World Tree MUSH

    Emily is hiring a kid with a fabulous Stand and even more fabulous hair. Being that she doesn't spend as much money as a human might (no need for food, after all), her mercenary work has given her more than enough to pay him for a simple task: find a signet ring that got dropped into the water, and hopefully repair it.

    Now, it's the late evening in Venice, and Emily is being uncharacteristically discreet. She's taken the form of an elderly hunchbacked nun, wearing simple black robes and a white headdress which looks more like a hood or a head-wrapping than the more modern style of wimple (she stole the look from a painting of Saint Angela Merici) -- and which shades her eyes to a degree which would probably look suspicious if the sun was up.

    She steps out of a Vine, leaning on Josuke's arm. "Thank you so much for your assistance, young man," she says in a fake-elderly voice in Italian, letting the World Tree's translation-convention handle understanding. "Now, mm, would you be so kind as to help me along my way?" She nods her head in the direction of the dockyards where they fought the Seeker.

    'Discreet' is not a word that Josuke knows much about. So the 'elderly nun' is leaning upon the arm of a muscular, blue-eyed young man with a well-kept regent. He's wearing a Japanese school uniform and carrying a school bag in the hand he's not using to 'support' the 'nun' -- Emily caught him as he was coming out of class.

    However, lack of discretion on his part or not, he's definitely respecting Emily wanting to fly under the radar. He nods to her words, playing along with, "Of course, ma'am. Where were you heading?" And of course he'll follow along in that direction.

    Venice is quiet at this time of night, few people mill around the main residential area and very few frequent the docks after it's lashed down, not many sailors are willing to brave the inlet in pitch darkness with the tides how they are.

    Thus, the Nun and her escort are largely unmolested as they approach the scene of the battle a few weeks past. Most of the damage has been repaired, and the bodies cleaned up. The ship is gone, and the waters are as murky and dank as ever.

    Emily glances around as they reach the docks. "No sign o' bad guys," she murmurs in her regular voice, low enough that probably only Josuke could hear it. "I kinda want to hit up Piera's bros, but the only peeps I know how to contact are in Rome, and that's slightly out of our way." (330 miles out of their way, to be precise.) She sounds ever-so-slightly distracted, or weary.

    They stop at the edge of the dock, right next to the building where Emily fought the Seeker. She stands up straight, shoots Josuke her amused and faintly smug smile -- though her heart isn't quite in it -- and says, "If my spatial awareness is correct, that signet ring should be right abooout ..." She projects a faint circular hologram into the water with concentric rings of light with the word HERE in the center -- again, visible enough that Josuke can see it, but not exactly eye-catching from a distance.

    Josuke is also keeping an eye on things -- they don't exactly look like the most well-defended pair, after all. Though he can't help but notice, "...Y'know? I don't think I've ever seen this many stars before." Which makes sense, even the suburbs give off light pollution.

    Though he's quick to pay attention when Emily speaks up. "Right. Does it give off any kind of waves or energy that can be picked up?" he inquires. "I did bring Roberta -- she's hiding in my bag."

    And on cue, the little head of the Bright Feather pops out of the side of the bag, under the flap. "Hello!" It's not too loud, though.

    With a smile, he reaches to pat her gently on the head. "If it's got energy, she might be able to find it, if it's strong enough," Josuke points out.

    The area has been abandoned by the Templars, and the guards leave them alone, they're not doing anything against the local law, after all.

    Emily localized where the ring fell into the canals, but Roberta would pick up a signature similar to the Seeker's spear and the Isu ruins about 40 feet further out from the docks, where the undercurrents dragged the ring before it hit the bottom. The signature is very faint, like the mechanism generating it was damaged or failing.

    There are eyes on the pair, but the owners don't reveal themselves.

    Emily considers the question. "I'm not actually sure," she says. "... Y'know what, I'm pretty sure even you have better sensors than me, 'Berta," she adds, one robot-created-to-serve to another. "I am hella not a military model." Said with a bit more force than necessary.

