Condemned RP

"I feel fine, Konami, but don't call them evil..." Noel pulled the goggles over his eyes, their fashion much like Gremlins and more suitable for his eyes.

"They are not evil, as this entire mission may rest on a moral grey." Though he supposed that would be the point of this place, squarely in the Grey. It certainly wasn't a good place, the tabard he'd been given did not have a blue cross on it, that suggested it came from elsewhere.

He snatched a tablet off the counter, a stylus attached to its side. "I'll be taking this, I'll return it later." He smiled at Konami, and swayed any other option from her mind as he did so.

He strolled back to the room with the Lady, Konami in tow now that he'd been geared for the mission. Entering the room, and looking more noble than ever. He carried the tablet at his side, and the sword concealed behind his back. His hand moved quickly, taking inventory of everyone currently in the room. Flawless profile pictures taken, and labeling the ones he could currently identify, Grisham, Konami, Agent 6, and the Lady. He looked a little eccentric to have access to all this information, something that naturally bloomed in him.

"Right, I'll be ready," Noel said, his look a little grim and his lips pursed. His cloak unsettled in an almost indeterminable breeze.

[[I guess that's all from Nina for now, then. Unless something happened when everyone heads over to the armory.]]

~~~

Tifa:

Tifa stared intently at the man who swiped away at a tablet carried with him. She had caught a glimpse of him as he left the dining room with the Maid following quickly after him... But now she was able to do a more detailed analysis. He had changed into something more suitable for the occasion, and so, more suitable photographs of him were in order.

Furthermore, as Tifa was no longer limited to only a single position (i.e. seated on a wheelchair), she figured she might as well take images from several perspectives while she was at it.

The robot lifted herself from the chair which she had sat upon for what seemed like only moments, and walked over to the man, stopping about 1/6'th of a meter away before taking images in rapid succession. More to test out her new capabilities than for actual information, Tifa slowly circled Noel, hoping that he wouldn't move too much.

Once she reached full circle, she gave an instantaneous "blink" of her screen, and noted in a light, mechanical voice:

"Test complete. Functionality at 366%. Efficiency at 243%. Analysis archived."

She then "blinked" once more, lowered her head, bent one knee, and raised half of her sky blue, silk dress in a modest show of courtesy.

"Good day, {Name Unknown}. I am T.I.F.A Mk. 3.14." lifting her head, and nodding towards the Maid (whom she also took images of during her walkaround), she added "You may call me Tifa." before heading back to the table, and returning to her seat. Hopefully, if time allowed it, she could do similar multi-angle shots at everyone within the room; for now, however, she was content with having such images of the man in the Red Tabard.

Boan stood up from the dinner table and said, "Grisham, please tell the lady that I will be off now to get geared up at the armory." He turned to Sona. "I will be waiting for you at the armory; finish your meal and I will wait you there." With that, he turned heel and marched out. Lady Grey had, of course, heard what he said just fine without Grisham's help, but considering the tone of his voice, she wondered whether he found out something unpleasant about her. But no matter; the opinions of pawns mattered little so long as they did their job. What bothered her more was the increasing probability that he was the prophesied Celestial Arbiter. If it were true, then she had a nuclear option in her hand that could backfire on her at any time. She would have to develop failsafes for him. Assuming, of course, he didn't end up just killing himself. The Arbiters were prone to that.

Teach entered just as Boan left, passing him on the way in. He took a seat beside Lady Grey and tried to make himself comfortable. "Lady Grey-" he began, cut short by the conspicuous stomach-growling. "-um, yes, besides my lack of nutrition..." he continued, with Grisham pushing an uneaten bowl of soup toward his place in response, "I do believe there are things to be done for...the both of us, this one and me." He gestured to TIFA.

Lady Grey rapped her finger. Grisham bent his ear. "Thus says Lady Grey: Speak, and it shall be done."
__________

((I'll do a section for Fos and Eltrooper later. It's too late for any further writing now. Good night!))

Boan knew his place at the northaven, not much better than back in cells, almost like a prisoner on house arrest. He never knew quite why Lady Grey was such an affront to him, maybe it was her pretentiousness, maybe he was jealous at the fact that everyone in northhaven treated her like a saint when in reality she is a scheming, possibly narrow minded individual whose only goal was the betterment of her self. Or was it something else,that was keeping Boan away from Grey?..

