World War What Do We Do Now: S3 (now with only 0.5% Oxford)

[12:16:19] * Oxford changes topic to 'Front Moves Northward - Cimbrian Army Retreats from Dolgrund'
[12:18:50] * Kraken is now known as Naida
[12:22:50] * Elysia_Tess is now known as Cille_Lund
[12:24:31] <@Oxford> An uneasy silence hovers over the Rusty Tub like miasma. Vestergaard has retreated into his office, nursing a formerly-broken arm and a bad hangover. Henriette has likewise withdrawn to her quarters upstairs, fuming to herself in Gaulian. The basement is left to Naida and Lily.
[12:26:49] * BigTentacruel (~BT@Rizon-216A999C.hsd1.ga.comcast.net) has joined #WorldWarBurst
[12:27:28] * BigTentacruel is now known as Henriette
[12:27:44] <Naida> Naida takes a sip of beer. "...you don't think we're going to get like...court martialed or something, do you? Is that a thing that can happen from this?"
[12:28:43] <Lily_Blevins> Lily's sitting in a chair, straightening her barmaid outfit, lounging a bit.  "Possible but I think it might only be Henriette considering she's been taking the blame for all this...not that I like it, though."
[12:30:20] <Henriette> Henriette scans her letter again, vaccilating between sending it as is and writing it just one more time. She looks through the wall to where Vestergaard is and briefly wishes she hadn't phased him through the window, but Cille's last words to her ring in her mind, and she grimaces. This is the only way to make it better, she resolves.
[12:31:23] <Naida> "The war and shitty part of magic aside, it's been...nice."
[12:32:20] <Lily_Blevins> "I've done my best to make it that way~"
[12:34:40] <Naida> "So what are your plans? If we get dissolved at least. Be a good soldier? Go back home? Fuck off completely and disappear?" Sip.
[12:38:59] <Lily_Blevins> "...try and be a medic again."
[12:39:22] <Naida> "Military still or try to find a private practice place that will take you?"
[12:41:15] <Lily_Blevins> "...dunno'."
[12:43:23] <Henriette> Sealing the letter in an envelope, Henri addresses it appropriately. She knows the drill for sending actual mail. Hand it to a contact at the post office in person. Say you're writing to loved ones at home. Smile. He'll know where to take it. She sighs, looking over at scraps written and rewritten on her desk and sets about tearing them up.
[12:45:12] <Naida> "I just hope my family's doing okay...would be fucking dumb to keep fighting if they're not..." Chug.
[12:49:54] <Henriette> Finally, with her room spotless and immaculate, the oak-framed bed and cherrywood desk and chair are the only things in the room. It's spartan compared to the life she knew in Ternwald, but she's gotten used to it. Grimacing, she shuts the door behind her and heads down the stairs. At the foot she stops, letter in hand, and glances at the two by the bar. "Are you angry with me?"
[12:52:24] <Naida> A look of confusion passes Naida's face. "Why would we be? Don't really know what happened and he antagonizes people, so he probably had it coming. Besides, I've fucked up enough times to know not to hold grudges or anything."
[12:53:11] <Lily_Blevins> "...a little...but not much.  I understand why you did what you did."
[12:54:38] <Henriette> "I-I didn't mean that..." They don't know. Cille, you didn't tell them? "I am not sorry for what I did to Vestergaard, only that I gave in to the part of me that wanted to be rid of him for good. For that, I am sorry." Silence for a moment. "But... I have... Well..."
[12:54:44] <Henriette> "Cille is gone."
[12:55:29] <Naida> "Hm? Like...blanket roped out the window while we were being idiots?"
[12:55:36] <Lily_Blevins> "Ah, figures."
[12:58:12] <Henriette> "Non. She has left to find Vladko. She is... deep in Nov territory now, I imagine. I assisted in her spell. She and I figured I had the most raw power to draw upon." A wan smile appears. "And now I have assisted in one of my team going away without leave. I know what that will mean."
[12:59:16] <Naida> Naida is disturbed to find her mug empty as she goes for a big gulp. "So...gone, poof, no goodbye?"
[12:59:48] <Lily_Blevins> "She gave me a goodbye...I think she wanted to give you one, too, but things got kind of awkward with Vestergaard there."
[13:00:21] <Henriette> "I am sorry for that, too, Naida. She said she was sorry she couldn't say goodbye to you. I... guess I interrupted that."
