. "It's just this little thing we Eudaemons do," she says, her voice the same except slightly tinny now.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily demonstrates a love for the sound of her own voice, then a love of her shapeshifting shenanigans.

     The panda ghost certainly doesn't try chasing the Shinki, clearly Bravette is far better at movign around!. The panda's attention is now focused enterily on the friendly Merlady talking to Luke, floating closer and closer!. 
    Luke seems as relieved as Emily as the dicussion of slavery ends up in 'not a thing', nodding a few times as he hears about the ship, "That's really cool." he says, before pausing, "What do you mean by Leviathan touched?, who is Leviathan, and Behemoth?" the boy asks. "I mean, I don't think I am either, I think."

    The fishmonger tilts his head, "I'm not sure what to say, maybe another island might have the fish you're looking for." he points to a large boat with three masts and a few people near by. "They might be able to take you to another island, unless you're Ziz-touched, then you could just fly there... but you don't seem to be.."

    Back at the boat, Emily gets a wide-eyed look, like an explorer who just got some good information. "Well, I'd still love to visit to be honest. I'm an explorer, bound to the seas and to the water, to go where no Leviathan-Touched has gone before." she nods, before backing up slightly as the silvery glitter explosion and that floating orb. "OKay, so you're not even remotely human." she beams, "This is the best day ever so far!"

    A turn towards Luke, "You really are not from this world." she hmms, "So, the world has three major gods: Leviathan the God of Waters, Behemoth the God of Lands and Ziz the God of Winds. I'm a Leviathan-touched woman myself, devoted myself to the God of Waters and as such, they blessed me with this form. Though, Behemoth had their say in things as well... learned it the hard way." she shakes her head a bit, "What else would you like to know about the world?"

    "I'm sorry... Ziz-touched? What does that mean?" asks Uni. "I'm not from around here, as you can probably tell."

    Bravette finds most of the other items, but since she's so small, and probably floating far too high out of people's line of sight, she's not able to really get at anything. Though she does put markers down for Uni to come by after she's done.

    "I may have to retuirn to the client, see if she's steadfast on this particular fish... how long are you open for today?"

    Emily beams. Or at least, the lighting on her robotic eye shifts to a shape which resembles someone's eye when beaming. "I am a machine," she says cheerfully. "In fact, I'm three quintillion smaller machines in a trench coat." ... She wasn't wearing a trench coat. The metallic orb dissolves again, and she coalesces to form a silver-haired woman in an open green trench coat, a black bandeau bikini top, black jeans, and combat boots. Also, the normal number of arms. Still with the glowing purple eyes, though. "And as far as that goes, glad to be of service," she says. Her amused and faintly smug smile is the same, too.

    She considers Nadia's talk about Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz. "How punchable are the gods of this world?" she says. "... I don't think I've met a god before." She breaks into a delighted grin. "I suddenly want to punch a god at some point. Only if it was a bad guy, though, of course." She still seems to have a fairly childish notion of good-guy-versus-bad-guy ...

    The fishmonger blinks. "You're still young, perhaps your folks will tell ya. But you should make your choice soon, you don't want to be one of those 'untouched' heathens." he states, "You do look of age to decide, so do hurry~" he gets this weird smile, "As for how long I'm open, I'll be here until the late sunset, you should have some time." he states, "Here, I'll give you one of them just to see if the person you're acting as courier for will like it, as a gift."

    Emily gets this nod from Nadia... "Three.. quin...tillion?" pause, "That's a very... very large number." there's a beat as Emily reforms... "A machine?" there's a look around the island... there's smoke rising from one thing, "A machine...?" beat "The gods aren't punchable, I'm not sure why you would want to though. Even if they don't like one another, they don't usually make themselves seen to just anyone!"

    The boy oohs and looks impressed as he hears about the deities of this world, "That's amazing, back at home there are stories that our gods might roam the world on special ocassions, or are resting in remote parts of the land." he says. "But, nothing quite like people being blessed by them like you say"." then chuckels at Emily talks about punchign gods, "On most tales of my land, gods seem to be very physical creatures, that you would try to punch, if you were crazy enough to try, there are even rumours of them being willing to help people strong enough to challenge them and defeat them in combat but..."

