Zeitgeist Blue

Thus suited within her armour, Salvo stood in the middle of the baseball diamond, watching the dragon stalk around the field. The two cut an imposing scene. The beast of myth and the obelisk of steel, cutting long shadows on the ground against the lights. She could feel the excitement within her chest rise with the promise of the ghost. And the hunt had barely started. Dio was right, this was more fun than the dance. Dio had even less reason to attend the Fall Dance than she had being, you know, a dragon. She grinned at Dio's request, opening her eyes to the sensory suite. "I thought you'd never ask." In an instant, she could see everything around her, like the world was a picture in her mind's eye and she the painter. The Auditorium was still in full swing with the dance and she could see the students mingling and dancing. Leroy kissing Judy before she pulls back. Pan and Zenith dancing on air above the courtyard. She forced her mind away from it all, centering her focus into her immediate surroundings. Then she switched into magic sensors and began shifting through the noise. "How can an Acolyte of Ghorummaz not be able to find the tunnel?" She asked absently as she divided the search area into a grid pattern, determind to search it inch by inch. "You're supposed to be into earthy stuff. Magma and earth and the world beneath us, our eyes, and everything." "Be easier to find it if we had a copy of the records. Summers keeps this up and I'd be even more tempted to bring out my hacking kit again. I mean, I'm already here trying to dig up one of her secrets. What's a few dozen more going to hurt?" Salvo's armour kept stock still as she continued her search, though her visor turned to keep Dio within her vision. She couldn't help but snort. "I get look and feel, but is eternal peace and love supposed to make the world smell like a baby's butt?" An anomaly appeared and she pointed it out the Dio. "Hey, burrow on that spot for me will you?"

GM "Of course you would hate it," Kayara says, absent-mindedly as she lifted her head to the sky. "Neither has any of the previous bearers I had bestowed upon it." "But in destruction there too is creation. Power." Still watching the sky, she reaches out a hand and grips your own with the ring in hers, pulling your hand until you are touching her chest. The ring grows hot, as if she were a furnace. "I see so much greed in your life. A lust for recognition. But tell me, is it merely because of your family name? To live up to it or to remove yourself from their shadow?" She lets go of your hand and lowers her gaze to you. Then she smiles. "You know well the power of the past and it is similar power which my beloved's ring holds. To cut to the truth of all things as the moon's light does on the darkest night. To guide your understanding on why and how they are." "The beast knows this but can do little save deny me my fate for milennia. But you have the tools to complete the sacrifice, yes?" She waves a hand across the air and she almost seems sad as she does so. "The conditions are not ideal but so few things are in this world. Take your tools and come back to me quick for when we begin it shall know and do all in its power to stop us." "As for the sacrifice... Is it not obvious?" Her fingers reach out to hold your gaze on her. "It shall be me."

Okay!

Roll Initiative! Also, @Fox , roll me Knowledge (Arcane Lore). @angrydurf , roll me a magical sense power.

GM As Ouroboros' fixes the last pieces in place, the doorway leading to the Electronic Defense System pulses and shifts, settling into a stable field that simulates a shape of a large door. It is a tempting way in to the nearby dimension, but before anyone could step forward a hand pushes out from the doorway. Clawed and metallic, it grips the lip where the door meets the wall and pushes more of itself out. The whole arm is metal and stripped of much ornamentation, sleek as if straight from a factory. Then a robot's head appears from the door. A sole eye dominates most of its head but you see an oversized jaw hanging loosely from the bottom, teeth ending in nasty points. You see its eye swivel violently between the four of you. It pauses, body halfway out of the doorway, before its eye flashes into an angry red. Its jaw snaps tightly back in place and its warning rang through the room. "Alert! Unauthorized entry! Intruders detected! Surrender or be terminated!" It did not give much time to react though as it sprang into action, leaping for Ouroboros, who was closest. Behind it, more clawed hands reached and pulled and grabbed from the other side of the doorway.

Meanwhile, outside the room and merely a few meters away... "Hey!" Nicole rapped her knuckles on the inside of the breastplate. She was halfway in, her feet dangling in the air as she tried to pry open Bellios. She could hear the sounds of fighting and the screams of the possessor, though from what she could hear she almost pitied it. Almost. Now she only needed to get the hunk of junk working. She tried pushing past the activation wards only for purple electricity to arc outward, singing the hallway, followed by a crack like thunder. Nicole poked her head out, saw the damage, then promptly ducked back inside her armour. "Damn it."

Longer than a full round's kind of vague. How about I keep Salvo back for another round while you guys manhandle the guy?

Actually, how long is long with the Normal Identity Drawback of Very Common by the way? Got no book with me right now.

"Looks like they got this," Nicole said to her schoolmates, reaching out a hand to stop them from moving forward to help. It was a natural response for those with her hobby, but in cases like this it was better to let the experts handle it. The woman currently treating Corinne and taking charge looked like she knew what she was doing. "Poison? Shot?" Nicole repeated as she reached up a phone to dial 911. It didn't take a genius to guess why the daughter of a famous superhero-playboy would get targeted. "But I didn't see anything. Sara, did you?" She asked the White Lioness, sure that if anyone would notice anything it was her.

