post 25 stuff

So you returned, got Alice in a bed and left her there...she hasn't stirred since.  A few visitors appeared later that day, rather influential people:

-The E4 (Saxton, Roland, Valdis, Arnaldo)
-The Brains (Thomas, Jeramiah, Beato)
-'Queen Rhasha' (Connor is with her, and bolts into Alice's room at once.  He stays at her bed side and refuses to move or respond to anyone.)
-The General
-Gabriella (She was already around anyway!)

Some of these people are in on the loop, others know nothing.  Mostly what's discussed that night is just what happened and what's going on here, what you four are planning to do about it.  They need answers to plan - that aura transmission has a lot of them on edge.

While it's at your discretion how much you reveal about Alice's condition, it's clear to quite a few of these people that maybe relocating her, even temporarily, might be a good move.  Divya highly values your input on it though and will hear you out on it.

The alternative being suggested is to have her with the Brains in Bravescar for a bit until she stabilize.  She'd be under constant supervision of some of the most experienced Trainers in the region, have a much more consistent life style for recovery and getting a hold on herself, and be given enough freedoms to not feel like a prisoner.  At least, that's the discussion without any details on her condition beyond the basics - even those not in the loop suspect she had something to do with those Fiends, that Aura transmission, and the whole riot that happened downtown.

What do you four contribute to this discussion?  Anything you could need to discuss with some of them one on one?  Your input will influence their personal action plans here as well.

-----

As for Saryx, Doyle's sword got him quite a bit of positive recognition and worked fairly well - "Dude, fuck the batons.  Every beat cop in the city wants one of these things now.  Here man, it's more than you agreed on but fuck I just got a full promotion from this thing and it's thanks to your work," He slips you a large amount of cash that comes out to about 3,000 in profits.  "Think I could get a few more of your cards?  Been gettin' hounded for contact information for whoever made this sword, after all."

-----

So You fill in Thomas more so than he already did know, and Jeramiah and Beatrice hear a lot of this for the first time.  Jeramiah's hard to read response wise - he's rather stoic through the whole thing.  You had Thomas up until 'and Genevieve has an evil clone and Alice has a joltik god fused to her heart.'  At that point he went to retrieve the gin.  Beatrice was rather quizzical on the whose and what's.

A) find and secure the shrines, Unowns
No one's in disagreement on this one - it would help a considerable amount to mitigate risks.  Thomas is pretty confident that there's some reason Grant hasn't been able to locate them himself yet or else he would have done so.  Or, perhaps, Grant has no reason to act on it quite yet.  Either way they agree to help nudge Kent to get some Ranger and Guild groups to do some recon and secure some locations.  Beatrice seems rather sure that if the owners of the shrines were present or awake, they would act to secure them on their own as well.

B) Treating wounds for the shade blades
Beatrice is rather pissed this Dandyman figure is using her goods to do harm in her homeland.  The weapons are rather complex in themselves, being composed of materials from several different highly evolved Dark, Fighting, Psychic, and Ghost Pokemon.  She thinks she could recreate a less lethal version of the 'poison', as she calls it, for testing purposes, but she's gonna need time and specimens.  She's moving into her apartment in Bravescar after the weekend, and will start on that as soon as she can.

C) T.C. and Mewtwos.
These three seem rather perplexed how to approach this, to be honest.  They've all met and -learned- from one, but know very little about how to fight them.  'Professor' Mewtwo was a very lax, and human-like individual.  The half mechanical, possibly feral creatures you describe are completely foreign to them.  That said, Jeramiah is more than up to the task on helping investigate this so they can come up with something.  As he puts it, "Think of me as the eyes and mouth of the operation, Thomas is the brain, and Beatrice is the big stick."  And if they had your notes you've taken on their biological and physiological traits (Which you -have- put a lot of work into, mind you!) they might be able to help collaborate to help find a way to combat them, even if it means fighting fire with fire.

----

Later that night Genevieve gets a few odd P.M.'s from throwaway accounts on social media sites.  The most promising though was "So Deciever has a follower in the isles huh?  We'll send someone to meet you soon enough.  You aren't alone out here, exactly.  We might idolize a different saint, but we all preach to the same choir. - Uncle Rex"

----

@ Genevieve, Uncle Rex later asks if you got any idea where you'll be in the next few days so they'll know when and where to be.  If she knows anyone else with a tie to an Outer God, they should be included if at all possible

@ Saryx, When you bring up Lil Kalfu all three of them just roll their eyes, like they almost expected this.  It's certainly bad news, but something they can think on later - it helps to know that there is at least SOME concentration of what this guy is doing.  Trice seems rather uneasy about it, but she claims it's more because she fears what this implies about the state of the other draconic Legendaries than the state of Lil Kalfu himself.

