Doggo

How a mage's life became dodging boulders being thrown by minotaurs in labyrinths was anyone's guess yet that was the life Estelle found herself living. A less than graceful dive out of the way had the Fereis tumbling and scraping her exposed legs. But scratches were always preferable to being flattened. As Estellise attempted to steady herself she registered Chris' plan for the moment. Sticking to the left was wise enough for navigating a maze, but what he intended to do about the monster was another thing entirely. With as little understanding of martial arts as the mage possessed, an excitement took hold of her as she saw Chris close in and go for the thing's ankles. Just as soon a confusion set in as the man didn't cleanly pass through the beast. The minotaur seemed bothered but in the sense one crushes an annoying bug. And with this equivalent of a bite it seemed intent on crushing Chris. "Above!" Estelle called the movement of the axe as she sprung into action herself. Sprung was less accurate than she simply stood and readied her magic quickly, a typical arrow of light manifesting in her hands. This she shot about as quickly as she felt it was stable and show the minotaur in the face. The monster recoiled, retracting its attempt to crush Chris, so by all accounts this was an outstanding success. Yet now the beast was charging her, the least athletic member of the adventuring team. "Oh gods." The Fereis muttered. Such scandalous language for a lady. But there would be time to apologize for poor ettiquette after she wasn't dead. Despite it not being her forte Estelle began running as best she could toward the next left turn off this lane of the maze.

Lindow having a plan was nothing new. What was new was the explosives the group had purchased in town. They had occupied almost no space in Reinaan's mind since the fights had begun. With how like one of his hunts back home this had been new toys like that were jumping to the front of his mind. He was almost as unready for the Thunder Chosen to toss one his way, his claws proving clunky compared to the human's fingers grips on the thing. But still the boy managed to drop the contraption while Lindow was asking his spirit for help. Thee sheer glee in Ziiyol's eyes at lighting an explosive was unlike anything the draken could recall seeing. He might have studied his spirit's face longer had the lit explosive not then sailed through the air on a collision course with the large reptile's injured leg. The impact of the explosion was hefty and the results matched the boom. That the thing was still standing was a testament to its own strength but Reinaan had a mind to get it off it's feet permanently. As he held the explosive up Ziiyol moved toward it, eager for a repeat performance only for Reinaan to snatch it away from her fan. "Think that's enough fun for you for today." Reinaan teased, a pout instantly taking over the fire spirit's face. Still, Ziiyol wasn't the only natural fire generator around and Reinaan was proud to light his own device with a puff of his own flame breath. The boy imitated Lindow's performance about as closely as he could manage to similar results. The second explosion compounded the previous injuries to the beast's right leg which was very clearly in bad sorts. "Wow... these things are something else." Reinaan observed, an awe taking hold from having used one personally. Unfortunately, the beast wasn't going to just crumple to the ground quite yet. In a lot of pain it reared up and shattered the barrier above it. And no amount of crippling the monster removed the danger its teeth could pose to the others with the barrier broken. He got Lindow's attention and pointed at first toward the ground and the rear end of the beast before moving his finger up in a smooth motion. "Let's go for the neck!" He offered as a solution to the injured and angry giant lizard.

