/q/ - Quest

>>766447
"The depths of Iron Castle's… or rather, the Lux's… machinations are more evident to me now, but even before I would say 'unsettling' is a word to describe the inter-politics of it all."

>>766448
>>766446
>>766449
Zamrud nods, "Thank you. I know we're all exhausted from our exams, but there is no time like the present. We need not come to any conclusions tonight, but we should meet with Truth's team and see where they stand. Then, we can all take a well earned rest."

>Good to skip to meeting

>>766451
"Mmm- my own people have their bickerings and squabbles, but I do not like the clan…clandestine? Nature of the Castles."

>>766449
>Ready!

>>766452
>>766450
>>766451
You get into contact with Godspeed and Truth. Godspeed offers to secure one of the faculty conference rooms as a meeting place. Truth, finding this agreeable, confirms that she'll be there with Clamence. Rieux and Meursault are due to immerse themselves in the illusory dream-world of the school, and will be unable to attend.

All in all, the evening isn't such a bad time for the meeting. It gets you out of Dorm Boreal, at the very least. A party's happening nearby, and the bass is boosted enough to rattle all the nearby dorm rooms like a perpetual earthquake. Perhaps you're missing out– but chances are, it'll still be raging long after you return.

At the appointed time, you gather in one of the conference rooms of the faculty office. Truth and Godspeed are already there. Joining them is a tall and lean mare. You almost mistake her for an earth pony, before recognizing her as one of the Yagi– a minority ethnic group considered closely related to, yet culturally distinct from the earth ponies. She has a long and curly grayscale mane, and an off-white coat. Most peculiarly, perhaps, she too is augmented by military-grade cybernetics. The entirety of her right-side foreleg, shoulder, half of her neck, and about half of her face are comprised by these cybernetics.

In other words– her cybernetics are a perfect mirror of Meursault's.

"안녕하세요!" Truth says. "Err… hello," she translates herself for want of subtitles.

"Bonjour," Godspeed answers. "You survived. Let's hope you passed as well."

Clamence, as you presume, remains silent, but offers a pleasant congratulatory smile all the same.

>>766449
>>766453
Good looked mildly perturbed by the newcomer, and seemed to be mostly watching instead of engaging.

>>766581

"We will," Amy responds resolutely to Gadriel.

>>766581
>>766579

Amy happily boards a paper airplane. "Come on, this one looks fun," she says to the others enthusiastically.

>>766580
"Oooh!" Shorthorns grunts, rubbing the top of her head, "Okay, okay! I-I thought it wouldn't matter since he's… well, you know…"

>>766581
Shorthorns looks on at the many vessels, all made from MOOLAH's enchanted paper, and can't help but be impressed with the designs as she steps onboard the nearest vessel. "Amazing… looking at these ships you'd think they'd fold or crumple immediately, but I know better than to underestimate anything down here."

>>766583

"That's even worse!" Amy says enigmatically.

>>766583
>>766582
Although Observer and Hafaza are rather reluctant to part from one another now, they do so, boarding their own vessels. Flow looks a little skeptical of the paper airplane, being of an aqueous form, but the paper is quite sturdy, and is not weakened in the slightest. Once everybody's aboard their paper vehicle, MOOLAH gives the signal, and one by one they are cleared for departure, pushing off into the Abyss, all in different directions. You notice, as you sail forth, that it takes far longer now for the omnipresent darkness to subsume your thoughts and senses underneath its obliviating weight. Even as the darkness presses in on you, you feel the focused thoughts of your mind persisting, as you concentrate – Asphodel, Asphodel… something about this paper plane must be facilitating this. It's not a stretch to imagine these vehicles to be a valuable resource… perhaps MOOLAH has truly come to see you as a worthy asset to risk the investment of this tech.

But such speculation must wait– for your mission is far from over.

>
>
>

…
…
…

The senses flicker back to life, one by one… yet no Anchor is in sight. All are silent aboard the paper plane, your allies not risking even the slightest word, lest they draw unwanted attention.
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>>766585
Shorthorns steels herself as they pass through the Anchor, feeling her entire existence threaded through the needle once again. Only this time, when she regains her senses, she looks around, still seeing herself aboard the paper craft as she looks around for signs of their arrival.

