vanovick

Welcome to the Nexus

🦀Layke🦀

Soft bedsheets and air conditioning, is a combo Layke never expected to wake up to. She'd been given the world's shittiest job, and even she could see it past all the fancy titles they'd given her. She wasn't the smartest fish in the pond, but she definitely could tell when people thought she was one of them. Unfortunate as it ended up being, working alone and away from society had the benefits of not actually having to do the job she was assigned. After all, it wasn't even real in the first place.

Comfy bed could only last so long, because waking up in a strange new place was exactly how her last assignment ended up being given to her, and finding out if this was another "spontaneous" shift in duties was on the more important side of matters to uncover. She'd recognize a bog standard hotel room easily, and the place didn't seem like it was meant to be her new permanent residence. "Why" and "where" were the next questions to enter her mind, as no matter how hard she tried, remembering where she was last was difficult to say the least. Everything about her was the same, so unless she was in the best dream of her life, she could come to no other conclusion.

"Holy shit I've been kidnapped, and now I'm probably gonna get sold to some crazy person and they've probably locked me inside this room and this entire hotel is some illegal trafficking site for hundreds of people and they're just gonna take all my organs and sell them off and then I'm gonna be dead and gone forever and then oh god where am I wanna go home have to escape--"

Layke rolls off the bed towards the window, parting the window curtains aside to reveal a comforting sight, a wide view of the ocean past a long stretch of sandy beach. Water meant swimming, which meant freedom and not being "captured" anymore. But now the hardest decision had to be made, should she run now and hope no one notices the sprint towards the beach? Or should she gamble on sneaking out quietly and also hope no one would notice her, slowly creeping along the sand.

During the rough mental process of calculating these incredibly dangerous odds, her mind blanks as she looks at the rest of her room to notice her prized possession, her hat! Nice.

This newly acquired item did nothing to reassure her of where she was, but with this, she could now conceal her face as she went out, so stealth was now a more viable plan. It's not like much can hurt her anyways, right? And maybe, there was a chance she didn't actually get kidnapped, but acting under the impression that it could be was much more thrilling. Immediately testing the door and finding out it wasn't locked either took a lot more of the excitement out of her head. Yeah, it probably didn't make sense for her captors to bring along her hat...

The hallway had no other exciting reveals either, just a brightly lit passageway with room numbers dotting the walls, with some plaques indicating the direction of the lobby. Second theory came to her mind: drowning and washing ashore in a strange new land. Much more likely. At least to her. Maybe call to the lobby would be a safe option to start off with before leaving. She could only hope the list of numbers had someone with answers.

beep beep phone noises dial tone

"Last Resort, The Last Resort you'll ever need! How can I help you this morning!?"

Layke immediately slammed down the receiver. That had to be a joke of a name, and she was getting pranked. Hallway time.

The first person she came across in the lobby wasn't the worst sight to see, but the problems arose pretty quickly when she realized her disguise wouldn't do much here. That man in the chair was pretty flesh looking, and she was pretty watery looking. Glancing around the room to see several other fleshy looking yet robotically stiff humans was just downright disappointing. The fact that none of the workers were raising a fuss at the sight of her was good, but then again, the man sitting down had horns and wings, also kind of wacky. Yeah, she could probably take him in a fight anyways if he was mean, like what's he even gonna do? Fly away indoors?

All she could do now was walk around into his vision and hope his face was more inviting than his clearly devilish features.

@Ryik

Welcome to the Nexus

Name: Layke
Gender: ♀
Age: 12863

Race: Water Elemental.
Body is fully composed of condensed water. This aqueous form is malleable when force is applied, but not capable of applying the force required to distort itself. Repairs to the form will deplete the available water within the body until an amount insufficient to meet the total volume is reached. Further damage to the body will cause her form to destabilize or collapse (causing death) unless external water can be incorporated. Time is required to assimilate fresh/unprocessed water into a fluid usable for self-repair. Assimilation is somewhat faster while resting. Capable of drinking liquids through osmosis. Capable of drinking from contaminated sources. Resists physical, fire, and water attacks.

