Dragonborn Isekoi (Sallin Kari)

[porne]

A slightly closer inspection reveals that while it looks like it's been chewed, it's more along the lines of hundreds of highspeed impacts from magma and other weapons putting dozens and dozens of dings in the armor. The primary chest plate and helmet are gone, as are the weapons, and Elisa confirms that that's the actual armor that Theresa used in the battle, it's just had the more expensive or dangerous parts removed.

The recording is several combat scenes, although they all seem to be focusing on Theresa brutalizing her opponents. "Strange. It's supposed to be playing the full recording. And have audio." Elisa moves to the side and begins to fiddle with it. "Nobody should be able to change this..." she mutters getting lost in a problem. "Ah, here we go." The portrait restarts, seeming to show the beginnings of the confrontation. It's from an overhead viewing crystal, set to one side of the long ceremonial hallway that is used as the main entrance for the throne room.

Audio crackles on, and it seems to be overhead banter from the rebel forces beginning to deploy outfront from a pair of Hawks. One of them is mostly empty, a field gun being deployed while the other still has people dropping from lines. You're hit with an intense sense of vertigo as Loren's memories of the event begin to overlap. None of the imagery is distinctive, but you can remember the way the magic was moving on the other side of the door, although it's radically different from your own dragon senses. They stop when the massive stone door opens and a heavily armored figure steps out, closing the door behind her, although they're not sure who it is at first.

"-Judith perhaps?" "No, she's been confirmed elsewhere, do you think they put Jillian in the suit?" Even having a bit of foreknowledge doesn't quite prepare you as the audio begins scrape and growl and mana begins to howl past the communication systems, "Crystal and Mana, IT'S THERESA!" A panicked cry echoes out as Theresa begins to splinter the ground around her as she ramps up her weight, the Bright Bow in her hand and burning bright before she brings it up. A dwarf in front of the field gun slams his stone hammer against the ground, making the sharp twisting motion and a fist thick wall of stone leaps in front of them, the other side a few mercenaries throw smoke lines down to provide cover. One of the Hawks begins to reposition, trying to bring one of the weapons to bear as small spells shatter against the heavy mythril plating Theresa wears. She raises the Bow and you feel the surge of mana transferring through your memories before a silver streak leaps from the bow to the Hawk that was turning, wrenching one of the massive wind magic crystals and cracks beginning to form. Having seen this before, you're ready as the portrait flashes white, massive bolts of lightning shattering the defensive line and scattering the groups before the crystal is done unloading its raw wind magic. The other Hawk is now jammed into the side of the building, and has been twisted and broken from the massive magic pulse. At least a dozen of the invaders are scattered across the ground.

The crystal eye begins to rattle, and you recall the way that the building shook slightly. Theresa is charging the stone wall, and whips out a hand, before your memories dredge up the sound of rolling thunder and shattering stone as the wall is splintered and broken. Theresa shoulder checks it, smashing through and you can't quite see her as she's hidden behind the wall, but you're interrupted when someone accosts you. "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE CHANGING THIS!" The memories are so intense, that you nearly react with violence, but a split second of focus makes you realize why this person is so enraged, the stink of a Charm spell is on them!

[Sallin_Kari]

That makes sense. Not familiar with their equipment yet so I wasn't sure whether it was battle torn or just a replication.

As she mentions how it shouldn't be able to be changed I start to comment, "Okay, so who could have don-" I quickly shut off as I hear Judith, focusing on the recording. Then I'm interrupted again, and noticing the charm, click my tongue, "And here goes any hope of having a nice day off..." After letting out a sigh, I immediately grapple the person so he can't get any ideas, before turning to Elisa, "He's under the influence. I can try to dispel it but last time I did so one of our prisoners died, so not sure if you want to risk it." Still... why would they care about this recording? That warrants more investigation. Why meddle with it? If it hold sensitive information why not swap it out for a fake or destroy it?

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

For the record, Judith wasn't there, it's only the hostile radio chatter that Talren is hearing, but he's getting some flashback from Loren (although that's mostly things that are so loud they carry through the walls). It was Theresa vs about 60 fighters with a pair of Hawks and field guns, so naturally her first move was to swat the CAS out of the sky (Talren has done something similar if you'll recall, back when I introduced Jillian). A lot of these nobles have had duels with Theresa and can recognize when she starts gathering mana because of how distinctive her power is. That said, none of them have ever fought Theresa in battle armor with the Bright Bow and are quite cognizant of that fact.