The shrine info doesn't really give much help in terms of pinpointing it, sadly, but does suggest it's not on Blue Guard Isle since that one doesn't have much in terms of forests.  Jeramiah wonders how a shrine could even be 'claimed' in this respect, given the God was just newly born.  Thomas suggests it might have more to do with whatever the heck actually feeds their power as to what one is "theirs"

@ Rosetta, Jeramiah (and me) will get back to her on whatever he can dig up or investigate.  Though later in the night you receive a package - a leather bound journal titled 'The Talent Scouts: A First Hand Documentation of the Journey of a Lifetime, by Tentra Doyle.'  It's a hand written autobiography detailing a very familiar story to you, but there's a bookmark on a particular chapter discussing how her parents had been imprinted in a similar manner, and their method of removing it was based on using dream smoke to enter their subconscious to undo the damage.  There's a folded note at the end of this chapter that reads, "It was months before either of them remembered me, and it took years of therapy for the two of them to cope with what had happened to them.  They had lived a lie for almost a decade of their life, and had completely forgotten their daughter existed.  However, I believe this method will work on this girl as well, and the psychological damage will probably be less severe, for she has not been like this very long, and the nature of the brain washing seems less to forget, and more to be dominated."

The three of them do have the following general advice for you guys
HELPFUL BITS:
* Their run in against an organization like this was a bit different in that they were fighting a professional, organized group.  This time, it's what seems to be zealots, children, and machines.  This would mean their pockets might be a bit lighter, but they don't actually need to have deep pockets when every one of them is devoted to the cause.  These individuals will probably be extremely difficult to intimidate or sway from their cause, especially those closer to their leaders.  Norbert was, after all, placed in a rather high risk, fringe role.
* Usurpers and Legendaries are extremely difficult to combat, and even more so to kill.  The first suggestion would have been gathering the Lake Guardians, but Dandyman and Grant both saw to that.  As such, they suspect this conflict is going to need the support of The Keepers, lesser Legendaries, and when the time comes The Outer Gods themselves.  Blessings can help counteract things, but in the end their entire existence is a big system of checks and balances, and Usurpers standing outside that system makes them absolutely fearsome adversaries.
* All three of them agree that Dandyman is far more threatening than Grant - when pressed why, they state that "We've dealt with Usurpers before, from Team Rocket itself.  Trust us.  We do NOT want to confront him."  They do however state, that the fact he's an Usurper means something happened to him at some point to put him in a position for this to be -possible-.  So somewhere down the daisy chain has to be some answers about who he is, what he is trying to do, and any hints at what he might be trying to hide.  Weaknesses aren't even on the table at the moment.
* Unlike the criminals they faced, these ones will likely be much more comfortable with open aggression.  The Region is involved in a war, after all, and a lot of its self defense is overseas.  Most of what's left are city and town based Peacekeeper Rangers, and Regional Rangers directly under Kent.  Outside of that, it's maybe 5 Privateer groups (who are also assisting with the Safari Zone effort), and The Explorer's Guild.  The Region as a whole is extremely vulnerable.
* Because of the above, involving Gym Leaders, other Explorers and just well off Trainers in general is going to have to happen at some point.  Doesn't have to be now, but sooner or later keeping people out of the loop on this is gotta stop.
* If you guys bring up The Sirens or Ginjinka, Genevieve certainty brought up Therianthropes, the three of them seem rather puzzled and unsure how to react - this is something they feel someone's gotta look into, not sure WHO cause everyone's getting pretty spread thin as is here, but there are certainly some questions that need answers in this department.  Namely, whose side would they be on, and just what are they capable of?