    Uni blinks, confused. "My big sister's the only family I have, and she's also not from around here... do you know about the Tree, other worlds?" She's starting to sound a little bit bratty, but not impolite. "I couldn't take your merchandise without compensating you, either. Do you have anything you need doing which I could help you with? Package delivery, some kind of monster needs dealing with... anything?"

    Emily chuckles, and produces a small silver pendant of a falchion sword as if from sleight-of-hand. She tosses it towards herself, and in a clear defiance of any reasonable motion, it flies there and connects itself around her neck. "Magic and technology melded to form the most awesome stuff," she says. "It's just that, y'know, most of it's broken now, as I said."

    She grins at Luke. "I'm probably not someone who your gods would choose as a 'master', Luke," she says. "I'm just not enough of a 'good guy'. I have to follow other heroes' leads when I'm doing good guy stuff." She smirks towards Nadia. "I just try to play the hero because playing the villain would get me into big trouble," she adds for the mer-captain's benefit.

    Nadia looks towards Luke, "That is impressive, perhaps I should see about visiting your place too." she nods, "I am looking forward to sailing out of the world for a while and visiting the rest of the Tree." she states "There's so much that Leviathan wants me to see for them."

    The Fishmonger blinks at Uni, "Ah, you're an offworlder." he hmms, "Well, perhaps if you do come back you can help me clean up the stall so I can get home to my wife faster." he moves to start wrapping the fish up, "Yea, I know about the off world stuff, trade is decent between other people. So here, have this. And give your big sister a hello from this world."

    Nadia looks towards Emily, "You're quite impressive!" and there's a pause as she lifts her right arm out of the tank and smiles, there's a flick of the arm and soon, a sword encompasses her entire right arm. "I mean, playing good guy is nice, though some people think I'm a pirate for some reason, it's kinda upsetting."

    The boy chuckles a bit, "Well, never said 'good person' they seem to respect... strength, if they agree to the challenge." he muses, "Pokemon in my world are... kinda like that, i mean if they do dislike what you ask them to do, they might revel and leave but... I don't think that would be an issue for you, Emily, you seem like a rather nice person." he says. 
    The boy blinks, "Oh right!, pokemon are... creatures from my word, that can be considered... quite powerful for off worlders I figure, with a variety of... rather interesting abilities." he begins, before motioning his small panda friend closer, "This is Pangshi, he is a ghost type, here, give the lady a little demonstration.". He says that as he reaches to the black and white floating thing, his hand moving through it like it was not there. "I'd love to show you around home, and try to explain better what pokemon do, or not, I bet a lot of people at home might like to trade with you as well."

    Emily smirks faintly. "I can see you and I are of the same mind, when it comes to exploring the World Tree," she says. "I can give you a few pointers. I know a good place to get ice cream, one Vine over from this one world that's kinda like mine." Her expression briefly falters, but she quickly recovers. "I ... have no opinion whatsoever on piracy." She looks Nadia over. "But if I was gonna pull an answer out of a hat, I'd say it's because they think you have you have too much style and attitude to be some law-abiding sea captain or whatever." She shrugs. "Or they think 'pirate' means 'sailor except more awesome'."

    She peers at Luke when he calls her a nice person, then shrugs. "Eh." She turns back to Nadia, and tries not to make a face.

    "I will certainly do that." replies Uni, turning to leave, though what she was responding to is left ambiguous. She heads off towards the markers Bravette left for her, which brings her past where Emily and Luke are talking to the mermaid.

    The Fishmonger gives a nod, "Well, see you soon then." he comments before going back to his buisness. Meanwhile, back in front of the big boat, "Ice cream? Never had that before, hopefully it's good." a pause, "Ah, perhaps we should go check it out soon? I've been itching to travel, just stocking up on some goods while in port, got to make sure we have enough for any voyage."

    There's a turn towards Luke, "Pokemon, huh?" she looks at the ghost type and curiously looks... as the hand passes right through. There's a bit of a blink and the sword retreats back into the arm, "Oooh, that looks useful!" pause "What else can they do?"

