BCTheEntity

A Good Old Dungeon Spelunk (Full currently, check back later!)

Well, well. The gnome could shout up a storm when he needed to. She felt he could probably achieve that feat literally too, with or without shouting, but that was neither here nor there, so long as she didn't make an enemy of him. On the other hand, his attention shifted to the Ultralith almost immediately after he was done with the owlman, an eye-rolling procedure, because darn it if she didn't need to have words with him about... well, exactly what the knightly tall dwarf brought up, as it happen. Was he a knight? He certainly had the armour for it, if not the sword... though what facial hair he had. Hardly standard on any Arakhan, for obvious reasons... nonetheless.

'I believe I caught the tail end of his speech,' Alea stated, with the mildest of points to her voice. 'Certainly, I will need to discuss my role in this with him; I was quite hoping to traverse the crypt myself, and in truth, lounging around outside it hardly suits me...' She trailed off briefly, espying two new arrivals - a man dressed all in black with a manner that seemed... not quite aristocratic in nature. She might need to clarify what his standing in life was... and, inexplicably, a teenaged year old tall dwarf. Or was that a gnome? Either way, she couldn't help but giggle lightly at the sight. How cute it was, with its- her, even- with her short little arms and legs, and her slightly pudgy cheeks and bright red eyes. Most teenaged Arakhan were nothing like so adorable: she knew for a fact that she'd been incredibly irritable from the pain of her transition from half-spider to full adult, and moreso thanks to actually being attacked halfway through the whole thing when her legs weren't working properly. Oh, if only her brat sister were still around, so she could shoot the little twerp between the eyes all over again.

Speaking of which, she recalled with a quick shake of her head, the man had asked about her pistols. 'As for these,' she offered proudly, hefting a couple of the guns briefly before reholstering them, 'I'm mildly surprised you don't know what they are, considering your obvious heritage of combat. They're called flintlock pistols, the flintlock mechanism being the successor to the matchlock and wheellock mechanisms, and far more reliable for it. Of course, though it may not be obvious, I've... let's say modified mine just a little so they're a bit more useful than their standard counterparts. They usually take a while to reload under normal circumstances, so anything to help is...'

And at this point, the oddly-pale tall dwarf made herself known to the arakhan at last. And what a bundle of energy she was, blurting out a trio of compliments and questions with hardly a breath between them, hardly giving Alea a chance to respond before turning to greet the two newcomers, the black-clad gentleman and the teen tall dwarf. Her activity was almost endearing... almost. 'As it happens,' she cautiously offered when she felt she was no longer being ignored, 'spider silk is a very comfortable material once your remove the excess glue. Very strong, too, it takes a fair bit to break it apart.

'Oh, but where are my manners?' the spider-woman asked. 'I haven't even introduced myself yet. You may call me Skarrab-Alea... and don't shorten it, please. "Skarrab" is not my given name, and I feel as though you may mishandle that sort of information. Now, if you'll kindly excuse me, I really do need to speak with Irthorne before it's too late...' Her dismissal given to the both of them, the aristocrat strutted past the tall dwarves, heading toward the Royal Advisor, and the illithid. The large, shockingly muscular illithid... ahem. Not that she didn't appreciate eye candy for both its pleasing aspects and its power to manipulate, but the effect was ruined on the tentacle-mouthed beast for rather obvious reasons, despite how it and she shared the number of eyes they each possessed. And she was quite sure they didn't reproduce with... she deferred to "in the usual manner" for the purposes of averting a detailed description. Either way, she'd best not get too attached to him. However, she did need to get close to him in order to talk to Irthorne, so she moved within a respectable distance of the two, subtly clearing her throat to grab the gnome's attention, then folding all six of her arms behind her back and waiting politely until he addressed her.

@DracoLunaris@Starberries@Banana

A Good Old Dungeon Spelunk (Full currently, check back later!)

Skarrab-Alea appeared on the scene a scant minute after Irthorne's initial speech had ended. It wasn't that she intended to be late, not at all; only, sunlight was such a rare and intriguing sight for her, granted that many of her kind chose to live in the more shadowy places of the world, and she rather felt a need to enjoy today's bright and sunny for as long as she could before descending into the crypt proper. And judging from what she'd caught of the royal advisor's speech, there would be some who had to stay behind after all, and whilst the light was good to enjoy, what a pity it'd be to have come all this way just to stand around outside the place doing most likely nothing whatsoever.