NOT SO HELPFUL. LIKE SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT.
* Trice: "Okay, find a Dream Doctor, and have them give all your Pokemon the works - what do you mean that's not feasible, Thomas? It's exactly what we fucking did.  Are you going to tell me the Dream Smoke in Gennis just stank that much better?  Why 'Stank' anyway, are you saying Bella had bad B.O...?  What about Fashion Designers?  Your Pokemon are all egg hatched by a Breeder, right?  I think you have the Scientist bit down given Genvieve here's a Dr...Why are you all acting like this totally wouldn't work?"
* Thomas: "Almost everyone is fucking crazy and is out to stab you in the back, especially the girls >:T.  No, I am not bitter.  This was totally true and you know it, Beatrice."  And then Beatrice thinks on it, "You know, Thomas.  You're right.  Girls and Transsexuals are very likely to stab you in the back."  All three of them nod sagely.
* Jeramiah: "If you open a maid cafe at a nice venue, you'll make enough profits to take on almost any terrorist organization.  Wait, we charged -how- much for a cup of tea?  And people -paid- it..? The students were that wealthy there?" His mind is blown.
* Thomas: "When in doubt, throw a Mawile at it." Beatrice: "That.  Very true.  Legendaries hate them."  Jeramiah: "I think that one you keep locked away and Mikaela's were the exception to the norm..."
* Jeramiah: "Two words. Potato Cannon."  Beatrice: "That cute fish bowl came in handy a lot as well."  Thomas: "What ever happened to that thing anyway?" Beatrice shrugs: "It vanished when those panties that kept showing up all over the place did.  Anyway, if you find -anything- and don't know what the fuck it does or is for, hand it to the resident Psychic.  They'll know."
* Beatrice: "If a talking beam of light that claims to be 'The Tower' ever sucks you into the Dream World, kick it in its phonetic crotch while you can."

----

THE E4'S COMMENTS:

Roland: He's said his peace to you on this in the past - he plans to stick around Darkfeather for a while to keep an eye on Yanala and make sure that aura backlash doesn't attract any trouble.  He'll get Yaretzi in town to meet with you guys for whatever you needed.

Saxton: He's not much good with this GODESS BUSINESS, but he IS good with BUSINESS.  He plans to help you keep the politicians and local law enforcement out of this - too many hands in this cookie jar could end up rather sour.  Though if you do need a favor or something politically, he'd be your guy to go to.

Arnaldo: He just got this job like 16 hours ago and had absolutely no idea how far the rabbit hole went.  He doesn't seem entirely willing to aid much at the moment seeing as he's got his hands full adopting to his new responsibilities, as well as helping with the Safari Zone.  He's already -been- trying to find out how Grant's getting his military tech around, but hasn't had much luck.  Even Grant's battleship is proving impossible to track - he's pretty sure some weird ass mysticism is at play here.  You guys get the impression he's being a bit dodgy about something, though.

Valdis: Poor Valdis has no idea what to really say or do here, she just gives Alice a hug when she does wake up.  She is sure Tyr and some of the other Draconic Keepers might have something to say about this all, though.  Maybe she could help secure the shrines?  If it's hunting something or protecting something, she can do it.

Loki: Loki spends a good two minutes rolling around laughing before Thor punches him in the face.  <Ow!  Okay, Okay.  I do say, you are indeed the reincarnation of my Brother - though I am at a loss as to how you came to be...a Pikachu.  Or what the hammer is for.  Curious.  The Fey Court will need to meet on this at some point.> He looks to Saxton. <I believe I will take another leave of absence from assisting you, my dear friend - I will join the young lads and lass in Bravescar, assist in safeguarding our V.I.P., and see if my long lost Brother and I can find any clues as to what became of him.>

Divya has nothing to offer besides Connor, and Kent will already have his hands full with the shrine hunting, leaving just one person without a task.  Thomas.  Beatrice: "If we're heading out to Bravescar -now- than you are so responsible for her first.  Don't you back talk me.  You already moved in like last week - so we're crashing at your place and setting up a room for her in the spare room our places have.  What?  Jeramiah already set his up to be a personal gym and I need room for my atelier .  A red room for your photos..? Well...that's...different because - " the three of them spend a bit arguing over who will be her primary care taker and Thomas eventually concedes since the red room would be the easiest thing to relocate or turn into a temporary guest room.

----
Only other thing worth mentioning before everyone made their exits and got to work is Trice pulled Saryx aside for a short chat.

FEW DAYS LATER:

-Rosetta gets a big ass packet of information from Jeramiah.  He did a bit of snooping around and walking the streets for you and picked up on the following:

The situation is rather rough in Thundercry.  There's been in an increasing amount of violence in the slums and homocides are at an all time high.  Service robots throughout the city have been extremely prone to malfunction as of late, and there's suspected to be a 'robot killer' going around due to some bots ending up completely mutilated and destroyed.  The Rangers are spread thin trying to handle it, and Chione's been helping them out the best she can, but Thundercry is a -very- big city.  It could easily fit both Veilbeak and Redblade inside it.  That said, he's got suspicions on the following:

He thinks there's three separate and completely autonomous independent Sons operations in Thundercry.  They most likely run completely independent of each other and likely have counterparts elsewhere in the Isles, and possibly abroad.