Boan turned to the last set of corridor towards the armory and he nearly fell over when an intense pain surged through his brain. A vivid vision of the mantra left behind by the previous cell mate of his death cell resurfaced. It was Pythonne Selensky's, it was already three years after the madman obliterated himself from existence yet somehow his mad scratching on the cell wall left an imprint on Boan's mind. Boan could feel that his mind was under the thrall of a higher power but he didn't know any better. The pain quickly wore off as soon as it begun, Boan paid it no mind and carried on, though of it was an imbalance of humor after moving to northaven or a lethal dose of cyanide in his meal.

Entering the Armory, Boan looked around and grabbed some Kevlar then strapped together with some metal plates. He tried to limit the technologies that he was carrying in fear of Grey may track him down later with them. He knew at this point he was nothing more than a tool and the mission briefing they had before the meal was a loyalty test set by Lady Grey, she wasn't fooling anyone. Not Boan at least, he looked for the oldest weapons in the pistol section and found an old confederacy era valiance along with a rusted Callahan, for melee option he went for a bronze board sword. Unintentionally, he also reached for a pack of C4 and fuse kit, never once had he used bomb in his life, but Boan instinctively felt that it may come handy later.

With his cape stretched above his head as a hood, Boan grinned with the hand guns in hand and the sword on his backpack, " So... it begins...

((@Midnight-Dj: You know metagaming is a thing, right? Boan doesn't know that Lady Grey is a schemer. You only learned that from OOC conversation. Using that knowledge is called metagaming, and is illegal in roleplaying communities. Also be aware that, since Boan was recently rescued from execution, he has every reason to have a higher opinion of Lady Grey than he does. Please try to stay in-character in the future.))

"Besides payment or a letter of confirmation for your two smithies, the younger of which may require a raise in finance to equal the raise in loyalty, the heart of the matter would be : what would you have us do for you?"

Without so much as skipping a beat, Teach leans forward and drinks down about 3/4's of his soup before setting down the bowl.

Noel nodded to the robot, and examined her up and down as his fingers identified her on his tablet. "T.I.F.A" into his tablet, with the letters arranged in the description for later confirmation of what they stood for. He'd have to get acquainted to his allies in time, and what better time than the present to do so, when there was no mission to accomplish or be distracted from...

He sat down in a seat at the table, and his eyes darted behind his goggles, no one able to see as he examined them. He would acquaint himself to Tifa in order to have access to her superior machinery, and may have to establish a link between the tablet and her processing system in order to have the tools necessary for the near future. Some heat signature vision or information on the other characters would be helpful. Decisions were hard to make when one didn't have the necessary evidence to support their own choices, and Noel had to be very dependent on technology to see this through for him.

He took a fork for his soup, to fish out the fleshy bits before the broth, and spoke up, "What might your names be?" He asked tentatively, fingers poised above the tablet. This adventure was a learning experience, and the more data he could collect on people that might know something about him or of him, the better his chances would be of finding an answer.

Some normal dinner conversation.

"Flynn, son of Leeroy." I said, raising my free hand and placing it on my chest. I let it relax, and then continued to drink my coffee.
Was. . . Was that a bit of malice I heard from Boan? Huhm. . . This could go badly.
Of course, If he's got dirt on Lady Grey, this could be all the more worse. . .
These are some dark thoughts- I should rid myself of them. How can I think such thoughts? I ought to trust whem which was kind enough to break me out. Or. . . Perhaps I just don't like people, which would explain my favoritism to Tifa.
I sighed, and then downed the soup.
"I'll be in the Armory if you need me."

(OOC: @Thin, please finish that entire sentence, 'He never knew quite why Lady Grey was such an affront to him, maybe it was her pretentiousness, maybe he was jealous at the fact that everyone in northhaven treated her like a saint when in reality she is a scheming, possibly narrow minded individual whose only goal was the betterment of her self. Or was it something else,that was keeping Boan away from Grey?

So I am directly suggesting that Boan is influenced by something else to dislike Grey. And besides, it would have been really nice if Grey just told them how much she invested into rescuing them in the first place, that way he would have been much more grateful.

And also you have to consider Boan's situations:

-He probably sat on the dining table for hours now (Boan ate quite fast and he finished his meal on page 10 or something...) and is dreadfully bored. The adrenaline rush from the horse back escape wore off quite a bit.

