amenities

As the skull of the great horned beast that Cain had seemed shattered brittly on the hard dirt, Michael was blessed not only with a thankfully human face but the very transition of Cain’s laughter to dismay. As Michael stepped forward to claim the scythe dug in the dirt, he paused. He had seen the expression on Cain’s face, the very way he fell before— the anger was nothing like a defeated one. It was rage, embarrassment with taking an enemy too easily. It didn’t signify Cain’s defeat, his falling to the ground, not at all, no. It signified Cain’s realization that it was time to step things up a notch.
Luckily, Tori’s scanners were active on the entire area. Even the Warmind had to dip and dodge away from vines and snatching ghost hands manifested by the Puppet Master as she relayed her statistics to her master.
Even as the realization settled on Michael, the vicarious sensation of a rising threat drove him to fall backward instead of grabbing Cain’s scythe. Just as he lifted his feet and lurched back, a spike penetrated the earth tipped with purple sediment right where the arch of his left foot had been a moment earlier.
‘Avoid the purple sir,’ came Tori’s voice in Michael’s head. ‘It’s poisoned with Maleficence!’
Cain rose from his stomach to his feet with supernatural quickness, without even seeming to push himself upward.
“Why now?” asked Cain as he rose and Michael fell. “Why, after all these years, have you come? And alone?”
While Michael stared, almost dazed by Cain’s hypnotic eyes, the muck that had spilled from the cauldron began boiling even though it was rapidly cooling.

"A toast?"
The woman continued where the man had left off, languid and content as she drifted off into the hollow depths of his blue eyes.  A girl could lose herself there, could lose herself and never, ever, come back, and this one might have.  Where the man was the wild ram's masculinity, she was it's opposite- a beautiful brunette, thin and lithe, wearing an angelic gold mask above a flowing, shoulder-less, black silk cocktail dress.
Like Little Red, the lure was one she had prepared exactly, and like the fair girl in the red riding hood, with the day's work behind her she lay with her Wolf and waited.  The display was perfection, purposeful, and intentioned; an exhibition nudged to excellence with her delicate, feminine hand until it precisely portrayed the emotion and weight she wanted.  For this piece, she had set out to breathe life to the uncanny valley- to invoke unsettled normalcy; surreal, imagined but wrong, like a table set with all spoons or a child napping in a head basket.
Why?  Who knew.  
In all her dealings, her wants were her own.
The dining room was immaculate- the rest of the house, untouched.  The table they sat at was bare to its high gloss wood and let to reflect the edges of her golden mask and his musk, but there was no carpet, no drapes, no fabric of any kind anywhere, and its lack lent the room a hollow death that scraped the nerves.
"To hospitality," she said after an unceasingly long moment, making her first movement as she cupped the crystal wine glass in the palm of her hand and hoisted it to the flickering firelight, waiting for him to join her raised glass before she finished,  "And new friends."
She had spent months following Lala's exploits.  Only luck had brought the skeleton to her attention-- bad luck, on Lala's part, and good on her own.  It had been a singular triumph that the poisoner had the unfortunate circumstance to target one of Phoebe's marks and therefore rise above the muck to her emerald sight.  His name had been Raoul Sirhan, and while he was a rich fuck, he was her rich fuck.  As one of her cross-ocean trading partners, Raoul had the good fortune to benefit from her insider knowledge. With his winnings, he financed a handful of her unmentionable side projects, and she fed him information, and the circle of life went on.
Until it didn't-- until he had a heart attack last month, at thirty-five, and being a suspicious woman, she had set her considerable resources on determining why.
Guess what she found?
"We want her," she recalled telling him late one Tuesday night, as they met up for drinks, and she handed him a stack of data crystals with the information she gathered-- bodies were examined, autopsies pulled, until she could present him with a full picture, a plan, and a crafted set of antibodies that could fight back Lala's unique corruptions.
They had agreed without words, and so they sat here now, lost in one another's eyes with glasses lifted to the light, then drank.
No one died.

Memories of sparring with his father, former Lieutenant Andrew Jorjorean of the Tian Problem Solvers, were sustained in a raw suspension in Ash’s mind from the day he’d lost him to Cain’s grasp. If Ash could not be afraid, and he must be brave, he must also survive if he wanted to complete his ultimate mission against the man who stole his father away.
"You... DARE?!"
Ash was still holding the warped cocktail table as his shield. While he had exposed himself, he wasn’t utterly defenseless, and he did have a moment or two between the throwing of his blade, its striking its intended target, and Amirah’s rebuttal attack. In that time, Ash exercised the finest block he knew how with such a mechanism: stooping to his right knee and hiding as much of his body behind the shield as possible, he slanted its face so that Amirah’s blast would not meet it like a straight up-and-down wall, but a ramp that would redirect more force than it fought against.
Even so, after a moment of the shield superheating against his skin, he was tossed into the air like a ragdoll, the wind beat out of his chest like a drum. Himura’s underweared figure flew across the roof, but he was still cognizant enough to land on his feet. Now he had been sufficiently blown out of the main line of enemy sights, he picked up one of the guards’ comms devices.
He could tell based on their separate trajectories and the ongoing buzz that Phoebe and him were very far apart, and Shikai was dealing with Amirah. He still groaned with his hand against his stomach, trying to regain his breath, but his mind was all there. He started skirting around the roof toward Phoebe as discretely as he’d made his way this way a minute earlier.
When he reached Phoebe, her sight would finally be piecing itself back together.
“Hey,” he hissed urgently with furrowed brows, a sorta funny look for a half naked guy with burnt hair. “Weren’t you gonna eat her with the Mindgorger or something? Bust that shit out! Like really use it!”
Sullied by attacks, a splotch of blood dripping down his left cheek, Ash's eyes bore a battlereadiness Phoebe hadn't seen since their training together on the mountain.

His very first kill— a Queen— had cost him, nearly along with his life, his family and the last of his expiring race. His next kill was a fisherman. After that an armed guard, a wyvern, two princes. A cruise ship. An entire megacity. There are ten ways to kill a cat, he learned over all those years, but it was what you could do with the body afterwards that grew to interest him more. Power is always misused, he used to say, unless it’s by you.
Cutting deals with the veritable and swindling the weak, he rose to criminal infamy whilst dividing his fortune among his favorite little things that went bump in the night. Whilst dividing his mind and soul between the bodies he puppetized. He and his purpose bore about them a gravitational pull, such that by the workings of his hands he gathered around him like a cloak the darkest shades of black that the depthless Valucre had to offer, the meticulous spinning of its yarn gathering of the Dead. 
The Puppet Master toiled endlessly to develop and empower his Blood Magic. From the beginning he saved the bodies of those he’d killed, experimenting on them and thereby perfecting a device that channeled his magic into them latently, creating autonomous meat machines that lived for him without his continuous sustenance. Creating ecosystems of hiveminds, going so far as creating new brains for thousands in the peripheral as the Dead rose to power in Valucre’s underground, the man himself eventually succumbed to monumental physical and immaterial stress and was forced to create an avatar, a peek version of himself that could act as a valve to continue the cycle of life and death that continues to be Cain Rose.
So it is that his original body, the Shadow, lies within a labyrinth of Cain’s creation while the avatar, the Earthbreaker continues his will. Now the neural system of the Puppet Master’s strings is a web that reaches every continent, the spiders that are the Dead’s agents weaving their enemies into traps worldwide on an insidiously individually capable and daily basis.
Have you gotten a new milkman lately? It might be him. Have you had the same milkman for a decade? It still might be him...
The only thing that was certain is that there were no certainties with the Dead. Most criminals, especially those of the serial killer variety, keep to themselves. Besides cases of killer-to-killer adoration or rivalry, most killers and criminals of the clandestine cut never even find out about one another in the same time period during which they exist! So if Lala even was aware of the Dead, in her blissful jaunt from one victim to another, it was unlikely that she thought they would ever come for her. Little did she know, she was a perfect specimen for the cult. Little did she know, they’d had their eyes on her.
Lilting up into the silent recesses of the house, Lala would find it eerie. The fireplace was lit, the heat and lights were on, the family’s luxurious steam-powered sedan was parked in the underground garage, but the entire home was entirely silent. Lala could wait and wait in whatever the best spot she found was, but as long as she waited nothing would happen. As uncertainty set in the only thing that was certain was the fact that this was not going as she had initially planned.
Eventually Lala might feel compelled to journey out of her spot, probe into the apparently occupied but naggingly idle setting, and when she did, she would find a singular man and woman sitting across from one another at a bare table in the large dining room. Both of them bore masks like one might expect at a masquerade or some satanic orgy, the man’s red hair falling in rivulets over the horned ram concealing his pale face down to just above the lips.
Before each of them sat a glass of wine, filled particularly with the contents of the bottle she’d tampered with.
“Hello,” said the man without intonation. He seemed ever so lost in the woman’s eyes across from him, so much so that he did not move but for his lips when she entered. “Would you sit with us?”