[13:02:03] <Naida> She huffs and the mug clunks heavily down on the counter. "Well...if our dissolution is going to probably so much earlier than expected, what are your plans, Henri?"
[13:03:27] * Bardy (~chatzilla@8FE12505.E7055DFF.C55B9EFC.IP) has joined #WorldWarBurst
[13:04:19] <Henriette> "Oh, my future has likely been decided for me. After all, I am nothing if not a product of my upbringing, as they say." She holds the letter tightly without crumpling it. "I wish to report the situation before Vestergaard can twist it into some gross lie, and in doing so, I will resign."
[13:04:59] <Naida> "And then?"
[13:05:41] <Lily_Blevins> Lily gives a bit of a sigh, looking down towards her legs.
[13:05:44] <Henriette> "Do you think the military holds the same punishments for young women as they do for their elderly war veterans?"
[13:06:46] <Naida> "I can't think of many dumber ways to throw your life away. Really, what are you gaining or losing by just poofing like Cille?"
[13:07:39] <Naida> *not
[13:08:57] <Henriette> "I am preserving my sense of self," she answers. "You're right, though. I am dumb. I do not know why they put me in charge even with Lily. Perhaps they expected you all would respond better to... whatever it is that I possess, mais I have watched my actions, both bold and unobtrusive, backfire in ways I did not foresee."
[13:09:48] <Henriette> "Should I have killed Vladko before we knew him at all? Should I have let Cille go when he did? Should I have protested on Rosalyne behalf with the recent mission?"
[13:10:39] <Naida> "No, see, taking risks isn't dumb. Taking risks is what you makes you awesome, even if you won't always feel that great while dwelling on regret. Bending your knee to people that don't respect you is the dumb part."
[13:14:08] <Henriette> "What would you have me do, then? Should I lie to them? That isn't who I was raised to be."
[13:16:29] <Naida> "Well you don't have to lie but...maybe don't fall on your sword."
[13:18:21] <Henriette> Another smile. "I continue to amaze myself with how little I understand. I do not know what you mean, Naida, let alone how to even attempt to orchestrate it. I will tell them how horribly they have treated us, and I imagine it will fall upon deaf ears that would order me around anyway."
[13:19:55] <Naida> "You could let them know and then simply...leave. No sense in making a martyr of yourself when your audience is...well...us."
[13:21:11] <Lily_Blevins> "I also don't think you should martyr yourself over this, you're not going to accomplish much by sacrificing yourself like that!"
[13:26:06] <Henriette> Frustrated, she sets the letter down at a nearby table and balls her fists. "I... Sh-Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Every time I try to lead, it all goes awry, et others do what they want! If I try to fix it, I ruin it further! Do not tell me even THIS is not worthwhile. I... I want to do SOMETHING to make an impact without people belittling me time and time again. Je l'aurais tue hier! He doubted my resolve like everyone else, and I st
[13:27:10] <Henriette> ill held back!"
[13:33:45] <Naida> Naida tries to dodge the outburst by taking another sip of...an empty mug. A guilty look slowly gives way to earnest attention. "For the record, you have been a great leader. The fact alone that you got a group like us and we all still live is nothing short of a miracle. On a very personal level, I appreciate you. You show a tenacity of not seen in any other. Even now, you're trying to help us as a unit, though the rest of us
[13:33:45] <Naida> have given up on considering it such. Of course it hasn't been easy and I know you try to shoulder the burden of that alone. But I don't think it's worth your time to try to fix how they see us as combatants. We will only ever be little girls to them, except when they suddenly decide we're real soldiers when it's convenient for them to enforce something. I want you to salvage some happiness from this rather than marching yours
[13:33:46] <Naida> elf into prison because of your pride."
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[13:43:03] <Henriette> Henriette freezes, staring furiously at a knot in the floorboards. She says nothing at first, struggling to find something in her beliefs to counter Naida's argument. What would an Albaean do? What would a true Albaean, the Ideal Albaean, do? "All of my life, I have lived by ideals of loyalty and honesty, mais I am caught between my loyalty to you all and my loyalty to the country that saved me after my father and I left Gaulia."
[13:44:37] <Henriette> "I wish to do right by you all, mais I am a selfish, foolish creature, and I would like nothing more now than to neuter every single country involved in this stupid conflict."
[13:49:11] <Lily_Blevins> "I feel the same way, this war is dumb."