-He killed, hundreds, if not thousands of inmates from way back when he was the guard captain, any of those dead cell mates could be family relatives of a denizen of Northaven. That is a lot of avenging sons and daughters coming after him, and yes, Judas will one day use this against Boan. (something tells me that I am going to regret reminding Thin of this fact. )

-Grey sits in a dim, dining room, wearing red, never say a thing, only whisper her message to Grisham who may or may not have put euphemisms into her speech. Combine that with a unstable robot, a blood alchemist who is a vampire and an entire army of bipedal mechs and maids, you couldn't blame Boan for feeling insecure. And besides, if he gets captured by Ozlo again, you know what is coming for him.

-Lady Grey stated that Boan will be 'put to death' if he looked into the canister that he was supposed to retrieve. So you have to admit, Lady Grey isn't treating Boan anywhere better than Boan is treating her. )

((I'm not saying that Boan should feel safe and secure. On the contrary; I've deliberately fostered an environment where that's not true. I'm saying that Boan's response is unrealistic and dispropportionate to his situation. No matter what he feels about Grey, there's no way he'd know or imagine that she's a plotting schemer. There's no in-game basis for characters to see that yet. And, while the flurry of emotions from the rescue has long since worn off, there's still the concept that people who save your life should be thanked and respected. If I were in his situation, I'd still feel uncomfortable, but I wouldn't be giving my rescuer the cold shoulder. I believe Boan's responses are based off Midnight-Dj's exclusive knowledge, which constitutes metagaming.))

I don't mean to cut off any conversation, but I'm bored, you're bored, everybody's bored. So let's make this un-boring.

Teleportation sequence activated.

Everyone is now in the armory. Since Lady Grey's smiths make high-quality gear, you may choose any 3* equipment you like. 4* equips you'll have to forge yourself, and 5* is out of the question. Some additional gear not presented in the lore may also be acquired:
*Polearms, including rocket lances, vibro-naginatas, power pikes, vibro-halberds, and the like.
*Throwable, rollable, bounceable hand-bombs, otherwise known as grenades.
*Rocket-powered electroalchemical battlehammers. After all, I *did* say they used gremlin technology, didn't I? ;-)

Nuclear-powered bipedal mecha mobile suits are currently unavailable at this time. You'll get your own later.

Once everyone is done selecting your armaments, I'll teleport you all to Midhaven.

[[It's just that there wasn't really anything Tifa could do in the situation. Well, unless scanning everyone would have been acceptable... Still, that'd be pretty boring for me to write, and tedious for others to respond to.
Also, in response to the Teleportation... Hopefully you have a logical explanation for it IC. Also, hopefully Fos is not included in the teleportation, seeing as he was actually doing something.

Anyways, I'll make an IC post for Tifa later, can't currently.]]

((Fos & Eltrooper are exempt from the teleport. I still have to take care of them separately.))

Teach was back in the workshop. Well then...

Given that if there was enough Everfrost, a few rocket sprockets, and a pair of cooling cells, Matthias could keep a supply of liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to use as the fuel and oxidizer. Just as long as he had a lance durable enough to withstand the forward thrust and crashing force head-on...well, all he needed was something in the 3* range...

For Feline-Grenadier

Along one side of the wall was a row of polearms. Many were made of polymers and composites, and generally not good rocket-lance material. One, however, stood out; it was designed like a broadsword, but taller, longer, and a good bit heavier. Its hilt was crafted from Redwood, its blade honed with Swordstone, and its essence imbued with Light Shards. Crafted with all the love and care of a master blacksmith, there was no finer lance in Lady Grey's arsenal.
______________________________

For Darkwatck, #548

The chief doctor hustled all the medical staff out of the room and shut the door. He, of course, remained inside, as he was still ultimately responsible for patient care.
______________________________

For Eltrooper, #549

As Jolt shoved and pushed his way through town, he began to notice a few things. Gremlins often intermixed with humans, but the gremlins would invariably dip their heads and look down whenever Jolt made eye contact with them. All human faces were downcast; not a single smile or laugh could be found among them. Many had permanent scowls fixed upon them.

Welcome to Midhaven.

Boan walked up to the weapon smith who was in the armory, he placed the weapons of his choice on the work bench, "Hey, buddy," the ex-guard captain asked, "Lady Grey told me to come here and get geared up for a mission back to Haven, I fancy these antique weapons, would you kindly fix them up, or at least check if they are still operable? I could do with them not blowing up in my face." (the old valiance and Callahan should be counted as 4* / 3* variant of their normal counterpart, the bronze sword is just a sealed sword with no status effect on the charge.)

