(2:58:36 PM) Reise: Things are starting to go to hell and back. The Abyssal band has shown up and their special brand of existential ennui is weighing down on everyone. Reise knows what this leads to, which is why she's trying to exhort people to fight the willingness to give up and end everything. It's even working!...a little. And only for now.
(2:58:37 PM) Reise: The eldarin officer is in her armor, though, and for now seems to be relatively immune to the Abyssals' influence...though she has no doubt that that's only a matter of time.
(3:03:02 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana nearby looks nervous and terrified. She seems unaffected! She's got a heavy white gauntlet on one hand as is dressed in a rather gothic outfit Khaira picked out for her.
(3:04:23 PM) Reise: "Stick close to me, Tana," Reise says calmly. "We don't know what they're gonna throw at us yet, but whatever it is, we can handle it."
(3:06:49 PM) Ikiryo: "I'm sure you can." Uytana nods, biting her lip as undead hands rise from the dirt around them...
(3:10:17 PM) ***Reise makes a face behind her visor. "Great. Tana, anything you can tell me about these?"
(3:13:14 PM) Ikiryo: She bites her lip harder, looking about. "They are Hands...really basic undead. A soul dragged back from just inside death and shoved into a body."
(3:14:05 PM) Reise: "Any way we can help 'em out?"
(3:14:37 PM) Ikiryo: She shakes her head. "Just sending them back. They are hungry for life, don't let them grab you."
(3:15:54 PM) Reise: "Hopefully the armor'll help with that." She nods, looking for a path out, spawning the blades on her wrists. "Sending 'em back means carving 'em up? Or is it something you've gotta do?"
(3:17:10 PM) Ikiryo: "That's enough." She nods. "They are hands, not shadow hands." She pauses, taking a step back as more break the dirt. "The body is all that's holding them here."
(3:18:44 PM) Reise: "Alright. Here goes nothin."
(3:20:15 PM) Ikiryo: "Oh now now~" A rich, musical voice comes from nearby. "Wouldn't it be easier to just join us?~" A man steps, literally, out of the shadows. He's dressed in jeans tight enough to hide nothing and a complete lack of a shirt. He's nearly as pale as Uytana, his black hair down to his ass. He's stunningly handsome, a pair of fangs visible in his smile.
(3:21:57 PM) Reise: "Actually, no, it would be easier to cut you down and bury you with the rest of these poor fucks."
(3:23:50 PM) Ikiryo: "Oh, that's cold~" He reaches into the shadows, pulling out a guitar. "I know no one loves the bass player but really~" He runs a hand through his hair like it's a commercial.
(3:26:20 PM) Reise: "..." She watches him bask in his own self-importance in stunned silence for a moment. "...C'mon, Tana, let's go the other way."
(3:28:21 PM) Ikiryo: "...alright Reise." Uytana nods.
(3:28:31 PM) Ikiryo: "Wait...what?" He looks suprised.
(3:31:06 PM) Reise: "Guy like that," she says to Uytana, turning her back on him as they start to walk, "he's the very definition of 'not a threat,' 'cause people who ARE scary don't pose like that. I think everything he learned about 'stage presence,' he learned from the covers of torrid romance ebooks."
(3:31:47 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana nods. "...is he actually part of the band? I don't remember him from the album covers Plastique was handing about?"
(3:32:08 PM) Ikiryo: "I beg your pardon?! I am a crucial member of the band!" He sounds offended.
(3:33:15 PM) ***Reise gestures as Uytana asks and he answers. "I guess so, but I mean, c'mon." An undead finishes pulling itself out of the ground and Reise cuts it in two without so much as a glance.
(3:33:33 PM) Reise: "I wonder if he's one of the understudies."
(3:34:40 PM) Ikiryo: "I am the lead bass player!" His rich voice protests.
(3:37:41 PM) Ikiryo: ...wait, he's not playing right now but the band is.
(3:38:47 PM) Reise: "Nice try, dork. If you are, then who's on stage?"
(3:39:48 PM) Ikiryo: "...they mixed my playing for this song lower than audible...I'm able to take time off to kick your asses!" He poses again.