But, before revealing herself proper, she figured she ought to take a moment determining the character of each person here. There was the court mage himself, of course worthy of respect if not admiration; a large and excessively boisterous man who drew attention to himself like moths to a flame, most likely a tall dwarf, though half-giant wouldn't surprise her either, and evidently not worth much of her time either way; two other beings she assumed were tall dwarves, one evidently a holy woman of some form and the other dressed in some form of knightly armour... she'd consider small talk with them both, if they proved worth the chat; another gnome, this one surrounded by many and varied devices that lived despite being made of nonliving materials... perhaps an enchanter like herself? Nonetheless, she could likely talk with him and discuss their respective works, perhaps benefiting them both in the long run; some form of strong-seeming owl man, with bird legs and an owlish head, and having a private discussion with Irthorne, and he was wearing blue after all, so possibly richer than he looked; and a pale, very enthusiastic tall dwarf who felt the need to talk with anyone and everyone there in a loud voice. Not overly endearing, though she may end up forced to talk with her anyway.

And that beggared the question of "how will they react when they see me?" It wasn't as though arakhan were particularly common sights on the surface world, and of those present, it seemed the most physically odd individual as far as the group's mean appearance went was the owlman talking to Irthorne... though the personalities on stage were certainly likely to outshine hers in terms of oddity. The train of thought trailed off, of course, when the illithid was brought into the clearing in chains and surrounded by three guards... hold on, was that an illithid? It was a bit large to be a standard illithid, and it did seem to have both back tentacles and several extra eyes. She'd seen a few illithids in the Arakhan caves before, mostly from a few hundred meters away, and they all appeared rather more uniform than that... oh, perhaps this was one of their leader figures? What were they called, Ultralids? Ultralithids? Something silly along those lines.

Either way, she no longer particularly needed to worry about being the strangest individual in the area. Not that she was worried before, only she'd heard tall dwarves hated spiders, that they liked to squish them and pull off their legs one by one. She supposed it was just the axe-bearer who might try that with her. Maybe the Ultralisk too. Ultharid. Whatever. Regardless, she finally stepped toward the group, moving as elegantly as her refined upbringing and substantial gymnastics training would allow, her upper pair of arms swinging as they'd expect whilst the other four remained planted on her hips, not drawing too much attention to themselves at first glance. Or perhaps they would. Once more, why did she care what the rabble thought of her? Indeed, though she intended to apologise to Irthorne for her slight lateness, he was presently occupied; until then, why not let them come to her? Establish that she was waiting for them to respond to her, and so immediately establish who stood where and so on.

A Good Old Dungeon Spelunk (Full currently, check back later!)

A Spider Gundancer

Character Name: Skarrab-Alea

Race: Arakhan - A race of humanoid spider people, though they're technically akin to mammals such as apes in as many ways as arachnids. That said, they possess as many eyes and limbs as you'd expect of a spider person, and whilst they are highly flexible, and possess tough exoskeletal plates to supplement a more standard endoskeleton, they take a long time to heal fully when actually damaged.

Gender: Female

Age: 29

Appearance:


Personality and Motivations: Skarrab-Alea is a prime example of a rich aristocrat amongst the Arakhan race, and arguably most races - difficult to amuse, thinking little of the lower classes of society, and often incognisant of how well-off she is by comparison. This has led her to be the sort of person who take on many, sometimes eccentric hobbies, but abandons most after a time; indeed, sheer boredom is the primary reason she has decided to take on this mission, rather than any particular desire to help perform the king's tasks, and indeed considers the opportunity to "do something different for once" a trifle, rather than the life-risking adventure it really is. That said, and in spite of how many view her race, she isn't by any means a sociopath, nor is she needlessly cruel to others, though she often refers to those of lesser fortune than herself in a casually-dismissive tone until otherwise humbled. She is inordinately fond of cute things, however, a trait which extends to people too, and surprisingly interested in the function of her weapon of choice.

Class and Alignment: Neutral Gunslinger/Enchanter

History: Born into the ranks of the vieux riche via the Skarrab line, Alea hatched the first of her mother's first egg brood, and was therefore entitled to a far larger share of her family's riches than any of her future siblings, as was traditional in the otherwise-crowded families of the Arakhan. Also traditional: a tendency for siblings to fight and kill one another as hatchlings until only a few remain, or until they reach around two or three years of age and develop from just looking like rather large spiders into having a proper upper body, though retaining a spider-like lower half. Alea evidently reached this stage, along with four or five siblings, and from there found herself being taught a great many things by her mother (her father taking the role in her life of most Arakhan fathers, namely not that much at all) throughout childhood, such as etiquette around those of similar status to herself and how and where to continue investing money to provide for her future young, insofar as that was even necessary. Naturally, this led to a generally superior attitude, as tends to happen when one is a rich child, and eventually a rich adolescent.