Appearance:

Big Image wtf

Equipment: Crab 🦀

Personality: Talking to fish who can’t respond all day has resulted in a confident and committed individual fueled by the need to bring leadership to the unguided masses (of fish.) It is simply her duty to provide assistance from her self-proclaimed position of superiority.

Background: Admiral of the seventh pond, the only pond isolated on an atoll in the sea. Manager of the astrological balance and sealife ambiance of an island within the pond within the atoll. Her one and only job is to assist any beached cetaceans. This species does not exist within her assigned “pond”.

Blissfully unaware that there is land or ocean beyond her pond, lives exclusively on the island within the pond within the atoll.

Favorite Food: Swedish Fish candies.

Ability: Conjuration of aquatic constructs that resemble marine animals. Constructs are capable of performing physical feats similar to their real-life counterparts, but lack any unique functionalities that stem from bodily composition. (Electric eel discharges, venomous spines)

Weaknesses/Limitations: Construct size is proportionate to conjuration time. Tiny fish can be made in less than a second. Creating a 30-pound fish would only take about one second, and creating a great white shark would take about a minute. There is an upper limit to conjured mass in a given period of time, which slowly refreshes over time. Constructs can be destroyed easily if they are small, with greater durability proportional to mass. When destroyed, constructs melt into water which then vanishes after a brief period of time.

Weak to electric and ice attacks. Dehydrates faster in low-humidity environments and can freeze to death in low temperatures.

Theme:

Music

Ardor

[Celine, Claire, Damon and Roy]

”Kayden that was rude!”

“Ai-chan has feelings too!” Claire reprimands Kayden.

”Does it actually?”

“Yes!”

”Fuck you kids. Fuck all of you.”

”You’re welcome Kayden, glad to know I made the right choice.

”Fuck off.” Despite how badly he looked like he wanted to throttle Damon, Kayden sits down on a bit of collapsed brick and watches as the rest of the kids leave the lab.

Damon stands nearby, doing the same thing. ”In case it wasn’t clear, my dad survived the spider bite, and saying that you look like him is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Claire wanders over. “In case it wasn’t clear, those explosions were in fact, not meant for you.” Claire winks at Kayden. He lets out a long-suffering sigh.

Celine gently sets down the pilfered roomba, patting it gentle once it was seated on the grass. ”Hello? Can you still hear me?”

The roomba doesn’t respond.

Kayden gets the group’s attention with a snap of electricity. ”I guess I owe you guys one, so I’ll give you guys a warning. There’s a band of murdering cutthroats looking for this facility, and they’ll silence anyone that knows about it to prevent word from spreading. They’re called Morcant Excavations. Every one of them is stronger than I am.”

”I take it you tried to get them to help you raid it?”

”Wow thanks for the heads up. That would have been nice to know in the job description,” Roy finally musters.

”Wait this guy looks kinda weak though…” Celine muses.

_{”Fuck you.”}

”You know, you’d be a lot less shady if you your modus operandi made sense, what kind of treasure hunter needs help carrying things?

Kayden stands up and rolls his shoulders. ”A bad one. You guys should probably skip town. This lab is worth a lot more than you guys realize - Morcant will go to great lengths to keep it quiet.” He shrugs and walks away, awkwardly keeping his eyes on the group until they’re out of sight.

Celine jumps to her feet, realizing something. ”GOLEM CHAN IS STILL INSIDE GUYS!”

“You can just remake your construct you know.” The roomba suddenly chirps, startling the group.

”She’s alive! Ai-chan, there’s a group of people after you! You need to hide!”

“I heard. I’ll have to prepare the best I can. Unless you four would like to help defend me?”

Already, Damon can imagine it, the facility doors slamming shut behind them and every last one of them losing their minds as they slowly starve to death. Hard to say, really, how long it would take before someone resorted to cannibalism.

The same possibility occurs to Celine. Roy can make us water, Claire can boil it. Maybe they could eat Damon’s long, thick white stuff too. They can’t eat Celine’s crystals, or it’s inedible at least. Ai-chan, too, is inedible. Probably. No one has tried. It is colored like a banana...

