[Floor ∆ - OP] Musings of a Madman

[Shiina 0]

A spark of interest mid devouring of a big bowl of pudding causes Shiina to pause, looking up with a smattering of the stuff coating her face. "Oh, hey.... you." Shiina searches her memories with a blink, looking from side to side trying to see if she knew this chica. "Do I know you?" Shiina remarks bombastically and bluntly, not really beating around the bush in the slightest. The girl was convinced she'd never met this girl ever in her life, and she was usually pretty good with faces and junk. Good ol' mental strength as a result of music composition. Scanning her features the girl looked a lot like the other blondes. Yanno the twins. Hmm, related? Nah she knew better, but it was funny "You like a third triplet with Eruda and Freya, like a long lost sister? Neat, names Shiina." The girl expresses with a gesture of her spoon like a wand, sending a smatter of banana pudding to the side like paint from a brush.

"Comfort food? Oh got ya. Yep you look pretty sour puss. Here" Licking off one of the spoons, she tucks it into the pudding and spins the bowl. Lanna was just going to have to accept a indirect kiss, given Shiina had already tainted both utensils with her spit. The banging in the kitchen confirmed that sprinkles had found his way into something to get his grubby little paws on. "So, uh blonde chick. What's with the sad look? Looking pretty messed up. Get up on the wrong side of the bed today? I do that a lot, man oh man. Some mornings man, I swear to Nisa that I can taste the left over sleepy. Kinda like oranges and a little too much paprika. Right, uh long story. Name's Shiina, pleasure to meet you pudding buddy." The girl squirreled her brain ripping from thought to thought like a hyperactive chipmunk, the pudding making those lines more sporadic and seemingly random. From over the bowl with puffed up cheeks, she shuts one eye and leans. Really inspecting the deeper vibe of Lanna for a more nuanced read. Straight up a lost puppy it seemed, who had wondered in and had no idea what the heck she was doing with herself. 

WC: 379

[Lanna 0]

A surprised expression runs across her face. "Well it's nice to meet you Shiina, I'm Lanna" saying at she sat down with a smile. This person seemed very different from the others. Taking the spoon that Shiina had provided after licking it clean, she has eaten dirt so this didn't seem so bad. "Freya is a friend or at least I thought she was and Eruda hates me. I wasn't very nice to her in high school." Scooping up some of the crazy looking treat and putting it in her mouth. He eyes grow wide "Oh my god this is so good, who the heck made this" she would say with mouth full. The girl noticed what she was feeling, she was trying to hide it but guess the feeling was more prominent that she wanted it to be. Taking another bite "People hate me, and when they do like me it's only for one night." Taking another bite eating her feelings. "I keep hearing the phrase dumb blonde, I have blonde hair and I am not the smartest but people are really mean sometimes." The name calling would normally not bug her so much but everything was starting to add up. All the rude comments and being pushed away was starting to get to her. When she owned her own shop back home, at least her costumers were nice to her. "I also joined what people call a guild and no one has come to talk to me about it." To be honest she really didn't know how guilds worked or even what it was. 

Biting her bottom lip staring at the dish, she would inhale lightly. "I don't know where I fit in, I feel absolutely useless and I can't figure out for the life of me why people don't like me so much. I want to change but I don't know how or if I'm even able to given the not so smartness"putting another spoonful in her mouth. She asked what was wrong, maybe it was too much. Lanna was fully expecting Shiina to kick her out, it wouldn't be the first time. Maybe this place would be better off without her. Her chest felt tight as she would trying focusing on what she could do, help eat this huge bowl of whatever this was, it it really good though. "Sorry for the brain dump, if you haven't noticed I am really bad at this" and everything else, but what else could she do.  

