World Tree MUSH

Last night a great fireball suddenly appeared in the sky above Damcyan castle, lighting up the night sky bright enough that for a few moments it was like twilight. It fell to the mountains between Damcyan and Kaipo, where it crashed with enough force to create a minor shockwave.

Even now, the morning after, smoke can be seen rising from the mountain. A fire is raging, though the volume of smoke is gradually decreasing. A helpful marker for where the fireball landed. The path up is fortunately not too difficult until near the end, when there are no more beaten paths to traverse

Another marker leading to the event is unlikely to be noticed by the inhabitants of this world. An incredibly powerful radio transmission broadcasting a wave pattern at regular intervals of 16 minutes and 40 seconds. Frequency is consistent. The wave pattern, if analyzed, is raw audio data with a simple message repeated in a couple languages. The message sounds like someone was really obsessed with perfectly recording an announcement that would be played daily on an automated system.

"PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN. This is Just A Matter of Time. This is Just A Matter of Time. This is Just A Matter of Time. Position unknown. Unprecedented Anomaly resulting in a crash on unidentified, uninhabited planet. Craft incapable of flight. Requesting all aid and assistance as may be available. This message will repeat. Over."

    So one minute, the night before, Rydia had been in what was left of the Damcyan inn, making all the necessary preparations for the next leg of the journey with her group. The next... She was looking out the window at a blazing fireball flying over the city and crash-landing into the mountains.
    "Weeeee should probably look into that." She asides to her companions. "I'll wrangle up the chocobos at first light." She volunteers. So next morning, at first light, she wrangles Cecil and Terra's chocobos so that they can be on their way to see just what crash-landed, clueless to any radio signals.
    Hopefully before Baron or anyone else can come sniffing around. Preferrably before Baron can at least.

    That strange fireball was worrying, what with all the oddities in this land. Robot dinosaurs showing up was bad enough, but all the other stuff on top of it? Not to mention the LOCAL problems, like the whole Baron issue. Which is why Cecil was actually pretty gung-ho about investigating this!

    "Agreed," Cecil is saying to Rydia, already saddling up. "If the Red Wings are anywhere nearby, they'll likely come to look into it. We'd best beat them there and be gone before they arrive. Hopefully they're off somewhere else."

    Her usual quiet self, Terra doesn't say much beyond offering an affirmative to Rydia's statement. Yep, looking into that seems the right thing to do. If for no other reason than to be sure tht nothing more dangerous will follow.

    Of course, she feels concern when the matter of Cecil's homeland forces taking interest arises. A fight isn't something she's really itching for. Saddling up, she's fully prepared to keep pace with her companions. Here's hoping everything will be fine!

    Of course, even she knows to expect the worst!

    "Captain, picking up a radio signal from the local Vine... patching it through on speakers."

    Justina listens to the message, then frowns faintly. "Set a course, take us into FTL and prepare the Type-17 for deployment... I'll set up the Rig for arrival."

    "Aye captain, deploying Radials now, shfiting to Linespace in 3... 2... 1..."

    Presently,

    "Arrival in system in 3... 2... 1... emerging from Linespace. Folding Radials, bringing sublight engines online. Estimate time to orbit, four hours. Teleport range in twelve minutes."

    "Copy that Minerva, teleport the Doll once in range. I'll remote into it after confirmation of teleport... drop it as close as you can to the crash site."

    On the ground, about a kilometer from the crash zone, a tall, heavily built robot manifests in a shimmering teleport field, the sheer power of the spell likely setting off anyone with a magical sense nearby. After a moment, the robot comes to life, and starts walking toward the smoke. >"Minerva, moving into position... was this really the closest you could put down?"< grouses the half-elf astral projection. <"Unfortunately, local interference and the distance from the planet left me with few choices... if we had waited to get into orbit first, I could have put you down inside the hull, like as not. The Type-17 has more Primus cells, so you won't run out of power walking in."> replies the AI with a soft chuckle.

    >"Minerva, seeing movement, probably locals... I will attempt contact, we may be able to render more assistance with more hands."< remarks Justina as she spots the others approaching the crash site. "Attention local inhabitants. I am not hostile. I am responding to a distress call from the crashed object. Maybe we can help each other." she calls out, the 8ft tall robot speaking with a clearly young woman's voice might seem weird to Rydia, Cecil and Terra.

     Miwa had come to the area as a visitor recently, as she's spent a lot of time lately back home and decided it's past time she started seeing other worlds again. She was sleeping by a pond in a valley when she heard the explosion. Awaking with a start, she looks around bleary-eyed and blinking. "What in Arceus was that!? Whatever it was, someone might need help." She surmises and after stretching a bit, the Primarina dives into the pond and starts swimming up the connected river, going as fast as she can, though swimming upstream is quite a workout. "Now I know what a salmon feels like!" She complains after a while. Eventually, she gets there, and while her muscles are still burning from exertion, she still gets to work helping to put out the forest fire using Hydro Pump while she looks for anyone who might be around, or what caused the big boom in the first place. 

     As she doesn't immediately see anyone, she takes a deep breath and loudly calls out into the smoldering forest. "Hello!? Is anyone out there?"