His very first kill— a Queen— had cost him, nearly along with his life, his family and the last of his expiring race. His next kill was a fisherman. After that an armed guard, a wyvern, two princes. A cruise ship. An entire megacity. There are ten ways to kill a cat, he learned over all those years, but it was what you could do with the body afterwards that grew to interest him more. Power is always misused, he used to say, unless it’s by you.
Cutting deals with the veritable and swindling the weak, he rose to criminal infamy whilst dividing his fortune among his favorite little things that went bump in the night. Whilst dividing his mind and soul between the bodies he puppetized. He and his purpose bore about them a gravitational pull, such that by the workings of his hands he gathered around him like a cloak the darkest shades of black that the depthless Valucre had to offer, the meticulous spinning of its yarn gathering of the Dead. 
The Puppet Master toiled endlessly to develop and empower his Blood Magic. From the beginning he saved the bodies of those he’d killed, experimenting on them and thereby perfecting a device that channeled his magic into them latently, creating autonomous meat machines that lived for him without his continuous sustenance. Creating ecosystems of hiveminds, going so far as creating new brains for thousands in the peripheral as the Dead rose to power in Valucre’s underground, the man himself eventually succumbed to monumental physical and immaterial stress and was forced to create an avatar, a peek version of himself that could act as a valve to continue the cycle of life and death that continues to be Cain Rose.
So it is that his original body, the Shadow, lies within a labyrinth of Cain’s creation while the avatar, the Earthbreaker continues his will. Now the neural system of the Puppet Master’s strings is a web that reaches every continent, the spiders that are the Dead’s agents weaving their enemies into traps worldwide on an insidiously individually capable and daily basis.
Have you gotten a new milkman lately? It might be him. Have you had the same milkman for a decade? It still might be him...
The only thing that was certain is that there were no certainties with the Dead. Most criminals, especially those of the serial killer variety, keep to themselves. Besides cases of killer-to-killer adoration or rivalry, most killers and criminals of the clandestine cut never even find out about one another in the same time period during which they exist! So if Lala even was aware of the Dead, in her blissful jaunt from one victim to another, it was unlikely that she thought they would ever come for her. Little did she know, she was a perfect specimen for the cult. Little did she know, they’d had their eyes on her.
Lilting up into the silent recesses of the house, Lala would find it eerie. The fireplace was lit, the heat and lights were on, the family’s luxurious steam-powered sedan was parked in the underground garage, but the entire home was entirely silent. Lala could wait and wait in whatever the best spot she found was, but as long as she waited nothing would happen. As uncertainty set in the only thing that was certain was the fact that this was not going as she had initially planned.
Eventually Lala might feel compelled to journey out of her spot, probe into the apparently occupied but naggingly idle setting, and when she did, she would find a singular man and woman sitting across from one another at a bare table in the large dining room. Both of them bore masks like one might expect at a masquerade or some satanic orgy, the man’s red hair falling in rivulets over the horned ram concealing his pale face down to just above the lips.
Before each of them sat a glass of wine, filled particularly with the contents of the bottle she’d tampered with.
“Hello,” said the man without intonation. He seemed ever so lost in the woman’s eyes across from him, so much so that he did not move but for his lips when she entered. “Would you sit with us?”

His very first kill— a Queen— had cost him, nearly along with his life, his family and the last of his expiring race. His next kill was a fisherman. After that an armed guard, a wyvern, two princes. A cruise ship. An entire megacity. There are ten ways to kill a cat, he learned over all those years, but it was what you could do with the body afterwards that grew to interest him more. Power is always misused, he used to say, unless it’s by you.
Cutting deals with the veritable and swindling the weak, he rose to criminal infamy whilst dividing his fortune among his favorite little things that went bump in the night. Whilst dividing his mind and soul between the bodies he puppetized. He and his purpose bore about them a gravitational pull, such that by the workings of his hands he gathered around him like a cloak the darkest shades of black that the depthless Valucre had to offer, the meticulous spinning of its yarn gathering of the Dead. 
The Puppet Master toiled endlessly to develop and empower his Blood Magic. From the beginning he saved the bodies of those he’d killed, experimenting on them and thereby perfecting a device that channeled his magic into them latently, creating autonomous meat machines that lived for him without his continuous sustenance. Creating ecosystems of hiveminds, going so far as creating new brains for thousands in the peripheral as the Dead rose to power in Valucre’s underground, the man himself eventually succumbed to monumental physical and immaterial stress and was forced to create an avatar, a peek version of himself that could act as a valve to continue the cycle of life and death that continues to be Cain Rose.
So it is that his original body, the Shadow, lies within a labyrinth of Cain’s creation while the avatar, the Earthbreaker continues his will. Now the neural system of the Puppet Master’s strings is a web that reaches every continent, the spiders that are the Dead’s agents weaving their enemies into traps worldwide on an insidiously individually capable and daily basis.
Have you gotten a new milkman lately? It might be him. Have you had the same milkman for a decade? It still might be him...
The only thing that was certain is that there were no certainties with the Dead. Most criminals, especially those of the serial killer variety, keep to themselves. Besides cases of killer-to-killer adoration or rivalry, most killers and criminals of the clandestine cut never even find out about one another in the same time period during which they exist! So if Lala even was aware of the Dead, in her blissful jaunt from one victim to another, it was unlikely that she thought they would ever come for her. Little did she know, she was a perfect specimen for the cult. Little did she know, they’d had their eyes on her.
Lilting up into the silent recesses of the house, Lala would find it eerie. The fireplace was lit, the heat and lights were on, the family’s luxurious steam-powered sedan was parked in the underground garage, but the entire home was entirely silent. Lala could wait and wait in whatever the best spot she found was, but as long as she waited nothing would happen. As uncertainty set in the only thing that was certain was the fact that this was not going as she had initially planned.
Eventually Lala might feel compelled to journey out of her spot, probe into the apparently occupied but naggingly idle setting, and when she did, she would find a singular man and woman sitting across from one another at a bare table in the large dining room. Both of them bore masks like one might expect at a masquerade or some satanic orgy, the man’s red hair falling in rivulets over the horned ram concealing his pale face down to just above the lips.
Before each of them sat a glass of wine, filled particularly with the contents of the bottle she’d tampered with.
“Hello,” said the man without intonation. He seemed ever so lost in the woman’s eyes across from him, so much so that he did not move but for his lips when she entered. “Would you sit with us?”

