2018-10-27: ARMed And Dangerous
- Log: ARMed And Dangerous
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Lunata Croze, Shalune Amira, Fei Fong Wong, Lily Keil
- Where: Yggdrasil
- Date: October 27th 2018
- Summary: Shalune and Josie take apart Gryndille's arm to see what it's like inside... and if parts of it can be used to be repurposed into a weapon against the Metal Demons (...and others, probably). Lunata and Fei show up to watch; Lily makes a reappearance. Josie learns a few things about Lunata, Lily, and Fei.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Simply put, a workshop in the Yggdrasil has been taken control of.
It's not as if this sort of work could be conducted anywhere else -- Dazil, likely to draw prying eyes. Anywhere to the east, likely to face an increased level of anti-ARM sentiment, particularly about the origins of this particular hunk of metal.
When they had last engaged Gryndille, the machine had gotten away.
But not without Leon delivering it a wound to remember him by. It's a good, long section of the arm ('physiologically', this time), long since been carried off to the Yggdrasil and summarily left there for the months after they'd been vanished to Lunar.
Bart and his crew are good people, even if Josie couldn't care a whit about his apparent crusade (morally, at least; for the right paycheck it seems she might apply herself to just about anything).
Still, she can appreciate a good soul, particularly when it comes to not messing with 'her' stuff.
"How's it going over there? Run into any problems, kiddo?"
Particularly since now she finally gets to live up to a partial wish she'd expressed well over a year ago:
Taking Gryndille('s arm) apart.
Trading out her normal attire for a pair of pants and shirt that have long since been stained with gun oil, her hair looped into a messy bun, and goggles over her eyes, Josie works at loosening a section of the outer apeture.
Her right hand is almost entirely encased in a gauntlet, all the better to protect her unhealing wound from further agitation.
"Lifting this armoring is gonna be a pain in the ass," she mutters, extracting another screw and squinting at it.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata wasn't actually directly informed of Josephine's plans, but... given it's the Yggdrasil, it's a pretty safe bet that Lunata isn't that far away from it given that's where she's been spending her time as opposed to the Caravan Kinship.
The technicians and staff seem to still be in high spirits, and some of them coming back from lunch with a lusciously stacked-looking burrito with some fried empanadas and a salsa verde-topped salad on the side.
"... you need lifting, I'll help out," Lunata comments from where she's just taking off her lunchlady bandana. She's still got her apron, which has tomato stains on it as she peeks in towards the shirt.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune doesn't really look too worried at having taken over a workshop. To be honest, she could probably manage it single-handedly - she has a distinct habit of expanding both her gear and her attention span outwards to fill the available space, able to work in the palm of her hand or the whole length of a junkyard.
Shalune is also not one to really understand the concept of 'work gear', at least as far as it extends to herself. Thankfully, she does have some eye protection - a pair of tinted safety goggles peeking out from under the brim of her bobble hat - but beyond that she's dressed as comfortably as always is in thick and well-loved clothes, a pale yellow sweater and rather beaten-up jeans. They're close enough, probably - especially with the way Shalune relies on her coat's sleeves when lifting things around, or on her shoulder to brace against things when she needs to.
The rather arresting part is seeing her with a circular saw in her hands, or something very close to it - it looks like a Shalune special, albeit one she hasn't ever brought out in front of people probably for fear that Lunata will take it away from her. "Mm-- I think if we can get enough of it off, we'll be okay," she sounds a little muffled from behind her scarf, leaning down and wincing as a drawn-out squeal and a shower of sparks marks her sawing straight through a shattered and twisted screw - then she reaches up to yank a panel away, yelping as it tenses then snaps away. "Just gotta get inside to the good bits, right?"