    Emily saw the crash when she was wandering aimlessly last night, and she immediately headed back to the halcyon remnant to grab Double-A. Now, she's hovering above the desert near Damcyan in the form of a young woman who looks like she's a native of this world. She has short black hair, and wears a white dress of a style that looks local, a Lunar Tear in her hair, brown boots, a signet ring covered in glitchy flickering runes, and modern blue jeans. ... The glowing purple eyes don't look local, though. "What do you think, Double-A?"

    Double-A, flying beside her in her usual form of a redheaded woman in a black dress, frowns. "Well, it's weird that they think this world is uninhabited," she says. "I ... whoa, hang on, something just materialized."

    "I see it, I see it," says Emily. "Let's go-go-go."

    Off to the side between Justina and Rydia's group, a staticky portal opens up and turns black from the inside out, but the desert is clearly visible on the other side; Emily floats out and waves to the doll. "Hey there!" she says. And then she sees does a double-take when she sees Rydia, Terra, and Cecil. "Oh. Hi!"

    Double-A lets out an irritable sigh, but doesn't comment. She simply nods in greeting ... and her left eye glows green as she scans Justina's doll.

The group as it gathers quickly comes upon a part that broke off during re-entry. Roughly one cubic meter's worth of it, though what function the part once had is impossible to ascertain. The composite of carbon and metal burnt has been reduced to little more than slag, worthless and irreparable. A few more bits and pieces of debris can be found scattered around, though none quite as big. The main part of the ship is not too far now. Unfortunately, it is now also apparent they are not the only ones who noticed.

    It would seem that Rydia and company are not the first to arrive. Considering Justina can beam down her doll and Emily and Double-A can teleport as the Eudaemon seems fit, the groups plus Miwa arrive at roughly the same time.
    Hopping off her chocobo, the green-haired Summoner frowns as she inspects the debris for a beat.
    "Hi." That's to Emily and... Justina's doll gets a curious look to be sure.
    "You all must have seen it land, last night, too, huh?" Mused as the group moves to approach.
    That's when the airship crests the mountain.
    Thankfully it's just one airship and not the Redwings as a whole, but the squad of Dark Knights, Black Mages, and monsters that hop out much closer to the wreckage means that this is...
    "Going to be trouble..." Rydia mutters as she watches the Baron investigation team start poking around.
    "Hey! We were here first, you can't just start rummaging around like you belong here!" She snaps at them, earning a look from the Black Mages-- little more than glinting beady eyes in the dark shadows of their big hats.
    Oh man does Rydia get steamed when they make 'shoo shoo' motions at her and the rest of the non-Baron investigators.

    Oh, there's others attracted by the incident. Terra regards the 'doll' with the woman's voice in a somewhat guarded fashion. It looks juuuuuust similar enough to machines she's actually familiar with that it's a little unsettling. Emily and Miwa are a lot less alarming. Outwardly, rather than seem apprehensive and uncertain she just goes all stoney. ... Really, it's a pretty decent poker face.

    She makes no move to inspect any of the chunks of wreckage up close and only goes from awkwardly staring at others she's less familiar with when the airship shows.

    Rather than say anything, she just keeps close to Rydia. She manages to not look unfriendly or hostile to the investigation team but there's really no hiding her sword!

    Emily gets a wary nod, as does Double-A. Surprisingly, the robotic being yelling about being not-hostile doesn't seem to bother him either! Cecil mostly stays on his world, but he's been out and encountered enough to not feel weird about robots and strange creatures. "We're still looking for survivors and any problems!"

    Speaking of problems... well, fire is a problem, but it appears that Miwa is there handling that, or attempting to. "What an odd creature," Cecil murmurs, but at least he's appreciative of the help. "Right, this is obviously an advanced technology beyond what's native here, so Baron will definitely be gunning for it." He glances at Terra, who doesn't know the entire history but probably understands why that would be bad, then explains for the others. "They've been disturbingly violent and expansionistic of late, so we'd like to avoid that, and if there's a distress call perhaps someone is still alive as well."

    All that exposition seems to have been needed, too! Seeing the airship come over the mountain and head there way, Cecil snaps the reins, heading for some cover near the crash as possible! "You there!" Calling to Miwa. "Trouble's coming! Stay close to the crash, they're unlikely to want to damage it!" The others can hear him yell that logic to Miwa, so he assumes they'll follow a similar tactic and find a chunk of wreckage. Clearly he's trying to gain an advantage over Baron's forces.

     Miwa does look at Justina's doll with a bit of wariness, but she's seen Steel-type Pokemon with a machinelike appearance so it's not completely alien to her. She continues to go about trying to put out as much of the fire as she can, and at least keep it contained and away from those gathered, and the strange object that apparently fell from the sky. She's not strong enough to put the entire blaze out by herself, at least not quickly, maybe if she could use her Z-move, but alas. 

     A nod is directed toward Cecil, and she looks around at the others gathered for a moment before responding. "Trouble? I'll do my best to help, my name is Miwa by the way." She offers as she moves closer to the rest of the group and stops trying to fight the fire so she can take a breather for a bit and be ready for a fight if it comes to that.

<"Captain, I'm detecting an active scan on the Doll frame."> remarks Minerva. >"Understood, let them look."< replies Justina, before speaking aloud. "This frame can handle heavy lifting and survive dangerous situations due to its heavier armour. If you find something heavy, or unstable call me over to deal with it... this body is expendable, yours aren't."