It was past midnight and the house was silent when she woke up in a cold, nauseating sweat. 
Lisanne Orlos lay next to her husband, her breath coming in quick, ragged gasps. Eyes that had before been restlessly shut had flown open and stared with brimming anxiety into the void of a lightless bedroom. A nightmare had preceded this unpleasant awakening -- great looming dark figures had crowded her in dark, red halls, chattering down at her in a mumbley kind of language she didn't understand, and she'd felt heavy... far too heavy. She had tried to run, but as was the way with dreams, she only felt like she was running against a current, her legs slipping out from under her, the figures keeping easy pace... even now, in her wakened state, she could hear their muttering. 
She tried to lift her arms. Her fingers barely twitched: she was paralyzed.
She had felt unwell before bed, but had thought nothing of it at the time; something about dinner, perhaps, she had thought. They had visited a friend that evening, and the feature was some exotic bird whose name she couldn't pronounce, and she began to feel foggy, a bit nauseous shortly after they arrived home again. A bit of indigestion, maybe: some sleep would surely fix it. 
But as she slept it settled in, a growing, gnawing, heavy pit in her abdomen that seeped into her blood and made it sluggish. Even in the dream her head felt thicker, near to bursting, and was beginning to hurt; a sickness rolled around inside her that felt like it desperately needed to be expelled, but would go nowhere; her mouth tasted foul, old, and sour, and despite her greatest efforts she still couldn't move. The room swam with darker shapes than the shadows, and she could see swaths of that too-red place creeping in and out of the walls, the ceiling, peeking with invisible eyes as her own watched in growing panic. Seeking something to focus on, something that might bring her back to reality and end this awful paralysis, she shifted her gaze around the room -- and it settled on something that sent her panic skyrocketing into sheer terror. 
At the corner of the bed, one of the figures from her dream still stood: it was tall and thin, like an emaciated shadow with no face. As she watched, its featureless, awkward-looking head tilted slowly, and she realized quickly that it was staring right at her. 
For several horrible moments that stretched ever onward, Lisanne held her gaze on the creature until finally, her will broke through and she forced herself to sit upright with a scream. The bedside lamp on her husband's side flipped on with a click, and she turned to him quickly, breath hitching in terrified sobs; he was a rational man and could certainly talk her down from--
All her gasping and whimpering stopped. Next to her sat not her husband, but a sagging, crooked thing, with stringy, wet dark hair, soggy skin, and a sharp hunch in its back. Rags in the vague shape of the nightclothes her husband had been wearing hung off its lank form. As she watched, her heart all but hammering right out of her ribcage, and it twisted its head around to look at her. 
It's eyes were deep, huge, and cavernous; its mouth, dripping with rivulets of thick, yellow saliva, stretched into an unnaturally wide and shark-like smile. 
"Darling," It purred. Lisanne found her breath and gave another cry of disgust and dismay, and tumbled out of the bed, tearing a path towards the door and the stairs that went down to the first floor. 
Behind her, Edward Orlos sat dumbfounded where his wife left him, sitting up in bed, having flipped on the bedside lamp. His brow furrowed in a mixture of concern and complete confusion; lifting his arms, he examined his arms and legs -- she'd looked at him like she'd just seen him kill a man, but he could find nothing wrong with himself. Realizing something must have happened with her, Edward hopped off the bed and hurried his way downstairs, hearing her rummaging around somewhere down there in a panic. 
"Liz?! Hey, what's going on?" He called out to her, pausing on one landing to listen, but received no answer. With a sigh and a frown, he continued and followed the din into the kitchen. 
Inside, Lisanne hunted through maid-organized drawers and cupboards, her hands shaking so badly they could scarcely grab any knobs or handles. The room seemed to swim in and out of focus, in and out of shape, and the foul taste was getting worse. She could hear voices, distant, but layered and aggressive as rushing water, and she couldn't understand what they were saying. Finally, her hands found purchase on an object she rarely held, but certainly recognized, and just in time to hear footsteps nearing, and entering the doorway. 
She whirled around to see it creep in, and it was much, much taller than it had initially looked: it stooped low to enter through the kitchen doorway, its disgusting hair and yellowed strands of spit hanging and waving as it moved. Lizanne shrank against the counter, whimpering, tears running down her pretty middle-aged face, but too afraid to make any other noise. 
"Darling," It crooned again, its enormously long legs making painfully slow strides across the tiled floor -- its voice changed, becoming feminine, disapproving: 
"You knew this was a bad idea, didn't you? You knew he was no good..." 
"Mother....?" Liz Orlos barely managed to eke out, and now she did start to sob, airy and weak like a little child.
"I told you over and over again, he would get you into trouble. He's not a good man. I told you."
"No....." She breathed again, "He... he loves me..." 
"He's buying you, just like we did. You've always liked being spoiled. Do you even care where the money is coming from?" The thing stepped closer, but she had nowhere to go. She tried to avoid looking right at it, tried to parse out her other escape options, but in her terrified state she found none.
"Please...." She begged it. 
"You're such a stupid, selfish girl." 
Lisanne screamed as it came within arm's reach, and thrust the knife she'd been holding up, aimless, just hoping to hit something -- and the taunting, the rasping voice, all stopped, replaced by silence and an ugly, feeble gurgling. Still crying, still shaking, she let go of the knife and heard the thing collapse to the floor. 
The voices ceased. The room began to settle, and the foul taste in her mouth faded slightly. Exhausted, she sank slowly onto her knees on the floor and sat there quietly, sniffling, sobbing, and trying to collect herself. When her thoughts began to finally organize themselves, and the subsequent nausea of panic leveled out, she finally took the risk of looking at it again; just to make sure it was dead. Cautiously, she turned her head towards where the dark shape lay.
And began to scream anew. 
On the floor, of course, was not a horrible-looking creature: Edward Orlos lay on the floor in his sleeping clothes, the handle of a kitchen knife jutting out of his mouth. 
As people began to gather on the street outside, and as law enforcement rushed in to investigate the disturbance, the tall, black, awkward-looking figure that had spied on Lisanne Orlos as she lay trapped in sleep paralysis, slipped easily out the back door, and made a silent but cheery waltz through the alley away from the scene of the crime.
***********************************
And about two hours later, Lala Besschentyil silently waltzed into the backroom of her next victims. 
It had been all she could do to keep from humming with pleasure, and it had been all she could do not to laugh at Edward and Lisanne Orlos: Edward was a crooked businessman who owned a mill out in the sticks, one staffed entirely by prison inmates. Since it was somewhat remote, and nobody cared about criminals, they were frequently underfed, lodgings were uncomfortable, and some had even died when their hearts simply gave out, unable to keep up with the working conditions and demands at once. Lala didn't exactly have a bleeding heart, but when she had seen how much Lisanne enjoyed being spoiled with things that came from the money made from such an enterprise, it was simply too good of an excuse. 
And momma had always taught her never to pass up an excuse to do something nasty. 
An annoyed, barely-audible hiss escaped her dry teeth, filtered out through black cloth. It was a simple but effective disguise -- she just clad herself entirely in swaths of black cloth, wrapping even her face and head, and not only was she harder to see, but those who did see her often thought her some uncanny-valley hallucination, a shadow that was human-adjacent, but not quite close enough to be picked out. It was what she wore beneath her brighter daytime robes, beneath her mask -- she had seen it in a mirror once and decided right then and there that she absolutely had to do night-crawling in it.
Her current location, about halfway across the city from where Lisanne Orlos was being arrested and interrogated, was a dingy wine cellar in the home of Duane Leeds -- a business partner of Edward's, and as far as she knew, just as low on scruples. It would be an easy enough procedure: poison his precious wine, of which he was a collector, and watch him Work. The biggest issue was getting in and out of the cellar unseen, but currently it seemed no one was home, so she had a free pass on this one. 
The second biggest issue was figuring out which bottle to spit in. For a couple of minutes she stood stock-still in there, looking around at the countless amount of bottles from different locales and of different persuasions, and felt her spirit Frown. This was too many choices. 
"O, to be a rich fuck," She whispered, and spotted out three bottles that were out standing on a ledge near the stairwell. They seemed to have been recently cleared of dust, and she boldly assumed that this meant they would be taken upstairs and consumed sometime soon; and even if they weren't consumed tonight, they would be eventually. 
Delighted by this new revelation, Lala walked silently up to the ledge and took the bottle closest to the stairwell, pressing the top against her face in the vague region of the mouth. To the naked eye, nothing was happening -- but a close inspection would show the cork darkening rapidly with the contact, and through the tinted glass of the bottle, a brackish sludge oozing its way through the cork and down the neck of the bottle into its contents. Several moments passed and Lala simply took the bottle away from her "mouth" and set it back on the ledge where it had been before, the cork regaining most of its former color, then crept up the stairs into the main house. With the coast still clear for the moment, she picked a suitable hiding place within its many rooms where her black-clad form would not be spotted out...
...and waited. 

Arm of Cabal Big O
(This information can be found in Cain's history above, but I am posting it here for ease of reference.)
Basic Template
A. Antipsionic Barrier: A barrier that can be erected in the event of an attack upon the person by a psion that will utilize the open path formed by the psionic attack to overload the others brain with too much foul energy, causing it to rapidly decay until nothing but mush.
B. Conversion Matrix: A framework that is meant to precede a basic spell in order to siphon the energy from a clashing spell into its framework and augment that basic spell, or, alternatively, serve as a red herring for said clashing spell.
C. The Trispell: A dispel that operates in three parts, one which is a gathering of information, the second which uploads said information into the third part, which dispels the entirety of whatever magical construct Cain is facing.
Dialectic I
A. String Backlash: For those who want to attempt to cut the Puppeteer's connection to his puppets, this backlash will ensure that any attempt to do so is met with either a Mental Break, a Magical Backlash, or a Magical Bounce. (Preps: Quickdraw)
B. Call Puppet: Used for summoning the puppets to a location where he does not normally maintain them.(Preps: 1)
C. Restore Puppet: Used for on-the-go repairs to puppets, although the preparatory time needed varies depending upon how close the puppet is to Cain, and how damaged it is. (Preps: 1-5)
D. The Interchange: By manipulating the strings between puppets and puppeteer, Cain is now able to rapidly change places with his puppets simply through an extension of his will. (Preps: 1)
Dialectic II
A. Physical String: In those cases where magical strings cannot be maintained well enough to serve their purpose, physical strings will be composed. Depending upon how long this transition is prepped, they will function like normal string to diamond string. (Preps: 1-4)
B. Sever String: In those instances where a string is being used in an effort to harm the puppeteer, this spell is available as a last resort, allowing him to simply sever the string at its base. (Preps: None, Quickdraw.)
C. Create String: After a string has been severed, it may be necessary to spawn a new string, or new strings in order to reestablish control over a puppet. (Preps: None, Quickdraw.)
D. Explosive String: A technique that is created by lacing three strings together and tying them to a single puppet, when the string is broken, its stable mana connection is disrupted, and cues a disruptive and explosive detonation of mana. (Preps: 1-3)
Dialectic III
A. Alter Self (False): This ability allows Cain to appear as though he is a puppet even though he is not, allowing him to hide among the ranks of his troops with the efficacy of a well-trained strategist. (Preps: 1)
B. The Interchange (Puppet-to-Puppet): Via manipulation of the strings that bind puppet to user to puppet, this allows the rapid displacement and changing of positions of respective puppets while in the midst of combat, allowing Cain to rapid-fire juggle his weapons in regards to their positions. (Preps: 1)
C. Assimilate Ability: A single ability from a single puppet may be brought from its original host into Cain's body, allowing him to wield its power for up to ten turns before returning. It should be mentioned that the ability will no longer be available to the original host during this period. (Prep: 1)
D. Bind Soul: The final ability of Cain's bracer, this allows for the active transformation of another living being into a puppet. (IC)

