2017-03-17: In Which Siegfried drinks from a Straw

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  • Log: 2017-03-17: In Which Siegfried drinks from a Straw
  • Cast: Riesenlied, Siegfried, Zed, Gamma
  • Where: Photosphere, Denizen Quarters
  • Date: 499 PC
  • Summary: The Metal Demons drink from a straw and eat muffins, and determine that the Sorcery Globe is important to investigate.


<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

The Photosphere is abuzz with activity.

Ever since the Sorcery Globe descended, crashing into the lands far south of here, there have been problems. At first, it was simply the disturbance of a meteor impact near the (currently crashed) base of operations for the Metal Demons. Of course, the sensors wailed and screeched, and Alhazred threw open his arms and cried: 'Night beckons!'

Siegfried assumed this was reasonably normal.

And then, in the last day, the monsters came. A swarm of them, hungry wolves and prowling ogres and shambling Wels came frushing from the Arctican tundra to do terrible battle with the Metal Beasts and wail against the barrier. Teleportation has been the only way out. Berserk rushed forward, and ever since, has been slamming meaty fists and great bladed axe into the unending tide.

Siegfried found that to be an isle of normalcy in a sea of new, strange things.

But it is a source of concern, and the other Quarter Knights have had to chip in more. Even Siegfried, until recently. Now, in the area that almost -- /almost/ -- would pass for a tavern, the greatest of the Quarter Knights is sitting and doing something almost -- /almost/ -- would pass as relaxing. Still armored, he sits on a couch, and clutches a tall steel glass in hand. He drinks from a straw, more to cool himself than out of any need.

The Dark Spear, Glumzambor, rests against the wall and ever in arm's reach. As he sips, a loud /crash/ sounds from outside. "The horde," he announces to everyone and no one, "remains restless."

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

The endless swarm of monsters battering at the walls of the Photosphere is... disconcerting, to say the least. Not unusual, mind. If the Photosphere had landed anywhere that wasn't a frozen wasteland, chances are that the local wildlife would put equal effort into attempting to dislodge it from the planet, but it seems like it's been ages since the bastion of the Metal Demons has come under such a massive attack.

Not that Zed knows much about that. He's been busy hangin' out with his buddies! From the moon! MOON BUDDIES! There's so much he has to tell, so much intelligence to bring home. Like his moon buddies! And the golem core! And milk! And those OTHER JERKS FROM THE MOON! And Invisible people!

And...

And!!

A tray hits the table.

Upon it, there are... steaming, fresh and fluffy pastries. Freshly teleported in. Muffins.

"Sir," Zed says to his distant and lofty ultra-superior with all the manic energy Siegfried has likely come to expect from Zed. "I have met people from the moon. Actual people. From the actual moon."

"Also, I've brought these muffins," Zed says, flopping into a nearby chair. "They're good! I think they've got blueberries."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

It'd been a while since Riesenlied was back at the Photosphere.

The mission to observe eastern Ignas had taken more time than anticipated; there was more intrigue afoot than they'd expected, between the unusual resurgence of the Garlyle and their dig into the Sult Ruins, as well as the recent happenings that had been occuring inbetween the preparations for the Ancient Culture Exhibition. There was a potential hotbed of military activity here, and if they weren't careful, they could be launching themselves straight into an unwanted pincer attack.

The Sorcery Globe's landing had just complicated matters further.

"Indeed," Riesenlied muses from her own seat, with a terminal-- oh who're we kidding, it's a work laptop --set before her as Odjn behaves herself and munches on what appears to be a strange blue apple. Maybe it's the closest that they can get to fresh fruit here in the Photosphere.

"Even Berserk will have to take a break at some point. The matter requires more urgent attention than we'd anticipated prior," she looks over what is most definitely a rapidboard of open and incoming tasks, who they're assigned to, and what potential bottlenecks there may be.

A perhaps not curious amount of them may involve someone whose name begins with Z and rhymes with 'bed'.

"But we'll have the aerial approach, when we choose to investigate," she concludes.

"Riese, maybe you should take a break..." Odjn pipes up.

Then Zed comes in, bearing news of the moon, and with muffins at that. "... ah," Riese pauses, then nods and closes the laptop gently.


<Pose Tracker> Gamma has posed.

Have you ever noticed you can hear Gamma coming before you see her?

