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Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

Nazca Whitehall

Clockwork Autumn

It seemed the rag-tag luncheon group dissipated as quickly as it had formed, though no small part of it had been due to Jeanne’s desire to return to the dorms for a bath. That put a dampener on some plans, but Nazca didn’t have any particular problem with it. She still had film to develop, and despite the day’s commotion, she still had to fully unpack and set up her clockwork laboratory. Together with Jeanne and Ryuuko, they left for the dorms, but not before exchanging contact information with the Vietnamese, the Russian, and the Incan. The Korean girl, Hana lived in the same dorms as her, so there was no need to personally probe the girl for such information, though she was sure the others would be more interested.

Once at the dorms, she bid the Frenchwoman and the rather friendly Japanese girl a temporary farewell. “Thank you. Hopefully I will find something useful,” she responded, dipping her head slightly in acknowledgement. “If you need anything, just knock on my door,” she offered, before disappearing behind said wooden panel.

To her surprise, one of her birds was at the window, waiting patiently with a sealed telegram tied to its realistic mechanical claws. Frowning lightly, she strode over and claimed the letter, not expecting another communique so soon.

My, it seemed there were some very interesting individuals on this island.

The paper was soon burned away at an oil lamp by her desk, removing any traces of its existence.

Nazca then got to work unpacking. Splitting boxes and unclasping leather suitcases, she began to arrange equipment and sundry all about her suite. Despite the magnificent size of these dorm rooms, the sheer mass of equipment and materials that she required made the entire effort difficult to keep organized. She had heard of students that set up workshops in buildings independent of their dorms and living spaces, and decided that perhaps she should look into a similar arrangement.

For now, she continued at her efforts, stopping only when she fully unpacked her film developing equipment. Without a dedicated room in the suite, the bathroom would unfortunately have to do, but it wasn’t long before she had her reel-to-reel film projector rigged up to read the roll of tape her spying hawk had captured. Projecting onto the bare wall, she sat down to run through the footage.

Most of it was rather mundane and boring, as had been expected. As the sun descended, most of the footage simply contained the simple movements of students finding their dorms and exploring the island. It was good aerial reconnaissance, though, and would do well to provide her with a rather accurate map of the city once she developed a frame as a still, but this was useless for her current purposes. She wound the reel forward.

Things got more interesting once curfew hit. The fog rolled in as quickly as she had remembered. Problematic for the camera, though, was the sheer luminescence the fully lit streets provided, making for a high contrast image. Nonetheless, she could see that the fog rose about twenty meters in height, covering most of the buildings in the city.

Then, she saw something that made her pause. In a brief frame, a strange black shape jutted out of the fog before disappearing once again. She quickly rewound, pausing the film there, studying it closely. If she was right, it was between Ryuuko’s ryokan and the inner circle of the city. Perhaps right in Jeanne’s ‘action’ zone that night? It was certainly a strange shape, one of a diamond, and larger than a human.

What was it? And where did it go? Was it truly so fast as to only appear in a single frame, or was there something else afoot?
She continued on. She would develop that frame and share it with Jeanne and the others later. Soon after, she could see the distinct miasma of smoke rising from the inner circle, where the library was. She made a mental note of the time—about 11PM.

The tape ran for a while longer, but aside from the burning building, there was not much else until the film ran out.

Well then, she thought.

It was time to share this with the others.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Posted. Sorry about the delay, let's get this back on track.

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

Aureia made a little grimace at Alasayana’s assessment of the quality of the hunted meat. Being the type of god she was, she rather much enjoyed luxury and comfort, and tough, stringy meat was not her idea of cuisine or proper living. It really wasn’t living at all. The goddess of gold wasn’t enough of a spoiled brat to complain about slim pickings when they were still like this, though, and she still remembered a good trick or too from now ancient human chefs at making poor quality meat go a very long way in the taste department.

Thankfully, the priestess girl supplied her with a toolless means of creating a fire. She had never heard of a plant that could be easily used to create flame –wasn’t that the bane of plants? Aureia didn’t get it—but she found the strange conical shaped plant easily enough from some nearby low-hanging vines.

While she was at it, she looked for some plants that were hopefully mildly acidic and totally not poisonous, so that the meat could be tenderized in its juices. If she didn’t find any, it wasn’t a big deal, and regardless, she soon set to attempting to start a fire with the plant-thing after setting up the gathered firewood.

Except she still didn’t know how to use it.