belief. Power is always misused.
mission. Destroy the world’s most powerful one by one to set their people free.
Cain's aura manifests as a physical pressure exerting itself on all things around him.
 
name. Cain Rose
nickname. Puppetmaster, Earthbreaker
race. Shaman of Fear
primary class. Psychic
subclass. Blood mage
specialty. Engineer
subclass. Geomancer
alignment. Anti-hero
 
height. 6`1
weight. 195 lbs
build. Lean
hair. Red
hairstyle. Wild
eyes. Green
skin tone. Pale
primary hand. Right
 
The Earthbreaker
eye color. Yellow
-- the Troll becomes one with the body, visible in black lines around Cain’s eyes. This half of Cain can take on any appearance he desires.
Cain’s Shadow
eye color. Green
-- the Troll resolves as a black blotch that moves erratically beneath Cain's skin. By the nature of this Cain's original body being fueled by blood magic, blood can sustain it.


Innate Abilities
Cain’s Dialectic
Cain can interact with the metaphysical being of different physical bodies he comes into contact with. His control over the substance is proportionate to length of time of contact and his quality of focus.
Feed on Fear
Cain is strengthened in the presence of fear, no matter at whom the fear is directed or from whom it comes.


Special Abilities
Blood Magic
Any amount of blood is usable as ammunition for powerful unnatural manipulation of the mind and body, physical and ethereal. 
Heart of Alignak
Cain can enchant earth to act as an extension of the arm.
Living Puppetry
Interchange psionic control, total will control, dialectic, and physical string-like appendages over puppets; rapidly exchange puppet location and elements. Cain has revolutionized blood magic using his psychic inclinations and a technological coding technique in order to program orders and personalities into his puppets’ spare gray matter, as well as implanting altogether new grey matter synthesized by him. This way, puppets of Cain's can function on ways of life and attitudes without direct assertion by Cain.
Teramorphing
Possessed flesh or biomatter can be shaped into any creature within Cain's codex of puppets.
the Troll
A tattoo made of ink that was enchanted with the spirit and strength of a Troll. This tattoo can manifest outside of Cain's body in any shape.
 
Puppet Overview
Description: Living Puppetry
Cain is a psychic and a blood mage. Combining and honing these two skills since decades ago, he has pioneered the art of living puppetry; thus donning the moniker 'Puppet Master.' Cain has two methods for controlling the victims of his living puppetry. One is a short term method, the other a long term/permanent method.
1) If Cain slips a drop of his blood, or a piece of his body into somebody, he gains control over them for a couple days or maybe a week at most.
2) If Cain possesses a piece of the victim (ie: hair, fingernail, blood, limb, etc.), he is able to control them indefinitely. Disengaging a victim of this type of of living puppetry is often fatal.

Main
-- Four elemental puppets with Cain’s same physique but entirely the color of their element.
-- Poor Joseph: beloved town fisherman. power over spiritual flame [deadlier than normal flame. anything within a foot of the actual flame will experience severe burn. instantly incinerates on contact].
-- Ice Wyrm: 50 ft. ice dragon acquired from Shawnee Glacier.
-- Nica Sero: created to strive for best mayorship possible over the now dead town of Tia, Nica shares an unknown proportion of Cain's capabilities and thinks independently with increasing frequency.
-- Andrew Jorjorean, General of 11,000 Problem Solvers.
-- Risen dead: 250-300 undead of multiple races.
-- Rian Bilkes, entrepreneur and owner of Club Euphoria (Last Chance) as well as The Black Tarantula (Aspyn).
-- Gregory Rose, child clone of Cain.

Peripheral
-- ~1 million Tian citizens of human, gnome, goblin, and vampire origin
-- 50,000 child army
-- Builder Puppets
-- Worker Puppets
-- Last Chance Merchants
-- 11,000 Problem Solvers
 
Assets
-- Access to blueprints and materials for Tia issue Faux-ton receivers
-- Nica Sero
-- Girdy's Girders assets
-- Allegiance with a 10,000 strong vampire hunting group called the Rooks who were once faithful followers of Nica Sero in Tia. 
 
Features
Body Art
-- The Troll: A moving tattoo with the ability to regenerate all wounds except burns [one turn of healing per prep for effect to be taken], among other uses. This two-dimensional behemoth of immense strength has evolved to allow shapeshifting, incredible durability and malleability of the body it inhabits.
Scar Tissue
-- pin-sized hole through the right ring finger
-- thousands of puncture dots from right wrist to elbow
 
Proficiencies (each > symbolizes advancements since adolescence)
-- sword: >>skilled
-- projectile: >skilled
-- archery: >average
-- unarmed: >>>>mastered
-- axe: >average
-- staff: >>mastered
 
Armaments
Diabhail (Arm of Cabal [Templates: Basic, I, II, III] > Big O - floating runic stone ring around right wrist capable of critical physical and metaphysical damage)
Dual-bladed scythe, summonable, weightless
Name: PsyFun
Attributes: fused with a spear from Spires and Mists Event whose cuts may only be healed by the one who deals them.
Extras: feather on a leather strap, engraving
Length of Staff: 5 feet
Length of Blades: 3 feet
Curved daggers
Terrenus spec-ops blade, slide-and-lock wrist mechanism
 
Gallery
 
 

"Why would you let anyone do that to you?"
Sierra withering away from her flesh like ashes in the wind, Phoebe made a good point to her silent doppelganger. Why had any of the aberrations let themselves become this? The only response they would receive from the trio, for now, were their sick visages grinning in twisted resemblance back at them. And still, the laugh trickling like a distant stream in the background.
"They're all monkeys, puppets maybe- even yours. There's something else here, something bigger, but I don't know what.  You said you were here before, did you run into anything?"
Void Cain looked adoringly on his counterpart, the original back on him with disgust. It was Phoebe’s touch that snapped him out of it.
“I didn’t run into anything, but I felt it. They’re all one thing. Some trickster demon,” he said, the grins on their Void clones souring just slightly. “It uses traces of our magic and what it can make of our appearance to generate copies. Not even good ones, either.”
“Oh come on, you don’t need to ruin the fun,” laughed Void Phoebe.
With Shikai and the Dead Mistress’s answers, Void Cain held a finger in the air.
“Correct!” He said, leading them up the pier toward the blackened island. Fleets of white horses ran along the beach, scared away from where they grazed on white petals by the strangers. From the end of the pier, Void Shikai crouched. His coiled obsidian legs suddenly sprung him from the boards in a launch that sent waves crashing from either side of the pier as he rocketed through the air toward the horses. With the same motion as his landing, he used the replica of Mykur to slice one of the horses in half. Grabbing one half of the twitching animal under each arm, Void Shikai sprinted into the forest ahead of them. 
Soon they walked through the trees. Everything felt and smelled the way a normal forest would, but the colors were all inverted. There seemed to be no animals besides the horses with which the island was inundated.
Among one another, the Void creatures and the Dead walked together.
“Next riddle.” said Void Cain, plucking a low hanging fruit and biting his sharp teeth into it. “I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. Water, but no fish. What am I?”
The quiet laughter in the background seemed to be replaced by the quiet sounds of distress. Whinnying and beastial screeching scraped at the backs of their brains.