"Alright gang, this has been Maya-chan! I've gotta get going. As you all know, Digimon World Online is coming out today and you know who is getting in at launch. I reaaaaaally wish I could I could stream it with you guys but you know how it goes. Game uses your real life appearance and that'd be trouble for me. But who knows, maybe we'll play with each other and not even realize it, that could be so fun! Let me know on my socials what you're planning to do with the game. I'll be talking about my experiences with it in upcoming streams just wont have much footage. Guess I'll have to come up with something. Maybe I can get Doki-kun to stream with me and we'll play the digimon card game while we talk about it! Oh there's so many things to do. You all know my stream times, if not it's down in the description along with my socials. Follow soon for exclusive signed merch, offer ends in two weeks! Keep it real and keep shining!" Click. Stream ended. "Uggggghhhhh" Came a moan as the face behind hit Vtuber Maya-Chan slumped back into her chair and planted her face down on her desk in front of her. Jeanne Sakamoto had just gotten done streaming for three hours and her day was only really just beginning. A thought crossed her mind why she was still doing this but the thought of disappointing so many fans seemed like more trouble than it was worth. She could see the social media threads over Maya-Chan leaving drama and the shit she'd have to go through the Vtuber company. Oh right them. A contract seemed like a pretty good reason to keep doing something too now that she thought about it. Before moping too much longer, Jeanne looked up from her den of depression to a clock to see she still had a scant few minutes before the DWO launch. "Well Jeane, you came this far. Might as well not be late." the woman muttered with a huff as she hauled the box of goods needed to play the game onto her desk. Opening it, deciphering instructions and assembling was easier than she had anticipated but still more complicated than any game had a right to be, at least in her opinion. She was tired enough that if she could have put off logging in for a day or two she would have. But she knew she wouldn't last a half hour of not showing up without Shion blowing her up in every conceivable method of communication. "I can't wait for this super awesome game." She said with as little life as she could muster. "Gonna be the greatest thing ever-" she was cut off the by digitizing process. 'Logging in.....User.......Maya.......DIGILIZING NOW' Never had Jeanne put much thought into what having her body deconstructed and turned into data would feel like. She figured it was just all overblown VR type stuff. But this was something else. But then all at once she was herself again just somewhere completely new. Somewhere that looked beautiful really. For a fake place in a game anyway. She was almost in awe until she was surrounded by other people all eagerly logging in for the first time. The starry-eyed masses quickly made her gut twist and turn. It wasn't like this was even the best graphics she'd ever seen in a game. Like sure she was actually in it but there were probably missing pixels or something. The girl's focus was on the CEO of the game company, Kazuki Iwakiri, who welcomed them all to Asuka City. Jeanne took the opportunity to move away from the congested spawn point to take in the bright eyed corporate speak. A game changing the course of history. Like that had ever happened. Still, at least the man wasn't going to take all day to get to what everyone actually wanted. A device, primarily white with dark purple accents, along with a soot black egg appeared before Jeanne as so many similar pairs of objects did for every other player at Iwakiri's word. Without warning the egg began hatching, revealing a bizarre looking black ball of something with yellow eyes. A Botamon it was, which Jeanne would know if she bothered to look it up in the game's information. She definitely didn't already know all about it. Having to lug this thing around was going to be troublesome but it was almost cute enough to justify it. But the CEO wasn't done handing out presents as the creatures all began their first evolution on the spot. Gone was the ball of black fur and in it's place a ball of gray fur with long ears. "Wait... is mine broken? How come mine didn't get arms or legs?" Jeanne voiced to no one in particular. This didn't seem to deter the creature though, who propped itself upright as much as a spherical creature could and puffed its non-existent chest. "I'm Pagumon! It's an honor to meet so soon Jeanne." Pagumon said, doing what looked like its best attempt at a bow. "So soon? Oh yeah didn't sign up all that lo- wait what?! Ah shit, I shoulda known they sold my data. Never use real names even when they ask for them, stupid!" She vented as Pagumon looked on concerned. "Please don't be upset. I've been waiting eagerly to meet you. This should be a happy time." the digimon offered, its ears drooping. "Aw c'mon Fido, dont start with that. I'm not mad at you, you didn't do anything." Jeanne responded, softening some. But Pagumon seemed peturbed. "Fido? I'm Pagumon." it asserted in confusion. "Yeah well you're like my dog now right, it's a nickname." the human offered in explanation. "You were given an opportunity when signing up to nickname me, you should have done so there. I am Pagumon and that's that." the furball stated. "You don't gotta be uptight about it." Jeanne said, clearly annoyed her new parter was such a stickler about these kinds of things. But there was no two ways about it. Jeanne kept calling Pagumon Fido and Pagumon continued to deny that was its name and demanded she address it properly if she wanted a reply. Still, Pagumon seemed overjoyed to be with Jeanne at all. As for Jeanne well, Pagumon was cute so it was lucky. The two left, Pagumon in Jeanne's arms as they talked some more. Jeanne explained she was looking for a friend and Pagumon suggested heading back to the spawn area as most players wouldn't have dispersed from there yet. A solid idea and one which the girl accepted. Now it was just a matter of looking for Shion. In a sea of faces. No problem there. Actually it ws a lot easier than anticipated as something caught the girl's eye. A raincloud, a tiny one at that, isolated entirely to the space just above a single player's head. That alone required a good laugh but no sooner did the woman look to see the poor soul with their own storm cloud than did Jeanne see her own best friend, Shion. That was too much, the girl burst out laughing as she approached. "Wow I really missed out on not pre-ordering huh?" she managed to get out when she stopped laughing enough to actually speak. Shion knew that laugh. It had a distinct vibe of "wow, this sucks, and you probably suck for getting so into it." She'd recognize it anywhere, and while she'd normally turn and greet its owner with a smile, she was already in a bit of a sour mood. And so, sour expression fully intact, Shion turned, and greeted Jeanne back with a "Oh, shut it. This was the most not-terrible pre-order bonus; how was I supposed to know the damn thing would be bugged?" "Wow, here I thought you were just trying to ruin the vibe for everyone on purpose. Was gonna be offended." Jeanne fired right back. At this point Pagumon interjected. "You shouldn't be rude to your friend!" it said very earnestly which only got another chuckle out of Jeanne. "We got every flavor of buzzkill here what'd I even sign in for?" "To be a better buzzkill than them, obviously," Shion answered. "And maybe to try and find game-breaking exploits so you can kill the devs' good moods too. The CEO didn't seem all that happy that his collector's edition bonuses were bugged when I met him. All I could get to make up for it was some bits, though." Jeanne could only give a typical whistle to fake being impressed. "CEO talking to nobodies huh? What an in touch and down to earth old guy. Be sure to threaten to refund if your... bonus here doesn't get fixed soon." Jeanne spoke, uncertain if she could call the endless raincloud a bonus with a straight face. "I'll make sure to do that. Give the devs a week, and if I'm still getting rained on, threaten a refund. 11,000 yen for a bugged poncho I need to wear." Shion finished that thought with one of the driest, most sarcastic "Woohoo"s one would likely hear. "Oh, loosely related, do you want to hit up the shops before we check out what this game's got to offer? I've got a nice chunk of bits, and I'd like to pick up some extra..." Shion pointed up at the raincloud hovering over her. "Equipment." Jeanne feigned shock this time as she reeled backward dramatically placing a hand across her chest. "Is it my birthday?" she teased. "Well far be it from me to deny charity in any mmo. And I'm not even being told to change my password to something specific must really be my lucky day. We'll get you fixed right up Miss Sunshine." Jeanne added to rub salt in the wound. "Miss Sunshine, haha," Shion sighed, leaving an obviously fake laugh behind as she got up, and opened her map. A map which, to her great relief, was rather well-made. Everything was clear, labeled, zoom functions worked properly, it was by all means a very nice map. It was surprising how easy it was to botch a map system in these kinds of games, really. After confirming the location of the nearest clothing store, Shion pointed in its general direction, said "That way," and started in that direction, gesturing for Pomumon and Jeanne to follow. She could feel the funny looks being sent her way. She didn't mind that, mostly. The ones she did mind were the ones from players with what she recognized as being other collector's pre-order bonuses. If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn one of them off-handedly commented how glad they were they didn't pick the poncho. "For all the odds and ends in this thing's settings - it came with its own settings window, by the way - you'd think they would have checked that it can be switched off," Shion sighed. Jeanne for her part had been taking in the sights but more especially the people giving Shion funny looks. It was all she could do to not start laughing about the whole affair again. "Well for all his happy vibes and bravado for us noobs you know that CEO guy has to be overworking his team to be doing well... this." Jeanne said while motioning with her arms to a vague nothing. "This turning people into data stuff's kinda wild. Dunno if I'd be impressed or worried for the employees health if there weren't some bugs here and there." She paused, an off-handed comment about a way better pre-order bonus getting a snicker from her. "But hey, there's some positives to it all. Like how I'll never lose you in a crowd, or how I'll always have a conversation starter with everyone we meet 'cuz I can always just be like 'yeah that's me and my localized weather anomaly if you look closely you can see the rain is actually just the tears of all the disappointed pre-orderers". All said, I see this as an absolute win... you know, long as you aren't hugging me or anything." Jeanne added with a playful look of disgust. She did not intend to get wet simply be proximity to her best friend simply because said best friend wouldn't remove a cosmetic she didn't have to keep on. But then again Shion asserted she did have to keep it on and who was Jeanne to argue that? A foolish question really, Jeanne was never going to let it go. "Well, at least one of us is having a good time with this. And that's exactly what I'm doing here." Ah yes. Here. The clothing shop. The way Shion heard it, back when MMOs were not run through VR, the shop was generally just an NPC that you talked to, the list of items appeared, you traded in currency, and that was it. What a bore that sounded like, as if the shopkeep just had magical pockets containing their entire stock! Fortunately, those days were gone, and the shops of a VR MMO were at least a little more immersive. You could interact with the shelves or boxes, or in this case the racks of clothing. You could pull an item out from the lists - organized lists based on what you were interacting with - and examine it before buying, or even try it on in the case of clothes and other equipment. Then, once you were ready to buy, you could just hit the purchase button, trade in your currency, and your better MMO shopping experience was concluded. Immersive, intuitive, ingenious. "Say, since we're here and all, do us both a favor. Check around the place and try to pick up something for yourself." Pointing up above her head again, Shion added "Buy as if you were dealing with this instead of me. My treat. I'm gonna check the footwear and see about replacing my soaked shoes with something waterproof." "My whatever do you mean? I can only see the smiling faces of my friends. I don't see glitches." Jeanne teased as she left to look into wet weather gear. As she perused lists of items, Pagumon couldn't help but speak up having been a largely silent listener in the conversation between the two girls. "Are you two really friends?" it asked with an honesty and earnestness that might have made the woman choke had she been drinking something. Or staring up into her own personal raincloud. Crazy what not having one of those would do. "That's a silly question." Jeanne asserted. Having a piece of data analyze her relationships seemed like a waste of time. What did robots and algorithms know about any of this? "But you seem to always be bothering each other." Pagumon added, its ears drooping again. "It's a girl thing, kinda hard to understand I know but it is what it is. If you wanna think we're friends that works fine. It is the easiest way to put things." Jeanne remarked coldly as she settled on a matching pair of umbrellas, each wildly plastered with the logo for DWO and several of the posterchild digimon. "My god, they're hideous. Perfect." She said with an evil smirk. The redundancy of needing an umbrella while in a raincoat was going to drive Shion up a wall and Jeanne only wished she had a camera for it. "Let's go find our friends." Jeanne said to Pagumon who agreed happily.

