At HQ:

Eli looks over at Jake and says, "Yeah. We can do this."

Alexis looks from Gale to Alloy and says, "Jake's just frustrated he doesn't have the answer yet. You know how that gets even on something like a simple answers on a test. But with Emerald's life on the line, it's extra stressful and frustrating. That frustration turns into despair and a desire to give up."

Alexis looks to Jake. "I'm with Alloy on this. I believe in you. And don't forget that one of those siphons was technological. Maybe you should look into that and reverse-engineer it."

She looks back at Gale. "Worth a shot. Let's ask. But let's take this to the arcanum study room." she heads that way, looking over to Alloy as if expecting him to follow.
-----
Meanwhile in P.I.

Angel nods. "You know what we need? More guns." she gets on the SG chat. "Hey, Running Gun. Meet Mitts and I in P.I."

Mittens then feels a tap on her shoulder. Flapping her wings, hovering, is none other than Mocha. "H-hi, Mittens! Heard you were running off... again. What job would you like to be for this run, kupo?"

Jake blushes, unable to figure out what else to say outside, "Thanks..."

He types away at his holographic interface to pull up what relevant data he can for Eli, hoping that'll help spark ideas in the both of them.

Gale nods to Alexis and follows along.  When everyone's ready, she'll ask the orb about the ritual used on Emerald and if it already knows the counter-ritual.

"Mocha!" Mits chimes with a big smile for her friend.  "Boy.  That's a hard question to answer.  On the one hand, more guns!  On the other, explosions!  On the third hand...  I wunna do it all!  I'll start out with a bang - guns!  Tag along!  That way I can change up if needed.  And we get to enjoy your yummy company!"

  Pfft, Running Gun never made it to level 50.  Suspiciously similar Gadget Gun did though, all while showing up for photo ops without people noticing. "I should be there shortly. With Guns that shoot explosions."

---

  Alloy totally heads to the arcane room to talk about arcane things with the arcane people (and Jake).

Mocha nods to Mittens. "...yummy, kupo..?" she asks with a squeak and blush.

Angel looks over at Mittens and smirks. "We eat Circle for breakfast. So it makes sense to have some Mocha along."

Mocha says, "Holy moley..."

Angel isn't alone as a number of other members of the SG keep referring to GG as RG. But CoX was so amazing, you didn't need level 50 to participate in lvl 50 stuff. Still, actual lvl 50 was really nice.

Angel waits for GG at the entrance to Orenbega. "When you enter P.I., Gun, I can teleport you." Angel and May both have to admire a guy who's nickname winds up Gun.

Angel then looks to Mittens and sings "Mittens got a gun... her whole world's come undone. Now CoT... are on the run."

Gale welcomes Alloy and compliments Alexis' hair while she waits for the orb to finish answering her question.

---

Jake prefers to remain in the meeting room with Eli while he works on his computer.  ((Will follow Eli.  If Tim wants the boys to be a part of the magical RP and sends Eli that way, that's fine.))

---

Big grin from Mits when Angel sings to her.  "Dittos to Angel's explanation.  Also, Yay explosions!  Thanks for joining the fun, GG!  So what's best vs CoT?  Fire?  Ice?  Or toxic rounds?"

Kitau shrugs and heads in.

"Fire for ghosts.  As for the rest, whatever you like." GG says, already there (Thanks, mission teleport!).

Alexis does a girly single-shoulder-shrug, reaching up to play with her hair a little and says, "Thanks, Gale.. this coming from miss magic-hair. Everyone knows yours is the most hypnotizing."

The orb answers Gale. "The counter-ritual would require the use of all the energy siphons that were used; You repeat the process, but in reverse, with Emerald at the center of it."

---

Eli was under the impression the arcane ppl were doing arcane things and, while he does know from such, he and Jake were supposed to work on the tech angle. So Eli heads with Jake to the site of the bad guy base that had the tech energy siphon to begin reverse-engineering.

Upon seeing the machine, it is beautiful in its complexity, mixture of different technologies, and flow of design. It is also, of course, the size of a large room. Eli is staring at one of the panels and says, "Gosh, Jake... how long was this energy siphon in the making? Or are we dealing with a genius on a magnitude we haven't dealt with yet?"

---

Angel switches to fire. "OK. Fire on ghosts. Flip guns around at your leisure to reload for fun." She thinks about it, shapeshifts into bunny mode and says, "I'm feeling gunbunny." before going into the mission.

Many extremely fun gunfights later, the trio soon have the guy in charge of this latest Circle of Thorns scheme. When questioned, he spouts things in an ancient language.

"Thanks, GG!  Bang-Fwoosh it is!"

