CLOSED PARALOGUE The Evrensel Conflict: Paralogue 2 -- Mystery in the Steel Belly

Ryan Morganyag

Ryan attentively observed the child's behavior. As she tried to compose herself, Ryan felt uneasy seeing her in pain. After a few more moments, the young girl told Ryan that her name was Kanna. She also said she wanted "Lady Tohru", probably her mom, Ryan thought. Then she confirmed his theory, that or she was a really dedicated roleplayer, which was very unlikely. "Nice to meet you, Kanna"

Kanna sat up and Columbo draped his coat around her, a gesture he thought of himself, but that's not here nor there. "Japan, huh?..." Ryan asked to himself, knowing that place was rather popular in the multiverse, or at least some variation of it. As for her next questions, Ryan frowned for an instant before going back to smiling softly to the dragon "As I said before, we are very far away from our homes. I don't know this Lady Tohru, but I'm afraid we don't have a way to send you back to Japan with her. This is a dangerous situation, so you'll have to stick with us for a while. Don't worry, I'm not a dragon that leaves one of their own behind. Now then, let's get goi--" Ryan was about to send Kanna with Luer when the chaos started to unfold.

"Luer! Tell ANNA to help you with your motion sickness, I'll fly us out of here" He thought to Luer, while turning to the others "Alright, be ready to jump on my back. I'll fly us out of here" He tended to Kanna whom hand he caught while she attempted to escape by herself, twitching as he felt a shock run through his body. "That includes you. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe. Okay?" Ryan would then let Kanna go, hoping he was convincing enough, and turned to the depths below for an instant and leaping forward.

Ryan was enveloped in a bright fireball which started to grow and change in shape and color. The deeper voice that came from within the dragon hovering slightly below them, called out the group. "Come on now. Jump!" The moment he had everyone who wanted to be on board set up, he would start flying upwards "Hold on tight!"
 
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Kanna had been madly scrambling up the walls when Ryan touched her. Normally, she could just flutter up with her wings, but they'd taken too much damage from that fluid to carry her. She whimpered and even started to scream when he touched her hand, sending shocks up his arm. "We'll be okay? But where do we go?" She wasn't nearly strong enough to push the walls apart again.

Once she gave up trying to climb, she turned to Ryan, hoping for his idea. She watched him burn himself alive, coming out from the other end of the fireball as a dragon.

Wait, he was a dragon, too? Well, that was comforting enough for Kanna to change.

Upon summoning a magic circle in front of her face, Kanna ran her hands across it until a glow enveloped her body. She started to swell in size, getting a thicker tail and a reptilian snout. White feathers coated her whole body. Now, her wings would have enough power and healthy feathers to at least help her jump out of here.

Kanna crouched next to Ryan, leaping after him.
 
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Reegan's smoky miasma is scattered by the booted feet of Lorne's tactical team as she slowly replenishes the black fog. Though theirs were not all the disturbances as slow rhythmic pulses emerged from tubes as they cracked seals and freed broken souls from bodies far too worn to support life. Souls slowly walk toward the reaper as Reegan's birch-gloved hand beckons them over. Another darting panic of a smoky trail emerged, and Reegan grabbed at space, pulling something back toward her with her free hand.

The tall Reegan seemed to pet at empty space as she blew gouts of black miasma that flowed over a humanoid void in the area and said with a sad face, "No, No, It's too late. I'm sorry. Your spirit is as tattered as your body."

Invisible hands revealed from others as the blackness from Reegan descended out of the air near her from each side to gently grab the newcomer's shoulders. A few flares of purple light under her midsection came even as her hair and body began to smolder and dimmed the burn while the others controlled Zoe and consoled Kanna. A few spirits moved to the Soul Carin when was a shift in the black as the spear erupted from a wall. One shot one foot back in the few seconds she had to brace herself for her to be engulfed in flame and propelled at the wall along with Lorne's team. The Spriggan is seen now with the cigar still in her mouth as the fireball cleared to shed tatters of the dress ash. Misty yellow eyes opened as Reegan regained her bearings. The room shifted underneath and around while she pried herself from the dented hole in the wall she'd pounded into. Freed enough to reach out to grip the faded spark of life in the broken remains of Lorne as the dark miasma that remained flowed back to drain into her body as the buzzing of an alarm brought her fully back to her senses.