Sure, in here she doesn't stand out quite so much, but there's some things that Gamma has never mastered, and 'stealth' is one of them. She can be deceptive (sort of; she doesn't have a good poker face) but actually /sneaking/ seems to be beyond her. She just never got the hang of it.

After a long few days out in the wilderness of Ignas, Gamma has been recalled to make her report. Even though she was having a ton of fun out there, and has valuable information to share, she does have to come back once in a while. There's so much going on out there that it just wouldn't do to have the Quarter Knights, and the other Metal Demons, walk into it without knowing what's going on - and, for the first time ever, she's actually important in bringing that information back.

It's easy to be proud.

Gamma's footsteps are audible as she follows Zed, because he's easy to locate and then she doesn't actually have to know where she's going. She steps in a few moments later, peeking through first to make sure she's not about to walk into something restricted (probably not; Zed doesn't exactly have much more clearance than she does) before walking, dipping into a smooth front-body bow that somehow turns into a salute back on the way up.


<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"Yes," Siegfried agrees. "Berserk will. Lady Harken has been working with him -- and we have others we may call upon to hold the line. But... some manner of resolution will be necessary. The barrier will otherwise have to be powered up to the extent that it will draw Solaris's eye."

His eyes narrow, underneath the helmet. For all that Siegfried has a human face, those eyes -- ordinarily a hard slate grey -- shine red in the right light.

And then he looks up, his nose sniffing -- and then lips flattening into a line -- as he sees the muffins. "Zed," Siegfried greets, calmly and coolly. "I see... human baked goods. The moon, you say." He looks up, instinctively, and tilts his head to the side. "...Which one? And who do you speak of?"

He does, in fact, hear Gamma appraching before he sees her. Siegfried turns to look at her as she walks in. Her bow is greeted with a short nod. "Gamma," he says. Even being friendly, he gives commands. "Have a seat."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Solaris.

If there's something that's always made Riesenlied second guess herself, it's having an invisible enemy that you know nothing about. Solaris had to be dealt with, in some way -- ideally, brought to the fore so that their activities are more trackable. It was on her agenda. Just not... now.

"Wherever did you get these?" Riese had to ask, even as Odjn steals a blueberry and orange muffin and wolfs it down in almost one go. Odjn, for the record, is taking the form she always does when not in battle -- a foot-tall chubby dragon with cute horns, chitinous and scaled with a black and red coloration.

A pause. "You speak of Hiro and his group, I assume," she tilts her head at Zed, then to Siegfried. "Both Zed and I have had run-ins with individuals who've claimed to herald from the moon orbiting Filgaia. In fact, they call Filgaia the 'Blue Star'," recalling what Lemina said.

She waves at Gamma, then gestures for her to come closer with a smile. "I haven't corroborated this information myself, but Zed and Gamma has spent more time with them...?"


<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Honestly, I'm surprised Boomerang hasn't shown up yet. This seems like exactly his kind of thing." Zed smiles as he plucks a muffin out of the tray and begins unfolding the little paper cup underneath it. "He'd show up and be all..." Suddenly Zed acquires... speedlines? He becomes significantly more sketchy. "Finally," his voice seems to have acquired sketchmarks too. It sounds positively Dio-Esque, "A challenge worthy of my fangs."

"Or something like that," annnd he's back to normal, munching a muffin. "Oh, Gamma, you should try one of these. They're good-- oh, I uh. I picked up a batch right before I got the recall order, then the teleport started up and..." He sort of gestures with one, unmuffin'ed hand, somehow it conjures images of vanishing into the sky. "Anyway, I brought them with me."

He nods, then, when the topic turns towards his Moon Friends. "Yeah, that's them. Hiro and Lucia and the rest. There're others too, calling themselves the Chosen of Althena, who're after them. Seem to think one of them is a 'Lord of Calamity' or something. One of the Chosen is a guy called the Shepherd, who hangs out with invisible things called Seraphs. It's kind of a pain, fighting something you can't see."

"A-anyway," He coughs into a fist, his muffin somehow having disintegrated into his mouth between the start of his brief tirade and its completion. "They're from... The Silver Star, I think. That's what they said, anyway. Lucia said something about being from here? I would've thought we'd know a Lord of Calamity was camping out in our backyard though."

Beat.

"...So, these monsters, uh." He looks to Sieg, betraying just a littttle bit of the worry gripping his metal heart. "There's... A plan to deal with them, right boss?"


