World Tree MUSH

    Once again it's back to the elven village of Nenlenor. Though Morrigan and company met up at the tavern, once everyone was together, it was time for a trip back into the dark forest and the cave where those horrible experiments had been taking place on the missing elven girls.
    Though the outer portion of the cave had been... Cleared out; the bodies taken and given proper burials by grieving family, a door into a lower portion of the cavern had been discovered leading to some very old ruins.
    "So." Morrigan says, futzing with the lock on the door looking pretty irritable about the lock.
    "Whoever's been kidnapping and experimenting on the local girls is likely behind door number one. I had my... Associate take in Kina and the other girl to try and reverse what had been done to them as best he can or at least re-habilitate them, so that's a plus, at least." She says, managing to... Look around the edge of the door and find a key.
    "Aha!" Declared as she unlocks the door and opens a path to a set of dank stairs leading down further into the cave structure.

    Morrigan's setpose is right. These stairs are dank. Valerian can see them doing pepeRuns and Crungos all over the place in chat, telling him about the Blockchain, and buying GME. 

    Actually, though, Valerian is back and taking this a bit more seriously than he was last time. Which is to say that he brought a real weapon instead of his bag of baseball bats. The chainsaw is, as usual, wrapped up and slung over his back to keep it secure as possible. 

    "Glad the girls are doing alright-ish and Kina will survive the whappin' I gave her last time." He looks down the staircase leading into the structure, "I'm guessing we should probably keep an eye open for more abominations against God, Science, and/or Life down there, all things considered." 

    He doesn't show much hesitation before taking point and walking down the stairs in case there are any traps, trusting in his face's ability to tank them over someone like Morrigan.

This time, Bryllu has decided to take form of Dwarf. Still a shield, but now she's stockier and shorter, and instead of a sword she has... well it kind resembles a pick. But instead of regular pick blade it has a three feet long drill, eight inches thick at the base. That thing should weigh a ton and be incredibly unbalanced, but of course it's part of her body and there is a thruster in the back of the drill so she can swing this with speed. "If you'd taken any longer I'd just have drilled through the lock."

    ANother day, another string of kidnapped girls. This is a dime a dozen sort of thing for Dante. He joins up with theo thers and pops his neck. "Let's hope it's reversible." He muses as he uses Agni as a makeshift torch, the blazing blade humming dramatic music before Dante whaps the demonic scimitar against the cavern wall. "KNock that off!" "Sorry."

    "You could have let me take a look, Signora." mentions Piera as she stands nearby to Morrigan. The Assassin having gotten a new robe to replace the one ruined by the Basillisk. "Though a key works just as well."

    She doffs her hood, and glances to Aquila who lights up a small floodlamp to light up the stairs leading downward. Her short-blade is drawn, the slender dagger glinting in the various light sources as she holds it in a reverse grip.

    Hyouka is here, and she's noticeably less cheerful than usual. Her maternal instincts have been prodded something fierce by the younger victims of this whole incident; especially after seeing the two girls in their last venture, the whole thing has her feeling unusually focused. She's all business. "...at least they've got a hope for some semblance of normalcy," the cyborg murmurs softly. She doesn't even have much of a greeting for Valerian, other than a brief wave, and after he starts down the steps she falls in right behind him.

    And rather than wait until they're in battle, Hyouka seems to want to have her FISTEAU system at the ready - she deploys the massive gauntlets as they head downward, lines of golden Earth mana flowing down along the twin units.

    For a few seconds, Bryllu gets an open stare of surprise... but then the faux elf seems to realize she's been joined by a faux dwarf. "Ah, Bryllu. Interesting body." Dante and Piera both get a glance, but other than that, she seems to not be in much of a talkative mood. Unusual for her.

    "Oh yeah, we're probably going to run into all sorts of horrible abominations. And probably a load of traps." Morrigan agrees warningly with Valerian as he takes the lead. "I managed to get the door didn't I?" She says beaming back at Piera and Bryllu.
    "Mmmm. I'm not too keen on leaving those two girls with -him-, but he's the only one who can probably help them out."
    She's not even carrying any light source, the Warlock's eldritch green glowing eyes apparently keen enough in the darkness to not need it. Others though will have to supply their own lights if they need them.
    Down into that darkness though, one step seems to oddly... Sink a bit under Valerian's weight.
    A crossbow bolt laced in something nasty launches out at the Juicer; the first of many traps to likely follow as the stairs level out into a moderate sized room of rough hewn stone. The crates and boxes here designate the place as some kind of storeroom, and the chemical smell designates it as a storeroom for chemicals.
    A door to the north leads into a wider lab-like chamber, a larger space with tables of glass tubes and vials and beakers.
    Something shifts in the darkness though. And the group is beset by monsters in an instant- creatures the size and body-shape of small apes, but with the heads of cats, hissing and yowling as they try to claw and batter and bite anyone they can get their hands on.