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A strained voice resonates though her body burned with fires all over it as the reaper called them to service the cigar glowing red with her effort, "Blessed are the Mistmen, for they blend in the glory of the transcendent spirit. You are not done."

Lorne's body and one of his comrades flare blue with power rather than red with the explosion as Reegan shapes the broken shards of souls to make him a mistman. Though so did too the spirits standing where Reegan had been. The bones of lost souls reknit themselves into mistmen from thin air. The translucent creature that once was Lorne and his comrade each wore ethereal combat armor though the ones that had once been prisoners had no such luck. The flying ethereal bone torso of Lorne swivels his head about in confusion for a moment to look at her, the other mistman beside him, back to where its remains had been, then to the other wedged but still breathing.

The mistmen of lost souls drifted over as she explained while prying herself out of the wall, "Too far gone to save, Lorne. I'm sorry. Get your soldier free; No soul left behind."

Two ironwood spriggan feet landed with a hard clang to ring offset with limping over to where the others were. Ghostly hands tried to pat out where flames were burning as Reegan hurried a limp over to Colombo. She waved them off to point at Batman and the others, "If they don't fit on the dragon, then help them ascend."

She returned the cigar to Colombo while changes faded with the reaper's power ebbing, leaving the cigar looking unsmoked, "Thank you."​
 
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Batman unwrapped the bolas from around Zoe's legs rather quickly, the claw used to pull her to the floor already retracted. "This is the Pathfinder. Its a space station, but we don't know its exact placement-" he tried explaining, before the very walls started to shift. The heat of explosions washed over him, but his body armor rejected any attempts by the flames to touch his skin. The dark knight saw Ryan shift and transform into a winged reptilian creature, but showed no surprise. He turned back to Zoe.

"Hop on his back," he ordered, retrieving his grapple gun from his belt, and aimed it upwards. With the sound of hydraulic presses, the grapple hook shot out upwards, latching onto a rivet in the wall. As the ground beneath him retracted and Ryan took flight, the grapple gun pulled Batman up at impressive speeds. If he needed to keep climbing, the dark knight would use the wall as a platform to leap off from, catching and holding onto Ryan's dragon form.
 
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Luer sighed to himself as he watched the exchange with Ryan and Kanna, and Columbo interrupting. He was not so sure that was wise given the girl's already timid self so far, which was a part of the reason he himself had not moved any closer. She was scared, he did not need to be adding to it. Though he could not entirely tell if that scream was terror or pain. Dammit, she needed help.

Even if he wanted to help her though, he did not get the chance as more hell broke loose- it is never one thing, is it? He was definitely preferring the magic and creatures of his world over these technologies more than ever. Regardless of his preference though- and perhaps even further against them -was the whole place shifting. The archer fell to a knee and groaned. Oh perfect, the floor moving, just what he needed. Thankfully he was not overly nauseous yet, but the dizziness hit pretty quickly and made standing back up just a little wobbly for Luer as he tried to shake it off.

Thankfully though Ryan's voice echoed in his head and glanced up to find the dragon. He was not that close to him, right? It did not take long to understand how that was, especially so given the dragon's words. "Alright ANNA. Not sure what you can do but anything to help the dizziness would be great." He commented, and with it and Ryan's words he tried to ignore said problem until ANNA fixed it.

For another mercy, he was greatly distracted from it all when Ryan called out and transformed. He did not have much time, yet for a moment he could not stop himself from marveling at the sight. He knew Ryan was a dragon, of course, but this was the first time he had ever seen him like this. He chortled to himself. To think I have fucked a dragon. An amusing thought in an odd way. If he only knew.

