Gabriel knocked, although the design was so archaic it took a few moments to puzzle out what the things were. Blessedly Young Frankenstein had been among the media saved when the Last Refuge fled.

The doors start gliding open- and about halfway through opening begin to creak ominously, like the hinges forgot the creak.  In fact, it sounds vaguely embarrassed about the whole affair.  Look, I know I was late, and I'm sorry, but things have been awfully hard at the office and my car broke down...

And then there's a thundercrash that occurs a few seconds after the last creak stops, also quite off in timing.  They smell freshly oxygenated air, the faint smell of a delicious feast that makes their mouths water, and a hint of enchanting music.

"Inside,"  She gestures to the pitch black, "I cannot follow you into my brother's realm."

Terminal Grenade he signs to Mastiff before walking through the door.

At least it seemed these rakasha had a basis in human stories, Grunt thought as he advanced, was that from the crew or earlier?

Mastiff nods once as they move through.

It's like walking into a darkened room and someone flicks on the lights for a surprise party.  They've walked directly into a courtyard full of villagers peddling wares, dancers, jugglers, streamers and banners flying everywhere, and fireworks across a black-and-green sky- that's nonetheless simultaneously bright as day and dark as night.  Guards dressed in heavy armor and flowers bow to them as they enter, all smiles.  It's like something out of a movie.

A gorgeous woman dances up to Grunt and places a garland of flowers around his neck, "Welcome to the party!"  She calls out, eyes alive and dancing yet also lacking something integral.  "Stay a while!"

((Feel free to take a Learning check.  Difficulty is 30.))

When in doubt, fall back on defaults. In Grunt's case, that meant a law enforcement officer's terse nod that implied, on balance, that it might be considered a good day by some people. He looks around, the place reminding him too much of how teenagers who had been born on the Last Refuge sometimes thought about how Earth looked.

(Roll: 10, 8, 7, 4, 1, 1 & 1
Learning: 31)

Wait.

Grunt has seen this before.  The symbols painted on the doors... the chalk drawing on the village square.  The appearance of the people, vaguely cartoonish...

He's seen it in a pre-Exodus movie.  There's a couple thousand DVDs of the damn thing scattered around the Last Refuge.  There was almost certainly one here.

"What is the celebration?" Grunt asked with the most poorly faked curiosity ever, his mind already judging the merits of his knife in cutting hair, "I've just arrived today."

"Why, good sir, a great prince is here from an outside world!"  The village girl laughs with happiness, another garland in her hands as she turns to Mastiff, "My lord!  We are so blessed with your presence!!?"

Mastiff's eyes somewhat glaze over as he considers the villager and the garland, but he keeps his wits about him and holds his hand up with a dark expression on his face.

"You are all most welcome, my Lords," She bows to each of them- the bow crude, wrong somehow, almost lascivious. "The village will do anything for you!"

"I think we should meet the local notables first, My Lord," Grunt told Mastiff, one finger running along the handle of his k-bar. He had never been sure exactly what metals would work, and everything on the Last Refuge was an alloy of one sort or another.

There should be a castle or palace somewhere in sight, and he'll chive his colleague towards that at first chance.

The castle is very much in sight:  looming over the village, towering inestimably high to eternity.  Mastiff needs very little encouragement to head to the castle, and the two are followed by throngs of cheering men and women.  The twin doors are shut and covered with garlands of flowers and tiled with smiling people's faces.  The door has only a single knocker, the face of a man with a big gritted smile and the knocker clenched between teeth the size of dominoes.

This actually gives Mastiff pause.  "The fuck, Grunt."

"We are approaching their festival with the flying lanterns and the lost child," Grunt told Mastiff amiably, "Surely you've heard the tales of Pixar? They're shockingly popular in our home."

He pulled the knocker back, letting out his call-sign in the process, and slammed it back so long as the thing didn't actually start talking. Rakasha, he thought with a mix of annoyance, dread, and the most pessimistic hope.

