2021-05-04: The Garden of Forking Paths

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<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    With enough time, wounds can be mended. This applies to the wounds of the body as well of the mind and spirit, though as many have noted over the ages, the body often heals the quickest.

    Time has passed since the purge of the Order of Ethos in the Saint Heim Papal State -- since the death of Pope Innocentius, and the final confrontation with the false Bishop Stein. There has been some time for people to recuperate since, to gather and regroup. But now is the time to discuss the next steps forward. Among what was salvaged from the Ethos Headquarters -- other than clear proof of Solaris' meddling in and control of the affairs of the surface world and the truth of the intentions of Bishop Stein -- was the life of a single undercover agent from the mysterious nation of Shevat.

    Not much is known of Shevat -- only that they are an ancient enemy to Solaris, with the strife between the nations dating back centuries. Some may have heard that they have agents among the surface-dwellers -- spies by any other name -- but likely, no one has encountered any and known about it.

    With the agent recovered from her wounds, they have one now in their presence. And it seems there was something she wanted to say to everyone who had been involved. Thus, a meeting had been arranged.

    Citan had suggested Billy's orphanage for the site of the meeting, if only since they required a secure enough location for such that could also accomodate a large number of people relatively discretely. With Stein dead and the Sisters on patrol, it seems unlikely that the orphanage would be again attacked. This is perhaps as safe a place as can be managed.
    ...if, perhaps, maybe a little cramped.

    The main room of the building had once done double duty as chapel and mess hall for the orphans; it's easily repurposed as a meeting space considering the large plank table dominating the area. To one side there still sits the altar, with book and candles adorning it. Whatever revelations have come of late, some things do not easily go into the night. It's clean. Someone has been tending to it.

    At the head of the table is seated the Shevat agent, Mirah; to look at her, one would never know how close she had come to death. Citan himself sits on one end of the bench seating along one side of the table, and to the agent's left. His attention is for now upon the agent; he has done little other than greet a few of the others as they have joined the meeting.

    "I wanted to thank you again for saving my life," the agent tells them all, bowing her head for the moment. "I am certain I would have died had you not arrived when you did." Without their timely intrusion, after all, she never would have been found in time. 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied has been recuperating since the battle with Stein, in part because transforming into the Ley Dragon isn't something that she gets away with scot-free. The wounds take time to heal, and it takes even more time to regain her energy and well-being.

    That said, when Citan told her they're going to meet at the orphanage to discuss the next steps, she agreed and told herself internally that she's going to be focused and on mission and totally not playing with the kids--

    REALITY

    "Eh?" Riesenlied blinks.

    "What did the widdle wibbly gob do next," mumbles the four-year old on her lap as she holds a children's storybook about, well, the titular little Gob who befriends some Hobs and Koroks.

    "Ehhh??" Riesenlied blinks again.

    Two other children are limpeting on her shoulder, peeking over at the book.

    "Ehhhhh?????"

    You don't get to escape after achieving Level 80 MOM, Riesenlied...

    She does, at least, clear her throat and smile toward the agent quietly. "It was Jessie and Citan who rushed to your aid, was it not? I am glad to have helped though..."

    "boring adult stuff," whispers one of the kids to the other. 

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

It seems like it's been an eternity since the battles against Bishop Stone and his Solarian lackeys (and handlers). Cyre feels as though he's aged twenty years since then. How time does fly...

...

Oh wait, it's because he spent most of the weekend DANCING LIKE HE WANTS TO WIN (against a persistent source of spiritual corruption). In other words, he hurts! He hurts real bad. He hurts with the pain of an uncountable number of hip gyrations. That's all to say that Cyre is not so much 'seated' in his chair as he is...

Melting... into it.

His posture is not great. It's kind of impossible for him to sit upright, actually. EVERYTHING HURTS.

But he wouldn't miss this for the world.

"No problem, sky-person," Cyre says to the mysterious agent of Shevat with a quick thumbs up that he regrets basically immediately. "So, like... What did you call us in for? Other than saying thanks and all that." 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily Keil was willing enough to discuss the next steps earlier; she hasn't been particularly waiting on healing other than what she absolutely required, and even then she could've taken more time. No, it wasn't her recovery that was necessary so much as her patient's. And here she looks at Mirah, and happens to be monitoring her still for the moment, just in case. But also? Also listening.

Lily hasn't been playing with the kids; she stands apart from them mostly, though not cruelly. She is at the table, with the others...

"You're welcome," Lily says. "Though if you were any less stubborn you still might have, after all that."

Frankly it's not a bad thing to get to save lives instead of take them sometimes. But... there's things she needs to know, much like the others.

Lily is willing to wait for Mirah to start talking. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly van Houten needed, badly, a long, body-restoring rest, and fortunately she had the privilege to finally obtain one. Her dreams were complicated and recondite, and she did not remember them upon awakening.

After that, Elly did some staring into space and spent like four hours throwing a line on the coast to settle her head. She probably needed it. It's a meditative activity.

THE GOOD NEWS IS, this means that Elly was able to... yes... COOK for everyone, kind of: there is a hot pot of rich miso and tuna broth with chopped up fresh wild scallion floating on the top, which you can put into a mug if you would like. It's salty, but also full of nutrients or something.

Elly is holding a mug of it and drinking it. Elly managed to lose like five pounds during the entire adventure, so drinking miso broth is like slowly reinflating a spiritual inner tube.

Her official reply to the thanks is: "Oh! ... You're welcome..." because on some level, it is (EVEN COMPARED TO EVERYTHING ELSE) strange for her to be sitting in a room with... a Shevat agent. And nobody's doing anything aggressive. Why, you can't even see the horns!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius accounts for the cramped space by picking out a corner ahead of time to go stand in and suffer/deal ambient Uncomfortable-elemental damages. He's taken a mostly passive hand in recent events other than simply being there, making earnest attempts to stand just off-frame that never quite fully take. To date, he's still an unknown quantity other than 'does mean things to technology' and 'kind of goes between being a half-decent person and not.'

     He remembers when Catenna spoke of 'sky angels' in her peoples' legends about how the Veruni were kept from overtaking Filgaia, easily brought back to the forefront as Cyre refers to Mirah as 'sky-person.' Of note, if it even is noteworthy, Ethius has not moved to stand at Mirah's side or otherwise shoot her the usual stares which... well, who knows what anything means with him, just hunched up in a corner with arms crossed. (He seems to have taken nearly being bisected several times over by a mysterious construct well enough.)

     He hasn't spoken up. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong is a little nervous. Whenever SHEVAT comes up, Id starts grousing even though, he isn't going to admit, it was really KIND OF his idea. Well it's an idea they both had. an IDea, if you will. A FEIrly hail mary of an IDea.

He's exhausted, mostly mentally. His body is fine and ready but his will is tapped. TAPPED UNTIL HE SEES RIESENLIED BEING CUTE WITH THE ORPHANS.

And that, right there, reminds Fei of just what it was he got into a giant robot to punch another giant robot with until the person piloting that giant robot, if a guy with a red skull for a face could really be seen as a person, died was all for.

This. These orphans are safe. For now, at least. And that's worth every bit of violence and painful smack against his psyche. He smiles at Riesenlied.

"Looks like you're still a natural." Fei says to her. "Don't try to make Billy jealous though, okay?"

He's mostly teasing.

He has been DIGGING IN to Elly's cooking, predictably, and is probably on his second bowl by now.