    You WILL need more than a trap crossbow bolt to actually harm Valerian. The crossbow bolt his him in the chest and, without piercing the skin, shatters into pieces that clatter to the ground. Valerian looks down at his chest that does not even have a bruise on it, "I bet that was super toxic. Or Caustic." He remarks as he kicks it out of the way so no one will step on it while wearing sandals or something. 

    Continuing down the steps, he seems at least moderately more concerned about the monsters, grabbing one by the head as it tries to leap at him and batter him. With an annoyed grunt, he swings it around and then spikes it into the floor with enough force to basically explode against the stone below him with a scowl on his face. 

    "Who would give cats thumbs? This is objectively a terrible idea."

The darkness doing nothing to meaningfully hinder posthuman senses, those with ears equipped for it may her an occasional loud beep outside the range of human hearing, and the echoes created by these beeps. As soon as she notices the heat of creatures, she steps forwards with her large shield first, ready to block any attacks. "Are these even cats, or are they more victims?"

    Piera keeps her eyes on a swivel. Aquila anticipating her movements and panning the beam of her floodlamp in sync with her partner.

    Then there's monkey-cats. She ducks under a wild swing from one and jams her dagger into its chest, shoving back with all her might to throw that one into another, before swinging her off-hand out while her Hidden Blade SHNKS out to slash across the throat of another. "Victims or not, they are attempting to kill us and are very likely to be too far gone to help." she muses toward Bryllu.

    Down into the dark they go; Hyouka doesn't have much in the way of light, and she doesn't have any special low-light vision, but there's enough leaking off of everyone else that she can... kinda see. And her eyes are inhumanly sharp, so that'll have to do.

    The creatures trying to claw and bite at them all are in for a rude awakening, as Hyouka's 'skin' is bulletproof. Her clothing sure takes damage here and there, but the actual person underneath is probably only taking shallow cuts at most. That might change once they figure out she's not made of meat, but... well. They might not get that chance.

    Around come Hyouka's arms, punching and swinging and smashing at the cat-ape creatures with magitech fists almost as big as they are - and each hit comes with a suffusion of earth-elemental energy, not only adding a burst of aspected magic, but also giving them quite a bit of extra force beyond her already-superhuman baseline.

    Dante's senses pick up something rushing them as they move through some of the chemical storerooms. Of course, the exploration doesn't last. They find themselves attacked by some kind of creatures. "AHA, AT LAST! AN ENEMY!" Agni bellows, and Rudra comes out to join him as Dante swipes at the beasts. "Ahahaha, yes master, slay them! Use our blades!" Rudra says with a cackle, as Dante sighs in exasperation. "Goddammit, now look what you did! They're never gonna shut up today!"

    Morrigan peers around Valerian's side as he just eats the crossbow bolt like it was absolutely nothing. "Huh, you're not even bruised." Something like that would wreck any lesser adventurer than the ones in Morrigan's party right now. Moving on.
    The cat-apes are probably victims too-- not in the sense that they were once people, but in the sense that someone took a cat's head and sewed it onto an ape's body and called it 'science'.
    Still, the creatures aren't really much of a match for the group, and once they're handled it's easy to press on into the next room.
    How odd. The room is empty.
    But no sooner than the whole party is through, the door locks behind them! And that's when spikes emerge from holes in the ceiling, and said ceiling begins to descend!
    There's no visible way out either. But a discerning eye might notice the several mechanisms on the walls that can be pushed in. There looks to be about five of them.
    "Oh no. What ever will we do." Morrigan says in a dry tone.
    Mary Contrary perks and pokes her head out of Morrigan's backpack.
    "Have you tried doing the thing?" The shinki suggests helpfully.
    "What a great idea! You heard her, guys. Do the thing."

Bryllu doesn't trust the mechanisms that can be pushed in, so instead she activates the drill and the matching thruster and with a grace that can only come from the rocket-drill being part of her body she attacks the hinges of the door they came from, to ensure they can retreat if any other options don't work out.

    Once the room is clear, Dante smacks the hilts of his scimitars together. "Okay. Seriously guys, EVERY TIME I bring you out you keep ruining the mood." "Sorry." "Right."

    Sighing, looks up at the spikes before Mary suggests DOING THE THING. "Ah yes, the thing. Good idea. Ladies and gentleman, do you concur?" He asks sacrcastically, before going to press a button.

    With Bryllu feeding DARGN data, Hyouka is doing a lot better in terms of making her way. It's something of a kludge, so it's not ideal, but it's functional. Soon, however, they have another problem.

