ERode

Iris Ascendis

_{@Nanaya@Estylwen}

“When?”

That was all that Otis had to say in response to Davil’s praise. There had been no time, after all, where the excitable wannabe-hero had actually asked him what his capabilities were, and thus, he had not seen any reason to explain what exactly his own capabilities were. Power words, impressive as they appeared, were the least preferrable method of problem solving in Otis’s arsenal. It was a blanket solution for specific problems, like using a grenade to open up a present box. Even with intents focused, the effects were still often area-of-effect, expanding outwards at the speed of sound. And, most importantly, it required a specific personal essence that one radiated outwards; such power words were far too inconsistent in terms of performance when the situation was actually stressful.

It was fair to say then, that despite the success, Otis wore a scowl.

Without any further hesitation, the Strigidae wheeled off once more, following in the wake of the returning Mannekins. There was no sense of urgency in his movements now, however, with his speed just enough to urge a light jog out of his companions. Their opponent sounded like a student as well, but it seemed entirely incomprehensible that they were able to reach the auditorium before anyone else even got to the starting point. The attitude, however? That was a hero he could understand, so full of ego that they would throw away their heroism in order to become the singularity. A meaningful obsession. A proper arrogance.

“Remember the conditions,” he spoke, as they neared the final stage of their journey. “We need to be seated inside the auditorium at 10AM. Nothing more, nothing less.” Actually vanquishing this final boss wasn’t something that would give them extra marks. It could even be detrimental, if collateral destroyed the seats in the auditorium, if they were caught up in the mad melee that would soon ensue when all the other students finally caught up. “Our opponent is arrogant and desires a true confrontation, but we don’t need to give him that.”

Empty shells clitter-clattered in his wake, new bullets slotted in to the freed up space. He lingered upon one, inscribing upon it a simple spell to generate a brilliant light.

“Davil, you go first, on my gunshot. Close your eyes to account for the flash, then rush in as fast as you can towards our friend in the auditorium.” Otis’s lips twisted. “If he’s going to be the true hero of Vaal Nero, you’ll have to overcome him. Do it now.”

“And…” A slight pause, his gaze turning towards the shadow-weaver just long enough that she knew he was speaking to her. “I’m Otis Tan Arillo. I’ll need you to secure three seats or one bench after Davil gets in. A door will open up beside you. Toss the seat in and if you don’t wish to fight, enter that door.”

That was the safer option, after all. They could just hide until it was almost time, then return their seat to the auditorium and sit down from there.

“I don’t mind whether we fight or hide, but all things considered? It’s a waste to show everything we can do during the entrance exam, so that option’s open to you as well, Davil. But I’ll still need you to give that ‘hero’ a scare beforehand.”

Iris Ascendis

Just making up lotsa gratuitous magical bullshit. I'll leave it up to you to decide if it works or not, Nanaya.

Iris Ascendis

_{@Nanaya@Estylwen}

Otis, however, ignored Davil’s pleas and the puppeteer’s taunts. He had at least somewhat expected the former to bungle things up, going by previous examples, and he was well-accustomed to the sorts of words spewed from the oral cavity of the latter. Conquering the world with nothing but their mind? The folly of someone who knew nothing and created nothing. Technology was an extension of the will of humankind, the clearest indication of how one can take the principles that govern the world and twist it to suit their needs. The towers that scraped the skies were not craft from some benchwarming nincompoop thinking about them. They were built with bodies well-experienced in the craft of masonry.

Huh.

Otis’s head twisted in thought. He had overthought it. The puppeteer had only spoken about conquest, spoken about it like a pirate or a thief, incapable of production, in which case yes, a mind may be enough to do so. That, at least, was fair.

