World Tree MUSH

    The village of Dawsbury rests in a quiet world where fantasy and technology intermingle; it's a small town with a population of roughly 200 people; humans, elves, dwarves, and a few other minority races.
    And Dawsbury has a problem.
    Recently a band of ogres have moved into the region. ... And built a fort.
    It's a rudimentary fort of stone, wood, and bone. But the thing is... Ogres don't build. This is a rare, new, and entirely uprecedented.
    And the ogres have been raiding the town. People have died. The town head man has put out a call to the local Adventurer's Guild to have the issue handled...
    The town headman, an aged human is waiting some short distance from the fort looking a bit nervous. And right about now a grey 2003 Ford Windstar is pulling right up as though there were absolutely nothing wrong.
    

    Ogres! Not exactly demons, but Dante's been forced to diversify his workflow ever since the Worldtree thing came up. It's been rather...interesting to say the least. He's also brought Vergil along for some brotherly bonding time! "Yo, Verg." He says, clapping Vergil's shoulder. "That look Ogreish to you? The town board did say they were pretty stupid, doubt any of them's got any experience in construction labor."

    He picks it up a bit when he notices the van and an aged human, jogging towards him. "Yo! You the client?"

    The locals would have found a stranger amongst them... or would if she had allowed them to see her. She mingles with the people, having arrived with a trade caravan and having stayed behind. She's kept to the outskirts, or rooftops, observing the fort. As that car pulls up, and a very obvious Demon Hunter arrives, she drops from the roof and approaches the group. "We may have to act quickly... they seem to be gearing up for another raid. I can see movement." she offers, Aquila landing on her shoulder and dismissing her jetpack, though her helmet remains and the visor remains shut.

    Emily has taken the form of ... a woman of about Dante or Vergil's age and build with silver hair in a ponytail, a green longcoat with a frilly hem, a black bandeau top, black pants, and combat boots. There's a silver falchion sword on her back. "Aw yeah, this is happenin'!" she announces to no one in particular.

    She does a sort of reverse-moonwalk (that is, walking forward but with leg-motions of going backward) up to the Brothers Sparda and the man, nodding in greeting with her trademark amused and faintly smug smile.

Misaki is here to help. Her mood is immediately dampened when she sees a familiar vehicle, but she takes a moment to get over it, and approaches the others, "Hey everyone." She loudly greets, then she follows it up with a whisper, "That car belongs to someone who is trouble."

Not his usual hunting grounds, but there's Ogres! Vergil found it to be Good enough...though why did he think it was wise to go with Dante? The hand on his shoulder is met with a slight deadpan stare. "As good as we are going to get. Try not to break the place, we are behind on payments as it is." he groans. Yet, he eyes the others warily, but follows behind Dante in case he does something stupid.

    Tyrael had heard about the problems plaguing the town of Dawnsbury. While his ilk were usually preoccupied with battling demons attempting to spread their influence wherever it suited their fancy as per the typical scope of the Eternal Conflict, the Archangel of Justice is often among the few who go out of their way to help -anyone- who needed defending against evil and of course injustice.

    Ogres or monsters or whatever it is hurting innocent people and having already gotten some of them killed, even? That definitely qualifies as unjust! So he is here, a glowing beacon of light hovering in the air near where the group has gathered, observing the situation below with his usual blank visage.

    The headman looks a little nervous, then again being so close to the fort is probably bad news for him, but he had to meet the adventuring party somewhere, and as Dante approaches, he purses his lips, looking from face to face.
    "Yes... I am the town headman, Davius Roshell." He introduces himself. "The ogres set up... This..." He motions for the fort with a hand, "About three weeks ago. We've lost too many people since, in their raids. They've been keeping my people for labor and food. Please rescue whoever you can from inside..." He pleads.
    As the minivan door pops open.
    "Right! So! Ogres!" Morrigan Lor'osa chirrups as she hops out and shuts the door behind her, shinki on her shoulder.
    "They're big, stupid, and have bad tempers. Any further questions before we handle this?" She says already heading for the fort entrance.
    Trouble, yes.

    "Yo. Dante, son of Sparda. This is my brother Vergil, also son of Sparda." He introduces himself and Vergil quite simply. "We're usually demon exterminators, but hey, it's a rough job market at the moment for us." He also shrugs as Emily shows up. "I have no idea why she's cosplaying us, but I wouldn't make too much a fuss over it." He explains to Vergil.

    Misaki and Piera also get nods, so does the big spooky hooded guy. He and Vergil are probably RADIATING unholy energy to the archangel right now. THat's bad.