(3:41:15 PM) Feldi is now known as Feldi|Sleep
(3:43:10 PM) Reise: She kicks her helmet's audio scanners in and directs them to search for subsonic frequencies. Her own ears, given their size, should be able to hear things lower than normal human range. "Sounds like bullshit to me. But I think we've taken up enough of your time, go on back to your friends and their cuddle pile while the grown-ups handle the real work."
(3:44:35 PM) Ikiryo: "That's it, I'm going to beat you both up and prove to them that they can't just unplug my amp during concerts for the third time!" He raises his hand. "Bass solo!"
(3:44:35 PM) Ikiryo: *Fwang!*
(3:48:10 PM) Reise: It's too bad her visor hides the raised eyebrow. "Stunning," is her reply, so dreadfully and witheringly sarcastic she'd be surprised if *he* didn't eat his buddies' own hope-draining effect.
(3:49:31 PM) Ikiryo: "...shut up! I am a valuable member of the band!"
(3:51:06 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana has rummaged through her pockets to fine a copy of the album that Plastique was handing out. "I found him. T.B Player. It says he's an employee of the band."
(3:51:25 PM) Reise: "T. B. Player, eh? 'The Bass' Player?"
(3:52:55 PM) Ikiryo: "What...no, I told marketing to fix that! Artisan of Blood in Seven Shades! I'm not TB any more!" He protests.
(3:53:22 PM) Ikiryo: He pauses. "Wait, employee? I wrote half the songs! I'm a member!"
(3:54:16 PM) Reise: "Ah, you graduated up from Tuberculosis, then. Good for you."
(3:54:34 PM) Ikiryo: "That's not what  my name was! And I'm Artisan of Blood in Seven Shades!"
(3:54:42 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana...giggles.
(4:03:27 PM) Ikiryo: "Alright, that's it! I'm going to kill you both and raise you as A-Grade groupies, not the C-Grade stuff the rest of the band leave me with!"
(11:22:27 PM) Ikiryo: He brings his hand down on the strings of his bass guitar and sends out a massive shockwave around himself. "How's that! Can you hear me now?!"
(11:23:53 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana widens her eyes in shock, calling up a black and white clockface...as a fragment of time pauses about her, a fragment of the shockwave hanging in mid-air just long enough for her to get out of the way.
(11:25:13 PM) Reise: Unfortunately, the audio gain on Reise's helmet is still turned up to try and detect the bass lines from the rest of the band's performance, and the resultant cacophony in her skull brings on the beginnings of a headache.
(11:34:43 PM) Reise: She grits her teeth and powers through it, triggering an option on her armor she usually uses for sneaking purposes--a deployable sonic nullifier, a source of destructive interference for particular frequencies, squelching them out. Then she leaps forward with a slashing attack!
(11:36:12 PM) Ikiryo: He dodges to the side...but not quite fast enough. "Hey, hands off the threads!"
(11:37:24 PM) Reise: "What threads? You're naked from the waist up."
(11:41:24 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana stutter steps foward, runes around her gloved hand. She punches him square in the neck and he starts coughing. "Careful with the merchandise!" ...he sounds like he's thirteen and his voice just cracked.
(11:43:08 PM) Ikiryo: ...and then the risen hands charge. Each one of them is tiny and weak but they are rising by the dozens, soon to be the hundreds...
(11:44:48 PM) Ikiryo: Uytana yelps, doing her best with her stutter-steps to stay ahead of the hordes. One of them briefly grabs her hair but she manages to get out with only a few strands lost.
(11:45:34 PM) Feldi|Sleep is now known as Feldi
(11:48:27 PM) ***Reise tries to make her way between all the Hands, but there are simply too many, and they begin beating on her armor, trying to club through the magical materials and get to the soft and meaty centre.
(11:49:05 PM) Ikiryo: She stutter steps right in front of him as he's trying to clear his throat...and punches him in the solar plexus. Judging by his bug-eyed expression and lack of words, that wraithbone gauntlet is plenty hard.
(11:52:15 PM) MaximusPrime left the room (quit: Ping timeout).
