Lemons

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

I hate Zesty almost as much as I love him.

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

Etoile

---

Well, it seemed like at least for now, Etoile was pretty safe in regards to the Inquisitors. They (quite reasonably) seemed much more worried about imminent death via demon bird than taking her into custody, and for that, she was thankful. She didn't have time to be prideful in the situation she was in, and knew it. Oh, it most assuredly rankled her, but that took a backseat to trying to make sure her leg was okay and she was ready to do something silly.

Hiding behind the Inquisitors, she pulled out a strip of clean linen from one of a series of pouches that lined her belt, looking at it for a moment, then back down to her leg, and finally to her nonfunctional arm. "This is going to be rather awkward," she muttered, before attempting to bandage the wound. By the time she'd finished (having had to use her teeth and a single hand, as well as twisting her foot awkwardly to press down the linen on the floor so she could wrap it tightly enough), she'd seen three different people jump off of the barge, and grit her teeth through its grip on the bandage. No matter the circumstances, she wasn't one to be left behind while other people did the work for her. And, as it turned out, the wound wasn't as bad as she'd thought. Though it was painful, it was definitely no artery. The bandage was helping immensely. As long as she didn't do anything too crazy, like, say, jumping off of a barge, it would probably be fine. Which, of course, was exactly what she was about to do.

The cold logician in Etoile appeared to be asleep. She felt a little bit like she had a fever, actually. Flexing her leg and hoping it would take her through the jump, she walked over to the edge, testing the limb at the same time. It's amazing the difference a couple minutes and a bandage makes, she reflected. Then, with a little hop, she cleared the railing, flipping about it and ending in a cat hang against the side of the barge. Looking down at the twenty or so feet beneath her, she scouted for the best, most even place to land. Eventually deciding on one (pressed for time as she was), she took a deep breath and released her grip.

The wind rushing by her ears gave her a few seconds to appreciate just how high up she was before she thumped into the ground, absorbing the impact with her strong legs, falling into a deep crouch. She winced slightly. On one hand, it might've been a better idea to roll. On the other, she looked down at the barge track, covered as it was with rocks of varying levels of jagged and unpleasant, that's not something I want to try rolling on without an arm. Out in the depths of the forest, she could just barely see the torch-red hair of the oddly familiar girl, and above him he could see the gold-haired kid and the sliver-haired adult whose permanent job seemed to be keeping the kid in line. She rolled her eyes at the kid's tree-hopping theatrics (and at the fact that the older one didn't seem quite as acrobatic, given the shout) and began to pat herself down, making sure everything was still in place. Sword, mantle, belt, pouches, backpack, she ran through all of her essentials before setting off at a reasonable pace after the red-haired girl. Though it turned out that she wasn't the only one out there, as Etoile ran into the older-looking Thlecian woman that had initially spoken to her in the Eoldysseus, glaring slightly at her.

"Hello there, nice day, isn't it," she said dryly.

As she continued walking, her metal arm clanking uselessly by her side, her eyes narrowed. Whoever had started this whole mess was...irksome. Yes, that was a good work. She pulled her sabre from the sheath, using it to lop an irksome branch out of her way. While she wasn't particularly skilled with left-handed swordsmanship, she was good enough to be a threat. And that's what she wanted to be to whoever decided that demon birds was a good idea. Her leg twinged unpleasantly, and she winced, looking down midstride. Blood was starting to show on the outer layer of the bandage. She put the sword away, pressing a hand to it and closing her eyes, breathing deeply. Whatever was going to happen, it needed to happen quickly.

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

I caught that passive-aggressive thumbs up in the OOC of another RP, Ink. Don't think I didn't.

Good ol' mad scientists, back at it again!

My god I'm not the only one who wants one of these?

I am absolutely 120% ready for this. Dunno if you'll get enough people, but I am in as hell.

And for my two cents, you could go either way with wings/not wings. Everyone having wings would make it easier to keep the group together for coherency, but having some people significantly more mobile and faster than others could also lead to a bunch of different dynamics. It's on you, I think.

Breaking the Sun

Sorry for the radio silence, been really busy. I'll have a post up within the next couple days.

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

<Snipped quote by Lemons>
Whatever magical mechanics that are essential for it to work (magitek gears, etc) would not be functioning, I imagine.

@Inkarnate

Gotcha. I'll edit that into my posts.

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

Etoile

---

Etoile let out a heavy whoosh of relief as the bird that was diving towards her was clocked in the face by the red girl's sword sheath. Despite the circumstances, she was once again struck by familiarity—didn't that sword look familiar to her? Something about the designs on the sheath sparked something in her memory, but she couldn't place it for the life of her. It was endlessly frustrating.