Indeed, it was during adolescence that the exoskeleton of her spider half began creeping up her body. She was at first frightened and distraught, but as she learned from her mother early, it was simply the start of a wonderful blossoming into adulthood... which, for Arakhan teenagers, involves a form of semi-metamorphosis, starting from the encasement of much of the upper body, then progressing through a gradual and rather painful malfunction of the lower half of their bodies until they cease to function completely (as you might expect when the internal organs and musculature slowly turn to goo), and officially ending once the Arakhan succeeds in freeing themselves from a cocoon which by that stage covers everything below their armpits, a much more talldwarfoid body now fully formed, complete with six arms rather than the two they would previously have been used to.

This is quite standard, of course; what isn't generally standard is for the teenager to actually be accosted during this long process, even if that isn't technically immoral by Arakhan standards. Even so, one of Alea's sisters from the brood after hers decided, since she and her eldest siblings were vulnerable, that she'd take a literal stab at every survivor from the first brood, therefore ensuring that she, as the eldest from the second brood, would acquire all the money that would otherwise be offered to Alea at their respective mother's death. Inexplicably, she started with Alea's youngest sibling and attempted to end it with Alea herself, perhaps an effort to ensure the first-hatched would be as non-functional as possible, and in truth Alea survived mostly by quickly figuring out what was going on and crawling over to a recently-purchased gun of her mother's, then using it to blow a hole through her errant sister's head from point blank range, just before her life would have been ended. The experience wasn't fun for her, but it did teach her the substantial power of that recent technological advance, the flintlock pistol.

This would lead her, once she'd emerged fully from her cocoon as an official adult, to look more deeply into the technology in question throughout her early twenties. Whilst quite strong indeed, they had their flaws, namely how long they took to reload after firing... in the midst of a variety of other hobbies taken up and abandoned throughout her life, she would often try to determine if they'd offer any significant benefit to improving the strength and speed of such weapons, just in case she was ever attacked again, but she had little success until after her mother died in a terrible cart accident. This allowed her to inherit her portion of the family's funds at last, putting them to work in research toward the topic, and not long after that, she struck gold with the discovery that she was surprisingly talented in the field of enchantment.

Talented, but of course untrained at first. Even under a tutor (paid well to balance out her own impatience on the matter), Alea purchased and broke a great number of flintlocks attempting to figure out a good combination of enchantments. Eventually, at the age of twenty eight, she found a combination of weapon and ammunition enchantment that worked well together and to her eyes was very smart indeed, seemingly providing the gun so enchanted with a nigh-unlimited supply of ammunition, able to be fired far more quickly than any normal flintlock weapon. Though useful, she felt she needed more of the same, so she naturally decided to enchant several more flintlocks with this combination, just in case she needed spares. She stopped at her sixth, however, after realising that if she placed one on each foot, she wouldn't be able to fire them normally... and for the difficult nature of enchantment, this has stumped her all over again, right up until the present day, wherein she has received a message about the head advisor of the king's need for adventurers to brave the Believer's Crypt and clear it of undead monstrosities; being tired of her present problem for now, she has decided to take up this challenge, and perhaps find inspiration for the matter within as she slays the undead alongside a number of other people.