Admittedly, the broadsword design would be a lot handier if Teach was a master swordsman, but only if he was. In this case, he could say he was close to being one, just short of his handiness with heavier weaponry, but he'd have to change its shape to accommodate his tastes.

Like any normal man would, Teach hefted up the bulky blade with a hand pressed softly against the edge of the blade, and the other near the hilt, and walked towards the furnace.

[[For the "teleport", was it an actual teleport? Like... Magic-Alchemy instantaneous travel? Or was it an OOC "everyone moved here"? I may need to edit this post if it's the former.]]

Tifa:

Tifa turned dress with one hand as she turned herself. It wasn't for the sake of doing a "dress loop" or anything like that, but she figured that holding it away from her feet would be a good way of preventing the article of clothing from wrapping around her legs as she spun. Why was she spinning? Pictures. All the pictures.

After discovering that the power required for documenting images was quite low (almost nonexistent, in fact), Tifa didn't even bother to go through preliminary processes to start taking images of her surroundings. Still, her spinning was not long lived, because the Armory itself was Quite lackluster in appearance.
Excluding the weapons on the shelves, there wasn't much to see, and with almost the entire party in the room, looking at the entire area at this point would be far too arduous... Plus involve quite a lot of shoving. Tifa created a hypothetical "map" of the area using the basic dimensions of her current vantage point, as to cover up for the loss of minor details, and added a not of 'Incomplete scan. before archiving the makeshift room-diagram.

Once that was finished, Tifa took her time examining each weapon. Guns: Cataloged. Bombs: Sorted. Swords: Archived. Redundancy: Noted.
Even the more complex lacked... Something. Tifa wasn't sure what that something was, but none of the weapons seemed to hold her interest beyond potential information for dismantling. Notes on the weaknesses of the weapons -- purely hypothetical at this time, and in need of a Blacksmith's in-depth descriptions for proper defensive measures to be made in case similar weapons were used against the group in the future.

But what was this feeling? Being inside of this place, and looking upon the weapons? What was missing? What was this voidlike feeling creeping in the back of Tifa's mind?

For a moment, Tifa's face went blank, devoid of any light, before changing into a pair of Red Giga Glasses, which then vanished just as soon as they had appeared.

"Ah." Tifa exclaimed; "That is what it was. [File name ERROR: Nondescript] moved to [Critical Files]." Blinking, Tifa turned towards the door of the armory, and started walking.

Noting that others may ask where she was headed, Tifa gave the presumptive answer of "I will be outside." before exiting a moment later. She had a lot to think about, and staying in the hallway would allow her to hear from the inside if anything of note occurred. Turning her Auditory Sensors to Med-High, Tifa leaned back against the wall a bit to the side of the entrance and, for the first time since she had been created, went into deep contemplative thought.

Flynn looked around in awe at the wide varieties of armor and weapons- So much steel, so many options. . .
I calmed down, as I looked around.
So many options that could get me killed.
For example, if I wore heavy armor, I'd just sit there and take several hits while fumbling trying to figure out how to quickest take down the enemy.
Medium armor seemed reasonable, but again came the sinking feeling of being too slow.
Then came the question- Do I have enough balls to wear light armor?
Of course I'd want some form of protection, if for any reason other than not being the guy that everyone aims at first.
Scale mail was too light, and cobalt was just slightly too heavy.
Valkyrie mail seems like a good idea. . . I don't think I'm comfortable with my masculinity enough to do that.
And, not to mention, I don't particularly know how to fight. . .
Knives are out of the question then- too short of a reach.
A spear or halberd might be nice, but those are very situational.
I looked up, and noticed a shooting range not too far away, and so I left to see how good my aim was.
It was abysmal.
Not only were all the shots I was taking missing, I kept fumbling with the gun- nearly hurting myself with the recoil once.
I set the gun in it's rightful place, before seeing one other ranged option.
A bow.
Chances are, this won't go well either.
. . .BULLSEYE!
(A few minutes later) ...I'm actually pretty good at this.
Before I go look for a bow, I should rethink my previous steps. As I said earlier, I don't want to be the guy everyone aims at first, But an Archer has to have relatively light equipment in order to be quick enough to outrun an enemy, or other things.
So, I should look for a Rapier, and some Scale-Cobalt hybrid, along with a bow.