This one feels... fresh, like it's still clinging on the outside the same way it was with Jillian. Jillian was relatively unharmed, but the "pirate" leader was likely under the influence for quite some time, so perhaps duration is a factor? You recall the Oracle mentioning that the Void Whisperers were effectively soul or mind parasites, maybe they hollow their host mind out? Disgusting. "Oh, what's going on, let me stop this real quick and investigate." Elisa says, moving over to you. The damned Void spawn seems to reach out for her, although it seems to be steering clear of you.

[Sallin_Kari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I realized that, but Talren just heard Judith and immediately focused on it, not finishing his sentence.

Not questioning the tactics or anything either so no need to justify it to me.

Noticing the creature reaching out to Elisa I immediately grab this thing, trying not to kill it outright, but weaken it enough so it can't do it. If I need to kill it to stop it, then so be it.

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Tactically, Theresa is going to have a mixed bag, as this is her first major battle like this. Fortunately, while there's hunters among the mercenaries, none of them were quite prepared to fight someone with this kind of firepower in this small of a package.

Also, the newly infected are extremely easy for Talren to take care of, just grabbing their head and pulsing his magical power will usually cause the Whisperer to burn up. Once they've gotten a chance to entrench themselves in their victims soul, they're a bit harder to dig out.

As your hand reaches out, it seems to instinctively reach toward you, but when it gets anywhere near, it begins to almost boil off, and you feel a hiss reverberate through the local mana fields. The tendril it had sent out quickly withers. The man seems to almost spasm and blink before turning a confused look on you, before noticing Elizabeth. "Princess! It's... an honor to have you hear? I'm afraid I'm ill, and I must... take my leave." It's hard to tell if this is still the Whisperer talking, or if it's completely retreated to hide inside of the man. He begins to weakly struggle. Elizabeth comes over to your side, whispering quietly, "What's with this ball of life magic in his head? He's not healing anything, and it's very faint." She can sense the thing? Useful information.

[Sallin_Kari]

Ignoring the man, but holding him quite firm so he can't struggle free, "He's infected so that'd be the Void creature. See if you can differentiation it from 'life magic' since if you can you should be able to detect these things."

[porne]

Elizabeth approaches, and seems to examine his head, although she's staring through it to a degree, looking at something without a physical form. "The pattern is very complex and seems to be moving. I suppose there's one way to test for sure if you're willing to experiment a little."

[Sallin_Kari]

"Honestly I don't like leaving this thing alive. And the longer we leave it the more likely the host is going to get hurt. If you're going to do something please make it fast," I tell her.

[porne]

"Oh, right the host. Yes. Best to not experiment on a person. Kill it." Elizabeth tells you. Finishing the creature off is fairly uneventful, although the man struggles briefly, it's closer to spasms as the thing tries to cry out. Whether due to age or simply power, its aetherial voice isn't strong enough to create more than a slight tremor, easily covered by the pulse of your mana crushing it. The man starts to pant and hyperventilate and you can help him to sit up and recover.

Thinking on it, while the one from Jillian and the 'pirate' captain was a fairly sound strategic decision, first a commander and then hopping to a host of opportunity to attack other high value targets, this one seems... like more of a reach. It's probably not random, but forcing an evacuation so you can check everyone would give the game away. You could continue to enjoy the exhibits while keeping an eye open for any more surprise hosts, or you could take a chance to prowl about and hunt them down, if you're willing to leave Elizabeth.

At that point, a young orc begins to approach Elizabeth. It's one of the ones you saw before, and you sense no hostility or charm magic. In fact, if you didn't know better the child seems more interested in the display than you or Elizabeth. Doing a small tour would certainly come in handy as a cover if you decide to be sneaky about it.

[Sallin_Kari]

Well... I suppose if someone ends up dead, blood flowing from their eyes, then we know who else was taken over. Still I'm not willing to leave Elizabeth before we can talk to Theresa and inform her of the situation. I turn to Elisa smiling, "Well now that is done, let's continue on." I'll keep an eye out for any more, using the excuse of wanting to check things out to keep her close if I need to wander a bit.