Ken the hedgehog seemed to be a constant source of surprises as he redirected missiles and seemed intent on trusting this Chimera robot. It was like he almost didn't operate on the same logic Flurry knew the world worked on. Trying to process it too long was going to get him killed under the current circumstances except that the other robot seemed to be quickly meeting its end. The battle ended almost as abruptly as the lemur had been brought into all of it but what stood out most to him was another reading on the Chaos Tracker. That brief glimpse of the red jewel, it must have been similar to what Ken had on him. Regardless that was a subject of discussion for another time as the trio soon found themselves left with just Chimera who didn't seem particularly friendly at this point. Though he stopped shy of actually attacking them, offering them instead an explanation of where they were and a means off of it. "Eggland? Robotnik? That stuff can't be real. All those old stories." Flurry muttered to himself while the group walked. He was lost in thoughts at this point, a stupor only interrupted by the amazing looking tech presented to the group in the form of the ship they were being offered as a means of getting home. But before the Lemur could explore the machiene at all, Chimera ceased operating in a spectacular fashion in a display of sparks. Ken wanted to fix him and Zane was on a good train of thought with immediately chilling the robot's everything. But as the wolf turned the question to him, Flurry couldn't help but hesitate. "Look if this really is Eggland I dont think... I mean he was gonna... but I guess he didn't..." Flurry kept starting and stopping thoughts half way. Eventually he did settle on an idea as he brought out his computer which he'd been running for his life with. A blessing it was to still have it on hand as he doubted he could have done much with just the Chaos Tracker. With the chilled air in no short supply Flurry sat down by the pile of clutter that was just a moment ago Chimera and began directing the air with his own powers into the deeper parts of the robot, the head in particular as it seemed to be the source of the sparks. Outwardly there was no obvious way to go about this so the Lemur naturally began searching for panels to remove, buttons to press, switches to flip, or anything else of the sort. Eventually he was able to not so gently pry one of the boards protecting chimera's head open enough to find an access port which he linked his computer into. "Lotta work for nothing if his motherboard's fried." Flurry muttered as the connection to the robot's coding was being established. A bizarre logo filled the computer screen, one that was plastered all over the island too upon closer inspection. And the usually cod-savy mobian was left with some of the most confusing coding he'd ever seen in his life. The language, style, structure all of it was off to him. "Ohhhhh that's not good." He said, nearly defeated at just the sight of it all. "Well, I can't really break him anymore than he already is so... This one's for luck." He said as he began parsing through the code and trying things at near random. Several minutes of intense silence passed as Flurry made no remarks and responded to no questions asked of him. The moments dragged on for eternity before a breakthrough. "Aha! Take that, the world makes sense again!" he celebrated. It was a minor victory but the beginnings of the code structure were beginning to click and navigating the information was becoming possible. And more than anything he needed a guide on how to put Chimera back together again. A sentient robot would surely have them sitting around somewhere in its databanks. Sure enough the lemur found schematic data and made that the focus of his screen. "Well lookie here. We know how he's supposed to look. This is gonna be messy without the exact tools but see if you guys can't find something." Flurry stated, passing on the task of gathering improvised tools to Ken and Zane. With whatever they could muster gathered Flurry quickly had Chimera partly disassembled which seemed distinctly like a step in the wrong direction to the untrained eye. But things began moving in the right direction until the lemur encountered an obstacle. Trying to move Chimera's limbs with his motors completely inactive instead of idle was no small task and Flurry was no weight lifter. Thankfully, Ken seemed up to the task. "Your job is gonna be to move pieces into the right places when I need them." he explained, keeping things as simple as he could. But then another road block. The burn out itself. Reassembling him perfectly wouldn't help much without new fuses. The lemur had to sit and think about this one for a moment while he poured over the coding some more. Eventually he was getting Chimera's systems to run diagnostics on the exact nature of the damage but it was going to take a bit to take full stock of everything. "Well, playing the waiting game for a bit... so...." he started awkwardly with these two relative strangers. "Guess now's as good a time as any to ask you guys what you do with your time when you're not falling through portals and fighting robots."