Shalune perks up visibly at the sight of Lunata, offering a grin that's obvious even through the stuff covering her face. "Oh, Lunie!-- grab a pair of glasses if you wanna watch, okay?" she chides, choosing now of all times, with a power tool buzzing in her hands, to try to be the responsible one.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
You'd be surprised at how much Fei Fong Wong's opinion of you will improve if you buy a commission from him that lets him eat dinner for a couple nights. Josephine doesn't speak about morality all that much so Fei honestly thinks rather highly of her. The people who speak a lot about morality in Fei's opinion tend to be the ones who seem awfully inclined to the murder.
Fei is quiet though. He is watching Josie work on the arm, staring with a strange intensity that is sporadic for Fei.
He seems pretty focused on that arm. "I can do heavy lifting, if you--" He begins, but Lunata finishes saying it ifrst and he quiets down again. He does give that apron a couple glances.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is a pair of clothing that won't come apart in a stiff breeze, catch on fire, or that you mind getting stained.
Oh, and the eye protection. That's key.
"Yep. If need be, we can just cut down the armoring into chunks," and here Josie glances back over her shoulder at Fei and Lunata, "though I won't say no if a pair of willing volunteers would do the lifting either~"
She's in good spirits.
"Not really like Metal Demon materials, is it? I wonder how old this thing is..."
She raps her screwdriver against the shell. "...But I'd say older than a thousand, for sure."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Prying eyes aren't something they want about this matter, no.
Lily remembers this arm; she remembers seeing it crush through her comrades; she remembers it falling off. ...She remembers the power she drew upon, to drive away the monster this time... And the strange things it said.
It all floods back quickly, upon seeing it again. She was not immediately present at the time; she steps in now, during the work, dressed in long pants and a black tanktop, with boots; she likewise appears to intend to work, her black hair back in a ponytail. It's actually the first time she's been seen since Hilton--she was not expected.
...And her eyepatch is missing, in favor of a second eye that's.. a strangle, pale blue, instead of the gold it ought to be.
"...If you need help cuting, I can help you. I can probably work more precisely than a saw," she indicates to the others. She has no safety glasses, or safety equipment in general, actually. Instead--
She steps close. "...Have we learned anything about this..?" A pause. "Let me help."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"Um, well, Metal Demon stuff tends to be a lot more... designed," Shalune offers as she sets her goggles back over her eyes, and does her best to yell over the next drawn-out squeal as another ancient and rusted screw falls before her. "You can kinda see where the original body ends an' the self-repair starts."
"And it's not Elw or else using a saw would end up covering me in gunk. Lotsa organic bits," she adds with a faint whine that speaks to unpleasant experience. "So... I mean, that doesn't leave much..."
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"... you should get some of the tacos after this, Fei," Lunata suggests to the artist. She glances around, and then says in a deeply conspiratorial manner, "I left a half dozen in the back refrigerator for us and they're definitely the best of the batch."
She takes Shalune's idea and puts on some protective glasses and-- grumbles. "... I always feel stupid wearing glasses ontop of glasses," but pipes down as she concentrates with a hand out--
--and that extremity extends in a much more giant skeletal claw, Ge Ramda's, that she slowly sinks onto the armor plating and heaves up with a grunt of effort. "If you get the other side--"
She looks to Lily for a moment. Hey, fellow regenerators! Though she needs the coffin that is Rephaim.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Gotten that impression, Lunie," Josie says, attempting to shuffle a bit of paneling and frowning at it when it doesn't budge. "I'm not going to say I've gotten a good long look at how their stuff works or nothin', but I've definitely gotten that impression."
Screwdriver is traded for handsaw; soon sparks quite literally are a flying.
"--Is that right? Then again, we did get a look at that Sado thing--"
She has to shout over the whine of the saw.
But it's a success-- a section of the armoring is breached!
"There! Lunie--" she turns, apparently addressing Lunata this time (maybe she needs to diversify nicknames here)
And sort of... trails out into silence as another person darkens her doorstep.
"...Lily?"
She hasn't actually seen Lily since the business at Hilton. Forced to flee shortly before Lily's own departure, the younger girl's fate has been an unknown since then.
"...Huh."
A pause before Josie comments offhand, "Nice eye. Grow it yourself?"
