BATTLES

The Reflector moves to W9 and basic attacks Predator 2. Then, if it is still alive, they retreat to W9.

The Mirror Reflector attempts to hack the console and freeze all enemies in the vents.

I'm feeling lazy so I'll just move to K9 and throw an Encore at the Behemoth on top of doing another modified basic attack at it.

Wow, that last-minute move was surprisingly clean!

Brutishace thanks Nia for the buff, then moves to H12 and blasts the Naclestial with Twin Serpents. Noting the plethora of untouched bodies to swipe the souls from, Brutishace uses Soul Siphon on the first Nanite's body and heals himself with the resulting boon.

--EASTERN HUB: RP--
Bauhaus raises his sword right above his head, and points it at the Arkwinds (and maybe an Ohmnic). The wild and powerful energy held within its frame is unleashed, in the form of a strong, icy storm.
--EASTERN HUB: ACTION--
Bauhaus eats a Sugared Spiced Porridge, moves to Q12, and fires off Dawn of Existence north-east (using the Ice element).

Let's shake things up and put the battle action first.

AUTH: Chloe, cool your jets. Don't let him get into your head.

Auth casts Purify from where he is on Chloe, erasing her Taunt. Then, Auth retreats to F18.

---

Once back in the House, Auth breathes a sigh of relief.

AUTH: I know what you mean, Nana. It feels like we were away for so long...
AUTH: Alright. I'm gonna go get cleaned up, you probably should too. Then we can head out.

Auth stretches his arms, rolling them back, and decides to, very quickly, take a shower and change his outfit into something clean that he hasn't been wearing for about five days straight. Of course, by the time he leaves the washroom, approximately fifteen minutes later, he doesn't appear much different at all.

AUTH: Alright, fresh outfit, no thyme-goo. Let's go to the Gardens.
AUTH: Shame we can't portal out there. Oh well. It'll be a nice walk. Probably.

Remiel attacks the Fell Behemoth. The Siren casts Song of Silence on Fell Beast 2, then controls Remiel to attack the Behemoth again.

Nidra:
Move to N15.
Power Nap Daskter
Double basic attack the Naclestial.

---

Mindscape

Nidra also examines her new body, then tries to psychically sense if anyone else is in the house.

Pope Bill, caught in the Fellbeast1's grip, manages to teleport away via Burrowing Rally to N13 and catch his breath!

==BATTLE==

Crystal's eyes gain a translucent purple cast and a ring of symbols floats around him for a second as he pays 64 SP to activate Universal Cognizance once!

With his new power, he uses one edit to transform P8 and R9 into ordinary tiles by editing their color to #FFFFFF!
He then uses the other edit to copy-paste Fell Beast 3 to H13!

With that done, he scoots out of the vents to Q8, before raising Nightmarron Custom high. A storm of purple rose petals (as well as lingering runes and symbols) flows around him as he calls upon Passionate Petals!

First, he levels Nightmarron Custom at Predator1 and fires a burst of blinding light dust, burning its carapace and rendering it Armorpierce2'd for the rest of his action with Disabling Dust! He steps back to P8 afterwards, winding up for another strike.
Next, he drags Nightmarron Custom behind him as he dashes to S8 in a Sliding Slash!
He whirls in-flight and brings Nightmarron Custom slicing down on Predator1 in a movement-enhanced War Scythe strike!
Finally, he allows the Enchant:Light suffusing his weapon to burst into blinding Ordered light with Eternal Light, before leveling Nightmarron Custom at Predator1 and firing a Dust Blast, shifting the movement in such a way that he's launched back to Q8, taking two tiles of knockback; Predator1 would receive only one, but its back is to the wall, so it stays where it is.

Battle: Western Wing Ventilation

With Fell Beast 3 out of the way thanks to Crystal, Irongutta had a clear path to save Asha from certain death. He let out a roar that echoed through the vents as he charged forward. Irongutta barreled out of the ventilation shaft all the way to K4 thanks to the power of the Momentum Lock!

Shrugging off however much he hurt himself doing this, he uses Skeletal Toss to angrily yeet Lamia2 all the way to N8.

Woodthorne decides to save a life this round.

He commands the Woodwisp to teleport to J3 using The Faerie Flies and cast Blessed Pollen on Asha. He then moves to N6 at a full sprint, using a bonus action to cast Quick Purity on Asha
.