The group had hidden well enough that was the enormous lizard came into view none of them were immediately spotted. And while the beast was happy to begin feeding on the group's kills, Reinaan was disheartened to see how cautious it was being. Of course it wasn't ready to accept the easy kill. Big predators never were. They wanted to do the killing not just pick up leftovers. For his part he was happy to wait it out some more. Hopefully it would relax more and give the group an opportunity to move on without engaging it. But there seemed to be no indication this was happening. And so when Lindow took action and drew the creature's attention, Reinaan groaned but knew that with how everything had gone, killing this thing was now the only real path forward. Thankfully the Thunder Chosen was competent at keeping the beast moving toward the others while not getting eaten. The Draken readied his halberd from behind his cover, he wanted as clean a shot as he could get. No sooner did the lizard pass Reinaan's hiding place than did the Fire Chosen leap out, his arms fully back to swing the axe of his halberd into the beast. This the boy did with all the force he could muster, slicing cleanly into the back of the creature's right knee, though it was going to take more attacks to actually shatter or sever the bone. Still this damage was not negligible and the beast roared in pain as it skidded to a stop to turn about and address the new assailant. As it turned it lowered its tail to sweep Reinaan away but the hunter was prepared and jumped over the appendage well enough to ready another attack. The beast was big and that made it move slow so while it was trying to finish turning to try and bite the smaller lizard, Reinaan was able to charge in and land another hit to the front of the same injured knee. Due to the motion of both parties this hit was far from clean but the twin strikes to the same joint clearly had the monster's posture wobbling. Reinaan was now running past it to join Lindow on the chase to keep it moving forward causing the beast to have to turn about again to pursue. As yet it seemed to have not noticed Ryia or the others still in hiding. "Follow up on the leg and we'll bring it down!" he shouted to the others. At this point Reinaan turned to Lindow. "Really not how I saw today going." the boy complained. Being outsized by two different kinds of lizards in a single day was clearly putting a damper on his mood or perhaps that was running from certain death doing that.

With the danger past, Estelle took a moment to heal everyone to make sure they were in fighting shape before the group descended to the tenth floor. Danger was quick to present itself again of course as nothing less than a minotaur came into view. With multiple passages along the walls Chris was quick to assert a strategy the group began using after a close shave with a projectile boulder the bovine monster had lobbed at them. They took each left passageway presented to them and thankfully the monster seemed fairly slow on its feet. This happened however many more times Estelle couldn't keep track of well. Running was not her strong suit and the amount they were doing here was slightly taxing after the magical exertions of the previous floor. With another left there were again a left and right choice further down the hallway yet impossibly the sound of the minotaur's footsteps were coming from the right path ahead of them rather than behind them. Lana looked to the group for a plan to fight it and this much Estelle felt she could manage better than endless running. "I suggest we do not if we can help it." the mage said as she lobbed a ball of light ahead of her. The beast soon emerged in view in the entrance to the right and took note of the magic as it approached. It swiped at it yet made no effort to pursue it further down into the hall. Estelle nearly swore under her breath that the beast had not been so easily tricked. "Another test then!" she assured herself as she reached a hand behind her and caused an explosion some distance behind the group. The shockwave rumbled the corridor and this the minotaur took more notice of than the ball of light yet even this did not change it's course. The group would soon be upon the beast but stopping or turning around seemed less than helpful. "Cover your ears and keep left!" the Fereis both urging the group onward and preparing a spell for when they approached. Another explosive shockwave, this time in the creature's face rather than far off.

While Fen began taking in the wonders of technology beyond her scope of reality, Aduain's brain was finally processing the horse race he was witnessing with her. Not that he understood it but he knew enough to root for a racer here, boo for another there. The crowd's cheers helped. They really helped as the sound began growing out of control. As he began covering the holes in his head that one could call ears if one wanted the boy noticed Fen had begun fidgeting with the remote and was about as clueless as she appeared. The channels changed before the tv ultimately turned off. It was not all too dissimilar from the fish's first time with a tv after he'd gotten his freedom. But that had still been long enough ago that he'd forgotten people could be like this around the devices. Eventually she managed to get it back on and lower the volume to a reasonable level at which point the hunter was able to relax in his seat again with a chuckle. "Wow, they really don't have TV in your world huh?" He asked in pure honest curiosity rather than any sort of condescension. "It must be really different there. What kind of things do you for fun?" came the start of the boy's inquiries with an excited smile on his face. He would try to restrain himself for a bit but if Fen took too long to think of an answer he had about eighty other questions he could ask in quick succession.

It's Not Like This is an App or Anything...