It smelled like dirt; like dirt and stale rot, and instead of invigorating Phoebe like the sea air did and reminding her of dalliances with Aristotle, it coated her tongue and soured her mood. 
"I didn't run into anything, but I felt it. They're all one thing. Some trickster demon," Cain said, his words drawing Phoebe back to the conversation through her fingertips' warm tether. "It uses traces of our magic and what it can make of our appearance to generate copies. Not even good ones, either."
"Oh come on, you don't need to ruin the fun," laughed Void Phoebe, drawing a bland, mockery of a smile from actual-Phoebe's full lips as she twisted, tight with murderous want, and suppressed violence.  It was unusual in Phoebe, but this thing in front of her scratched something primal with its unnaturalness.  The way it looked like her, talked like her, gestured like her, almost.  It was a living uncanny valley, a repulsive representation of her failures, and the more Phoebe looked at it, the more she was sure she couldn't suffer it to live.
Still, she walked. 
Biting back her revulsion, the First walked step-in-step with Cain as their footsteps hollow echo on the wooden deck gave way to the deadened, fragrant silence of crushed white petals.
She watched Shikai's double with a clinical, hate-filled chill.
"I'm not sure what that says about you," commented Phoebe after a moment, her words tossed back to the General as the malformed monster of a once-man landed from his bound, intestines spilling from the half-horse tucked under its veiny, swollen arm.  She may not have been sure, but her tone suggested she didn't think it was good.
The beach gave way to the forest; the stale rot to the scent of damp, cool vegetation, and with the change of scenery, Phoebe shook her arms gently and tried to cast her anger free.
"So, a mirror-land, but only almost.." she began, speaking to Cain as she walked, eyes traversing the forest's flip-flopped colors and occasionally checking and charting their doppelgangers courses.  "It's not everything; it's lazy- or maybe intended in a way we don't yet know. The forest is a true mirror, for example, but the horses haven't changed. Why the horses?" she mused. 
The hammered silver ring around her thumb bore the brunt of her thoughtfulness, traveling from finger to finger as she worked through the problems, thoughts occasionally fragmented by an equine scream.  After a minute, or five, or who knew because it all felt like an eternity to Phoebe, she ground her teeth and settled on the most obvious course of action-- she asked, swallowing the wretched wrongness as she called out to her mirror, "Hey, Phoebe." 
Fuck that felt weird.
"Why is he killing the horses? Seems more off than normal for Shikai."
The riddle was ignored- it was as if she assumed The Dead Mistress or Shikai would answer it and leave her to work through the less obvious questions.

Who's next? @amenities You up?

Memories of sparring with his father, former Lieutenant Andrew Jorjorean of the Tian Problem Solvers, were sustained in a raw suspension in Ash’s mind from the day he’d lost him to Cain’s grasp. If Ash could not be afraid, and he must be brave, he must also survive if he wanted to complete his ultimate mission against the man who stole his father away.
"You... DARE?!"
Ash was still holding the warped cocktail table as his shield. While he had exposed himself, he wasn’t utterly defenseless, and he did have a moment or two between the throwing of his blade, its striking its intended target, and Amirah’s rebuttal attack. In that time, Ash exercised the finest block he knew how with such a mechanism: stooping to his right knee and hiding as much of his body behind the shield as possible, he slanted its face so that Amirah’s blast would not meet it like a straight up-and-down wall, but a ramp that would redirect more force than it fought against.
Even so, after a moment of the shield superheating against his skin, he was tossed into the air like a ragdoll, the wind beat out of his chest like a drum. Himura’s underweared figure flew across the roof, but he was still cognizant enough to land on his feet. Now he had been sufficiently blown out of the main line of enemy sights, he picked up one of the guards’ comms devices.
He could tell based on their separate trajectories and the ongoing buzz that Phoebe and him were very far apart, and Shikai was dealing with Amirah. He still groaned with his hand against his stomach, trying to regain his breath, but his mind was all there. He started skirting around the roof toward Phoebe as discretely as he’d made his way this way a minute earlier.
When he reached Phoebe, her sight would finally be piecing itself back together.
“Hey,” he hissed urgently with furrowed brows, a sorta funny look for a half naked guy with burnt hair. “Weren’t you gonna eat her with the Mindgorger or something? Bust that shit out! Like really use it!”
Sullied by attacks, a splotch of blood dripping down his left cheek, Ash's eyes bore a battlereadiness Phoebe hadn't seen since their training together on the mountain.

Pain is one of the most vital senses humans possess.
While it may not seem like much of a boon when you stub your toe on the way out to the fridge for a midnight snack; pain provides information essential to survival. A sharp jolt of discomfort is nature's way of telling organic beings to stop doing stupid crap; or that something has gone wrong in the body. Lacking any kind of indicator to alert a person that they're putting to much strain on the body, humans would quickly degrade into sacks of broken bone and ruined flesh. Knowing when to stop was one of the most basic skills a warrior needs to keep themselves alive.
Unfortunately, injury matters little to puppets.
This obvious, but crucial point was currently becoming clear to Shikai as he fought the group of corpses being controlled by their former comrade behind the bar. Moving with deceptive speed through spasmodic twitches of their bodies, their irregular attack patterns had thrown the shinobi off at first; but he adapted quickly. Soon he was effortlessly dodging and countering with strikes that would cripple or kill normal people. But these men were already dead, and the grievous wounds inflicted upon them did nothing to hinder the man controlling them. Even once the damage to the bodies machinery prevented them from conventional attacks, the bartender could still simply fling them forward like biological projectiles. 
Yet despite this, Shikai's keen mind had already come up with a way to break through this impasse. With a flick of his wrist, Mykur ripped itself from the wall behind the Bartender and flew toward its master; slicing open the bald mans shoulder as it went. Snatching it out of the air, the shinobi continued his dance with the puppets; but they were moving to a new beat now, The Spell Slicer cut through the dead men like they weren't even there, and soon there was nothing left but blood chunks of meat that could not be easily recognized as being of human origin. Without missing a beat, the tendrils that had once controlled the corpses now turned toward him; stabbing and slashing at him like knives.
"You don't miss a beat, do ya?!"
Shikai was just fast enough to dodge the tendrils; but breaking away to attack would leave him open to being skewered. Perfect. Breaking into a sprint, he rushed toward the Bartender; one hand weaving signs as he moved. Seizing his opportunity, the Bartender called the tendrils forward; running the General through on spears of shadow. Going limp, the legendary blade fell from his grasp. For the first time in the evening the bald man allowed himself a small smile. Confidant of his victory, he wasn't prepared when Shikai's foot lashed out, catching the hilt of the blade and sending it flying like a spear at his opponent. The sword punched through his chest, this time going completely through the wall behind him. Blood gushed from his mouth as the shinobi looked up, skin pale and eyes red.
"Gotcha."
Already looking to his comrades as the Bartender slumped to the floor, Shikai saw the scene unfolding in slow motion. Fast as he was, he knew he wouldn't be able to cross the distance fast enough to take advantage of the opening Phoebe had opened in Amirah's guard. But maybe he could help another way. Weaving signs as fast as he could, he activated his muscle enhancement jutsu just as Phoebe took a punch that sent her flying. Right arm now practically splitting with muscle, he punched the roof, causing a fracture racing towards The Phoenix. 
He just hoped it would reach in time.
 

Through the fog of rage that had descended upon her, Amirah did not hear the shouted slur. Rather, she saw the eyes of her opponent fix upon something behind her; something akin to fear in The First's eyes. Following her gaze, she saw a foolish child clad in only his boxers and boots closing in on her, sword drawn. It took only an instant for her to realize the opportunity that had just dropped itself into her lap. When she broiled this foolish whelp, there was no way Marshall wouldn't react in some way. Rage or despair, it would throw her off her game, and allow her the opportunity to strike the final blow. 
"BURN THIS!"
"As you wish."
Many things happened all at once.
Much to her surprise, Amirah felt her fist hit home, and she sent Phoebe flying through a wall even as she turned to raise her other hand toward Ash. She looked away too soon however, and didn't see the blast of psionic energy that shoved her just a step forward. Normally this small shove wouldn't have mattered much, but this one occurred just as a fissure opened in the roof between her and the child, forcing her to fight for her balance to avoid falling in. Finally, in that instant of distraction, the samurai's blade hit home, albeit slightly off from his intended target due to her lowered body position. The sword bit deep into her shoulder, and the child's momentum pushed her back a few steps before she caught herself.
Blood dripping from her wound, Amirah looked up at Ash, eyes blazing with fury in both a figurative and literal sense.
"You... DARE?!"
The punch she threw at Ash would have punched a whole in his torso had he not been protected by Phoebe's shield. As it was, he would only be thrown across the roof; maybe even having to scramble to catch himself and avoid falling off the roof. But as the boy flew, The Phoenix's attention turned toward Shikai, and in an instant she was flying toward the shinobi. 