Asha gasps for air, holding her chest in pain.

"Ow, jeez that kills."

She uses a poem to gain Empowered3 and Evasive3. With Invigorated2 from Woodthorne, these become Empowered3+2 and Evasive3+2. She then moves to G5 and with a wave of her hand, casts Tumbling Walls at M7, M2, J11, and H11, expending her Magic stacks to do so. This hits the Fell Behemoth twice, all the Fell Beasts, and Lamia2. This has 11 buff levels: 4 from Magic, 2 from Loaded Spellbook, 5 from Empowered.

At the lake Not!Echoss casts slow on the remaining mollusks. Then he casts slow again. He stacks 5 levels of slow, causing the two mollusks to launch backwards at high speeds. This doesn't actually damage either of them, instead causing them to lose a 'turn' in the little combat scenario because I'm still doing too poorly to write out a full post.


Eastern Hub:
Pionobot scooches up around Edges 1 and fires an ice blast at Ohmnic 1 if its still alive after sparked's post (unless it has 8 or less health. If it has 8 or less health he bounces an ice-elemental blaster shot off of it instead), which should be a clean KO. Otherwise he blasts Ohmnic 2, stunning it.

<ROUND 244>

Venia continues her trek through Yew's Mindscape.



Elsewhere, Venia decides to take Gibbet outside! Carrying the birb on her head, she hikes upstairs, and to the outside world. It's a cloudy, overcast sort of day, but at least it's not raining. Gibbet is more than happy to take flight, hopping off of Venia's head and beginning to fly in random loops and circles. Soon enough, it comes back to land, settling upon Venia's head once more. It then gets comfy in her hair, as if it was a nest.

Finally, out upon the airship, Maria asks Maple who Ette's sister is. Maple, not being entirely sure herself, ponders upon this for a few moments.

MAPLE: Uh... it's that short pink-haired girl! It has to be!
MAPLE: I don't think I caught her name, though. She's pretty cute, though.
MARI: It's Marron.

Mari hops onto the ship, a few drones assisting her in her leap.

MARI: Ette's sister is Marron. Small, pink, tsundere chick.
MARI: Why are you hunting down Marron? Got a hit on her, or something?
MAPLE: H-Hm? No reason! Maria and I are just on a secret mission, that's all!
MARI: "Secret."
MARI: Riiiiight.
MAPLE:W-Wait, pretend I-I didn't say anything!
MARI: Eh, whatever.

MARI: also why is maria here isn't this place kinda dangerous
MAPLE: Maybe it is a bit dangerous... but I can protect her!
MAPLE: Just stick with me, alright Maria? We can do this together!

So, Maria knows her target! But how will she carry out the assassination?

---

Boshi, Adria, and Hannah do some things. To begin, Boshi throws a block of Cobblestone off of the ship. This bounces harmlessly off the Mollusk it hits, thanks to their sturdy shell. He then noms another Mollusk, and fires it like a cannonball at the enemy ship! Or perhaps, it's more like that olympic "hammer" event, given that he spins it before throwing it. This not only deals a solid (20) damage to the enemy ship, but it also kills a crewmember and the Mollusk!

The two ships then end up sailing side-by-side: it'd be a perfect time for a broadside! The Iti crew fires a few cannonballs at Boshi's ship, dealing (10) damage. The remaining Mollusk... retreats, trying to avoid any more falling objects like that Cobblestone earlier. Still, it looks like soon, it'll be coming around for another hit! The enemy ship then takes (5) damage from the fire Boshi lit.

At the Chapel, Adria grabs 6 Refined Wood (total) from the inventory, and some screws made from 6 (0) Iron Ingots. This is more than enough to completely board up the eastern side. Chloe and Taeda meanwhile, take another 6 Refined Wood. Thanks to Taeda's Woodmancy skills, they're able to easily manipulate a series of boards into place, which Chloe then hammers down into place.

CHLOE: Nice work, everyone!
CHLOE: Now, we should probably do something about the front door.
TAEDA: There is no front door, though.
CHLOE: Exactly! Gotta do something about that.

Perhaps Adria can help out with this, too? Elsewhere, deep in the Sky Labs, Hannah sneaks to (AU39), succeeding on her stealth check. She peeks out at the three Chairians. Only one of them is really paying attention at the moment. She also gets a good feel for the distance- it'd be easy enough to land an arrow shot on any one of them, and if she wanted to run in to do something up close, it'd be a very short sprint. As for actually being sneaky though... there's plenty of room to sneak around the Sentinel Drone held in the hangar just north of her. It might be a tight fit for someone of a normal size, but she's pretty smol so it should work out.

