World Tree MUSH

    Nenlenor is an elven village with a mainly elven population of roughly under two hundred folk. There's the occasional human or member of anothe race as a spouse and some half-elven children about the village, but it's mostly elves here, and as night falls upon the quiet little village, things are not all as they seem.
    Morrigan is here.
    That's not why things are bad though as she waits for people to arrive at the local tavern; several Adventurers Guild postings and offworld cries for help have pointed to Nenlenor as a village in need. Girls have gone missing, and the forests around the village have grown increasingly dangerous as monster attacks have grown a lot more frequent. So Morrigan is here, waiting for people to arrive so she can form a posse to put an end to it, or at least figure out the cause for both issues.

    Valerian is here. He was already working with Morrigan on a different job, she had employed him in the past, so it made sense to show up to another job she had. 

    Much the same as last night, he is not carrying his massive chainsaw with him. Today he is, again, carrying what looks like a golf bag full of a dozen baseball bats across his back as he yawns a bit and sips on an energy drink. 

    "Rescuing elven girls from an undue fate in a semi-medieval setting. That's what I'm talking about." He rubs his hands together as he sidles up next to Morrigan.

Bryllu has done some research, and she has learned a few things about damsels in distress. So today she has come in a very humanoid form, six feet tall with armor that's clearly thick but still elegant, a large kite shield and a long, straight sword. She's even got a crown. Upon close inspection, that crown is very sharp and sticking out something akin to a groove.

Bryllu Charming bows when he meets the group. "I believe this is where I should come to investigate the missing ladies." She asks.

    Maybe Hyouka's elven appearance will set them at ease. Maybe.

    Or maybe her 'oh look, here comes a dragon' mana will set them all on edge! It's hard to guess.

    Either way, the cyborg is trying not to worry about it. They're in need of adventurers' help, and she is an adventurer! Of course she's going to show up.

    "Ah, Valerian, good to see you," she greets, giving the Dragon Juicer a casual wave. "This is the place, then, is it?"

    A completely normal human enters the tavern, deep blue robes ruffling around her slender frame, the hood doffed and gathered around her shoulders. On her shoulder sits a Shinki, her 'body suit' painted in a complimentary dark blue shade. Her equipment is equally painted, the 'wings' that mount her vernier jets folded against her back.

    The pair take in the others gathered, Aquila recognizes Bryllu from her comm signature more than anything... Hyouka from helping The Mandalorian. She gives them both a nod then settles into listen to the 'briefing'. "The Brotherhood sends its greetings."

    Chances are, Morrigan drove Valerian over from Welville.
    "I hear there are monsters involved in this one, champ. Might make more pay for you." She notes to the Juicer as Dame Bryllu arrives.
    Pause.
    "Uhhhh. Bryllu you're looking very... Dashing." Morrigan says.
    Enter Hyouka. The town remains mostly quiet and any of the more magic sensitive folk certainly aren't saying anything about the immense mana roiling off the cyborg.
    "Hyouka, right? We met at..." That party. The one everyone agreed to never ever talk about again. "Right~."
    And then the Assassin arrives. "And I think that's everyone that responded. Hello, Piera."
    Rising from her seat, Morrigan flips her backpack open, and a sleepy Mary comes clambering out onto her shoulder as she makes her way out of the tavern. "I'd offer you all a drink but we have to move fast, last girl was kidnapped this morning so we have to move or we're probably going to find a corpse." She explains leading the way out of the village into the dark forest beyond. ... Without a light.
    Not that she needs it.
    "It all started about a month and a half ago, the first girl to go missing was naaaamed... Kina Bladeleaf. After that girls have gone missing and monster attacks have increased by a LOT, so we're probably going to have to find a monster den and deal with it. Fortunately, Mary sensed a rather large and odd concentration of magic..." She looks to her shinki.
    Mary points in a direction.
    "That way!" Morrigan finishes her thought and turns... That way.

    "Hey hey, good to see you again," Valerian says when Hyouka gives him a greeting, giving her a thumbs up as he finishes the energy drink in his hands and crushes the can into about a one-inch cube before sticking it into his pocket for the sake of convenient transportation until he can find a trashcan. 

    "I'm hoping it has something I can whallop. Investigations are fun and all, but I tend to specialize in combat," He comments to Morrigan as he follows after her. The lack of light in the dark forest does not really bother Valerian, due to his supernatural senses, so he takes off walking after her and stretching a bit as he takes a baseball bat out of the bag he is carrying across his back and swings it idly as if to warm up. 

    "Monster den. Sounds good. Lead the way."

    And there's... Bryllu. Blink. "...that's some body you got there," the cyborg observes.