    Then the minivan. "Oh, Morrigan right? Figured this was your car." He says, wiggling fingers to the adorable tiny robo on her shoulder.

    "We'd better get on that. Right behind ya." He says, drawing Rebellion and slinging it on his shoulders as he takes Morrigan's side.

    Piera looks between all the gathered, adjusts her hood and then moves to follow Morrigan, pulling her cape and robes tighter around her, though she doesn't say all that much... outside of catching up with the Warlock and asking. "Where would they keep prisoners and what kind of locks can be expected on the cages?"

    Emily leans over to Misaki. "Okay, that's good to know," she stage-whispers back irreverently. No offense to Misaki, but ... the first person Emily became aware that the kid had decided was bad news was Yumi Tachibana, and Emily is bad at recovering from first impressions. "Anyway, I'm Emily, Nyx-model MLE0, a Eudaemon of the halcyon remnant --"

    Morrigan and Dante just charge right in, and she shrugs. "Okay, then," she says, and suddenly there's a signet ring on her finger, glowing with glitching and flickering runes. The instrumental intro to 'All Star' by Smash Mouth begins playing. "We'll get 'em back, Mr. Roshell! Releasing Capacitor Seals 3 and 2." She's surrounded by three auras, one silver, one gold, and one pearlescent, and the first two shatter and the third one fades.

    She flies past Morrigan, Dante, and Piera as glowing white flower petals begin to surround her; she grabs the sword, and charges right up to the door and swings it. Some -- SMASH. -- BODY once told me the world ... She raises her hand, and in a sphere of about twenty feet wide centered on the ring, colors invert and everything becomes frozen in time except Emily -- though anyone inside or outside of that region can still plainly see what she's doing. ... was gonna roll me ... She conjures five more golden bolts to fire at whatever ogres immediately become visible. Time resumes, and the bolts fly at their targets. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed ...

"Just one question, ma'am." Misaki transforms and manifests Joyous, twirling the gun around one finger, "Why don't you stay out of this and let people who are here to solve the problem handle it? I know you really like hurting people, but there is no such thing as an acceptable target for torture." She's smiling and talking in the tone of someone explaining to a toddler why they shouldn't pull on a cat's tail. "Pleasure to meet you, mister Virgil. I'm Misaki Sakai." Emily's entire gig earns her an attempted shove.

    Tyrael watches as some of the group go charging into the fort, but he also heard the part about townspeople needing rescue. The energies coming from Vergil and Dante earn some notice, but they did say they were demon hunters of some sort, so it doesn't concern him too much. There are, after all, plenty of demon hunters in Sanctuary, many of whom do have noble causes even if they make a habit of using demonic magic. Not that he won't be watching them, of course.

    He increases altitude a bit, flying up over the ogres' fort and begins to survey the structure if he can. The first thing he'd attempt to do is locate the imprisoned citizens, then second order of business is searching for anything else relevant. In general, just what is this party going storming into, exactly? Hopefully nothing terribly unexpected.

Vergil softly nods as Dante introduces him, but his cold eyes shift to Emily as she strides up to the dark brothers. He raises a brow at her. "...is this done in mockery?" He questions. Vergil is the king of pomp and fuss, Dante! But he's not reaching for his weapon, which is great. "No further questions. As long as they day when their heads are removed, we should face no issues." 

 As other warriors arrive and pledge service, Vergil's gaze settled on the archangel. "The sooner we get this done, the better." He draws the Yamato, upnodding to Dante. 

 Then Emily starts to play 'All Star' and Vergil just -stares-. "...please tell me this isn't a long mission." he groans, Then there's Misaki. "A pleasure." He states simply enough. But his gaze returns to Tyrael. Hm.

    "Hiiiiiii, yes, I'm Morrigan. That's me." The Warlock says as Dante introduces himself. "And this is Mary Contrary; Mary for short." She introduces the shinki on her shoulder as--
    Emily goes right up and smashes the gate. The ogre fortress' construction is not enough to stop a rampaging Eudaemon as she busts the gates in and starts blasting the several ogres on guard. They're large creatures, the smallest of them standing at seven feet tall, and while one or two go down, another squad comes bumbling out of their ramshackle residences to see what the hell is going on, large clubs clutched in their green-skinned hands.
    "Well." Morrigan says with a huff. "That was effective." Before she answers Piera; "I'm sorry, locks? These are ogres we're dealing with. They probably made cages out of the bones of the people they ate." She points out before turning to Misaki.
    "I'm an adventurer! I know how to handle ogres!"
    Speaking of, Tyrael taking to the air will see that there sure are a lot of ogres. Which is strange as they are usually too stupid to be social creatures. But he'll also be able to see the cages made out of bones towards the back of the encampment.
    "Anyway, this'll be simple." Morrigan says as she blasts an ogre in the face with a crackling beam of green energy with a sound much a crack of thunder. "Just kill all the ogres and free the prisoners and we call it a day."

