2232/TCOS: Turm

TCOS: Turm
Date of Scene:	14 January 2025
Location:	Clover Tower
Synopsis:	The second of the five Knights of Trial has been located and a team is ready to take on the archer who tirelessly defends her tower!
Cast of Characters:	Aloisia Stauss, Zephyr Windstar, Hinote Kagari, Yuki Hoshino, Amanda Faust, Molly Skyline, Rashmi Terios
Tinyplot:	The Crown of Succession

---

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Having found the Pawn's Emerald, finding the next jewel of succession became significantly easier, having an active signal that could be examined to see where the next one was. It seemed that, while there /were/ other signals around, they activated in a specific order, the next one being a statue that had appeared atop the Clover Tower.

This encounter with it had been half-scouting in preparation for possibly having to lure the Prinzessin Nichts to the area. Preparing paths of escape and similar.

Which is why it was likely a surprise when the person bearing the Glittering Emerald approached, cracks began to form in the statue when they were not necessarily ready for the fight.

<<I am the Red Jasper, the Towering Rook who represents Stability and Trust.>>

Like with the Pawn, it seemed to be being translated magically in spite of audibly clearly being a different language spoken. Luckily for those there, there seemed to be likely a matched level of confusion on the Rook's face at the sight of a gathering of people who were, to her, a bunch of children.

"Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa wait no I didn't sign up to fight kids. You're not supposed to challenge this until you're of age becuase of the dangers I mean it's fine if you ended up fighting me or Pawn we're supposed to hold back and just test your defenses and sh-- shoot but like Knight'll just right out kill you. Judge. JUDGE?!" She pauses, looking around. "Oh dear lord where's the /judge/ there's supposed to be someone here watching over so that you don't accidentally get /killed/ what the heck is going on here." Pause.

"Where /am/ I this isn't my usual tower I --" Darkness starts to settle in.

<<Enchant: Holy.>>

A dagger of energy is suddenly produced by the archer, stabbing into her own crystal with no hesitation as her eyes glow a faint blue momentarily.

"Fu--fudge. I remember now. The corruption, the twisting of the ritual." The darkness is still settling in. "Kids. Hey. This planet, where are it's Knights?" Pause. "Wait this is a TSAB planet, isn't it. Kids. Tell the enforcers they have to take this seriously. I don't have long so I'll try to explain what I can but that /thing/ is a world eraser. If I'm awake that means that it doesn't have any yet -- you should evacuate the planet if you can. Just. Just leave it to the enforcers and get out of here. We don't need another massacre like Tungeturm."

Unfortunately, though it was slowed down, the march of darkness continued on, trailing along that gemstone at the center of her chest.

"If you can't. Just. Just keep it from getting more than one or two-- feck I'm out of time."

<<Enchant: Delayed Blast. Enchant: Multiply. Enchant: Bind.>>

"Kick my ass, kids."

She lifts her bow, aiming it into the air, and shooting a series of five arrows into the sky, which immediately arc back down towards her own feet, creating a binding spell as the emotion drains from her face and is replaced with focus, even as the binding spell wraps around her and the belkan magical circles begin to glow below her feet...

She was already trying to escape her own attack, leaping out of them even as those explosions go off.

Still, she was already damaged, and any little bit should make things easier, right?

Zephyr Windstar has posed:
    "Unadministrated... but we take this very seriously, believe me." That's Wind Dancer, hovering just a few feet above the rooftop. "Thank you... we'll make sure this comes to an end, and we get everyone back safely."

    < Chief. Dark Energy Signature is rising rapidly. We are out of time. > "Got it Dee... Drive Ignition." < Drive Ignition. Gear First. Squall Mode. > confirms the Device with a deep ping.

    Zephyr's device shifts from the battleaxe to its more slimmed down hand-axe, as a pair of turbine-blades spall off from where the second blade was.

    These begin to orbit around the Mage as she watches the corruption overtake the Rook. "Bind, Enhancement. CHAIN BIND!"

    < PING > < CHAIN BIND. ENHANCEMENT! >
    The Bits flit out to surround the Rook, orbiting on opposite sides as they emite dark purple chains from their central voids, wrapping them around the archer as they orbit, trying to keep the corrupted gemknight held down. "Ghnnn... Saints these things have a lot of power behind them..."