    Right. Yes. The party. "Y-yes, it's good to see you again too," Hyouka replies quickly to Morrigan. Piera draws a quick look, a brief nod, and then the warlock is all business. That's fine. Hyouka herself very definitely wants to get this settled as soon as possible, especially if some poor girl is under the metaphorical gun. "That way it is," she agrees, already set to just start walking.

"I heard that in scenarios like this, a form like this was traditional." Bryllu answers Morrigan and Hyouka. When the Mary points the way, the post-human heads in that direction, relying on a combination of infrared, sonar and mental mapping to be able to keep to the front without any light or need to worry about tripping over anything. "So any guesses as to what kind of monsters we can expect?"

    The Assassin bows her head to Morrigan. "Signora Lar'osa." she replies, turning to fall into step with the half-elf. As she does, she moves to don her hood, and if the others aren't careful, seems to melt into the group unless they start 'looking' for her specifically. She does speak up, "Do we have any idea of the type of creature we are dealing with?" she asks, picking her way through any rough terrain, despite the lack of light and her entirely normal human eyes.

    "I have noooo clue!" Morrigan replies in regards to what kind of monster it could be. "There's a whole multitude of nasties that feast on flesh, let alone ones that kidnap girls for said flesh." She answers Bryllu and Piera. "BUT!" She waggles a finger at Valerian. "But they're usually good for whalloping."
    It's some time into the dark of the forest before... Things get... Dangerous.
    The animals have gone quiet. Even the insects and night birds. The forest is stone silent. Which is never a good sign as...
    Vines suddenly lash out from the trees, with enough force to rip a man limb from limb they try to entangle members of the group and tear them apart in an instant-- this likely does not go well for the vines as a swarm of bats comes from out of nowhere and start to bite and claw-- before the bats reform into a singular shape...
    A figure with an antler'd deer skull and bark-like skin upon its humanoid torso and limbs as it hisses.

    A set of vines lash out towards Valerian. He puts up an arm defensively and they manage to wrap around his forearm. As they grip in, they shred through the casual jacket and t-shirt he was wearing, but they struggle to break the skin of his arm. His feet dig into the ground as he pivots his arm a bit and tries to grab all the vines at once and give them a yank to tear them in a struggle of power. 

    "What is that thing?" Valerian asks curiously as he violently pulls the vines towards him, "Like a weird angry druid or dryad or some shit?" He guesses.

Bryllu makes sure to take point, trying to block the vines with her shield and cut them with her blade as she steadily approaches. Any vines that grab her limbs will find that though she's not indestructible, she's put a lot of effort into making this body quite sturdy, and the blade is quite sharp. There's some dents where the vines squeezed, though. "Get thee gone, villain!"

    Hyouka doesn't notice the silence at first - but eventually, even she realizes there's something going on. She doesn't bother with her usual activation phrase; the twin FISTEAU gauntlets just assemble themselves from within her arms, a snap-crackle-clank that arms the cyborg with her signature weapons quickly.

    And just in time for vines to come out and start ensnaring. It's here, however, that Hyouka gets to feel the smug self-satisfaction of preparation; for once, she's brought a very useful element. Red-orange lines light up along her gauntlets, and then a pulse of fiery mana erupts from the weapons - charring the vines right off her.

    She still drops into a ready stance for the bats, however, swinging left and right and discharging more bursts of fire mana, only for all of it to take the form of a rather intimidating monster. "...well that's a creepy one."

    Aquila's Bident flashes into being, slashing at vines that get close as she takes flight. Piera's own sword slashes out from its sheath to also cleave apart vines that come too close. The Assassin pair manage to evade the vines trying to grasp at them, though a few whipping strikes slash through the fabric of the humans's cloak, leaving the burgundy fabric tattered as she squares up with the... dryad, tree person, thing. She keeps her sword ready, while Aquila acts as a kind of 'point defense', using her bident to swat bats away, firing laser bolts from the built-in blasters in-line with the blades.

    "Whelp!" Morrigan says as she... Hangs upsidedown by the ankle from a vine. At least she's still in one piece as she pulls a dagger from her belt and begins working with Mary to try and cut herself down. That's going to take a moment.
    "That's a Leshen. It's a forest spirit. They don't speak and they live to kill."
    Speaking of living to kill, the Leshen gives a wave of its hand, more vines erupting from the ground after the first wave was fended off, the thorny vines lashing out with the force and speed of whips at Bryllu and Valerian. Once again these are probably easily fended off, but the Leshen itself snarls and shies away from Hyouka's fiery mana and Aquila's laser fire... Only for it to take bat form again and fly off as a swarm, snarling something in... A language.
    This makes Morrigan stop.
    "Uh. ... Huh... It just spoke Elvish." She says as Mary finishes cutting away the vines causing the Warlock to fall groundward with a yelp. She wasn't ready!
    Once she's back on her feet though she acts like nothing happened at all.
    "So like. I am one hundred percent sure they normally don't speak. And we should also probably follow it."