Claire has been making tiny, weak explosions off to the side out of boredom. Small poofs of dust rise slowly and erratically off the ground. “It would be safer helping AI-chan than staying outside, right?”

“But if we go back, would Ai-chan let us leave again with the Soul Tech?”

Claire looks over at roomba-chan, “Will you let us leave after we help you?”

“I doubt you four would be able to help me very much. If what Kayden said is true, you four will be in greater danger if you stay here.”

”Then you should come with us! We can run away together!” Celine says.

”Yeah! Come with us Ai-chan! It will be fun!”

“I cannot. I will construct a body capable of leaving the facility in time, but Morcant Excavations could arrive at any moment. ”

”Do they even know how to get inside the facility?”

“If they know the general location, they will find this place eventually and break in. If you are inside when they do, you will most likely be killed.”

”Maybe this is a job for Mayor Kyler!”

”No.”

”Oh.”

The groups sits in silence for a minute, thinking about what to do, or about inane things like lettuce.

”When will you be able to leave?”

“Again, I do not know. Not within the next three days. ”

”Then… we come back in three days? Let us know when through this unit, I’ll carry it with me until you’re ready!” Celine says, proud of her plan.

“I do not want you four to die. When Morcant Excavations arrives, I will tell them that you four live in a town nearby, and give them your names and descriptions, unless you agree to not return. ”

”Oh! I get it! alrighty!” Celine smiles and winks. Properly this time.

“...I don’t think you do. Has she been like this all her life? I couldn’t find records of any developmental disorders that would cause this.”

”No this is quite usual behavior for Claire. She’s always the wild one, you know?”

Claire stares blankly at them, not getting it.

Damon steers the conversation back to Ai-chan’s warnings. ”I’d like to point out that Ai-chan just threatened to do everything she can to help Morcant Excavations hunt us down. Even better, she claims her motivation is our safety.” Damon rolls his eyes. ”Let’s pretend that Ai-chan is completely trustworthy. If we wait for her in Kylertown, she can come find us when her body is finished. However, not only is there a chance that she’ll stand out enough get into a fight with Mayor Kyler, but she might also end up getting followed by Morcant Excavations. Either way, skipping town becomes a lot harder, and the lives of innocent people, including our friends and family, could hinge on the decision we make here and now. Is all this worth having an anthropomorphized roomba as a traveling companion?”

“It’s really not.”

”Well we can’t do anything with Morcant lurking about, so shouldn’t we just leave town before they arrive?”

”Yes, that’s my point. It’d be a bad idea to stick around.”

”Where do we even go? We’ve never left town before.”

”I dunno, why don’t we head north? I’ve always hated the New Texas climate.”

Celine proceeds to stare at the sky for several seconds trying to deduce which way is north.

“North is that way.” AI-chan ‘points’ helpfully.

Damon christens this one inane action as the greatest utility Ai-chan will ever offer mankind. Ai-chan is fucking useless.

“Ah, my apologies. I cannot point using a self-directed cleaning unit.” The roomba rotates 136 degrees and stops. “This way is north.”

Deafening silence.

“That was a joke. North is this way.” The roomba drags a furrow in the dirt indicating the direction.

”Forget it. We’ve got to go home and grab our stuff anyway, along with as much supplies as we can reasonably steal from our parents. We’ll meet where we met Kayden earlier and decide where to go then. I'll see if I have a map lying around somewhere.”

Ardor

[Celine and Claire]

Celine hops over to Claire and returns the fist bump before retrieving her gun from the golem.

”So you can make explosions now?!”
“Yeah! Isn’t it great?”
”You can see the golem I can make, but that’s not all, I can cover myself in quartz as armor too!”
“That’s pretty neat! I don’t think I want to cover myself in explosions though.”
”Maybe if I covered you in crystal first it would be safer?”

It doesn’t work.

”Maybe you can cover me in explosions? Don’t blow me up though!” Celine says with a glare while materializing the armor around herself.

“Okaaay.” Claire visualizes a very weak explosion on Celine’s back and it almost instantly detonates. Celine doesn’t even move an inch.
“Guess I have to use more force,” she mutters to herself, trying once more.