[13:53:34] <Naida> "Just...please don't go storming off just because you think you're solely for responsible..."
[13:53:41] <Naida> *for our failures, woops
[13:59:37] <Henriette> "So what do we do?" She looks up directly at them. "I must do something. If I sit here and wait for them to ruin our lives any more, I will go insane."
[14:02:03] <Lily_Blevins> "Let's go over our options, then!  Uh...we could all resign...we could all go live in a forest and be fairies...we could all try and find a pendant research facility and blow it up...we could make a monster with our pendants and it'll probably kill a whole country...uh.  Anyone else got any ideas~?"
[14:02:51] <Henriette> "...you are making jokes, yes?"
[14:03:28] <Lily_Blevins> "...I really like fairies."  She turns a little red.
[14:04:55] <Naida> "Well, before anything...do we want to keep fighting? We still have more power than pretty much anything and there are still people caught in the war...I'd like to at least keep my home city safe, but I don't really know how feasible that is, or if they...can still be saved."
[14:07:51] <Henriette> "They have had us sitting on the back lines. Can we just go directly to them?"
[14:08:44] <Naida> "Well if we go rogue...yes. And it's not like we have to kill anyone. I mean our powers in general are pretty good for just disabling."
[14:17:02] <Lily_Blevins> "Well, I've been doing that the whole time..."
[14:17:21] <Naida> "I don't just mean in skirmishes. I mean actively targetting armaments on both sides."
[14:17:48] <Lily_Blevins> "Oh, that would be good, yeah. If nobody's got any weapons to fight with, kind of hard to fight a war."
[14:19:42] <Naida> "We would be able to keep tabs on the countries, hopefully reduce the amount of unnecessary death, we're a small enough group that it would be hard to detect us...we'd mostly just be worrying about them sending others of our kind after us..."
[14:22:25] * Firespitter (~Firespitt@Rizon-500CE1E0.static.axtel.net) Quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
[14:27:59] <Lily_Blevins> "We'd burn out pretty fast though, on our own, wouldn't we?"
[14:28:36] <Lily_Blevins> "Like, most of us have managed to put out crazy monsters that want to kill us just fighting one side, what happens when we're fighting all sides?"
[14:29:31] <Lily_Blevins> "Even when I transform without a pendant, I still get some kind of magical backlash.  I've been trying and trying to see if I could do something appreciably different, but..."
[14:29:40] <Henriette> Henriette remains silent during the discussion, unsure of what to do. Obviously, she won't tell them the right answer since her answer is never right, but...
[14:31:50] <Naida> "Hit and run tactics can work pretty well, we don't need to exert that much, but yeah we'd need to find places to hide out at the least...and y'know...survival chances are pretty low...but if we want to stay involved, it seems the most direct way to go. If we don't...well...presumably they're going to want to the pendants back and all that...so we still have to hide doing that..."
[14:34:05] <Lily_Blevins> "If only there were more people we could get involved somehow..."
[14:34:32] <Lily_Blevins> "No matter how powerful we are, we're still only 3 girls."
[14:35:13] <Naida> "Well if we hope that every other girl in our shoes has had a similarly horrendous experience, we can try recruiting them. Would definitely need someone to speak Nov though..."
[14:35:41] <Lily_Blevins> "...wonder how those Nov girls we let go are doing."
[14:35:45] <Henriette> They could try and convert Nov pendant users to their side? No, that would be terrible. They're probably more indoctrinated than anyone so far.
[14:38:42] <Naida> Naida cocks her head at Henriette. "...how does your...mirror reflecty stuff work?"
[14:42:42] <Henriette> "Uh... Intuitively? I believe they respond to my desires. Imagine looking into a mirror and seeing the you that you want to be. A little like that." She blushes, embarrassed that her powers essentially revolve around her vainness and/or insecurities.
[14:43:17] <Naida> "So...could you reflect thoughts? Like express your desires to someone you don't share a language in common with by reflecting your intentions?"
[14:49:33] <Henriette> "I have no idea, mais I did something like that when we were hosting Vladko, did I not? I have never tried." I mean, it's not like she WANTS to speak Nov all the time.
[14:51:21] <Naida> "...well if you can then we can probably communicate with them...so...is that something we want to do?"
[14:52:12] <Henriette> "We could try it. I speak little Cimbrian, after all."
[14:52:23] <Henriette> "I mean, experiment with it."