“Hum… Perchance you might remember how Sir Oren used this suspicious plant to create a fire, Flora?”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Sorry about that, just have been busy and a bit distracted. I'll post soon. The pacing was fine, though!

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y @Guy0fV4lor @Crusader Lord

Perhaps the actual ambush might have been sloppy and better executed –though a good plan was always a simple plan—but Narkissa had achieved her intended goal with great success. Whoever was about to be ambushed wouldn’t be any longer, and although it had been slightly dicey with Lazhira herself, nobody had been injured.

Except for some of the hunters, that is. Seeing a couple of them swallowed up whole was going to give her nightmares in the future.

So when the targets of the hunters did appear, their ambush was nowhere close to complete, even if there was abject chaos reigning in the field. The people that appeared out of the obelisk did give the white-haired girl pause, though—she didn’t know the dwarf-like man that appeared, but she certainly recognized Leannah, and… was that Donovan? She hadn’t seen him since the first day, hadn’t she?

“You two head on. That’s Leannah and the others, and I’d like to see them come out intact and not inside a slime,” she frowned. “You take Lazhira and the deer… thing and head back, I’ll be with you shortly.”

Seeing who had shown up, Narkissa felt further obligated to intervene despite having pressed Misaki and Lazhira to withdraw, especially since the latter was still a prime target. So, she hurried the two girls along while keeping a rearguard as she lingered at the edges of the scene. There, she returned to slinging her spells at the hunters and particularly the slime, trying to confuse the scene even more so that Leannah and her party could make it out unscathed. If she caught any of their eyes, she would wave at them and gesture for them to escape in her direction.

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

Nazca Whitehall

Clockwork Autumn

“Perhaps,” replied Nazca, the sides of her mouth twitching upwards. “Ever since traveling on an airship, aerial photography has been a small pastime of mine.” She shrugged. It wasn’t that big of a deal, even if she did actually dabble in spy work on the side. She was far more interested in the radio device that Jeanne had activated, glancing out the window at the smoke signal that the arson-loving Frenchwoman had set off.

It was becoming apparent that her reputation was very well deserved.

It was at that moment that one of Nazca’s birds returned to her, fluttering in through the window before landing on her shoulder with a little peep and chirp. It was the small clockwork sparrow that she had left with the Austrian sham. As low of an opinion she had of him, he was still an extra body that could probably be at least relied upon to do some manner of investigation, and indeed, there was a small message rolled up in his claws that she quickly pulled out before repocketing the bird.

“Hmm…” Unrolling the message, she quickly read the paper. Well, if he obtained the student roster, that would be very useful indeed, not just for this investigation, but also for future endeavors. Once she was finished with it, she read it aloud for the benefit of her companions. Unlike some of the other messages she received, it was hardly secret, after all.

Finding that it would be good to keep in contact with this group, she offered to exchange contact information. “Since it appears we will be splitting soon, perhaps we should exchange our dorm addresses to remain in easy communication? I doubt you all have wireless sets, but I can supply some more messenger birds to facilitate.”

It was also about this time that the tanned Englishwoman was made aware of the seating of a nearby table. Curiously, it was one of her dormmates, as well as the Russian, Valeriya. Well, it seemed like they had a good sense of taste, too, to be dining here, although Nazca was quite sure that the latter was also familiar with the steam weapon that Jeanne had described. Ryuuko also seemed to notice and in fact pointed it out… quite confrontationally, in fact.

Letting out a light sigh, she gave the duo a greeting as well. “Valeriya, and Yun Hana, was it? I believe we are dormmates, hello.” Nazca then turned to Valeriya and gave her a nod. “We had a pleasant conversation last evening. That said, your expertise would be rather useful right now, as we are conducting an investigation into a very similar matter…”

The Epic of Beginnings - Fragments of a weathered scroll

Narkissa Langdon

@Rune_Alchemist @PKMNB0Y

Well, whatever she was doing, it was actually working out better than she had expected. The hunters had been caught severely off-guard, and they were just about eating all of her spells like candy. It didn’t take too long for her to realize that perhaps the plan was working out far better than she had expected. Perhaps too much so…

She winced as a hunter disappeared inside of the monster slime. Oh, that was not good.

Narkissa wasn’t quite sure what Misaki was doing, meanwhile. Hell, she had entirely discounted the deer thing that was nearby, but she was pleasantly surprised when it joined the battle… with whatever strange supernatural abilities that it had. Regardless, she didn’t like the direction the engagement was turning into. Seeing the hunters were thoroughly distracted now, she decided to risk calling out from her cover at Lazhira. “Pssst! Lazhira! Get the bloody hell back, I think we’ve done enough!”