It's at this point that Josie's gaze cycles back to Lunata and she...
Josie's been around a while. Josie's seen things.
This particular sight prompts widened eyes and a raised eyebrow.
"Guess we're all learning new things about each other today, huh?" she drawls, at some length.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata actually has to blink to go, "--wait, have you never met Ge Ramda?" in actual surprise.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie's reply is a simple, chipper, "Nope!"
The cube, she'd met. The lich, not so much.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei looks to Lunata. "Huh?" He loves tacos. "I love tacos." He loves tacos. "Man, I'm definitely gonna heat 'em up and chow down! Thanks Lunata!" This perks him up away from that strange intensity he had before. He stands himself up and he adds, "Holy shit!" because Lunata suddenly grew a giant skeleton claw.
He takes in a deep breath. "Okay. Okay cool. Good skeleton claw."
He lets out a low whistle, but if he's lending a hand he'll do it with his own limbs rathher than his own ... skeleton? Well, his skeleton will be helping out a bunch but maybe not as much as Lunata's skeleton arm.
"Yeah it's all good. All good. I love tacos."
He murmurs this like it's a mantra. "I love tacos."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily listens as she walks in about the process of elimination going on here. ...She still doesn't pick up safety goggles, though frankly she really should. Instead she glances over the associated mechanics and Drifters as they go, and--notices Ge Ramda's claw. ...It should be stranger to see that, frankly, than it is. "Hey," Lily greets Lunata, casually.
But the armor is breached, and, Josie--
"...Yeah," Lily answers Josie, looking at her thoughtfully. "I think I did. You doing all right?"
A detailed look at Lily will notice that the blue eye is a little unfocused, still. But it's easy not to, considering Lunata. Lunata's skeleton hand is more exciting.
"It's been a while since I've seen Ge Ramda," Lily admits, and puts a hand to the necklace she's still wearing, the one that's gimballed with symbols from Rujm al-Hiri. Regardless, she steps the rest of the way close, turning to look at the arm.
"...You all right, Fei?" A beat.
"Regardless. You're asking what kind of technology this is, where it dates from. ...I can tell you that much. It's not Metal Demon or Elw, like you said, but it's not from the war, either. ...It's Zeboim. No question."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
To her credit, Shalune doesn't-- pause for long at Lunata's show, though perhaps it's for the best that she's got a scarf over her lower mouth so her faintly disapproving pout is hidden. "Jeez, you can't just pull that thing out of the blue when I might slip and cut it off or something! Hi, Miss Lily!" she adds, quick to shuffle around to one side, now able to get a better angle on the issue as she slips under the metal plating and plants a foot against it from underneath.
With the advantage she's gained from her lack of height, it doesn't take much longer before she tests the last of the brackets that were previously holding the panel in place and nods in satisfaction. "Now!" she calls, and kicks against it from underneath as their heavy lifters do the said heavy lifting.
When it falls away to reveal the innards of the machine, Shalune lets out a puff and picks herself up, sliding her goggles up under her hat as she nods to Josie. "Metal Demon stuff-- I guess they tend to have a clearer idea of how they wanna build something, even if they're using makeshift materials. Elw stuff would have a big thick layer of fake muscle an' it'd be kind of sticky and kind of awful," she adds with a solemn frown. "And Kislev or Aveh, I'd know their stuff in a heartbeat. So--" she catches herself as Lily speaks, bobbing her head briefly in understanding.
Catching her breath again, Shalune studies the inside of the arm, her eyes already tracing the shape of the circuits and connections within. She's pretty good when it comes to instinctive stuff, and she's already mumbling to herself under her breath as she fidgets for her notebook. "... still, we could prob'ly jury-rig this real easily, so long as you had a beefy power source... it'd be a matter of space or weight more'n anything else."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Seems like they go for 'grow your own'. Heh," she comments on the subject of Metal Demon hardware. "Kind of makes you wonder about synchronization, though..."
Her shoulders dip in a slight shrug.