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir once again helped find the next statue. He didn't need to look too hard this time. He found it with a pair of binoculars. "Bingo. There you are, Dollface."

Now they we're on the top, which he had to take the elevator as he's unable to fly. Or jump. High enough.

Now on the tower, he takes this all in as he grimaces at the explanation, before lowering the tape recorder. One of those dictaphones with the tiny cassettes before stuffing it into his coat quickly- "Got it." he says- and with his other hand raises a gun and starts shooting, from the gunmetal black .45-looking pistol a powerful jet of water forward into the figure of 'Rook' as he takes a breath.

"We'll win, don't worry. But this one may be harder. And also."

"Incredibly obvious, guys. Be careful." he says into the devices tacnet with his mind.

Yuki Hoshino has posed:
Yuki was under the impression this was supposed to be a quick scout, as well. Get in, see what's there, get out, tell the larger group what they saw.

But it's not going to be that easy, is it? It never is.

<"Warning. Space-Time Barrier engaged. Activating Barrier Jacket.">

And with that her school uniform is replaced with the armored-kimono-like Jacket, ready - ha! - for combat. She's spent the past weeks training and working on optimizing her spell-code, hopefully it will help...

"Let's all come home safe, right?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    << "We're not kids well I mean we kinda are but listen, you sound like you know what's going on here, you're on Earth, that's-- ugh, no time look you have to tell us--" >> Amy starts to ask over whatever Telepathy has been set up, but, they're talking over eachother, and they're out of time, and uuuugh, "God damn it!" Amy says out loud from the faraway rooftop she's on.

    Kick my ass, kids.

    "Will do." Amy's got a weapon conjured in the shape of a sniper rifle-looking thing, and is firing some kind of high-caliber, non-explosive rocket projectiles that speed up as they go to ram into the target at supersonic speed. Fire, re-sight, fire... << "No sign of Aloi-- the Prinzessin yet. I wonder why she's taking so long... it's suspicious, right?" >>

Molly Skyline has posed:
This was supposed to still be the scouting phase.

Molly was just here to check out the roof of the tower and see the statue. Y'know, fly around Tokyo, see the sights, look at a statue that she and her friends will probably have to fight in the near future, the usual teenager stuff. But then the statue woke up.

It wasn't supposed to do that, was it?

<< Uhm, girls, >> Molly transmits to the rest of the group, << Looks like the fight is happening now. Everyone get ready!! >> Molly lands on the edge of the tower, dropping to a kneel and resting her staff on her shoulder. "Starcrash, let's get a Time/Space Barrier up."

<< AFFIRMATVE >>

As the statue starts speaking, a slightly greenish, off-color bubble expands out from Molly, shifting everyone over just a bit out of this dimension and into another one, all the better to fight without destroying Tokyo all around them. Or like, just Clover Tower. Generally best to avoid that, it makes the civilians unhappy.

"This is a TSAB planet but there's like... two enforcers here," Molly supplies helpfully. "Mostly it's just us Mahou who defend the planet. And, uhm, no we can't evacuate it, we don't have that kind of technology, so we're just gonna have to win all the challenges."

The Rook seems helpful, but her time is running out, so Molly straightens and launches herself back up int othe sky. "Starcrash, charge -- OH BLAZES! Round shield, deploy!"

Molly gets a shield snapped into place as a globe of energy around her just in time, as... the binds and the big attack is meant for Rook, not her or anyone else. Well, she sure misread that, as the explosions go off totally not targeting her or her friends. But they aren't going to get any more of those and that was pretty, well, big.

"Starcrash," she begins, grimly, "Mark 'Rook' as a hostile target. And keep an eye out for Prinzessin Nichts. And alert Rashmi-chan to what's going on."

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Bits flit out around the Rook, reinforcing the initial bind to help keep the Rook from escaping her own explosive attack at herself! Unfortunately, however, she is a seasoned knight, they had intentionally picked powerful people for these trials. And she did the standard counter against Binds, that being a magical burst and swing of the blade on the front of her bow to slice through several of the chains. Likely a development purely /for/ breaking binds, being an archer.