He looks towards the Shevat Agent. It's still Disc 1 so he doesn't have an immediate chair moment but he does wonder what her name is. Besides Shevat Agent.

"It's alright. Nobody deserves to die like that." Fei, the Civilization Destroyer, says guilelessly. "You holding up ok?" 

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

Eika was Not Here for a long time.

She was very strongly Not Here because she doesn't want to be picked up by the remnants of the Church (either Solarian Etones or actual still-loyal Granasites under their new Pope) or, in fact, run into Billy. At least not without making sure he's not going to reflexively pull guns on her - which, granted, feels much less likely now than previously, but you never know.

But now she is Here, because she realized one very important thing: If she could keep a lid on her emotions, half the people she was worried about wouldn't even recognize her. She had never met Billy before ... before, and the Church loyalists would have heard about the Etone beast. That leaves only the Solarian Etones, and, well...

Everyone here already wants to hit them. So it was fine. And so Eika has found her way here.

Of note is that Eika is actually looking much better than she was during the period where her outfit was best described as 'castaway'. She has actually brushed her red hair out (there is a lot of it) and gotten most of the tangles free, though nothing can stop it from looking shaggy these days, and while she's dressed like a fighting monk, a lot of martial artists wear similar outfits. Black pants, just a little shorter than her ankles, with a belt with a long trailing cloth behind; a fitted top that bares her stomach and her arms, showing the tone in her core and her biceps; martial artist's handwraps and footwraps both.

She hasn't said anything to just about anyone but is at least listening in. While she likes kids, she is very poor at dealing with them and so hasn't really done much other than steal a mug of whatever Elly was cooking. 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Shevat... Jacqueline has heard it mentioned only once. She can't help but be curious what it's like. It was a good opportunity, as well, for everyone to put their heads together and discuss recent events, and so when contacted she gladly arrives at the island.

She takes a seat, taking a moment to take in everyone who's visited before turning her attention to the agent of Shevat, Mirah, and offering her a small.

"It's quite alright. As Fei says, no one deserves to die like that. I'm just glad our actions saved at least one life." Jacqueline replies. "If you need anything, please don't hesitate to let us know." 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

The Orphanage still stands, intact and secured. With Stone...Stein, defeated, it seems like the threat to the place is at an end. So, the orpahange works just fine for this purpose.

Billy is late to the gathering, seeing to last-minute security. At this point he's not sure even a bombing run could actually take out everyone in the Orphanage now, but the building itself is still home to many people he cares about. Fortunately, his father had a similar mind, and between him and the Sisters, he's confident.

So both junior and senior Blacks step into the room at once. Billy has shed his traveling habit - complicated feelings about that thing right now - but preserves his bright teal turtleneck, and without the jacket it's more obvious how ridiculously strapped he is at literally all times. Jessie, who is not undergoing a character arc at the moment, remains in his usual kit.

Billy can't suppress a chuckle at the children hanging off Riesenlied, and in his capacity as patron of the orphanage does a whole loot of nothing to save her from her fate, other than to sit down off to the side - guests can have the main table - and passively absorb a few children into orbit merely by his presence. Jessie, of course, props himself up against the far wall because he is too cool for seats.

Neither immediately draws on Eika. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Purifying Siddim Canyon was exhausting, but for Ida, it was also deeply cathartic. The Hellion that caused it is still at large, but with the help of her allies, she was able to bring peace to a troubled, blighted land. She knows where and when that Hellion will strike next. Ida intends to have words with her.

    But Solaris' crimes haven't gone away, and Citan told her of something rare and precious--a way to even the odds.

    The heiress sits at the table, alternating between her mug of rich broth and a cup of clean, cool water. Her hair is down, and reaches almost to her waist; it's neatly-combed, and one of the orphans gave her a few wildflowers to weave into it. She's wearing a light green button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, boots, and cream-colored slacks.

    She's still worried. She still hasn't told her mother about what happened, even though she and Aunt Anna and Aunt Isabel and her father know by now. But she's regained some semblance of equilibrium.

    "It's good to see you on the mend," Ida says. Solaris has taken enough lives. The vindicative side of her hasn't gone away, and it delights in this tiny victory. "And thank you for coming to meet with us. As Doctor Uzuki explained to me, your homeland has a policy of... secrecy, out of necessity." Ida, who considers herself extremely knowledgable, had no idea it existed until people started dropping the name. And even then...

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius ends up moving a few steps away because between Jessie and him leaning up against a wall, he is nowhere near as cool. He cedes prime wall-leaning real estate because Jessie is, in fact, that cool. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Old habits die hard.

    The moment Gwen steps into the orphanage, she is doomed. The moment the semblance of 'chores needing to be done' was heard by the courier, old programming was set off, and she naturally inserted herself into the chaos of setting up, with the ease of someone who had spent some time in such quarters.

    Unfortunately (or fortunately, since Elly's tuna and miso brew is amazing and Riesenlied is adorable with the kids), what is left is the moving of furniture, something Gwen is better suited to due to. Furniture is hung from the rafters, while other pieces are slid into place to make for a better meeting area.

    Gwen's eyes shift to the altar once or twice as they set up, questions brewing in her mind. It's not as if the entire Granas faith is gone, perhaps; she can easily see it revitalizing itself. But such things are worth questions Gwen can't ask, even if the floor was open. It's been years since she full-heartedly believed in such things, after all.

    Now drinking from a mug of Elly's soup with an appreciative sigh, giving a nod to Mirah. "I'm glad you survived. Though, like, this Shevat place.... is this place really a thing, still?" The fingers on her mug grip harder. "Do they need deliveries?!"

     The starry-eyed ambition in Gwen's eyes is dampened, as Ida gets to a particularly point. "... Oh, right, right. Secrecy." 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"You know," Fei says, with dawning understanding and a nervous laugh. "Am I the only person who noticed that this is the third group of scrappy good-hearted orphans we've befriended...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    The soup, while salty, is really strangely appetizing. Lan is already halfway through a mug of it! "Homf~"

    Like many of the others she's still building back her energy reserves after the battle with Stein and Solaris, but she looks miles better than she did the last time she saw everybody (particularly Ethius). She does not have Riesenlied's Super Mom 5000 powers, but seems rather adept at scooping kids out of the way whenever they wander too close to being underfoot.

    But her time of wrangling youngins seems to be past, because she's found a spot to hunker down with her mug somewhere between Gwen and Cyre, alternating sips of broth with glances up at the Mysterious Shevat Agent Mirah, whose thanks she doesn't really respond to because Lan wasn't there for her and thus is not the intended recipient of them. "Homf." 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    If there is any tension in the room, Mirah seems almost oblivious of it. Perhaps she doesn't know? The agent has already availed herself of Elly's soup, potentially at Lily's urging. She's still recovering, after all. As for Citan -- there's a mug sitting in front of him, though he hasn't seemed to have had any of it just yet.

    Mirah, the agent, pauses for a moment. Then she shakes her head at Riesenlied's statement. "My apologies, miss. But this is how I feel. If it had not been for all of you arriving when you did, I am not certain I would have been found. ...And it was Miss Lily who did my surgery, isn't that right?" She glances in Lily's direction and laughs lightly. "Well, yes. Being a little stubborn is useful when you are a spy. But, yes, Mister Fei. And... Miss Jacqueline, wasn't it? I am doing much better now. I will need some more time to recover fully, I think, but... er, well, I don't know about 'deliveries'," she tries to say, diplomatically.