She shook her head. No time for that now. Muttering a quick "thanks," she kept pressure on the wound as best she could as she sheathed the sword and then limped her way back towards the car. And then, of course, just to make her day that much worse, there came a pretty decent-sized group of Inquisitors holding guns and popping them off at the birds with a deafening drumbeat staccato. One one hand, she thought, I think I'll live through the birds now. On the other there are Inquisitors to worry about, and they're usually a lot harder to fight than birds are, especially if I'm injured, crippled, and can't use magic. She was a competent swordswoman, of course; but she wasn't nearly competent enough to hold her own against a group of Inquisitors with guns even if she had full access to her dominant arm, and with her injury, running away was going to be much harder.

What was worse is that she actually recognized one of the Inquisitors, one who had stepped forth and was talking to the redheaded girl. She ground her teeth in frustration. Of COURSE it would have to be Anníbas, because why not make life harder. While his father Solvinius had been an effective and competent Inquisitor—personality traits that she valued quite highly—his son, while powerful, was a smarmy joker, nowhere near as serious as his father had been. And because of that, Etoile had been totally unable to stand him while they had been sharing ranks. She wasn't sure—it was impossible to be sure, really—but she had her suspicions as to who had found out about her digging and divulged it to the high Ecclesiae, and Anníbas was definitely up there. She had quite the vendetta against him, and he was the last person she wanted to deal with right now.

Also, to make things even worse, he would absolutely recognize her. Even without the uniform, her arm was a dead giveaway. If luck goes my way, she gritted her teeth, he's too busy dealing with demon birds to kill me right now.

Luck never went Etoile's way.

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

Somewhat important question: given that Etoile's arm is magitech, would it be dead in an antimagic zone?

Iquenos: In Nomine Domini

@Inkarnate I mean, if the shoe fits...

Breaking the Sun

Tori really, really, vehemently hated Alex. It wasn't just that he had a perfect gift for getting under her skin, though that was most definitely a problem. It wasn't just the immensely flippant way he talked, or the fact that his sense of humor couldn't squeeze a laugh from the fucking Joker despite what everybody else ever seemed to think. If anything, it was the fact that despite both of those factors, he was annoyingly competent at skirting just on the line of what she could take, so she never felt quite angry enough to try actually hurting him. Not to mention he looked older than she was, and could probably take her in a fight as long as she couldn't use either her Paladin abilities or a knife.

There was Fay, of course. Tori had...mixed feelings about Fay. On one hand, she felt just a hair bad every time she snapped at the slightly older woman; she was just so...so...infuriatingly nice to everybody. On the OTHER hand, though, that niceness, that selfless kindness (and especially the kindness directed at Paragon) drove her up the goddamned wall. And so, she reacted to Fay the way she always had, and as far as she was concerned, always would: ignoring her completely and trying to pretend that nice people didn't exist so she didn't feel bad when she yelled at them.

Sage barely even registered on her radar. As far as she was concerned, he was an asshole like the rest, and she would just as rather he never speak in her presence ever again.

Ivory and Kennedy were the only even slightly tolerable people out of the whole bunch. Kennedy was mostly there by virtue of seniority; she'd learned a bit of his life by eavesdropping on conversations, and he'd been pretty much exactly what she'd wanted to be: a college teacher. He also wasn't nearly as much of an asshole as Alex, or as snide as Sage. And Ivory? She was pretty much the closest thing Tori could come to actually liking a person. Someone who didn't beat around the bush like it was a dead horse, who got right to the heart of the matter, but wasn't a condescending jackass when she did. While she didn't go out of her way to socialize with her—in fact, as far as she knew, they'd never actually spoken—she was one of the few people that she didn't go out of her way to avoid.

Tori's ears were caught by some old guy's outburst, and she groaned as he ranted. Can't they just shut up and leave me in peace?

Then, a beat later: Wait...that was Roger, wasn't it?

She only caught the last part, and the "we will be freed soon!" certainly got her attention. Her breath caught, and she could feel her hands clenching the arms of the chair. Free. It was a nice word, wasn't it?

After Kennedy was silenced by an orderly and returned to the chair, she turned around and spoke to the group at large. Most of them had probably never heard her voice. With one exception, she thought acidly as she glared at Alex again. She still didn't regret that threat.

"So, are we going to talk about what just happened?"

Then, lowering her voice, she turned to Alex in particular.

"Ordinarily, I would go off on you, Alex," she bit out, "But there's nothing I can say to you that would be as cruel as just being you."