Mandevilla was pleased A.C.E. was ready and able to assist him in taking inventory of the ship. Though things became slightly less pleasant when the cargo inspectors arrived. The plant's dealings with the Sarvatti had been limited almost entirely to his time aboard the Janissary. As yet he held nothing against them but Oru seemed less than thrilled every time they had dealing with them. With A.C.E.'s inventory data the kkekri was quickly able to ascertain what materials were and weren't on hand. Already the plant could think of several things he wanted to buy in port to progress his experiments. Restocking the usual of course but Mandevilla's mind was barely processing the idea of standard food and medicines and the like. The efficiency of the check aside, even routine tasks were slightly awkward with the Sarvatti present. True to the nature of the cargo, as the inspectors went through each crate bound for this planet, they found each was full of various food objects. Until they got to a specific yellow crate from among the haul. Upon opening the large shipping crate, the inspectors made a curious sound as they observed its relative lack of contents. While the one writing everything down checked the contents that were still there, the other one turned to face the crew of the Janissary. "There appears to be a mistake with the cargo. A significant amount of this container's contents are missing. Why is this, precisely?" the Sarvatti asked of the crew. In line with Captain Oru's instruction from before, Mandevilla summoned a holo-screen and began writing as they were talking to explain honestly what had happened. Before long the plant had compiled several documents which he prefaced with his own statement. "An infestation, unknown at the time of pick up, was observed mid flight. Upon extermination of the problem the contents of the crate were assessed and all the spoiled product was discarded. Below are the relevant files in the ships log to corroborate and records of the exact products discarded." The message read. Below were several file names the plant had linked into the ship to draw on relevant video and audio files as they existed. At least they were the correct timestamps while they were dealing with the vermin. What exactly was recorded he couldn't say for sure. Additionally, he included the listing of the products the pests had damaged and had been discarded. A tedious task at the time but one the plant was glad to have undertaken at this point. A hissing sound likened to some kind of exasperated groan came from the nostrils of the inspector, who eyed over the note slowly, before turning his attention to the files. Checking over his colleague's report and cross-referencing it with the notes Mandevilla had provided, he said something to the other inspector that the Janissary's crew couldn't quite pick up on. Then a response. A brief rebuttal, another one in return, and then that hissing sound again. Facing the crew once more, the inspector that could actually speak in a language everyone understood said "That is... most unfortunate. Your dilligent notes have saved us both a significant amount of trouble. We will examine the contents of this crate ourselves after the cargo is unloaded - with more precise equipment - to prevent the potential spread of disease." To this Mandevilla and the crew could readily agree. The Sarvatti left with the cargo without further incident which let the plant feel some sense of relief. The plant scribbled some more and made the screen large enough to display his message to the crew at once. "Another successful delivery! I'll be off to purchase supplies. Any requests?" he left the open query

True to her intention, Estelle kept herself focused on maintaining what she had left of the mines and providing additional weaponry for her allies at a moment's notice. This first meant providing a sword for Chris that perhaps he would get to use this time. The weapon would continue at his side as he began making his maneuvers against the last approaching bugbear and even if he didn't use it the mage would keep on the look out for opportunities to provide him an opening as she had with the previous beast. Lana meanwhile was preparing to stare down a bugbear and a rust bug at the same time but thankfully one of the Fereis' mines had provided cover on the latter, leaving the woman to focus on fighting the bugbear. Soon enough a third axe construct would appear at Lana's side as Estelle did her best to take stock of both fights while holding concentration on her magic. Though now the rust monster was getting back to its feet and the bugbear was enough of a problem with the whip it wielded. Adding a third spell to manage at this point seemed less than wise yet still it was the path Estelle took as she shifted focus. The light constructs would stop in place as a result, needing Chris and Lana to grab them to make any use of them. The mage turned her magic on the rust creature, sending an enchantment its way. The approach was multi-faceted as the mage was uncertain how the creature would respond to any of the imposed ideas in its mind. She tried to strike fear into it to stop its advance while also convincing it its limbs were heavier than the stones that littered the floor of the room. While not certain which approach worked, it ultimately did reach the desired effect as the monster stopped in its tracks. It attempted to takes steps only to stop as if unable to perform the motion. "I have stopped it from moving, for how long I do not know!" she called out to Lana to avoid any confusion.

With Ryia's continued attacks the monster Reinaan had attacked now seemed ready to retreat. Had the sounds of the larger beast approaching not been there he might have given chase in annoyance but at the same time it was clear that it no longer wanted to fight them and if killing it meant that much to him there was a good chance it was going to bleed out on its own. The draken pulled his weapon out of the beast after Ryia did, the slight delay from the thought process about letting it go. The boy had been ready to prepare for the much more pressing matter before them when Ryia spoke to him. He couldn't help but chuckle softly at the girl's attempt which he recognized as something of the banter he and Lindow often shared on the battlefield. "You must be really raring to go." Reinaan teased in response before taking stock of the situation. "We need to hide the mounts!" He shouted to the group as he turned to face the bulk of them. "And then ourselves while we're at it. Whether or not we attack it we'd be stupid to do it head on." The hunter offered as instruction to those who probably hadn't spent their whole life fighting monsters larger than themselves to live and eat. Admittedly, most of the strategies that came to mind involved a solid ten draken hunting party but then they had a fair bit of magic on their side his old hunting parties could only dream of. "Pick your favorite bush or tree and get as low down as you can. If we attack we focus its legs until it can't stand anymore." "Have you considered smoking it away?" the voice of Ziiyol the spirit of fire asked, perfectly relaxed. Reinaan groaned as his partner appeared at his side. "Really not the time for this." He muttered at her in hopes that would be the end of her contributions. "But have you at least cons-" Ziiyol began before the Draken cut her off. "I'm not setting fire to the forest!" Reinaan asserted more loudly than he meant to. He turned from his spirit who laughed softly to herself and followed him to see his plan through.