    Mirah appears to pause for a moment when Cyre addresses her. "...Well, I had heard from Mister Citan that all of you have an interest in making contact with Shevat. If I am being honest, Shevat would very much like to make contact with you," she continues, pausing a moment to readjust her headscarf. "...But I have some bad news, I'm afraid. When I was caught, I broke my communicator."

    Briefly, Citan closes his eyes, sighing out a breath; his shoulders slouch. This may not be entirely the answer that some of those in the room were hoping for.

    It's here that Citan then interjects, "Shevat is a nation that... operates at a distance from the rest of the world -- yes, as Miss Everstead-Rey says. This is largely for their own protection: they are ancient enemies with Solaris and seek to oppose them, still. But their military capacity is greatly reduced in this day and age. Hence, Shevat uses agents such as her... and the only way that one can make contact with Shevat is if they have a communicator." He pauses for a moment. "Even if they are a citizen. I had hoped that it was possible that... but, no, it cannot be helped under the circumstances."

    Mirah nods. "Yes. I am very sorry, but I could not risk them taking it and using it against Shevat. However... there is another way. I have not ever confirmed it myself, but there may still be a mechanism that can contact Shevat on top of Babel Tower. It's where Shevat used to rest, and there are stories..."

    At this, Doctor Uzuki rubs at his chin, a pensive expression on his face. "And... it would still work? Babel Tower... I had heard that the Ethos had sealed the tower, but..."

    He settles back in his seat for a moment, as if still lost in thought.

    "...Come to think of it..." He turns in his seat towards his old friend. "I am reminded -- Jesiah, you had come to the Ethos Headquarters in search of Miss Mirah, correct? Why was that? By any chance, did it have something to do with your long absence?" 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied looks a bit embarrassed as Fei tells her she's still a natural, but blinks to ask: "Third? Oh, do you mean Wayside and Taben Peak...?" It's true, then!

    Riesenlied does look comfortable to see Lily and Jay nearby, and Ethius and Cyre too! And Elly's got nice, warming broth for them, so she has a cup too (though she's trying to coax some of the kids to having their meal too). She also seems happy to see Lan again, after the-- uh, terrifying time they had underneath the Cathedral.

    Billy appears, and there's a soft chuckle and an apologetic nod. "They are very good kids," she beams to the Etone.

    She notices a bit of Eika's reticience, but she looks better than she has been, so she hopes that she's got some support...

    Gwen and Ida speak a little about the secrecy of Shevat. She thinks a little bit about what little she knows, and nods...

    Mirah explains about how she broke her communicator, but Citan explains that Shevat is an ancient enemy of Solaris... if they were able to ally with them, perhaps they could change their situation.

    And also a lead: Babel Tower.

    Riesenlied's face is white circles with thick black outlines for a moment: o_o

    Then she raises her hand.

    "Um. By any chance, is Babel Tower wheelchair accessible??"

    It's an incredibly long shot. It's such a long shot it probably stretches around the rest of the world and goes to a nearby moon and then back again.

    She can hope, though, right? That's her thing. Hoping against all hope. 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily has also had some soup!! Obviously. But she's remained kind of distant and quiet since everything, overall. She's had a lot to do, though, so it could be as simple as that. Pretty much unperturbed by... everything, she glances over Riesenlied with a small smile, notes Lan's presence again, and then looks back to the agent they're talking with.

"That's right," she says of the surgery. But... bad news?

"That sounds like the right call," Lily admits of destroying the communicator. But... the Tower...

"Sealed by the Ethos? Well." Nobody's enforcing that now! It's fine.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I think it's worth a shot; worst case, we get in to see some secrets Solaris didn't want people to see."

She is not all that gentle about this, really. But as for wheelchairs... She does not know.

"Does Solaris know about the communicator that might be there?" 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline sends Riesenlied a smile! It's good to see her about - she was worried, after her transformation... but, if she's here and taking care of children, that's a good sign.

She looks back to the agent, then.

"Yes, that's correct." Jacqueline confirms, in regards to her name. She nods, then as Mirah says she's still recovering. "Take your time. You're in good hands, at least."

...And then, she delivers the bad news - when Solaris found her, she broke her communicator. Jacqueline frowns slightly... but nods.

"Well... you did what you had to do. No one here can blame you for that." She says. As Mirah said - she couldn't risk it being used against Shevat. The information she provides about Shevat is interesting, at least, and puts a few things into perceptive.

Jacqueline pauses, though, as Mirah mentions another possibility - Babel Tower, where Shevat used to rest. Jacqueline 'hm's contemplatively to herself, thinking it over.

"Well... we are often in the business of taking long shots. It might be worth looking into." She considers. She glances toward Riesenlied. It's a good question... and, it does make her curious about other things. "What kind of place is Babel Tower? Do you know what we should expect?" 

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre is most definitely here, and absolutely comfortable. Or, as comfortable as his RUINED MUSCLES allow him to be. Fortunately, he found the one chair in the room conveniently pre-placed to be right in the middle of a nice, warm sunbeam.

Nice and warm, it is. So is the tasty soup Elly supplies. Ah, truly, nothing soothes an old man's aches and pains like warm, savory soup.

"Babel Tower is that huge thing on the horizon all the time, right?" In the Aquvy region, Babel is almost always visible when you look in its direction as long as you're not too far away. "The only way we're going to climb that thing is in gears, unless there's a convenient elevator somewhere. I don't suppose I could just fly up, could I? The Huracan's thrusters are pretty high-spec..."

(Probably not, Babel's huge.)

"I don't suppose we could just... fix your communicator, could we? Ida's pretty good with machines, and she's right over there." 

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

Meanwhile, Emeralda is also here. She has taken charge about four of the kids to do... something with. It probably isn't anything *too* bad. It did involve a lot of running. But the good news is that kids with Emeralda are probably about as safe as they would be anywhere.

As for Eika, nobody is shooting at her and that's the best she can hope for. She has been very deliberately mostly staying out of Billy or Jessie's way so far, but that may change. She does need to talk to Billy, and she's been trying to decide whether it's better to do so in public or in private. Nobody else here is particularly worrying.

She does listen. And after a time she speaks up. "It's a miles-tall tower. It's a little tilted but it's still standing, even though it looks like it will fall apart any minute now - it's all old metal, but not steel or anything." She pauses, then adds, almost defensively, "I haven't been inside and I've never held any relic from it. That's all I know. I've only seen it from the outside - nobody goes inside. You seriously want to go *there*?" 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly sips her own soup, which is an endorsement of the dish when the chef herself is having a lot of it. She smiles a little at Fei and answers him, quietly, "They do seem common. I suppose it's a natural thing to be connected to Drifting... if everything's doing well, why would you leave home?"

Elly's attention rests on Mirah as she begins speaking, and reveals a problem with the matter. Elly lets out a little breath of surprise, perhaps because a long-standing mystery just got resolved.

"How did you come to be in that situation with the Ethos, ma'am?" Elly asks afterwards.

Her eyes turn down to the cup, and she takes another long sip from it, nearly emptying it.

"... You know," she says, "I don't actually know... I don't know anything about the place, other than that if you were in this quadrant of Filgaia, it was a radar signal landmark..."

"Were the Ethos using it as a facility, or a source for Gears?" Elly then asks.

