Oddestsey V: The Seven Lords

[That Kode Guy]

Tellu blinks again, but with her eyes now very small. If she hadn't heard about the time-travelling beforehand (not that Quinn, or whatever the person's name was, had told her that he/she was capable of this!) her reaction would have been much worse. Still...

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

"U-U-Uh..." Tellu can get out barely more than a stammer, and staggers against the guard-rail, clutching her heart.

What the hell have I walked into?!

[V900]

The duck fumes out of his (whatever the duck equivalent of nostrils are), still mad that he wasn't able to go ball-to-the-wall. A bit of very colorful language can be heard being muttered!

[Madman]

DURG BUSY WAVE HAND AT PEOPLE. PEOPLE CHEER. DURG HAPPY. NOT WANT LEAVE. LITTLE SOLDIER MAN TRY SHOW PEOPLE HE BIG AND STRONK. GOOD LAUGH, BELLY LAUGH. DURG NOT HAVE BELLY LAUGH IN LONG TIME. LITTLE WOMANS TALK LITTLE WOMAN THINGS. CASTLE IN AIR. DURG LOOK. BIG SHINIES! DURG WANT THEM! DURG LOOK AT THEM MORE. DURG NO WANT THEM. NOT KNOW WHY.

LITTLE SOLDIER MAN NOT THERE NOW. STRANGE. SOLDIER MAN THERE ONE SECOND BEFORE. DURG DECIDE SAVE LITTLE SOLDIER MAN. THEN MUCH CRAZY THING HAPPEN. CRAZY DUCK TRY TO SAVE. DURG ANGRY! THAT DURG'S JOB! WOMANS MAKE WALLS AND BE PLANT. DURG LIKE. THEY STOP DUCK. THEY DURG FRIEND, THEN, HE GUESS. DUCK CAN TALK. THERE IS ANGRY MONKEY. "IT OKAY, ANGRY MONKEY! DURG WILL SAVE!" DURG RUN VERY FAST FOR BIG GUY ON METAL WALK-THING. LITTLE SOLDIER MAN IS BEHIND DOOR. DURG BREAK DOOR TO SAVE!

[Venice Queen]

Apparently, no one really cared if he stayed behind or not. And, based on the fiasco happening outside, they might need his help. All showing off their powers and just generally being dumbasses. especially the iridescent one. He noted that Scarlet's powers did indeed come from her aura. Having second thoughts on the tree, he realized it was small enough to fit into his other jacket pocket, and picked it up. He walked out to where the duck was arguing with Green, Scarlet and Two Color, before the giant blew past him over the walkway. Edward quickly manifested his aura and formed a platform as he drew his staff, extending it to its full length. Fortunately, the man was not focused on him, though he was now giving the bridge a damned good shaking. Edward therefore decided to just fly across on the orbs. Landing by the four arguing folks, he gracefully jumped off, and returned his aura to himself, holding his staff nonchalantly in his left hand.

"just what the hell is going on here?" he asked.

[Cha0sFerret]

A loud stomping noise from behind tears Scarlett's attention away from the matter at hand to a stampeding, very large, very turquoise monstrosity. She figures she should get out of the way before he gets too close and presses herself against the hand rail. She puts up a small shield in front of her in case the giant decides to swing at her, and drops her wall to let her focus on the now more important personal shield.

[That Kode Guy]

Tellu is too flummoxed by the time-travelling... whatsit, almost too much that she doesn't notice the pounding footsteps of a sudden light blue behemoth until it was passing her, and she falls over with a shout.

E-easy! Easy, don't, don't lose it now... ! Remember the last time you did that without thinking... !

Tellu kicks her legs back and hops back onto her feet, driving away the mad urge to transform, but still gasping for breath. Hardly has she done that than when, all of a sudden the man she noticed from before, with the overcoat, lands in front of them, demanding to know, exactly, what the hell is happening.

Still shaken, Tellu nonetheless etches a distasteful expression onto her face, and replies, "You want to know what's happening? Join the club. That's what we've all been wondering." Her frown is not reserved for the man, however, but at... whatever is charging through the gangway.

Her face softens a little as she turns her face fully to look at the man with the overcoat. "Sorry. Call me Tellu. Everyone does. You... er, probably saw what happened. Chicken Little, or I guess Mr. Duck here, wanted to make like a hero so we had to stop him. I guess it's no secret that some of us are less than human, huh?"

It kind of hurt saying that, but it was true.

"At any rate, I think we should make tracks in the opposite direction that big blue blockhead is charging in."

[The Monsterworks]

The Being finds itself amazed by the scene around it. So many people. So much need. It would do anything to make this situation right. That means copying powers.