"Look, they're stories. Or parts of stories. This one seems to be taking some cues from an Earth movie. Which would be fine if there was any chance it would stick to the script all the way through. Bad news, you're more handsome than me so you're stuck as Prince Charming."

Unsaid is that no one had charms or special techniques for dealing with the Fae since, a few hours ago, there was only one of them and killing her would be catastrophically dumb.

"Always hated those movies,"  Mastiff finally says aloud, almost hopefully, looking about as if everything would just dissolve in a moment.

Oh, it doesn't speak.  It hums with unnatural happiness.  The eyes are unfocused, staring in two different directions once the handle is held.  The eyes focus again, pleading, please please please again...

Then the door creaks open.  The face looks frustrated.

"Oh, and don't think it has to be a person. This whole village and castle could be it. Or even just a floating idea," Grunt added wryly, "Well, be that as it may, we're on its turf and that means the rules are a bit different from usual."

He led the way through the open door, eyes peeled but this thing was keeping up appearances. There was probably going to be a quest. Or some pseudo-feudal protocols.

Misgivings aside he was going to be polite and quiet until they were deep enough in to pull any of the surviving crew out.

The two enter the castle to find a dining hall already set up for them.  A long table that stretches for infinity in every direction and up and around the top of the hall like a deranged Escher meets George RR Martin drips with roast turkey with glazed crackled skin and mashed potatoes the size of skyscrapers meet the broken remains of a spun-sugar sculpture atop a raven pie sitting next to gravy bowls dripping from the ceiling to just near his head.  The crew of the Royet are there, all sitting and eating their dinner from their impossible angles, sitting next to each other yet infinitely far away, their eyes glassy and manic.

One of them, a pretty young woman he recognizes from his files as a Kara Bradington, beckons him over.  "Welcome, come on over, eat, eat, eat!"

There's one he doesn't recognize.  The fae is 12 feet tall, with wings of some strange blue bird, a face chiseled from marble and the lewd dreams of a thousand teenagers, and eyes that are well and truly dead.  He stands like a spider unfolding itself,

"Welcome, honored guests!"
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:47, Mon 03 Feb 2020.

"Hello. Glad to have found the crew. Have you drained them enough to let us take them out of here?" Grunt asked the thing dryly, "Ah, and we are Grunt and Mastiff respectively. Your peers-neighbors?-seemed inclined to forge somewhat more diplomatic ties with the survivors of this universe."

Yes "they are, so we have heard that there are more of our number in space,"  The Grand Host responds, eyeing the two of them with unblinking eyes, "We are [most] anxious" to meet them!"

"Yes let's meet them,"  Kara Bradington answers happily.

From far, far away, an eternity away at the end of the table, Grunt can see the gorgeous Captain Handall busily eating away at a whole turkey, without regard to anything close to restraint.  Her nearest neighbor, who his files call James Plunger, stabs at his own hand with a fork.

"Are you going to release them or can we skip straight to the messy bits? I'm not authorized to negotiate with the three of you and if I try while you have the crew hear we'll all find out just what sort of toys the Labs have been working on," Grunt said as he walked over and pulled the fork away from James Plunger, "You are new to encountering humanity?"

"Release them when they are so happpy?"

Plunger's fork is ripped right out of his hand.  He looks at Grunt blankly, then grabs- flails, more like a toddler than anything else- for Grunt's knife.

"This cannot be our first time.  Who can speak to [us]?"  The Fae nobleman asks, eyes black and shiny.  Nearby Mastiff starts to sway woozily.  "Perhaps you can speak for us to them...!"

Another Gracious Host stands next to a fae that strongly resembles TarotoraT on one of the infinite staircases far away, smiling and waving.

Init : 10, 8, 8, 4, 2, 2 & 1
Shadow Catching w/Saber
Init: 28 + 10 + 10 = 48
Assess Fears : 22 + 15 = 37

Grunt had his knife out a moment later and darted towards their host, quite intent on stabbing the thing in the face. Maybe cold iron was needed, maybe not, but if it came down to it he'd beat the thing to death with his bare hands. With more backup he'd have kept trying to talk but Mastiff was already looking a bit odd and that meant the predators needed to be given pause immediately.

