Psyker Landshark

Iris Ascendis

Will post tomorrow I think

Iris Ascendis

For clarification, Iraleth isn't Goku, she actually has jack shit left in the tank. This is just the result of decisions made on high CON, high CHA, and low INT.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

Iraleth stared at Ciara for a long moment, her expression incredulous. A brief sideways glance at Hildegunde. Then she spoke.

"What are you doing?" The half-elf forced herself out of her chair, barely able to stand at this point. A limping step. Then another. She interspersed herself between Ciara and Nicole, facing the former.

"You come all this way to Wingram, make it through the trials with us, only to throw it away at the last moment? Whatever secrets you want to conceal, do you honestly believe that they will be worse than being labeled an Umbralist?"

One hand fell down to the hilt of her sheathed sword, resting on it.

"Head Advisor, as the challenged party in this duel, you do have the right to name a champion."

This was her fault for bringing the subject up in the first place. Iraleth still wasn't sorry she'd done so, but allowing the Undermage to fight her battles for her had never been the plan.

"Allow me to stand in your place." A sudden cut rent itself onto Iraleth's face out of nowhere, Rebound already affecting her as she struggled to eke out yet more power. "By all means, if you want to keep your secrets, either strike me down, or force me to burn my Essence out. I do not quit."

No, Nicole's presence was just hedging Iraleth's bets should she prove to be wrong. If Ciara was just going to hang herself with the lifeline offered to her.

"Or, take the third, sane, option. Retract your challenge, stand down, and speak truthfully. The fact that you go to these lengths suggests you fear judgement. Prove yourself above your fears and answer the question, or prove my best-case hopes about you wrong. What will it be?"

@Estylwen @Sifr

Iris Ascendis

Probably won't be posting until around this time tomorrow, irl tabletop during the day.

Augmented Machine Mobile Armor: A Gundam and Armored Core-inspired Mecha RP

Banshee

On the bright side, the mystery fourth man on their team seemed to have finally materialized on the commnet. JAMMER's readouts flashed across her HUD briefly before Ariela shoved the display off into a corner, keeping half an eye on it as the rest of her attention focused on firing on the remaining MAs. Fortunate that this Script was running some good EW.

<<"Alright, good to see your ass is online, Script.">> Banshee said over comms as she delivered two three-round bursts into the head of another MA, sending it crashing to the ground. <<"Goddamn AI could at least let us know about problems if it's gonna play babysitter.">> She groused, switching her attention briefly to the tactical readout. They'd done a good deal of damage so far, but there were still kinetic batteries online, and the rest of the garrison had to be waking up any second now. Watcher damn well knew what he was going, and Fallen Angel was more competent than she'd been expecting. Seemed she wasn't being totally carried by her machine after all. She was wasting time and exposing herself unnecessarily by trying to avoid fatalities, but that was a conversation for later.

Before LINEBREAKER could start another attack run on the cannons, a different problem showed its face: an Arthropod. Great. A big gun on legs with point defense. Not something she hadn't dealt with before, but combined with the remaining turrets on-site, it could prove to be a problem. Watcher showed good initiative and awareness in his immediate response, and Banshee nodded to herself as she started the charging sequence on her shoulder cannon.

<<"Good copy, Watcher, initiating! All units, go for the other batteries, then we finish off the Arthropod! Make these maggots bleed!">> She pushed the sticks forward, and LINEBREAKER hopped over its cover, locking onto another heavy kinetic cannon and firing a fully charged laser cannon at it. With that done, Ariela had her AUG leap into the air and fire its boosters, starting to rise above the smokescreen and prepare for an attack run on the Arthropod from straight above it.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

Of course it wasn't going to be as simple as just asking for a damned room change. Small wonder all the other girls had come out either shaken or distressed. To have one's inner emotions shouted out for the entire room to see was no small thing, but Iraleth barely raised an eyebrow as the scroll went over Ciara first. Selfishness, eh? Her reasoning was decent, and it had to be made with some amount of truth to not instantly trigger another emotion from the scroll. That, or the girl was an utter master at controlling herself. Doubtful.

The scroll passed over Iraleth, and she narrowed her eyes as she beheld the two words that were etched.

Exhaustion. Suspicion.

Well, little to it but to explain herself. Lying would be unseemly, and as she'd just thought, the scroll would likely pick up on any attempt at deception.

"I'm half-dead on my feet and overdue for seeing a healer." She ground out in regard to the first half before continuing on. "And I have little faith in several people. Chloe most of all. Even if her Ethos inflicted only temporary effects, I found her attitude disgusting and doubt she wouldn't wither anyone she roomed with on a whim." A thought crossed her mind just then. She didn't have to wait to be rested if Ciara did turn out to be dangerous. There was an Undermage, of all people, in the room with them. Best to rip off the bandage now.

"Moreover, while Ciara has proved herself worthy enough with her actions thus far, her magic does bring up cause for concern. I am more than aware not every user of shadow magics is an Umbralist, but better to trust and verify. If my suspicions prove themselves correct, well, better to have two pairs of eyes watching her than one."

A barely apologetic shrug in both Ciara and Hildegunde's direction.

"The Apocalypse's leftovers destroyed my childhood and took the lives of everyone I knew up until that point. I would prefer not to be caught off-guard again, lest others suffer as I have. For what it's worth, I do hope that these thoughts amount to nothing concrete in the end."

@Estylwen @Sifr

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Salvator Rasch

Salvator ducked down behind cover as the armored trooper began his salvo of return fire, reaching for his bandolier of bioslugs and quickly reloading. Alright, things were going well. The power armor was staggering, and the automata were disrupted. Time to finish the job. He prepared to pop back out to fire again, but the team's shared datanet reported the head of the power armor trooper bursting like a grape. Even better.