    Dante is about to say something witty when Emily does...that. "Well, at least this'll be ogre soon. Take five, Headman. We'll be back in a bit." He grins at Davius before offering him a salute, then takes off after Emily. As the Eudemon starts off, Dante follows suit by drawing his shotgun and blasting an ogre's legs off, finishing him off by impaling him through the neck.

    An ogre swings at him, and Dante evades before swinging his sword back to chop the beast in half. The demon hunter is almost graceful as he evades and retaliates with buckshot and sword, slashing and blasting like a somewhat more stylish S-Mart employee. "Makes me wonder if there's a big boss ogre or something, with this many around someone has to have organized 'em!"

    Piera nods, "Likely held closed with simple sinew or leather straps..." she murmurs. A soft click of her tongue has Aquila taking to the air, joining Tyrael above the fortress, while the Assassin takes off at a dead sprint, covering the distance as Emily bashes down the gates and starts kicking ass and taking names. She goes around to another area, vaulting up and clambering over the ramshackle wall, going around the distraction to get to where her Shinki indicates the cages are.

    Once she gets to the cages, she deploys one of her Hidden Blades, going to cut open any kind of makeshift 'gate' that might have been fashioned. "Keep quiet, I will lead you out of here while the others distract the guards."

    She was lookin' kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her -- A text-to-speech voice finishes 'Fortress', and the rest of the song continues instrumental-only.

    Emily snickers at Misaki's shove, and glides sideways through the air as if she'd had put a lot more force into the shove. ... Okay, 'torture', that's a thing. Emily attempts to reassess her opinion of Morrigan.

    "What?" she says, doing a double-take at Vergil. "'Mockery', nothing. Dante's, like, my bro!" She floats back to stand back-to-back with Misaki, conjuring five more energy-bolts but not firing them yet. "Like, I've literally known him a minute or two longer than I knew the World Tree existed!" ... Well, there's an explanation, of sorts.

    She glances over her shoulder at Misaki. "So, how we doing this, Sakai?"

Vergil watches Emily's stunt pay off! His gaze hardens a moment. He's impressed for certain, but that's not why he's here. He's here to take these things down, not watch someone else get busy with it. So, with a flourish of the Yamato, Vergil controls his breathing.... 

 And he swings in a perfect slash. The group of ogres that are coming towards him? They hear the sound of the wind ringing like a bell echoes in the air as g the e blade finishes its path. It's only with the snapping sheathe of the Yamato does the effect make itself known: 

 The blade sent out a tremendous wave of energy, trying to slash through the ogres...and the fortress wall behind them to maybe take out a few more. 

 A habit of the sons of Sparda? There is no such thing as subtle. 

 "Dante, get loud!" He orders his rebellious brother.

    The party starts smashing straight away, drawing the creatures' attention. Which is good. Tyrael immediately spots the crudely fashioned bone cages near the back of the camp from his aerial vantage point. That would be the first order of business. He draws El'druin and throws it toward the ground near the cages, then teleports down to its location. Pulling it out of the ground where it had landed, he approaches the nearest cage full of innocents and begins slashing it apart.

It's much easier to sneak when there are multiple people out there being a major distraction. Misaki decides to keep an eye on Morrigan but not intervene unless the warlock crosses a line. "If you're going to make this a concert Emily? We need a light show." Thus spoke the wielder of light magic, her fingertips begin to glow and so long as there's any music going on and around, they're going to explode in bright flashes of varying colors.

This would be less concerting if it wasn't for the mad giggling that accompanied it, someone is getting way too carried away in providing a light show, and forgetting about the ogres that are still out there.

    While Dante, Vergil, and definitely Emily are soaking up a lot of attention and hate by being the biggest visible (and audible) threats to the encampment, cutting ogres down left and right, Piera heads for the cages. Soon enough she's joined by Tyrael. Though told to be quiet the prisoners clamor for freedom, eyes wild with terror and hope as the Assassin and the Archangel sever the bonds holding the cages together or just smash cages outright, the people inside quickly forming up to follow obediently and be led to their rescue.
    As Misaki begins to put on a light show.
    A light show is not condusive to sneaking, but worse, it seems to call the attention of something... Big...
    In fact, it is now that the biggest ogre of all of them emerges, wearing a necklace of skulls and bones, a ten foot tall monstrosity with a greatclub in hand and...
    On his shoulder is a much smaller ogre. Three feet tall at best, with a long grey beard and a crown made of fingerbones.
    "Who dares disturb me?! The Ogre King?!" The tiny ogre demands. "Son! Crush them!"
    "Yes, paw..." the giant ogre complies, lifting his greatclub- getting ready to bring it down on Misaki...!
    The only thing that pauses it is the trickle of blood from the giant ogre's nose.
    "Look me in the eye you dumb lummox." Morrigan hisses, making eye contact with it, psychicly assaulting its very mind and holding it off for a beat.
    Before it belts the warlock aside with its club.
    That didn't look pleasant, but then it raises its club to get ready to crush the giggling young senshi once again!