    Luke smiles and pets the ghost panda again, this time the small guy seeming rather solid, easy to pet, "Well, they are good friends, depending on the pokemon there is quite a bit they can do, move heavy stuff, produce fire hot enough to melt metal, call thunder and lighting, carry someone through the air, or lakes and bodies of water..." he lists some, before turning to Emily, nodding. "Might be that, yeah."

    Emily brightens. "Ice cream is my comfort in these trying times," she says. "I developed a sweet tooth since leaving my world for the first time, because I can't get drunk, and there's nothing left that's sweet in the halcyon remnant." She shakes her head. "Anyway, uh ... up to you, I suppose. You're the captain," she says dryly. Her head rotates 180 degrees. "Oh, hey, Uni!"

    Uni blinks, and looks over at the voice calling her name. Red eyes lock onto Emily, and the tsundere CPU brightens a little, turning to approach. "Hey Emily. Fancy meeting you here." she remarks, looking over to Luke with a little wave and a curious tilt of her head toward Nadia.

    A mass gathering starts to happen behind Nadia, a veritable rush of people start up the Siren Queen's ramp with various things in tow. Barrels, boxes, rope and cannoballs... "Aye, captain! Resupply is complete, we'll be ready to sail off shortly." a pause, Nadia turns around, "Very well, get everything on board now. And perhaps get a couple of the spare cabins ready for some visitors, might be going out with some extra temporary crew." there's a salute from them and off they go, running up the ramp, the sound like a thunderstorm.

    "Enthusiastic crew, aren't they?" Nadia grins as she turns around, blinking at the new person near by. "Oh, Uni?" pause, "I love your outfit, looks great on you!" she turns back towards Emily and Luke, "Ah, you know her?" she turns back to Uni, "Name's Nadia, it's a pleasure. Captain of the Siren Queen here, and what about yourself, all I can deduce is you're name thanks to your friend... here?"

    "Uni, CPU Candidate of Lastation." replies the young goddess. "Yeah, I know them. Worked with Emily a couple of times." she remarks. "I was doing some errands for people around here before moving on to another world. Collecting some supplies too."

    "Uni's sort of like a goddess, apparently," Emily adds cheerfully. "She's not the punchable kind, though. Not ostentatiously destructive enough." She grins, once again shapeshifting herself sharp pointy teeth. "Y'know, I've gone through Vines in a bunch of different ways," she says, "but I don't think I've ever ridden a boat through one. What do you say, Luke?"

    Luke is quite happy to wave to Uni, and so is the small pokemon next to him, "Seen her a few times." he says, smiling, before turning back to the mermaid, "If you ever want to come visit my world, let me know, can show you some pokemon, maybe tell you were to buy some good snacks, or nice souvenirs for trading." he adds, "I mean, I am not sure what is nor not popular, but maybe you have a better idea of such things.". There is a pause as he hears the offer to ride in the rather fancy ship and he nods a few times, looking quite enthusiastic, "I'd love that, just... never traveled in a boat like that before, I mean... if you need some help carrying heavy stuff, I am sure I can offer help with that, one of my pokemon is excedingly strong..." then he chuckles, "but... anything too technical..."

    "A... sort-of-goddess?" Nadia gives a very critical look towards Uni... then she ducks into her tank and gives a bit of a bow before popping back up, "Ah, sorry for the critical look, Lady Uni." a beat "You're not Leviathan, but a goddess still deserves respect." another pause, "What brought you here to grace this island?" she questions the 'sort of goddess'. "If there's anything you need, please let the Siren Crew know." she nods once more and turns to Emily. "YOu're welcome aboard, though anyone aboard does have to pull their weight, guest or not."

    There's a grin towards Luke, "Good man, I'd love to come see it." she nods, "A good exchange of goods is always welcome, and I'd love to see new things myself."

    Emily actually seems slightly taken aback by the insistence on pulling her weight. But her grin quickly returns. "Welllll, as long as this is an exchange of services, and it's all for the sake of fairness, I can do it. You might just find that I have skills which are very ..." In a silvery swirl of nanomachines, four more arms materialize, for a total of six. "... handy."