"Same. I've worked with Aveh materials so much I could reassemble most of 'em blindfolded. And I've handled Kislev, from time to time. Metal Demon War and Collapse-era junk, too."
But something that doesn't meet any of those categories would have to be--
Speak of the devil, perhaps. "Well, now that you've got an eye on you again," and here she squints a moment, as if to notice the state of Lily's eye, "Maybe I can give you some shooting lessons again sometime."
At that comment from Lily, Josie shrugs. "Got shot by a Veruni, looks like I'll live. Can't say the same for the boats in the harbor, though. ...Don't suppose you or Lion had a backup plan, because mine's to steal a washbasin and cross my fingers, at this point."
She's probably just joking.
"Zeboim. Heh. You got any idea how rare it is to dig up something from the Zeboim era in working order, let alone something still walking around like Gryndille? And you two ran right into it. ...You and Leon, you've got the worst kind of luck."
Her lips quirk in a tight smile, and then she shakes her head and sighs.
"Well, let's make the most of it, huh?"
At this point, she's not even going to ask how Lily knows.
Knowing what it is is just what Lily does.
"Now, let's take a look and how this baby works. Let's see--"
She does pause before taking a peek into the guts of the thing.
"Hey, Junior, you need a sit or somethin'?"
And then she's leaning into opened arm, her gaze intent.
Her lips move, as if she's counting something off.
"...would need a support even if we took part of it..."
"Energy source, energy source... what did you run on, big guy..."
"...Hmm, if we pare it down some... would still be pretty hefty. No helping that. Hmm. At least ammo's not a problem..."
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
There's a grunt of exertion as Fei helps them push that armor plating over on Shalune's call, and a kind of tired sound of 'whew'. "Might mark that for the Rephaim's gash if you're not using it..."
Lunata blinks a few times, though, as Fei reacts in surprise as well, groaning to go, "Geez, I can't keep track of who has or hasn't." Lily comments that it's been a while, and she nods, tapping the familiar matte-black cube that's floating next to her. "Hey, come out and say hi for a while--"
--and that skeleton arm emerges into... well, a spectral lich that kind of looms over the ex-waitress, draped in something approaching very formal eastern regalia atop her undeath state.
She'd be menacing and dreadful, if she wasn't... twiddling her skeletal thumbs together in a hunched over position?? Head tilting, with pink ///// marks over... over the white-bone of her cheekbones...
"Geez, don't be shy. That's Fei, that's Josie," Lunata rolls her eyes. "You remember Lily."
She folds her arms and thinks for a moment longer, humming quietly. "Yeah... mom's an expert in Zeboim literature and history, at least in her immediate field -- and Rujm el-Hiri's the first real hit pay dirt, so to speak..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Oh I'm uh--I'm okay." Fei says, sounding not at all convincing, even though in the grand scheme of things he is pretty okay, because he's very bad at sounding 'okay'. Still, he does say, "It's not really about not knowing about 'er, it's still a surprise when you're not expecting it." He shakes his head. "I meant nothin' by it."
He gives the bashful entity a long look. He nods once to her and then adds, "Uh hey." Pause. "Yo."
He waves awkwardly.
He looks towards Josie, tilting his head for a moment. "Zeboim stuff is rare?" He sighs. "Seems like I run into that noise all the time considering."
He looks over to Lily. "Maybe it's not 'luck'."
Josie got shot by a Veruni? Pfeh, he thinks, he should have words.
He doesn't respond to Josie at first before remembering! That's right! He's Junior!
Wait he doesn't want to be Junior.
Ugh okay. "I'm fine, really!" Fei says, a bit more insistently the second time.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"That's true," Lily agrees distantly with Shalune. "It's not safe."
For some reason this doesn't seem all that important to her at the moment, though.
"...Are you suggesting synchronization is more physical than not?" Lily asks Josie, looking at the piece; she doesn't help lift it, this time. She may next. She's watching, instead. ...And watching Shalune zip around, for that matter.
