World Tree MUSH

    Away from the office buildings and campuses of technology companies, San Jose is very much like most cities. Dirty streets with strip malls and ubiquitous gas stations on the corner. Night in San Jose means overly bright LED streetlamps intermingled with exterior building lights. One possible source of the vermin is an abandoned warehouse near the airport, long left in disrepair despite the relator's sale sign just outside the cyclone fence.
    Aurelia peers through the cyclone fence, hands loosely gripping the cold steel wire of the links. "This is just one possible source identified by the Beacon Society."

    Jun is here too, transformed of course, since there's no point in not being. And he looks like he wants to be any where but here!

    With Aurelia's words, he looks at the warehouse and gives a disgusted look. "Blech. I hope we deal with this fast," he notes.

    ...Of course he doesn't like vermin. Why would he? Particularly bugs, ew.

    Serrah is here, looking a lot more alive than she has recently -- the undead unhealthiness of her skin is completely gone, and she seems a lot less tense and irritable than she has in the past. Her eyes are still red, though, and she still has fangs, albeit smaller ones. While any magical senses might detect that there is some darkness, there's no longer any feeling of being specifically undead.

    She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, I'm with Jun," she says dryly, "rats aren't really my thing."

Benedicta likes animals but it sounds these ones are giving people trouble. Something needed to be done before they broke out the more toxic methods in dealing with them. "Well, hopefully it's possible to lure them somewhere they won't cause people trouble. Something tells me it's going to take more than just a few cats to deal with this." Whatever it seemed to be didn't effect rabbits in anyway thankfully.

    The warehouse has no lights inside, leaving only the streetlights to filter in from the grimy windows and very little to see from the outside. Aurelia points to the padlock, which looks like it was cut with bolt cutters. Others may notice that the weeds look a little less overgrown in the pavement cracks leading up to the door. There's also a noise that Aurelia can't hear, a high-pitched sound that animals would be quick to pick up on.

Benedicta on the other hand, hears the high-pitched sound and cringes a bit at it. She figures it couldn't be what was attracting the animals and someone must be playing it to try and drive them away.

    Serrah hmmms. "I think ..." she mutters. "... Yeah, someone was definitely here. There's practically a path in the weeds." She points them out. She blinks, and looks at Benedicta. "You okay, kiddo?" she asks gingerly.

    She peers at the padlock. "Well, I guess it's time for me to poke my head inside, as usual," she says. Her body shifts until she's a completely black silhouette, takes half a step forward, and promptly falls flat onto her face. She reverts to normal and clamps her hands over her mouth, muttering incoherent curses. "Nnggghhh ..." She sits up. "Okay ... not scouting ahead the usual way," she says weakly. "N ... no more turning into shadow. Phooey."

    Aurelia frowns and helps Serrah up if she's allowed. "Are you going to be okay?" Only to be given a start herself when she feels something in her hair and swats at it, knocking a four-inch brown-black cockroach off onto the uneven concrete slabs. The bug rights itself and flies off, leading Aurelia's gaze to the upper level of the building. For the first time she realizes the shadows on the building are kind of moving; crawling with giant roaches like the one she just saw. Aurelia makes a face. "Gonna need a huge can of Raid."

"Ugh, I'm not that much younger than you." Benedicta's 18 but Serrah likely doesn't know that. "Gross, I think they're going to have to bug bomb this place. She's fond of animals but that doesn't extend to bugs. She offers Serrah a furred hand up as well. "Be careful in here, you don't want to trip into a pile of insects."

    Serrah waves Aurelia and Benedicta off, and rises up to her feet in a gravity-defying manner. "I'm okay! I'm okay," she says. "Just. Getting used to not being able to just melt into a shadow anymore." She pauses. "I mean, I could probably still hide in someplace dark enough, but, y'know. Still different."

    She grimaces at the sight of the cockroach. "Oh, great." She rises a few inches off the ground. "Yeah, Bene, careful it is!"

For the most part, Jun's been staying quiet, not wanting to stir up any bugs that might be in here. To that end he's been floating off the ground, so as not to step on anything. There's nothing more horrifying than an unexpected *crunch* underfoot.

He's not able to pick up the high-pitched sound with his hearing, but something about the area makes him uncomfortable more than just 'ew bugs'. He can't know the source of the incomfortable feeling.

    Aurelia kicks in the door and immediately regrets it as a cloud of roaches fly out. She covers her face and loses her balance, falling on her butt.
    There's the sound of bugs scuttling over each other coming from inside, and the impression that the floor is moving as the streetlights wash over the insects inside. The smell of rotting meat and something acrid wafts out. Something magical is inside, tripping any sort of sense related to such things.

Benedicta's horn begins glowing yellow and she places her hands over her mouth as she tries not to puke. Was there a dead body or something inside of here? That would explain all of the insects present but not the magical presence. She looks over at Jun floating in the air, that might be a good idea but she's having enough trouble moving forward with the noise and odor combined.