Shaking it off the best he could, he swallowed hard and sprinted towards Ryan. He had little doubt he could make it, leaping off the ledge of the moving ground and onto Ryan's back with a small groan. "Finally taking that flight you wanted." He mused with an unsure laugh.
 
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The sudden explosion did not affect Zoe greatly, thanks to her being on the floor and the demonic augments on her body providing extra protection. She was not able to fully assess the situation, other than that an explosive was thrown nearby from something, and that the very footing was willing to drop her down to the abyss below. She had her encounters with moving interiors, although they had the tendency to have more lifelike features. Had she seen tendons and muscles attached to the platform, she could've expected it to move at an unwelcome timing. It appeared that there was much to learn in the new environment she was thrown into.
If that weirdly dressed man decided to interrogate her longer with the restraints she would've been able to find out what was down there the hard way. Lucky for her, he was quick to unleash her and fill her in on the basics of the situation. And along with that, the basics on how not to fall to her untimely death.

Zoe would've expressed evident anger at whatever adversary she was facing, but she was too confused to pin down the exact emotion she was feeling at the moment. Trusting that the newly met people were willing to spare her for now, Zoe lunged onto the dragon's back. Or so she suspected- she only saw dragons in cartoons and books as a child, and got her hands on some things that resembled dragons.
"Was there anything else in the pod with me?"
She asked as she landed onto Ryan's back.

@Apothecary Bruce Batman
@Valkan Ryan
 
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~~GM~~

Zoe wouldn't have a chance to check her pod again, as they retracted back into the walls, and the wall itself was closing in on everyone fast. They were stuck in a giant trash compactor.

But, they still had some luck on their side. Down below them all, a small section of the pit began to open. It was only a couple dozen feet wide, but it would fit Ryan in his dragon form and the others riding on him. It would be a tight squeeze, though, if Ryan wasn't careful, one of his riders would be smashed off by a rigid corner.

"Go down!" A voice would echo over an open comm channel. "And keep heading down as fast as you can! The station will grind you up and throw you all out an airlock!"
 
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As Kanna pushed herself into the air, flawlessly synced with Ryan, she showed some grace to her wingbeats. The dead feathers shook off and fluttered to the floor. Unfortunately, she just couldn't outpace the walls. And, hey, she couldn't even see where they would land if they managed to reach the top! A solid ceiling could be punctured if she had the strength, but there just barely wasn't enough muscle in her to do so.

Wait, they were supposed to go down? Whoops.

Kanna hastily flipped herself over, connecting her paws to the ceiling. She spotted the open pit, thought it over, then realized it wouldn't be big enough for both dragons to slip through. This wasn't survival of the fittest, was it? Not if she could help it. Kanna ricocheted off the ceiling, straightening out like an arrow. In a flash of magic, she was back in her child form, but lost her grace and tumbled into the chute. An echoey shout was all that remained of her-that shout and a series of metallic thuds.

Don't worry, dragons have strong bones. She'll be fine.
 
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As Batman accelerated upwards, he heard the mysterious stranger's order. Seeing the ground open beneath them, and the strange coincidence it brought with it, the dark knight scowled in skepticism. However, in the brief second he had to decide his plan, the dark knight gently leapt off the side of the smooth wall paneling, diving downwards headfirst, cape fluttering stiffly against the chilly wind. He was like a dark bullet, plummeting controllably through the hole presented.

He didn't trust this voice, especially with how sudden and convenient it was. Somebody was clearly watching; his previous theory, about temperature-locked mechanisms was likely wrong. It was more probable that someone had been sitting, watching their movements through the station. It wasn't theirs, after all, no one onboard had commissioned the craft and its technology wasn't anything anyone was familiar with. Someone more able to manipulate the alien technology must be doing this, sitting at the chair behind the curtains, pulling levers and twisting dials.

Alternatively, the fact that there were two people behind the scenes - the 'aggressor' and the 'assister', the one which tried to have the walls crush them and the one that provided them with an out, but this could very well be a ploy to gain the party's trust, their benefactor and adversary being one and the same.
Either way, he saw no other way out. Hopefully, he could find more clues...wherever the new pit lead. Before striking the ground, the dark knight would expend his advanced cape out into the shape of large wings, catching his fall.
 