- In The Drift (A rather worn and tattered part of the first level.  Near the landfill and deserted factors.  Basically a ghetto) is a bit of a recruitment effort going on.  Plenty of ne'er do wells looking for a face to smash, some cash to pocket, a cause to rally around.  These guys also seem to be targeting folks whose cybernetic implants have gone bad and aren't all quite there in the head anymore.  Doesn't seem like there's entirely anyone super high ranked or important doing this sort of work, and it's surely not just unique to this city.  He couldn't really notice any sort of structured hide out here and suspects their training grounds are elsewhere.  The question is, how do the recruits get there?

- Jeramiah has serious suspicions about the Bustani Automotives Factory in the industrial district of the city for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, the factory's been in the red for over a year, yet the company's leadership has completely neglected to comment as to why.  Despite this, there's been no staffing changes, and even when there was a Union strike a few months ago over opposition to a bill that would legalize replacing human workers in these factories with fully robotic staff, none of its employees participated.  The most damning however, far as Jeramiah is concerned, is the fact that very few vehicles are leaving this facility, and the amount of armed security around this place is a but unreal for a simple automotive factory.  He's got the floor plans for you and would recommend entry through a sewage way that runs underneath it, but can't really promise much.

- His most confident lead is, fittingly enough, a tattoo parlor in the Residential District.  Shit, Genevieve -lived- by this place.  Nothing particularly suspicious about the parlor, Wildcard Body Art and Piercings, and Jeramiah isn't even really sure if it's a front.  It just so happens that in its basement is an old passageway to an old maintenance facility between the first and second levels of the city.  He gets the impression from public records that used to be an office and dispatch station for city maintenance to deal with issues between the two levels.  Such facilities are a bit outdated with the increased use of robots for this sort of labor, and fell out of favor and use.  Some folks turn them into fancy apartment complexes, but this one in particular isn't one.  It's been completely out of use even before Wildcard Body Art and Piercings existed there, but in the last year and a half has had power routed to it, internet, water supply, and racks up quite a huge amount of gigawatts per month - enough to rival some of the hospitals and skyscrapers in the city.  Not only that, he spotted quite a few people coming and going from that tattoo parlor's back door at rather odd hours, and usually in business casual attire.  The one thing they all had in common was being, well, heavily tattoo'd.  Something -really- isn't right here, Jeramiah's sure of that.

----
Where Alice was taken away, Miracle Eye started to hang around (As did Dahlia, though more to catch up on what was discussed since it applies to her as well), and a ghostly Moltres soon stopped by and dropped off a familiar Wildling girl.  Yaretzi sat around quietly (but not exactly patiently, she's quite antsy) unless spoken to until very late that night, when a visitor really did come by.

You never even heard them approach, or saw them for that matter.  Which is sort of disturbing since some of you were probably on top deck and outside when they came.  A pale looking guy in a fleece hoodie and blue jeans suddenly appeared on your ship and introduced himself.

"Ah, t-this is it h-huh?  Y-yeah you're the D-deceiver girl from last n-night," His stuttering isn't from nervousness, it seems he has a speech impediment.  "Who else we g-got here?  1NO?  F-figures, that o-one's popular.  Unf-feeling?  F-flayed One? Well shit, there are a l-lot of ya.  T-they call me Twitchy, or Joe Schmo, whatever f-float's your b-boat.  With The N-nameless."  He quickly flashes a necklace quite like the one three of you have, and then lights up a cig as he starts to talk.

He cuts straight to business, saying he's a member of an Explorer Team himself, Bad Company (Chase would recall this is Brianna's group, but doesn't remember him being there), and also a member of a collection of followers of Forgotten Gods in the Isles.  While they certainly have fallen out of favor far as general recognition as Legendaries goes, they do got their followings in parts of the world, especially here.  Though in the last few years in particular it's gotten very bad.  "A-any association with these guys is e-enough to get put on hit lists.  The f-fuckin' bodystealing demons, z-zealots, a-and big c-criminal groups tend to hate us.  O-our Lords f-fuck with the l-last two, and the f-first got f-fucked before they q-quit em. But I'm sure y-you know all about that," he says to Genevieve.  "I-it was easier before the B-broken Lord finally flickered out.  A-all The Rune M-masters in the w-world felt that one and it caused all s-sortsashit.  You know what I mean, right?  T-those guys are p-pissed and w-wanted a h-hand in choosing a n-new Lord to r-replace their old one, but s-shit don't work that way.  Now they're tryin' to off u-us and AND g-get a new one in place.  Fucked up shit, man."