The ZRF troopers were at least adept enough to scythe through Civsec, and Salvator let them take point in cleaning up, only taking shots at obvious targets of opportunity as he swapped back to his carbine. He and the other Envenomed agents had already done the heavy lifting, anyways.

And then the gunship opened fire.

"Christ in the Void, it's one thing after another!" He groused out loud as he dashed for cover once again, letting the minigun barrage pass over his head while the ZRF called for support once again.

"Solid copy, we're on it! Keep your people's heads down!" Salvator responded over comms before swapping to the squad's internal channel.

"Right, people, you heard them. We're in the middle of an armed camp, they've got to have MANPADS lying around somewhere. Find them, and we'll blow that eyesore out of the sky. Echo, only engage with the Warform if it's not at risk of return fire, we can't risk losing it to the gunship!"

With that said, he started running an active scan with his armor's sensors, looking for any surface-to-air launchers to ping to the rest of the squad.

@Vietmyke

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Renar Hagen

The impromptu spar ended with Elias in the dirt, and Renar moved to help him up. His other hand rested his training sword on his shoulder, and he prepared to start critiqueing his younger brother, only for Serenity to beat him to it. Well, it wasn't as if anything he was going to say was different from what she was telling him right this moment. Once she finished, Renar simply shrugged at Elias, a lopsided grin on his face.

"Well, she saved me a good bit of trouble there. I've little more to add beside that. You've still improved since last year, though. Sir Klein's teaching you something, at least."

Elias nodded, paying thorough attention to Serenity's critique before he responded, handing his wooden sword off to his elder brother as he did so.

"I'll endeavour to keep all that in mind, Dame Serenity." He bowed his head briefly before responding to her question. "As for cross-training, Sir Klein has me working on all of the knightly weapons in turn. I've shown the best results with a sword, though."

"We can go over this later, brother." Renar set the training weapons back onto the rack, glancing back. "The sun will be setting soon, and we've dinner and beer to look forward to. Apologies, Dame Serenity." A brief shrug.

"As it turns out, one can tire of gourmet dinners at times."

@ERode

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

Chloe's victims recovered almost immediately after Iraleth had taken her out of commission? Good. It meant she'd been right to leave the girl alive. Moreover, it made Chloe's actions far less insane, knowing that the effects were temporary. There were enough students already with an immense lack of care for their peers, with abilities to match. The haughty bitch still may not have been a decent person by any means, but at least she hadn't crippled dozens for life. One concern off her shoulders.

Iraleth sideeyed Ciara as she uttered her answer, wondering just what exactly the girl meant. She valued her truces? What, was she under the impression that she'd be balancing out the weaker faction? Judging by their performances today, the upper hand between factions would be decided by whom Leuvalt, and to a lesser degree, Bronsteel, chose to join, much to her chagrin. Hopefully, neither chose to join the Shield of Nero. Though the chance that Iraleth would get what she wanted was miniscule.

In the meantime, it seemed the queue had finally gotten to them. All the fire had gone out of those two feuding girls, in just three minutes? Concerning.

"Unfortunate for you." She commented before the girl with the dagger left. "Still, try not to kill each other, yes?"

As the three entered the office, Iraleth took a seat, raising an eyebrow at the woman's symbol of title. An Undermage, just to manage a pack of teenage girls? Albeit, ones with immense magical ability or potential. In that light, it was more reasonable. Though Iraleth was under the assumption that most among this woman's rank would have thought the posting beneath them.

After Ciara spoke, Iraleth chimed in with her piece, though the shadow witch had already gone over the important parts.

"We realize we're asking for forgiveness rather than permission, but at the very least, we're not threatening a fight. Unlike half of the line before us." The last bit was delivered dryly. "Ciara and I would very much prefer having Hildegunde room with us, though. We did fight alongside each other in the auditorium earlier." That, and leaving Hildegunde to deal with Chloe would be tantamount to torture, if the bridge had been any indication.

@Estylwen @Sifr

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

Iraleth watched on impassively as Ciara simply used her magics to facilitate moving Hildegunde's bed straight over. Well. That saved her the trouble of seeing if she still had the strength remaining to do it herself. Every flash of pain as she moved towards the line reminded her that she really ought to go about heading for that clinic sooner rather than later, but there was little point to not sorting this matter out while she was still here.

The fact that enough girls had issues enough already to try to switch roommates already was disconcerting. And here Iraleth had thought their case would have been unique. She hadn't lived in communal housing ever since her father had taken her in, but given how much of her education had been with the church, she was more than aware that this sort of nonsense wouldn't have been tolerated at any church housing or abbey. As the girl with the dagger spoke to the trio, Iraleth deigned to answer her question after the other two had seemingly brushed her off.

"The opposite. We're hoping to let her," A brief gesture to Hildegunde. "Move in to our room with us. She was assigned with the girl that had been prematurely ageing everyone on the bridge." A brief glance around, now that she thought of it. "Come to think of it, how are her victims faring? I left almost immediately after defeating her, believing that the faculty would handle things."

Whatever the girl's response was, Iraleth turned back towards Ciara and Hildegunde in turn as the subject of factions was brought up. She simply shrugged when Ciara implied she was choosing to join the Shaktan faction. It wasn't as if she'd be angry at the fact.

"Why was I quick to choose? Vaal Nero is my home. I could hardly decide not to join the corresponding faction, now could I? In truth, I care little for these hypothetical divisions. No doubt the faculty wish to breed competition among us, but I only care for the symbolism on a personal level. Choose as you wish, though I can only hope to not be saddled with...certain people."

A glance towards the front of the line. It was rapidly shortening, which meant their time to stand before the head advisor was soon. Best to prepare to make their case, then.

@Estylwen @Sifr