Leaving Ciara to answer Davil’s cries, the Strigidae himself got to work pulling apart the Mannekin before him. It was just a torso after the shadowy evisceration that had been delivered upon it, but the core components remained. Internal gears to generate physical power, with your standard Essence-conversion rune to convert atmospheric magic into kinetic force. A two-stage transformation process, alongside spherical gears inscribed to the shoulder and hip joints that would receive commands from the command web to operate parts of their body. This particular Mannekin featured a three-set gear system too, allowing it to manipulate its limbs at differing speeds for differing purposes. It wasn’t an ingenious design, but it possessed both utility and simplicity, making it ideal to serve as a disposable army for Wingram’s examinations.

What he sought, however, was the spindle-like object that served to receive magical signalling and transmitted those requests to the auxiliary gears. That was the origin of the whirring of these puppets as they moved, an inscribed piece of aged and lathered oak that even now spun with an obvious desire to attack.

And it wasn’t something that Otis had any intention of overwriting. He could disrupt and hijack one core, make it subservient to his own whims. Taking what was within hand’s reach, for no reason at all.

Or he could use it as his standard instead, as his litmus test.

Thus, the Seeker’s reasoning. Essence made up all of existence, and the fundamentals of magic was altering what already existed externally. As the Mannekin’s construction was not foreign to him in the ways that mattered, it was indeed a magical construct. It possessed some form of autonomy, judging by every situation where the Mannekins approached in a disorderly, but not wholly disorganized, mob, but it did not issue its own commands. There would be someone else doing this then, sending something in the air to serve as a way of signalling. These were constructs, not organisms, so life-to-life links established in standard telepathy spellwork would not work, and maintaining such a network was exhaustive too. It was wide-range signalling then, signalling that could not be disrupted by combat.
Couldn’t be airborne. Too vulnerable to disruption in closed spaces like this.

Couldn’t be lightning-based. Readings from a quick spell he crafted detected nothing abnormal, and there was only anti-synergy using lightning with wood.

Couldn’t be visual. While there had been instances where the Mannekins showed a response to their environment, primarily in chasing down their quarry, every instance had been triggered by…

Audio. Commands were never verbally issued, either by the woman or the boy, and they had not always been speaking, but that was no indication that the ‘vessel’ that delivered their voice was shut off during that silence. Animals had long been proven to be capable of hearing sounds that humans can’t, and only specific sounds could truly cancel out other specific sounds. Vibrations as well, did possess synergy with wood and strings. Twas the form of musical instruments, perhaps, of the violin or cello, resonating at pitches he could not hear but that the spindle-core could parse.

That would be Otis’s hypothesis.

A shame, really, that he didn’t have time to isolate the specific signalling noise and then reverse only that. The brute force solution, inartistic as it was, ought to be attempted.

Breath escaped his lips, tranquility smoothing out his furrowed brows.

“Calm.”

The essence of tranquility subsumed the air and stilled everything, until one could not even hear the sound of their own heart, the sound of their own lungs. A maddening silence, to still even the hearts of the artificial.

If that was enough to cut the strings of the puppets, then Otis would be pleased enough.

If that wasn’t though?

Then it’d be back to reloading his bullets and blasting, while wheeling further down the hall and leaving Davil to muck about like a pig in the mud.

Expedition to Isekai

---

//Day 1 | Location: Nameless Forest - Lakeside
_{@AThousandCurses@baraquiel@Nakushita@Yankee@Vertigo@Cu Chulainn}
There it was. The first to go loopy.

And there was no way Hiroshi was going to leave, no way he was going to miss out on this. Was it a side effect from consuming the golden blood? Was this another manifestation of the stranger powers that the Awakened possessed? Was it literally just owing to the rock that Ayana had picked up, some sort of light-novel-esque curse? Or did that perpetual klutz always have some sort of underlying mental condition? Regardless of what it really was, Yukiko was looking increasingly nervous, Masato had decided to leave the whole situation without even a backwards glance, Duncan was about as wide-eyed and empty-brained as the basketball ace could be expected, and only Shun was willing to step up.

Good girl. He should find an opportunity to chat with her some time. Pick at her brain too. But for now?

“Daisuke, help Yukiko get the three of them to the shelter. They can rest up better there.” Exacting words, the sort of words to inspire action.

Daisuke’s expression was a bit complex though, casting a glance towards his best friend. “You comin’ with?”