This church, but a meager vessel of offering for followers of Gaia, coursed with the winds as veins do blood as Her children left the place with hearts full of Good Will. Then Aspyn coursed with Them as hearts do Good Will. This was the self-fulfilling nature of the land crafted firmly— lovingly for the refugees of a faltering Terrenus, smelted meaningfully for its most luscious and powerful materials, and henceforth not weakened but hardened with repeated strikes.
What Yshmael would find in his travels throughout the Northwestern reaches of Biazo Isle— the reaches belonging to Aspyn— manifested in all of his senses. He would feel physically and emotionally invigorated the closer he stood to Aspyn’s City Hall; he would notice that the trees flourished in extraordinarily gargantuan tangles teeming with life in a crown around the utter jewel that was Aspyn; the fruits were larger and tasted better, their energy lasting longer and nutrients extending themselves farther. Nobody wanted for anything here, for this was Michael Commager’s gift from Gaia to her followers who had suffered for too long at the hand of vicious snakes in the grass. He would maraud for her until the day he died, and do his best for that never to come.
Even the ignorant blame of those who suckled on the teat of Terrenus and Gaia would not hinder Michael from maintaining this haven.
Yshmael would be standing there in the foyer, watching Michael and Sister Eils talk with flirtatious fervor. Michael bore about him both an irresistible charm and a promise of no threat: It was well known that he’d had and lost two deep loves in his life. Loves so deep, for which he felt so deeply at fault for the destruction of, he could not requite to himself the ability to do so again. It wasn’t a brag or a farce, but a pious man’s most honest version of penitence for unfortunate events with which he had grievously little to do.
Yshmael would not feel alone for a second, the congregation welcoming and friendly and Michael’s attention encapsulating the Thrice-Blessed as it almost always did. In fact, very soon Michael and the Sister approaching him.
“It is true that the interdependence of many great things holds Aspyn together,” she said to both of them. “When something can be independent, that is good. When two things can be not only independent, but interdependent, that is even better. When there are three? That is greater! And so on.”
Light slanted in through the open windows and muffled across the crimson carpet as she spoke to them through the growing silence of the congregation’s departure. It was almost starting to feel like she was about to go into another sermon when Michael stepped forward punching one hand into the other. He had a suspicious glint in his eye, light excitement on his face.
“I wanna spar you!” He said up to the taller clergyman to a chuckle from the Sister.

Y S H M A E L ,  T H R I C E - B L E S S E D  A G E N T
Disciple | Nomadic Priest of the Church
 
 
“I walked in some woods with the children yesterday,” said Eils. “The trees were lush, their branches singing with birds and dancing with squirrels. The children played near the path as I walked.”
 
       The accommodations of the Church was unmatched in hospitality, save for perhaps the old marquees put up in what used to be the sands and crag of the North. The breeze was more than pleasant. Her Grace truly was all over the place once you opened yourself to it. Yshmael reminisced on this momentarily before turning his ears back to Sister Ellis. Even with her insights toward children could a man like himself learn and expound upon.
 
“‘Gaia is not a woman whose location you can track down— in fact, she is not a woman at all. She is not any more woman than she is man, or bird or tree.’ I pointed at the flowers growing on the dead trunk and said, ‘Gaia is the life that comes of this death.’” Sister Eils walked away from the altar again, pacing as she spoke. “The very balance of life and death on Valucre, of good and evil, is a complex system that contributes to the greater good of the planet. Gaia is best personified as the cycle of life, the deterioration of mountains and the building of new mountains.
 
       Transcribing Triaditional insights and virtues within and without the greater depths of which the Diocese head spoke was something Yshmael found to be an enjoyable exercise. Seeing their perspective and feeling the way in which She was channeled was what he hoped for, but was far more than what he was expecting. The questions and the thoughts to be meditated over were worth more than any real book or scroll. Life taught him that experience and firsthand witness was the only Truth in life. 
 
“‘Look around you,’ I told them. ‘This is perfect balance. Just like a body has white blood cells and doctors for sicknesses, Valucre has individuals of Gaia who set the balance right at every turn. We must confide in them.”
 
       Her talk of balance was something more familiar with. The world was hard to raise Her children into adults who could maintain their own lives. Nothing was to be easy in this world.. Not even existing.. This was the path everything had before them. Just as rocks were turned to dust and trees to ash and mulch. Every man returned to Her, lest they sully themselves to profane and blasphemous existences. Disrupting the balance, whether or not one was an Unnatural, was a disrespect upon Her name and Her plane. 
 
       Once the sermon ceased, the constituents voided the pews. Michael found the Bishop following the sermon, and Yshmael felt content to wait around for either or both of them. His time in Aspyn had been spent taking in every facet of flora and fauna he could come across. Exploring the perimeters of the Walls and beyond brought much to ruminate on. Yshmael mingled for the time being, introducing himself and giving them all his blessing as companions of the faith. They would know the Nomad’s kindness and compassion, which was felt in earnest around him. Nothing like the righteousness of the Bishops about, but surely one would not be mistaken. So for now, he remained within the foyer and around the immediate outside of the doors, depending on how long he'd have to wait for either member. It was always nice to catch up on things, after all!

For one hour, Michael and Li'El had found themselves within a dreamlike nebula that was the very being of the Eridianus genus loci. It was like existing within the mind of a perfect Artificial Intelligence; oxygen levels, the viscosity of humidity, water levels, the lovingly stacked balance of predator and prey, everything that Michael and Li'El had ever been, swirled in a warm tingle around and through them. In the middle of all of it.
I was broken in the water. Crashed before I ever even took flight. I don't know if I was always meant to be... good. I was infected with Xynzicht, a cauldron of infectious darkness. It was thrilling, invigorating, but it ate me from the inside out. I was the hand of a villain named Faustus Clemens who sought to pry his fingers into the cracks of Terrenus and rip it apart like so many loosely stacked bricks. When he laid the fabric of his plan bare, I couldn't continue.. My sense of guilt for all the lives I had wasted at Faustus' hands consumed me, and I hatched a plan to betray him. I forsook Faustus, cast out the addictive consumption of Xynzicht for the forgiving light of Gaia, and that... that was when the delusion that I was the son of Gaia began. When the dust of the last few years settled, I realized, Li'El... that I am no son of Gaia. I am a descendant of Jason of the Lions, but I am not Hers...
Li'El would feel, in that time in which they were spiritually entwined to the greatest heights and furthest degree they could go without becoming inseparable forever, that Michael's faith was not the fantastic beast that strangers to the Major thought it was. He had moments of questioning, times of hardship. He needed support too.
Still, when their souls had withdrawn from one another back into themselves, Michael reached a shaky hand down to help Li'El to his feet.
"We do this together, man."
When they left the facility, there were lines of officers and clergyman lined up to give them accolades. Some few wore chagrin bare on their face that Michael would 'give away' a piece of Terrenus in order to save these people, but Michael exited with his chin high and no time to tend to their farcical nationalistic indignation.
The very last individual between them and the door was A Bowing Elf.
"Hark, saviors!" he said, raising a hand to stop them as they passed.  "I hail from the beaches north of Casper. Michael, you have visited Casper twice now to deign good fortune upon us. Li'El," he said, turning to Li, "you have risen above the call of duty to give yourself to this cause."
Stepping back, the elf produced two crystals.
"These are rain crystals. They will produce rain clouds wherever you are when you want them to. This is but a small token of our gratitude."
 