Equipment:
Spider Kisses - A set of six flintlock pistols, magically enchanted to cock themselves automatically with but a portion of focus from Alea. This on its own is not particularly useful; however, each weapon's lead shot is also enchanted to return to spherical form and teleport back into the barrel of its respective gun when it slows to a halt, in doing so triggering another enchantment in each weapon to create more gunpowder and paper wrapping for each gun from thin air when they do, essentially ensuring every single pistol possesses infinite ammunition and a far greater fire rate than any normal flintlock weapon.
Whilst a hail of gunfire is very useful and very effective in combat, the downside is that they are the first six pistols she has enchanted in this manner, and they have not been very thoroughly tested, meaning they are essentially prototype weapons as a result: Alea doesn't necessarily know that every enchantment applied will work as intended every single time, nor that they will last forever, nor that they won't occasionally do something random and unanticipated, though she has yet to encounter such issues. And of course, there's always the matter of what happens when the weapon itself misfires, most notably the difficulties involved, e.g. timing, in ensuring the barrel of each weapon doesn't melt, or worse having the gun itself explode, due to much higher heat output than they were intended for.
The two weapons on her heels have yet to be enchanted at all, and are essentially decoration at this point in time, though they can function as standard flintlocks too.
Pistol maintenance kit - For maintenance of Spider Kisses, in particular a cleaning kit, extra round supplies (enchanted shot, paper wrapping, black powder), and a ramrod. Alea doesn't expect to have to use any of this in the field; it's mostly precautionary.
Portable enchantment kit - For on-the-road enchantments, though the equipment she is carrying is mostly geared for emulating, fixing, and modifying the present enchantments of Spider Kisses at the present time.
Journal, quill and inkpot - Alea is considering spending some time after all this is over to write a book about the experience. To that end, she intends to write down notes about what happens during it, to use as a basis for the book proper, thus necessitating some extra equipment for that purpose.

Skills and Spells:
Gunplay - Evidently, Alea is very skilled at aiming and firing her flintlock pistols, even to the extent of being able to aim them mostly independently of one another. Five eyes and six arms does wonders for your hand-eye coordination. By contrast, actively reloading them is a rare necessity, but she is also capable of this to a reasonable degree of speed.
Battle Gymnastics/Dancing - One might expect a small arsenal of hobbies facilitating gunplay to include more battle-oriented supports like swordplay, but it happens that substantial flexibility and dexterity is actually very useful for making sure Alea can avoid threats to her life. She has also put a certain degree of focus into still being able to aim whilst flipping and spinning everywhere, again helped by having five eyes to observe the world through.
Enchantment - Of course, Alea has made herself fairly proficient in the field of enchanting items to be more useful than typical, with a particular focus in guns of various sorts, primarily the most modern variation of flintlocks, though the concept is not so dissimilar in the case of matchlock and wheellock weapons either. The degree to which this is useful within a dungeon is questionable, but she is nonetheless capable of some minor enchantment with the tools she has packed for the dungeon crawl.
Reading and Writing - The poor are oft separated from the rich by the latter's capacity to understand and communicate via the written word. So sayeth the Skarrab family, anyway, and Alea has evidently been taught how to read and write, for it wouldn't be proper for a lady of her caliber to not have done so.
Baking - Surprisingly enough, but understandable considering the similar degree of logic required for both enchantment and baking, Alea also has a knack for producing the most delectable breads, cakes, and other such baked good, even if the dough is often deliberately seeded with spiders, beetles, and/or flies before cooking. "For extra flavour", as she says, not that many Arakhan disagree with the notion; regardless, whilst the prospect is unlikely within a dungeon, if you can get her in front of an oven with the right ingredients, there's a good chance that she'll produce something quite tasty indeed.

Miscellaneous: Her outfit is made of dyed spider silk, with various valuable trinkets attached to it. It won't exactly stop a blade or bullet, but it's high fashion amongst the Arakhan to wear their evolutionary cousin's butt-thread on their bodies.

Hellscapers! [PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS ACCEPTING EXCEPT WHEN WE HAVE TEN PEOPLE (WE DON'T)!]

Well, that wasn't exactly expected. It looked scared for a moment, only to stamp on the ground and jump, jump, jump, jump high into the air... via sonic boom. Not too painful to weather, though Deprave figured it'd be a bit worse for ol' Craggy on his back. Still, the demon could apparently summon magic hands too, so that made hitting him a bit harder... still, he was pretty fun. If he got the chance, Deprave was going to violently rape him after pulling his legs off. Breaking him in that manner would be just grand.

But for now, it looked like John the knight had things under control. That didn't make it acceptable for him to order Deprave around like he were some servant, but he supposed whatever Old N was doing would be a bit more interesting than just splattering minions everywhere. It sounded like something else had exploded in there, even given that John had just literally attempted to explode the other demon. But of course, once he stepped back into the front room, he had little reason to actually do anything: from the looks of things, N was doing just fine with his impression of a bed frame, or was that a battering ram? Whichever it was, it was hilarious.

