[b]Dolly and Jade[/b] Ksharta smiles a small but genuine smile. “I had fun tonight. It was a lot more…um…wild than I’m used to. I mean, I mostly, um, well I hadn’t really been doing much since I joined the competition. I’d just make dinner privately, maybe talk to the engineers, read a bit, go shopping once in a while. It’s been weird not being part of the Huntress Lodge or my family. So, this was… wild but it was nice. I’m still…I mean, even if I add Jade to the goddesses I worship, I’m gonna give it my all next time we fight. I’m not gonna let you get away with the same tricks.” She smiles a different smile then, one with some teeth. “I could have won that match if I didn’t get flustered, I’ve been thinking about it, I mean, when there was time to um…think.” She blushes, the color darkening the stripes on her face, but she lets it ride. She allows herself to relax and purrs contentedly for a moment. Even Angela lets her have this moment and does not interrupt with any squeals or groans. She’s clearly treating Ksharta as the follower in this whole setup. Not blameless, but far more innocent than you two. Ksharta’s reverie is broken when she picks up a bowl and starts eating her own food. “The chefs here aren’t that great,” she says. “Let me just…I mean, if it’s okay with the goddess, I think I could improve their recipe a little bit.” She tenses as if to stand, but looks to you for permission to go, and perhaps for companionship? [If you want to roll a comfort and support, you can help her. She’ll appreciate that a lot.] *** [b]Mirror[/b] Several of the guests laugh when you force down the cinnamon liquor. It’s not [i]particularly[/i] mean-spirited as these things go, you’re simply providing some entertainment by committing as you did despite your obvious discomfort. A few of them will respect you more for it. Marcina does not laugh. She does not smile. Her demeanor is a little cold and she looks pained in fact. She lets you recover, lets you speak your piece, but her answer is to the drink first, not the competition. “That was very stupid of me. Please accept my apologies. Your herbal drink is on me as well. I, and most people I know, find the taste of cinnamon pleasant, it’s no hardship and I am no steel queen. It was very stupid that I should assume a Hybrasilian would have the same tastes, and that I knew of you but not of your people. A mistake I’ll fix tonight.” She doesn’t seem to mean the conversation with you in that statement. There’s no prompt for any further information, no demand to tell her about Hybrasil or important facts she needs to know. If anything, the sense you get is that she’s going to finish hanging out at the bar and go hit up a library of some sort rather than sleep. Perhaps she has access to a private collection or a source for the latest information coming into the system. She sips her cinnamon and spice liquor and smiles at the taste of it, allowing it to lighten her mood, though her composure does not really slip at all. Then she holds up three fingers. “I am interested in you because your mecha is unique and so I think you are unique. I watched your last two matches and I looked up what I could of the pilot of that mecha. I’m not sure I entirely grasp the title of ‘One Day Defender’ from the war reports though, nor how you found your way to this competition.” She lowers a finger, then lowers her whole hand briefly to take another sip, before returning to holding two fingers up. “I am seeded into the quarterfinals because of my victory last time. I’m in the upper left bracket. If I recall in the first round of eliminations, you’d want to be, hm I think it was 8th to face me as quickly as possible. Though of course we could meet in the semis with a variety of placements and in the finals in any event.” That she states matter of factly. She has every confidence she’ll at least make it to the final and nothing she’s seen of the matches thus far has shaken it. She lowers the second finger. “Being eaten is not my wish, but it would please me to face you sooner and learn in the proces. You shouldn’t throw any matches though, each pilot ought to compete to the best of her ability in every match she’s in, should she not?.” She stops, the question is not rhetorical. She wonders if you share that opinion. [If you want any confirmed reads on Marcina, you can roll dice, or take her responses and demeanor as they appear.] *** [b]Isabelle[/b] There are several feelings that occur to you at this moment. The first is that you just did something very very stupid. The second is a searing pain in your hand. The spot where you slammed it sharpened right as your hand came down and, well, we won’t get into the details, but you’ve got a deep cut on the lower edge of your hand, right about halfway between wrist and pinkie finger. The third is a strange, tingling sensation running up your arm quite quickly, and the fourth and last is something almost electrical between you and the door console. Annika’s staring. So is Crescent. You aren’t aware of this because the nanobots that have entered your bloodstream are very busy doing something. Something strange, something that you’re not sure nanobots are supposed to be able to do. Something a lot more complex than a few people controlling some clothing with a wrist watch. Annika grabs your hand then, the cut one. Grabs it hard, holding it like a pincer with her own. You feel something, one of the geists she’s been carrying. Some kind of exploratory program, distinct from the one that Solarel stole, but still similar to this facility somehow. She holds your hand tight as the geist interfaces and then, you can feel the door??? “Open it” she says. And you can, you know with absolute certainty that you can will the door to open. Do you? *** [b]Solarel[/b] You see impatience. When you go through the floor, the Kathresis and its spirit crashes after you, heedless of the collateral damage. The spirit is using vision to guide its machine, and the rain of metal and dust that it creates by moving too quickly is the perfect cover for you to slip away. It gives you space to move, a head start before it knows your direction. You run. You cut cameras with precision. This level is more natural, tunnels shaped and carved by nanobots following the easiest lines in the rock, the softest routes, avoiding structural supports. It feels less like a test facility as you go further down and more like a living planet. Not…literally, probably, but like the natural forces of cave systems and waterflow were long ago merged with the nanobot AI in a way that simply sculpted these caverns and continued to sculpt and resculpt them to maintain stability and some small amount of beauty. Most of that beauty blurs by though, and it will have to be some other time that you stop to properly shine a light on the strange crystals forming on the walls down here or the pools of water that reflect nothing because of the perfect darkness. The Kathresis still tracks you, you can tell from the whine of its crystal fire drive. A few times, it seems to even be close, the spirit trying to guess your route by where it is losing vision and you’re forced to rapidly change direction, doubling back on yourself and cutting into different corridors. Deeper and further, places with fewer cameras or none at all. You can maneuver here, but any break you make for more developed areas will be tracked. You’re playing cat and mouse now. Which one are you?