Ryan Morganyag

"Not that I had noticed"
Ryan answered to the demonic girl, his voice making his whole body resonated with the deeper voice he has as a dragon. As for Luer, he kept that message between them "I was hoping for a more relaxed ride, believe it or not, hehe~". Around that time, Luer would feel a pinch on the back of his neck "Motion sickness medicine administered. Activate Armor or Plasma Bow?" she blankly stated to Luer's mind.

It was then that suddenly going down became apparently safer, at least according to some disembodied voice. He had learned to not trust such voices, but then again, this was a dire situation. This became ten times worse as he saw the little girl who was a dragon moments ago, freefalling without control into the hole below. "Kanna!" He roared. "Hold on tight! I'm speeding up!"

He stopped ascending, using his extended wings as an air brake. Then he flapped his wings, plummeting downwards in a rushed, yet held back manner. He wanted to check on Kanna, but he didn't want the people on his back to lose their grip or any other sort of accident that might as well spell death at the moment.

It was then that a realization came to Ryan's mind: Why was he so concerned about the young dragon? New people come and go in this fight, what made this so different so fast...
 
Reegan didn't have a way to fly quite like the others and was rather heavy compared to the others that needed the dragon. The best option she had was the latent spirits, but they didn't have much strength to them other than the one that resisted at the threshold by duty. Though she looked at the ascending Batman as the voice called out, she was glad she didn't have to test the matter. Down. Down was easier. The reaper's frame shrunk as the Spriggan's ironwood body took over in all its craggy barked armor. Something that could withstand the rigors of a great reaper's endurant pursuits. She called out to Lorne and pointed to the opening, "Muster the mistmen, Lorne, guide me there as best you can. You must all stay near the gate to the soul carin for now."

Glimmering skeletal bodies of mistmen and the seeming more considerable rigidity of Lorne, closer to Wrathman, moved of their own accord toward her after failing to touch the walls. The spriggan waited until they'd grabbed her form as the only thing they could touch and jumped toward the expanse with the others. She didn't accelerate as fast as she might, thanks to weaker mistmen that tried to pull back on the heavy Spriggan. Her body was less graceful than Batman's and, with far less deceleration than him, fell past Ryan into the hole below. The other Dragon girl bounced along the walls as Reegan gestured her mistmen toward the tumbling being. The reaper hit Kanna as she plummeted uncontrollably and grabbed her with one arm. The mistmen, with yet more weight to pull, strained at a load of both bodies as the spriggan used her own to tank hits. Ready to slam into any oncoming floor with the dragon in a bridal carry to break the impact. A few slashes and splinters spout glowing green blood from impacts taken on the way down.

Reegan would be worse for wear but could survive arms fractured at strange angles with the life ring on her crown to leak bright white fluid and help heal her quicker.
 
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~~GM~~

And way down they go.
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Down, and down, and down they all went once they made it through the small hole, narrowly avoiding becoming pancakes as they made their escape. The walls completely closed behind them, and what lay in front of them was an endless fall into the depths of this station. The tube they found themselves in rotated clockwise and counterclockwise, causing a feeling of disorientation with their surroundings, as they could easily lose sense of direction if they took their focus off where your head was pointed before moving through the hole.

How far were they going down? How far had they gone down? Was the station truly this deep, or were the walls playing tricks on them?

Slowly, the tunnel began to curve upwards, pushing those not riding the backside of Ryan, (Not like how Luer does usually,) against the walls to tumble the rest of the way down, before being met with obstacles of massive pipes. If they didn't slow down, they would find themselves smashing against them.

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Ryan Morganyag

With a definitive clank, the walls above shut down tightly. Down was the only choice now. Ryan kept his eyes focused on the path ahead, both to see if he could catch up with Kanna or Reegan, and to not get distracted with the confusing way this duct moved. "Luer, don't look at the walls... Trust me on that one" he quickly called out through their thought connection. By the time the tunnel started to shift directions, Ryan would maneuver accordingly, gently picking Kanna, Reegan, or both if possible with his claws. Keeping them held without gripping too hard to cut them.