WC: 417

[Shiina 0]

Getting a really long drawn out explanation of exactly what was troubling her, Shiina listens intently with a spoon wiggling out of her face. Every so often she nods, as if stuck in deep thought while she swipes another spoon of pudding. "Hmm, dunno was here when I got here. No arguments here~" The songstress quips without paying it too much mind. "Alrighty, oh boy, want pointers?" She scans Lanna's expression but doesn't wait too long for her to accept. "One, you're trying way too hard to be friends with bad people. For real." Although the reply could taste a little sour, Shiina's chipper expression and the spoon dangling out of her mouth would easily convey it was not. "Also no one wants to hang out with someone whose needy and cant stand on their own two feet. Trust me, had that problem myself. Eventually you gotta figure out how to stand on yah own. Like without someone holding your hand. Don't really need other peoples approval neither. Ain't got to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but instead of letting everyone else tell you what to do or expecting them to...."

Shiina points at the bowl of pudding as a symbol. "Just eat the pudding man." Scanning Lanna's features and expression again, waiting for the lightbulb to click into place she finds a lowkey dose of fear. Like slightly offkey note in a song, it stood out like a sore thumb. "What's wrong with being a dumb blonde? Feel me?" Shiina claps an open palm on Lanna's back and a surge of static would shoot through her back, as Shiina's eyes flash yellow for a split second. "Go sweet summer child, there is a whole world out there. Learn and experience it all, yeah you'll make goofs like that damn boar. But you'll learn to walk on your own two feet, and won't need everyone to make you feel useful." In a lower tone, those eyes of hers turn pure silver and to those with a keen hearing in such a quiet place they would hear the faintest high pitch tone.

"Architect of Illusion, seek the city of bronze where heroes stand proud for another that shares your passions. Show to travels to where the toughest fear to tread, upon broken shores and beaten winds carry salt. Sharp like knives where wit has paled they shall offer you courage to stand at their side."

That phrase echoes through the empty guild hall, rattling the walls and as Shiina finishes speaking the omen from the ancients she closes her eyes. A sneeze breaks her meditation "Heh, oops. Hopefully that's helpful. Got to stop touching people." Shiina laughs and digs deep into the pudding again, leaving Lanna to the shocked look on her face.

WC: 464

[Lanna 0]

PH

Doing the Learnings | 258232 | LD: 15 Okay Lanna

[Mari 1]

Mari was slumped over a table in her workshop. Lancaster had been pulled away for a few days and without someone around, it was the safest place for Mari. The thin entrance way is plagued with traps ready to go off, a spray of acid in your face, chemical burns on your arms, and a tile so thin that your foot would sink into the very bubbling acidic water that came from the river styx on the 10th floor. Only three people knew of its existence, her husband, Atan, and herself. So Mari felt safe here.

She wasn’t sure when Atan would arrive, if he’d ever. The last task he had given her was a nigh impossible one, work on a pathogen that would affect NPCs, and not players. Mari had been working on the task on and off; but the last few days she had really thrown herself into her work. Notes were neatly stacked into manilla folders, orders ready for Atan to take away and experiment on himself.

The woman was hunched over the desk in the back right corner. Bunsen burner long since flickered out, her arms crossed over some paperwork scrawled in her messy handwriting, burnt arm still healing. She had finally passed out, eyes fluttering from a bad dream. Ever since her ordeal on the 10th floor the woman struggled to sleep soundly.

Two other tables sat against the back wall; one filled with a variety of orbs that sat  on display shelves - ones filled with wasps, with noxious gases similar to the ones Atan had shown her, and others of her own creation. Airbourne flesh eating bacteria, nitrous oxide. Wasps tinged an angry red that buzzed about angrily tapping against the glass. In a longer cylindrical glass filled with water was a hybrid version of the parasite she had shown Lancaster over a month ago. A modified horsehair worm.

On that table sat stacks of paper in Manilla folders; each folder with a simple and large red ‘A’ scrawled on it.

Horsehair worm notes
 

Spoiler

-Does not affect players beyond nausea
-Infected NPCs become delirious and seek large bodies of water
-Need way to neutralise effect
-Infection via wasp stings
-Successfully find a way to have it only infect NPCs; but had yet to find a way to neutralize the threat and stop it from infecting water sources used by players.
-Damage to players minimal
-Issues: Too slow; NPCs coding neutralize the foreign entity within a 24 hour period, assuming a ‘ping’ to the server as all NPCs refresh.

Beside that sat an innocuous plant, a group of yellow flowers - beside that a simple pestle and mortar filled with a powder. And more notes next to it.