(11:54:18 PM) Reise: Reise follows up with another dashing slash with her arm blades; one hand, hidden behind her suit, slaps a patch onto his bass, and the nanites within begin to swarm, eating away at the instrument's structural integrity.
(11:57:12 PM) Ikiryo: He ignores the blades, desperately focusing on saving his bass from the patch and digging it out.
(11:58:10 PM) Ikiryo: He grabs the bass by the neck and swings it at Uytana, the Eladrin girl quickly pausing time about the pair for just long enough to dive out of the way.
(6/14/2017 12:04:38 AM) Reise: This time Reise has little trouble slipping between the masses of Hands, her visor displaying an optimal escape route through their predictable grabbing and club-handed swinging.
(12:04:43 AM) Ikiryo: It does, however, distract her from the hands. One of them grabs her and plants rotted teeth into her shoulder and she screams and vanishes again. She reappears a moment later with the wound fortunately mostly just bruised, the zombie lacked the force to bite deeper.
(12:09:10 AM) Ikiryo: Uytana cluches her hand to her shoulder as she starts to humm, the sound reverberating through the area and the horde of zombies as the base player finally stops squeaking, his voice returning to it's rich and velvety sound. "Oh, I'm going to raise you two as something special!"
(12:19:12 AM) Reise: [Tana, sing something, I'm going to duet with you. If he's so obsessed then if we show off too it might catch him on his back foot.] She readies for another assault, cranking the external audio up on her suit as she starts to sing as well, matching her pitch in dominant harmony with Uytana...
(12:20:49 AM) Ikiryo: Uytana nods, moving her humming to singing. An old Eldadrin dirge about peace and rest and being reuinited with lost friends. Most eldarin have heard it at least once.
(12:27:46 AM) Reise: Even Reise, not a craftworlder, has heard it, and she joins in; while her voice isn't quite on par with Uytana's it's still a worthy backup. While keeping up the song she darts in for another haymaker, the edge of her blade grazing TB's head...but the rest of her fist connects solidly.
(12:33:31 AM) Ikiryo: He staggers, stunned...and then brings his bass guitar around in a massive smash towards her head. "You are not ruining my moment to shine!"
(12:39:28 AM) Reise: The instrument clatters off the top of her helmet, and it barely leaves a mark on the orange-stained shell. Reise's singing is barely interrupted, and she throws an arm out to bat the bass off to a side, taking up her stance again. During a brief lull in the lyrics, she snipes, "You don't sparkle *nearly* enough to shine~"
(12:44:08 AM) Ikiryo: He glowers at her...and is distracts him from Uytana's spell. His glower become a cough and a stagger as liver spots appear on his forehead and his skin starts to sag, forced through decades of ageing in moments. He judge manages to evade the follow up punch but the old man really doesn't rock the lack of shirt as well as he did before.
(12:45:30 AM) Ikiryo: He stares at his skin in horror...and is soon tackled by his zombies. They don't seem to be listening to him any more.
(12:45:46 AM) Ikiryo: Uytana offers Reise a nervous smile. "I-I broke the link between him and them."
(12:47:45 AM) Reise: "*Perfect~*" She gives the dark-haired bunnygirl a thumbs up. "We'll deal with them after we're done with him. For now, that's probably the best result."
(12:55:37 AM) Reise: She moves in, this time in a flurry of stabbing and slashing attacks; one attack lashes for his pants, slicing through the myriad buckles and the button, gravity doing its job and tugging them to his ankles.
(1:02:45 AM) Ikiryo: He quickly pulls them back up...but it leaves him open to follow up hits.
(1:06:53 AM) Reise: Each of her hits leaves a lasting, almost burned wound, a combination of the controlled energy fields that are her weapons...and the now-brightly shining golden circle on her forehead. Reise is grinning fiercely under her visor, the thrum of the fight energizing her very being. "C'mon, Tubey~" she taunts. "This is almost disappointing."
(1:07:11 AM) Reise: on her helmet's* forehead.
(1:08:12 AM) Ikiryo: Both him and Uytana shrink away a bit from the glow...