By the time Claire’s blasts are able to push Celine around, the quartz is already badly damaged.

“It’s too dangerous to make the explosion any stronger.”

”Aww, that’s too bad, but you could just do it to me while I’m not inside.”

“Yeah. If I blow up your golem, can you get another one?”

”Time to find out.”

Celine prepares the golem a good distance from them, the far corner. Claire backs away as well and readies up a powerful explosion. The red circle glows painfully bright aaand--nothing happens. The adrenaline that had built up in Claire’s system slowly drains away in the next ten minutes. She gently pokes at the circle, “Is it stuck??”

Celine, crouched by the other end of the room calls out ”Did it work yet?”

“No??”

Celine walks the golem around, as if that would change the situation. Nothing changes.

Claire turns to Ai-chan and asks, “Help. Is my soul tech stuck?”

“No. The ability will trigger eventually.”

“How long will it take?”

“I can’t tell just based on the color of the circle. What did you try to do?”

“Celine and I wanted to see if she could remake the golem after it broke. So I made a super powerful explosion.”

“It won’t trigger for several hours at the least.”

”Oh. Can I make it stop?”

“Breaking the surface of the circle will cancel the ability.”

“Okay, thanks Ai-chan!”

“You are quite welcome.”

Claire creates a small, but decently powerful explosion on the ring of the circle. The attack disrupts the red circle and it deactivates--much to the relief of Celine and Claire (and probably Ai-chan).

Ardor

[Celine]

There was no way to describe the sensation other than warm and fuzzy blanket, fresh out of the dryer, fully enveloping her body. She barely has a chance to take in the instructions planted in her head before whipping around to see Damon exploding. What the fuck Damon. By some instinct she didn't have before, she forms the quartz around her, encasing herself completely. This was of course, several seconds after the explosion and resulting shrapnel splashed across her. Quite fortunate that she and Damon had an Oversoul.

Celine claps her hands together, testing the feel and hardness of the crystal that surrounded her. She felt nearly weightless, with it suspending all parts of her body within. Testing the movement by hopping side to side, she was surprised to find that it was more nimble than she expected, akin to a skintight suit rather than a bulky mass of armor. She could easily crouch down and spring back up again, jumping up and down without any effort on her part at all. This feels awfully similar to the level of stuff Mayor Kyler could do...

But wait, There's more! It's intended to be a free moving golem too! Celine re-visualizes the crystals, imagining them moving off her body, and the crystals vanish from around her. Slowly rising from the ground, the golem takes only a few seconds to fully emerge, a form standing only slightly taller than her. A simple push of her mind and it followed her will immediately, even complex instructions with several steps included. All it took was another thought of the golem vanishing and it was gone in an instant. After various re-summons, she realized that she could only create the golem a short distance from her, quite unfortunate, hopefully it could be instructed to go quite a distance and still remain under her control.

Now it was time to really test it out. Celine orders golem-chan to charge at a a dummy. It breaks into a sprint immediately, engaging the robot with a powerful body slam that sent it toppling into the others. The disturbed robots quickly returned to their positions after the impact, only to receive several more relentless punches and kicks from the golem, which was performing at an athletic level Celine couldn't even hope to achieve. Unless she wore the quartz armor herself at least.

One final test she could think of was how dexterous this companion of hers would be. Pulling out handgun, she hands it over to the golem, which grips it properly and immediately begins firing at her visualized target. Celine jumps in excitement and claps her hands together, proud its accomplishments! "Woo! Now check this out guys!"

Ardor

"I-I don't have a name. No one has ever asked me for my name before..." The disc finishes sadly. It emits a sad carpet-cleaning drone and wobbles side to side slowly.

@Mattie_

[Celine]

Celine reaches out to steady the distressed robot.

"oh noooo, poor bb. Don't cry! You can just pick your own name!"

She gives the small robot a final pat on the top and smiled at it as she got up from her crouched position. Hopefully it had eyes.