After this she looks towards Cyre. "... I doubt there's much left of it, given the situation. If an ARMS meister could have fixed it, so could Gebler."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida listens, her face warm, as Mirah fields the group's questions. She can't help but smile ruefully when the agent mentions the communicator, but she's quick with reassurance. "You made the right call," she says. "Better broken than in Solaris' hands." She tries not to think on how far that rule applies. Taking it too far would spoil her appetite.

    "Babel Tower," Ida murmurs, her eyebrows rising. "That's where Saint Calucion--" Any Granasite would know the story, but not everyone here is a Granasite. A look of gobsmacked betrayal crosses her face, and fades with a sharp exhalation. "My apologies. The Ethos are--were--not the only ones with an interest in the Tower. According to the Church's doctrine, St. Calucion defeated a monster, and then sealed it within the tower with her own body. I... have no idea, in retrospect, if any of that is true. It would be a very good excuse for the Ethos to seal the place off."

    Ida looks sidelong at Cyre, then. "I-- don't know?" She looks back at Mirah. If she were in her shoes, she'd ensure no one could repair the communicator.

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

Meanwhile, Emeralda is also here. She has taken charge about four of the kids to do... something with. It probably isn't anything *too* bad. It did involve a lot of running. But the good news is that kids with Emeralda are probably about as safe as they would be anywhere.

As for Eika, nobody is shooting at her and that's the best she can hope for. She has been very deliberately mostly staying out of Billy or Jessie's way so far, but that may change. She does need to talk to Billy, and she's been trying to decide whether it's better to do so in public or in private. Nobody else here is particularly worrying.

She does listen. And after a time she speaks up. "It's a miles-tall tower. It's a little tilted but it's still standing, even though it looks like it will fall apart any minute now - it's all old metal, but not steel or anything." She pauses, then adds, almost defensively, "I haven't been inside and I've never held any relic from it. It's been sealed for ages." She looks at Ida, and gives a slight nod, though she hasn't really spoken to her yet. "That. I've only seen it from the outside - nobody goes inside, because it's *sealed*. You seriously want to go *there*?" 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Yeah that's right." But he smiles. "Hey, sorry--I think it's great." Riesenlied's Mom Levels that is. Having a level 80 Mom for level 60 content will really make it a breeze.

He sips at his soup, exhaling a soft happy sigh and then adds, "A tower? Well that makes sense. It's the tower of Babel, but that's no reason to not have accomodations for wheelchairs. Like an elevator or at least ramps--"

Fei nods his agreement to Elly. "Yeah, or Shevat for that matter. Besides," Fei adds. "How tough fcould climbing a tower be? If it's been looked after for so long it probably can't be that tough to climb. And we have gears so even if we couldn't fly all the way up, we could probably do just fine with small incremental jumps."

He beams innocently, watching the kids run around with Emeralda for a moment, his smile widening. Kids will be kids, he thinks. He wishes he could do more--

--But he focuses on Mirah. "Lily's a real talented surgeon," Fei says, nodding. "If Shevat would like to make contact with us--why haven't they?" He frowns faintly. "I guess some of us might be hard to find but... There's the whole Memory Cube system--"

He trails off and then adds, "But it seems like we've got our next stop. Even if it doesn't work, maybe we'll find something else at the Tower that can help us contact them. ... Or something about what Solaris might be up to, if they've been holed up in there." 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Looking towards Fei, Gwen chuckles. "Well, I mean, I'd see it as a fact of life. Getting involved in a lotta places where lives have been upended or just plan ended, there's gonna be orphanages there. And many Drifters have been former orphans, I imagine." She taps her fingers idly on her mug. "Places like these... have done a lot of good, for those left behind." She immediately regrets her words, seeing Lan there. She clears her throat, an awkward smile on her face. "Er, well, yes, this is a great little place, isn't it?"
    
    Now onto her second helping of soup (Fei is beating her at soup eating, noooo), Gwen listens as she sips. "Babel Tower, huh... Y'sure we can't just fix the communicator so we have a Plan B in case Plan A'ey let's all go climb the giant tower in our gears' doesn't work? I mean, if it's been sealed all this time, and someone's not been able to just blast the thing down to rubble to at least collect all the scrap metal, that means there's gotta be somethin' serious--"

    Saint Calucion. Gwen's eyebrows raise. "Man... that brings back memories, that name. I completely forgot about that story. So that's the place where that monster was sealed, eh? I guess that answers my question. But if we really need t'get past it, it should be easy with all our Gears, right?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    It's very good to be among friends again. Lan finishes her last (saved till the very end to be savored, because fish is still a bit of a novelty) bite of tuna before setting her empty mug down on the table.

    "But if the monster is still sealed in the tower-- wait, does that mean we have to fight our way past it? How long ago did the story happen?" Maybe they'll be lucky and even monsters can die of old age! Which is kind of sad for the monster's family but....

    Gwen's unfortunate choice of words earns an indecipherable look from Lan, but at least she doesn't seem particularly inclined to revisit their own personal trauma in the middle of dinner. ...This time. Instead, Lan rests her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "But they're right, is there a way to climb it? Maybe from the inside? And can we... I dunno, carry Riesenlied? I'll help!" Lan can totally carry someone on her back part of the way! 

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius doesn't visibly react to anything said about Shevat, an exotic place that presumably has advanced technology and is a place of incredible secrecy. There's not even any of the subtle signs people might have become accustomed to when he might be about to do something, he's just... there, for the most part.

     Safe enough to pretend he's not there, until he speaks.

     "I presume it must have some sort of defense mechanism to prevent individuals from accessing it from the top, beyond matters of it simply being too high in the sky for anyone to consider reaching it." The implication being Solaris might already have been able to access it from there. 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Billy chuckles back at Riese, accepting his own attention from the children. "Well, thank you. I'm sure most of them appreciate that."

Some kids just can't be pleased, you see. He listens quietly as people assess the situation. "Babel Tower," he murmurs. He nods to Ida's comment. "It's a holy site to several orders within the Church of Granas. It was sealed off by command of the Ethos cardinals, as well. I'm not sure if anyone's even been inside for generations."

To Cyre, he notes, "I've heard of attempts to fly up the outside, but they all end with 'and they didn't come back.' At this point that could mean just about anything, I guess..."

Jessie grunts, when he's prompted. "That's a long story. Goes all the way back to why we left, in fact." His eyes cut briefly between Citan, Billy, and Mirah. "Back on Solaris, I was pretty highly placed. Head of the Elements, nearly leader of the whole Jugend apparatus. So, I got my eyes on some high-level secrets. That shit'll turn your hair white." He chuckles, his white hair slipping over his eyes briefly. He flicks it out of the way.

"The biggest one, though...Solaris has some plan they call the Malakh Plan. Usually just codenamed the M Plan. Step one is using the Ethos to bring supplicants from all over Filgaia to be experimented on and ultimately turned into Wels. Step two...uh..." He sighs, shrugging helplessly. "Is what I've been chasin' for years. But I can tell you it's the personal baby of Krelian himself. And I think some data about it escaped into Shevat. Been workin' with their resistance groups to get enough favor for an invite, which is how I heard about our friend here." He nudges his chin at Mirah. 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Lily speaks about secrets... it makes sense. Shevat must know things about Solaris that they don't want anyone to know. Jacqueline also mentions they're used to long shots... but what is Babel Tower like?

    Eika explains. A place that no one was allowed into... Cyre does have a good point, however. Could they fix it? But Elly has the wisdom, that a good spy probably wouldn't want it broken just so the enemy can repair it.

    Cyre and Elly also point out about how it's such a big landmark you can't miss it... ...