((Fae Init:
10, 9, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 4 & 1.
*1 Chi:  Reduce Shaping Wave penalties by 10
*5 Chi:  Craft Dreaming World 29 + Wu Wei 20 + AB 5 - Penalty 0 + IKF 15 = 69
*3 Chi:  If  Craft Dreaming World, AB increases from 5 to 10
*2 Chi:  +15 to a Shaping Wave
*Init 24 + Speed 10 + AB 5 = 39

Fears:  Balanced styles, old styles, those who believe in the falseness of the world

Grunt has init))
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:31, Sat 07 Mar 2020.

(Attack: 8, 8, 6, 6, 2, 1 & 1
Strike: 28 + 10 ES + 10 AB + 10 IKF + 5 (Fears, Old Style) = 63, 2 chi
Secondary Strike: 26 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 51, 2 chi
Disrupt (Footwork) Might: 21 + 10 + 10 = 41)

Grunt doesn't see a way to stop the fae in time, his own magics weren't suitable for use around this many unarmored civilians. So he goes with what he knows, slamming the knife into center mass and pressing it upwards even as his shoulder smashes into the thing's chest in an effort to bowl it over.

((Mastiff Init:  10, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 & 2
*Gun is effectively Ranged+Flexible
*Init 17 + Speed 0 + AB 10 = 27

Fae Defense:
10, 9, 7, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2 & 1
*Defense vs Primary Strike 24 + Dodge 15 + AB 5 = 49 vs 63, takes a Ripple + Roll
*Defense vs Secondary Strike 19 + Dodge 15 + AB 5 = 39 vs 51, takes a Ripple + Roll
*Defense vs Disrupt 17 + Hardiness 5 + AB 5 = 37 vs 41, takes Disrupt

RR 1 on Fae:
*4 Chi on Chi Aura
*11 + Damage 10 - Toughness 0 - Chi Aura 25 = 0 damage

RR 2 on Fae:
*4 Chi on Chi Aura
*14 + Damage 10 - Toughness 0 - Chi Aura 19 = Trivial wound

Fae Attack:
10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2 & 1
*1 Chi for Quick Work:  Wu Wei on Grunt 22 + Wu Wei 20 + AB 10 = 52

Mastiff Attack:
10, 9, 9, 7, 5, 3 & 2
*3 Chi:  Strike +10, ignore 5 pts armor
*Attack 29 + Strike 15 + IKF 10 + AB 10 = 64, Better Blocked:  Dodge -10

Fae Defense:
10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 0 & 0
*Float 1-1
*Defense vs Strike 20 + Dodge 15 + AB 10 - Better Blocked 10 - Disrupt 5 = 30 vs 64, 2 Ripples + Roll

RR vs Fae:
*23 + Damage 15 - Toughness 0 - Chi Aura 0 = 38, a Minor Wound:  Chipped Kneecap, Action penalty to Dodge

Fae Init:
9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 2, 2, 1 & 1
*Float 1-1
*Advanced FoB Minor Action with 22 for 20 Chi- yes, 20 Chi
*Init 19 + Speed 10 + AB 10 = 39))

The Fae is lithe, graceful, superb- but it's also distracted.  And Grunt may not be able to stop the Fae from spinning its dream, but as an old Dragon-Blooded sage once said, "everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face".

The Fae had something sort of like a plan.

The Fae did not expect to be, well, punched in the face.

Despite its best attempts at throwing up essence and magic and dodging to the side, there's nothing like a good old-fashioned knife to the chest to really get the panic-juices flowing.  The Fae manages to divert the first blow of the knife, but not the second; and it certainly didn't expect a shoulder-bash.  The damn thing looks offended beyond contempt as it stands up, pointing a finger at Grunt, "HOW DARE YOU IN MY HOUSE YOU WILL BE EATEN BY SCORPIONS"

True to its word, scorpions appear from under the very tiles to swarm over Grunt.