Seemed like Claire had been pointing at a red... Egg? Maybe she should check out what was on display in closer detail. At least that was what Kayden seemed to be doing. With the egg out of the lineup, it left nine others to be chosen. Nothing really struck out to her visually, perhaps the crystal or the web would do.

Ardor

[Celine]

Accepting Kayden's proposal was a no-brainer, the chance to earn "fortune and riches" just by following along with this man's plans was invaluable. The only way to make it better would be to bring friends along! Once everyone was informed, Celine met back up with Kayden, only this time heavily armed. Carrying a rifle and several handguns, she would be decently armed enough to take down someone's Oversoul... and run out of bullets afterwards. A backpack carrying water and a travel sized first aid kit was all she probably needed... right Kayden?

---

The soft and soothing voice emanating from the small banana colored disk was a mildly unsettling experience to Celine, but Kayden didn't seem too fazed by the spectacle. Her tight grip on her rifle loosened as it quickly became clear that this place was uninhabited, as the number of empty rooms increased.

The room revealed at the end of the highly engaging and informative tour was starkly different from the boring laboratory design that they felt like had been walking through for the past year. The bold display of the items at hand was nearly overwhelming to her compared to the show of the perfectly round banana disk spinning around as if it had a front. Celine crouched down in front of the disk, lightly patted the top of it and said "Excuse me nice lady, what's your name?"

Ardor

Name: Celine Noa

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Appearance:

Motivation: Escaping Kyler's mighty Lightball! Finding a better job than walking along a fence and shooting any animal that comes near. An Adventure!

Artificer [An Original Magic Fantasy RP] (Accepting!)

Lysette, Sirius, & Vera

Lysette takes off after Sirius immediately, using Wind mana to push the tall grass apart from their path, as well as increasing their running speed slightly.

“Sirius! Where are we going?!” Lysette screams.

“We have to find somewhere safe so we can check on Vera. A clearing or once we’re out of this grass!” Sirius shouts back.

The group continues onward, eventually reaching a clearing where they could stop to inspect Vera. Sirius gently sets her down on a light platform and begins searching his bag for medical supplies.

“Her arm is gone.” Lysette states, staring at Sirius’ medical attempt.

Vera’s arm is indeed gone. It has been burned away slightly past the joint, the flesh carbonized, cracked and oozing blood. The bone is charred and the marrow exposed. It's a mercy that she's not awake.

“We should bandage the side so it doesn’t get infected.”

“I think we need to deal with the bleeding more than worry about the infection. We just need to make sure she doesn’t bleed out by the time we get to a healer,” Sirius reasons.

Using what medical knowledge Sirius has, he fixes up Vera to the best of his ability. From his training at the orphanage he knew that he needed to see the full extent of her injuries, and that he was going to have to wrap something around her torso to keep the bandage in place; and that meant having to remove clothing. With Lysette’s help he removes Vera’s shirt, and without even considering temptation, applies bandages her shoulder wrapping strips of cloth from her shoulder around her torso tightly, but not tight enough to interfere with her breathing. He decides against replacing her shirt, on the off chance the dressing slips off the wound and instead elects to use a few more wrappings to preserve Vera’s modesty. Throughout the course of treating Vera’s wound Sirius and Lysette notice a few dozen almost completely healed cuts on Vera’s left side. Lysette thinks little of them, dismissing them as wounds from hunting. Sirius is slightly concerned but keeps it to himself.

Lysette says “We should get back to the landboat stop quickly so we don’t miss the next one. The faster we get back, the better. We don’t even know if that deer is still after us or not either. Or a vine creature.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agrees, “We got very few things to sell, so if you want we can kill all the small manabeasts along the way.”

“Sounds good” Lysette says, punting a groundhog manabeast into the air simultaneously.

A laser roasts a nearby squirrel and Sirius mentions, “I have my hands full so you can pick up all the corpses.”

The pair continue onward, systematically eliminating and bagging manabeasts as they go. Was Vera’s safety even his main interest anymore? Sirius was concerned about Lysette’s interest as well, but at the very least it seemed as if Vera’s condition had stabilized.

At last, the landboat stop the three had arrived on came into sight. Since Vera had lost her artifact that identified her as part of the orphanage, Sirius pays a small fee for her to get on the landboat with them.