It still held her still long enough to keep her still for that powerful jet of water from Pulp Noir's pistol, causing her to briefly fall down onto her knees. Good, it's going well, hopefully this one will just go down without seriously injuring anyone!

Look, there's even those sniper bullets shooting out towards the tower-top archer, just about to strike!

<<Panzergeist.>>

The archer is enveloped in a glowing aura that RESISTS the first shot... and the second shot.

And there is that sense that the Archer is now gazing at Amy in response to being sniped, her bow being lifted and aimed towards Amy. Was that a 'target alert' ping?!

<<Gegenschnepfe.>>

The bow string is drawn back and a glowing arrow is launched, seeming to follow the line of the magical trail of the shots fired by Amy, using the lingering energy in the air from the sniper shots to return fire on Amy Faust with an impossible accuracy from the archer!

<<Enchant: Split. Enchant: Homing.>>

Once again, that bow is lifted into the air as energy charges into the bow.

<<Luftschneider.>>

A burst of wind and the arrow is launched into the air, splitting into ten arrows which increase in speed as they shoot towards the gathered Mahou, attempting to chase down each one of them with one or two of the wind arrows!

Zephyr Windstar has posed:
    < PING > < RAMPART AEGIS! >

    A bubble of interlocking purple hexagons appears around the Wind Dancer as that arrow comes streaking in at her. The Bits disengage and reinforce the barrier at the point of anticipated impact. "She's got Wind conversion affinity?" this mused mostly to herself as the arrows strike home, shatter some of the outer scutes, and finally dissipate on the underlayer where the reinforcement plates are being projected. She does wince at the outpour of mana required for that level of defense.

    < PING > < Diverting mana strike. IMPULSE BARRET, PULSAR SHIFT. >

    The barrier field retracts, and turns into a field of purple light-motes, each one beginning to boil with converted wind mana. "Lets see if she can handle it herself. FIRE!"

    As she fires off, she also kicks away and starts moving, juking around to make herself a harder target to hit.

    << Rashmi, we found the statue, but something triggered it off. We're engaged with the 'Rook' right now. Wide Area Ranged Knight, some kind of Archer-archetype. We need support up here. >>

Molly Skyline has posed:
The first attack is against Amy, and there's basically nothing Molly can do about that other than hope she makes it through okay. And she has confidence that she will, naturally! Amy is tough. but then her battle visor is reporting an alert, for an incoming attack against her. Two homing arrows, coming straight for her. Well, that had to happen sooner or later.

"Starcrash, charge Starfall, maximum kinetic output," she instructs, as she kicks her Flier Fin into high gear to gain some altitude with the homing arrows in tow.

<< AFFIRMATIVE. ARMED. >>

She continues upwards until she's a good three hundred metersd above the roof of Clover Tower, with the arrows coming straight up after her, and waits until they're almost on her before snapping her fingers.

Casting Nrutrino Rush has her vanish into a burst of light, zipping past the arrows heading up as she starts back down; she continues straight down, accelerating as hard as she can straight towards where Rook is standing; she picks up speed, not bothering to slow down for a safe landing. That's not the goal.

Instead, at the last moment she rights herself so she's travelling feet first. "Fire!" she yells, her barrier jacket firing jets of mana out to not so much slow her fall, as make everything else around her bear the brunt of the impact. When she hits the top of the building there's a significant blast and she herself just keeps on going, the spell protecting her by blowing a hole several floors deep for her to fall into -- and, hopefully, take Rook along with her for the ride.

Without the benefit of any protection, of course. And as for the homing arrows? Well, they're probably still coming... unless she's successfully led them into Rook. Or the rooftop. Or she might just be feeling them momentarily. Her Battle Visor has wholly lost track of them.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
--MINUTES AGO --

While out on patrol in another area, Rashmi's thoughts turn from her plans for Nicomachea's upgrade, to her reading list, to her upgrade plans, to Mahounet, then screech to a halt as she recalls that a scouting expedition was launched tonight, looking for the next of the Crown's jewels before the corrupted Aloisia could. Wonder how that's go--

    << *BONG!* >> The sudden, loud chime in her head as Nicomachea receives Starcrash's alert has her bobbling in the air for a moment, holding her head. << ALERT. MASTER. ALERT. SUBJECT 'Rook' HAS ENGAGED SCOUTING FORCES. >>

<< Enga-- I thought they were just *looking!* >>

    << PROBABILITY THAT SUBJECT 'Rook' WAS ALSO SEARCHING APPROACHES TAU TO THREE DECIMAL POINTS, >> Nicomachea answers... and if it was possible for a distorted, computer voice to sound dry, Nicomachea would nearly have achieved it.