It reaches out for the large insectoid and copies some thoughts. It is immediately surprised to find that there is another being in the room that it had not noticed before: a small, isopod-like creature. It's a zambear, or 'bear', for short. It also fishes for abilities. When the insectoid changes colour and begins scampering along a wall, The Being decides to copy that power. When the armoured soldier teleports, The Being is eager to get that power as well, and fishes for it. When the dinosaur demonstrates medical skills and a patient nature, The Being decides to scoop those skills and personality traits up as well. It notices a large ape...it doesn't know the precise word, so it fishes some more. An orangutan, yes! climbing dextrously, and makes a play at that ability.

Then there is the man blinking furiously as if he has been flash blinded and then regarding the people around him in the oddest way. Quietly, The Being decides to follow him. This man can do interesting things, it surmises, as can most of the beings here. They could help save the city beyond, or they could destroy it.

As The Being walks, it notices a castle hovering in the air. It is not particularly startled or disturbed, but recognizes that this is unusual, as are the immense floating stones that surround it. It copies a couple of impressions and finds that the castle and stones make people uncomfortable. Suddenly, The Being wishes that it had not copied so liberally. It has too many thoughts. Its body is still trying to process the new abilities that it has tried to imprint. Hopefully it will know what it has gotten in a moment or so.

Then, all hell breaks loose. The arrogant soldier makes a show of damaging the walkway. Others don't like him, and instinctively, neither does The Being. A foul-smellling duck, of all things, charges towards him. A sort of wall materiaizes to stop it. The green-haired woman reaches out with tentacle-like vines to hold it back. The odd man who has an extra sort of sight is suddenly there, and the Orangutan loses its cool entirely and draws a gun of some sort. It's all capped off by the titanic blue brute from whom The Being copied some strength, earlier. He charges down the walkway like a runaway freight train, shaking and nearly buckling it as he goes, bellowing semi-articulate words and assurances. The Being gets the impression that he is wholly unintelligent and best handled with care. Most everybody dives out of the way as the sight man shores up the walkway with the oddest purple...is it light? The Being presses itself against the rails and lets the howling idiot hurtle past.

Still, it can't shake that craving for Grandma's brine shrimp sundae. The melt-in your mouth goodness and subtle crunchiness. The refreshing quality! The way that the brine shrimp sauce pools at the bottom! It's to die for! How inconvenient hunger is. The Being wishes that it hadn't picked that up.

[Madman]

DURG RUN PAST LITTLE PEOPLE. LITTLE WALL NOT THERE NOW. PLANT ARMS NOT THERE. DURG THANK WOMANS. LITTLE SOLDIER MAN OTHER SIDE OF DOOR. DURG SAVE. DURG KNOW HE SAVE. PURPLE FLY MAN COME MAKE WALK-THING STRONK. DURG LIKE. STRONK FRIEND. DURG AT DOOR. RUN VERY FAST. DURG USE ALL WEIGHT ALL STRENGTH. SHOUT "DUUUURRRRRRG!!!!!"

HIT DOOR TO BREAK!

[MadBull]

Over time, Bear in Mind has been brought forth by all sorts of minds. Equally, whilst intelligent for a bear, Bear in Mind isn't awfully intelligent for an intelligent being. All of this put together means Bear in Mind isn't particularly impressed by the crowd he is suddenly in.

He turns into a pillbug for a split second.

Right, walk, walk... Bear in Mind knows how to follow instructions.

Nice pelican btw.

Weird rune, should ask someone what that means at some point.

Right, walk out there.

Bear in Mind eagerly awaits what happens to him as he faces the crowd.

[Alexjh]

Mikhael
The walkway is made of some surprisingly tough alloy, and the gravity pack mainly just manages to warp shallow bowl shapes into it. In retrospect this makes sense if they were anticipating beings like the Space Ogre to be walking along it.

Professor Vengeance
The Wereflamingo turns his attention to Vengeance and his mandible drops - the armoured lady doesn't look overly impressed but even there, there is a glimmer of recognition...
"Are..... are you.... Professor Reginald Fortescue Vengeance (Esq.)?! The Great Thrice-Fallen Hero?! Well, four times now I guess....."
He manages to get himself together
"Errr to answer your question kind and noble Professor - you have returned once more to the City of Melded, I'll explain more fully what's going on when everyone is in the next room, but since your last visit the man who was your best friend and mentor Doomforall never reclaimed that role and now the Castle is trying to pick a new person to be Doomforall... and there is something of a tiny problem with a huge super-powered Death Tournament raging through the City.... As for your third question.... that coupon looks official - I should think that it would be honoured anywhere unless the shop owner wishes to incur the wrath of the Duct-tape Guild. Those guys don't mess around! As I say, I'll explain more fully once we are all inside"

Adaman
In most circumstances, drawing a weapon in front of a huge crowd might cause a panic, but in this case, the crowd seems really pleased and impressed if anything. There are a few screams of excitement from the crowd - evidently these people are looking for warriors it would seem, so brandishing a weapon seems to have gone down well.