Taking the 500 mL blood bag and pulled the top off.

"Fair warning, I am going to be saving one of these, I might get two cups out of this..."

Downing the crimson drink the alchemist smiled as he felt the life giving liquid quince his thirst for the moment. Wasting no time the man quickly went to the first person closest to him. Of course if he was a smart man he would have started with the more injured, however as it stood Fos had quick access to another ~1000mL of blood, so it really didn't matter considering it only took around 40-50 mL to heal even the most fatal of wounds if he caught it early enough.

"Well, looks like your Alchemist is in."

Fos said as he took the chart before starting his work. All the while, a strange whistle came from the Alchemist, almost as cold and twisted as he was himself.

((We will let this sit for a bit. After all its going to take a little while to get those people healed. Or rather let me know when you want Fos to do the teleporting thing. That seems like it would have taking an hour or so to get everyone to the smiths and what not. By then Fos would have finished his work.))

[[If people don't do things, this thread will die. Tifa is already ready (because she doesn't need weapons -- she is a weapon), so I'd imagine that all that remains 'till plot-movement is Equipment forging/obtaining.
That's just me stating the obvious in hopes of the thread coming back to life.]]

((The first time I wrote this post the page reloaded and I lost everything :/ so here goes, hoping that doesn't happen.))

"Gremlins often intermixed with humans, but the gremlins would invariably dip their heads and look down whenever Jolt made eye contact with them."

Jolt was very surprised to see that those belonging to the race of his nemeses were in Haven. How did that happen? Jolt very much hoped they weren't the remnent of Emberlight's freedom fighters forced into some sort of crazy servitude or worse, slavery. As much animosity as he held toward gremlins, especially Ghostmane Stalkers, Jolt did his best to not enjoy the scene from behind his opaque (from the outside) green face shield.

Lost in thought, he narrowly avoided a swarm of downcast Isorans, some with gremlins in tow, rushing toward a newly displayed deal in the much expanded bazaar. If they had bumped into him, they may have felt armor beneath his cloak and his cover may have been blown. Jolt looked up and saw the deal was of all things prismatic bolted vees and wide vees. "Why they are so diminished in posture and why are they rushing? Vees aren't that exciting..." Jolt thought.

He had time, as he had set up a camera with recognition technology in the battlement alcove pointed toward the Gate. It would send him a signal through a private channel to his helmet HUD when the Northaven party showed up so that he could begin shadowing them.

Because of this, he decided to check out the Garrison in depth to get a feel for the area, perhaps gain a terrain advantage for the future. Then he would visit the Lab and "Hall of Heroes", whatever those were, that showed up on information screens throughout the majority of Midhaven's public areas. If he had time, he wanted to visit the Arcade again to see what Ozlo's regime had done to it if anything.

It's my fault. I'll be back; I'm mulling over methods to rejuvenate the game.

Current options on the table:
*Make a new thread. It's getting long, and a new thread could make it like a new game.
*Introduce a powerful foe to fight, the kind that could actually kill you.
*Rework the plot.

Any other ideas? Expansions on existing ones?

Passing a sign, Jolt noticed something very familiar. The training hall was still operational, which brought a small smile to his concealed face.

Immediately taking a detour, he made his way inside and checked out small private sword practice room for the next half hour. Entering and drawing his trusty black katana, Jolt reflected on his history a bit more.

Over twenty years prior, Jolt was trained heavily in an advanced form of bodily control, a skill set an assassin must have to remain silent, calm, and undetected when on assignment. This form focused on bodily energy, having it take the form of something like mild electricity to control the highly infectious dark matter his Silent Nightblade constantly attempted to infuse him with. If it ever succeeded, a dark spirit would most likely use the sword as a medium to control its user. He had seen it before... and had made sure it never happened to him.

As he fought training bots of the highest difficulty in the dimly lit room, he could feel its pull and used barely a nudge of his mind and energy to suppress anything the sword tried. He was back to the point in which he didn't have to even think about the sword's malevolent intentions in ten minutes. Without breaking a sweat, he dodged turrets and melee strikes of all types and styles. Jumping over obsticals and gaining height, he would periodically fire a shot from the Magnum to make sure his accuracy hadn't diminished. Scoring a stellar 100% accuracy in both sword and handgun combat, Jolt hacked into the room terminal to erase his presence in case the records could be used to track him.

Out the door he went, this time to the Garrison.