With no real response to that but to worry even more, Rashmi finds the bearing the signal indicated, and launches herself in that direction.--- NOW ---

<< Hang on everybody! >> Rashmi's mental voice enters the telepathic net, as a streak of golden light spirals up the tower. While it's hard to get good analysis from a distance, the closer Rashmi got the less she liked what Nicomachea had to tell her about their opponent. But with a Barrier up and the fight safely moved away from mundane reality, options opened up about how to provide support.

...Exactly as Wind Dancer requested. << Then you won't want to stand off, >> she says after a moment's furious thought. << Try to get in close and bully her, if you can. The more directions she has to guard in, the less effective her defenses are gonna get. >>

...At which point Star Devil just punches through the roof of the Tower. ...Reeeeeally good thing it's not actual property being damaged, there... << Star Devil, break off, quick! >>

Yuki Hoshino has posed:
Yuki was fully prepared to stick to the scout idea: Take some scans and pictures, retreat, and bring up the main group. The minute the Barrier went up, though, that went out the window.

"OK, Argent Dawn, let's see how much extra output we can get out of the new Buster spell. Aurora Lancer!" After all, people have already started shooting. <"Affirmative, master. Aurora Lancer!">

Octagonal mirrors open up in space around her, forming a goodly number of darts - perhaps half again as many as she had when she first started off. "OK, stun mode, target that Rook!"

But the rook is shooting back. Her flight spell already active, she leaps into the air to try to evade it, dodging from side to side only to see it follow her every move.

<"Lancer's Shield!"> The shield forms in the air between her and the arrow, even as she drops to the ground to land with her boots scraping soil, skidding back from the mix of her own velocity and the arrow's impact.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Through her scope, Amy sees The Archer turn and look at her and yeah she's seen this in plenty of movies and videogame cutscenes before, she starts to get up but the magic bolt slams into her gut. "Ow!" Good thing it's only stun, but still... There's a split second of disorientation and hesitation, as Amy considers where to find cover... but then a homing shot is coming her way! She conjures a countermissile to blow it up and gets to her feet, seeing the arrows streak through the air towards the others in the distance. << "Hey! Stop copying me!" >> She raises her weapon to fire... wait. That aura repelled it. "Fuck it." She conjures her usual shoulder launcher, << "Probing defenses!" >> And fires an anti-tank missile at Archer before summoning her flight armor and flying back towards the group, better to be near the support casters.

    << "If she tries that again I might be able to counter the homing arrows with missiles!" >>

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir watches the Rook tumble and he's about to charge forward when there's a glowing shield aura and then...suddenly arrows. Well crap. He jumps backwards and leaps into the air which he hopes is enough to evade...!

The arrow follows him upwards and he mutters. "Well ain't that a kick in the head." he says before taking the hit, being thrown upwards and backwards and rolling to the ground as he grabs his right shoulder. Nrg.

He responds with switching out tactics, .45 pistol being changed out for a Tommy Gun from his coat, as he starts unloading magical blasting lasers from the gun's tip in rapid succession. Trying to suppress for the rest of the group.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
<<Enchant: Vacuum. Panzerschild.>>

In the moments before impact, the incoming wind attacks are blocked by shields that ... seem to suck the air out of the oncoming attacks? It doesn't stop all of them, but it's possibly moderately concerning that it happened at all.

The level of focus on the defense also means that as Star Devil comes screaming in from the sky with a burst of mana the Rook just ... basically ... disappears, knocked down into the hole created by Molly as that blast of mana creates a freefall for both of them.

<<GREIFLEINE.>>

Mid-fall, however, she launches an arrow into one of the floors to catch herself and launch herself back up to the rooftop, doing an elegant flip that results in her...