[14:55:13] <Naida> "Well...hell, we haven't got anything else to do. Go for it!"
[14:55:25] <Lily_Blevins> "So uh, how do you plan to go about this?  Wait for Nov girls to show up and try talking?"
[14:56:20] <Henriette> "We'll have to go to them, I think, which means we'll have to keep them from killing us at the same time." She glances at Naida and imagines communing with her, as if their thoughts were reflected through a mirror.
[14:56:51] <Naida> She gives Henriette a grin full of trust and confidence, one not normally on her face amidst all the horrible depressing mopery.
[15:02:00] <Henriette> Suddenly, light flickers in the air between them, a brief manifestation of a mirror as Henriette's eyes go a blank white. A stream of images flashes into Naida's mind, memories of Ternwald, of school with Angela, of breakfast with Erica Stranahan, of being out alone with Dirk on a boa- wait, skipping past that one. Henri tries to crop the stream to just what she wants, slowing the river
[15:02:00] <Henriette> of time in her mind. "Did it work?"
[15:04:56] <Naida> Naida smiles warmly. "If you intended to show me happy memories, then probably yeah." Henriette's own experiences are mirrored with similar times of contentedness for Naida: the birth of her baby brother Ingvar, time out hunting with her father, general mischief with her friends Ludvig and Dorothea.
[15:07:55] <Henriette> Henriette tries to refine it. She shows very clearly, very succintly, her first transformation and the feeling of elation that accompanied it and then the feeling of satisfaction when she first destroyed an enemy aircraft in a blaze of light. "What should I show them if we did do this?" she mumbles. Flashes of their encounter with the Novgoraadi witches interrupt the transformation as
[15:07:55] <Henriette> Henriette's attention slips.
[15:11:53] <Naida> Likewise, Naida returns the feeling of her first transformation, including the disappointment with looking like a monster. The burning void that is the shadowy realm echoes into Henri's mind, with the silhouettes of terrifying monsters that should not exist gazing hungrily at her. Naida rubs her chin as she recalls the encounter with the Nov girls. "...maybe focus on the happy times, discontent with leadership, and our meeting
[15:11:53] <Naida>  with that one group?"
[15:17:04] <Lily_Blevins> Lily gets herself a beer and watches this.  Hmmmm~
[15:18:42] <Henriette> Damming the flow of memories, Henriette plays back Naida's own sequence with feelings of awe and admiration implanted. Where there is shadow, there is light, after all. The simple images resolve, finally, into what Henriette sees now: The room, Lily, Naida herself, and the channel is more coherant. 'Do you see what I do? now'
[15:18:47] <Henriette> *do now?
[15:20:42] <Naida> Naida moves her arm as though she had never noticed it before. "...Yes but I might puke...movement is...weird..."
[15:23:26] <Henriette> Ah, maybe don't do that then. Can Henriette let Naida move her own arm? That might be asking a lot of her powers. "Should I stop?"
[15:26:35] <Naida> "Yes that would be nice. It worked well it just...I need to sit down." She struggles to locate a stool in Henrivision and nearly falls over.
[15:29:08] <Henriette> Henriette cuts off the link gently, restoring things as carefully as she can. There's been a lot of information passed around, and she's feeling pretty exhausted herself. As her sight returns to normal, she says, "It could work. It would be... difficult, but it could work. We'd still have to get them calm enough to accept it. I don't think I could force the link without hurting them or
[15:29:09] <Henriette> myself."
[15:30:49] <Lily_Blevins> "Well, if you're sure about it, I guess we can hinge on that."
[15:30:57] <Naida> "Well..." She shakes her head, suffering an odd feeling like she was drunk and instantly sobered up. "You will have Lily and I to help keep them still. And provided we aren't outright ambushed again, it would probably be easier to avoid making threatening gestures."
[15:36:04] <Henriette> "It seems shaky. If I didn't use enough power, I might not be able to control what gets said, and if I use to much, I might hurt them." Still, it's better than nothing. "We can try it, though. I kind of like the idea of disarming a country without hurting their girls."
[15:36:35] <Naida> "We will...need new uniforms..."
[15:37:33] <Lily_Blevins> "New uniforms...?"  She frowns.  "What's wrong with our normal clothes?"
[15:39:28] <Naida> "Well normal uniforms would identify us as the enemy of the Novs. We could go the hobo route and just wear whatever, but it's...well I mean there's nothing WRONG with it, we just look like random assholes."