    Piera helps form the people up, then looks to Tyrael. She's about to speak to the black-faced being, but then the King shows up, and the monsterous giant of a 'son' clobbers Morrigan, then goes for Misaki.. "Get these people out of here." is all she says to the Archangel, before tearing off towards the fray.

    Aquilla sees the rush, and summons her Bident, aiming for the tiny 'King' and firing her thrusters to scream downwards like a tiny meteorite, her engines giving off a sound similar to an eagle's cry.

    Piera, meanwhile, goes for the giant Ogre, drawing her sword and aiming for the backs of his knees, seeking to hamstring the giant and limit his effectiveness.

    Dante snarls, "What do you think I'm doing?" he says as he splits another ogre apart with his sword, shotgun blasting the one beside it into mush from the neck up. Then he gets a little idea, grinning wide as he stows his weapons before producing something much deadlier than sword and shotgun.

    He summons up Nevan, and the guitar adopts its scythe form as he begins to strum a few notes, and swipes the blade with a hail of lightning and bats. "BUt if you insist...I'll get loud as you want!"

    He switches back to guitar, and the instrument of doom strums loud electric notes as he gets to crowd controlling the ogres, lightning bats going from ogre to ogre to fry the dumb beasts.

>> SUMMARY[Piera Forta] >> Hey, Angel-dude, do the thing. Aquila: SCREAMIN' EAGLES! Piera: Slashy Slashy on your feetsies!

    Emily furrows her brow, firing the bolts of energy at any approaching ogres. "Uhhhhhh ... Misaki?" she says, as the instrumental version of Smash Mouth continues playing. "You doin' all right there, kiddo ...?" She's starting to wonder if she picked the wrong hero to latch onto and follow their lead on everything they do.

    And then there's the arrival of the Ogre King and his son. "Aha, an Ogre King!" she says. "That explains everything!" Beat. "Hey, Morrigan, what's an Ogre King?"

    Her face scrunches up at the sight of the psychic attack. "Aha, 'torture', right," she says flatly. She doesn't even blink when Morrigan gets knocked aside. "... G'bye, Morrigan!"

    But now there's a club swinging down at Misaki.

    Emily doesn't waste time with gesturing dramatically; she just activates her ring again, stopping time and inverting colors in the local vicinity, then simply grabs Misaki up in a fireman's carry -- the physical contact enabling her to move in the stopped time as well -- and leaps out of the way of the club. As she does this, there's a sensation of machinery being pushed too hard which everyone in the area of effect can feel, and then the ring abruptly resumes time in mid-leap.

    Emily pauses. "Double-A would not be happy if she was here," she remarks to no one in particular.

    As the prisoners hurry out of the broken cages, Tyrael turns to the young hooded woman. He was about to ask her if she knew a clandestine way out of the fort so as not to draw the creatures' attention, but she rushes off to join the fight against the Ogre King. 

    Ah well...it seems they are distracted enough anyway. He makes sure all the townspeople have been freed, then gathers them around himself before a glowing shield of golden energy appears around them. Then he once again takes to the air, the shield and the ogres' former victims going with him, carried by the shield. Hopefully no one is afraid of heights, because the thing is kind of translucent. 

    Anyway even if so, it wouldn't be for long, at least. Only enough to set down outside the fort where Davius had been holed up. "These were imprisoned by the creatures. Some may require healing--it would be wise of you to see to them."

Misaki doesn't notice the club coming her way. She just keeps at it until Emily carries her to safety and she looks around and seems mildly panicked. "Why couldn't I...?" She closes her eyes and counts to ten. "Right, I think this might be..." She stops, mid-thought, "Thank you, miss Emily. Sorry for the trouble."

"Going easy is what I think you're doing!" Vergil snarls back his twin brother, even as another ogre is slashed in two! A shine of the blade later and Vergil pauses to look at this Ogre King. 

 "....Mine." 

 Then he hears the guitar and he winced. "Why do you enjoy that toy..." He shakes his head, before he leaps into the air. "Dark Slayer!" He calls out into the void. Suddenly, Vergil teleports over to the Ogre King in the blink of an eye, his blade going for the chest cavity.