'OI, N, YOU RETARD!' Deprave yelled at the creature. 'Either stand up like a smart person, or get out of the way! I want at those buggers!' A cursory examination of the room revealed pretty much just the table legs from when, moments ago, N had flung a table off him and into the guards. Complete with jagged ends. Smirking, Deprave strode over to them, grabbing one in each hand, then raising his arms until they were behind him (heedless of Clog's comfort, mind) before hurling them both end over end toward the guards. If those didn't actually smash holes through them, they'd at least deal a lot of damage to the idiots, and maybe even explode into splinters like... what were they called, fragnades or something? Lotta splinters, lotta damage dealt. Easy every time, as they said.

WH40k: Shadow War - An Inquisition/Dark Heresy RP [High Casual, Low Advanced] [Mature/18+]

@Jbcool Expect a sheet from me soonish.

Into The Dark: Mercenaries (Heroes of Fame and Fortune)

Well, he pondered after registering her presence, that's one way to get some questions answered quickly. Though the timing was most unfortunate: regardless of anything else, Nuva felt like Morek would react rather poorly to learning he was part dark elf (if of course he didn't already know), given the history they and the dwarves had with one another. Or maybe he'd accept it and move on, defying expectations. And that was the crux of things: anybody who learned what he was might simply shrug their shoulders, or they might try to murder him on the spot, and whilst he could readily kill anybody who did so, he imagined that wouldn't be taken too kindly by authorities. He couldn't exactly read Morek overly well as it was, so best not to risk it with him.

And on the other hand... 'Secret,' Nuva greeted her, resigned to chatting with her for a moment with Morek gathering their respective food items. 'I wasn't expecting to see you here. I imagined Captain Kayden would have work for you at the guild house?' Realistically, there wasn't much Nuva considered them to have in common, so he figured smalltalk between them might turn somewhat vacuous rather quickly; best to stick to questions relating to aspects of herself, if anything. 'Or, perhaps, he'd have sent you out on another mission for him. I'm not exactly clear on the specifics of your work under him, of course,' he offered with a shrug. He didn't really care either; that wasn't part of his skillset by any means.

A Good Old Dungeon Spelunk (Full currently, check back later!)

A Spider Gundancer

Character Name: Skarrab-Alea

Race: Arakhan - A race of humanoid spider people, though they're technically akin to mammals such as apes in as many ways as arachnids. That said, they possess as many eyes and limbs as you'd expect of a spider person, and whilst they are highly flexible, and possess tough exoskeletal plates to supplement a more standard endoskeleton, they take a long time to heal fully when actually damaged.

Gender: Female

Age: 29

Appearance:


Personality and Motivations: Skarrab-Alea is a prime example of a rich aristocrat amongst the Arakhan race, and arguably most races - difficult to amuse, thinking little of the lower classes of society, and often incognisant of how well-off she is by comparison. This has led her to be the sort of person who take on many, sometimes eccentric hobbies, but abandons most after a time; indeed, sheer boredom is the primary reason she has decided to take on this mission, rather than any particular desire to help perform the king's tasks, and indeed considers the opportunity to "do something different for once" a trifle, rather than the life-risking adventure it really is. That said, and in spite of how many view her race, she isn't by any means a sociopath, nor is she needlessly cruel to others, though she often refers to those of lesser fortune than herself in a casually-dismissive tone until otherwise humbled. She is inordinately fond of cute things, however, a trait which extends to people too, and surprisingly interested in the function of her weapon of choice.

Class and Alignment: Neutral Gunslinger/Enchanter

History: Born into the ranks of the vieux riche via the Skarrab line, Alea hatched the first of her mother's first egg brood, and was therefore entitled to a far larger share of her family's riches than any of her future siblings, as was traditional in the otherwise-crowded families of the Arakhan. Also traditional: a tendency for siblings to fight and kill one another as hatchlings until only a few remain, or until they reach around two or three years of age and develop from just looking like rather large spiders into having a proper upper body, though retaining a spider-like lower half. Alea evidently reached this stage, along with four or five siblings, and from there found herself being taught a great many things by her mother (her father taking the role in her life of most Arakhan fathers, namely not that much at all) throughout childhood, such as etiquette around those of similar status to herself and how and where to continue investing money to provide for her future young, insofar as that was even necessary. Naturally, this led to a generally superior attitude, as tends to happen when one is a rich child, and eventually a rich adolescent.