    Double-A's scan would turn up rather mundane materials. Steel, some titanium, various polymers and composites filling in for non-vital linkages... though there's a really powerful energy source within the torso, five separate heat signatures distributed through the wide, bulky body.

    As the airship crests and drops off monsters and people, the Doll's head turns to track them, then the blue eyes shift gold for a moment. "Reading nominal magical power from those mages... do they not use sustained defensive cantrips?" she muses, before turning to approach, holding up both hands in a sign of peace. "Greetings! I am not Hostile! I am responding to a distress call from this location. Perhaps we can work together?" she repeats to the Baron's men, the heavy footfalls of the Doll making the ground vibrate a little with each step.

    Double-A was mostly trying to satisfy her curiosity about the doll; her scans land upon the broken piece of wreckage, and she shakes her head, finding nothing intelligible.

    Emily raises her eyebrows as the Baron group arrives. Rydia mentions there's trouble, and Cecil starts shouting commands. "Hmm ..."

    Double-A watches the doll for a moment, and then, at Cecil's command, she scurries over to stand by Miwa. "I'm Erebus-model AA23, Double-A," she says.

    Emily glances around at the others present, then shrugs and strides over to Cecil. "I'm Emily, Nyx-model MLE0," she says quietly so that the Baron folks won't overhear. "Anything in particular we ought to be wary of?"

The main part of the ship is roughly cylindrical with a ten meter radius while being fifty meters long. The externals have taken serious burn damage from re-entry, but there's clearly a hatch that has been opened and closed again at the vehicle's side.

From the opposite direction of the airship, something else is flying towards the crash site. Something smaller. The clearly mechanical entity has a roughly two feet tall main body. This is roughly humanoid with a gunmetal blue torso and arms, a doll-like ivory white face with silvery hair and a pair of blue eyes. The figure is wearing an elaborate metal hat.

Where the legs would be is long skirt made out of plates that frame and adjust the direction of a thruster. The hands hold onto a large metal umbrella which incorporates a propellor and many internal fins to provide fine control over the direction of tat wind flow. Sticking out of the umbrella are also three three-foot long limbs with multiple articulation points. One has a three-fingered hand. One has a curved blade. One has a large container.

Just moments after the broadcast is about to begin again, it shuts off, and the same voice now carries through the air, from both the ship and the mechanical figure the same voice in the exact same kind of voice speaks. "Greetings. I am Bryllu Zibhu MLDVII. My apologies for crashing onto your planet." Then she empties the container onto one of the still smoldering trees. "Please step away from my ship. Given the lack of signs of civilization on this planet, I fear anything you might do will just cause further damage. Damage to the ship's power supply could be catastrophic."

    "Don't you just tell me to shoo!" Rydia snaps petulantly as the Baron team proceeds to mostly ignore the hell out of her and the others.
    "They probably don't care that you're not hostile." She harrumphs to Justine. "Knowing Baron there here to just try and take whatever's inside for themselves." A pause. "No offense, Cecil, you're not with them anymore." There is a brief pause though at the primarina.
    "Miwa...?"
    To Rydia it's been over ten years since they last saw each other-- she probably sure doesn't look familiar to Miwa now that's for certain. "It's me, Rydia." The now older girl says, definitely not the same child the pokemon had met a long long time ago. BUT that's a pleasantry for later as she makes a face.
    The burning smell is not helping her mood, but she keeps her panic in check as-- the something else makes way for the ship now. Jade eyes follow Bryllu's mysterious metallic figure as she emerges and douses a smoldering tree and... Says the ship is hers.
    The Black Mages turn to look at one another. They turn to look at Bryllu. They nod.
    Baron wants this ship and everything on it.
    That might be why one flings a fire spell that makes Rydia duck for cover, while the other flings an ice spell for Bryllu herself, the Dark Knight is already on a course for Cecil, and they've just let the monsters loose- various gribblies with snapping jaws and sharp talons circling Miwa, Emily, Double-A, and Terra.

    <"Captain I'm detecting magical surges... what is going on down there?"> calls Minerva, worried. >"Hostile locals, investigating the crashed ship... it's a ship, by the way. Some kind of synthetic sentient claims it is theirs. Will attempt contact once hostiles are dealt with."< replies the Half-elf.

    As the Knight and Mages and the Monsters start aggressing, the arms lower, and those eye points shift again back to blue, before the energy pipework takes on a dark red tone. "Cease aggressive actions immediately. I can and will defend myself and the others." she warns as those beefy looking arms seem to 'morph' into long serrated blades that look like a cross between a katana and a saw. These are brought up defensively as she moves to intercept the greeblies with the gnashing teeth. Seems that she's loathe to attack actual /people/ outright... the monsters, however, are fair game.

    The owner of the ship appears and her appearance is about as disconcerting as Justina's mechanical representation. Terra takes her eyes off of the squad from the airship and so, despite Rydia's complaining, it takes her a few beats too long to properly respond when the mages start sending spells.

    Now partly surrounded and cut off from some of her friends, she's forced to turn her back and rely on Miwa, Emily and her companion to avoid being flanked! She snatches up her sword and in an effort to fend off the gnashing teeth of the creatures, harasses as many as she can with a quick pulse of crackling flames. More magic for those sensitive sensors!