    "I--is it unmissable? I have never seen it before..." ... Riesenlied has completely missed it this entire time. How do you miss such a thing, Riese!! Eeeh...

    Ida has a story about Calucion, and her mind drifts to Yulie for a moment... how is she doing, she wonders?

    Fei, too, has a good point. Could they use the Memory Cube to get in touch? Gwen catches her attention, though, and she nods... "... that was my exact feeling when we made Wayside. I do not want to see anyone left behind again."

    Her cheeks flush when Lan suggests they carry her. "I--I could not impose on someone for all that time..."

    Billy explains further about the hazards, like people attempting to fly ending up in disaster... and Jessie's own story. The Malakh Plan...

    And a name that turns her expression a bit sour. Krelian...

    "What drives people to experiment on others... whether it is Wels, or what Stein turned into, or even--" Riesenlied pauses, when she notices the sad look on the four-year old on her lap.

    "Miss Wiese is being scawy," expresses the poor four-year old who's been condemned to uwu-speak.

    "Oh, I am sorry... should we continue with the Gob?" Riesenlied looks apologetic. "Gob gob, gob gobbu, said the little brave Gob..."

    Wow, her Gob-speak is on point. 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "To be honest about it, Miss Elly, I was spying on them. We have known for some time that Solaris was influencing the Ethos, though to what degree was... what I was trying to determine," Mirah says, smiling a little gamely. "Unfortunately, I got careless and I was detained... and then, it seems, I was very unlucky." She sighs. "Wrong time and wrong place, in the end."

    "Yes, I suspect the 'seal' from the Ethos is the least of our problems," Citan remarks to Lily, glancing up towards the ceiling. "Hmm... no, I do not think they were storing anything in it... but I cannot be certain," he answers Elly, still considering what the agent has told them. "It may be... yes. As Miss Everstead-Rey has said. Not all of what the Order of Ethos did was necessarily in, ah, 'bad faith'. ...As several here have demonstrated. Though, I wonder what sort of monster was sealed within... or if it would still be present..." the doctor muses, rubbing his chin.

    "Yes. I suspect we would do well to ally ourselves with Shevat. And, unless I am misreading the situation in the world... I believe that Shevat would do well to ally itself with us as well. ...Am I incorrect, Miss Mirah?" Citan remarks, putting the agent on the spot. "I am... not the one to ask," she replies easily enough. "You would need to speak to Queen Zephyr and the council. I am only an agent."

    At this, he can only smile slightly and shake his head. "Fair enough."

    "I am sorry, Mister Fei..." says Mirah, shaking her head. "With our barrier it is not easy to communicate outside of Shevat without using one of the special communicators. As for the rest... I do not know. You would need to ask our Queen."

    She glances then at Lily. "As to your question, Miss Lily... I believe if they knew of it, they would have used it already." She pauses, though. "Assuming, that is, that it's still there. But it's better than nothing. I am sorry I can be of no more help. The other agents... I do not know them. My mission was a perilous one, so I was to operate in strict ignorance of any others." She smiles fraily. "I should not need to tell you what Solaris can do to a captured agent."

    Jacqueline asks of Babel Tower itself.

    "It is... old. I have never been inside it, but I have heard stories that it is older than Solaris and Shevat alike. It is quite tall... and it must be filled with ancient technology, if it once bore Shevat. I would recommend using a Gear to ascend the tower," is the best that Mirah can tell her.

    "I am sorry. I destroyed it," she says to Cyre, shaking her head. Apparently Shevat agents don't half-ass anything.

    Riesenlied asks, then, a very, very important question. Mirah goes still and silent, her expression the one of a person who is about to have to deliver some very, very bad news:

    "Well..." the Shevat agent hedges, distinctly uncomfortable in this moment.

    "I am very sorry," is what she tells Riesenlied, extending what can only the most heartfelt apology...

    Citan, fleetingly, shares a look with Jessie, just moments before his senior launches into an explanation--

    "I see... and to that end, you were seeking access to Shevat. The 'M Plan'..." the doctor muses, folding his arms over his chest. "If that data is in Shevat, then that is all the more reason we should head there. Do you not agree?" 

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

"I never heard of anyone going in," Eika says into the air, after Billy says he's not sure of anyone being inside for generations. But then again, she was pretty new, even if she was a ruin delver...

Her lips purse afterwards as Jessie speaks, and then she clenches her fist, hard enough for it to hurt a little bit. She attempts to relax a little bit, exhaling through her nose. It almost works. Almost. This is it, she tells herself. This is what all the Etones who weren't in on the little rebellion have to deal with the rest of their life. Just deal with it. Make it better, as best you can. At least Citan, of all people, seems to be defending them, though she has no idea why. "Who is Krelian," is what she asks instead, because she came to this late. "Other than someone I don't think I would like."

Eika is almost shocked out of her anger at life, the universe and everything by Riese. "How do you *miss* it? It's the tallest thing on the planet that isn't a mountain, and honestly I'm not sure about some of the mountains!"

Sorry Riese. 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"I just have a lot of practice with bullets," Lily demurs to Fei. But the story of the tower she's seen in the distance so many times--that gets her attention, all right.

"Sealed a big monster?" Lily inquires avidly. She is not a Granasite, nor has she made a particular study of the religion's holy places. But monsters... "That sounds interesting." Pause. "If it's still there that's all the more reason for me to come along."

She is not distracted from this by other matters but does have room to pay attention to both. The M Plan... and more to the point--"Head of the Elements?" Lily says, with a lifted eyebrow. This is... surprising, to say the least. Not surprising enough that she doesn't believe it, but still surprising.

"I guess they'd have to have a reason to create Wels. Or at least to keep doing it."

Lily doess not comment on what drives people to experiment. She just looks thoughtful at that.

Instead, she considers--the answer to her quetion. "That's better than nothing," Lily agrees. "You're already helping us more than we had options for before." 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied feels herself turning into a corn cob as Eika questions how she missed Babel Tower, and attempts to lie--

    [LIE] Result: 1d20 (13) - 117: -104

    "I--it was not round," she truthfully admits. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

It's kind of scary, Fei thinks, that even being the HEAD OF ELEMENTS, Jessie still thought he couldn't effectively change the path Solaris is on. He does admit to Riesenlied's words, "To be honest, I'm not sure...why even Solaris would want 'More Wels'. It'd be one thing if they did something like that once and stopped--like, even outside of the precise horrible nature of experimenting on people.... I mean, Wels don't exactly, y'know, DIFFERENTIATE between Solarians and earthfolks. You'd think they'd want something they could aim..."

He exhales softly before adding, "Oh. Maybe he knows..."

Do you want to know?

Yeah...! Do you know what he's up to?

Do you REALLY want to know?

Fei bobs his head up and down excitedly. Yeah!

Fuck you.

Fei frowns and crosses his arms which indicates how well this is going.

"...Well... " Fei laughs. "I had no idea about it either! I'm gonna say because it wasn't round too!" 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida's gaze fixes on Jessie, and stays there. "The Malakh Plan," she says, once she's taken her final sip of broth. It's a good thing she does, because what Jessie says next summons up the rage--both hot and righteous and cold and calculating. She looks at Riesenlied, then at Eika. She tries not to think of Lydia, and fails.