Fen didn't seem keen on the flooding the showers idea but Aduain could hardly blame a creature clearly not built for water for not wanting to. And since she had another idea in mind he was more than happy to play along before his grand undertaking. He peered into the rec room at the girl's suggestion and saw some oddly normal looking things. A pool table and television set most immediately. Things the boy had seen before normally wouldn't comment much on. But then seeing such average things here in this other world was strange and cool in its own way so for the time being the building was safe from water damage. "Sounds fun! Should probably see just how cheap they are with the stuff. Hope they got ping pong!" the fish began lightly bouncing in place with each step as he began moving toward the rec room. Upon entering all that came into view beyond the pool table and tv were a couch and armchairs set up around the tv. Aduain scanned the walls carefully for hidden compartments but saw no obvious indiciations of anything. There was a terminal like in their bedrooms that would allow the purchase of new thing so it seemed if they were going to get anything else they would have to pay. "Wow, there's cheap and then there's cheap, ya know? Guess we should be grateful we even got the pool table." Aduain voiced his disappointment. This didnt stop him from running up to the tv to examine it. It took a minute due to a button arrangement he wasn't familiar with but soon enough felt like he knew what to do. "Hey Fen, let's check out what Prana tv is like! Maybe we'll be on the news." he said excitedly as he turned the device on, an image flashing onto screen. What immediately met the young hunter's eyes was a horse racing track. That much was familiar enough. But something seemed off. The more he looked the more one of the horses looked fake. Almost like it was a costume with two people inside it. That was a pretty funny joke but then another one caught his eye. Was that a zebra? Well there was one horse for sure-- no that was an elephant with a prop horse head on the end of its trunk. "What the- What kind of- but who-" the boy was speechless as he tried to process what was happening. "Wait there's one!" Aduain shouted almost in relief. On screen now was a close up of an actual horse. Except the horse was incredibly well dressed in a three piece suit. "Prana really is something else."

Flurry seemed almost surprised at how effective his attack had been in combination with Zane's ice. The lemur had strongly expected a robot built this tough to have been able to dodge him pretty readily. But then he had been fighting another just as dangerous looking robot so perhaps the two had broken some of each other's systems down. It really was a shame any of this was happening because more than anything the tech obsessed Mobian wanted to just take a moment to plug his computer into their brains and take a look at their operating system's code. But before Flurry could ready himself for another attack Ken went in and made him wonder if there was going to be much of the thing's brain left to examine at all. Whatever Hurriken meant, the hedghog had punched the robot with such intensity that a gust of wind not unlike Flurry's own had shot off and extinguished nearby flames. It took the lemur a moment to process that this wasn't someone with his own powers but rather just a muscle head hedgehog that had trained his body to an impossible degree. "The hell kind of freak show did I get dropped in on..." Flurry muttered to himself, ignoring his own bizarre nature for the time being. He wasn't allowed the time to react as several missiles had been launched by the hostile robot, one for each of them. This seemed like something of an every mobian or robot for themselves kind of thing or at least that's what Flurry left it as not wanting to mess with anyone's plan to intercept their own missile and mess everything up. The lemur took the split second he still had to aim and fired off a series of small concentrated air blasts at the incoming projectile. Each was spaced and angled such that he could push the object up and over him high into a wall or structure behind him.

I'm here to definitely not get stuck in the game, no sir.

The trip to the mall had proved more fun than Aduain could have imagined. Nothing quite topped the showdown with Adonis of course, but the new look he was sporting was worth getting excited about, however minor a change it actually was. He was still drawing curious looks every now and then but then he realized an athletic band scrunchie for his head tentacles wasn't exactly a hat like Mauvache had gifted him so perhaps this was considered rude. But then not every person in the mall seemed to be wearing a hat either but the fish hadn't paid enough attention to put together if the people eyeing him were wearing hats or not. Truly Prana had a deep and complicated culture. And a lot of different things to eat. the boy might well have wasted his allotted wages in the food court then and there had he not been with the others. As luck would have they eventually found Melissa too. Or she found them. Another detail the hunter wasn't concerned with in the scheme of things. The important part was the girl hadn't been followed meaning whatever the fashionable stranger had done to her had satisfied them. That didn't stop Aduain from keeping an eye peeled for a while, expecting an attack from any angle. At one point he did relax his guard as he struck out to climb to the roof of the building from the inside to go swing around that light fixture he'd seen before. But his efforts were caught fairly well on with a warning from security rather than simply kicking him out as they might have had a right to do. Real mood killers those guys but then maybe it was better he not try something dangerous in front of so many people. They might worry about him. And clearly they didn't know what nen was so trying to explain all of that would be a hassle. Another day he thought as he departed with the others. How Aduain still had the energy to be nearly bouncing as he walked up to the group's new home was anyone's guess but bounce he did. It only got worse at the sight of the cleaners. The Fae Cleaning Crew, or so their clothing labeled them, were a sight unlike anything Aduain had seen. Such tiny little people, working away tirelessly at tidying the living space. Melissa undertook some dealings with them and excused herself to her room leaving the fish with Morgan and Fen. "So what'cha guys gonna do now?" he asked aimlessly for a moment before looking to either side. The boy leaned in and whispered "I'm probably gonna try flooding the shower rooms and see where that gets me." With the less than innocent plan stated he stood back into a much more relaxed pose and volume to continue speaking. "So if that sounds fun I'd love to have ya! But I can do that whenever if we got something else cooking." He beamed wondering what other wonders Prana was hiding. He almost hoped another random door to some other cool world would open up for them to take a peek into for a few minutes.

Flurry was definitely going to need some time to process things. That he had never before today heard the term chaos was one thing. Meeting two people that knew what it was and then having an object of chaos so powerful the tracker seemed ready to break was quite another. After some more fidgeting with the device Flurry seemed to have silenced it though it was still reading the two signals loud and clear. Trying to make sense of the chaos emerald occupied much of the lemur's thoughts as Ken spoke of Mephiles and his master. Before Flurry could catch up with it all, the hedgehog was kneeling asking for their help to save Mobius, going so far as to say his master had chosen them. Who Ken's master was, what he had chosen them to do, and what he could do to help save the whole world were some more questions to pile onto the list he was quickly forming. Surely, he thought, Ken couldn't be serious about all this. And yet nothing about the hedgehog's face implied anything but the utmost sincerity in what he was saying and asking. Thankfully, Zane spoke some of Flurry's shared concerns though the Lemur wasn't so sure about so quickly signing onto a project so large as save Mobius. "Yeah, well, I'm sure we got time to sort some of this out. Let's figure out where we are first and go from there." Flurry spoke in a tone that was clear of his discomfort with things though not entirely dismissive of the proposal. And as it happened there wasn't to be much choice in the matter as something flew into view with a crashing noise. Two robots as it happened seemed to be fighting, one of which seemed to be named Chimera. What either was doing here Flurry could only guess but the lemur knew he wanted no part of it. So naturally as he turned to leave Zane jumped into battle, drawing his attention back to the robots. Whether or not Chimera was something they could trust the wolf was busy attacking the other combatant with a pun that sent a shiver down the lemur's spine more than the actual ice he summoned could have hoped to do. "You guys sure about this? They could both be bad news." he tried to reason with his two new acquaintances. But somehow that didn't seem like it was going to prove productive. With a groan the lemur went against his better judgment for the second time that day. "A bridge to cross when we get to it I guess." Flurry said to no one in particular as he readied his own power. He unleashed a blast of wind would follow behind Zane's icicles looking to knock the more immediately aggressive robot back some after it hopefully got skewered.