Seeing as the path ahead was a tad too intricate to continue travelling as a dragon with people on his back, Ryan came gradually to a halt "Looks like it's time to travel on foot. The path is too narrow for me to safely carry you on my back". That said, he would approach to the pipes with his wings extended, and giving them a moment for everyone to get on a pipe to traverse on.
 
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Things were always hectic with this group, Luer has decided. As if this need to follow the disembodied voice they were not even sure if they could trust was not already urgent, the whole place around them needed to make it that much worse. He flinched at the feeling on his neck. Great, an injection he could not afford to question right now. He will deal with that later. For now though, there were other things that were more important. In response to Ryan's mental message, he tried to send one back of his own. He was not yet very good at this though. "Perhaps next time, then, we can do that."

"No. I do not need them right now."
He answered ANNA, since he did not want her… it?… whatever, to activate that. Instead, he took Ryan's warning to hold on tight without hurting the dragon as best he could as he went faster. At Ryan's warning though he did all he could to truly avoid doing just that- closing his eyes.

At least, until he spoke aloud. Oh, back to walking? Good. He took Ryan's wordless direction to get off of him, giving a small sigh. He was dizzy… the medicine either had not fully kicked in yet or this was beyond help. Regardless, he turned to the others after a glance around. "…Where are we?"
 
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If Luer wasn't taking this well, imagine how poor Columbo was taking it.

Bless the man, he at least was putting on a brave face. Near death explosion, falling from an incredible height, the tree lady summoning skeletons and stealing his cigar. He was not exactly cut out for intense action like this. First thing he did when Ryan and Reegan let go on him was falling to his hands and knees to take a shaky breath, like he just got off his first ever roller coaster.

Yet somehow he still had the cigar Reegan took in between his index fingers. He was about to take a puff from it, but consider what she did to it, and all the weird stuff that followed, he decided, 'nah.' "Uh... Here, you can keep it," he said with a shaky voice, handing the cigar back to Reegan. "I got plenty."
 
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Batman, near unfazed and with the barest expression of exertion, safely came down beside the dragon and his posse. He had much experience navigating such strange corridors and terrain with his cape's built-in glider mechanism. The caped crusader approached the team, scanning the area with his cowl's sensor suite as he talked. "One too many remarks about my inability to fly," he muttered. "I wouldn't trust the more helpful voice yet. Enemies like disguising themselves as friends when you don't know any better." Though he was aware openly sharing this advice might place a firmer target on his back, the well being of his group was more important - always more important than his own.

Besides, he could take the extra heat. People like Columbo, the younger couple, the dragon child, they might not be so adept as himself. It was his duty to do what others couldn't. It was one of the first lessons he learned, after expanding his operations with the first Robin all those years ago. None of them were Dick, Barbara, Tim or any of the others in terms of trust and mutual experience - not yet, anyway - but he still cared for them all the same.
He pulled out a standard batarang from his utility belt, and handed it to Columbo, showing off the intricacies of handling one without speaking the details aloud, trusting Columbo's perception and intuitiveness without alerting the mysterious voice audibly. Visually, he revealed the mechanism for clasping and unclasping the batarang's two ends, the sharpness of the edge, and by tossing it up in the air over and over, carefully spinning it, revealing its natural ease for soaring through the air. "You should have this. It's a multi-purpose tool, good for many things."
 
~~GM~~

Columbo was still on his hands and knees, trying not to lose his lunch, when Batsy handed him a Batarang. He managed to just let out a small burp when he finally grabbed it. "Oof~... Excuse me," he managed to say after a gulp, "thank you very much. I'll keep that in here," he told Batman, putting it in his jacket pocket.