Indeed, it was during adolescence that the exoskeleton of her spider half began creeping up her body. She was at first frightened and distraught, but as she learned from her mother early, it was simply the start of a wonderful blossoming into adulthood... which, for Arakhan teenagers, involves a form of semi-metamorphosis, starting from the encasement of much of the upper body, then progressing through a gradual and rather painful malfunction of the lower half of their bodies until they cease to function completely (as you might expect when the internal organs and musculature slowly turn to goo), and officially ending once the Arakhan succeeds in freeing themselves from a cocoon which by that stage covers everything below their armpits, a much more talldwarfoid body now fully formed, complete with six arms rather than the two they would previously have been used to.

This is quite standard, of course; what isn't generally standard is for the teenager to actually be accosted during this long process, even if that isn't technically immoral by Arakhan standards. Even so, one of Alea's sisters from the brood after hers decided, since she and her eldest siblings were vulnerable, that she'd take a literal stab at every survivor from the first brood, therefore ensuring that she, as the eldest from the second brood, would acquire all the money that would otherwise be offered to Alea at their respective mother's death. Inexplicably, she started with Alea's youngest sibling and attempted to end it with Alea herself, perhaps an effort to ensure the first-hatched would be as non-functional as possible, and in truth Alea survived mostly by quickly figuring out what was going on and crawling over to a recently-purchased gun of her mother's, then using it to blow a hole through her errant sister's head from point blank range, just before her life would have been ended. The experience wasn't fun for her, but it did teach her the substantial power of that recent technological advance, the flintlock pistol.

This would lead her, once she'd emerged fully from her cocoon as an official adult, to look more deeply into the technology in question throughout her early twenties. Whilst quite strong indeed, they had their flaws, namely how long they took to reload after firing... in the midst of a variety of other hobbies taken up and abandoned throughout her life, she would often try to determine if they'd offer any significant benefit to improving the strength and speed of such weapons, just in case she was ever attacked again, but she had little success until after her mother died in a terrible cart accident. This allowed her to inherit her portion of the family's funds at last, putting them to work in research toward the topic, and not long after that, she struck gold with the discovery that she was surprisingly talented in the field of enchantment.

Talented, but of course untrained at first. Even under a tutor (paid well to balance out her own impatience on the matter), Alea purchased and broke a great number of flintlocks attempting to figure out a good combination of enchantments. Eventually, at the age of twenty eight, she found a combination of weapon and ammunition enchantment that worked well together and to her eyes was very smart indeed, seemingly providing the gun so enchanted with a nigh-unlimited supply of ammunition, able to be fired far more quickly than any normal flintlock weapon. Though useful, she felt she needed more of the same, so she naturally decided to enchant several more flintlocks with this combination, just in case she needed spares. She stopped at her sixth, however, after realising that if she placed one on each foot, she wouldn't be able to fire them normally... and for the difficult nature of enchantment, this has stumped her all over again, right up until the present day, wherein she has received a message about the head advisor of the king's need for adventurers to brave the Believer's Crypt and clear it of undead monstrosities; being tired of her present problem for now, she has decided to take up this challenge, and perhaps find inspiration for the matter within as she slays the undead alongside a number of other people.

Equipment:
Spider Kisses - A set of six flintlock pistols, magically enchanted to cock themselves automatically with but a portion of focus from Alea. This on its own is not particularly useful; however, each weapon's lead shot is also enchanted to return to spherical form and teleport back into the barrel of its respective gun when it slows to a halt, in doing so triggering another enchantment in each weapon to create more gunpowder and paper wrapping for each gun from thin air when they do, essentially ensuring every single pistol possesses infinite ammunition and a far greater fire rate than any normal flintlock weapon.
Whilst a hail of gunfire is very useful and very effective in combat, the downside is that they are the first six pistols she has enchanted in this manner, and they have not been very thoroughly tested, meaning they are essentially prototype weapons as a result: Alea doesn't necessarily know that every enchantment applied will work as intended every single time, nor that they will last forever, nor that they won't occasionally do something random and unanticipated, though she has yet to encounter such issues. And of course, there's always the matter of what happens when the weapon itself misfires, most notably the difficulties involved, e.g. timing, in ensuring the barrel of each weapon doesn't melt, or worse having the gun itself explode, due to much higher heat output than they were intended for.
The two weapons on her heels have yet to be enchanted at all, and are essentially decoration at this point in time, though they can function as standard flintlocks too.
Pistol maintenance kit - For maintenance of Spider Kisses, in particular a cleaning kit, extra round supplies (enchanted shot, paper wrapping, black powder), and a ramrod. Alea doesn't expect to have to use any of this in the field; it's mostly precautionary.
Portable enchantment kit - For on-the-road enchantments, though the equipment she is carrying is mostly geared for emulating, fixing, and modifying the present enchantments of Spider Kisses at the present time.
Journal, quill and inkpot - Alea is considering spending some time after all this is over to write a book about the experience. To that end, she intends to write down notes about what happens during it, to use as a basis for the book proper, thus necessitating some extra equipment for that purpose.