"What happened? Are we here already?"

She looks around, her hairs standing on end as she surveys the darkness, feeling the presence here that threatens to lash out at them from beyond their gaze. "You all feel that, right? Is that… the one we came here for?"

Ischyros launches up from his chair, shocking Sister Root as she dabs at Mabin's injuries with a wet cloth. "That incorrigible… she's been interfering with the Agatecastle Investigation from the very first, and now she assails my right-hand dog. I'll have her–"

"Arrested? Tried? Jailed?" Mabin scoffs. "Sire, please save yourself the time, trouble and personnel. Now that my conversation with her is complete, I have no doubt she could elude us at every step if she were so inclinded – she may even have done so under a different name, a different body, perhaps even under a different Royal Family."

Ischyros blinks in shock. "You mean to say – she may even be from a different Castle?"

"We've other matters to discuss first, sire," Mabin says. "It is for the best that she captured and interrogated me, actually. I believe she was on the hunt for high-ranking members of the Lux Deorum, in order to obtain the Reports of the Agatecastle Investigation. I know now that I am one of the very few who could have survived such an encounter. Had she needed to capture others, they in their loyalty would not have submitted to her interrogation – and we would have lost countless valuable agents. But I am arrogant, prideful and reckless, and so I told her what she wished to know. In the end, I am certain I surrendered nothing that she would not have been able to learn through other, bloodier means. And for my collaboration, I managed to obtain information I sought as well."

"An Iron Hero as ever, High Director," Ischyros sighs. "Now: What is her obsession with the Agatecastle Investigation?"

"Her interest was less about Agatecastle," Mabin says. "And more about her very flesh and blood… her magnum opus."

"Her estranged daughter, Lost Hope?" Ischyros asks.

Mabin is silent, and does not answer for a time. "…I shall begin with a review of her interference in the Investigation.

"Lost Hope, as you know, was not on the initial list of personnel we selected when planning the Investigation. We only discovered that she had been surreptitiously added to the list of vetted and approved personnel mere hours before they were scheduled to be sworn to secrecy, debriefed and deployed. With my staff otherwise occupied, and under a time crunch, I opted to verify her files myself. This was my error, no doubt deliberately engineered by Lady Path. When Lost's files, by my hasty review, appeared to be clean of red flags, I convinced myself that I had simply missed her vetting while juggling my countless other duties and stressors in the months leading up to the Investigation. Therefore, I did not cancel her deployment.

"But I could not shake the feeling that I was missing something. Thus, I passed along her files for a more thorough verification by the Lux Deorum's typical vetting procedures. The Lady is crafty beyond peer… but even she could not hide from the Light of the Gods forever. They discovered that Lost Hope's records, down to her very birth certificate, were a truly convincing forgery. Near-perfect pastiches, down to the very chemical composition of the ink and paper upon which they were printed… I considered having Lady Path arrested and questioned, but I was not confident such an attempt would succeed. Besides, she wounded my pride. I did not want to retaliate with brute force where she had succeeded with guile. Truly, sire, she would make a better High Director than I–"

"Cease that kowtowing," Ischyros snaps. "What happened next?"

"…Right. I deployed my very best agent, my personal bodyguard, on a covert mission into the Manor Titanite. If any trace whatsoever were left – an indentation on a rug, a fallen hair, even discarded skin cells – I feared we would be found out… but the mission was flawless. My agent discovered that not even Lady Path was without a heart. They captured a snapshot of a pair of genuine documents, worn down by years of reading and rereading… two certificates of death, both issued on the same date.

"The first, for a filly, who had almost reached the age of two. The second, for a colt, who had just turned four. Their names, respectively, were Charity and Hope."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34o_qruv1lw

For a moment, none can speak. Mabin drags on his cigarette, and continues.

