LOCATION:  JAGGANATHIKA BRIDGE
TIME:  1130
DATE:  2025 - 11 - JUL

COMMANDER PRESIDING:  RUSTY 'SMOKER' SHACKLEFORD
TACTICAL OFFICER:  BATTLES

COMBAT PERSONNEL IN ATTENDANCE: DANIEL MATTHEWS, CALLSIGN 'LUCIFER' ; LYLA RAINES, CALLSIGN 'BLUE FOX' ; ARKADY DRAGOMIROV, CALLSIGN 'RED STAR' ; PAK NARI, CALLSIGN 'KUMIHO'; GABRIEL HOCKENBERRY, CALLSIGN 'GRUNT'

SECRETARY:  JUNO

THIS TRANSCRIPT SEALED, LEVEL 23E:  COMBAT PERSONNEL AND UPPER COMMAND ONLY

---

"Thank you all for coming."

They're tired, bashed, bruised, covered in blood and bites, soaked in sweat and ichor, and are otherwise exhausted.  But they're all alive and intact, which is more than anyone can say for most of their opponents.

"I haven't had much time to go through all the data we've gleaned.  Unfortunately we don't have a lot.  We're going to be busy enough talking to Sigereth in the near future, but it may take months to give us a real in-depth picture about what happened here.  Now, ya'all know me.  Ya'all know I'm not the formal type.  I'm gonna give ya'all a chance to bring things up bit by bit, which'll help me pick this shit apart right for us later.  I wasn't on the ground for this op so I may be less informed than ya'all.  Alright, who wnats to start?

To be fair, most of their opponents weren't alive to begin with.

Daniel feels a bit overdressed despite the... more recent damage his wardrobe may have suffered. Either way, he glances around the room before starting off.

"Well, to go through it roughly in order: Lyla, Kumiho, Battles and I were tasked with cleaning up the space around ONYX SPIRE while Grunt and Red Star infiltrated with the Konnidan. Beside the Cruisers, Frigates and Fighters there were at first two Abyssals; Gardener of Screams, an old enemy mostly dealt with by Lyla, and Mournful Topaz Seraphim, a relatively fresh but unusually powerful Abyssal from a prison ship, dealt with by me.

She focused completely on defense while trying to convince me of her wanting Yama dead, but being forced to do his bidding because they have her sister on a prison ship. I'm halfway inclined to believe her - not enough to trust her, but I consider liberating prison ships a priority in any case.

Just as I cracked her defenses and felt I might convert her, Gardener of Screams took her down himself before going down soon after. After that the four of us mopped up the remainder of the fleet, with Battles getting shot down but continuing anyway and Kumiho focusing on decimating the fighter swarms and then mostly defending and enabling me."

He throws a glance of acknowledgement at Kumiho while continuing.

"A third Abyssal, Set Beckons, emerged from the facility toward the end of the battle and proved his magical and combat prowess by holding his own for a while, but ultimately lacked the raw power necessary to win despite our fatigue and was captured. Since then I've interrogated him, gotten some imprecise data on the location of prison ships and reached an agreement that he will help us cut our way to the parallel universe because it will also let the Neverborn of this timeline spread there."

He looks to the boarding team inquisitively.

"When we were done outside, Lyla joined the boarding team under the guise of Diamond Sky."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:38, Wed 04 July 2018.

Lyla still in her Diamond sky garbs, looks awfully odd. The white and glitter don't really suite her facial scar, the blood still dripping from it or the shadows now accompanying her. Its like she is still in between on how to appear normal and how to appear someone else.

"Yeah, the space battle went as he said. Me spending most of my time chipping away at Gardener, before he kill stole himself, and then tearing away at what was left before Set arrived. The four of us played well together, I must say."

She reaches out for a tissue to wipe away blood from her field of view.

"Once in doors I was pretty much limited due to the protocol set by the facility that if I was revealed, it'd all be blown away. So Diamond sky worked more of a back up, letting Grunt and Red Star run the op. I did though use to opportunity to survey their performance at the same time," she notes in a jesting tone.

Battles is in no hurry to chip in just yet.  But he does fix Lucifer with the biggest "WUT" face any of them had ever seen the normally-composed Sidereal make at the mention of spreading the Neverborn to another universe.