[porne]

The young orc pulls at Elizabeths coat and asks her if she can fix the portrait machine. His accent is rather thick, but seems to be working well enough. Elizabeth does so, and the recording restarts. You could watch it through, or you could go observe the different exhibits. The group of young orcs, they're a bit too large to be called children, are slowly migrating back around from the armor and weapons exhibit. There's also the light conversations you hear from the witnesses.

[Sallin_Kari]

With the recording fixed I urge Elisa forward, saying I want to look at the weapons and armor, though I'm searching the area for any more traces of the whisperers.

[porne]

Moving toward the armor and weapons, you don't see anything immediately. There's numerous armors on display, seemingly grouped by clan and then a cluster toward the back for the mercenaries. Looking around, you don't see anyone, but give the weapons a once over, just to make sure they haven't set up any traps or something. A quick glance seems to be enough to summon memories from Loren, and you can almost recall reading the various plaques through her mind.

You recognize Theresa's armor, and there's a small mock up like what's near the front, of the 'undamaged' armor. The 'chewing' you saw before looks more like what you'd expect to have seen. While Theresa led with devastating introductory attacks, it's clear that they got at least a few good volleys in, dozens of impact points from high speed magma strikes, lightning bolts, rock chips and likely spells you haven't even seen. The raw healing magical aura clinging to it combined with the removed and reforged uru chest plate and helmet indicate that the dozen or so breaches in the armor didn't stop her because none were immediately lethal, and she just pushed through until the healing magic stitched her back together. A memory of her being pulled out of the mangled armor, drenched in both her own and opponents blood, while screaming a truly impressive amount of obscenities flashes through your mind, as it seems that the healing magic wasn't able to remove all of the spalling and other projectiles, just keep her alive through it.

There's eight sets of armor with strengthening and toughening magic, all rigged out for larger than expected individuals. Like Theresa's armor, they've got a few impact damaged plates, but the bulk of the damage was purely physical trauma. The tile next to them indicate they belonged to the Iron Bone orc clan, and the orcs stood the longest in the battle, most of them lasting until the end when Theresa finally wore one of them down to the point of a fatal strike, and they could no longer cycle in and out to rest and recharge their magic. None of the orcs surrendered, choosing to fight to the end. You have to give them credit for having balls if nothing else.

Another four matching sets belonged to the Sturmjaegers, various crystal bulges still making the wind they manipulated bend around them. All but one of the Sturmjaegers died in the battle after last major 'artillery' exchange between Theresa and the casting group. Whereas the orc armor was bludgeoned to bits, most of this armor is intact, except for fingerwide sections scarred with magma stream impacts. No lightning strikes though, and bits of Lorens memory indicate that they have a natural affinity for both wind and lightning magic.

Next is the semi-matching Stonebreaker clan's set. Six, but much like the Sturmjaegers, only one survivor from the family. The main thing are their weapons, a heavy stone tipped hammer maul they used to grab and rip up sections of stone to act as shields. The way Theresa plowed through a fist thick wall of stone indicated that it wasn't much enough. There's also something in there nice about the last survivor having stood and protected the wounded rather than attempting to fight.

There's five mockups of the Lifeblood clan armor, and it mentions that only one of them died and his armor was returned to his people as a gesture of peace. The other sets of equipment all had the raw elemental might of their magic behind them, but these were fakes. The one that belonged to the dead one has a massively ruptured arm as the primary damaged, and a badly severed section of the head piece indicates that he couldn't heal past that.

Six more belonged to the Moltenfuries, the one that Loren seemed to care the least for. From what you can pick out of Loren's self depreciation, they were the major cause of the rebellion and one of the major financial contributors. Strange that... hm, one of their weapons, the head chiefs magma blade is missing. There's an illusion of it still there, perhaps it's out for cleaning or something. The plaque is also quite a bit more salty about them than the others, and Loren has the strong memory of almost all of the other clan heads, who had been captured for the trial itself, breaking down when the battle continued for minutes on end, the only information everyone got was Theresa continuing to summon power and the loud crash and screams of battle. The screams died off after the first five minutes though, and only the orc seemed to be proud, if sad. The former Lord Moltenfury was a sneering asshat about it though, and Loren caught him mouthing the word 'weakness'.