(1:09:27 AM) Ikiryo: She grits her teeth...and flickersteps foward, driving her gauntleted hand into his arm...with a nasty crack and a scream of the currently aged man.
(1:10:39 AM) Ikiryo: He winces...and strums his guitar, blasting out another bass shockwave
(1:22:47 AM) Ikiryo: The shockwave does little damage...but for a moment it strips all her defences to the song the band proper is playing.
(1:27:19 AM) Ikiryo: The zombies charge again, the injured and aged man failing to avoid grasping hands as easily as Uytana does
(1:29:42 AM) Reise: Reise feels her spirits sink, the glow on her forehead dimming; she grits her teeth, though, forcing past the despair and the absolute *need* to stand there and mope. She's got a job to do and people to protect, even if it'd be easier to just lament the unfairness of it all. She's so concentrated on that that the Hands around her fasten on and batter away at her armor again.
(1:39:43 AM) Ikiryo: "Get away from her!" She hears Uytana shout, the Eldarin girl charging him and smashing him in the face with her gauntleted fist. Her dark caste mark glows as she grabs his face...and squeezes. There is a sickening crunch and she tosses the body to the zombies...who move backwards in fear.
(1:47:27 AM) ***Reise takes advantage of the undead's distraction to pounce, herself, laying into them and cutting them apart left and right. The zombies wake up and try to retaliate, but their lack of cohesion and direction, and their thinning numbers, means it's easier for Reise to dance between outthrust arms.
(1:52:12 AM) Ikiryo: Uytana joins her, driving that heavy gauntlet into zombie after zombie and stutter-stepping out of the way of the gore.
(1:56:28 AM) Reise: Between the two of them, they make short work of the reanimated corpses, freeing their spirits to return to the river...not that Reise has anything beyond Khaira's and Uytana's word that that's what happens. She dismisses her blades as the last one falls and pulls off her helmet. Her facial expression looks the next best thing to depressed, but she fights to look more neutral. The glow on her brow is gone.
(1:56:28 AM) Reise: "Nice takeout, Tana. Thanks for the save."
(1:58:45 AM) Ikiryo: Uytana blinks a few time. She's mostly avoided blood and gore, save for her red right hand and a streak of blood on her cheek. "...oh gods, I did that."
(1:59:30 AM) Reise: "You did. If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure he'll be back...some day, somewhere. But you really saved my butt."
(1:59:54 AM) ***Reise smirks. "Damn fine save for a damn fine butt, if I do say so myself~"
(2:01:44 AM) Ikiryo: She blushes brilliantly at that. "R-right...oh gods, I crushed his..." She looks to her gauntlet.
(2:02:01 AM) Reise: "Tana, look at me."
(2:02:51 AM) Ikiryo: She looks over at Reise.
(2:04:21 AM) ***Reise is completely serious. "Yes, you did. Sort of. But it was less 'you,' and more the thing your father made you into. As long as you recognize that it's in there, you can keep a leash on it, and only let it out to play when you want. Got it?"
(2:04:54 AM) Reise: "And me and all our other friends'll be right here with you to make sure you don't go nutso crazy."
(2:06:03 AM) Ikiryo: "...I kinda liked it." She looks a bit sick at the admission, not noticing herself licking the blood of her cheek a bit suggestively.
(2:07:38 AM) ***Reise has to fight down an urge to smooch the hell out of Uytana at that. "Yeah, that's that thing talking. Don't listen to it too much, alright? I know you, I know you can control it."
(2:09:28 AM) Ikiryo: She nods. "Alright. Thank you..."
(2:11:00 AM) Reise: "Good girl." She pats her between the bunny ears, though her own expression continues to droop. There's obvious effort every time it does, as though Reise is realising it's happening and trying to fight it. "Now let's find Tuberculosis' guitar and taunt the rest of them with it, eh? Maybe you can smash more skulls later."
(2:11:00 AM) Reise: She leans in close to one of Uytana's ears. "Besides. It's actually not as bad as what I was planning to do to him."
(2:15:31 AM) Ikiryo: She smiles at the petting, clearly enjoying it. "I wouldn't want to do that..." Despite her words, she clearly liked it.