"We used the notarization on these genuine certificates to continue our investigation… As you know, the blessed internment of the dead is a matter of the utmost severity in Ironcastle. No death certificate exists that is not linked to a corresponding certificate of cremation… or so we believed. When we found the cremation certificates linked to the deaths of those foals… we found that, like Lost's records, they were forgeries."

"The bodies were never cremated?" Ischyros asks.

"Correct," Mabin answers.

"Then, the bodies…"

"The search continued even deeper into the criminal underworld of Ironcastle. I specially appointed another of my personal retinue to spearhead this search. The Lux Deorum rank-and-file are less suited for negotiating criminal activities than we would like to admit. The Lux Deorum thrives on numbers, data, patterns, statistics. The criminal underworld operates on personality, suggestion, unspoken words… this required a personal touch.

"The investigation slowed nearly to a crawl… until we uncovered a lead, from an old soul at the heart of a smuggler's network. An old soul who had seen, and done, far too much in the Outlands. My agent could threaten him with nothing that could shake him. He laughed in their face, and volunteered the lead freely.
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"A rumor of a surgeon. They possessed incredible influence and wealth – most likely a Noble – and commissioned the smuggling of a very specific species of Dreaded One into Ironcastle. The most unthinkable of crimes, the only crime punishable by the Nonagintimation: The execution of the criminal and a random ninety percent of all living Souls who have any relation, blood or personal, to the criminal, regardless of stratum, occupation, or age. It is the most grotesque of all punishments conceivable, more deterrent than threat… and yet, this surgeon was rumored to have defied it.

"It wasn't much to go on, but we would not be called the Light of the Gods if that were enough to halt us. Following that rumor and related ones to their sources, my agents grafted together a loose narrative of whispers.

"Of a surgeon Noble, who paid an unthinkable sum commissioning an unthinkable smuggling…
"Of a clandestine hospital, deep in the unmapped expanses of the Noblesse, whose staff consisted of a single surgeon…
"Of a congenital disease, once believed incurable, and one hundred percent fatal…
"Of an impossible event, wrought not by a miracle, but unspeakable, blasphemous science…
"Of the true reversal of death itself."

Ischyros sits there, pale-faced, his pupils small and dark. "Then…"

"This was the heart of my conversation with Lady Offbeaten Path," Mabin says. "The symbiotic lifeform codenamed 'Dhampir,' begotten of the fusion of Hope's corpse with that of a Dreaded One. Iron Soul Lost Hope inherited her life, power, and name from Dhampir – twice over. First, when Lady Path surgically implanted Dhampir into Charity's central nervous system, reviving the filly anew under the name 'Lost Hope,' nearly seventeen years ago. And again, when Dhampir sacrificed his life to restore Lost Hope's, in order that she could save their allies from the falling of the false Moon.

"I confirmed that Lady Path cured her other two children, Good Intentions and Lazy Days, of their congenital diseases using Dhampir's cells. They also owe their health and lives to him… to the original Hope."

"…I've a question," Sister Root says. "In order for flesh to live, it requires a soul. The soul remains in the body for three Cycles after death, before it returns to the Light Undefiled… if it is not first consumed by a Dreaded. All arcane knowledge on the soul attests to this. Only necromancy's most forbidden rituals can detain a soul from this departure, but they must be done immediately after death to be efficacious. How then, did Lady Path forge a living consciousness from… well, to be blunt, from two corpses and a soulless abomination?"

"That, I do not know, for she did not confess," Mabin says. "And at this point, I do not know if any speculation I can dream of is too wild for Lady Path's capabilities… However, she named her youngest daughter 'Lazy Days,' a most unusual expression. The term 'Day' is the supposed name of the country of the mythical 'King of the Sun.' Why then would there be 'Days,' as in more than one? How can a country be 'Lazy?' It may be that Lady Path has an inkling of the true secret of the Castles, just as Mogao and Mendicant Rudolph did."

Ischyros leans upon the table, face obscured by his interlocked fingers, and is silent for much time, while Sister Root continues to clean Mabin's injuries.

"…I would have her summoned here," Ischyros finally says.

"As I have warned before, an attempt at arrest would probably backfire," Mabin says.