The next part of the exhibit is a few of the mercenary equipment sets. One of them, a dwarven set, belonged to a survivor who was kind enough to donate it to the museum. Another odd one is a fractured war hammer and smashed in mythril chest plate, this likely is one of the events that spurred the migration to smaller sections of armor that could be removed if necessary. The Tauren, the only race you know of massive enough to wear this, likely suffocated on his own blood if he couldn't get that plate off in time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Most of this is supposed to be information he could take in at a glance and either recall or skim the plaques for. I figured you'd want it all at once rather than three posts of 'I move onto the next exhibit'.

[Sallin_Kari]

My face darkens at the memories of Theresa's condition after she was pulled out of this thing... forcing myself to move on and clear my mind. Nothing I can do for the past.

Looking over the Iron Bone, I recall my only experience with orcs before coming here. They ran afoul of the werewolves that were my neighbors. Happen to catch sight of the battle on one of my flights, and to say it was one sided would be an understatement you'd not know it from how the orcs were acting. Asked my mother about them afterwords and I believe she referred to them as 'having a pair of giant testicles instead of brains' to explain their foolhardy behavior. Can't hate them for it though.

Staring Sturmjaeger armor, I think back to my conversation with Mary. Didn't she mention the Storm Furies? Guess this would be a clan of theirs.

The next two don't really interest me much but I stop upon getting to the Moltenfuries. Turning slightly to Elisa, I question, "Hey... why is there an illusion instead of the actual blade here?" With the possessed guy and the tampered display, I wouldn't put it past them to have stolen it... Perhaps that was the primary purpose of infiltrating here? It would make more sense then fucking with displays.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Cool cool, thank you for that.

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

How did you like the idea that combat heals can't properly clean wounds and just stitch people back together? I figure you'd probably need some reason to not just use magic bandaids everywhere.

Also, introducing the aether lash, the technique I mentioned before. Based primarily around mana control rather than power, a rare defense against projected spells. It has limited utility since a lot of spells don't project their spell forms out, but is a common skill for artificers to pick up because it's valuable practice for manipulating magical devices. Theresa cannot use this ability, as she's focused almost entirely on raw power.

Lorens memory indicates that immediately after being extracted from the armor, Theresa went into surgery to remove all of the bits and pieces of armor and projectiles. She also had a pain damper slapped on almost immediately, as the pain damper tends to inhibit fighting skills. Still, it does rankle a bit that they hurt her. A little part of you is also impressed that she stood there slugging it out with eight or so orcs with her armored fists for half an hour and just out lasted them.

Elisa cocks her head at you before approaching. She squints at the illusion spell. "That's odd." she makes a strange sign with her hand, twisting sharply and a tiny needle of mana lances out, puncturing the spell. A minor flash of light brightens the room as the illusion magic ruptures. Loren recalls that particular technique, one of the only one she learned since it's not useful for attack, it just punches holes in aetherial spell forms causing the spells to prematurely detonate. The hand signal is pure psychosomatic, but still, useful in the proper context.

"That is very odd." She continues, blinking the flash away. "I've never seen a stable spell like that woven purely of mana before. Can you do that? Maybe I should find someone to ask about this..." She trails off, but unlike the moving portrait, no one comes rushing up. What scent you caught smelled like it might have been from a Whisperer, but it's hard to tell. The sword they stole just fires a wad of magma at anything that strikes the blade, both accentuating the impact and adding a secondary attack. If the placard is correct anyway. You recall that Elizabeth studied it for a week or two before abandoning it, and apparently donating it.

[Sallin_Kari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Sure that makes sense.

I don't really understand what you mean by how the aether lash works but sure. It's basically counterspelling.

"No... I know of two that can. I just haven't learned it yet," I reply, realizing that that kind of magic is more inline with my understanding of spellcasting then this worlds... The void whisperers seem to be the only ones weird enough to know such things... No... now isn't the time for idle speculation! Turning to Elisa I ask, "So what do you know about that blade? Why would someone go through the effort to steal it?"