    Ida's face pinches in a look of anger, carefully dialed-down. "Do you know where Krelian sits in the overall heirarchy?" she asks Jessie. "Does he answer to anyone?" Eika asks her question, and Ida answers. "A Solarian scientist. He--" There's a telltale hitch of breath as Ida tries to keep that anger leashed. "Well--you heard Mr. Black. He's behind that, as well as the enslavement of a dear friend of mine, and God knows how many others. The Reapers, though. Lily's right. I'd thought them simply tools with which to terrorize the -lambs-, but if--if they're merely a step in a greater plan..."

    God, she shudders to think of what that could be.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline listens as tales are told of Babel Tower - of the Church's stories, and what it's like inside. Quite tall, and filled with ancient technology... which if her previous experiences mean anything, means ancient security systems, too. This probably isn't going to be easy.

"Hopefully we'll be able to take our big monsters one at a time..." Jacqueline comments. Solaris was a big enough problem on its own right now...

And then Jessies has some details of his own to share, too.

"...Huh. I didn't know that." She remarks, as he explains that he was once head of the Elements. She frowns, though, as she hears what Solaris's plan entails. "...Of course he'd be involved."

Krelian... Lydia's situation was his fault. She exhales, shaking her head. That's just another thing on their plate they'll have to deal with at some point.
"Ah... one more thing." Jacqueline says, looking back toward Mirah. "If we do manage to get in contact with Shevat, is there anything we should tell them so that they know it's us? Or will they know?" 

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Saint Calucion... "Isn't that the saint that Yulie likes so much?" Cyre asks, having next to no actual working knowledge of the Granasian faith other than 'this is probably evil.' "Well, if they sealed a monster in the tower... Hm. Maybe it's not actually a monster? That'd be a trip, wouldn't it? Ahahahaha~"

(It's probably a monster. Granas isn't always evil, is it?!)

"Flying is a no go, though. Hm." The shaman rubs his chin thoughtfully, immediately regrets doing so, and simply flops back to sip more tasty soup.

He doesn't say anything about Riese's inability to notice big cylindrical shapes buildings that are several miles-tall. He figures not drawing attention to it is probably the nicest thing he can do about it.

Beat.

"...Something that tall must have been built ages ago, though. Maybe by the Elw? Doesn't really seem like their kind of thing, though..." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly listens and gazes into her cup. This M Plan...

She has every reason to trust Jesiah on his word even if quietly she is kind of on Billy's side a little bit in terms of the eternal battle between Dad and Son. If he was in that position - almost as high up as Commander Ramsus...

Elly breathes out. "After all of this... I wonder how he could find the time to go to Spira," Elly says, about Krelian, and perhaps not very loudly. "Had he already abandoned the plan, and it was just continuing on inertia...?" Had he moved on to whatever he's trying to do with Lydia? To say nothing of --

--

Elly straightens up. "Ah," she says. "The man that Mr. Black referred to - Krelian. His official position is an advisor to the Emperor, the ruler of Solaris. ... Well, the official ruler. I suppose in a sense, the Emperor is more... religious.. they say he's immortal, that he guides our nation."

Elly takes a breath and lets it out. "But," she says, "my father... he works in the civil administration of Solaris. We would talk about things sometimes, and the way he described Krelian... He said that he was 'the real leader of the nation.'"

A second or two passes. "I don't understand this," Elly says. "If he's conducting experiments -- I, I mean Fei and I *met* him on Spira, we thought he was... that it was just someone with the same name, you know? But..."

Elly trails off.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "I dunno, Ms. Mirah, sounds like you were luckier than you thought, considerin' who found you." She finishes her soup with another appreciative sigh. "I mean, it was people like Mr. Black-- er, the senior one, though I guess both? Fei, n' Elly, Lily, Jay, Riese... I mean, that's a member from a bunch of circles of sympathetic folk here." She crosses her legs in her seat and leans back, considering. "I dunno if you should bve apologin' for a buncha stuff you did for the sake of keepin' Solaris off the trail of anybody that could be connected to you. Even a broken communicator can be used as a way to decipher what an unbroken one looks like, especially if they have an agent in their grasp. Pretty commendable. Besides, breakin' into old ruins, gettin' in and outta jams, finding new places? That's classic Drifter stuff."

    Krelian. The name flies over Gwen's head, the courier considering another mug of soup instead.

    Still, the more people talk about the man...

    ".... So you're sayin'.... if I punch Krelian hard enough, maybe whoever the hell did that stuff to Lydia'd feel it." Gwen is now back with another steamy mugful. "'Cause that's what it sounds like." 

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

Eika immediately felt slightly bad for going after Riese. Mostly she was in a bad mood after more revelations about what some of the Ethos was doing and that she now feels honour-bound to try to clean up. She looks apologetic even if she doesn't actually, you know, apologize.

She also learns about Krelian. She was correct: she doesn't like him very much. "Immortal, huh," Eika says. "An immortal vizier." She picks a very non-Solarian term on purpose. "I wonder how he could *possibly* be the ruler behind the throne." And now she's irritated again. Of course someone like that would think nothing of using the Etones.

So Eika answers the other topic's questions because she can. "It's not Elw," Eika says, "or at least I don't think it is Elw. It doesn't look the same - look, I was trained to go into ruins and investigate the technology," she says. She doesn't bother to explain what she did with it, instead pressing forward: "So I had a bit of an education. Obviously, since nobody goes inside, we don't know for sure, but at least the books I read, they didn't think it was Elw. Zeboim maybe, they like to build with metal."

Eika pauses, then says, slightly embarrassed about being - as it turns out - a dungeon history nerd: "Or that's what the books said. Of course, way back when, they built together a little more than they do now... and it could always just be wrong." 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Once again, Ida's gaze fixes on a former Solarian with an intensity that speaks to her anger. "Then his agenda and Solaris' agenda are one and the same," she says. "Regardless of what the Emperor thinks. Regardless of what Gebler and the administration think." She sucks in a breath, reaches for the tattered remains of a dream, and grasps them. "Even though he once--" Ida trails off, forces herself to take a drink of water.

    She thinks back to what the Watcher said. 'If 'God' were to preside over this world, then these actions would not be necessary at all.'

    'But it is fallen.'

    Ida's whole body shudders. She suddenly wants something stronger than the water she's holding. "He's earned far more than a single punch," Ida says, her lips curling in a look of menace. "Far, far more."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    "Nah, it's fine! How else do people get up towers without wheelchairs?" Lan offers cheerfully, perhaps unaware (or uncaring) that the point has rolled past her.

    But despite not cottoning on to too much, she does catch a familiar name. Krelian... "He's the one that Loren and I worked with, on Spira. He was acting as Seymour's scribe, and then Loren was... um, kind of a sub-scribe," the blonde tries to explain, waving her hands vaguely in the air as if she were writing. "And I was still learning to write Solarian so I didn't do any scribing."

    "But he must've been really important because Loren was even more worried about making mistakes in front of him than normal." So in essence, Lan hasn't really supplied any new information, but maybe she was able to add a new facet to what they do have? (Nnnnnot really.)

    Even if the broken communicator would have made their next steps much easier, it's better that it never have the chance to fall into Solaris's grasp. "Everybody's right," she nods to Mirah, pale eyes serious. "I'd rather climb a huge tower than for Solaris to have a chance to make the communicator work again." 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "Elw... hmm. No, the Elw engineering seems more... organic than the structure of Babel suggests," Citan says. "Indeed, Miss Zuse -- perhaps it is of Zeboim origin."