"Kislevi engineering is pretty distinctive," Lily agrees distantly. "We need it sturdy, so we don't break it when we drink."
...Was that a joke?
She considers the matter of a power source--but truth be told, finds her eyes lingering on the circuitry within the arm, tracing a line on her skin thoughtfully.
"Shooting lessons, is it?" Lily asks. "..." She looks into nothing for a moment, thinking of someone else. "Mm." She shakes her head. "...Right, a backup plan. Yeah, I have a backup plan. I always have a backup plan, remember? That's my job."
Lily knows how rare it is. But, "No," she agrees with Fei. "...It's not luck at all. Not ours, anyway. Gryndille crossing our path was entirely willful on my father's part. And I haven't forgotten that." She glances to Fei, and nods distantly.
"Right. Let's do as we can." She considers, at least, and then titles her head. "Mm. Energy source... We could check the power couplings in that station we found. See what it's meant to run on. But I suspect between us, we could get it running on conventional power--it can't be that hard to get a converter going. ...But it is pretty large."
Lily looks to Ge Ramda, then, nods to her. "Long time no see," she says to her. "...Don't worry too much about Fei."
A beat, "At this point I'm finding it hard to be surprised by much of anything." She pauses, looks down. "...An expert on Zeboim literature and history," she repeats, thoughtfully. "...You know, if violence doesn't work out for me, I could probably muddle through university. Maybe I should talk to your mother, regardless."
"...Maybe she'd have some idea where..."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune kind of peeks in the corner of the hole they've made at about the same time; she's not generally one for designing weapons, but she can't help her curiosity at being able to get a glimpse of the inside of a piece of Zeboim machinery and poke around with it. "... everything looks pretty-- um, not 'standard', that's kind of a dumb word to use, but I bet you could hook stuff up to it pretty easily. Like it'd all be fairly compatible," she ventures with a tilt of her head.
Her attention is tugged aside by Lunata, eyebrows raising. "Oooh, good call! Yeah, I bet that'd work, though-- well, bits of it are a bit pitted, but it'll do at a pinch. Maybe I'll just make sure it's not structural." She seems completely at home with Ge Ramda's presence, offering the lich a surprisingly fond smile and wave. "It really has been a while, huh?" she wonders, voice a little distant as she compares the differences in the spectre's behaviour... and in Lunata's, too.
Still a very tactile sort of engineer - and preferring to leave the question of Lunata's future behind - she's quick to lean forwards and straight into the cavity, reaching into it to begin jostling some of the components out and into closer view. "I guess you'd need a mount. Somethin' with wheels, but where you can slot down a 'foot' to ground it in place. Umm, I think I sketched somethin' like that a few pages back," she adds, forgetting that her notebook is with her rooting around inside the arm. "But it'd be pretty simple. Could just use Kislev tank parts, t'be honest, and it'd be sorted in a jiffy."
She starts to say something to Fei, turning in his direction awkwardly within the lack of space: "It's pretty rare, but--" BONK "--wehhh..." she whines as she rubs at her head, though at least she seems unharmed. "--but I guess you tend to find this stuff in clumps, and it kinda makes sense Kislev would have tried to dig up a crapton of it."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Standard. I like the sound of that," Josie comments, moving aside to give Shalune a little more space. "--Right." That's at Lily. "If we go back to Ash Hare we might be able to find something that works. Hopefully something portable, or... hmm, that'll be something to work out, yeah? Maybe I could always ask the Metal Demons to sit still while I hit them."
And then, introductions! From a lich.
"Well, how-you-do, little lady," she says to the keenly... awkward? Ge Ramda. "I'd give you a handshake, but I'm not entirely sure you could take my hand, for one, and for two..."
She looks down at herself. "If you can, you're better off not messing up your pretty dress, right?"
Other people might be a little put off by a sudden lich's appearance.
Josie, brief hiccup aside, takes it in stride.
