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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 15:17:22 GMT -5
"... Finally."
Motioning to Odin to follow him, Leo began to make his way back to the main group. As the sprinklers extinguished the flames, the dark prince pushed his hair up to keep it out of his face. "Odin, what's gotten into you? You've been acting stranger than usual ever since these other mages entered."
Odin's eyes flickered over to Tharja for a moment. The alarm bells were going off in his head. "M-Me? Strange? No, humble Odin is perfectly normal! I merely detect a malicious intent from below these floors!"
Leo raised an eyebrow, but opted to not say anything further. Par for the course with Odin.
Kaden began to crawl out from under the desk, making sure that there were no more of their insane cousins were about. Getting to his feet, the kitsune sighed in relief at the water. His burns were feeling less achy already. "Good thinking," he said to the trio of mages. Kaden then turned to Keaton. "Please tell me you're not keeping that."
Wordlessly, Nyx began to walk up to Keaton, pulling something orange out of her cape.
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 15:35:24 GMT -5
Tharja's gaze seemed to pierce right through Odin. The Sorcerer seemed to be taking her time inspecting the Dark Mage... finally, she wordlessly walked off, starting to inspect one of the corpses of the Feral Ones.
Keaton glanced at the skeleton... then shook his head. "Nah... nah, it's already bleached too much. 'Sides... it reeks of those... those other Wolfskin." Hissing slightly, Keaton crawled out from under the desk, looking over at Nyx. "...Ah! My Beaststone! You found it!" His tail wagged rapidly as he took the stone back, clutching it tightly. He could feel its warmth soaking into his body... though he still felt unclean, and not in the way he liked. "Augh... thanks."
Hayato held the stone he was carrying up to Kaden, giving the Kitsune a small smile as if they hadn't just gone through a massively life-threatening situation. "I... think this is yours?"
Ephraim knelt down by the White Dragon's corpse, inspecting the creature. Careful to avoid what acid remained, he took a closer look. "...This creature... it looks 'off'. Its limbs look malformed. What do you think, Eirika?"
Tharja had pulled several scales off of the dead creature while the others talked. "I could use these later..." She took another look at Odin, frowning. There was something being hidden there, and she would get the story eventually.
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 17:30:16 GMT -5
"Ooh! My Beaststone! You found it!" Kaden's tail wagged slightly as he accepted the orange stone from Hayato. Ahh, that warmth was soothing. Even if he still felt dirty, and not from the fighting, fire, and chemicals. "Uh... dumb question, but where did you guys find them?" Nyx remained silent, shooting Keaton a look that just said that she would hex the stone to his palm if he lost it again. She continued to walk in silence, examining the fallen beasts. Their eyes were sunken in, their fur dull...
"... It looks like Morva." Eirika noted the discoloured patches of scales on the white dragon, not a result of the acid that had splattered all over it. Like the kitsune and wolfskin that had attacked them, its eyes were sunken in. Unnatural.
As Odin tried to avoid direct contact with Tharja, Leo grabbed what seemed to be a journal. Flipping through the pages, the dark prince scowled. Something about the handwriting... Something about beasts...
Nyx knelled before a fallen kitsune. She chanted something. From the fallen fox's mouth came a slurry of chemicals, extracted into a beaker.
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 17:35:34 GMT -5
Hayato gave Kaden a gentle pat on the shoulder, very pointedly trying to keep eye contact with the Kitsune; now that the adrenaline had worn off, the atmosphere of the lab was setting in, and he did not like it one bit, if the occasional shudder from the Diviner was any indication. "Out in the snow out there. They were glowing brightly enough that we were able to see them despite the nasty weather."
"Exactly." Ephraim frowned as he got a closer look at the creature. "But I don't think it's exactly the same. If it was like those dark magics, then this beast should have just been skeletal, wouldn't you think?"
"...Disgusting." Tharja grimaced as she saw the chemicals drip from the dead fox. "But a curious spell that was... I take it that that liquid is responsible for what we just witnessed?"
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 17:49:51 GMT -5
"More than likely," Nyx responded, grimacing at the slurry in the beaker. It smelled like death, a sick shade of black. "I've read of a drug created by a depraved mage in a distant land, that when given to beastfolk, locks them into one state and drives them mad..."
Sensing the young Diviner's discomfort, Kaden placed a hand on Hayato's shoulder. "Huh? So... something turned them mad..." His tail twitched. A wave of worry passed over the kitsune; what if he and Keaton had also been infected by that drug and it was just on a delayed reaction??
Eirika nodded. While this dragon was obviously tainted, it was not purely a magical corruption. Going by what Nyx said... "It seems to be a mixture of magic and chemicals."
With disgust evident on his face, Leo slammed the journal down on a desk with perhaps a bit more force than need be. Even going by what little he had extracted from it, even without a name to put to it...
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 18:43:34 GMT -5
Hayato turned towards Nyx as she spoke, brow furrowed. "...So how did it get here then? Did we land in that 'distant land'?"
Keaton got visibly uncomfortable at what Nyx said; the wolfskin's tail lashed irregularly and he tapped the toe of his boot on the floor.
"I wouldn't have thought that possible, but..." Takumi shook his head. "At this point, we probably have to throw out our normal ideas of what is and isn't possible. What's that?" He gestured to the journal that Leo slammed down. "Did you find that here?"