[porne]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Most (of these) ranged spells work by either: throwing a glob of raw magical energy of a particular flavor with a small magical barrier (such as Dragonbolt) or throwing a spell of pure woven aether/mana and a fuel supply where the spell sets up and then converts the magic into an effect (the ice shield Talren came up with) before it evaporates. The lash works on both to a degree, either rupturing the barrier or the core spell weave. It wouldn't work on Dragonbolt because of the raw speed of the spell though, and all it would do is detonate the spell anyway.

Obviously, there's words of power and other stuff out there, but the locals don't know how those work. I'm creating a minor separation between 'aether' and 'mana' where aether is the 'physical' component while 'mana' is the fuel, although it's supposed to be the same 'stuff' just different aspects of it.

"Hmmm, we can duplicate the spell as desired. On of the after effects of the rebellion was that we released that spell form to the public fabricator guilds. That one was Oracle made though, but it wasn't a high performance unit like the Bright Bow, so while it's impressive, I could do better if I tried. If I had to guess, somebody would probably sell it to the banished lavabitch clan head or something. But that light spell was far more valuable, I mean it had to be feeding directly on the back ground mana field or something, there wasn't any serious mana concentrations, or we'd have seen it. It was like the spell was woven of pure aether and part of the spell allowed it to gather mana directly rather than pulling it from a persons soul." The fact that Elizabeth resorts to such a petty attack as name calling for the Moltenfuries is delightfully childish, although this is not the time and place for that.

[Sallin_Kari]

"Which means that either it's a political tool to get leverage over lavabitch or we're missing something," I ponder out loud, "Hold on... if it was made by the Oracle, then maybe there is something more to it? The Oracle seems to be in a bit of a proxy war with them, so maybe they know more about its creations then we are... Or maybe the fact it is made by the Oracle would give them some sort of advantage in reaching it... It did have some sort of barrier up and got really upset when I accidentally interfered with it... No, that seems unlikely. Perhaps if they didn't know who the Oracle was or where it was then gather items might help them, but I highly doubt they don't know that by now, it'd more likely the problem of reaching the Oracle... You mentioned that it was using the ambient mana. Wouldn't that mean that if there is an area with lots of it the power would spike dramatically? ... Is there any such places nearby? Other then the crystal manufacturing area... Are they planning an attack on the industry?" I try to recall what my mother said about ambient magic and places that naturally have more to see if I got any lead for this or if I'm on another dead end.

[porne]

Of the various magical tools you've seen that were created by the Oracle, the only thing you could tell for sure was their comparative quality, there wasn't a trail of mana leading back to the Oracle or anything, nor was there any kind of real resonance that you could detect. "It's hard to tell because I broke it, but it didn't seem to really react to the mana, but I think it had integrated throttling mechanisms, which is also interesting in its own way. The crystal mines have a higher than normal ambient mana level, but we actually try to reduce the ambient mana in crystal manufacturing areas to reduce interference with the magical tools."

There's a few voices getting louder at the place with the witnesses and survivors of the war, but it sounds like it could keep if you were content at your current location. Having seen the results of the battle and the descriptions, you could also return to the moving portrait, much of the combat seems to have been resolved within the first few minutes followed by considerably more of a brutal slugfest between Theresa and the orcs. You could also continue to brainstorm, but this is the only clue you've found and see, not that the armor and weapons isn't interesting in its own right.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The first thought he had was the closest if you're curious.

[Sallin_Kari]

"How did you break it?" I ask curiously, "So not planning to use it to attack use likely then... That means the most likely reason is 'because its origin is the Oracle' but we have no idea why or what they are planning to do with it then."

Looking around, I comment in a hushed tone, "Things are getting weird now. Both the possessed individual, the altered display, and now the stolen blade... I think we should check everything to see if we can find anything else, then circle back to the display to see what they didn't want us to see."

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Cool, but as he followed it further it became more outlandish, as how would having the item allow them to reach her. Until more information about it, them, or the Oracle, he won't really go back to it, because he realized he was starting to sound a wee bit ridiculous. Honestly I had that as my hunch(hence why it was first) but I reached a bit of a dead end with it on the whole 'how' bit, so I was trying to figure out how Talren would react to that... and the obvious example was come up with alternatives, which is where the others came from.