Getting shot mid-flight by a series of magical darts from the Knight of the Dawn, followed by an anti-tank missile that sends her flying to the other side of the tower from where she'd /intended/ to land, skidding on her feet.

Right into a hail of tommygun laserfire.

Well, she /did/ say for the 'kids' to kick her ass.

They're definitely obliging.

<<Enchant: Multiply.>>

The bow is lifted again.

<<Pfeilsturm.>>

At a slight upward angle, an arrow is launched into the sky.

And stormclouds seem to gather in the air, though it's illusion rather than literally changing the weather.

Also it's not raining water at all, nope, just a rain of hundreds of arrows over the area. No individual arrow particularly painful or dangerous, but, well...

There's a lot of them. And they're wide-spread. It's clearly an attack designed to wear down enemy forces.

Zephyr Windstar has posed:
    Get in close.

    << I can do that... engaging at close range. >>

    "Tenraikaze, shift up." < PING > < SHIFT UP! GEAR SECOND. STORM MODE. >

    An additional Bit forms, and the Wind Mage frowns... << She can absorb my Wind-mana attacks..... but I can do the same to her. I'll try to-- >> and then, the rain of arrows starts up.

    < PING > < WIDE AREA INTERCEPT. IMPULSE BARRET >

    Purple motes form around the Wind Mage, and start firing small pellet-like bullets to intercept the incoming arrows, firing like the tracer rounds from an old WW2 battleship's AA battery.

    "Dee, prep Storm Glaive, bring Blitz Drive to Stage 1 Ready."

    < PING > < READY! >

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly did the thing! She smashed someone through a building form the top down and it was great. Unfortunately, nobody can see the enormous grin she's got on her face, because even while Rook is busy clambering back out of the hole she made, Molly is still in it. But it doesn't matter. She did the thing she's wanted to do since she came up with that spell and it was great.

<< Girls, that was great, I've been wanting to do that for months! >> she declares joyfully.

But, she still needs to get out of the building; that's easy enough now that her own descent has come to a stop, she just flies around a couple of corridor corners, into an office, and smashes straight through the window. Which, brings her outside just in time to get caught in an absolute hailstorm of arrows.

<< Wha--AUGH!! What fresh hell is this?! >> she immediately complains. "Round shield!! Quick!"

Someone is just never on the ball with her defenses like she needs to be sometimes. A globe of energy does snap into place around her and arrows start pinging off of it, but she already looks like she decided to dress up like a porcupine for Halloween. She shakes her head and starts gaining altitude again.

"Alright, enough playing around. Starcrash, overcharge Stellar Pulse. Forty barrets, maximum kinetic output."

<< AFFIRMATIVE. ARMED >>

Molly climbs straight up, hugging the side of the tower to protection as she ascends, and once she's crested the top of the tower she lands and skids to a halt, coming to a stop... much closer to Rook than she normally dares.

"Fire!" she yells, aiming her staff and unleashing a torrent of unguided, explosive barrets straight at Rook, at not quite point blank range. (Don't want to get in the way of other people's attacks afterall.)

Rashmi Terios has posed:
    << *BONG!* >> << SOLAR SHIELD -- BLAZE SHIFT >>

Surrounded by a swirling bubble of golden fire, Rashmi's eyes skate over the melee, wishing for a moment she had the foresight to create a wide-area shield for her friends to shelter under. They seem to have the battle decently in hand, but if this one can pull out many more tactical wrinkles, it's likely to wear them down by attrition alone.

<< Guys, >> she calls out over the communications net, << I'm gonna try and lock her down. If you have any kind of hindering magic, now's a good time to use it. The less she can move, the harder we can follow up. >>

    << *BONG!* >> << SOLAR BARRAGE -- GLACE SHIFT >>

A half-dozen Barrets resolve into existence around her, snapping into balls of crystalline ice with a screeching *CRACK* Her shoulder jerks once, twice, as arrows make it through the combusting shield to fall on target, but acknowledging the hits requires more concentration than bracing for the attack to come.

    << EXECUTE >>

And Rashmi joins the battle properly by sending out a barrage of her own; rapid-fire Barrets that, on impact, *cling* in place, slowly building up upon each other, the Rook, and the surface below her, gradually locking her into place.