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 19:13:51 GMT -5
"This."
Leo flipped open the book to a page with illustrations.
"Is a partial experiment log. Look."
The dark prince made a gesture suggesting everyone look.
On the page was a depiction of a kitsune with sunken, manic eyes, frothing at the mouth, fangs bared.
-----
Log #021
Working. Had to lower the dosage to avoid instant death.
Dissection revealed shrunken cortex.
Specimens uncontrollable. Terminated.
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 19:24:08 GMT -5
"What the..." Oboro looked over the page, before flipping it to the next. "This is insane..."
-----
Log #24
Dosage was too low from earlier attempts. Ineffective. Partial muscle atrophy occurred.
Specimen perished within half an hour from asphyxiation.
-----
Keaton's eye twitched a bit as the group turned a few pages ahead, seeing a diagram of a Wolfskin. The ink on the log was illegible, but the image made it clear; that subject had gone into a frenzy shortly after receiving the dosage.
"What kind of depraved psychopath would do something like this," Takumi said in bewilderment. "What could you hope to gain out of this?"
"Some kind of 'weapon', I'd wager," Ephraim responded. "Whoever wrote this was likely planning to use these feral beasts against others."
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 20:22:34 GMT -5
"... Bastard."
Kaden felt his claws come out, quickly removing his palm from Hayato's shoulder. The kitsune wasn't normally the type to swear, but seeing the log, the results with his own eyes... He couldn't suppress the growl coming from his throat.
The sounds outside indicated the blizzard was still raging. Having had enough of the damn book, Leo tucked it away inside his coat. "... If only there was a face for this." Looking around at the mess and monstrosities in the lab, he sighed. "We won't be able to travel until the blizzard dies down. For at least a few hours, we're going to have to hide in here."
Kaden looked up, noticing a door to the side. "Hey. There's a safe place... Or at least as safe as we can get in here."
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 20:46:05 GMT -5
Kaden's curse got a glance over the shoulder from Hayato. He'd never heard the kitsune use words like that before... though it wasn't all that surprising. He didn't like Leo's suggestion, but he had to admit that the Nohrian prince had a point.
"Whatever we can get..." Keaton opened up the door, peeking inside the next room; it seemed empty, and less decayed in some ways. It seemed secure... for the moment.
As the group went into the room, Keaton staggered over to one of the somewhat-intact couches in the room, laying down with a low hiss. "Ghh... ow..." The water had helped, but he still ached.
Orochi set up a chair against the door they'd come through once she'd shut it, sighing before turning to the rest of the group. "Now then... it's nice to see some more familiar faces. Could someone please get us up to date with what's going on here?"
As Hinata went over to start helping folks tend to their injuries, Oboro leaned against one of the desks in the room. "It's a bit of a story," she said, folding her arms, "but here's what we know so far..."
She began to fill the newcomers in on what the larger group had gone through leading up to coming to the lab, and what they knew about where they were.
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Post by DanteMGalileo on Mar 11, 2019 21:21:31 GMT -5
Kaden had collapsed on one of the couches alongside Keaton, tail coiled up to his face as he lay down. Gods, he needed rest, but he tried to keep his eyes open just long enough to hear what was going on. So, they weren't in the kingdom that Corrin and Corrinne spoke of? Dang...
Nyx had pulled up a strange chair with wheels to sit on. "So..." the petite mage started. "If what you told us is correct, we are not in the other kingdom, but rather another world altogether..." This concept didn't seem to phase the dark mage as much as it should have. That being said, the oldest of the group noted their new allies, not of their world...
"The innkeeper spoke of something to the west. It's a sandy place, from what I heard." Leo looked over his shoulder. Odin was uncharacteristically trying to make himself look small. Niles kept glancing out the window as lookout, for enemies or a break in the blizzard. Eirika had found a strange black device and packages, and seemed to be trying to figure out just what they were for. "... Now that I've said that, does anyone remember looking up at the sky before the blizzard came in? There was an unusual dark patch in the distance..."
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Post by ShadesofGrey18 on Mar 11, 2019 21:34:33 GMT -5
Keaton had already fallen asleep by the time the group began talking; he snored lightly, ears occasionally twitching.
Takumi nodded, having pulled up another chair. "That seems to be the case. As of right now, we have no idea where the rest of our group are. I don't remember seeing any dark patches..."
"I could sense it." Tharja chose that moment to speak up, startling Orochi with how quiet she'd been before. "...A dark presence. Evil in nature. Not only that... Robin. He's here, too."
"Begging your pardon, miss...?" Ephraim started.
"Tharja. And Robin is... someone who I am rather close to. He is a tactician from the same world I came from." She shot another glance over at Odin but returned her gaze back to Ephraim. "We have a... connection of sorts, you could say, thanks to something that happened back in our world. It is faint. But I think I know where he might be."
"And where would that be," Takumi responded.
"Somewhere to the south of here."
"Around where the innkeeper said that city was, then..." Ephraim said. "I suppose that'd probably be our next destination once the weather's cleared up enough. Hopefully that doesn't take too long."
"Yeah..." Hayato shivered. "I don't want to stay here longer than we can help it."
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