    That little guy? On the big guy's shoulder?
    That's an Ogre King, Emily.
    Though Morrigan can't quite answer the Eudaemon's question, as she's knocked out cold for the moment, but it looks like her armor absorbed much of the blow and she's not dead. Mary Contrary is already pulling a healing potion from Morrigan's backpack to tend to her.
    But that still leaves the Ogre King and his massive son.
    The massive ogre brings his club down on... Nothing, as Emily scoops up Misaki and gets her out of harms way.
    "What are you doing? I said kill the- ACK!" The Ogre King shouts at his gigantic progeny only to be stabbed by Aquila's bident, and the bigger ogre goes toppling as Piera hamstrings him, earning a howl of dismay as...
    Vergil enters the fray.
    And with one stroke of the Yamato to cut the Ogre King in half and catch the giant ogre as well, slaying both in one blow.
    With Dante mopping up the other ogres with his guitar skills, that leaves Tyrael to bring the prisoners to the town headman via magical airlift, said headman already has a small medical crew waiting with him to tend to the injured and malnourished.
    It's about now that Morrigan picks herself up with a splutter as Mary forces her to drink that healing potion.
    "Agh, I'm up, I'm up." She croaks, patting the shinki lightly on the head. "... Oh it looks like everything's handled. That's good then~."

    Dante was going to try and join in on slaying the ogre king, buuuuuuut-

    Yep. Vergil Vergil'd it as usual. "Kill stealler! First Beowulf then this! Got me to break out the guitar for nothin'!" ~Awww, sugar, don't worry about him. He's still got the personality of a lobster. You've still got your charms, Dante~ "Well gee, ma." Dante stows Nevan on his back, going to help Morrigan to her feet.

    "You okay?" He offers her a hand up. "Yeah, Vergil decided this was getting boring I guess. He does that." He jerks a thumb toward the two halves of the boss ogre. Man, it's a gorefest when the beasts don't just dissipate into ashes.

    Emily sets Misaki down and puts her hands on her shoulders, looking mildly panicked herself. "Everything all right?" she says. "Uh ... if you'll pardon my French, what the fuck was that?"

    Though her attention seems to be entirely on the young senshi, she fires another two bolts at the Ogre King and Son's corpses. Take that!

    She does take the time to glance around. "Well, looks like it's all ogre now!" she announces to all and sundry. She glances around. "... Never mind that I was a participant, my dead-and-not-mourned creators would've gotten sick just seeing all this, heh ..."

    Seeing that the victims are well in hand, Tyrael flies back up and settles on top of one of the fort walls. It would appear that the ogres have been dealt with, so he remains where he is, in case anyone still needs help or if any prisoners went unnoticed.

    Piera and Aquila get clear of Yamato's arc as the blade cuts through the ogres, the Shinki surging upward, the Assassin doing a nimble back somersault. "Requiescat en pace, you ugly bastardo!" she spits, then wipes ogre blood off of her sword using the cape over her shoulder before sheathing it. Her hood was dislodged in the fray, the tanned skin and dark hair on display, until she pulls it back up and makes to leave without further word.

    Aquila joins her readily enough, the pair silently leaving now that the main thrust has suceeded and their presence is likely no longer necessary. That is, unless someone wants to stop them.

"I'm a bit shook up." Misaki answers, "But I'm fine, really." She detransforms since it seems things are over. She takes a look at the place where she was almost turned into paste, "It was... uh." She tries to think, "Look I don't know how to explain it, ask Yumi-san. I think this is what she was trying to warn me about."

The Ogre got Vergil'd. 

 Vergil lands on his feet in the blood and intestines that used to be the Ogre King and he brushes off his sword with a handkerchief. "Messy bastard." Vergil insults his kill before shearing his sword. He hears Dante complaining and Vergil just kinda gives him an arrogant smirk. Dante 345 - Vergil 346. 

 His gaze turns to Emily and he lightly frowns at her. He was always the extremely serious pun-destroyer. "...." Silence meets her as he begins to walk away. But Piera Forta gains Vergil's attention. "Leafing at the hour of victory?" He questions her. 

 He eventually makes it to Dante and Morrigan. "Anything else that needs done?"

    Morrigan will, in fact, take Dante's hand to get back up, clutching her side with a wince as she does. Healing potions help a lot, but they aren't perfect. She'll probably be feeling that for a few days.
    "Yeah but at least clean up isn't our problem, right?" She says with a huff, dusting off her robes and armor. "Heh! All's well that ends well, though, right?"