"I'll level with you, Tiger: I don't know what it is. It's one reason people ain't too keen on ARMs out east -- talking about ARMs-users being 'kin to demons' if you're unlucky enough to roam some smaller towns and not keep your business to yourself."
She heaves a sigh. "That's a line of thinking renewed since all this invasion business got started."
She pauses.
"But what I do know is, some people've got it, some people don't. ...Me, I've never used a Metal Demon ARM myself so I don't know if I've got what it takes." She shrugs, as if to say, 'it's nothing'.
Lily has a plan? "Good! See, that's the reason we keep you around," Josie jokes, reaching for her screwdriver again. "Well, besides everything else." She winks. That was a joke.
"...You, too? Yep. Generally speaking, it's pretty rare stuff. Maybe I should follow you around sometime too and start taking notes. You know, until a few years ago, I thought I was lucky just to dig up a scrap or two of their everyday junk, nevermind ARMs."
Nevermind active ARMs.
Should Lily take up the academic-bothering life? "Hey, maybe when we've got all this nonsense wrapped up it's a new path for you, or something," Josie suggests, attention still on the guts of the arm. She points at a section. "--Lunie, I think we could pull this out of the casing without harming it--" And without missing a beat she resumes talking to Lily. "Ever thought about Linga? You could do worse than rattling some scholars cages. I'd love to see the looks on their faces. Just be nice to old Ambrose, he deserves better."
Whereupon her attention is back again Shalune's way. "Old tank parts? I think we're good for those. Remember, it's gotta be light enough to move to Elru, so we'll probably have some loss of firepower. Still, even a bit of what this thing could do is something, that's for sure..."
Which is followed by, "Watch your head, kiddo," but it at least doesn't look like Shalune's in serious harm.
"Yeah. It could be something like that. One thing wakes up, drags a whole mess out with it? ...All I know is, things are sure happening more than they used to happen."
Her fingers tap along the inside of the armoring. Her gaze unfocuses there, somewhere amidst the guts of the ancient ARM's machinery.
She comes back around quickly enough. "...Kind of makes you wonder when they started happening, huh? Well, that one's for the historians to sort out!"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Don't worry too much about Fei," Fei murmurs. That seems to get him to sink back down in his seat, head in hands. He stares at the floor for a while before blinking. "Yeah, that's a good point. That makes sense. I mean, it's a little worrying. A place like Zeboim must've lasted a long time and if most of it is gone now, it makes me wonder as to what buried them so deeply into the dirt."
He smiles faintly at Shalune, no doubt glad she isn't particularly hurt despite bonking her head. It's also the kind of minor inconvenience that Fei has learned to appreciate. The small little mistakes and problems and tiny disasters. There's something to be enjoyed in those moments even if htey would normally be a moment to grumble and complain.
"Some blame the Saucery Globe." Fei says. "But I think if I learned anything it's that these problems always festered deep within Filgaia and now we're just seeing all the symptoms for the first time, even though the sickness was always there."
He considers deeply whether tacos will cheer him up after this kind of conversation.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"Oh... er-- yeah," Lunata rubs at the back of her neck and squints for a moment. Ge Ramda kind of just bobbles and shyly watches behind, because she probably knows about as much about Lunata when it comes to the Zeboim era.
Despite, perhaps, being a mummy from the Zeboim era... moms are tough, even then, you know.
"If you come across it again... I'm more than happy to dunk the Rephaim down on it," Lunata offers to Lily, at least, even if alt interaction may make that a problem. She raises her eyebrow. "She'd be happy to chat with you..."
She's mostly watching Shalune and Josephine tinker around with it. It's kind of amazing to see her grow into an engineer in her own right, of course, but...
Josie speaks to Ge Ramda! She seems to shyly bow in turn, bowing her skull down and lacing her hands together as if in greeting.