A shake of his head. Of course Hiroshi wasn’t going to.

The vibes of this whole situation, of the nonsense that Ayana suddenly spouted off, wasn’t anything that Daisuke really got. He generally just avoided Kogen for the same reason; it was hard for him to parse just how serious people were being about that sort of stuff. And while the klutz’s crazy laughter had set him on edge…he wasn’t going to try anything if all she was doing was laughing. A sigh escaped between his teeth. “Yukiko, go hoist up Asahi, yeah?” A slap upon his broad chest. “I can carry out the other two.”

And so, the group gradually dispersed.

And so, there were soon just three, to witness the continuation of Ayana’s spiral: Shun, Duncan, and Hiroshi.

---

After an admittedly half-hearted effort to locate Kogen (the dude was Awakened; he could take care of himself), Masato headed back to where the others were. Most of them had transitioned to eating the fish that Kumi had cooked up by now, happy to have something hot and tasty to bite upon. The Ito twins were squatted over the fireplace in their gym shorts, both of them soaked to the skin from the fishing they’ve done, while Rin and her crew at the shelter were continuing to make things bigger and better, the inventor-in-making apparently having hit her stride. She looked a bit shaky, perhaps owing to the constant usage of her own Facsimile, but she looked about as energetic as she had been for weeks.

Elsewhere, Ayano was side-eyeing Fujita and Haruko as the two of them had a conversation that seemed uncharacteristically animated, while Tsubaki spoke with Maki over the matters of their own injuries. Neither of them were dead, which meant that once Asahi recovered, he could probably help Maki fix up her own broken bones too. It was good news, better news once Yukiko and Daisuke hauled the three unconscious (but healthy-ish) boys to where Tsubasa and Ayane, the twin talents of the Arts and Crafts Club, were weaving together what looked to be blankets out of the surrounding reeds, plants, and branches.

“Over here, Masato,” Tsubasa called, when their gazes met. “You have to tell us: what happened over there? They look so much healthier now!”

There was no reason for him to refuse her summons, was there?

…

And that, of course, was what Kogen saw when he stomped back through the woods, his own stomach growling. Everyone else getting along, eating fish and warming themselves up by the fire. The injured all healed up, the shelter built to grand heights, and even Ayana and Shun making up with Duncan in the distance, if his eyes didn’t deceive him.

They forgave betrayal easily, didn’t they?

But he?

He saw Masato there with Tsubasa, enjoying a merry fucking time, despite having done absolutely jack shit. Asahi was the one that knocked himself out and Masato had the fucking gall to just sit there, soaking in all the praise for those achievements?

Kogen never forgave. And it was too early to forget.

Iris Ascendis

Just Sifr now, before we start T-posing on Nanaya.

Kurai Majokko

_@Emeth

They fell, and yet they did not.

Even as illusions spoke otherwise, Nonsuch’s own body was inviolable. Her hair did not rise with a sudden drop. Her stomach did not churn at the sudden sensation. There were things true and false, and what was true had been carved into her flesh a long time ago, more certain than blood-inked parchments that became the foundation of human faiths. And in response to Evil Eye’s mania, all she did was place her index finger against her lips, the universal sign of silence.

It wouldn’t do good for Nonsuch, if Evil Eye let such a pacifistic impression of the paladin slip to the rest of the club. Both for her own reputation, as well as for the safety of the dark magical girls. It was always up in the air. She could always change her mind.

Darkness returned in time, seeping past the delusions embedded in crimson, specks of starlight peeking out and the silence of open air just as deafening as the roar of freefall. Evil Eye was allowed to say her piece, but both sides knew that neither would be truly convinced. In the end, the question was posed, a true question amongst the nonsense rhetoric.

And with a gaze like sunlight, like a deity looking down from above, Nonsuch answered, nomenclature shifting as if possessed by another.

“Because when night turns white, Evil Eye, it would be useful for me that you and yours are capable of leaving a blot of ink on these pages.”

The dark fell, letting gravity take the reins.