It was when he was about to stand back up again that he noticed something. He had placed his hand back down on the pipe for balance, when he realized something was flowing through this. The logical sense was air, since the station had to get oxygen flowing through it somehow for them all to breathe. But, it felt different. "I think there's oil in here," he said to everyone, putting his head closer to the pipe to hear its insides. "Or... some sort of fluid. It's thick, though, I can tell from the vibration. You can tell the fluid's viscosity from how tense the vibration is from the pipe, if it's thicker, it needs more power to push, but less if it's thinner."

He kept his hands on the pipe for a minute, trying to get an idea of which direction it was going in. "I think.... It's go-ing... that way," Columbo pointed to behind them. The pipe did go down if they followed along with where the fluid was going, but equally so if they went where it was coming from. And the pipes that continued straight down could be climbed down on, but would take some manuvering.

"What do you all think?" Seems they had three directions they could go.
 
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Falling down the rotating tube was disorienting enough when multiple mistmen tried to keep her from slamming into obstacles. Skeletal hands clasped around her limbs even as her own rose a gong kicking a pipe to help redirect her to intersect Kanna. Woodsie and bony hands grasp and spin the tumbling dragon as Reegan leaves a sappy green mark with a crack of her spriggan bark, with Ryan looming behind her in the distance.

The mistmen immediately started pulling them to a stable course as the amber spriggan eyes quivered to focus against pain. The mistmen could fly though they took much of her energy to maintain when dragon and spriggan combined were heavy. Thankfully Ryan grasped the ironwood spriggan in the scaly hands for mistmen to relent into a flock of horror.

Cracked with weeping green on the side she'd hit, Reegan drops Kanna heavily with a creaking splinter of one arm. Mistmen nearby look around at the others with moving jaws that wordlessly try to put together a scant few words to recognize their fate now that the immediate danger has passed. The reaper was too weak to hold all their minds against the cycle simultaneously, and the living world grew increasingly confusing. The purple gate in her midriff to the soul carin flared as all but what was Lorne remained when she pulled their astral tethers to put them somewhere they could pass on.

Colombo came to her then and returned the cigar she borrowed but looked at it curiously in her fingers, "Are you sure? Well, I'll keep it then."

As he turned to leave, she popped the cigar in her mouth but not to smoke it. More grabbed by something too far inside in her mouth and pulled away for safekeeping.

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Her voice echoed as she looked at the last not-quite mistman thicker than the others. She anchored Lorne again to reality in a fury of creaking bone, building a floating skeleton from the top down, "Revak Diil Aar!"

Batman's hud quietly seemed to translate the words of power just fine, if anything from any exposure to Dr Strange, "Transliterated - Sanctify nonlife servant."

The suit sensor systems, if it quietly labeled her injuries, would soon expand to her other properties if he looked her way: multiple severe dermal armor fractures, anomalous hyperspatial volume, crown jewelry - weeping unknown fluid enhancing regeneration speed, crown jewelry - unknown thermal resonance in wood burning range, left arm fracture, left hip deformation, back deformation, detecting grown hyperspatial ammo - 12 x ~98 gram arrows, Hyperspatial item - unlabeled wine bottles, plant regeneration moderate - poor lighting and foot sole rooting lacks soil, abdomen portal detected - warning: interior conditions inimical to organic life, hyperspatial items - engraved remains [human, nonhuman, draconic], wrist bracelets - bronze profile matches anomalous item 154.

The refrain to give form to the anchored soul differed with Reegan as reaper than the deaedra that once had served the ideal masters before its destruction at the hands of the Dovahkiin, "Blessed are the Keepers, for they protect from outside rigors of life and death."

The being that stared at his gloved hands still was Lorne in most respects of the psyche. The body housing the soul was now a cold thing of muted emotions but gesticulated as if saying something to Reegan. She heard his complaints just fine to wince as she stood up and glanced at Colombo as he recovered nearby.

Silent jawing and gesticulation were answered with a quivering smile and a holding her side with the good arm as white rivulets flowed down the other, "Calm down, Lorne, it's not forever. I can't hold you very long at one time. They'll pass on to whatever afterlife they seek or comes to claim them."