He also mentions that 'That Masked Killer' has been targeting servants of these Gods more than anything, but it doesn't seem he knows the name Dandyman.  He prattles on for a bit describing how things are structured between the remaining servants of these Gods at the moment.  Recruitment's all but impossible, especially with most of them in slumber, so those in the practice were mostly born into it or fell into it by chance.  There's about fifty of them left in the Isles who keep in touch and way more that have gone silent, missing, left the Region or ended up dead.  They've been laying very low and hoping to tide things out - they've done so in the past and planned to again, but Uncle Rex, their leader of sorts, thinks this time is different, and they need to do something about it.

As for their normal practices, these folks really aren't any different than you or anyone else.  After all, structured worship of Legendaries really isn't a big thing outside of Arceus - most of its on a regional level or very local.  No one denies these beings have divine power, but worship of them comes second place to recognition of that power.  That's where these guys tend to fall in.  They've, traditionally, tried to help spread the word that the Forgotten Gods exist and are beings worthy of being recognized.  They do this by a number of means, but big shot heroism and such is usually the most straight forward.  As such, The Forgotten Gods tend to select very gifted individuals to recieve their blessings in the hope that it A) increases their recognition through their champion's victories, B) furthers their own agendas by making deals and pacts.

1NO has been very successful at this on a scale the other Gods haven't.  His goal is pretty clear.  Live fast, party hard, Don't be a Dick (unless it's funny).  He recruits stars and muscicians mostly, and has built quite a reputation for himself in the music industry as a sort of folk legend talent scout / record label.  I mean, what entertainer doesn't fancy making deals with spirits?  Joe Schmoe, personally, isn't that fond of how he parades around his female worshipers and masks them as demons (That shit is sexist m-man!), but he also admits he's never actually met one of them.  The Deceiver, on the other hand, tends to just let people come to him.  He has in the past attracted a lot of villains who needed power very quickly at any cost, and was more than happy to oblige knowing their plans were hopeless. The Deceiver loves to see shit fall to pieces and crash and burn, and if the good guys recognize him as some evil God that's backing their enemies, so be it.  It's all the same to him in the end, good or bad publicity.  Joe thinks he needs to rethink his branding a bit cause seriously it's a crappy niche to be stuck in but hey what does he know he's not a God of Decay.

D.C. thinks this Joe guy is pretty fucking hilarious and that he might have a point, but seems rather complacent to let his Followers (aka: just you at the moment, Genevieve) figure out that for him.  1NO thinks tossing Kali at Joe would be fucking hilarious.

Joe doesn't know much about The Unfeeling and The Flayed One, much to Mir and Yaretzi's disappointment.  Both of them are rather young, especially The Flayed One, and haven't really done much structurally.  His best advice to them is to wait until they wake up or track them down.  He finds Yaretzi's condition sort of funny, as she's obviously been blessed by The Flayed One, but claims in broken Visiwan that she didn't willingly make a pact.  She seems resistant to speak much on it.

As for The Nameless, Joe states he's largely an observer, watching events go by and subtly nudging them from the background.  It's how The Nameless operates, and she's very finicky about choosing champions.  Those in the Isles are largely split between 1NO, The Nameless, The Everhungry, and The Voidmind.  There's little to no representation of the others, meaning, well, you guys.  He mentions the young one in passing, but seems he hasn't heard about what happened here earlier today yet

Basically, Joe's wondering what you guys are looking to do.  He's been asked to reach out to you to tell you that Uncle Rex could use some help trying to make these beings recognized beings, just as much so as The Keepers or lesser Legendaries here in the Isles.  This is extremely relevant because things are getting rather heated with the ex-followers of The Broken Lord (The Sons of Grant) swarming to the region, and if they try to wait this one out they'll likely be killed.  Rex recognizes a few of you guys are rather public figures now, and thinks you might be able to help them in ways others can't.  He -really- wishes they had a messiah or something to help spread the word, but they'll work with what they have.  He wants to hear your thoughts as far as ideas on how to go about this publicity campaign.  Uncle Rex believes if they get enough recognition for the lot of them, they'll wake up proper and help quell this issue.  They are, after all, very powerful beings, even if they normally work through their Champions and cults instead of on their own.  He's also concerned about the new born and The Flayed One, who really got -no one- and are currently somewhere out there with some pretty pissed off Rune Masters looking to put one of them down and instill a new God of their choice.  Uncle Rex would like to meet you guys in person as well - he's over in Red Blade and if you're ever in town, well, you got his contact info now.

What sort of questions do you got for Joe or Yaretzi, and what would you tell him?