[End Thread]

--Two days of relatively smooth sailing later
“Intan is the greatest of all the pirates out here,” said Prose, the whole crew gathered around for a late midday meal courtesy of the stolid cook. There was a slightly higher quantity of fresh-caught ingredients in the galley, but supplies were by no means low. All of them had grown a little closer over the last couple days, a very low constituent who couldn’t jive with the rest of the crew dealt with judiciously.
Now, like many nights, Prose and her mates exchanged stories of the sea. 
Only tonight, there was a special edge in the air. Thanks to the Yatari-adapted runes on the ship’s hull and relative simplicity of the route on Prose’s charts, they were able to do most of the journey much faster than they’d originally thought. The spot marked ‘X’ was stretched somewhere in the blue expanse ahead of them, this their last and most hearty meal.
“CAPTAIN!!!” came the cry from the bird’s nest, slicing through the reverie. “ROUGH SEAS AHEAD!— APPROACHING!”
“What!?” Prose shot into the standing position, four incredible lunging steps taking her over two crewmates, from the top deck to the prow. The ocean had been calm like glass an hour ago and the skies were clear, but the whole stretch of sea before them now frothed with some kind of living anger— there were no waves, but the surface not only frothed but raged toward them!!
“MAN YOUR STATIONS,” now Prose’s voice ripped across the decks like a thunderstorm. The sound of the  “MEN! BRACE FOR CONTACT!”
Rushing water roared right up to them, fizz and angry foam grueling up on them, and then all was silent, perfectly still.
Looking out at the waters that had suddenly grown calm, most of the crew looked at the scene and one another in disbelief. Had they been watching from a bird’s eye view, they might have known what was about to happen….
“Waaa—!!” 
Looking back, they would see a disgusting, rotting octopus creature sucking onto one of the men’s arms in the back. Blood sprayed from his forearm where he was being bitten, the monster’s tentacles long enough to lash around the man and constrict in on him. With a gross maw of jaws where a normal octopus’s beak might be, and tentacles long enough to resemble a squid, it would lash at the lush’s soft spots until he fell to the ground in a pool of blood where they had just been enjoying food moments earlier.
The super-aggressive creature was not alone, either. In the silent moments they’d spent standing there, a pod of twenty-or-so of the creatures were already climbing up the ship’s sides. Now they began jumping over the side rails and attacking the crew. One singular metal rail ran around the ship, and Prose set her bejeweled hand upon it.
“Step away from the rails!” she shouted.
Electricity superheated the railing around the ship and made grilled sushi of the first Suckerpus’ that followed. There were still about a dozen of the monsters unharmed and seven more who were operative in some way. 
The ship was suddenly at war, and not in the way one might expect.

Galleons Isle was an island near the cluster of islands that composed Kaznah that had a bustling port. Typically its boardwalks were busy with traders, merchants, and sailors unloading cargo or seeking out a drink and some shade to sit in. Every now and then, however, there was a quiet night between arrivals. This was one of those, and it was just right for the type of crowd Prose was trying to draw.
The experienced sailor gone wrong sat in the back corner of a tavern. From the swinging saloon doors she looked like a shadow in her black doublet, and approaching it became clear why: Prose' skin was like a thin film of clear plasma filled with black liquid. On her face there were no features, no eyes.
Picking up a dark drink and pouring the entire thing into the black space that was her mouth, the jellyfish woman set the empty glass beside her tricorn on the table and waited for those who'd answered her flier. A bartender wordlessly brought her another drink, good, just as he had been instructed. He didn't look at her for too long, good, just as he had been instructed.
"Rumors have it that, somewhere in the seas around the shattered island ruins of Kaznah, Faejarhe, there is an unfathomable treasure left by the gods who abandoned Kaznah. Whoever has it is said to be able to navigate air and sea flawlessly no matter where they are, and the most infamous of the Pirate Era were renowned to possess this piece of treasure. 
Join Prose Letariat, a seasoned pirate adventurer, in her search for the Kaznah Piece!"
@supernal @Glamses @Sirloin

Canon Summary
Kahd’Xel, an arch-demon thousands of years old, holds a grudge against Gaia for making him a pariah in the early days of his existence. Without realizing that Gaia cannot be embodied but that she is an idea, Kahd summons a horde of aliens and demons and plagues called the Xelken. Trekking along the northern border between Empire and the Shawnee Glacier, Kahd gathered a force of 30,000+ Xelken and made a hovel called Groff Basin for them.
From Groff, Kahd launched an assault team that was meant to catch Aspyn unawares and destroy the home of many refugees from the misfortunes that years ago assailed many of the old Terran Cities- but Terrenus was ready.
With a force composed of the Terran military, the Gaian clergy, and HGA, the protagonists were able to defeat the Xelken with relative ease.
Kahd’Xel and the Xelken were not the only threats, however. Two vigilante groups with little-to-no care for civilian life over defending their own, HGA and the denizens of a mysterious ship not yet known as the Banzai, were identified during the conflict and will be followed up on.
Opportunities
Help rebuild Aspyn, add a new location, add attributes to the military base in Aspyn. Follow up on reports of HGA assaults on Aspyn citizenry and Terran military. [can be done by anybody] Follow up on the strange ship in the sky that destroyed more of the Aspyn wall than Kahd’Xel. (the Banzai) [can be done by anybody] Track fleeing monstrosities back to Groff Basin and provide intel on it.

Just like Dredge, Kahd’Xel was just another blowhard without the cajones to back up his big talk. Even as he writhed on the ground like a swatted moth, the baby Xels that were sustained only by the existence of Kahd’s plague grew weak without their master. Lasers razed and bullets blew holes, seared strips from enemies, and the plague subsided. Just like Lilith Reiter, the Terrans had defeated yet another plague. HGA would be left fighting a weakened horde of the aliens, able now to parse out that there was a separate undead thread lurking through Aspyn’s streets, this one more prevalent than the dying Xel but also fleeing.
Now, HGA would only be left to contend with Aspyn.
Even as Caeceila wheeled, horribly misjudging the ability of her vetted company, a knife hand cut in the way of hers imbued with some arcane geomancy as Officer Brix took two steps backward. Caecilla Glasman would either see what was happening and refrain from sullying the man in uniform or she would lose her offending hand.
“This is a nonviolent corralling meant only to protect Aspyn to the maximum extent possible!”
Heavy fire and artillery died down outside even as Caeceila lashed out in the bare light of her own mismappings. Without anything violent done to HGA despite their utterly incapable and conflictual means of occupying Aspyn, the Terran military would instead see and follow this up as a coup attempt by an inappropriately disgruntled third party. The woman and the officer glared at one another as the Terrans gathered in on one another and began walking from the enclosure.
“You may take your leave, House Glasman,” he said on the way out, giving every appearance of having ignored everything she said. “I know where to find you. We’ll be in touch.”
As the unnatural threat fled into the woods, as the flaccid House Glasman retreated home, as Kahd’Xel withered on the ground before Michael, as the sun set, a cold calm began washing over Aspyn.
Breath hissed out from between Michael’s lips as he lifted burnt fingers to his lips clasping a cigarette. He had backed far enough away that the massive thrashing limbs of the alien heretic couldn’t reach him. As it suffocated in its own spewing blood, as its insectoid eyes rolled this way and that in its dying attempts to focus on half the reason it now died sizzling, Michael finally made his approach. The limbs could barely move, slopping this way and that from time to time, so it was no trouble making his way to the head.
Kahd’Xel’s last sight would be Michael Commager, Son of Gaia, flick a cigarette butt in his face before lifting his boot. His thick tread closed in and splat! Pop went the weasel.
“Guess that’s it, huh sir?” said Barrett as he came to stand beside Michael. “What will we do about House Glasman?” 
“I don’t know,” said Mike, finally huffing out the cloud of nicotine. “Sounds like she’s got some problems. Wish she would have given us a chance to talk. One thing’s for certain, though. I would rather they hadn’t come than helped us like that.”