After the fun, Mits takes her hearing protection off, and a Ska tune about tuna can be heard playing over the built-in speakers.  She records the boss-faces spew and forwards it to the SG for translation.

"Fluffy Bunny Bang Bang!  Coming soon to a theater near you!"

Gale gives Alexis a bright smile.  "Thanks!  And you're welcome!"this means we wont have to fight a deity."

Jake shrugs and gets to work.  "I dunno.  My guess is a small army of geniuses.  Arachnos was involved in this mess, and they seem to have an endless supply of brilliant inventors.  Would also explain the diversity of styles here."

  Alloy delegates translations to Melty, who crams a pair of reading glasses onto their eyeless lump as they begin working on it.

  "It would just figure all the siphons got stolen when were not looking in the few days since they were recovered from the hammidon fight. Or they might still be in their proper storage, that too.

---

  "Well, they might still attack us purely out of spite after we finish."

Eli reports back to the SG, "Jake and I are currently examining the inner workings of one of the siphons. It's pretty complicated, has the mark of multiple styles of technology, and yet very streamlined. Oddly not haphazard. It's... it's user-friendly! Jake and I should have this figured out in a couple hours, assuming things remain consistent."

---

The boss's spewings roughly translate to him laying a dozen curses on Mittens, Angel and GG. And saying "You'll never learn!" and other similar themes like "Your kind will never understand!"

---

Angel wiggles her bunny nose at Mittens. Why? Because Mittens commented on her bunnyishness. Is that a word? Who cares?

OOC: This the song I was referencing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H0Tk4-O1ZU

Gale can't deny the truth of Alloy's statement and chuckles.  "Sad but true.  We should be prepared.

"Let's get people on each of these nodes."

She gets started coordinating that with the rest of the SG.

To Eli and Jake, "Good work you two.  You're a stpe ahead of the rest.  Please focus on getting it operational...  in reverse."

Jake sweatdrops.  "Wow.  Sounds like they already have the solution.  Reverse.  Hmmm..."

Tinker tinker tinker!

"Mits figured as much so she mage-hands the nimrod's mouth shut then puts her headset on him so the tuna song will play over and over in his head.  Not a magical curse, but in some ways, worse!  Bwahahahahaha!"

She smiles to Angel.  "Cuuuute!  Me try!"

She tries to return the nose-wiggle but winds up looking more like a grinch trying to get a bug off its nose.

Melty takes the translated transcript, and shoves it into the cartoonishly budging file cabinet of translated insults.

---

  Helmet O'clock means you have no idea if GG can nose wiggle or not.  But Angel's the adorable best at it either way.

Mittens clearly has the advantage in tail wags departments though.

Yeah. For Angel, it's technically called a wag, but bunny tails are more of a wiggle.

Angel giggles at Mittens' attempts.

The CoT dude is quickly getting disgusted with Angel and Mittens' cute antics. "UUUUUG! STOP BEING CUTE!" He yells in genuine annoyance. "And force me to listen to the tuna song? I thought you people were supposedly above torture."

Angel shrugs with a smile and says, "So he can speak English. Sharing music? Being cute? I'm pretty sure these follow under moral grounds. It's not our fault if you consider it torture."

CoT dude says, "FINE! Fine... What do you need to know?"

---

Jake and Eli's tinkering will take a bit. Though "get it operational, but in reverse" will significantly decrease the time taken since they were going to take reverse-engineering instead of merely fixing and rigging. The time stamp has been reduced from a day or so to 10 minutes.

Alexis summons Crystal for Melty to hang out with. Then looks at the other magic users. "Hmm... with Jake and Eli working on the technology siphon... maybe we should work on the arcane siphon, just in case."

Once teams have been assigned to each of the siphons, Gale invites Alexis and Alloy to come with her to the arcane siphon.  Repeated use of short range teleportation spells will shorten the trip.

---

Mits chuckles, "The baddie caved before anyone resorted to ye olde feather-to-the-foot technique.  But if it's cuteness that bothers you, be grateful that Mocha or Kitau didn't join in."

Kitau sweatdrops.

Mits continues, "We're looking into the wereabouts of a tiki mask god."

---

Jake updates the SG as progress is made.  "So... I'm guessing the change in plans is good news?"

  Well, there are many villains would find a blood drenched Kitau cute yes.

---

"Yes, and as good as being able to fully build one ourselves degree research would be, the sooner the better with proven to work devices seems to be the situation here.

The CoT dude spills info about where to find Lughebu. He then screams, lights shooting from his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and ears. He collapses.

Angel frowns. "That wasn't very nice..."

---

Eli and Jake have a breakthrough on how to get the thing up and running quickly and soon have it on. It is still in the reverse mode from when they did that against Hamidon.

