New Beginning 21: Awesomeness Revisited

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"So, I guess this isn't the way to the boss of this place, huh?" She says, ripping the sticks from her pockets and throwing them on the ground with a frustrated screech. "How is it possible? Eons of existence, and I've still never found a dowsing rod that works. Did You know that dowsing is a universal concept? Universally BOGUS!" She stomps the rods into the dirt, then kicks them over the ground.

She sits crosslegged on the ground, pouting. "What?" she says, responding to the woman's implied question. "Yeah, she's a minor spirit of animal hunger that made a play for the big leagues once. Got all the way to the frozen circle before getting her butt kicked. I picked her up fresh off a century of torture. Wasn't even there for her, actually. See, I'd heard they were brewing up some sort of plague, and if I grabbed it it I would have the only instance ever, but then things got complicated and..."

Suddenly, she started and grinned. "Hey, you saw right through it. What gave it away? It was my eyes, right? It's always the eyes, there's some stupid rule about not being able to change your eyes."

[The Junkyard Cat]

(Sorry zale but you lost me :T)

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

I look at her, "Great, you're someone who can change bodies at will? Nice to meet you, I'm Dryad Knotwood."

Mayumi: "I'm Mayumi, a servant of Mistress over there."

Me: "You're not a servant, you're a creation. There's a difference."

Kiki: "Before those two start fighting, I'll introduce myself. I'm Kiki of the Hôseki-Kizuato."

[Zaleramancer]

"To be fair, I am on the board of directors. Stuck in this place as I am." She glanced coldly at the demon.

"I calculate you to possess a potential power of at least 2.5~ Omegs, better than me in fact. Any demon of that caliber would have a physical form that was very nearly human, usually a very beautiful one. Instead you look like some sort of lowly tooth-gnasher. "

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Well, this body is really something I'm just using." She says, pointing to her body. "Nice to meet you all. I don't have a name, but my proper title is The Vast, Exquisite, and Wholly Unbreakable Treasure Vault of Zybornia, Depository of the Wealth of 10,000 Empires and Keeper of Treasures Innumerable. Trust me, it's much snappier in native Zyborin."

She looks around. "So, this spell keeping everyone here? It's not part of something bigger, right? Not some part of a larger entity? It's just this, here?"

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"As far as we can tell and know, it's only this room. To get moreinformation, you first have to give her information of your own," I say, pointing to the room's guardian.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Oh, that old exchange." She says, turning to address the room guardian. "Well, lucky for me! I've got oodles of secrets and not all of them are mine. What's your poison?"

[Zaleramancer]

"I'm always interested in new minions.. or exotic types of magic.. "

[Philote]

The two were getting away on the strange creature that had been made. Wulf had been left behind to deal with the mess of demons and protect the others while this chase led me further and further away. I had to put an end to the chase and obtain the pass or the rescue mission would not be progressing.

"Things are about to become distorted" I yell up towards the ones fleeing away "but I have to meet with you before you get any more distance away"

I inject the Labyrinth Virus into the hallway we had been flying down and it expands rapidly, far outpacing either us. The hallway's space contorts with both of us inside it, forming a labyrinth of endless passages that loop back in on a central point.

[Zaleramancer]

A sharp whistle echoes through the newly formed tunnels, as the security systems creaked into pitiful resistance against the strange distortion of local dimensional space. Unable to actually reverse it, it responded with isolation.

For half a kilometer in every direction, halls suddenly became dead-ends. Doors dissipated, portals vanished into themselves- Most of the demon army found itself trapped as the walls sucked the unknowns into the quarantine area.

Dead center, a fair distance away from the excitement.. a figure appeared. A humanoid shape made visible only by the way light vanished into it and the high pitched whistle of air being forcibly compressed into nothingness.

It moves.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Lets have a looksie, then." She said. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and the room reverberated with the sound of a gigantic metal door being forced slowly open. The air behind her shimmered and rippled, taking on an unreal quality.

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"Oh sure!" Peter said, his steed still running strong. "Invite me to dinner, why don't you? I haven't lasted this long by being stu-"

The Rabbit came to a stop. Peter looked forward to see a dead end. Scoffing, he hopped down of his mount and ran at the wall, clawing it, trying to dig his way through. He turned back to Ahrairah, on the verge of panic. "Break it down. Go on, run through!"

But the rabbit didn't budge. In fact, it seemed to know something. It slowly turned around and faced Phi, growling a warning cry at something down the hallway. Peter stared at his greatest creation, and realized that the rabbit was afraid. He went to the Vizier, dropped by the rabbit when it issues it's challenge, and began to fuss over him. "Hey, you okay? What happened? What'd he do?" He lifts his glaring eyes, filled with fear and the hate that is born of it. "What did you do?"

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Novelties lay about the Vaults feet, each crackling or sparking or giving off a little light. The pile was getting a little high as it pulled out the latest.

"This." it said, offering up what looked like a cello. "Is an instrument that can be strung with anything you please." It demonstrated by snatching some light out of the air and stringing it, plucking a few tinny, bell like notes.

"Or, if that doesn't suit your fancy, check this out." it said, laying the cello on the floor and producing a small red stone. "Sensory stone, for storing memories and experiences. This one is the most passionate night of the greatest lover in world I found it on. Personally I don't see the appeal, but that cult sure put up a fight when I grabbed it."

This to it let fall to the ground.

"But you know, I've got a million of these. Why don't you tell me what you're looking for?"