Molly's attack requires a level of tracking to keep the Barret stream on target, but the shots just keep on coming.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Huh. So that defensive aura thing was temporary or quickly burned through. Good to know!

    Next up is... arrow rain. Amy conjures a salvo of mini-missiles to go explode above people and take out some of the arrows, but they just keep raining down! Seeing what Wind Dancer is doing, Amy flies over to her to benefit from her CIWS shooting down the arrows in the area, a few of the arrows raining down on Amy on the way, stinging. "Tch..." << "It seems like her shield is down. Do we just need to keep pouring on firepower?" >>

    Amy, for her part... fires another anti-tank homing missile, since that just worked well! And if it doesn't work now, well, then she'll be learning something about the Rook's defenses!

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Oh... Oh. Arrow Rain is bad. Very bad. It's a wide open field on top of a tower, it's not like there's cover. "Dammit." he says as he hops back. Hops to the right. Dashes left and then with a flourish throws his trench coat off his body and lets it fall down on top of him as a series of arrows rain down through it....!

Only for Pulp Noir to burst from the coat, holding a heavy revolver, as he leaps through the air and spins around (There's no reason for this spin, he thinks it looks 'cool'.) and levies the pistol down at Rook as he calls out.

"A SHOT IN THE DARK!...".

There's a momentary flash as a powerful shot rings out from the revolver in the form of a charge laser, that's too big and wide for the barrel of the gun that's firing it for sure.

He's hoping others are gonna bind this thing easy. He has no such attacks.

Yuki Hoshino has posed:
The rain of arrows focuses Yuki's attention on defense, pounding her shield until it shatters and throws her to the ground. Bruised and battered, she groans. "Make a note, Argent Dawn, next project: Beef up the shield."

<"Noted, master.">

It's time to get serious about the fight. She gets to her feet, more octagonal mirrors forming darts around her, ready to lash out at the Rook. "I'll hit her defenses, if someone else can cast the bind."

She sends the darts in a stream around the area, sweeping in and out to get the Rook's attention before launching the actual attack.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
     Counter-fire upon the arrows are relatively effective and the rain of arrows ends relatively quickly, only sustained a few seconds before it ends, likely due to mana costs... even if the Knights of Trial seemed to have a large reservoir in those jewels. Or in Rook's case, Really Pretty Rock since she has a Red Jasper, but that's beside the point it might as well be a gemstone but there's some people who probably care about that--

Stellar Pulse, forty barrets, maximum kinetic output.

Glace Shift.

As Rook turns to defend against the oncoming short range explosive barrets, bringing up a barrier of panzerhindernis, other barrets shoot out from the sides and build up on and around her, resulting in the shield and bow not getting exactly into place, many of the explosive rounds striking home as the Rook falters a moment, her barrier jacket seeming to flicker a half-moment. Seems all of the unending high-damage attacks are wearing her down at the very least!

An anti-tank homing missile and a massive shot in the dark come flying in towards the archer!

<<Panzergeist.>>

That defensive aura comes up -- just in time to get hit by Yuki's anti-defensive stream of darts when the opportunity presents itself, weakening those defenses before... CRACK-BOOM! The missile strikes!

Breaking the rest of the defenses... and then...

That massive laser strikes, breaking through the rest of the defenses, as the Rook falls to her knees, cracks showing in her body as she lands on that knee.

"...Heh. Good job, kids."

<<Enchant: Holy.>>

That dagger is produced again.
And stabbed straight into the jewel once more.

<<Trial complete. Seal the jewel, claim your rewards.>>

And the statue that was once Rook crumbles.

Prinzessin Nichts is... conspicuously absent. Strange.

In addition to the gemstone to seal, that bladed bow is left behind, and much like the lance from the Pawn, it is completely lacking a device core. But otherwise still useful for parts.

Zephyr Windstar has posed:
    << Moving in to seal. >>

    The CIWS barrage of shots stop when the arrows do. She then kicks off toward the felled Rook.

    "Tenraikaze, Full Scan."
    < PING > < FULL SCAN. SIGNATURE CONFIRMED. RED JASPER #21319. SEAL READY. >

    "Seal it!"