    Spikes come out of the ceiling. And the ceiling begins to descend.

    Hyouka frowns. "...DARGN, I think I'm going to need full output." The AI chimes in, "Already prepped and ready." The cyborg nods once, and then reaches up with her massive gauntlets - carefully, lacing fingers between each spike so that she's not impaling her main weapons. They're extremely durable, sure, but you never know.

    And then she just... applies her full strength. Pushes upward against the ceiling. Exerts the entire strength of her artificial magi-technical body to halt the ceiling's descent.

    "No need to panic, everyone... I mean, don't go slow, but no need to panic."

    Piera does, indeed, spot the things on the walls, pointing them out to anyone who can't really make them out easily. She heads over to one of them, and presses it in expectantly. Aquila calls out to Mary, "Help me with this one." as she flits over to a different panel and starts trying to press it in, using her jetpack to just kind of shoulder-barge at it.

    "Yeah. It's neat." He remarks to her as he inspects his chest some, "It's a long story, though. I can tell you sometime over dinner and a cup of coffee or something," He comments idly as he heads into the next room, wiping his hand off on his apron to clean off Cat-Monkey goo. 

    When the spikes come down from the ceiling, Valerian looks up. And then when they point to the mechanisms on the wall, Valerian frowns a bit, "So how much were you paying for this job again?" He asks Morrigan, "Because Christmas is coming... and like..." 

    He trails off as Hyouka holds up the ceiling. It's pretty impressive, all told, and it amuses him how many parallels the two of them have. He walks over to the mechanisms and presses one (or two if he can reach and fill in for Hyouka) and continues talking to Morrigan, "Oh right. Yeah. Christmas is coming and I wanna send some VTubers some red superchats for Christmas."

    It's... All told pretty easy for someone like Hyouka to just *hold up* the descending ceiling. Which is all well and good in giving the team time to make a decision.
    Bryllu smashes the hinges on the door they came through which... Opens the door they came from. So there's an escape route if things go wrong! But once the buttons are all pressed by tiny shinki duo, Dante, and Valerian hitting two at once, the ceiling stops, the spikes retract, and a hidden doorway opens up to the east.
    "And we're moving on!" Morrigan chirrups.
    "500 gold per person, and we get to keep just about anything and everything we find and or want." She says to answer Valerian's question. "Oh who do you watch? I'm not that big on vtubers but sometimes I'll watch a stream if I'm really bored and have nothing better to do."
    Moving on.
    The next room is another laboratory space, but this time the jars are full of body parts of monsters... And people. The smell of old formaldehyde fills the chamber, and someone can be seen working over a medical table in the middle of the room.
    An old elf slowly turns, looking up from his grisly work in the act of hacking a corpse apart for materials and frowns, wrinkled face creasing further as he tugs back his silvery hair out from the glasses covering his eyes.
    "Hm? Who's there? Who's disrupting my work?" She mutters irritable before scowling. "Ah. Adventurers. Well I've got just the solution for you. Sanka! Handle them!"
    Sanka growls. And bleats. And hisses in response. Because Sanka is a lion with monstrous claws, has a second goat's head above its main lion head, and a massive serpent for a tail.
    "Oh shit, Chimera!" Morrigan blurts, shooting it with an Eldritch blast as it lunges for the group, trying to claw down anyone in its way as the goat head spews noxious poison gas, and the serpent tries to snap and poison anyone it can.

    "You know. Decent Mix. I'm a big fan of the owl one." He chats to morrigan as they enter the laboratory, "500 gold is worth. That's a good amount for this work." 

    "Oh shit! Chimera!" Valerian says almost in unison with Morrigan as she hits it with an Eldritch Blast. Reflexively, he jumps back and away from the opening array of attacks as his hands come up to grip the bundle across his back. He shifts his grip and the bundle of cloth immediately shreds to bits as the Juicer Chainsaw comes to life, Valerian holding it like one would hold a greatsword of some kind. 

    Careful to stay light on his feet, he dash-steps in towards the Chimera and swings the weapon in an uppercut motion, sparks flying as it carves a divot in the floor before aiming at the underside of the lion's chin with those churning teeth of the weapon, "Dude you use too much poison in your creations! It's a bad gimmick!"

    Dante and company enter in. "I like the shark myself." He grins cheekily at Valerian. "That and...Haachama? The one who talked about the domino. Never gets old." He says. He'll take 500 gold and whatever loot he can find and call first dibs on. Whatever gets Enzo off his back.

    And then CHIMERA. Dante brandishes his scimitars. "HEY. You stay right there, you freak!" He calls at the elf, before engaging with the chimera, blocking claw strikes and slashing at the beast's side, then leaps up to attack the goat head.