    Once again, Hyouka swings around herself with fists of fire, left and right, warding off any vines unfortunate enough to get within her reach.

    But then it speaks as it flees... and Morrigan tells them that's really not supposed to happen. And they should follow it.

    "Got it!" Without skipping a beat, or waiting for any further instruction, the cyborg turns and takes off at the fastest run she can manage without plowing headfirst into a tree.

    Piera shifts to lop a vine off before it can strike Bryllu, coming up beside Valerian and swiping upward with her blade to take out another vine as Aquila comes to perch on the assassin's shoulder after the maneuver. "I have a theory, that those missing girls aren't so missing after all... though proof will be required to confirm or deny." remarks the human, wiping her blade off on her tattered cloak, and sheathing the blade before moving to follow after where the bat-swarm went.

    "You thinking that something is turning them into those things?" Valerian asks as she cuts some vines to free his arm. Amazingly, when the vines fall away his arm isn't even bruised or scraped on the skin as he shakes the vines off of it, "That seems like a good theory to be working with." He adds as he follows after the assassin.

Bryllu doesn't wait for Morrigan to tell her to follow to give chase. She just does, making sure to keep her active sensors up and running to avoid running into any obstacles on the way. "Good to know." She calls back to Morrigan.

    "We should probably be careful!" Morrigan calls out, at the tail of the group. "It said it'd kill us horribly if we found its lair!"
    And so the group chases, following a swarm of rampaging bats in the darkness. The very trees themselves lash out, bark and vine and root to try and halt their progression- it's like a nightmarish parkour course through the forest.
    It's a bit of a chase before the Leshen flies into a cave. Morrigan comes trailing the pack, breathless, panting and gaspsing as she nearly keels over.
    "Effing hell, that wasn't fun..." She gasps as...
    Something in the cave snarls.
    What emerges is an elven girl in tattered clothes, late teens by looks and with blotches all over her skin and antlers growing from her forehead.
    When she speaks, she repeats what the Leshen had said in Elvish before something ELSE comes lumbering out of the cave... Walking on four legs, serpentine creature of green scales and baleful gaze that makes Morrigan freeze.
    "... Ah hell that's a basilisk! Don't look it in the eye and do NOT breath in its breath!" She warns as it lashes its tail at Hyouka, tries to claw down Bryllu and Piera, and exhales a plume of deadly breath at Valerian.

"Good think I have sonar and don't breathe." Bryllu closes her eyes and swaps to relying solely on sonar as she approaches the basilisk, blade coming down at the serpent as she takes position at the front, clearly intending to keep the creature occupied more so than kill it, trusting the others to do that for her.

    "Oh neat! Hey try to keep the eyes in one piece, please! They're worth a LOT of money." Valerian says as the basilisk comes out. He takes a deep breath and holds it before he dashes forward. 

    As he dashes forward, the wooden bat in his hand is swung up over his head and downward. He aims the blow at the base of the skull and there is a deafening CRACK as the bat makes impact with the creature's skull, where the head meets the spine. Regardless of what happens to the creature, people nearby should watch out for wooden splinters as the bat he swung has absolutely shattered from the strength of Valerian's swing. 

    Valerian hops away a bit and tosses the handle of the shattered bat to the side before drawing another bat from the golf bag he is carrying. Now you know why he brought a bag of them!

    Piera seems completely at home in a parkour course, even one that's actively trying to kill her. She continues forward, mantling over, ducking under and scooting around obstacles that present themselves.

    The Leshen vanishes into a cave... a half-transformed elf girl comes out, leading a big damn lizard. "... I guess that confirmed the theory." she mentions wryly, barely managing to dodge back from the slashing claws. Those claws rake down her robes, shredding the fabric, but being thankfully stopped by the chainmail beneath the fabric.

    Aquila opens fire with her laser blasters, aiming the bolts into joints and any obvious weakspots on the big lizard.

    If she were human, Hyouka would have fallen on her backside long ago. Even with her dramatically-enhanced reflexes, the cyborg's dash through the trees could best be described as 'panic flailing'. She just barely manages to keep forward momentum, and there's a lot of swearing and near-misses involved. When they finally come to the cave, she lets out a big sigh of sheer relief, before straightening up - and looking right at an elven girl who seems to have been partly Leshen-ized. "...that's a bit worrying."

    Then a basilisk joins the girl.

    "That's really worrying."