    < PING > < SEALING! >

    Zephyr lands before the Knight, and touches the tip of her Device to the gemstone, and the dagger embedded in it. The gem in her Device flares brightly, and a bubble of purple magic forms around the gem, before it shrinks and flits into the blue stone on the axe.

    < Sealing Complete. Isolation bubble intact. Maintaining observation. Recommend: Find a Purification User to remove corruption soon. >

    "Understood. Thank you, Dee." replies the Mage, then she sends. << Sealed it... still corrupted so I'll need pointing to a Purifier to make sure it doesn't break out because of Dark Energy corrosion on the isolation bubble I put it in. >>

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Wait, did we...?" Amy flies towards the tower when the Rook speaks again. "Hey, listen, we need to--" But as she lands and approaches they're already crumbling. Amy stops. "Damn..."

    She looks around. << "Everybody doing alright? I... That felt... weirdly quick and easy? Does that mean we're improving at tactics for how to get through the jewels? Or is it just because the Prinzessin isn't here?" >>

    The Puella Magi gets out a pair of binoculars and scans the sky for incoming fliers. << "I don't know why she's not here, but... I guess we should probably go before she shows up...?" >>

Rashmi Terios has posed:
<< I know a few, >> Rashmi answers, sailing down to hover a couple centimeters over the ruins of the statue. << I'll try to get one pointed at you. Good work, everyone, but uh... I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's nervous that we haven't seen Alo-chan? >>

Stooping down, she picks up the shell of the archer's Bow, holding it in both hands and just... examining it for a moment.

Amy's questions finally pull her attention away, she she looks up, frowning. << ...Kinda felt like she was holding back? Like she didn't get a *lot* of that corruption? But if that's the case... >>

Sighing, Rashmi shakes her head, tucking the bow into Nicomachea's storage. "You're right, Red-chan... we should book before she shows up."

Molly Skyline has posed:
The vents on Starcrash and on Molly's barrier jacket open up and let out a hiss of steam; Molly is right about to charge her next spell when... it's over?

<< Yeah, >> she responds, echoing Amy, << That was easier than I thought it would be. And yeah, I'm rather concerned about where Alo-chan is, I woujld've thought the Prinzessin Nichts would have been drawn straight to this. She came after me pretty hard when I got the Emerald afterall. >>

So rather than basking in the 'congratulations, you won', Molly takes to the air again. "Starcrash, charge Stellar Pulse, forty barrets. Just in case."

<< ARMED >>

Molly holds the spell as she climbs, and scans about herself to see if... anything or anyone is entering her Time/Space Barrier.

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir hefts the revolver down as Wind Dancer seals the gem.

He's looking around and expecting the Night Princess any moment when... nope. Nothing. He looks over to Amy and Rashmi. "Yeah I'm getting out of here." he says as he picks up his coat and puts it back on a fancy flourish, because it's cool.

He then leaps off the top of the tower, gripping the rim of his fedora.

No time to waste. He probably has to solve the case of the Missing Date.

You know, the one he's supposed to take Miho-chan on. Whoops. Gotta speak to Rashmi about that one later. But not now.

Evil to run from, at the moment.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
As the dust of the battle settles, and the jewel is sealed... oddly enough...

There is nothing.

It's just... over?

No sign of Prinzessin Nichts.

Not even that flare of dark energy that heralds her arrival...

Strange.

Yuki Hoshino has posed:
Yuki sighs softly as she finally relaxes her grip on the dart-spell, letting the mirrors fade out as she watches the jewel-sealing. She looks towards the sky, watching to see if anyone else is about to intrude, concerned that it seemed so easy.

Maybe she's just actually getting better at this.

Zephyr Windstar has posed:
    << She was holding back... she did that dagger thing when she first woke up, and even fired attacks and a bind at herself before she lost control. >>

    That's Zephyr again, landing next to Rashmi and Amy. "We'll probabaly have more trouble with the next one, if what Rook said is any indication... apparently Pawn and her are 'easy mode'... the next one's gonna be harder."

    She shakes her head, dismissing her Device to its Standby Mode. "Lets get outta here... I'll treat you to ice cream or something... all'a ya."