    While Hyouka is holding up the spikes, something Valerian and Morrigan are talking about draws the woman's eyes. "-hoh? Well, here's some people of culture. You'll have to come by my world some time, VTubers are a pretty big business."

    But just like that, the spikes are drawn back, and the group is no longer in danger. After giving her fingers a quick wiggle to check for any stress damage, she seems satisfied, and with a small nod she heads on through the door And so they find themselves in a... rather grisly lab. "Considering the kind of work you've been doing," Hyouka remarks as she lifts her gauntlets, "I'm a little more inclined to disrupt that wrinkled old face of yours."

    She lunges into battle with the chimera fearlessly; poison gas is of little concern when you can hold your breath indefinitely, and her artificial body can weather the claws and bites long enough for the cyborg to dive into range and swing one arm forward just as hard as she can.

    Piera remains quiet in the conversation. She's largely not one for small-talk while on a mission, though isn't above using words to put an opponent on the wrong foot when facing her.

    The door opens, and suddenly there's a giant monster thrashing about. She's no match for something like that, her weapons would likely only piss it off, so she does what she's best at.

    The Assassin draws back from the battle, and works her way around to the old elf-guy, creeping quietly until she can get a hold of him and jam the point of her dagger into his back. "Call it off, and I won't have to stab you, old man." she snarls into one of those knife-ears, her other hand gripping around his throat. "I have another blade at your throat too, so no funny business, capiche?"

Bryllu doesn't breathe, and poisons intended to harm organic beings are unlikely to be as effective on her, and sos he just steps towards the Chimera shield in front and pick coming down hard and fast. "I'm sorry." She tells what is clearly another victim.

    The fight... Does not go well for the Chimera.
    Between Valerian's great chainblade, Agni and Rudra, Hyouka's immense strength, and Bryllu's rocket-powered drill-pick...
    Well it doesn't last long as the party reduces the beast's HP to zero and bring it down.
    Which leaves the mad scientist, who slowly raises his hands with that blade pressed to his back and another to his throat, the old elf sighs.
    "Making a chimera is not an easy task you know. Do you realize how far back you've set my research? None of those fools back in Nenlenor will understand what I was trying to do for them! I--"
    Morrigan cuts him off simply by saying "Sleeeeeep, old man..." causing the old elf to collapse snoring.
    "Well." The Warlock says, setting hands on her hips.
    "Let's tie him up and bring him back to town. From there the local authorities will deal with handling him. And his punishment."

    It doesn't last too long, so Valerian continues the upward swing and then flicks his hand a bit, the chainsaw turning off as he secures it to his back again, "Yeah, yeah. That speech is so overdone. You should be more concerned about the fact that that village is gonna goddamn lynch you for what you've done old man."

    Hyouka drops into a stance, raining more bone-crushing blows here and there, but the chimera is not long for this world. She shifts her attention over to the old elf, prepared for some manner of attack from him - and preparing, in turn, to move in and rough him up a bit before they take him in.

    Morrigan beats her to it. "...Tch. That's almost disappointing," the cyborg grouses, standing back up. DARGN speaks up with an idle, "If he has any notes left behind, take them. They might help with undoing what he did to those girls, after all." Hyouka nods at that, and goes to start looking for anything of the sort. She's got a knack for this sort of thing.

"Here's two words to remember when it comes to doing research." Bryllu states before Morrigan casts her spell, "Informed consent." Then she gets to work looking through the place for anything of use.

    Dante is about to cut the elfin scientist's head right off, buuuuuut Morrigan beats him to the punch. "Yeah. Let's just...get the hell outta here." He rummages through the scientist's notes, grabbing anything he can and stowing the notes in his pockets for later. Stowing Agni and Rudra, he sighs. "Life's better than he deserves." He points out.

    Suddenly, Piera is holding deadweight, and staggers under the sudden drop of the elf as Morrigan puts him under. She manages not to accidentally shank him, sheaths her dagger and produces a coil of strong rope from her robes, tying his arms behind his back.

    As the others mention a lynching, she says nonchalantly. "I could stab him here and now. I was a moment away from doing so anyway." she doesn't immediately go for the kill-shot, but does flick the Hidden Blade out into the air to demonstrate her point.

    "Oh yes I agree, life is too good for him." Morrigan replies to Dante as Piera gets out the rope. "But that's not our job, so we don't have to get our hands dirty with it." She points out, with a waggle of her fingers. "I don't think something like informed consent would have stopped him."
    "BUT I'm sure the town will let us sit in on the execution, if you're into that kind of thing!" She says a little too brightly as the party starts making their way out of the cavern labs and back to the forest beyond. It's a long walk back to Nenlenor, but it should go by without issue.