Skills and Spells:
Gunplay - Evidently, Alea is very skilled at aiming and firing her flintlock pistols, even to the extent of being able to aim them mostly independently of one another. Five eyes and six arms does wonders for your hand-eye coordination. By contrast, actively reloading them is a rare necessity, but she is also capable of this to a reasonable degree of speed.
Battle Gymnastics/Dancing - One might expect a small arsenal of hobbies facilitating gunplay to include more battle-oriented supports like swordplay, but it happens that substantial flexibility and dexterity is actually very useful for making sure Alea can avoid threats to her life. She has also put a certain degree of focus into still being able to aim whilst flipping and spinning everywhere, again helped by having five eyes to observe the world through.
Enchantment - Of course, Alea has made herself fairly proficient in the field of enchanting items to be more useful than typical, with a particular focus in guns of various sorts, primarily the most modern variation of flintlocks, though the concept is not so dissimilar in the case of matchlock and wheellock weapons either. The degree to which this is useful within a dungeon is questionable, but she is nonetheless capable of some minor enchantment with the tools she has packed for the dungeon crawl.
Reading and Writing - The poor are oft separated from the rich by the latter's capacity to understand and communicate via the written word. So sayeth the Skarrab family, anyway, and Alea has evidently been taught how to read and write, for it wouldn't be proper for a lady of her caliber to not have done so.
Baking - Surprisingly enough, but understandable considering the similar degree of logic required for both enchantment and baking, Alea also has a knack for producing the most delectable breads, cakes, and other such baked good, even if the dough is often deliberately seeded with spiders, beetles, and/or flies before cooking. "For extra flavour", as she says, not that many Arakhan disagree with the notion; regardless, whilst the prospect is unlikely within a dungeon, if you can get her in front of an oven with the right ingredients, there's a good chance that she'll produce something quite tasty indeed.

Miscellaneous: Her outfit is made of dyed spider silk, with various valuable trinkets attached to it. It won't exactly stop a blade or bullet, but it's high fashion amongst the Arakhan to wear their evolutionary cousin's butt-thread on their bodies.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Alessa Heather: Streets of Denver (Storm Drain)

That last outburst settled it: Eyeblight was quite mad, and he hardly had an excuse for it. Who took the Anarchist's Cookbook seriously, after all? Half its "recipes" were prone to detonation in the process of production, after all! But in all seriousness, she herself had lost her entire family, much as she tried to avoid the thought of them nowadays, though she now used it to further add to the authenticity of her despair about the situation, even as the mask of light continued to hide her expression. That said, it was hardly fair to compare their situations, since she didn't know what had caused the psychopath to trigger to begin with... but even then, rigging civilians, innocents, with makeshift bombs was beyond disgusting. She wondered briefly if he'd ever read the Batman story called The Killing Joke, but then refocused her thoughts on the conundrum placed before her.

It was a single, simple request he'd made, beyond the initial conditions set. And yet it was a nearly impossible thing. "Look at me," he asked, knowing full well that she would be made a madwoman for it. Her sidelong glances were just about tolerable... but a direct stare would amplify the primal fear she felt, exacerbate it into full-blown terror, ever more maddening by the second. What, then, could she do about it? How could she turn a direct stare into a safe glance, though her pupils were taking Eyeblight in in his entirety?

But the answer to that riddle was so obvious. She could control light; ergo, she could in theory control anything and everything relating to it, including vision. All she needed to do was create a wall of photons directed toward her pupils, preventing her from maintaining more than, say, a pinhole of sight? Or outright cloak her vision entirely if she absolutely had to, and either way, Eyeblight would be unable to tell for the light already pouring from her face. Her continued heat spots would keep him from escaping throughout the process, of course... and maybe she could figure some attempt at redemption into the strawman in the process?

After but a few seconds of thought beyond Eyeblight's outburst- precious, ever so precious time, to ensure Margrave could do his part- she nodded in assent to Eyeblight's demand, taking another few seconds and breathing deeply, as if to steel herself for the task at hand, but in truth to ensure the cloak of light over her eyes was sufficient for its task. Ultimately, she left herself but a pinhole of vision at the center of her pupils, the rest of her sight whited out for the time being; the relief was immediate, but she still had her part of the bargain to handle.