"I do not want her arrested," Ischyros says. "I want her recruited into the Thorns."

Mabin lets the cigarette droop, his eyebrows arched so high they might leave his forehead. Eventually he sighs, extinguishes what remains of the butt, then stands and bows. "I shall extend thy inviation, sire."

"Thank you," Ischyros says. "And then you are to take two weeks' vacation, to be punished by two more weeks, if you are caught doing so much as checking your e-mails. You too, Sister Root."
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>>753969
LukeWarm flies into more hysterics as he points and shouts at every Luke around him "Yeah great fucking accomplishment. Me. MEEEE. Is that what it's all about. You manufactured the biggest loser in the world. How am I supposed to live knowing I'll never hold a son of my own! How am I supposed to look at Lavender and tell her I cum alcohol! I'm supposed to live my life for you. Well tell me how to unfuck it first!"

>>753970
Business Luke flicks his cigarette away and pokes at LukeWarm's chest "Thats for you to figure out. We've had all the time to figure out our hang ups. And if you don't like it well guess what Mister Hero, that's what you get for always being such a shoddy person when you could be the world's last hope. It's not the end of the world Luke. But it will be if we don't take you now." Business Luke snaps his fingers and The Lukes begin assembling a portable station for time travel.

>>753971
It's without much fanfare that the Lukes round together and drag LukeWarm toward the portable station.

The First Luke greets LukeWarm. He grabs LukeWarm's chin raising it so he can look him in the eyes "We are all counting on you Luke. We can't do this without you. You're all our hopes and dreams now."

The First Luke steps back "AAAAALT-MEN!"
And every Luke responds in unison "RISE UP!"

They step forward now to the final battle that awaits them.

[End Session]

flushing out rolls for mlpg

[1d10]

[1d10]

[1d10]

[1d10]

[1d10]

[1d10]

[1d10]
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[18d10+2]

Roll #1 7, 1, 5, 10, 3, 7, 4, 9, 4, 2, 5, 2, 10, 5, 6, 1, 4, 3 + 2 = 90

>>765937
"Wow, Should think up a smart name for you lil buddy." he said rubbing his chin sitting back "Aurelius? No too prentious." he hummed a bit "Dexter? Like Poindexter?"

>>765938
The rodent offers no response, instead sniffing around your snack stash, perhaps for something sweet.

>>765939
He offered him a few chocolate sandwich cookies.

>>765940
The rodent takes one cookie, and scampers off to enjoy it. Trajan, who had been stretching his legs elsewhere, has a nibble of one of the other cookies.

>>765937
"That does make me think that this place is more hyperbolic and could have been another's dream or perspective on this school. Though I don't know if this train of thought could help us." Billy falls sullen.

>>765940
"It is quite a cute thing."

>>766413
"I am amenable to an alliance of convenience with you, though I doubt you are entirely capable of enforcing that latter statement." he said mildly amused.

Two Tons raised a brow but nodded "Honestly I like the fish, he's funny."

>>766419
"Ay yi yi," the Fish groans. "We gotta do somethin' about all this neigh-saying. Just 'cause I'm a crab don't mean you can crush my shell so easily." He then looks at Two Tons and nods (by flicking his eye-stalks up and then down). "You, you're cool."

>>766417
"Hmm… do you mean to imply that they are gods, just not the gods they think they are?" Alder asks, tilting his head to the side.

>>766417
Cloud looks to the Fish, who has so far been more informative on the situation.
"So, how do we summon the Sun Serpent then?"

>>766418
"Do you mean Kukulcan, or gods in general?" Cloud asks back.

>>766420
"My day has not exactly been the best." Willow remarked with a sigh, though he scooped the crab up and deposited him on Two Tons back.

"That being said, I enjoy seeing Two Tons make friends, so I shall refrain from antagonizing you if you do the same." he said offering an olive branch.

>>764650
"It's like a part of myself is gone, and I'll never get it back." she said quietly as she began to grow a bit more distant once more.