---

Alexis says, "Teleportation; always a wild ride..."

When the trio get to the arcane siphon, Eli contacts them letting them know the tech siphon is done and they are on their way to check the other siphons.

The arcane siphon requires a few magical patch-ups, but should otherwise be good to go.

Gale gives a knowing smile to Alexis and winks.  "When this is over, how 'bout we invite Emmy to a nature retreat.  Nothing quite like fresh air and beautiful scenery to help heal a burdened heart."

She stops short of suggesting, "Girls only," figuring that'll be for Emmy to decide.

---

Mits gawks in shock.  "And here we were being lectured for music and nose-wiggles.  Since when do the CoT explode after what amounts to informing on a rival gang?!  Maybe this is just a coincidence of timing and the magical time bomb that was planted on him for... reasons... just happened to go off right after info in Tiki-face is divulged.

"Wouldn't it be morbidly ironic if evil deity A secretly planted what amounts to a magical spy device / kill switch on evil wizard gang B...  Who are probably really good at detecting magical bugs and kill switches.  I just don't get it!"

---

Jake offers Eli a high-five when they finish up and smiles.

"It's probably a standard 'invoke dark god's name' smiteing clause" You know, so far as those are standard.

It took us a minute to remember that's GG and not Alloy, because his player is bad at dealing with multiple alts.

Alexis nods to Gale. "I'm sure Emerald will be happy to find another excuse to just hang out with friends."

Knowing Emmy, she'll probably do the "girls only" thing later and just celebrate with everyone. Besides... Alloy is not a girl and he is standing right there. Technically not a guy either, but seriously everyone refers to him as, well, him.

Alexis goes over more magic things with Alloy and Gale to make sure everything will work smoothly and suggests overseeing the other projects in case there was any magical element in the other siphons.

---

Angel shrugs. "It's confusing, but we don't have to understand it to help Emerald. Let's just hope what he said was the truth. One way to find out. We go to that location... with reinforcements."

---

Too happy and excited about the project and Emmy being rescued to bother with shy antics, Eli takes the high-five. "You know... despite how feasible this all is, I'm still worried it won't work. I mean, OK sure... in ancient times, you put paint on someone, dance around and sing some chant to make things happen, but removing a curse from a god with technology still feels weird... even if it was through technology Emerald received the curse in the first place. I guess what goes around comes around."
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:55, Sat 19 Dec 2015.

"Weird.  Remind me to play the name game with tiki face when we inevitably fight him.  With any luck my mispronunciations will infuriate him and he'll correct me, blowing himself up in the process.  Because he invoked a dark god's name."

Kitau nods to Angel and heads for the location.  Mits info-dumps what's going on to the rest of the "Rescue Emmy" team.

---

Gale nods to Alexis.  "Good idea."

She's quick to take charge coordinating the magical oversight.

---

Jake thinks and shrugs to Eli.  "Feels weird to me too.  Don't really understand how something like this even works.  But we're ahead of schedule, so maybe now if we focus on figuring out how this thing works, we can figure a way to shield against it.  So heroes in the future won't get stuck with this problem."

Bump!

  Robot gender questions are now in the pop culture eye more than they previously were, yes.  But Dude Bot is a safe bet with Alloy.

  "Considering how much cross coverage there is to deal with, checking the other devices for such things would make sense, yeah."

Shelly pops up. "So was it decided that we take Emerald along? And if so, maybe we should knock her out ahead of time so he can't "use" her against us?"

---

The other projects that Gale oversees are going about as smoothly as Eli and Jake's. Katy isn't gnawing on the wires or eating the chemicals of the "science" location and seems to be doing a decent job assisting (insert science origin character here).

---

Eli helps Jake. He suddenly gets a mind-blown expression. "Jake... if we solve this issue... what if we can free people completely from the Well's influence too?! We could free everyone! Heck... maybe even Arachnos will be grateful enough to be less of a villain! He certainly won't be a pawn of the Well to cause strife on purpose anymore..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:33, Mon 08 Feb 2016.

Lucky isn't science origin himself, but his missions have made him intimately familiar with it, so he's there to help Katy and the others.

Mits answers Shelly, "If I were Emerald, I would insist on being allowed to help.  It would be worth it to wear a shock collar rigged to knock me out if I get mind controlled.  Even if I only got one hit on the big bad before going rogue.  Besides.  We kinda have to bring her to the ritual circle for it to work.  Let's leave it up to her whether she goes awake or not."

Jake considers Eli's idea.  "Maybe...  Worth looking into.  Not that we will ever be thanked, but even the tiniest bit of progress toward that could change the course of history for the better."
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:07, Thu 11 Feb 2016.