    Oh, so someone is there? Well, Cecil does have to introduce himself. "Cecil Harvey," he says curtly to Emily. Not because he wants to brush her and her companion off, but... well, battle stations and all! He's worried about Rydia, but he's well aware that Terra is more than capable of defending her, so he gives her a quick nod hoping she understands.

    Well, Bryllu has to get an introduction as well. "Cecil Harvey, formerly of Baron. And I'm afraid my old compatriots are not much for listening to reason! Your airship - spaceship? - seems to be something they want to enhance their own technology. You may be in danger, but please try to avoid killing them if you can." They are his old countrymen after all.

    For his part he raises his shield and steps in front to intercept the other Dark Knight. "Really?" Not that he's cocky about his abilities in general, but Cecil IS probably one of the better Dark Knights in Baron, and wastes no time in sweeping his blade up as if to send a Dark Wave outward!

    ... but nothing comes out. It's a feint that ends with him diving to the side, attempting to bait the other Dark Knight into needlessly tapping into his lifeforce and draining himself.

    Emily raises her eyebrows at the arrival of Bryllu. "Ah, a survivor," she says dryly. "Someone high-tech, too!" She transmits an introductory packet of info to Bryllu with her and Double-A's full models and serial numbers (Nyx-model MLE0-X413J2N9F6I2 "Emily" and Erebus-model AA23-B982J113ZMM9 "Double-A", respectively).

    Now it's Bryllu's turn to get scanned by Double-A. "... not sure how she works," she murmurs, "but there's definitely some nanotech in there --"

    But they don't have time for further remarks before Baron's forces attack. "Wow," says Emily, "someone's military doctrine got up on the wrong side of bed this morning!" She glances around at the other defenders. "Releasing Capacitor Seals 3 and 2." Three distinct auras appear around her, one gold, one silver, and one pearlescent; the first two shatter and the third one fades, and in a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, she transforms into a taller form with blades for arms, with her dress transformed into an elegant ballgown. She starts slashing the monsters, and fires golden energy-bolts from time to time.

    Double-A, meanwhile, has risen off the ground, and in a similar swirl of nanomachines, she conjures up a gleaming rapier with an ornate hilt, and immediately starts swinging. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh christ." She's clearly ... well, kind of amateurish compared to others here. On top of that, she looks like she isn't sure which monster to attack at any given moment -- like there's enough going on at once that she can't keep track of it all.

     Miwa smiles as Double-A comes over and introduces herself. "Alola, that's uh, quite a name. I can just call you Double-A? She asks to confirm. Then as Rydia greets her, she blinks with surprise and smiles there is a resemblance to the girl she knew by that name in face and voice. 

    "Rydia? Wow, you've grown. Has it really been that long since we saw each other?" But before she can get an answer to that question, Bryllu appears, and instantly draws Miwa's attention. Such a complex-looking individual, she's never seen anything quite like her. She decides not to play captain obvious and state that she guesses this person came from the spaceship, but yeah, not from around here she's guessing. 

    "Hello, I do not mean you any harm and will try not to do anything that will cause your ship any damage either. Miwa is my..." She cuts off her introduction as some nasty-looking monsters start heading for her. She quickly works to defend herself and the others near her, using Sparking Aria, she forms several water balloons which are held aloft as she begins to sing, then are suddenly sent flying toward the monsters, exploding when they hit anything.

Bryllu's reaction to having ice magic thrown at her is delayed and she doesn't move until just before the spell hits, it still punctures a hole in the skirt which throws her off balance until she can adjust. "Please do not engage in violence. Such a course is irrational and unbecoming of sapient beings."

She flies upwards, trying to get out of range of the spellcasters. "Cecil Harvey, please inform your compatriots that even if they do get their hands on the still working parts of Just A Matter of Time, the odds of them being able to understand them are less one in billion."

Emily's packet is received, and a question is transmitted in turn. <"Engineered Intelligences, I presume? Nice to meet you, I am human and as such don't have models or serial numbers to share."> She begins to fly away to a nearby water source to continue fighting the fire.

    Rydia is... Well she's not full on panicking, thankfully, but the fire being flung around is making her keep her head down, and she's not getting up from cover for the time being as she ducks out of the way of spell-happy Black Mages.
    "Yep- grown a lot. Ten years, lot's happened." She says hastily while ducking around a tree. "Let's deal with this first then pleasantries after!"
    Because those black mages are flinging spells left and right now, fire and ice slinging in tandem, trying to hit Bryllu even though she's out of their effective range.
    The monsters are much easier to fend off, between Justina's Doll's blade, Terra's sword, Emily slashing and blasting them, and Miwa's Special Move, they're routed somewhat easily.
    The Dark Knight rushes Cecil! And as Cecil makes his feint- the Dark Knight falls for it, launching a wave of Darkness that taxes him, and he rushes in after that with a few wild swipes of his blade to follow, though they're sluggish and choppy after he spent his life energy in the first wave.