Enshrined in her well-appointed Tactical Operation Center (TOC), the nerve center of HGA's operations in Aspyn, Caeceila Glasmann directs the defense of the HGA-occupied zone with the same ruthless efficiency she strives for in single combat and small unit engagements.  Silhouetted against the austere radiance shed by banks of tactical displays, servers, and monitors, she scans a holographic projection of Aspyn with gelid eyes.  Intricate solid models of structures and landscapes shift and rotate, the local frame careening through firefights and crashing, like a heavy tank, through walls as Caeceila processes sitreps summarizing troop dispositions and damage to critical infrastructure throughout Aspyn, tracks the trajectories of incoming and outgoing missiles, artillery shells, and their magical and biological equivalents, exploits the holo-display's gesture-control scheme to expeditiously edit and review audio recordings and visual footage captured by ground teams and dedicated surveillance equipment, and issues orders to subordinate tactical officers, communications officers, commanders, and engineers via the ruggedized transmitter integrated into her headwear.
Through the glut of coaxial cables protruding from her spine and skull and snaking through cable trays suspended overhead, Caeceila maintains a mind-machine interface with the facility's droid controller and Virtual Intelligence, Invidia.  Senior staffers, tasked with supporting leaders at and below squad-level, are outfitted with wireless headsets and interface with Invidia through blinking consoles arrayed in semi-circles surrounding Caeceila's dais.  Mobility and communication are vital to these staffers since Caeceila requires that they collaborate in small teams to predict and rapidly implement solutions to dynamic battlefield events.  This procedure grants HGA units a tactical edge while protecting command staff from the hazards involved in "leading from the front," provided communications are reliable and manpower is abundant.
While one might assume from her typical pugnacity that the dastardly heiress would froth at the mouth and savagely, if not bestially, bark orders at her underlings when under fire, she falls into her rage and acts not as an insensate beast but as a fell strategist who ignores codified rules of war for the sake of her soldiers and the glory of Hell's Gate.  This is no great departure from her baseline, and her people take some comfort in that revelation.  She belongs here, amid chaos and corpses.  Her mouth is set in a grim line and her voice drips with distilled hatred and supreme authority in equal measure as it carries across the chamber.  Articulate.  Logical.  Succinct.
At her bidding, Heavy Machine Gun Teams and Light and Medium Defense Teams setup in positions overlooking the South and Southeast approach to the Power Plant and Heavy Defense Teams stopper gaps in the Power Plant's walls.  They blanket the South and Southeast in overlapping fields of sustained fire.  Rather than line up shots and pick the undead off one-by-one, they pepper the approach with a high volume of energy beams and bullets, firing and reloading without more than a perfunctory attempt at aiming.  Such tactics - tactics revolving around massed fire - are as old as the matchlock and, while no longer in vogue, continue to be effective against the massed charge of creatures like the undead.
The remaining Artillery Units and Turrets lay down saturation fire to the North.  As with the Heavy Machine Gun Teams and the Perimeter Defense Teams, accuracy is not a priority.  Indiscriminate shelling of the area - stripped of cover weeks prior and rigged with explosive ordinance to boot - is a half-decent tactic, but the undead swarm is relentless.  Undead creatures violently explode into clouds of goo and gore and the Artillery Units follow shortly thereafter, 15-meter balls of fire and smoke igniting the night.  Blackened metal husks lie uselessly on the asphalt as horrors, jaws working as though masticating flesh, drag themselves past.
The doors to the Platform burst open and lines of violent purple energy streaming from Backup Turrets and grounded Aircraft fill the undead with smoldering holes.  They reach the hangar only to be pelted with scores of Silver Eyes, hovering, modular robots equipped with dinky welding lasers that don't pose much of a threat to any large Xelken except in large groups.  The Xelken push forward, crushing Silver Eyes and peeling open the metal birds to feast on the crews within.  They climb over the motionless body of their fallen, some pausing to spill Stitch Worms onto the ground as particle beams shear them open.  Torpedos scream toward the entrances.  The ground shudders as gravity wells envelop corpses, undead, men, and machines.
The Mage Corps and the Eldritch Assault Team reposition to compensate for the loss of the firebase.  Dashing through underground tunnels to reinforce the Platform and blockade the main route by which the Xelken, they are utterly dumbfounded when they encounter a 2-meter thick granite wall obstructing them.  Obeying their mistress, Camelia Sorina, blasphemous creatures hew at the wall with wicked talons and disintegrating rays.
Caeceila's private communications channel crackles to life.  Cammy delivers her report.  Color drains from Caeceila's face.  She grips the holo-display in front of her to steady herself.  Betrayal!  Her people are dying because the Terrans blocked their access tunnels!  All eyes are on Caeceila as she wheels around, grabs a Terrenus Military official by his throat, lifts him off of his feet, and slams him into a wall.
She broadcast the resultant exchange with the traitors on an open channel.
This is a nonviolent corralling meant only to protect Aspyn to the maximum extent possible!
No, this is a breach of contract!  You're killing my men because your death-worshiping superior hates unnaturals more than he loves his people!  You intolerant bastards!
No -
When I commit my people to the field, I do so knowing some of them will die.  Tomorrow, I'll have to look their children, spouses, and parents in the eye and tell them their father, mother, husband, wife, son, or daughter is gone and there's little anyone can or should do to bring them back.  If I can substitute something - a zombie - an abomination - a robot constructed for the express purpose of waging war - for a human life without impacting my ability to accomplish my mission, I'll do it in a heartbeat.  Why?
No one mourns a pack of zombies.
My people are paying the ultimate price for your intolerance, and before you try to justify sabotaging us, let me remind you and the whole damn world of your deeds.
You let Dredge rise to power.
You let the Enrele snatch our people.
You let widespread poverty shake the foundations of Hell's Gate.
You restricted individual liberties with your damned Safeguard Act.
And you're too afraid to act openly against those who hurt the people you've sworn to defend.
I quit, and so help me god, if you don't knock down those walls, I'll gut every last representative of the Terrenus Military I can lay my hands on and overload this goddamn reactor!

Ruiser couldn't see Brutus's wink from this distance but the bold strokes of the other man's gesture made it across. The soldier waved a hand in recognition, braced himself against the lip of the crow's nest, prepared himself for further violence. Then lost his footing when roiling waters rocked the ship and fell to his doom, saved from death by a stretch of canvas from the main sail, a tangle of ropes that slowed his fall, and the forgiving wood of the deck which broke it.
Ruiser was stunned, winded, a twitching mess as his body tried and failed to move him around so that he was at least a less appetizing target than one which stayed perfectly still. He could sense Brunhilda becoming aware of his pain and desperation, responding with assurances, Ruiser modulating the stream of his emotions from fear to resolve, his own assurances to her that there was not a need for her yet. He trusted the capacity of his crew mates to keep him alive at least a few seconds, already feeling his wits gather and sharpen, and moreover knew that on his person was enough magic to get him by.
And then Ruiser was on his feet, not only alive but looking fairly capable despite nursing one arm close to his body. A metallic groan caught the attention of everyone on board - intrigue from the crew members, abject fear from the creatures who fled the suggested premise of a larger predator and so had to adapt or die.
Introductions between the parties were practical. Sparse. During the preparations to board the submarine the onboard physician set his dislocated shoulder, marveled at the fact his bones were not shattered, and set the arm in a splint, mostly for the man's comfort. Then Ruiser went to the kitchen and had a kitchen-hand help him pack his tools and provisions. While he did so, Ruiser took the time to verbalize his concerns to the others.
"I think that most people are decent, they are fine. But right now we are in a race against the world for a great, great richness." Ruiser made a face as he thought over his Unii word choice. "Great, great wealth. These might be friends, or they might be enemies, or they might start as one and end as the other and we will not know which until the end."
Despite his caution, Ruiser clarified that he did not feel a particular sense of danger. The space was small, the researcher alone, but they would be entirely inside of his domain and that was worth underscoring.
Still the captain remained bold and Ruiser had signed to her crew for the very purpose they continued towards. He went along. And introduced himself to Benny as introductions were doled out.
"Yes yes, very, very lucky. Benny, you have your own cook, yes?" He signed to chef for one crew, not two.
*"...I mean no disrespect."*
Ruiser nodded at Brutus, untroubled by the sudden but restrained interruption. He knew that Brutus had lost more than most in the skirmish. He took a breath to suggest that perhaps that man's means could not match his intentions - and then held the words, knowing too little about Prose and even less about Benny to conjure reasons on their behalf.

In one moment, a rain of arrows saved Villanueva from the wrath of a handful of octopeds, A single arrow tore its terrible path through its mark, buying him the time he needed to tear free of its bloated tendril. With a wag of his sword like the flash of lightning, the razor-sharp blade effortlessly split his remaining attackers in two and splattered his surroundings with foul-smelling guts and viscera. He was drenched with seawater and sweat, his shirt torn by his movements, and his arms bleeding as his skin lay torn from the tireless grip of the invading creatures. Standing with renewed resolve and of stoic face, he rolled his shoulders with a wet pop as he flashed a glance upward to the darkened mast where his savior sat perched. A small wink went his way, as a sign of endless thanks.
When the horn of the newcomer had sounded, effectively ending the attack, Villanueva leveled his gun at one of the fleeing creatures. It exploded as it inched closer to the bow, lead slug tearing through it-- Then another, and another. The repeated gunshots echoed loudly across the vast expanse surrounding the ship. He stomped the deck in a tantrum which drew upon an immense well of rage. His teeth foamed as he huffed in fury. With a sharp kick, a metal bucket went flying with a dent into the rigging. With a deep breath, the display was over, and Villanueva began to compose himself. As quickly as he appeared only a moment prior, he disappeared below deck. He emerged some time later in his full ensemble, a different shirt, and a dour look of confidence.
By the time the command had been given to file into the submarine, Villanueva radiated an aura of impatience and agitation. When Benny spoke, he finally broke his silence.
"... I mean no disrespect, Captain Benny, but you would have done well to publish your charts once in a while. Either that, or our own captain should have done a bit more studying of her own. Maybe then, we wouldn't have suffered loss to... Negligence. If you don't mind, Prose, I'd like to talk to you in private."