But in the meantime, it's ignored the other threat.  Mastiff raises his assault rifle, aims, and fires.  The Fae has been spending Essence like candy, drawing upon the crew to fuel it; but at the moment it's out, no doubt because Grunt took up so much of its energy and attention.  This buys him the time to spray the thing with assault rifle fire, catching it in the knee and beginning the first step to hobbling it.  Mastiff looks grim.

((Defense: 10, 9, 8, 7, 4, 3 & 1
Quick Work: 52 - 19 = 32 - 10 Hardiness = 22 - 10 AB = 12, 1 chi on Chi Aura

Init: 9, 8, 8, 6, 5, 3 & 1
Shadow Catching w/Saber
Init: 28 + 10 + 10 = 48

Attack: 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 2 & 1
Strike: 19 + 10 + 10 + 5 (Laughs: Higher Init) + 5 (Fears: Old Style) = 49 + 10 = 59, 2 chi Hou Yi's Arrows))

The thing about scorpions swarming him is that Grunt's in a pretty well sealed bit of armor and capable of gritting his teeth through most poisons. He takes it on the proverbial chin and keeps on top of the fae, dashing forward awkwardly with the damn bugs hanging off of him for another slice at the leg.

If they can immobilize it he'll back off and let Mastiff empty as many magazines as needed.

((RR on Grunt:
*18 - Chi Aura 11 = 7, a Trivial Curse

Mastiff Init:
10, 9, 8, 5, 3, 2 & 1
*19 + Speed 0 + AB 10 = 29

Init:
Grunt 48
Fae 39
Mastiff 29

Defense vs Grunt:
9, 7, 7, 7, 5, 3, 2, 2 & 1
*Defense 37 + Dodge 15 + AB 10 - Dodge Penalty 5 = 57 vs 59, a Ripple

Fae Attack vs Mastiff:
10, 9, 9, 6, 6, 3, 3, 2 & 2
*QW 26 + Wu Wei 20 + AB 10 = 56

Mastiff Defense:
8, 5, 5, 2, 2, 2 & 1
*32 + Wu Wei 5 + AB 10 = 47 vs 56, a Ripple
*Float 5-5

Mastiff Attack:
9, 7, 6, 4, 3, 1 & 1
*3 Chi:  Strike +10, ignore 5 pts armor
*Mark Target 21 + Awareness 15 + AB 10 = 46
*Strike with Flowed 25 + Strike 15 + IKF 10 + AB 10 = 60, Dodge -10

Fae Defense:
10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3 & 2
*4 Chi:  Shaping Wave of 69 vs 60, Blocks

Grunt has init))

The Fae stands in place, whimpering as it retreats from Grunt's attempt at driving a knife into its chest comes short of drawing blood.  The scorpions try to flow over Mastiff but the Dragon-Blooded resists the urge to swat at them, instead letting bullets answer for a retort.  Unfortunately the Fae waves a hand and food from the impossible table falls in front of each and every bullet, stopping them dead.

"Any ideas, Grunt?!"

Init: 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 5 & 3
Shadow Catching w/Saber
Init: 35 + 10 + 10 + 20 = 75, 4 chi

Attack: 9, 8, 8, 6, 5, 4 & 2
Strike: 28 + 10 (Strike) + 10 (2 chi) + 5 (Fears: Old Style) + 5 (Laughs: Got Init) + 10 (AB) = 68

"Yeah. Keep after the knee and I'll take him to the ground," Grunt growled, "Then spray both of us if you have to, I'm better armed and tougher than it is."

Guns had never really been his thing, living in a pressurized hull meant that most of the time any firearm powerful enough to put someone that wasn't mortal down was stupidly dangerous.

So he's entirely familiar with getting up close and personal in confined spaces, this time darting low along the ground and aiming for the thing's injured leg with his knife. If it had to hop all the prop manipulation in the world wouldn't save it.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:18, Fri 01 May 2020.