    "Routing auxillary power to hull plating." intones Justina, fending off a gribly with one of her sawds. Another big flare of magical energy forms an additional heavy plate over the torso of the robot, the steel seeming to knit itself from nothing, though one of those energy signals has significantly diminished as a result. She wades through the monsters, swinging her blade-arms without any finesse, relying on the robot's immense strength and bulk to handle what her lack of training in melee combat can't.

    As the monsters are routed, the Doll turns attention onto the Mages. A heavy repeating crossbow unfolds from its storage on one shoulder, and with a heavy TWOK, launches a steel bolt at the fire-mage, aimed to disable, rather than kill. "Stand down, you are outmatched and outnumbered. My nexy shot will not be to disabled." she says, the crossbow cycling another bolt into place and resetting the string as it adjusts to the ice mage next.

    With the nasty, gnashing creatures beaten for the moment, Terra does her best to try and get closer to Rydia to provide cover. As Cecil had indicated before she'd been cut off! Targeting the mages and keeping in mind the need to take it easy on them she reaches out once again, her magic swelling as she prepares to let fly with another spell!

    This time, rather than puffs of fire, she simply tugs at the magic power of the black mages arrayed against them with an osmose spell. Or as many as she can get away with before they start to target her. Though really, Justina's mechanized proxy seems to be just about the most threatening thing here.

    Now that he's in mortal combat, Cecil doesn't have enough time to pay attention to everyone... but he tries, so he can at least keep track of the general flow of battle. He can tell the monsters are being driven back, that's something.

    A loud CLANG from the sword hitting his shield, and he grunts, "Sloppy, your new commander must be in a rush." Not really fair, since Cecil has a lot more experience with this. He draws his sword back... but he also knows how the Dark Knights fight, so he tries to change things up. Rather than swinging, he waits for the knight to prepare a parry, and instead just steps in quick to slam his shield forward, basically trying to bully and disorient him until the retreat is called. Hopefully.

    "Leave them their airship so they can pull back if they want!" he shouts. Better than fighting to the death against a desperate enemy.

    Double-A nods to Miwa. "Yes, Double-A is fine ... ughhh ..." She looks up at Bryllu. "Worse than one in a billion, actually!" she calls back up to Bryllu as she impulsively hurries after Terra to help cover Rydia. "There's so much that needs to be done just to bridge the gap just one percent of the way!" She fires a few lower-powered energy-bolts set to stun even as Terra casts that Osmose spell.

    Emily nods to Cecil. "Well, if you insist!" she says, gliding around in a wide circle. She then charges in to approach the mages from directly away from the airship, swinging her blade-arms in a way that looks wild, but which is calculated to smack them with the flat of the blades.

     Miwa nods to Double-A and smiles. "I'm glad." Now that the little monsters are dealt with, she also turns her attention to the mages and begins to ready another attack. She moves toward them and decides on a Fairy-Type attack that was not only decently strong but might work to disorient the mages. With a bit of concentration, she creates a bright white orb of light, which she then fires toward the mages, and once it gets close it suddenly explodes in a bright rainbow of light and energy.

As Bryllu dives down to throw more water onto the fire, she gets hit by another ice spell, and now the damage is bad enough that she crashes onto the ground. The manipulator arm begins to moves plates to compensate for it, and she's flying again soon, but it's much slower and the umbrella is clearly doing a lot of work to stabilize her. "Haven't your parents taught you any manners?"

    It's a little chaotic, but the party has things mostly handled! The monsters are dealt with so that just leaves the mages and dark knight.
    Said mages immediately turn on Terra as she starts to drain them of their mana, using the last of it to TRY and cast their final attack spells-. Before a bolt from Justina's doll embeds in the fire mage's shoulder, earning a squawk of pain and surprises before Emily in among them, beating the mages down with the flats of her blades and immediately causing a panic. As Miwa *blinds* them.
    The Black Mages are immediately staggering back to their airship, leaving the Dark Knight breathing heavily and- battered by Cecil's shield, grunting as the more experienced and wily Dark Knight... Prettymuch bullies him into submission, sending him stumbling back for the ship in a scramble, as the airship takes off and begins to putter back in the southern direction of Baron.
    Right then... That's over, and Rydia picks herself up, still shaking a little from the fire spells, but mostly okay.
    "... Are you alright?" She does ask. Bryllu is looking like she's having some issue keeping aloft after that.

    As the Baron's men run away with their tails tucked between their legs, the Doll folds the crossbow back up, and the Sawds and the extra plating both dissolve into blue-white motes which siphon back into the body of the robot. The red energy piping also turns back to blue-white as the heavy mechanoid approaches Bryllu. "Greetings. This unit is a Type-17 Search and Rescue(Hostile Environment) Ur-Doll. I am the Operator, projecting from my ship enroute to this world, my name is Justina Thyme. Captain of the CEFS Sanctuary, a Type-7 Modular Science Vessel of the Centrian Alliance Expeditionary Corps. If we can render any assistance at all, my Dolls and Ship are ready and able to render it." Bryllu's non-organic form seems to give the shut-in girl some confidence, like she's talking to her AI companion, instead of an actual living creature.

    Emily doesn't even flinch at Miwa's burst of light, though she does squint a bit as she watches the Baron forces leave. In another swirl of nanomachines, she returns to her previous form, then strikes a victorious pose, and plays ... an orchestral version of the FF victory fanfare.