She squeezed her tightly

>>764651
Deadweight nods, still hugging her. "I'm so sorry," she says again, this time in a trembling whisper, "If you need me to do anything, just say the word."

>>764652
"Just… stay with me for a while please." she said softly, so softly Deadweight could barely hear it.

>>764653
Deadweight nods again and continues holding her paradoxically firmly and gently, comforting her the best she can.

>>764654
Lost leaned in, and gently pecked her on the lips before just relaxing into her hold until they had to go to the meeting.

>>766590
"So we don't know who's entirely on our side yet then," Pryce says as they give the reason for waiting.

When Vortigern lays out the question of how defended they are from the angels, Pryce is silent, thinking it over a moment. The pressure of Alloy avoiding his gaze and the eyes make him review this carefully.
"I… cannot say for certain. When I connected to that pony's mind, there was an overwhelming positivity, but I could only think of the Rapture from what I saw. And with Alloy's power, I still see and hear Buiwong. I don't know how much these impacted me in that moment, but it still took effort to escape that vision. The best I can say is with our knowledge of it now, we could resist it for a moment, and it'll take all of our effort to reject it in that moment to avoid ending up like that villager."

>>766591
Vortigern nods then looks to Alloy. When he realizes that you're taking this in stride, he clears his throat. "I'd have to test it… but assuming they're similar enough powers, it should work in theory. I may have to increase the strength of my influence to fully repel the other one. Now, I wouldn't be strong enough to fend off a draconic lord directly, but I don't think the villager we fought got hypnotized by them personally. More likely, by one of their servants, using a weaker version of the same general power. Them, I could probably keep at bay, in case they tried to influence us directly… and without leaving any permanent damage."

"How do you feel about testing it on prisoners?" Vortigern asks.

"Excuse me!?" Alloy snaps.

"The prisoners of war we have here show signs like that which the captured villager shows," Vortigern says. "You may be able to help them return to a general sanity, if your power can reduce the influence of the draconic lords on them."

"I guess…" Alloy mutters. "Still… testing on POWs…?"

"You can say no," Vortigern says. "But if you're concerned for the ethics of it, understand that our foes have already cast the die further than any of us could. And you'd be doing it to heal, not to compel them to fight, as the lords have."

Alloy, troubled, does not answer right away.

>>766592
The mention of permanent damage leaves Pryce with some worry on what they're dealing with, but he does trust that Alloy wouldn't do anything with malicious intent or damage on purpose.
When Vortigern suggests testing his power and training on the prisoners, Pryce also is thrown off guard. It feels wrong when they've already been through enough. But, after the glass condition they saw in Vitral, their options of dealing with angelic afflictions is limited, if not null entirely. And then his mind lingers to the question of Sarajinae, if she could also be affected by the draconic lords and angels in this way to be working for them.

"…If it is to heal, that is our best bet," Pryce says as a suggestion. "We don't know if the dragon lords or the angels intended to reverse this at some point, of if they even can. The last time we could undo one of their effects took an artifact, and we don't have anything close to that anymore. But, the decision is up to you Alloy. I don't want to push you if you're not comfortable with it."

>>766593
Hearing you vouch for him with trust changes something in Alloy. A weight lifts from his shoulders… and from yours as well, as the pressure of the eyes goes away– you realize that, from the start, it came from inside your own mind.

Alloy nods to Vortigern. "Okay… I'll try it."

"Good," Vortigern says. "I'll allot you some of my circle of wise women to help."

She looks over to the rest of your group. "While you lay low, the village could use help with curtailing the region's monster population. With the uprising, we haven't been able to spare the fighters to keep numbers balanced."

River looks intrigued. "You need someone to play monster hunter for you?"

Sugar looks at the camera.

"Uhh, yes," Vortigern says, with the demeanor of one who realizes she has missed a joke but doesn't want to admit it.

>>766594
Pryce feels a sense of hope after Alloy decides to test it, that they could stand equal to the angels if this goes well.

"Almost sounds like our game of Witches and Wargs," Pryce comments at the job offer.
"How bad could the population be? I don't remember seeing too many on our last two trips," He asks.