[15:39:48] <Lily_Blevins> "I mean, our transformed outfits are different anyway..."
[15:39:49] <Henriette> "So, our first step is to steal Nov uniforms?"
[15:40:14] <Naida> "...but then any other Albaean or Cimbrian girls would see us as enemies..."
[15:40:37] <Naida> "Unless we like...combined them? Maybe? Is that a thing that can be done without looking even worse than like hobo clothes?"
[15:40:57] <Naida> She looks to Henriette for guidance on one of the things she's actually really good at.
[15:42:57] <Henriette> "The... designs are similar in some respects. Albaean uniforms tend to be wider in the hip areas and structured around thick lines, whereas the Novgoraadi uniforms are stiff and have fewer flourishes. I don't know that it'd be easy to fool all sides... Part of the point behind uniforms is so you don't shoot your ally, after all."
[15:43:45] <Naida> "Don't need to necessarily fool them, just...confuse them. Something that would make them stop and think for a second, whether they shoot at us or not."
[15:44:13] <Henriette> "That said, both sides have to be borrowing soldiers from neighboring countries. Immigrants and the like. We could maybe pass as Hispalian."
[15:44:17] <Lily_Blevins> "...but we'd be in our transformed outfits in battle anyway..."
[15:44:40] <Naida> "But we won't always be transformed. In fact we've learned it's probably a bad idea to always be transformed."
[15:45:13] <Henriette> "The Hispalians haven't been in the war at all just because they aren't economically powerful. We'd have good excuse to avoid combat if we say we're moving to the country for a better life or something of that nature."
[15:45:19] <Lily_Blevins> "Yes, but you just said you want to make them hesitate from attacking us, which would imply we'd be on the battlefield, where it'd be suicide to NOT go in transformed because then they could kill us easily!"
[15:45:58] <Naida> "Well yeah, if we HAVE to go back to normal on the battlefield, we don't want to give them reason to kill us."
[15:47:03] <Lily_Blevins> "I guess, but why?  I wouldn't want to be that vulnerable in the middle of a battlefield, I'm not an actual trained soldier with an actual gun, after all!"
[15:47:38] <Naida> "Presumably never intentionally, but if we get our ass beat magically, it's an inevitability."
[15:47:53] <Henriette> "We should avoid encountering troops if at all possible. I think we'd have better luck trying to pass as civilians anyway."
[15:48:34] <Lily_Blevins> "In which case, again, why don't we just wear normal people clothes?"
[15:50:07] <Naida> "Hm...I don't know what the orders of the troops are for civilians...at the very least the Hispalian thing is a good idea, people wouldn't be able to identify us as Albaean, Cimbrian, or Novgoraadi by fashion if we dressed like that."
[15:51:48] <Henriette> "I could sew Hispalian outfits. I've read a little about it before, et I believe there's a butcher shop owned by a Hispalian family a few blocks over, isn't there?"
[15:55:28] <Naida> "So then, dress as completely foreign civilians, patrol the front lines in secret to try to find other magic users, try to convince them to help us sabotage armaments on both sides?"
[15:56:56] <Lily_Blevins> "I guess?  But we'd probably be suspicious by being a bit out of place..."
[15:57:19] <Henriette> "Well, it won't be safe no matter what we do. This is very risky."
[15:58:33] <Naida> "Oh certainly, it's crazy to even think of this. But the potential payoff seems like it would be worth it."
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[16:04:39] <Lily_Blevins> She nods.  "Well yeah, I get that, but I figured we'd try to minimize any risks we could."
[16:05:08] <Naida> "...that's...that's why we're talking about this and why I was preparing for the possibility of being unarmed on the battle field."
[16:07:28] <Lily_Blevins> "...well, all right, you guys seem to have a handle on this clothes thing better than I do."
[16:10:23] <Naida> "We have a lot of preparation to make...and probably not all that much time before certain people make relevant squad decisions, so...we should really get to work."
[16:11:34] <Henriette> "Then we will try it. It's better than following orders and continuing to suffer for their sake." She takes the letter sitting next to her on the table and holds it in her hand carefully. She's written this letter more times than she cares to remember, and each time her guilt grew and grew. She reminds herself that this isn't betraying Albaea. It is staying true to Albaean morals. A
[16:11:34] <Henriette> lingering thought trails through her mind: 'Dirk would be proud.'
[16:13:07] <Henriette> </session>