[Philote]

"If I were to guess, it must be one of Zale's defense systems reacting to the distortion I created" I reply "I could reverse the effects and they system may decide to shut off but I need the pass that man you're fussing over is carrying. If you let me have it I'll end the labyrinth and you can run off to wherever you'd like."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Yeah, like you'd really let me." He said, jumping atop El-ahrairah. "You're just another enemy, just like everyone and everything else. Well, I might already be a dead man but there's no reason I have to go quietly." The rabbit took the Vizier in it's mouth and hurled him onto it's back. It's scream of defiance echoed down the hall, into the blackness and was lost in it like everything else.

Phi -Vs- Bunny Phi.

(Phi, I'm not quite clear on what the Rabbit can do. Help me out here?)

[Philote]

(Is the speed rabbit mimicking me? Or was it already created to mimic me? Or did you create a new one? If it is just copying the powers I'm displaying right now then I have wings, the sword, and the force/sigils/shields/etc that come from it. If it is copying everything then I have Data manipulating reality bending and the things I listed in the power basis thread.)

"Do you really want to do this?" I question "You didn't come with the rescue team and you don't seem to be one of Zale's so I don't know your motivations, but I don't want to be fighting you and the security system at the same time. Especially when I don't know if I should be protecting you from the security system at the same time. If you're just someone taking advantage of Zale's condition though then we need to get this done with before the security system does its job."

[Zaleramancer]

The relentless pull begins to sway as the artificial gravity of the plane slowly gives way to something stronger.. something growing ever closer.

[Zaleramancer]

"In the world I come from, demons and gods are antithetic versions of each other. Both born from raw elemental energy, forged into shape and form and purpose at the cosmogenesis. Most of that energy vanished then and there, made into something greater.. but some survived, crystallized. The crystals of amazing power are vanishingly rare even in my home realm."

She glanced at the demon.

"But.. If you are what I suspect you to be, then you should possess one. Or something of similar power."

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"Crystals? Similar to the ones that I have?" Kiki asks pointing to the crystals on her forehead and chest.

Mayumi looks into the vault and whistles, "There's so many items in here. It might even be more than what the Twin Smiths have, Mistress. And that's not an amount you can just brush off."

"True, but this one doesn't make the items herself, she only takes them from others, if I'm hearing correctly," I say while sipping tea.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Demons haul in left and right, leaping on my great lupine form like Lilliputians on Gulliver. Fortunately, I have the advantage of not being limited to one form. Where they claw and bite and open wounds, my body contorts so that it can claw and scratch and bite back.

They toss chains and ropes, attempting to bind me, but the bindings slosh through my body like jello.

What parts of me they hack off with claws and jagged weapons, fall to the ground with sickening sounds, and soon arise, to act of their own accord. It's not long before an army of little me's fight along the big me. The demons are taken out with kinetic blasts, blasted aside with energetic pulses, shrunk and stomped, plain out vivisected, it made no difference.

My selves looked around at the carnage, and big me snorted; demon tastes awful.

No time remained for complaint, though; I closed my eyes, and gave a howl that rang through the realm. The smaller me's joined in the howl, and assimilated back into my body. I pawed the ground, and bounded off to find where Phi had gone off to with our guide.

[Philote]

(Zale quarantined me and the guy who was working with Vault, so you're going to have some difficulty reaching us. Vault himself took another path that led to Dryad, I would suggest you go down that one as well until I get out of my predicament.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

(Well, Peter is a materializer. Basically, every member of his race had something they could make from nothing I.e. pots, swords, light bulbs. Peters is rabbits, but Peter is really bad at it and his materialization are incomplete. Remember Jurassic Park, how the dinosaurs are missing parts of their genetic code that Henry Wu had to fill with DNA from other sources? You remember how this caused their T-Rex to be unable to see something until it moved, their Dilos spit poison, and their Raptors to be more aggressive than any real life animal? Same thing with Peters rabbits. When that fuzzball hit you, the missing bits in it's structure were filled with 100% pure Philote.)

Motivations? What were his motivations? The thought pushed and shoved it's way through the irrational terror of his mind, shoving and kicking and biting at his mind until it sat up and took notice.

His motivation? It was what it always was: survive. Even if he could take this guy, which he doubted, he certainly couldn't take him and the security system at the same time. He reached back to the Vizier, searching through the unconscious demons cloths until he found what looked like a pass. He threw this at Phi.

"I keep him." he said, jerking his head to the Vizier. "He can show me the way out. I'm not sure who's side I'm on, so I'm just going to go my own way. All the guy who brought me into this said was that I was supposed to fight demons."

Inspiration dawned. "That guy.... well, if you want to talk about someone taking advantage of the situation, have I got news for you. It doesn't look like he caused this, and it's not his style anyway. But he's a vulture. I'm not sure how he got mixed up in all this, but if he is it can only mean he's planning to thieve something 'Interesting.' Right now it's the thing squirming around in this Zale guy, and I don't think he plans to be gentle about getting it."

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"Remnants of Creation. Yeah, I've got quite a few of those." She said, a shining crystal, pulsing with the energy of the cosmos listing into her hand. The door slams shut behind her, the air returning to normal. She tosses it lightly in her hand in front of the woman.

"One of these is the power source on my pleasure skiff. I suppose I could bear to part with one of them, if you would point the way to the lord of this library. After all, It's not as though they're unique."