    Double-A gives her a funny look. "You get that from Cid Harley?" she says.

    Emily grins. "Yep!" she says, before turning to Justina's doll. "... Just so you know, she says she's human. Uh, sorry, Bryllu, I got too distracted to answer your message in the fight there."

    "Hmm ..." Double-A scans Bryllu again -- still not getting a clear enough picture to really assess the damage -- before turning back to Rydia. "Are you all right?" she asks, in a tone which clearly indicates that she really isn't sure what she'll do if the answer is no.

     Miwa smiles as Baron's forces retreat, glad the fighting is over, at least for now. She also turns her attention to Bryllu, sharing in the concern for how she's doing as she is looking to be struggling to fly after that last hit. "As I was trying to say before, I'm Miwa, and I echo the offer that if there is anything I can do to help you I am more than happy to do so, though I do feel a little out of my depth here with all this fancy technology around. How all that works has always kindof gone over my head."

    Cecil lowers his shield as his opponent flees, then sheaths the black blade he carries. "Everyone all right?" He walks toward the others, removing his helmet now to make it easier to speak with him. He didn't get a chance to meet Miwa or Justina or even Emily, formally, yet, but Rydia seems to know most of them.

    "They'll probably be back," he says bluntly. "But we have time now to figure out a way to keep them from pressing the issue. Baron's not unfamiliar with high technology these days... though they don't often deploy it. That's why the ship didn't intimidate them, nor did your... Ur-Doll was it? Impressive."

    He chuckles to Miwa, "It's fine. I've seen it before but I don't really understand how it works, either."

    With all that stolen magic power, Terra finds herself faintly glowing. She'd taken more than she'd used, really, so much of it is just lingering on her weirdly. She looks at her arms, frowns, then raises a hand. Easy enough, she'll just expend the energy as an area healing spell!

    Green motes of light swirl about her and then spread out, showering the area with healing energy. It's no miracle, though even the retreating Baron forces will find some of their pains eased by the effect!

    She frowns in Bryllu's direction, uncertain that any kind of aid she can offer would simply be inadequate. The remaining fires and the damage left behind are really more or less beyond her, too. So, she returns her sword to her hip with a light tap of the hilt against the top of her scabbard.

    Miwa gets a curious look, of course, though she seems content to say nothing for now.

"My constructor survived the crash. It'll take some time to print replacements, but I already got it started." Bryllu doesn't seem worried, "What brutes, though. I guess that's more common in... my hypothesis is that I'm in a different universe. So I guess it's more common in this universe?" She asks, and she's clearly looking at Emily and Justine's doll here.

"It's exciting though, to be on a planet, with a star. It looks like the star is a little overgrown, though, who's in charge of star management around here? You're seriously shortening the lifespan of your star by not taking proper care of it." Bryllu's excitement is taking over, "I've never seen a star or a planet before."

The miner catches herself. "What I need is to repair my ship, but the damage is bad enough I have no clue how to go about doing that. She's not designed for gravity wells or atmospheres, especially corroding atmospheres like this one. Far too much oxygen."

"Sorry I get rambly sometimes. It's a pleasure to meet you all, and thanks for your assistance and concern." Bryllu looks towards Cecil with some concern, "I guess we're going to have to. Anyway, what species are you guys? I've never seen anyone like you before. I'm human."

    Rydia knows Miwa and Emily! Notsomuch Justina. That may change of course, but for now the Summoner focuses on replying to Double-A first. "I'm... Fine. I'll be fine, in a minute anyway, don't worry about me."
    But then her focus is on Bryllu. There is... A notable pause from the Summoner as she looks to the others, completely bewildered.
    "Star management?" She asks, definitely bewildered. "I don't think we have anything like that." She says before balking slightly.
    Bryllu is human?
    "Uhhhh."
    Oh boy how to answer this.
    "Most of us here are human." She can at least indicate herself, Cecil, and as far as she knows, Terra. "Miwa is a pokemon, though, and Emily is... A Eudaemon." She has no clue about Double-A. Or Justina really.

    Cecil nods, "What Rydia said. I'm human, as is she, though you may encounter some humans who don't look like us, either. This is pretty normal for humans across the Tree, though."

    When Rydia gets confused about Star Management, Cecil frowns. "Mn. Perhaps it is a difference in technology? We should ask Lady Aloy, she seems to know a lot about that sort of thing. I'd suggest speaking to her if you want to talk of high technology, unless one of these knows of it." He gestures to Justina and Emily, since he doesn't know them. "Most of this world relies on magic, though Baron and a few others have started to develop more complex technology of late."

>> SUMMARY[Cecil Harvey] >> You want to talk high tech stuff? I know this tribal nomad you can talk to!

     Miwa smiles to Bryllu and nods along with Rydia's answer before adding a bit more. "Specifically, I'm a Primarina, a water and fairy type Pokemon." She's certainly never met a human like Bryllu, is she the mind of a human somehow infused into a machine maybe? She may wonder and speculate but feels it might be impolite to ask such questions, especially when they've just met. "I'm a performer, I sing and do special effects with my water and fairy powers."

    Double-A peers at Rydia for another moment, then shrugs. "I'm a Eudaemon, too," she adds to the summoner's response.