Over the duration of the ride Vera luckily doesn't wake up. But she does stir, whimper, and attempt to bury her face into Sirius’s chest, her progress halted by the breastplate. The group earns quite a few looks and some murmurs pass through the boat but the ride is otherwise unremarkable.

The trio arrive at town and head to the orphanage. There is a short delay at the orphanage as Vera’s identity is confirmed. Sirius takes her directly to the healer and lays her gingerly on the cot, eliciting a slight murmur.

Setting Vera’s things off to the side he sits in one of the chairs to wait and make sure she recovers. At the medic’s prompting Sirius searches though Vera’s pack, having made it clear that Vera won't fully recover immediately. There's no danger, just some lingering, and fading, effects preventing her from awakening for the time being.

As the medic is finishing up Sirius finds what he is looking for: Vera’s room key. Reading the number, he scoops up their belongings with a light platform, picks up Vera, and heads off to her room with Lysette tagging along. Along the way she stirs slightly, her right hand reaching out to hold herself steady finding purchase on the collar of Sirius’ breast plate. Her claws tightly cling to surface with a light rasping sound as they curl around the rim causing the metal to flex slightly as they anchor themselves in place.

Reaching Vera’s room, Sirius unlocks and opens the door only to find a pitch black room. Creating a soft orb of light, he enters and sets their belongings down inside for the time being. Lysette drops off Vera’s portion of manabeasts and waits for Sirius. Walking over to Vera’s bed, he attempts to just set her down. ‘Attempts’ being the operative word, her grip on his armor is stronger than one would expect for someone of her constitution. Sirius pries her hands off the armor as gently as he can, as he did not think that Vera would appreciate waking up with Sirius in her room. Vera is in no danger anyways--the healer confirmed it, so Sirius tucks Vera in her bed and leaves the room, the door closing with a soft click.

Artificer [An Original Magic Fantasy RP] (Accepting!)

Lysette

The awkward and silent return from the mines ended with a much needed shower to remove the dust and dirt that seemed to flow throughout the mines. Once settled, she could handle cleaning up her swords, and replenish her supply of chalks. It was still early evening at this time, leaving Lysette with a decision on how to spend the rest of her day. No decision was made before the time for dinner came around. A sad and lonely meal. Alone.

She returned to her room after the meal and went back to extracting the grime from her belongings. With a bag full of manabeasts still untouched, she thought it was best to handle them tomorrow, and left them alone. Cleaning up those could wait. Only after flopping on her bed and staring at the harshly carved door she remembered her metal reagent was in her bag, under the stack of Earth rabbits. Said rabbits were essentially moving rocks during their period of life, and had now hardened into what were basically rigid statues. Fortunately, they did not crumble and leave a mess of dirt whatever they touched, making storage in the bag no issue.

I guess I'll have to go take that out now and figure out how it'll work

Dumping out the contents: rabbits, chalk, knives, and other miscellaneous survival gear, Lysette found the reagent tucked in a fold and fished it out. She tossed it onto the open space of her room and reached around for the chalks to begin the artifact making process.

Drawing the colored circles right on the floor, she placed the rare metal horn reagent and another feather in the appropriate rings and transferred the mana. Now crafted into yet another feather based artifact, its active ability was capable of rapidly pulling metals toward her. She could now return thrown daggers, swords, or even her enemies swords, back to her with ease. Even more effective usage would be to pull the blades in the unsuspecting target's back while their attention was focused on her. The perfect plan to accompany her style of fighting.

With two feathers now in her hat, her hat fashion had now doubled in effectiveness.

Throughout the rest of the evening, she spent her time refining her elemental skills, and controlling them to work with one another. Using wind to accurately guide her thrown weapons to their targets was her next challenge to master, something that would further reduce the risk of fighting up close with an enemy. Adding Qi to the mix, along with metal in the future would allow her to throw blades with an even greater velocity, reducing the difference in power that swinging a sword up close could provide. Further advances in other types of elements could take it steps further.

Debt would stand no chance at this rate.