WARNING: do not inhale
 

Spoiler

-scopolamine
-Aincrad effects mimic real world effects
-makes npcs and players highly vulnerable to coercion
    -How to ensure only use against NPCS?
  - Weakened effect? Lower dose. Burn trees and control supply

Other notes that were not in the folder were scrawled about trying to create a bacterial virus that functioned much like a computer virus, that the focus on biological components against entities that were not biological but only mimics human biology may be a dead end.

On the third table; a large box; again with nothing more than a bold letter ‘A’ scrawled across it in red ink; it contained copies of Mari’s notes in typed form - samples, orbs, and everything she had researched.

Muffled cries came from the adjoined room. If one were to go through to it; there were two cells made of glass. One contained an NPC - someone who looked like a gruff bartender. The other, a player with an orange crystal floating above their head. Both NPC and player had been bound, gagged and tied. The NPC however; had a small timer above his cell, with 5 hours and 43 minutes left on it.

All the while, Mari slept.

 

WC: 650

Mari | HP: 1240/1240 | EN: 156/156 | DMG: 21 | MIT:143 | ACC:4 | AA  | FL.AURA: 8 | BH:68 | BRN: 56 | ENV-O: 32 | PARA-V | LD:5  | True Tier Level 16

Edited 54 minutes ago by Mari

[Vitreous 1]

An adequate sample ripped from a brass device on his arm, setting free superheated stem as the pressure is released. A vial then capped with twists of fingers encased in thick leather gloves, bolted down before slid in a loop on a bandolier across the crows chest. His hands snap down with strength across its top, causing a cross section to fold inward and for that tool to collapse against his wrist. A tear of paper that streams out, and its contents read through narrowing mechanical retina of his bird shaped mask. Platinum, Zinc, Sodium, Boron, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon. In equal measures the list is taken, checking for potential as he scanned the fields of desolate decay. A burning red sun sat ablaze overhead, as fields of ash grow with it falling like snow. Blades turn still coated in vampire's blood, as multiple sit in groupings of mercy in the creature who called for them glinting against the crimson. Jerk of his hand sees the blade in his left plunged in the bloodsuckers skull with a dull thud, confirming it dead.

A lift of his hand provides a space for the ash to fall, the smallest unassuming flake. A twist of his rather athletic but tall stature, made thicker by all the leathers and rags that concealed them. As if the ash had been a faint reminder with its symbolism. In his drives he'd long since forgotten to check upon the woman whose weapon had been a tool to clip a loose end. Gliding and stamping footprints in the charcoal burnt landscape, he moves with intention and haste. His image shifts to one of the guardsman, easily sliding in with Harkan's men and disappearing all the same. A ghost with little to know him by name or by glance. Aincrad in its majority did not know he existed, and those that did were but a single solemn soul. The others had met the same fate, names branded upon the epitaph of lead that lead nowhere. Save one, and it was one that saw no pursuer. 

The warp gate screams to life with a raspy unintelligible muffled whisper, a flash of dark blue sends him down countless floors in an instant. What he is greeted with is the crunch of snow, and where those flakes had transitioned from grey to white. Cold air makes the man steam from the change, as it rips at that heat and brings it down. Hot breaths escape through a modulated mask, from the sides of a long bill that protrudes from his face. Those eyes narrow and light up green, and hone upon what he could take in. From the pad he whisks himself into the shadows, and the moment he can he captures a woman within the walls of Snowfrost. Muffled screams and stifled breathing are met with the violent jerk of a knife, and within moments Vitreous had become that NPC woman. Brunette hair in a tightly wound braid, white fluff composing most of the attire in stark contrast to the previous.

His cover maintained, the man makes motions for the outer perimeter with ease. Even going as far as to recount scripted and recorded phrases the woman would say to players like a mockingbird hidden behind his seaming. It wasn't until he was far beyond the purview of the city that the disguise finally falls, when he is fully certain that none would see it and be able to escape. It is here where his path takes a slight adjustment, his seemingly wayward and wide berth being redirected to his actual goal. A small and yet embellished change to her little cabin, the man scans around its perimeter in strange pacing. Every glint neutralized, every slip or out of place token noted. Even taking notes of scratches on some of the trees with a drag of leather fingers across the cuts. Perhaps his little understudy had been slain, an explanation to her lack of contact. To Atan, the only thought was one of minor inconvenience, and knowing where her workshop resided found that at least he could retrieve her research.