    Serrah is not easily startled by bugs, but this swarm makes a good effort. "Jeee-zus!" she exclaims, darting backward several feet in midair. She grimaces at the smell. "... okay, wow that is just rank," she says, moving to help Aurelia to her feet.

    She glances back at Benedicta and Jun in turn, nodding in approval at Jun's hovering. "... Are we really going in?" she says flatly. "We're really going in, aren't we."

The door comes open, and Jun is about halfway through a yelp of disgust...

When something weird comes over his features. Something that has his features drawing into a firm scowl, a look of righeous indignation.

His sword is drawn from his side, the blade extended -- and a strong sense of 'holy' comes from that blade. His answer to Serrah's question comes not in words, but when he heads into the building himself, blade of that sword shedding a bit of light.

    Aurelia thanks Serrah for helping her up. "Uh, yes?" She says to Benedicta as Jun charges in. She covers her mouth and nose as best she can with her hand to ward off the smell and heads inside, eyes watering from the stench.
    The interior is... rank is the word Serrah used and it's apt. What light does come in through the doors and windows shows weird hives that the roaches are birthed from, seemingly made from the corpses of animals that were likely captured by the swarm or somebody else. These grotesque formations are the source of the magic.

"What the hell, roaches don't live in hives...and who killed all these animals?!" Benedicta is rather upset upon seeing the dead animals. Someone was going to answer for this but she doesn't know who yet. This certainly wasn't natural though from all the magic flowing through the air.

    Serrah winces slightly at the sight of Jun's blade, then immediately relaxes. "Oh, whew, life energy isn't as scary as it was before," she murmurs.

    She takes in the sight of the dead animals. She opens her mouth to comment, but Benedicta beats her to the cussing. "I wish I could use fire-magic," she says. "This is ... I don't see how the world could possibly benefit from doing anything else to this except 'a flamethrower'."

Jun heads straight for the closest of the 'hives' to him, and makes to slice at the thing with his sword. If all goes as planned, the sword will be able to cut through the magic as well, if it is corrupting the corpse of the animals.

Benedicta's words get a nod. "This affront cannot continue," Jun replies. And he assures, "The one responsible for this will be stopped."

But... there's something weird about it all. It's Jun's voice... but there's nothing familiar about it. His voice is calm as the surface of a serene ocean, but beneath the calmness, it feels like there's so much more there than he wants to show. It almost echoes. And it's not his phrasing at all.

    The hive Jun slices through explodes as the magic holding it together is unbound. Rotten flesh and half-formed insects shower the area. The attack gets the attention of the roaches. Emboldened by their vast numbers, the oversized beetles attempt to swarm over Jun and the others, attempting to get under clothing and bite skin directly.
    The swarming elicits a loud curse from Aurelia and there's the soft sound of her armor teleporting around her and then sealing up to keep the roaches out. "I wish I could breathe fire right about now! ...!" Then she realizes something and pulls a bottle of rubbing alcohol from her nondimensional storage space.
    "Anyone got a light?"

"So do I, I can't copy dragons or anything. Ugh, can't you use your armor to create a spark or something...hey Jun can you create boiling water?"" Benedicta has to wonder about that now. "I guess we have a walking roach motel among all the other bug themed members of the Cabal. Why am I not surprised?"

    Serrah does a double-take at Jun. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, furrowing her brow. But before she can inquire further, the swarm goes nuts. "JESUS SHIT okay uh ... yeah, Aurelia, like I was saying!"

    She raises her eyebrows at Benedicta. "Oh, yeah, that might work!" she says, looking back at Aurelia.

    With nothing else she can really do about the situation, she glamps her hand over her nose.

Jun was apparently expecting the other hives to attack, as no sooner does this one explode than he turns, drawing the water from the air and forming it into a large hail of 'bullets'. He flings these 'bullets' -- and they are indeed scalding water -- into the approaching swarm of insects.

"Indeed I can," he replies, once the 'shots' are fired. And yeah, that is most definitely not Jun's manner of speaking, not at all.

Still, he can't get them all, and has to float up a little more, hoping to keep as much space between himself and the bugs. Of course, depending on what KIND of cockroaches these are, they may actually be able to fly, so that might actually not matter...

    As shown by the roach earlier, these are definitely the kind that fly. The air is thick with them as Jun ascends. The heated water bullets kill the bugs in their path, but there's just... so many.
    "Try a wall of boiling water!" Aurelia says as she tries to shield Serrah and Benedicta from the onslaught of bugs by pulling and stretching pieces of scrap metal lying around in a bubble of a kind.

Benedicta focuses a bit and quills pop out of her fur, any roaches that got too closed to her would likely be impaled. Sure, it would likely smell less than wonderful having bugs splatter everywhere but it beats being eaten alive at least.

    Serrah's abilities: throwing baseballs, flying, punching things, and stopping time. Oh, and changing into a black silhouette. None of which are particularly useful for dealing with these bugs. She does make a halfhearted attempt at punching and stomping at them, however. So she just retreats into Aurelia's bubble, doing her best not to get too close to Benedicta so she doesn't risk friendly-stab.