He rapped his skull with a hollow clonk of bone, to which Reegan replied, one hand on her hips, "Resurrect a pulverized body? How? No, you'd be a newborn if I made you a new body, and that takes time."

Instead of rolling her eyes, the woodsie spriggan looked up and shook her head at the silent reply as the skeleton moved its mouth silently, "Yes, they work. Only when you're a newborn. No, because the dress is gone. A spriggan is not creepy! It bothers the humans when I'm naked and look too like them."

The skeleton marine clad in warped mixtures of plate and combat armor squeezes his bony brow to start checking his waist. He looks up to silently jaw at Reegan, who quickly replies in that half-conversation between them, "Knife? I empower whatever you use. Even a pipe, yes. Come on."

She limped to where Colombo had called them all over, though the skeletal Lorne soon helped her. The misty yellow eyes followed Colombo's gesture in the pipe's pumped direction, then looked toward where they went straight down.

"I fly like a brick, and I'm probably most of the green on the station. I can't tell you what's in the metal either. I'd prefer not to climb the pipe pit to find out."

She looked toward Ryan, "Riding the Dovah the whole way down would be dangerous. The pipes might not leave enough space to move wings."
 
Zoe.

So there was no Malphis with her. What a shame, to lose a useful companion. She could maintain her gadgets by herself(if she had them to begin with, but that was a complaint reserved for later), but upgrades and creation of new tools of destruction was a profession reserved only for the shadowy demon. An art beyond her comprehension, by his own words. Demon, to emphasize. They brought only destruction, and she did not trust him fully even to this day. Keeping him close was not only useful for her, but also a good way to watch over a potential enemy with formidable capabilities.
"...."
Still trying to grasp the situation at hand, Zoe was quiet through the hectic, speedy ride on the wings of this... dragon person. As funny as it sounded, this was all explainable if she ended up in a whole new world. She only hoped safety was somewhere close, so that some of the questions in her head could be answered by these diversely dressed people.

The half demon nodded when the time came for her to dismount. She jumped off nimbly, minimizing the force applied on the dragon, to land on the pipe as softly as she left Ryan's back. Her eyes adjusted to the surroundings. Thanks to the plenty of distraction going on in her head, Zoe was able to keep her thought off of the disorientation from the navigation. Even if she did suffer from it fully, she'd recover as fast as she did now. Most of her body was modified to survive such encounters, after all.
Once she was on the solid surface that was the pipe, Zoe turned her focus back to the people around her. The man with two little points on his mask, who successfully neutralized her back there. The dragon. A tree-like thing. And some couple other folks that were more human in terms of appearance.

The rather plain looking man had the leisure and the skills to inspect their footing. Zoe followed suite, placing her hand on the pipe, like a baby mimicking an adult's gesture. She could well feel the vibration, but the talk of viscocity and the such was beyond her recognition. Basic science was a luxury where she grew up in, at least for the majority of the dwindling population of humanity. So, she made the best decision she could.
"I follow."
She said, standing up with her arms crossed.
"Don't expect me to make practical decisions in my current state."
 
Ryan Morganyag

"Sounds like a date." Ryan mentally answered to Luer in a casual and laid back tone, before turning back to the current situation. His scales would emit embers that engulfed them into a fireball that shrunk and reshaped itself into Ryan's usual form once everyone dropped off. He then took a look around as he listened to the chat in the background. "The... Bat... person is right, we can't be too trustful of it... Even if it did save us. Perhaps." He spoke as he triple checked what Columbo and the Bat guy said, placing his hand on the pipe he was standing on.

As he stood up, he glanced at Luer for a moment "I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine." Ryan mentally spoke to his partner, before turning to the rest of the group. "I have been part of this war for a fair while now. My specialty is reconnaissance and combat. Not planning." He made an emphasis on the "not" before continuing "You two seem more capable of it than I am." Nodding at the Bat and Columbo "... So I entrust you with coming up with a plan we can follow. That said, I have a neural link with Luer, so feel free to send me to explore by myself one of the paths. If you do, though. Please take care of the girl." he said as he glanced over to Kanna.