She started prepping to bail, as well. They’d done most of the job in counter-ambushing and destroying the hunter’s preparations, and that was good enough for her. Doing much more beyond that and risking Lazhira and Misaki wasn’t worth it, and the former looked like she was in quite some trouble, being near that slime. Even if its attention was focused on that hunter leader girl, the fact that it could subsume human beings whole was not something she was in the business of playing with.

She just prayed the deer could put up a good enough fight.

The white-haired girl began working her way back to Misaki, if only to tell the Japanese girl her new intentions. Occasionally, she took potshots into the battle, although her shots were increasingly focused on the out-of-control slime.

Once there, she phrased her intentions bluntly. “We need to get Lazhira and leave. Maybe bring reinforcements.”

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

Nazca Whitehall

Clockwork Autumn

As it happened, Nazca’s choice of restaurant had been entirely based on the cuisine she had experienced the other night. Despite her unfortunate encounter with some dish that her stomach had not agreed on, she had rather enjoyed the Oriental cuisine out on display at the ball, and it was the Japanese dishes that had especially brought a small to her palate. Vietnamese and Chinese had come in a close second and third, but alas for Ryuuko, after taking the lead of the little arson brunch party, the first restaurant she had come across was the Katsubochi.

Although the British-raised Abyalan girl struggled with the chopsticks, it was clear that she had taken to the Japanese meal, happily downing the entire set with the subtlest smile on her face. The mackerel and the soup was delicious, and the natto had not even fazed her.

Though, she had noticed the frowns and looks of distaste on a few of her fellow students, and couldn’t help but to stare at Ryuuko and wonder what was wrong with the Japanese egoist and her culinary preferences. Surely her break with her country didn’t also mean she absolutely hated the food as well? No, no, that certainly couldn’t be it.

“I see.”

Slowly nursing her miso soup, she returned her attention to what truly mattered, Jeanne’s testimony. Certainly much had occurred in the night after all. To her, at least, it was obvious that the two actors that the Frenchwoman had encountered were likely working in concert. Nazca briefly wondered what bone they would have to pick with Jeanne, but it was clear her reputation preceded her at this point. Still, she couldn’t help but to rub the bridge of her nose at some of the decisions the girl had taken last night. It was absolute insanity, enough to match what had happened to her to begin with.

“A bat with a camera, is it… well, it’s certainly not the only flying thing with a camera that night,” Nazca murmured. She’d only briefly glanced at sections of the film negative that she recovered in the morning—she would have to immediately develop it now, if only for the curiosity of what her hawk might have picked up. “I took photographs of the city after dark with one of my birds to test whether or not they would properly function as a result of the starsteel formulation. It’s doubtful because of the thick fog, but it is possible that I might have captured something useful in relation to what happened last night,” she decided to cautiously offer, omitting any in-depth explanation of the full capabilities of her bird-drones.

“Regardless, I doubt it’s difficult to disguise oneself for a short time on the airship, especially if they were intending to be deceptive enough to attack another student after curfew. They could still be a student.”

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Aureia, of gold, commerce, wealth,

and the far less important, trivial aspects of travel and luck

Aureia simply shrugged as O’Menus seemed to get her point, and strode off to scout ahead. She contemplated joining him for a moment –it made the most sense to do, after all—but for all of her situational acumen, she really didn’t want to hang out all alone around the sun god when he was grumpy. And if recent memory served right, he was grumpy a lot these days.

So, she elected to stay with the group, though she took a mental note of the direction the god had scouted towards incase they would have to rescue him for some reason, bidding him farewell with a nonchalant wave.

She stepped back towards Alasayana and the priestess, raising her eyebrows at the animal carcass that she had brought back. It didn’t look bad at first glance, but she really didn’t know where to begin cooking that thing… though, Aureia did know how to cook. It was a small pastime for her to poach recipes from mortals, after all.

“Me, I can help,” she offered, deciding to make herself useful and help Mori with the task of preparing a meal. She’d never worked with no equipment at all, though… How were they going to make a fire? “Oh… hmm, perhaps we shouldn’t have sent off the sun god, some heat or a fire would be useful right now.”

Aureia, was, after all, completely clueless on how to set up a camp or even get a proper fire going without the trappings of civilization.

How…

Civilized?

Dead Gods Dream: A post-apocalyptic divine action-adventure RP

Ah whoops, I'll post tomorrow.