    She keeps stealing glances at Jun, however.

Aurelia's suggestion draws a nod. Jun extends a hand to the general direction of the insects, and draws more water from the air, this time arranging it in a scalding 'sheet' of water, and essentially smacking it down as hard as he can on as many of the bugs as he can.

"I can only hope this works..." Jun mutters, also retreating back to Aurelia's metal 'bubble', though not getting into it quite yet (if he can). Part of him wants to retreat, but a far stronger part -- a far newer part of his soul -- wants to advance, to destroy these corrupted things...

    The sheet of boiling water works far better, clearing the air of insects and cooking most of them. The hives also seem inactive after being 'cooked'. It's gross to walk across the warehouse floor, with the sickening crunch of cockroach corpses underfoot.
    Using the light from Jun's sword as a guide, Aurelia makes her way over to a hive, making a distressed face underneath her helmet as her heavy boots crush dead insects. Retching sounds come from under her helm as she reaches out and takes one of the quiescent hives and puts it into her hammerspace, certain the Beacon Society will want to examine. "... the smell-!" She quickly stands and waves a hand in front of her face to clear the air from her face.

Benedicta does her best to keep some distance from the others. She does get a bit of bug juice on her as a few of them get close to her and are stabbed by the quills. Once the coast is clear, her horn glows once and the quills vanish as quickly as they appeared. "I don't know who could stand to live like this. I'm going to need a nice long bath." They still need to finish their investigation first though to see if there's any other clues to who was behind this.

    Serrah is immensely relieved as Jun's assault seems to have the desired effect. That said, she also tries not to retch at the sight of Aurelia grabbing that hive and putting it away. "... You and me both, Bene," she says flatly. "Haha, wow." She shakes her head. "What the hell is this, anyway?"

    She also glances over at Jun. Once again, she tries to find the words to broach the subject of his change in personality.

Jun makes to 'sweep up' as many of the dead insect carcasses as possible in the water, calling it into a ball to hold them temporarily. It's probably not going to smell too great, because the water's still boiling, but at least it'll get them off the ground so that won't need to be walked on. He can dispose of them later.

Aurelia's distress causes a flicker of something in Jun, and he winces a bit. "A-are you all right...?" he asks, almost meekly. That appears to be Jun again, whatever came over him briefly seems to have gone.

At Serrah's question, he looks to her, and then to Aurelia, because... well, he doesn't actually know what's going on apart from 'ew, bugs'.

    Aurelia lifts her helmet to actually vomit first, overcome by the lingering stench. "Better now- thanks." She stands back up, holding her nose and looking around at the mess. "I dunno what any of this is. Bug factory? Really weird though and I wish I was allowed to burn it all." She walks back towards the three others, glad that Jun swept up the dead bugs because walking on them isn't pleasant.
    "Are you guys okay? What was going on with you, Jun? You were... different."

"Maybe some kind of breeding ground? And I'm grossed out, but nothing I can't live with. I'm more worried about who was behind this and what they were trying to do, there's likely more places like this after all," Benedicta figures the person behind all of this must be somewhere else at this point.

    "I'm doing as well as can be expected," Serrah says dryly. "So, uh, basically the same as Benedicta."

    And Aurelia asks a good question. "Yeah, uh ... I was gonna say. I admit that my changes-in-behavior were due to straight up losing my humanity to monstrosity, so I'm probably slightly overreacting, but, uh ..." She jerks a thumb at Aurelia. "What she said."

Jun has to back up from Aurelia, and also to not look in the direction of the... lost lunch. Again, quickly, he'll gather water to wash that away, so it doesn't linger.

But Aurelia does bring a good question. "Oh, that's right. Do any of you need healing?" Though the second question, the one aimed at him in specific... that gets a blink. "What do you mean? Different how?" He doesn't seem to realize it.

Benedicta's reasoning is sound, though Jun still gives a disgusted look at the thought. "Ugh, you're prboably right," he acknowledges. "At least we'll be ready next time." Pause. "...I hope."

Serrah brings up that 'change' too, and he blinks. "I... didn't notice anything, actually," he admits. "I didn't... I mean. Was I rude? Did I say something I shouldn't have? If I did, I'm sorry," he offers, with a deep bow.

    Aurelia tries to phrase it accurately. "You weren't... yourself? Like somebody else was speaking?"

    Serrah gives Jun a look. "You didn't notice it at all?" she says. "You aren't even realizing it in retrospect? That's ..." She doesn't want to say 'worse than what happened with me'. "... uh ... concerning."

Jun looks between Aurelia and Serrah, confused. "No, I... didn't realize it. I just... felt like I ought to do something, and seemed to have a pretty good idea of what, so..." He pauses, and winces a little. "Though I guess I did sorta... cause it all, didn't I? If I'd waited, until we had a plan to deal with the bugs in there, that probably wouldn't have been so bad. So... I'm sorry."