    Emily bows to Cecil. "I'm all right, in a manner of speaking!"

    Double-A promptly shakes her head. "Nobody in the halcyon remnant is all right," she says. "Uh, I mean, the Eudaemons aren't. But Emily and I aren't physically hurt, unless Emily's swept damaged nanomachines under the proverbial rug again."

    Emily grins without answering, then turns back to Bryllu and nods. "Unfortunately, battle is very common," she says, "in these universes. Your ship has been transported to a multiversal network known as the World Tree, and the name is ever-so-slightly literal. Double-A and I are magical shapeshifting robots made out of nanomachines."

    "... plus a CPU core," Double-A interjects.

    "Plus a CPU core," says Emily, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. "Anyway, uh, I've never heard of any extant technology which can control or manipulate stars, let alone manage 'em. They're a little too ... big."

    Totally human and not anything crazy as far as SHE knows, Terra nods with Rydia. We're all human here! Nothing strange at all.

    With nothing further to add on the matter of technology, she settles on alternately studying Bryllu, Miwa and Emily while stealing the odd glance at Justina's 'Doll'. Uncomfortable still? Maybe just a little.

"Well of course you don't. Your people don't even have radio communications, I thought this planet was uninhabited. My ancestors went from inventing agriculture to getting started on building our first Dyson Sphere in less time than I've been alive, and I only just finished my apprenticeship" Bryllu answers Rydia, entirely forgetting that humans didn't live as long as she does back then.

"So, Engineered Intelligences, then?" She asks Emily. "That is, intelligences designed and built from the beginning to be true intelligences rather than Emergent Intelligences from complex enough systems, or Digital Intelligences that come from translating organic minds to run on a digital platform."

"I like to sing, too, but I don't know what's fashionable yet. Though that does remind me, Before I set out I found one of the oldest songs known to humanity and apparently it used to be a traditional song of greeting." And thus she begins to sing. And her singing includes instrumental backing. She's even incorporated some of the sound of magic that was in use during the fight as instruments.

>> SUMMARY[Bryllu Zibhu MLDVII] >> https://youtu.be/mW61VTLhNjQ

     Miwa hears the song, grins, then giggles, then starts singing along, creating water balloons in various colors and making them dance around in the air as she sings.

    Emily considers the question. "I believe that categorization applies to Eudaemons, yes," she says. "We haven't really had emergent intelligences."

    She brightens as Bryllu offers to play music for them. She listens for several seconds, then bursts out laughing hysterically. She almost looks like she's about to fall over laughing.

    Double-A, meanwhile, just stares. "... Yeah. Greeting," she says. "That's ..." She smirks faintly. "Y'know what, I'll have to say you hit the nail on the head. Jesus Christ."

    Oh, right there are other people here...

    The Doll seems to do a very 'organic' thing, and jolt a bit straighter as Cecil addresses it. Turning slightly the voice speaks in a stilted fashion. "Yes... Ur-Doll.. thank you." is what he gets in response... the others also get the big robot to step a little away, the operator doesn't seem comfortable around people, it seems.

    But, as Bryllu starts speaking, and explaining she seems to latch onto that and the scientist part takes over. "This is merely a proxy, my real body is aboard my ship. I am a Half-Elf." she replies, then adds, "I could offer some assistance in bringing the ship to orbit with my vessel. We can use our tractor beam to releave some of the gravity stress so your engines can achieve orbit. Also, yes this is a different universe, I recently discovered the Vines connecting each of these universes to a multiversal hub, like a very large tree with these worlds existing on its branches... I doubt anyone can actually manage a star, even the ancient Pictogrians couldn't manage more than errecting a Dyson Net around a star to harness energy. Far more efficient than attempting to encapsulate it within a full Sphere, less resource intensive, though the Nets we have discovered are all non-functional and some have even collapsed partially into their host star... or been consumed as it changed phases as it got older."

    She, too, can ramble on, it seems.

    Cecil is lost for many reasons. "... we uh, accept your greeting with gratitude." But the stuff about Dyson Nets and things?? That's beyond him. He grasps at straws, "Those were used to clean the uh... space... right?" He figures that Dyson is what he sees on a lot of high-tech cleaning devices, so....

"So you know how your planet circles around your sun?" Bryllu asks Cecil, she sounds kind of skeptical. "A dyson sphere is having enough things circling around a sun that you manage to collect all the light that the sun makes. If you're really trying to squeeze everything out of a sun you can do multiple layers of that. That's what the Director was, back when our galaxy still had enough hydrogen to have stars. A singular mind using every ounce of energy we could squeeze out of a star."

"There's other techniques to trim down a star and collect any impurities that have built up." Bryllu looks up at the sky, "It's weird to be standing on a planet, looking at a star. They are ancient history where I'm from. But it's also exciting." She looks towards Justina, "I'm worried my ship might break more if we do that. There's fairly substantial damage to the structural integrity, and the matter to energy conversion engine that powers it can cause serious damage if exposed to a planetary atmosphere."

"And uh, one moment." The hatch of her ship opens up and she flies in. A few moments later she walks out, three feet tall now with a more conventionally humanoid shape. "How do I look?"