Ever so slowly, as if still afraid, she turned her head to face Eyeblight directly, until that pinhole view was showing her his person, the fear ramping up once again, but tolerably so, and certainly not so much as she was sure would happen otherwise. If it got too much, she could always close the pinhole off instantly. She continued to breath deeply, continued to take him in entirely yet barely at all- though briefly recalling the phrase about eyes being a window to the soul, and knowing that his was hardly tolerable to start with, she deliberately let the pinhole drift away from his face when her sight would otherwise have crossed it- and beneath the light mask licked her lips in preparation to speak.

'Y-yes, Eyeblight,' she spoke, voice quaking but nonetheless mostly certain, even kindly for the situation she was going through. 'I see you. And... I'm s-s-sorry that the world hasn't been too k-kind to you. To, ah, tell the truth, it's... not been too kind to me, e-either. I-I-I mean, the fact that I'm here now indicates that, I-I suppose, aheh... t-t-trigger events, and all. Um... since we're on the... mmh... n-no, don't worry. Just know that I... I understand, okay? I g-get it.'

She'd cut herself off deliberately. She was talking to a psychopath with a bomb trigger, after all; she hardly wanted to get his life story out of him anyway for the fear (surprisingly little, she noticed, though she forced herself to pretend it was far greater anyway) he was forcing upon her, and much as she felt a compulsive need to empathise, trying to wheedle information about his trigger event out of him was probably going to set him off, which of course would be a recipe for disaster. Better just to provide empty reassurance until Margrave's job was done, surely.

---

Raymond Haywood: Streets of Denver

'Agreed.' Raymond hardly had much else to say after James' mouth-running. The description of their gang was apt, in any case. Doing his best to maintain his position beside Arsenal, just in case, he set the pace for the group, walking back in the direction of the Icehouse and trusting that the other members of the gang (newcomer included) would follow on.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

@ProPro Yeah, I've been procrastinating on posting for a while. Not sure why. I'll try to resolve that, and get a post out for this tomorrow.

A Tolkien based RP: Out of the Past

It seemed Saptheth was marginally more welcome than he'd first anticipated. The... what did they call the lower class here? That was it, the peasant girl invited him to take a seat and have a "béor", as a "frēond". He presumed she meant the West's often poor excuse for "beer" in the first case, and "friend" in the second. The Serpent was once again reminded: he lacked both the funds for anything, let alone alcohol, as well as anything resembling a friend... well, anywhere, considering the rest of his people were presumably dead by now, and he certainly hadn't made new ones in the Westlands. Though he let the mild insult slide, he deigned to take a seat, and the girl shortly revealed her true attitude by feigning fatigue, and leaving for a bed herself. Though considering her slurred words and stumbling nature, she may simply have been very drunk.

But that was neither here nor there. Saptheth was left with three individuals: the Ifrit, the so-called smith, and... well, he wasn't quite sure how to place the other man, who was now greeting him with an extended hand and similar joviality to the peasant girl. Indeed, it almost struck him that their attitudes were very similar in nature; yet the equipment on his person, the green cloak in particular, and a sword that was clearly beyond what a mere peasant could afford to own even sheathed, suggested otherwise. He supposed their first battle would determine the man's use: if he was ineffective, he would die. It was that simple. Regardless, his name had been asked for, and whilst pointedly eyeing the man's extended hand, he pondered whether granting it would be wise... then again, they would be travelling together for a while anyway. Why not?

'There are many things I might be called, both past and present... titles,' he stated, not offering his own hand to shake, and instead finally taking a seat as if to offer his presence (though in truth, it was moreso his desire to move to a more comfortable position). 'I was a member of my people's lead... ing caste, and still am an elite fighter; I was a commander of warr- ...armies, and have since become a mercenary in these lands of yours. They call me the Golden Serpent. I shall allow you to call me Saptheth.' Frankly speaking, he felt even giving them that much information about himself was perhaps excessive, but he was sure the Westron knight would eventually tell them far more about his race's failure to conquer the land than he'd want them to know regardless, and from a perspective that would be naught but detrimental to himself. Perhaps best to spin the Balchothi's loss in the best light possible, then, before they would be put down further than necessary.

@Jbcool@Vor@POOHEAD189