<Pose Tracker> Gamma has posed.

"I can verify the moon people!" Gamma says when Riesenlied invites her to, surprisingly brightly given she's talking to Siegfried. "Or, at least, they believe they are from the moon. Hiro's group is in the company of someone named Lucia the Destroyer, and they claim to have arrived on a flying carpet, but it's broken and missing now."

She pauses. "Also we found a Veruni golem engine in a ruined mine with them, and I attempted to convince them to let Kalve look at it. So we may have access to that! Unfortunately it isn't active, but it might be fixable... I didn't see the invisible people Zed is talking about." Gamma does not get the joke. "But he is already working on anti-invisible people fighting styles."

Gamma's own technique is going to be 'shoot everywhere', for the record.

Gamma hesitates. On one hand, Siegfried told her to sit down. On the other hand, it's difficult for Gamma to sit (lie down, yes; sit, no) and so she's torn between looking like an idiot and disobeying orders. She settles for following the spirit of the order if not the letter by standing next to the table in a mostly-relaxed fashion. Also, she steals a muffin. She also spotted Odjn stealing a muffin but is not going to rat her out. "There are a lot of things that we need to know about to go out there," she says instead, before her mind goes to Solaris.

"Do you think they've noticed us yet, sir?" Gamma doesn't know anything about Solaris other than 'it exists' and 'it is a threat'. "If we're being attacked so often, after all! Of course the monsters are not a threat, but..."


<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Siegfried has a slight frown on his face. Eating human food troubles him; he finds little to like in it. The frown intensifies, as he looks at Zed, and waits for the answer. But, the mention of this 'Blue Star' prompts him to turn his head back at the others. He takes in a deep breath, before he nods to Riesenlied.

"I see. Someone from another world -- and above us. And a... Lord of Calamity," he says, with a frown. This one is thoughtful, instead of disapproving. "Then we should learn more of them. And of these others from there. I have heard of no Lord of Calamity. Perhaps, I will go meet them."

His eyebrows lift, though, at the golem engine -- and then he nods to Gamma. "I doubt that they have," he says. "We will know. They will spare no expense. But... I am glad you ask this. We must do two things. This invasion of monsters began when this... Sorcery Globe crashed. I want us to find an answer to what it is."

He scowls. "Before it endangers our holy Mother. And, that aside, we require another location to operate from. Arctica Castle is a ruin and Deus Ex Machina has yet to be found, after it was brought low in the war. We may need to make one."

Siegfried lifts his armored fingers to his chin in thought. "Upon Ignas. Can you find a suitable location?"

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riese considered that command for a moment, bringing to thought the various landforms and population densities that they'd collectively scanned before in Ignas. "It should be possible," Riese estimates after a moment of thinking about it.

"Even within the Adlehydian kingdom's borders, there are plenty of towns and small villages that have been left defenseless in the wake of crime and lawless Drifers," she sets the background. Her mind wanders to Tindus Town for a moment, and the results of Kent's attacks. "There are many ruffian gangs that make their hideouts in abandoned towns. It should be relatively trivial to slip into one of these and take them over."


<Pose Tracker> Gamma has posed.

That makes sense. If it wasn't a meteor, it must have been something else, of course. It's just a question of /what/. Gamma spends some time thinking about that while she rips the muffin in half. She hasn't eaten it yet, after all. Maybe she's just going to play with it? "Maybe it does drive them mad," she says, about the monsters. "Or maybe there was something in it. They say it fell near Ell. Maybe we should go there - or send somebody?"

Onto towns. "Well, we don't want one there are people in now," Gamma says, thoughtfully, before she eats about half a muffin in one bite. (No, she's going to eat it. She swallows, and continues: "If we attacked one that had people in it, people would investigate! But if we found one that was already empty, they wouldn't. Like you said, sir, we don't want to alert them too early..." This isn't morality so much as sheer logistics. "But there's a bunch of those."

But Gamma is distracted quite shortly. She draws herself up to her full height when Riesenlied calls on her. "You can count on me!" she says, suddenly all ears. "Just let me know what my orders are, and I'll do them!" And maybe a little extra. She does want to make a good name for herself, after all.


<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Oh Mother, Sieg is doing that smile again. The one that somehow manages to be scarier than whenever Uncle Al declares that he has a new experiment he wants to try. Zed glances away at something more attractive to his gaze. Like muffins. He takes another one.