"Sheeze, I may have dodged a bullet here," Nicole mutters under her breathe, listening to Dio wax poetic about Leroy's treatment of the dragon. If she didn't know any better she'd peg it down as slavery, but she did and it sounded exactly like that! That did not endear the Sun Dragon much to the mage-smith. "But you care about him?" She gingerly poked. "That's why you haven't left him faster than you can burrow through the ground?" In any case, all this talk about Leroy left a bad taste in Nicole's mouth and she was eager to put her mind somewhere else. Like magic, a spirits, and haunting Earthbounds. It made her eyes glow thinking about all she could dissect from such a creature, literally and figuratively. No telling what a vengeful ghost had absorbed for all its time inside a school filled with superpowers. Nicole tsk'ed in disapproval as Dio tapped Bellios' faceplate and she adjusted her glasses with a finger. "If you out it that way, you make it sound like anything's better than staying up here." She glanced sideways at the rooftop door, where Astrid's music was wafting from. Sure, tribal. That was one way to put it. "You're asking for my help, aren't you? And I bet you came here already knowing what my answer would be." There were a bunch of others who wouldn't be sacks of potatoes to carry against spirits. There were certain skill sets that would affect them. You wouldn't look to physical might for these kinds of things. Then smiling, she looked back at Dio. "Yes."

He nods. "Another way to do it, sure," and he throws a thumb back at Healer Anne, who is glaring at the two of you talking instead of working. "But the old woman says it takes hours for one whole serving to be prepared." "Go," he tells you. "I'll stay here and help what I can." *** Traps. Snares. Deadfalls. Improvised bears. Stakes. You do what you can with what limited time and equipment you have. Even gathering the tools and raw materials, there is only so much one woman could add. A few villagers on patrol or brave enough pass by you and one or two stop to help dig pits or fashion holds upsized to the Paruma's size. They quickly leave after their work is done, exchanging with you only a few words. It is hard work and more than halfway through your planned traps you look up to the sky and see that the moon has reached its zenith. It is midnight and the jungle is quiet, unnerving instead of calm because you know the reason for the silence. One could feel more alone than they actually are just looking up and hearing nothing. Indeed, you are at a point farthest from the stream, where the clearing cuts off and the hills begin rolling up again into more jungle and trees. The huts are merely a short jog away but there is not a soul in sight. Then silence is broken. You hear the sound of gunshots off to the distance. They come from the opposite of the village of where you are. They are cut off abruptly. Then running footsteps, shouting as the people in the perimeter run to find out what has happened. You all hear this from where you are but before you can move to see what the commotion, your eye catches sight of a human figure where the hills meet the trees. Kayara steps out from the jungle and raises her hand towards you, as if beckoning. Then she takes another step and begins walking to you. "The explorer," she says, and for the first time you see she is more kucid than you have seen her. More full, more human. More otherworldly and more real. Her hair shines bright like the moon, almost silver. "I find you here, explorer, bearer of my beloved's ring." Her pupils burn bright with fire. Literally, like a video playing a montage. You blink and it is gone. "Bearer of my body and soul, of its body and soul." She cocks her head as if hearing what you are hearing, then she lowers her gaze back to you and she is smiling, a beautific smile fit for a saint. "I gave it all to you and for all that you went through, you did not dissapoint."

I'll give this a few days to stew in case anyone wants to interact or take some proactive action. Otherwise, I'd kick it into gear then.

Notice: 1d20+3 = 13

Ouroboros touches the broken pinion and in short order you see the vampire's particular dimension flow into the cracks and crevices, filling the bronze workings with negative energies, polishing it into a shiny black glow. An unholy contraption, a fix that would not last. It was set into a foundation that threatened to explode at the wrong touch... but it was certainly more than enough for now. Then the whole-yet-still-broken pieces were slotted into place and the gears began their slow turn to life. And the doorway once inert and leading nowhere but a wall, flickered open. Energy, white, and electricity contained. The entrance to the subsequent dimension stood ready for use. Through the doorway to the Forcefield dimension the sound of pistons jackhammering continued. It reached a crescendo, getting louder, and at its height the room seemed to respond physically. A crack went from the doorway, and it snaked its way up the wall into the cieling. The gears above swayed perilously and off to the side one fell down and crashed down with a shower of sparks. Then the pistons dissipate, softer than before, as if the effort could not be maintained. What now?

GM Healer Anne stares at you for a second before she relents. <Alright, fine.> She waves you inside the hut. <If Doji's one to send you then maybe you aren't so bad. Just don't mess up or you're gone faster than you could say 'Ouch'.> Inside, there is a row of patients, all in different states of health and care. Some are covered in bandages all around their torso, red with blood. Others have wounds that seem to have mostly healed, and they lay down on their cots peacefully. You lend your hands to a pair of assistants and Anne goes back to her work. The assistants bandage wounds, rewrap bandages, apply salves, and help the injured drink water. They give their patients what seems to be the concoctions, which put their patients into a near sleep. Healer Anne meanwhile, when she isn't working on creating more potions, walks among the mats where the injured lie, treating the worst looking among them. You don't know their medical practices, but some things are universal, and you are able to bandage some of the wounded. Anne looks over your shoulder a few times but leaves with nothing more than a huff. An hour or so after you had begun, Neil enters the hut, receiving the same treatment you had from the healer. He begins work he same as you do until he is beside you, muttering something about not being able to sleep. He grimaces as you lay out your plan. "Sounds like it would achieve nothing, honestly. Traps and snares..." He sighs. "This isn't a dear we're trapping, or even a bear. Walking around alone's going to " "If it's following us then it seems like the best plan is to get the hell out of dodge." He points at your ring. "Only thing worth following for. Maybe it wants that, maybe not. I'm no expert on the supernatural. But, sure, I'll go with you if it'll get you peace of mind."