---

Auth spends some time getting freshened up. Nana also decides to clean up. She waves Auth goodbye as she wanders off to the showers, fully clothed. When she pops out, her clothes are remarkably free of Thyme Matter, though she's now soaking wet.

NANA: That was refreshing.
NANA: A-Anyway, I'll probably dry off on the walk there. Let's go!

Holding Auth's hand, the two begin their long walk to the gardens. Thanks to forum games™ though, they arrive there remarkably quickly. Nana waves hello to Hemlock and Carrot as they make their way into the garden. Now what? Will Auth go and greet Lutea, or will they perhaps grab a gift first? Who knows.

---

Nidra examines her body in Yew's Mindscape.

---

Not!Echoss REALLY slows down some Mollusks. Or really, it's just a Mollusk now. The slow intensifies to such a degree that it begins to launch backwards at high speeds! However, given that it was attempting to retreat from Boshi's vessel, it barrels towards it! By some stroke of luck though, the Mollusk ends up missing his boat, and slams into the Iti pirate ship instead. The Mollusk is slain, and the enemy vessel takes (15) damage. Good work!

---

<WESTERN WING VENTILATION, ROUND 5>
Looks like you'll be able to tidy things up soon. That poison was pretty damn devastating. Just keep it up, and you should be able to wipe out the last two Predators!

<EASTERN HUB, ROUND 4>
The only remaining objective is the Naclestial! While he'll change forms upon death, feel free to keep attacking him: as a courtesy, all overkill damage will transfer to his next form! So maybe you'll be able to kill him before he transforms, somehow? I doubt it, but try your best! Also maybe tape up Chloe, as she almost just got KO'd by the Naclestial.

Asha moves to L3 and attacks the Lamia, using Alter Reality to swap Enlightened for Empowered and activating her Might stacks. This gives her a total of +80% damage on her attack. Any overkill shots go to the Fell Beast. She then drops Lingua Franca at P8!

Destiny runs over to G9 before performing Phase Shift on Cypress.
As an act of providence, I shall save you. Become free from this beast!
Cypress and Destiny swap places. Destiny begins to Observe the Lamia for any movements before striking it. She then retreats to G7.

Eastern Hub

Venia's Dollhouse moves to F15 and smacks the Predator with a basic attack, IE ineffectively smacking its flimsy plastic frame against its face.

"Hrm, I wonder. I wonder, could we wreck you so hard you can't even do your braindead account switch quote strategy unquote? Let's find out."

Venia herself moves to P16, Hatpings the NaClestial, backspaces to R16 to complete her move, and activates Unexisting Force twice, both times on the NaClestial. This immediately refreshes her buffs, which boosts the Force, and then gives herself and Nidra two stacks of Force with all associated benefits. She then takes a simple, normal shot at the NaClestial.

"Cypress, could you try to, uh, like, drain the rest of this guy's mana?" Venia asks, as soon as Cypress is freed by Destiny's action. "Chloe-remember your healing powers, Echo, Sol! Everyone else-as much as you can, beat that salty gorillahead to the dirt!"

She motions for everyone to let The Eternal Author go last so his incoming Hanten Purify Nuke is as hard as it can hit.

She then spends her heart stacks into gaining as much SP as she can, 10 per use.

---

Gibbet

"Alright, good start I suppose," Venia says. "Hrm, now we need to start, hrm, figuring out how well you attack. I'm just trying to find a baseline to improve upon, here, so...

Venia sets up three simple wooden dummies. The first is like a seeker in both make and actual constitution; the second is the average chairian legionaire; the third is not representative of any enemy, however, and looks like a simple wooden block with no obvious weak-point or notably thin core.

"Attack these three targets, in whatever order you think is best, but only one time each."

Venia observes each attempt at each target as Gibbet goes about it.

---

Yewscape

Venia scowls at the rock, before putting the detective lens to it. Certainly, there might be a clue?

Following that, Venia tries to sense the presence of the Calm Mind Shard in the house as a loose intuition of where it is-and failing any success, just investigates the next room over, hoping to find some sort of weaponry to defend herself from the obvious threat as she explores. (Failing that-she'd probably just consider kicks.)