Into the cavern that was a bit to tight for him to enter, a raise of his hand reveals a new feature as the bill of his mask clicks off and he holds it in his hand. The trip wires and pads spotted and stepped over with near silent footsteps, each one pegged by a man of exquisite method and practice. Such traps were nothing to a man who made them himself, knowing the signs down to every written letter. As he slips in the rush of steam and the sounds of whirling pistons confirm an occupant. The bill snaps back to his mask and with a snap of his hand down a blade appears in his grip from a spring loaded holster up his sleeve. If there was an intruder or multiple, aiming to steal his secrets then there would be blood hot enough to melt snow. Ready for a fight as he slips along the wall in the shadows, he instead finds Mari entirely unconscious and vulnerable. Too easy, the thought raced through his head for but a brief moment.

The blade is shoved back up his sleeve just as quickly, as he spots a larger box with a scratched stroke of red in an obvious marker. From his belt loop a thin metal tool traces the seam, checking the latch and the hinges for any click or lever. Finding none, the lid is gently lifted open with both hands. A single sphere of glass raises to show a clear liquid inside, his eyes narrowing to magnify and shifting blue to become clearer. Down into the case he pulls up what notes were written, as a chain of whimpers jump from a cavern beyond breaking his focus. Quite the pharmaceutical that the woman had managed to recreate, with honest potential if she could find a way to inoculate it based on genome. The sphere is pressed back into the box in its felt inlet, and the man slides down to discover her new addition. A pair of occupants in sterile cells, bound and gagged waiting to be used to learn more. It seems that the woman's bleeding heart had finally been beaten and abandoned by her wit and curiosity, making her that much more valuable an ally.

WC: 1067

---

Vitreous | HP: 760/760 | EN: 110/110 | DMG: 8 | MIT:30 | ACC:5 | FRZ-IM | BLD-IM | BRN-IM  | PARA-IM | ENV-D: 32 | BH:8 | VAMP-D: 76 | BLI: 32/-20 | ENV-O: 32 | LD:4

Spoiler

Name: Vitreous, The Grim Physician
True Tier: 5
Level: 35
Paragon Level: 6
HP: 760/760
EN: 110/110

Stats:
Damage: 8
Mitigation: 30
Accuracy: 5
Battle Healing: 8
Loot Die: 4
Stealth Rating: 3
FRZ-IM
BLD-IM 
BRN-IM
PARA-IM
ENV-D: 32
VAMP-D: 76
BLI: 32/-20 
ENV-O: 32

Equipped Gear:
Weapon/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Blades of Mercy - Requiem in D Minor [245342d/T4/Demonic/Throwing Weapon] Envenom Offensive 2, Blight 2
Armor/Trinket: 
  - Concerto No.4 in F Minor - Vivaldi | T4 Light Armor | VD 2, ENV-D 2
Shield/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Prototype γ, Antibody Inoculation | Beethoven [244265d/Tierless/Demonic/Trinket] Antifreeze, Bloodclot, Fireproof, Para Immune

Combat Mastery:
  - Combat Mastery: Accuracy R3

Combat Shift:
  - 

Familiar Skill:
  - 

Custom Skill:
  - 

Skills:
  - Battle Healing R1
  - Energist
  - Light Armor R5
  - Searching R4
  - Thrown Weaponry R5

Extra Skills:
  - Hiding R5

Inactive Extra Skills:

Addons:
  - Focus
  - Precision
  - Resolve
  - Stamina

Mods:
  - Surprise Attack: Trickster
  - Tracking
  - Untraceable
  - Vanish

Inactive Mods:

Battle Ready Inventory:

Housing Buffs:

Guild Hall Buffs:

Scents of the Wild Totem:

Wedding Ring:

Crafting Profession:

Gathering Profession:

 

[Mari 1]

ph

[Vitreous 1]

PH