    "Do you think so?" Mirah says to Gwen. "I suppose when you put it like that, my luck might not be so bad... still, now all of you will need to climb Babel Tower." But she can't help but laugh a little bit, lightly when Gwen suggests she has nothing to apologize for. "I am sorry -- ah, you see? I just can't help it!"

    "Yes, actually," says Mirah to Jacqueline, reaching into a pocket to pull out a scrap of paper. "Here. I have copied out my ID number, just in case. I think they might know already, but this way... If you can give them that, they should know that I sent you. I would accompany you, but I am afraid I'm not well enough to attempt Babel Tower just yet. Though, I suppose I will in time, won't I?" She smiles confidently, in spite of everything she's been through.

    "Yes... I admit, I am not, ah, quite as accustomed to bullets," Citan admits to Fei, fidgeting with his glasses. "Or, for that matter, that particular sort of surgery... Lily has had more training in that particular aspect of medicine than have I."

    "I suspect... that he may not have had a choice in the matter," he muses, when Elly wonders aloud about how Krelian had found his way to Spira. After all, the deployment of that weapon by Odessa had... apparently done some very unusual things across the world. He glances over at Lan as she speaks on the man's presence in Spira, who he had been working for there if not, perhaps, why. His expression is pensive, his brow deeply furrowed.

    But then Eika asks who Krelian is. Ida asks who Krelian answers to. Citan pauses for just a moment, glancing between Jesiah and Elly. He seems about to say something, but--

    Elly speaks first.

    "...That was the same 'rumor' back when you and I were among the Elements, Jesiah," Citan says after a moment of silence on his part. "'The Emperor is little more than a figurehead... Krelian is the one who pulls the strings in Etrenank now...'" He closes his eyes for a moment. "It seems that little has changed. And, this plan of his..." He sighs out a breath, shaking his head. "We need to take a look at this data. As well as the other reasons we have to travel to Shevat. ...Jesiah, you had said that the data had traveled to Shevat. How had that been managed? Data such as that could not be accessed by someone from 'the outside'." 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"...Yeah, we..uh. We talked to Krelian and he seemed..."

Not like a sociopathic mad scientist?

"Normal? But I guess that's the sort of thing he wouldn't exactly advertise...?"

He frowns. It's hard to shake that around Krelian he felt PEACE rather than rage and despair. Id seems more WRY about Krelian than enraged even though what he's doing is, Fei recognizes, the exact sort of thing that pisses him off.

Makes him think of Siegfried and he doesn't like it because that means Krelian is going to die tragically or whatever and it's going to be another person that only he has fond semi-memories of.

"I don't understand it. But the fact is, it's happening."

Fei glances to Citan. He rubs at his neck and laughs awkwardly. "Well--we'll try to get shot less?" 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied looks mildly less embarrassed when Fei backs her up, though in truth, the answer is probably a lot sadder: The world's been dragging her a whole bunch in a trance, and she hasn't actually been conscious for a lot of her travels in Aquvy.

    Also, you know, not being very perceptive of physical things as opposed to emotional and magical things. There's that too.

    Riesenlied catches Ida's glance and looks down for a moment. Alhazred got the substances he needed from Krelian... just how far does his reach go?

    There's a discussion as Cyre asks if it's Elw, and Eika mentions that doesn't look like it -- it's metal, and surely doesn't look like that...

    Lan expresses her own perspective on Krelian. She was honestly unaware of his involvement with Seymour, in Spira...

    Elly and Fei both say they've met Krelian, as well. Riesenlied's expression gets more complicated, and her heart darkens again.

    "... when... when we were in the Photosphere. That-- that-- that Alhazred," her voice breaks up for a moment, "mentioned Krelian. Krelian was his source, for everything... everything that happened."

    But Mirah apologises on the topic of whether Babel Tower is wheelchair-accessible or not.

    She kind of grapples with this immediately to distract herself from thoughts regarding Alhazred.

    "Oh, oh. Do you believe it might be possible... once upon a time, it was connected to Lunar, and people could just travel between the two worlds?" Riesenlied suggests.

    "That... would be a lot of steps, though... so perhaps there is an elevator inside!"

    She's still being optimistic, okay. It's better than just getting lost in thought about bad things. 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Mirah presents her ID number, and Jacqueline leans in. She adjusts her glasses, taking a moment to commit the number to memory.

"Thank you. That should certainly help smooth things over." Jacqueline says with a nod and a smile. The last thing they wanted was miscommunications between themselves and Shevat - it seemed as if they both needed whatever allies they could get at the moment.

She shakes her head, then.

"It's alright. Just stay here and take your time to recuperate - your health is important, too. Once we're done talking here, I can recommend a few medicines to help you along the road to recovery." She says. She looks toward Riesenlied... and then frowns, as she mentions the connection between Alhazred and Krelian.

"...And here I thought I couldn't dislike him any more than I already do." She comments, shaking her head in disgust. ...She doesn't specify which one she means. (It's probably both of them.) 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"So, he's another Solarian who needs to die then," Lily says of Krelian, once the others have indicated what there is to know about him. He pulls the strings; he was responsible for things Alhazred knew and did. It seems simple enough to her.

"You will be better in time," Lily tells Mirah, "Provided that you do get some more rest."

Sometimes things seem rather simple for her. ...it's perhaps a different kind of optimism. 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "That's okay. I mean, we still don't know if this is just some weird prank, y'know? We're takin' your word for it. Either way, it means explorin' a new place, so it's win-win for us even if you turn out to be some Odessa agent or somethin'." She waves a hand. "Not that I'm suspectin' it."

    Lan's mention of Krelian on Spira visibly shocks Gwen. "So he was even in play there... Definitely a guy t'keep an eye on, no matter what his motives. I doubt they're good ones, anyhow." And Alhazred, even. "... That far back, too... Just how much stuff has he been involved in...?"

    In only one of the sympathetic Veruni types were here. They'd volunteer if they knew about Krelian being buddy-buddy with them too, right?

    Riesenlied then brings up a very, very good point.

    "Well, even if there isn't, it's big enough for Gears, right?" She claps her hands together once, the motion making the steam from her mug ripple in the air. "I know my Gear has enough room for a passenger or two or three, though three would be pret-ty tight. N' there's got to be others too with room on their Gears." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"... I don't really follow what you mean," Elly tells Gwen. "I don't think I wouldn't, not punch him, if you had the opportunity, though. He's done a great many evil things, and I imagine we haven't heard of everything, either."

She looks at Eika and says, with an obscure kind of misery, "I don't really know. For all I know the Emperor died a long time ago, and there's just... just a..."

Elly presses her fingertips to her temple and is quiet for a few long moments. ("Oh, please do," she says to Fei on the topic of getting shot less often.)

"... A bridge like that between two planets... it would have to be made out of impossible materials," Elly says to Riesenlied, because megaconstructions are more comfortable than digging in, nice and DEEP, in the prospect that a background character of your childhood is quite possibly a murdered puppet for a total bastard. "But there could be a connection. When the Tzadkiel, a Gebler craft, was downed on Lunar, there was some talk that they would launch a resupply rocket. I don't know if it's a rumor, but doing that from a very high place would make sense, since you'd avoid most of the atmosphere."

"Maybe there's an entire space facility up there..."

To Gwen, though, she says, "It's enormous. I can show you on Vierge's radar screen. I'm sure Gears could operate if they could enter the tower, although I suppose it might be densely built up..."

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius' neck cranes up as Riesenlied makes mention about Alhazred and Krelian basically having been working hand-in-hand on at least her, and a hand goes to his forehead. These motions alone are normal for him and not too noteworthy.