---

Maria's super secret spy mission

Maria looks around on the airship for Marron, and given she's out in the open finds her quickly. "Marron! Marron! Marron! Hi!" Maria says, running up to her. "I'm lookin' for a birthday present, for Ette! But shhhh, don't tell her, it's a super secret mission!" She adds. "What'd be good? Can you tell me? Pretty please?"

Ah, yes, the most venerable of spy tactics. Directly walking up to a target and asking them for the information, with a 'pretty please.' James Bond would be proud.

---

Recollection Lake - Boshi

Boshi fires off a Thyme Missile off at the pirate ship. By which he activates by eating it and firing it at high velocity out of his mouth. Simple, clean, effective. It'd probably taste awful if Boshi could actually be bothered to taste it.

---

Chapel - Adria

Adria looks up from the book once more, noting the other girls talking about fixing up the doorway. She sizes up the doorway, to see if it'd need either a massive or a more sanely sized door. "...What to make it out of, though..."

---

Skylabs - Hannah

Hannah waits for an opportune moment before making a move, noting the T2 card on the Engineer's neck, and the Rifleman keeping watch of the area.

Once the Rifleman looks away for a bit, Hannah slips into the drone bay to her north by virtue of being smol and agile enough to make adequate use of it as a sneaking tool. Once in, she loops around the back and over to the other side, a thin, keycard-sized piece of Plasteel in her hands. Then, making use of her close proximity to the Engineer and being out of sight of the Rifleman, she casts a modified Phase Shift on the Plasteel and the Keycard, switching the two as soundlessly as possible, with as little flair as possible.

She then slips back behind the drone before anyone notices.

---

Battle - Eastern Hub

"(W-woah... close call...)"

Real!Chloe's comment on Hannah managed to disarm her a little, not really used to compliments. "(...M-me? 'Nice'? ...)"

She takes a moment to ponder. She quickly snaps out of it, and glares at both the NaClestial and Salt!Chloe with her golden eyes. She's trying her hardest to look pissed, but in actuality, she's barely containing the fact that this was fun for her, failing to hide a smug grin, just barely containing maniacal laughter. It's very obvious she wants to have a little salt-based fun. "HEY YOU! I didn't know you made VASTLY INFERIOR COPIES of us! Are you REALLY THAT WORTHLESS!? Are you THAT DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION!? Look at ALL we're doing around you! Look at ALL we're doing to you! Scream like a BABY all you want! ALONE, you're worthless! IN A TEAM, you're worthless! We have suffered ZERO casualties! NONE! Even when you have EVERYTHING going for you, you're STILL an UTTER FAILURE! And I- no, WE EXPECTED THIS! We EXPECTED this from a HOPELESS, CHILDISH, INFERIOR, WHINY, peck-FACED PECK NECK! And I stand by that statement till the end of pecking time! NOBODY will pecking miss you! NOBODY will pecking care!"

Oh dear god she's getting vulgar.

"Oh, you pecking disagree? THEN GET OVER HERE, peckING WORTHLESS TRASH! I'LL GRIND YOUR peck UP AND SPRINKLE YOU ON MY peckING FRIES! I'LL peckING CORRODE AND MELT YOUR peckING peck UNTIL THERE"S NOTHING LEFT OF YOUR SORRY peckING peck-HEADED SELF!"

Barely holding back her laughter, she moves to (S9), uses Shifted Focus to get Focused5 for the round (and thus changing her attack), uses the Helix Totem, casts Toxin Coating (Brainburn), and gives the NaClestial the shoot. She backs up to (T8).

Not!Echoss: arrest some pirates
The sound of police sirens sounds loudly in the distance.
Then in the not-distance as an entire car chase scene worth of police cars descend from the sky at maximum velocity and plow through the pirate vessel with extreme prejudice.


Eastern Hub:
As Destiny is swapping with Cypress, Pionobot is charging in, he leaps up over Destiny's head as she warps in...
"Yo check yourself!"
and brings down a massive ice hammer on the Lamia's head, embedding it into the ground slightly as he skids backwards.
(mechanical: move to I7 and basic attack the lamia)

Bauhaus moves to P16, uses a charge of Trick Weaponry to perform a counter on Salt Chloe (with Ice damage), and basic attacks to the west (also with Ice damage).