    She peers into the water. "But yeah, I don't really know anything about these nonsense bits of super-technology the Templars have been using," she says. "All I know is that this one had the power to stop time before it died of blunt force trauma, and that the technology is different enough from the halcyon remnant that even an Erebus-model Eudaemon couldn't figure out how to fix it even if we had any repair-stations that worked."

    If she's aware that they're being watched, she doesn't say anything.

    Josuke will get the bag nearer the edge of the water, so Roberta can scan without being seen unless someone's trying to see. But he'll keep hold of that bag, because he doesn't want her -- or his homework that he's yet to do! -- falling into the water.

    "Hmm.... I think I can pick up the location," Roberta replies. "It's a little that way, if this is right..." The mention of her sensors gets a blink. "I'm designed to pick up energy signatures so I can try to find people that are lost who might need rescue." As for being military? That gets a squeak! "Oh, I'm not military either. I'm a medical model."

    For his part, Josuke blinks at the mention of (presumably) Emily not being able to figure out how it works. "Wow, really? Maybe it's magic or something?" he notes. Though also, he crouches down next to the water, peering into it intently, and pouting thoughtfully.

    See, he's all too willing to jump into semi-deep water with no problems if a life is in danger, but he's not going to risk messing his hair up for anything less! And he doesn't want Roberta to get waterlogged. "Hmm... good thing it doesn't seem too deep," he says quietly. Since it's not too deep, he can stand next to where Roberta indicated and send his Stand down to retrieve the malfunctioning ring.

    Crazy Diamond can easily pluck the ring out of the murky water. It's surprisingly clean once it's out, the strange golden metal gleaming faintly with those strange runic symbols pulsing fitfully. It's clearly damaged, though not on the outside.

    Those watching eyes seem to intensify when the Ring is retrieved, but then the presense fades, and whoever it was seems to have departed.

    Emily nods to Roberta, and conjures up a bunch of white petals with her nanomachines. "I'm not medical, either," she says, sending them flitting through the air and having them start to glow around her. "Nyx models are ... general-purpose, and our gimmick is being more independent. I'm not smarter than average, I just don't need to be ..." Her voice trails off. "... I just wouldn't have needed to be micromanaged," she finishes flatly, as if the act of saying what she'd previously been going to say was a sore subject for her.

    She pauses at Josuke's question, then shakes her head. "If is, it's also different from the magic of the halcyon remnant," she says. "I was including magic under the general umbrella of 'technology', sorry."

    She watches as Crazy Diamond brings out the ring, and smiles. "Waterproof, only to die of hitting the floor too hard," she says dryly. "And resurrected, hopefully, now. If you'd do the honors, Mr. Higashikata?"

    It's not until that 'watched' sensation intensifies that Josuke appears to notice it. His eyes widen for just a moment, and he turns his head in the direction it seemed the strongest from. How does he know that? Who knows!

    Roberta seems a bit at a loss for words, though she reaches out to pat Emily comfortingly. Yeah, she knows that subject, whatever she was about to say, is a sore spot, and she's not about to poke that sore spot. This is hardly the spot for psychoanalysis!

    Though as Emily asks him to try to fix it, he nods. "I hope it works -- if it's 'magic' magic instead of tech-magic, it might give me trouble," Josuke notes. "It might need to be re-powered, or re-attuned, or something like that.

    But he's willing to give it a shot. He nods, and concentrates. "<<Crazy Diamond!>>" He doesn't shout it too loud, so hopefully he won't attract too much attention.

    At his shout, the Stand holds the ring aloft -- to avoid any of the missing pieces that may be flying in from God-knows-where smacking them. In addition to the purple, sparkling aura around himself, an orange-gold aura springs to life around his Stand as the energy flows to the damaged ring.

    Of course for anyone not able to see Stands, it looks far more miraculous than it really is. From all appearances, for those who can't see Crazy Diamond, it just looks like he said 'Crazy Diamond', then the ring levitated in the air, and -- if this works as it should -- started putting itself back together.