Spikes confrontation with the robots had Mandevilla curious to say the least. It seemed she had assumed insult where none was intended. In that the plant could relate as the struggle of learning the mannerisms of the different races and cultures he encountered was always a tricky process. From what time he had spent with Spike thus far it shouldn't have alarmed the Kkekri when upon meeting her gaze so to speak, or at least as best he could with his flower, he was met with an aggressive question asking what his problem was. It was a curious question considering the plant didn't think he had a problem at the moment but then the way she had said it did seem to imply she wasn't necessarily looking for an answer. That didn't stop the plant from scribbling another message on one of his holo-screens for her. "I am well though lacking in certain organic compounds for my experiment. If there is to be no altercation perhaps we should take stock of the ship's supplies with A.C.E. and see what might be sold to us here." the message read. No questions this time, something of a rare occurrence but not unheard of. Still, Mandevilla had a long way to go when it came to reading Spike correctly. Whether or not she wished to accompany him he would make his way toward the captain and resident robot of the Janissary, all the while scribbling another message for A.C.E. "Query: May I have access to your last inventory of the ship and our current budget?" it read in a style similar to how Mandevilla had observed A.C.E. speak. Replicating the robot's speech with it had been at first some mixture of a joke and honest curiosity though eventually the Kkekri simply found the exchanges the two had in this style to be among the most concise in the ship. The directness of it all was somewhat satisfying. This message would come into A.C.E. and Oru's view when Mandevilla felt he wasn't interrupting them.

Reinaan's initial attack had proved effective and it soon became his task to simply hold the reptile in place so that Lindow could deliver a killing blow. The sensation was new though the technique was not. In hunting parties with his own kind he would often fill the role finishing a pinned creature as he lacked the strength of his brethren. That he was approaching it now filled the boy with a sense of pride in himself that might have gone to his head in the moment if the roar in the distance had not immediately drawn his attention when it sounded. The hunter's senses went into overdrive trying to make sense of the sound and he found it difficult to return Lindow's humor in the situation. "That thing's big. Like two or three times my height." the draken offered as an estimate of the approaching beast, loud enough he hoped everyone could hear. Reinaan didn't bother trying to guess how big or heavy something that tall would be. Going off these three currently running from it he very much doubted he needed to. Finally retracting his weapon from the downed beast's hide. They still had time before it arrived. Whether they were running or fighting they definitely needed to be clear of these things first and the two left living didn't seem focused on running away at this point. Of the remaining two, Keres had seemingly knocked one over with Damien moving to intercept it. The other was busy trading blows with Ryia with Madelyn providing cover with her magic. Lindow had taken off for his part but Reinaan didn't need to know what the man was planning to trust him on his actions. That just meant he needed to wrap up the kills. The boy lingered on the sight of the two only a split moment longer before he took off running to Ryia's aid, his halberd leading the charge. "It worked once." Reinaan growled under his breath as he looked to repeat his attack on the first of the reptiles on this one. A swift piercing wound to the side so he could push the beast to the ground.

With the one axe she had summoned a success, Estelle was ever so slightly relieved to see her allies doing well all things considered. Lana especially was making headway killing the rust monsters so as to not have to fight more than one at a time, the mine spell from earlier aiding that effort. True to her word from earlier the Fereis created a weapon for both of them, a sword for Chris and an axe for Lana, which appeared at their sides as the spells were finished. The spells would hover at their sides for a short period to use at their leisure but she couldn't well hold them forever. In fact as she continued observing the fight and thought of what spells to weave next the mage took note of Chris going in for the kill on the bugbear. Occupied as he was, Estelle took the privilege of using the sword of light she had created for him in his stead to aid his attack. With her focus on the weapon it rotated in the air to face its point at the beast's side. She took another moment to ensure the maneuver wouldn't hit Chris by some off chance and willed it thrust itself into the monster's side. This focus on the sword caused a flicker in the axe and mines previously produced which Estelle quickly began righting by exerting yet more magical energy. She contemplated using a Pleiades spell as she was quickly forming a veritable arsenal of light weaponry. But control was more important than raw magical strength right now. Still, the stress on her body was mounting and her breathing had become temporarily labored for the exertions. "Center yourself. Do not be swept away with every magical current. Mold it, shape it, bid it obey you." She muttered rudimentary teachings as a ritual of sorts to focus her efforts.

Definitely curious will be interested to see what you cook up.