     ...It does go that far, doesn't it. 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

"Religious," Jessie says, chewing on the word in description of the Emperor. He glances to Citan, briefly. "Saw what they said was the Emperor once or twice," he admits. "Video calls, mostly." Solaris has Skype, marking them as a truly decaying society. "Krelian, though...even back then, you might never see him, but it seemed like he'd had his fingers on everything from the city defense plans to the office staplers." His eyes narrow. "So yeah. Near as anyone can tell, the only one he answers to is himself."

His eyebrow arches damn near off his head, then, when Fei says he and a group had spoken to him. "Neat trick," he grunts. "I'd give you a real shiny dollar if you can do it twice."

So that Jessie can shoot Krelian, you see.

Billy, meanwhile, is at his seat, quietly trying to grapple with the whirlwind of emotions assaulting him. Solarian science lords, projects by the Ethos to destroy lives....he thinks back not just to the children he saved, but the thankful men and women and yes, older children, whom he gave to the Ethos refugee programs. Were they all destroyed? He's so torn up he doesn't even glare at Cyre for taunting him about the deeds of the Granas Church.

Jessie eyes him, but for the moment, leaves it be. Instead, he turns to answer Citan's question. "The head researcher - guy named Nikolai - had a crisis of faith, apparently. He dumped a bunch of the unredacted data into a Gear created as part of the project, loaded it into a catapult, uh, with his daughter, apparently, and set it to find its way to Shevat."

He shrugs. "Apparently that worked, because I spent five years looking for them on Filgaia and come up with bupkiss." 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida mainly knows Lan as 'cheerful young woman, almost certainly of Ignas Baskar origin, possible ties to Solaris. When she casually confirms those suspicions, Ida stares at her for a moment, realizes she's staring, blinks. "They," she says to the young woman, and that's all she gets out. She doesn't finish the thought. What did they do to her?

    And what does Fei remember? Ida gives her friend a concerned glance, but there's empathy in it. That empathy only deepens when Riesenlied speaks of her own trauma. Righteous anger fills her heart. "One monster enabling another," she says, venom in her words. "One is dead, now. Perhaps the two can catch up in hell."

    Ida is swearing in front of the orphans. It's that bad.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I...I mean I'll do my best." Fei says regarding being shot less.

Fei looks towards Riesenlied. His eyes widen sharply, and then he scowls, looking down at his knees. "...I... I'm sorry, Riesenlied. That he did that to you. That he did that to..."

Eels make him trail off. 

<Pose Tracker> Eika Zuse has posed.

"One person only," Eika says, about her Gear.

She has figured out the gist of the conversation, and so she straightens up from where she was learning. Carefully setting the mug she was drinking soup out of, she passes around the outside edge of the room, squeezing past people.

On her way past, she picks Billy's pocket. Sort of. She *anti*-picks Billy's pocket, tucking a scrap of paper where he probably won't notice it right this minute, but will when he empties said pockets later (she assumes that everybody does that before bed).

It reads only 'We need to talk.' and a location not far from the orphanage. A couple hours' walk. No time at all in a Gear.

Eika leaves it at that as she keeps working her way toward the door. She'll listen a bit more, but she's heard what she needs to. 

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Lan makes a vague face at the idea of riding in a Gear all the way up a tower that's apparently impossibly tall. It's fine when the Gear is just traveling horizontally and there's no fighting, but when they start going all over the place or there are missiles Lan is just out.

    Ida starts to say something to her, though, but trails off. Lan makes a quiet '?' sort of noise before realizing what the problem is. "--Oh, oops. I meant 'without wheelchair ramps', not... y'know, without wheelchairs, because wheelchairs and ramps are... uh, nevermind," she trails off, hopeful that she's properly explained herself and certainly pre-answered any questions Ida might have had.

    It seems like the discussion is starting to get to people even worse than she'd expected. Elly and Ethius look like they're starting to get headaches. As surreptitiously as possible, Lan digs into her bag and draws out two folded bits of paper - homemade 'envelopes' full of crushed and powdered herbs, which she passes off to them with a gesture that could charitably be referred to as 'take this with water'. 

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied's idea of a long bridge connecting two spheres is sadly a big improbability, as Elly explains. She pouts for a moment, but then says, "I suppose that is why the Elw Teleporters are so miraculous, mmm...?"

    The Tzadkiel... she still remembers it. She remembers being chased by it. She remembers Father tearing it in half before Leah--

    She cups her hands to her chest and bites her lip at Gwen. She looks at Ethius, as the quiet man looks to her.

    "No, no, Fei, I..." Riesenlied breathes sharply. She looks to Ida when her own anger washes over her. She breathes aloud, further. "It is just... another reason we need to stop Solaris."

    She doesn't sound very convincing, but it's the best she can do right now, ontop of--

    "More storyyy," whines the child, perhaps sensing that Riesenlied needs a distraction.

    "T-the brave Gob travelled for five days, and climbed a cliff of forty sharls. There, he met a fellow friend at the end... a Hob!"

    "Hob-hob, hob hobbu-hob, gob." Hobs and Gobs and oh my... I'm Gobsmacked. 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "Do not think that I am 'inept', now, Fei!" Citan admonishes him, though the fact that he's struggling to keep a straight face may betray his true thoughts on the matter. "It is simply the case that I am not as accustomed to removing bullets. It was better that Lily take charge, with her skills."

    Riesenlied had told him about Krelian's hand in reshaping her form.

    He had heard, too, that Elly and Fei had met with Krelian. He had said that he had thought it a coincidence at the time, until the man had shown his true colors.

    But...

    Citan meets that look from Jessie, but says nothing until the older man has finished. "Yes... I do not think we had a single meeting with Krelian during the time the four of us were Elements. Perhaps Kahr has had more contact with him since, given his promotion since, but..." The doctor trails off, shaking his head.

    "Hmm... a tower that once united two worlds. I am not certain that would have been the case, Riesenlied, but I must admit the idea has a certain 'charm' to it..."

    He glances over at Jessie, pausing a moment as if to consider what the man's said. "I see... so it was the desperate act of a father... And you think that it succeeded?" Clearly it must have, or Jessie would have known it had been found or found it himself.

    He turns his attention back to Mirah. "Well then... I suppose we must investigate the tower. I wonder if such a means communicate does exist... or if it yet functions. Still, we have no other choice but to try." 

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Gwen rubs the back of her neck and gives Elly an apologetic look. "Er, well, I 'spose I was tryin' to sound all important there. I dunno, it just... feels like this guy came out of nowhere, until everyone connects the dots and realizes he's been there the entire time. Like a wrench that you were lookin' for because you *know* you saw it someplace, only you realize it's been in front of you." She sips her soup. "But yeah, I'd love a glance. It's hard wrappin' my mind around the fact that there'd be an inside at all."

    It takes a moment, when she glances back at Riesenlied, and sees hold her hands to her body.

    Now, she gets a better grasp of the context, and places a hand on Riesenlied shoulder, murmuring a soft apology under her breath.

    Now, seeing Lan deal with Ida, Gwen parts with Riesenlied, and goes over to the two. "It's a long story, Ida. I kinda... unintentionally broke her free. On accident. Due to, uh..." She makes a vague gesture with her hands, unsure of how to even insinuate the Stranger's influence without outright saying 'the weirdo with the blue eyes'. "But it all worked out!"

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