    Fortunately, or unfortunately, all the 'parts' are already inside the Ring itself, so as it repairs, there's no sudden holes in buildings as some hypersonic fragment comes speeding through to attach itself to the lofted ring. Once the repair is complete, the runic symbols flicker back to life, then hold at a steady-ish level, not the faultering flicker from before, but not entirely stable either. There's something wrong, but Crazy Diamond can't fix whatever it is.

    Emily grimaces at Roberta's gentle touch, and simply nods wordlessly. "... can't even sarcastically call out to 'em and say goodbye," she mutters after a few seconds. She certainly didn't miss whoever it was.

    She takes a deep breath. "Now," she says, reaching for the ring. "let's see if it --"

    The world suddenly inverts its colors, and everything is frozen in place.

    It stays that way for several seconds. Roberta gets a frantic transmission from Emily: <<Not working! Abort, abort! Wait, is this even gonna send? Are the photons stuck in place? Or ... wait, if that was the case, how are we seeing anyth-->>

    The world un-inverts, but only the ring is unfrozen. It twitches in Crazy Diamond's hand, and then the world inverts for only a split second before everything goes back to normal and time resumes completely.

    Problem: this effect covered ... a fairly wide area. And everyone could have seen it.

    "....Huh. Something doesn't feel right," Josuke notes as Crazy Diamond transfers the ring to his hands and disappears. He'll hand it right to Emily, since she from all indications, she'd know it better than he would. The technology he's used to certainly isn't anything close to this stuff!

    Time-stopping?! Josuke doesn't have any ability to do that, and so he's probably going to miss a lot of that. He's not, however, completely unaware that something happened. "Eh?! What happened?!"

    Luckily, it seems the docks are almost entirely deserted, and the Ring's effect hasn't triggered any alarms, or drawn in any guards. There's a few isolated screams from some vagabonds hanging out in warehouses from the elements, but these people are beneath society and their problems are not ones for the guards to deal with. The trio of offworlders are free to leave without incident.

    Emily staggers.

    "Okay," she says. "Uh. Good news: this thing can stop time again. Bad news: it is a bastard." She takes the ring, and it disappears into the palm of her hand. She glances over her shoulder at the sound of the screams; it doesn't occur to her that this wouldn't result in people coming running. "I ... think ... now would be a great time to beat feet. I'm-a get myself more power to power my dimensional field, releasing Capacitor Seal Three!"

    She's surrounded by the three auras, the silver one shatters as the other two fade, and then her outfit transforms into a much more modern nun's habit, plus cross-shaped earrings. She holds out her hands, grunts slightly with exertion, and opens a staticky portal which leads to a rooftop further away from the water. "One more hop away, and this'll get us right to the Vine," she says. "Let's, uh ... let's go now."

    Whatever was on her mind before, her tone and posture are now tinged with major disappointment on top of it.

    Josuke winces a bit at the screams, but seems to have come to the same conclusion as Emily, at least about getting out of there. "Yeah, good idea," he agrees. "I'll ask what happened later, once we're safe."

    And then Emily powers up a bit and opens that portal, and he goes through it as soon as she indicates it's safe to do so. "Yeesh..." he mutters.

    "I'm not even sure what happened," she murmurs as she steps through behind Josuke, closing the portal. "It just stopped time on its own right after Crazy Diamond fixed it. Not even sure what I'm gonna do with it now," she adds, almost petulantly.

    She gathers her power, and opens a second portal. This one leads to a rooftop right next to the Vine. "Hopefully, it was just ... randomly firing off and it's not gonna do that again. But. This really looks like a 'don't try to use it unless you're really desperate' kind of situation, hey-yo!"

    Josuke nods. "Yeah, that thing looks like bad news," he notes. "Has a mind of its own, maybe?" he suggests. As he follows through that second portal, he suggests, "Might be a good idea to have someone from this world look at it. Maybe they can tell you what's going on." Makes sense to him.

    Emily nods. "Could be," she answers. "Like I said, I don't know enough about these things ..." She shrugs. "I'll definitely have to drop by Rome the next time I'm in this Blossom."

    She opens another staticky portal in the direction of the Vine, and this time it can't be seen through: the other side is in the next Blossom. Gesturing for Josuke to follow, she disappears through.