The Kkekri Mandevilla on board the the Janissary had likely been the least concerned about the more turbulent stretch of their most recent flight. In fact it had been quite beneficial to what the plant had been engaged in. This particular chemical cocktail needed some agitation and nothing was quite as agitating as the ship nearly exploding after being fired upon. In fact, Mandevilla was almost upset the rest of their journey into Bekkik had been so calm. His limbs were well up to the task of manually shaking the flasks he was working with but it seemed less authentic to be doing it himself. Still there was a lovely salt falling out of solution in the end and what more could one ask for under the circumstances? The answer, at least to a plant based life form, came as Mandevilla was one of the last off board. One might not have been far off the mark if they had imagined a sigh of relief escaping the flower that was the closest thing the kkekri had to a face. There was no beating starlight after all. The artificial lights on the Janissary did the job but no matter how many different configurations he played with, Mandevilla could never approximate the full range of wavelengths of light a star emitted. Red stars weren't his favorite admittedly but his chloroplasts certainly weren't complaining as they began absorbing light. The plant's body took on a subtle red hue for no other reason than the star put out more red light than anything else and his body could only absorb so much of each wavelength of light, meaning whatever was left to be reflected was red. There was still one thing to check but the quality of the grass underfoot didn't inspire much confidence in Mandevilla. He dug one of his limbs a bit into the dirt and extended it a foot or so down. Roots would begin extending from the submerged limb to feel for nutrients and water in the ground. Both were lacking. That explained Bekkik's need for food deliveries then but it was still disappointing. LIght would have to do for now. Mandevilla retracted his limb from the ground and took in his surroundings. Captain Oru seemed on edge with A.C.E. confused at her turn of phrase. Scout seemed eager to move about and Spike seemed eager to fight with some people entirely unrelated to their job. This last point seemed worthy of immediate concern and the plant gently tapped the device on its torso to bring up a hologram to begin scribbling on. The ever-tactful Mandevilla's message would hover into Spike's view not long after as the plant approached her. "Is something the matter? What did those people do? Do you require assistance?" It read. Nothing but questions but then that was typical.

I Have no Mouth

Big lizards weren't high on Reinaan's list of expected interruptions to the mage girls instructing him about the woods and elves, but it wasn't unwelcome. Though he'd grown quite a bit at this point, the Fire Chosen had spent several decades as the smallest reptile in most situations he was in and the chip was still planted firmly on his shoulder. Still atop Kloqah he readied his halberd before standing up on her back as the group moved into position once it was clear they were going to have to fight. Not that he didn't think she could hold her own, Reinaan wasn't keen on having his mount take part in the scrap with the horned beasts. And so as Ryia and LIndow launched assaults on two of the stampeding creatures, the draken readied to attack the last. As it happened it was in position to attack Lindow who wasn't in a great position to avoid it. Reinaan leapt off of Kloqah's back with the spear end of his weapon leading the charge as he looked to skewer the beasts' side as it ran. The snarl he let out as he did so was among the more beastial noises to escape him in a long time. Embers were already licking at his lips, his fire breath on standby for the beast's reaction or, spirits forbid, if his spear failed to pierce its hide.

Aduain did his best to repress the smirk he so very badly wanted to wear plainly on his face. Muscles without nen didn't mean much, he already knew that. But it was nice to know something from his world still held true here in Prana. Aduain had heard Fen cheering for him in the middle of things and was slightly embarrassed now to have her praise even for throwing it. But then, Fen didn't have nen. How was a nenless Fen supposed to know what he'd done? Unless Fen was it's own kind of nen. An idle thought for later anyway and Aduain tucked it away as he took in the slowly calming atmosphere of the store as Adonis made his exit and the crowd that had gathered began dispersing. Of course, there was one person present who had to be aware of everything he'd done and Morgan let him know as much without saying it. "Well whenever she's ready I'd love to." the fish replied cheekily before Fen rejoined the duo, curious about nen of all things. "Magic huh... Well where to start. Nen's just... nen you know? Like everything that's alive has it. Well, I thought everything did 'til I got to Prana anyway." Aduain said with a chuckle as he put his hands behind his head while idly twirling one of his tentacles around his hand. "When you activate it, or get it activated, you sorta take control of the energy that makes you, you. From there it's just a matter of where you put it. Normally it's just sitting in and around you and keeps you younger-looking longer. But concentrated nen makes your muscles way stronger than they ever could be on their own so I just put it where I need it. Feet for jumping, arm for wrestling, all that stuff." The fish continued and he seemed deep in thought for a second before a realization flashed across his face. "Oh! But nen kind of does something like your magic. Some people get a special nen power called a hatsu and it's always unique to them! For me my nen can act like water and since I can do whatever I want to my nen I can do whatever I want with the water." Aduain beamed while describing his hatsu. Just to illustrate the point he summoned a droplet of water from his resting nen that hovered above his finger only to dissipate it after a moment back into his nen. He left room for Morgan to add or correct him since he wasn't great at remembering everything he'd been taught about it. But eventually the group got back to shopping. For the fish hunter's part there was no shirts or pants to be purchased as few things had been catching his eye. But he did take a shine to something else from the athletic goods. Sweatbands. Armed with five differently colored bands, one on each wrist and ankle along with one bunching his tentacles together on his head, the fish was ready to make his purchase. But it was at around this point that Fen remined Aduain Melissa still wasn't with them. A shiver went down his spine at the thought of the photo-obssessed fashionista finding him again before worrying what had happened to Meliisa for her to have been gone this long. "G-good question! Maybe we should ask around. She might have gone to a different store to find us." he offered.

Zane taking to explaining himself first was helpful because Flurry was busy worrying he had broken the Chaos Tracker after all. It wouldn't stop making noises no matter how he fussed with it. Eventually the lemur decided maybe it was best to simply accept it was working as intended and from what little time he'd had with it he could make some sense of the device's output. There were two distinct readings but it took Flurry a moment to realize the second was there. It was smaller and removed from the immediate location. The second... that couldn't be right. As Zane described a very similar situation what he'd experienced prior to getting dropped here, Flurry shifted position, moving left and right some few feet and looking pretty intently in Ken's direction. Whatever this powerful reading was, it was on Ken's person. "Same story here except I was out in the middle of no where checking out some canyon. It got swarmed with these crazy looking guys that were all identical to each other. I was just about to get on Roxie's ship when I fell here instead..." The lemur explained while looking at the Chaos Tracker, still making noise, again. "Hey, uh, Ken right? This question's probably not gonna make any sense, I mean I don't even know all that much about this stuff yet, so tell me if you have no idea what I'm talking about. But you wouldn't happen to have something... chaos related on you? Or like, chaos adjacent maybe. 'Cuz, wow, either this thing's more messed up than I thought or you're just swimming in whatever this chaos stuff is."