The light stepped off too, and yet remained suspended even as her head was closer to the Earth than her feet. Attraction and repulsion remained, even as Heaven and Earth were reversed. That was the secret, after all, to raising what was destined by the world to fall.

All you had to do was change the laws that governed that world.

All it took was the wish of a single girl.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Read up on this CS. Basically as much a scoundrel as your character sounds like, but also still considered a Knight.

Iris Ascendis

And the duo (plus one) is back together! Thirty minutes is surely gonna be enough time for some reverse-magic hijinks.

Iris Ascendis

_{@Nanaya@Estylwen}

They weren’t the best of buds, but Otis wasn’t a stranger to one-sided relationships.

It was impressive, in a sense, that Wingram Academy had constructed a facsimile of a small town, one not dissimilar to the college towns that made up Rekordia’s academic core. The leanings of the shops and buildings that presented themselves were a touch sterile in how bland and straightforward their names were, and the place itself was still a ghost town when all things were to be considered, and yet all that could be explained away with a simple statement: there would be nervous students and roving Mannekins. The civilians who would operate such stores and facilities were undoubtedly not present, in order to allow for such a violent entrance ceremony to occur.

And, just as his gaze settled upon a door labelled ‘Main Building’, his connection with his partner on the other side tightened. One thought, confirming both physically and spatially the veracity of the auditorium. The second thought, confirming that whatever awaited them inside was going to be a fair bit more combative than the lot of them were prepared for. The third, underlined with urgency.

The fourth, manifesting from his own thought?

Mannekins rushed out from market stalls, crossbows pointed towards the duo before they could even enter the Main Building.

“Show me wonders of this world.”

Crossbow bolts embedded themselves into the back of a wooden door as Otis turned the brass knob and pulled it open to reveal a world of illuminated darkness, of stars and planets craft from prototypes and materials. Where a dozen weather patterns co-existed within the astral plane, where islands of marble upheld workbenches laden with texts and instruments.

He strode on in, sparing a backwards glance to Davil. If the lad feared the dark, that was all there was to it, but if he followed through, joining the Strigidae in this expanded domain, where a mortal’s whims became divine decree? Blades of all sorts would be pulled from their resting places amongst the stars and orbit the youth, a veritable armory of an inventory’s whimsy. Springloaded cane-swords designed to perfectly ricochet back into the hands of their wields. Massive greatswords with a hollowed-out middle that would resonate like a tuning fork upon impact. Chainsaw katanas that belched out grease and smoke at the touch of a button. Bladeless hilts that would spring out a hardlight edge with but a firm grasp of their handles.

“Pick one. Figure out their utility in ten seconds. You’ll be playing hero for a girl, so don’t mess up your debut, Davil.” A furrowing of his brow. “And my name is Otis. Awe-tis. Get it right, or I’m sending you an invoice after this.”

With those words, he continued down a path, each step upon the void replaced by blocks of marble. There were doors in that hallway. There will be more doors too, with a spell to expand the utility of his telepathy spell. All he had to do then, was pick the correct exit.

The entrance disappeared. The exit appeared.

His hand rested upon a silver handle, ending his sojourn in his world.

…

A door to Ciara’s left swung open. If her gaze turned, she’d see first the barrel of a familiar gun and second a void that drew away to reveal a regular room.

Third on that list though?

Otis’s hand, fanning the hammer of his revolver as he emptied five explosive bullets into the Mannekins closest to her, his words drowned out by the roar of essence-amplified gunpowder, but his intentions clear: he had arrived, and they would see through the last stretch together.

Well, no, maybe it wasn't so clear, because upon recognizing his folly, Otis repeated his message.

"Capture one of those things! If they're just magic-based constructs, I can reverse-engineer their signalling and take control!"

Iris Ascendis

<Snipped quote by ERode>

It would be the same building.

@Nanaya

Cool. One more thing to confirm then. There wouldn't be anything stopping Otis from 'exiting' through the doors into the Main Building with his Ethos, would there? Like, no magical shitfuckery?