"The new enemy ships are pretty strong."  Kumiho chimes in, clearly smiling at the acknowledgement, "Before I Exalted I'm not sure I could've handled one of their basic ships, let alone those frigates.  The old Bataan ones were just... a threat, you know, one we could handle, but these new ones can mess the fleet up good."

"You know pretty much all I do. We managed to save some scraps but the only huge source of intelligence I have expectations of is Sigreth," Grunt replied, "Their combat forces weren't impressive by the time we breached them, but I'm not sure how I feel about anyone fishing up second circle demons."

Arkady streches his legs and nods.
"Yeah... Though I did pocket a data dump and I haven't decrypted it yet. Shifting through the files is gonna require a lot of... Stiff coffee."
He takes a hard drive out of his pocket and waves it in front of him.
"skimming through it on the spot didn't reveal much, but it is a server drive, so there might be some meta-data left from transfers."

"I'll take that," Smoker drawls.  "But Sigereth is a prize too.  Any idea who summoned her?  Shouldn't be possible for that sort, at least, not that I know of.  I'm no magician."

"Abyssals may learn the Celestial Circle, but can also learn to summon Second Circle Demons with the highest tier of necromancy.  Whoever it is must be powerful, about on the scale of Lucifer." Battles glances over Lucifer's way, "Which would probably mean Yama."

Arkady hands over the hard drive, tho holding on to it just a little bit longer than you normally would when handing someone something.

"If there's something that the engineers could be interested of, I call dibs."

He leans back on his chair and snaps his fingers, turning towards Battles
"We did run to an Abyssal Sigereth referred to as her master, but only after we had freed her. Apparently Sigereth set all of her remaining Baidak against him, so he was easy to deal with in his 'beat to shit' state. He really didn't match your description."

Lyla smirks to herself:"Exhumes the Bodies is not really available to answer any questions anymore, since the last time we saw he was busy lying in a puddle of his own blood. I think the mastership was transferred in that case, since he didn't seem strong enough for a feat like that. Then again he was going to cast before I sliced his throat open so he was up for a stunt like that."

"I'm not an initiate of those heights, but the paraphenalia didn't seem," Grunt trailed off, "It was like someone made a neural network work on a Babbage Machine. A lot of corners cut and power wasted. That may be what gave us the leg up on her."

Lucifer gives Battles a nod signifying "I'll explain later".

"If it was one person, it'd have to be one of the big three; Yama, Thanatos or Agent Orange. Or a Deathlord."

There's a moment of consideration as Lyla and Arkady give their accounts.

"Might also be that Sigereth was bound in some sort of fluke? Maybe Exhume the bodies played a game to bind her, or achieved the summoning via means other than Sorcery or Necromancy of the sufficient Circle. Sorcery is more of a skeleton key in this regard after all, Demons can also be summoned with more... traditional rituals and means."

He listens to Grunt's statement thoughtfully.

"That seems strange, considering that the ships employed by the facility were cutting-edge. One explanation could be what I just said, Sigereth's summoning and binding being a fluke or the result of some clever ploy by someone not normally strong enough for the task."

"On the bright side we can actually ask Sigereth herself after she goes through quarantine."  Smoker lights up a cigarette- man, where does he keep getting those old Earth ones?  They're practically worth a small fortune each.  "But you're forgetting something here, Lucifer.  It might be Sigereth actually helped design the ships.  This was a bootstrapping facility.  And I'm betting they've still got the schematics.  We might've put a dent in them here but I'm betting we'll still see these things going forward."

"I can report something my war-god saw from inside the enemy cruisers.  The old ones were almost all solid. These are still pretty solid, but they've got living quarters and atmosphere now.  The living quarters are almost more like a comfortable jail cell than anything else- sealed doors, alarms, a hole to slide food through."

"I find the idea of someone managing to bind a demon of that circle with somewhat sloppy procedures scarier than someone doing it the correct, efficient way," Grunt noted with a shrug, "But until we know more about this sect's history..."

He trailed off.

"How goes the pale blooded one?"

Lyla shifts uneasily in her chair.

"So that would mean, that instead of ghosts we'll be fighting against people. Involuntarily working people, but people nonetheless. I wonder how they make them co-operate in long term give freedom might be close," she peers over to Battles.