    Thankfully, Hyouka can hold her breath indefinitely. Less thankfully, she doesn't have any kind of special sensor package to guide her if she's fighting blindly. The cyborg reflexively closes her eyes... and immediately gets slammed by a tail, knocked a good couple meters backwards and flat on her back. "Owowowow..."

    Hastily, she pushes herself back to her feet, and settles on using one hand to mostly shield herself from the basilisk, only peeking at it around the edge. The other arm is used to throw... well, a very clumsy and wild punch. Moreso than usual for her.

    Lucky for Bryllu she's all digital! Able to not look at the basilisk while fighting it and not breathing means she just have to parry or dodge those claws, and the basilist shifts its attention to her, snarling as Aquila peppers its joints with fire--
    And then Hyouka and Valerian happen.
    Hyouka's punch may be clumsy, but it's more than enough to stun the beast hadily while Valerian slams into it with the equivalent of a rabbit punch. But with a baseball bat. The sound of the creature's neck snapping resounds as it collapses in a breathless heap and begins to die.
    In an instant the girl is kneeling at its side. 
    "N-no... Noooo..." She whines as Morrigan skirts around from the back of the group.
    In good news, the eyes are perfectly intact!
    In bad news...
    "I think that's Kina..." As soon as Morrigan says the girl's name she looks up with a hiss and starts backing into the cave slowly.

    Piera appears behind Kina, placing hands on her shoulders. "Peace, Signorita." she says, squeezing just a little more firmly than necessary. The Assassin looks to Morrigan. "Is there anything we can do for her... and the others?" she asks.

    "Well shit." Valerian says, resting the bat up and against his shoulder as he scratches the side of his head, "I don't know how to reverse this transformation or fix wounds." He admits as he adjusts his footing and runs over a list of people he knows in his head. 

    "And I really don't know enough people on the Tree to have a healer or physician I use." He looks towards Bryllu and asks, "What about you? Your people are transhuman, right? You wanna make a Full-Conversion Robo-Elf?" He asks.

    Oh.

    They just killed her pet.

    Hyouka grimaces, the guild flooding onto her face immediately. "You... we were just defending ourselves, you-" She grits her teeth. The words sound hollow the instant she says them.

    But when the girl starts backing away, and Valerian asks Bryllu about fill conversion, Hyouka snaps up to attention. "-no! No, we can't just... we need to ask her first-" She turns, just as Piera is... well, the sudden surprise hands-on-shoulders might not be the best idea for someone who's angry and scared, but she has to try. "Please. Talk to us. We were only defending ourselves, we don't know what's going on. You have to explain if you want us to understand."

"I'm afraid I have neither the knowledge nor the tools to digitize a mind. I may be old by your standards, but where I'm from, thirteen thousand solar cycles means you're barely into adulthood, and there are no more organic minds where I'm from. Haven't been for a very long time before I came into existence." Bryllu answers Valerian, sounding unhappy with her own answer. She sits down. "I'm not even trained to fight. There was nothing to fight. Why do you think I'm using blades? I don't know how to make actual weapons."

    The hand on her shoulder only seems to make Kina snarl more, clawing ineffectually at Piera's armor, it looks like she used up most of her energy in the flight earlier to actually take full on Leshen form again and be potentially lethally dangerous right now.
    "I think she's gone a little feral." Morrigan says, pursing her lips. "Don't let her leave." She says heading into the cave.
    It's a moment later when she calls out.
    "Uhhh. Crew. You might want to see this..."
    Inside the cave... Well it stinks. It smells of rot. Bad rot. Because many of the girls from the village are present.
    It's probably best to not go into detail the state their in after some of them have been dead for a month.
    But beyond the corpse pile is what looks like a small laboratory... Chemicals, vials, beakers, and toxic concoctions leading to an IV hanging over a bloodstained medical bed. And further in the back, hiding from all the commotion and fighting...
    Morrigan leads her out by the hand- an even smaller, younger, elf girl with shaggy messy hair, staring at the group with wide wolf-like eyes and baring sharp teeth.
    "Someone's been doing some mad science... Kina's probably too dangerous to take back to the village but this one can still be... I don't know, rehabilitated?" She ventures rubbing the back of her neck. "I... Might know someone who can help them, but it's going to be really awkward to ask him."

    Piera just lets the elf claw at her chainmail. It's keeping her distracted from escaping at least. "So, we will be looking for who- or what-ever was conducting these experiments, yes?" she asks, keeping a firm grip on Kina's shoulders. "If that's the case, you have my blade, the monster that did this, deserves far worse than what we can do to it."

    "Yeah. Yeah, we kind of can't let this keep going on." Morrigan agrees. She sighs. "I'll tap my source and see what can be done for these two. I'll keep you all posted on anything I find out about who did this, so we can stop it."