Muffins are good.

"Yeah, I'd be glad to head out!" That way he gets to hold it over Claude and the others! It'll be an adventure! Travelling to a new place, seeing a new thing, likely getting mauled by horrible, super-agressive mega-predators.

...Beat.

"Hey Boss," Zed says, a little more subdued. "Don't you think it's a bit weird that Solaris hasn't been responding to the whole... Monster situation? You think they figure it's our problem, or do you think maybe they have an idea of what that thing is?"


<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"Good," Siegfried says to Riesenlied. "Then, I would have them get us close -- but not enough to put them at risk. We should approach on foot. We will need to examine the damnable thing. We can go ourselves, Gamma. I think that will be necessary."

He grunts, softly, in irritation.

He stays quiet, while Riesenlied calls on both Gamma and Zed -- and he lets them do precisely that, without any further commentary. He knows to let his commanders have the space they need to form their ties with others. Siegfried leans back, and then looks at Zed when he speaks.

"I have wondered this," he says. "I don't doubt that Solaris is curious. However, their reach is not as absolute as they would think. We will learn, in time, if they are there."


<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

"My best estimation is that Solaris and Shevat are both waiting for the other to make the first move," Riesenlied explains. "I get the feeling the two are reluctant to take the first move and leave themselves in an exposed position."

She reclined softly, and then says, "Either that, or they figure that it is close to both our territory and the Veruni's," a pause, "And is an excellent enough distraction while they execute other plans. Certainly, the horde has set us back on some of our plans and resources."

Riesenlied has always respected Siegfried the most, out of all the Quarter Knights -- they both have a similar sense of leadership, at least compared to Alhazred's highly research and project-oriented approach, and Berserk's... ah, let us say, 'king of the hill' style approach. She nodded at him, then looked to the other two.

"I can arrange for a lift to the Sorcery Globe on your command, sir. Just let me know when."


<Pose Tracker> Gamma has posed.

Gamma is just so damn young and eager. Some days it's more obvious than others.

This is one of the obvious days. She's /very/ pleased with being part of an operation like this - the front line, the vanguard, just like she wanted. Where she can get some glory and recognition. She might be going with /Siegfried himself/. It doesn't get more impressive than that! And she's going to get to show her stuff and do what she does best.

She doesn't quite literally have stars in her eyes, but it's the next thing to it.

"Understood!" Gamma has no analysis of the Solaris-Shevat situation, and if she did probably wouldn't be qualified to give it, so she leaves that topic entirely for people who know more about them than she does. "And we'll stop anyone else from getting it before us! I mean, if we want it. Which we might not. In case we have to destroy it..."

Okay she didn't think that through quite all the way.


<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"These kinds of things are usually pretty hard to destroy," Zed says with the kind of tone that sounds like he's seen this before. In his animes. "I mean, it hit the planet pretty hard, right? Means it had to survive the impact, so it's probably pretty tough! Just... I wonder what it is we'll find. I'm betting UFO."

Because they're in a UFO.

So at the very least, there's precedent.

"Anyway, I'm just hoping we can deal with this sooner rather than later! Soon enough someone's going to wonder why there's a big dome-shaped hole in the giant monster swarm, and then we're going to have trouble." Possibly Shevat or Solaris-shaped trouble. Or Veruni. Or anyone else.

"Well, it'll probably be fine. As long as it's not a giant space monster or something."


<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"It is likely," Siegfried agrees with Riesenlied. "They may also wish to avoid the Veruni -- after all, Ell is close to the largest of the Control Zones."

He nods his thanks to her, without saying more -- but it would be over much to say more. After all, Siegfried expects them to do their duty. He looks at Gamma, then, and nods. He folds his arms. "So we will," he says. "We will come to the bottom of this matter. Holy Mother depends upon that--whether it is a space monster or elsewise."

He gives Zed a look.

"We do not need distractions from finding the Tear Drop," he finishes. "I will trust in all of you to make your preparations. We will leave when we have the supplies we need secured."

<Pose Tracker> Gamma has posed.

Gamma is totally ready.

But she doesn't repeat it because now her biggest challenge is not saying something stupid, embarassing, or both. That's the last thing she wants to do - look like an idiot in front of Siegfried.

So she nods instead - and then jams the rest of the muffin in her mouth, because waste not, want not.