She glances to Fei. "... the Saucery Globe's done a lot of wrong, I'll admit that. Bacon was never meant to be quad-fried..."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"... uh... tryin' to hit actual people with a weapon scavenged like this, I dunno how well that's gonna work," Shalune wavers with an extremely sensible worry, frowning uncertainly. "I mean, this is basically artillery-class. You could prob'ly splat buildings with it. It's more for somethin' like wreckage than actually trying to pinpoint someone in the middle of a fight..." she tries to say, but trails off slowly as it becomes clear that Josie has many, many ideas of her own.
So instead she just scratches at her hair in quiet uncertainty, giving Fei a sympathetic smile as she carefully tries to extricate herself from where she's reached into the arm. "A-aw, I'll be fine. I bounce," she snickers towards Josie, then puffs out a breath. "Well, at the very least, we can easily strip this down to the bare essentials. So long as it doesn't tear itself apart when you push the button, it'll probably be okay."
... ... she slowly turns, then, and gives Lunata a rather hawkish glance. "No, wait. That was definitely you. I remember the Carakin smelt of it for a week. Unless you started fugue cookin', I don't think you were recipe planning based on portentous fate or anythin'."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily catches Fei's murmur--lifts an eyebrow his way, as if she doesn't quite get it. But she doesn't follow up on it, either. "It makes sense, doesn't it? We'd have been trying to base our tech on the old things we find--it's how we've done things in Kislev for a long time." So compatibility, it makes sense. ...The details she has to think about, but...
"It sounds like you have the stand covered." She pauses. "...But I guess you do find things in clumps..."
Back to Ash Hare. "Mm, yes. As for that..." Lily shrugs. "Anything's portable if you're willing to work at it. We'll figure out a way. If it turns out to be impractical for use in person-to-person combat, we can still use it to wreck enemy fortifications, so it's worthwhile regardless."
Of course Josie isn't bugged by the lich. Being Josie.
"...Mm. Yeah. In Kislev, we never had as much of that. But people..." She trails off, shakes her head. "Kin to demons, huh?" Lily glances down at her hand. "Mm."
Linga, though? Lily shakes her head. "I'll keep it in mind, anyway."
"...You're right," she says to Fei. "I wonder that, too. What happened... Whether there's any reason it isn't going to happen again." She considers. The Globe... --did he mean Saucery?
"That's how sickness works," Lily admits. "It can lay dormant for a long time. They--" She pauses. "...Don't you mean the Sorcery globe...?"
Shalune--well Shalune seems to agree with her anyway. And Lily nods, after a moment. "Anyway Josie, I can help out with this thing, I'm sure. I..." She trails off.
"I just have a feeling that I can."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Thousands of years is a long time, you know. That's, hmm, what..."
She ticks off her fingers, briefly.
"...Four hundred generations back? The desert'll eat a town in a decade, a city in thirty. It's not surprising," Josie points out, a slight smile on her lips, "that it ate Zeboim, too."
She nods at Shalune's assessment. "Oh, yeah, it's going to have wretched accuracy," Josie agrees, finally standing up from the crouch she's been in and stretching with a roll of the shoulders. "Heh. Hitting a person with it is probably a bad idea, unless they're sitting very, very, still and you would rather them very, very dead. A Metal Demon's another story, though. Or a large enough group of 'em."
A pause. "And who knows about Mother? Given how big some of those Demons can get, I'm thinking she might be a touch on the larger side herself, eh?"
So rest assured, Josie (probably) isn't thinking about toting this to a normal fight!
"Still, mobility's best. I don't have a Gear like you kids, so I've gotta keep up in my own way~"
Even if it means she might get at best one good shot, with the amount of power it's looking like this thing's going to eat compared to how fast even a clunky Gear can get.
"Leave it to you? Sure. I think once we've got this thing repackaged, we'll know what we'll need for power sourcing. ...You know, compared to Rephaim, I can actually make head or tail of what's going on in here," she says, prodding the chassis with a booted foot.
"So!" Josie claps her hands together. "Now that the heavy lifting's done, how about we take a break? Anything good in the kitchen, Lunie?"
Meaning Shalune. She really needs to get a distinct nickname rolling here...