     Miwa just smiles as all the techo talk about spaceships and dyson spheres goes way over her head. Learning to speak fluently and be an accomplished performer was enough for her, she didn't need to be a scientist or engineer too. When Bryllu returns from her ship she nods and smiles again. "You look... rather pretty, as humans go. I'm sorry you crashed here and you're ship is too damaged to go anywhere, but I'm happy to have gotten the chance to meet you all the same."

    "Your society must be increadibly ancient by comparrison... Dyson Swarms are only a twinkle in the engineering corps eye for my universe... How about you focus your repair efforts on the structural integrity, then we can get you back into orbit, and effect remaining repairs outside of the reach of those aggressive locals." she suggests. She put her comms on 'speaker' as she contacts the Sanctuary. >"Minerva, begin calibrating the tractor beam for a wide area, gravity-nullification stream. Also, bring the primary Beam Emitter online and rig it for orbit to surface strikes. 2% yield, I just want to scare off any would-be raiders should their airships decide to return."<

    Minerva takes a moment, but then the motherly toned feminine voice, clearly synthetic, replies <"Understood Captain. I'll have that all ready by the time the ship reaches orbit. Estimate 3 hours at current burn. The Radial Drive has recharged, we can shift to FTL as soon as we're done here.">

    Emily regards Bryllu's new form. After a moment of consideration, she gives a thumbs-up. "Definitely shaped like a friend!" she says cheerfully.

    Double-A considers this. "Hmm ... see, my first urge is to try and see how well we can help fix it," she says, nodding to Justine's Ur-Doll. "Emily has strong-armed me into doing that before." She leans sideways to try to get a good look at the signet ring on Emily's hand, before looking back to Bryllu. "Materials might be a problem, though. Don't suppose you've got technical specifications?"

    While Cecil doesn't get EVERYTHING said, he actually does nod, "Yes, I know the world circles the sun, and so on. I think I understand the general idea, just not the specifics. I'm a knight, not an engineer." He glances at Justina and Bryllu, then moves next to Miwa, showing some support. "In the meantime, perhaps we can find some way of either hiding it, or just keeping it secure. Baron's airships can't land very close so they either have to drop down, or land and walk, so it won't be as hard as you'd think."

"Well I don't know how old your society is, but ours used to span the entire Milkdromeda galaxy. Technically still does but it's not much of a galaxy without any stars." Bryllu smiles at Justina and Cecil, "That seems helpful, and we'll figure something out. I'm not an engineer though, and I'm only four hundred and seventeen gigaseconds old, so I've not had a lot of experience." There's a somewhat awkward scratching behind her head, "This was my first solo trip. Crashing only 3 Gigaseconds into it is a bit embarrassing."

Emily and Miwa's compliments cause her to have a goofy grin, "I was trying to look more like what I'm guessing now primitive humans used to look like. Back when having organic bodies was still a thing."

    "Sanctuary can fabricate basic elements and common alloys, polymers and Composites... exotic matter is beyond our capabilities, but we can probably provide something to act as a 'patch' until you can locate more suitable permanent repair materials." suggests Justina, looking at Cecil with a very 'organic' nod of acknowledgement. "For now, we should finish dousing the area, and begin constructing some kind of camouflage for the ship."

    If she's surprised by the scale of time provided, she doesn't show it, though reading an emotionless metal 'face' is largely impossible.

     Those numbers are mostly beyond Miwa's comprehension, but she at least hazards to guess that Bryllu is quite old by any standards she is aware of. "I don't think I'll be any good helping to repair your ship, but I certainly can help with finishing putting out the fire."

    Emily nods to Cecil and Miwa. "Yeah, Nyx and Erebus models don't have firefighting capabilities. Got any other suggestions?"

    ... And then Bryllu says ... that. Emily stares blankly at her for several seconds. She projects a hologram: 3 gigaseconds = ~95.13 Earth years, then 417 gigaseconds = ~13222.98 years. Followed by 670 years = 21.13 gigaseconds, which she points at and says "I'm that old, and everyone else here is younger than me by a factor of at least 20-ish, probably."

    "Damn," says Double-A. "I'm ... twenty-one point five oh seven gigaseconds old, by the way. Your people are clearly ..." Words fail her. "... patient."

    Emily grins. "Bryllu," she says, "I'm sorry to say that you're gonna find that the World Tree moves very fast. I certainly did when I first went out into it!"

"And here I thought I was young." Bryllu answers Emily, "I guess I will. And it's violent. I'm sure there's other surprises I'm going to have to deal with." She looks in the direction where the Red Wings went, "What gave those people the idea that they could just take my stuff anyway? It's awfully rude." She nods to Miwa and Justina, "Let's finish fighting the fires." She agrees. "And I can get you a sample of the kind of material my ship is made of, but I think I'd need to get something better, it's designed for a universe in which gravity wells and atmospheres are a thing of the past, and this atmosphere isn't very nice. I've had to suppress the warnings for a corrosive atmosphere. Who puts dangerous chemicals like oxygen into their atmospheres?"

     Miwa blinks as Emily explains what those gigaseconds translate into. "Wow... I have never felt so young. I'm only 15 years old..." She says with a shake of her head before starting to head off to fight the fires, only to turn back as Bryllu complains about there being oxygen in the atmosphere. "Because most organic life forms need to breathe it to live." She says with a light chuckle.