Lucky Seven
The grey being begins to construct it's new self turning first to the Zambear... and finding nothing there... Whatever that creature is, it isn't what it looks like and certainly not biological.... Lucky Seven can sense it, but the form it takes isn't an organism in the traditional sense... It will have to watch that one. It has far more luck with the Centipede creature, and easily absorbs the colour changing aspect of the powers accompanied by something of a row of segmented armour plating down it's back. The teleportation is indeed his too - it seems like short bursts of 20m are possible.

When he absorbs the memories of the Dimetrodon he isn't quite so successful - he gets a little basic surgery skill, and a conossuiership of fine wines, but there is also something else there he can't quite place. Another hunger, but this one deeper and just out of reach as to what it pertains to. At least the Brine Shrimp Sundae desire is now not quite as strong.

Moving on to the Orang utan - the being feels it's arms lengthening by a good 30%, but more noticeably perhaps, long mats of deep orange hair begin to cascade from it's body - this one not quite so inconspicuous.

Bear in Mind
As Bear in Mind leaves the chamber it faces more sentient beings in a single place than it has ever experienced before and it's form ripples with changes faster than it can keep up.... a Tiny Blue Panda living inside a Bubble - a skeletal Ursaghast - a Grizzled looking Carebear with an Eyepatch and a doggended cigarrette - a vast polar bear clad in metal armour - the trickster God Tremarctos and his satchel of world seeds - a beast of fire and shadow that lives at the bottom of the cave - the great short faced running bear of the plains, it's clawed stained with Mastodon blood - a bear who really really cared about fire safety in the Wilderness - the sage-bear Kannacht who sees the future in the mystic honey wine she brews - a female bear who is in the business of selling toilet paper - and dozens more besides. The forms begin to congeal into something more concrete....

His fur colour is still rippling between colours of black, tan, dark brown, white and gold in continuous waves - apparently there is not enough consensus on that point - but 6ft tall and bipedal, rotund with an look that toes the line between currently friendly but would probably destroy a foe should it come to that. This would have to do for now. Beneath it all, there is something of a craving for Marmalade.

Inside the Metal Building
As Mikhael teleports inside the building ready to prepare an ambush he realises there are already a few beings in here waiting for the group. There are a number of seats laid out around a circular table and a few seats are already filled - a fairly large slate-grey griffon with a pair of spectacles perched on it's beak, a gaunt looking man in a leather jacket with small demon horns, a woman with near-black skin and two thick tendrils coming from the back of her head and a hippo-sized stocky green dragon.

The one who draws his eye though is a fairly aged man who sits directly opposite the door - he is tall and white haired, and wearing a suit of bright silver plate armour that seems to have a slight glow to it. He has a kindly expression on his face but a look of hard earned experience in his grey eyes.

"Please take a seat while the others arrive. The presentation will begin shortly."

The others begin to filter in - Durg crashing through the door, Mira following behind, and the android that had landed with Durg just behind -
with a "processing" light flickering on one side of it's head. Another detail catches the eyes of a few of them - upon one of the side walls there is a large dramatic painting of a group of 10 heroic figures with a label at the bottom of it as "The Saviours of Melded".

A somewhat unpleasant looking young man. An elderly man. A Scarlet Macaw. A female Angel. Some Rock monster type being. A Lynx. A red haired woman. A blond haired woman.

And two others.
The first is a figure that Tellu will recognise... the woman named Eudial.
The second one that the whole group finds familiar from the last few minutes - the top-hatted man who arrived with them. Professor Vengeance.

[PyroTechnica]

The professor has been hear before, though Mikhail. Well, that didn

[StevenMcG]

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>The Wereflamingo turns his attention to Vengeance and his mandible drops - the armoured lady doesn't look overly impressed but even there, there is a glimmer of recognition...
"Are..... are you.... Professor Reginald Fortescue Vengeance (Esq.)?&#33; The Great Thrice-Fallen Hero?&#33; Well, four times now I guess....."
He manages to get himself together
"Errr to answer your question kind and noble Professor - you have returned once more to the City of Melded, I'll explain more fully what's going on when everyone is in the next room, but since your last visit the man who was your best friend and mentor Doomforall never reclaimed that role and now the Castle is trying to pick a new person to be Doomforall... and there is something of a tiny problem with a huge super-powered Death Tournament raging through the City.... As for your third question.... that coupon looks official - I should think that it would be honoured anywhere unless the shop owner wishes to incur the wrath of the Duct-tape Guild. Those guys don't mess around&#33; As I say, I'll explain more fully once we are all inside"[/quote]

"'Best friend'? 'Mentor'? Ohhh, I'm going to be having some very strong words with the biographers in this plane of existence when I get out of here, believe you me.

So, old Doomsy's shopping around for heirs now, eh? Thank you, my good...people. I won't deny that this has been a terrible inconvenience, but it's nice to get something resembling a straight answer for once in this place. I owe you a roll of duct-tape. Each.

Now...did somebody say the words 'Death Tournament'? :proud: "

[Alexjh]

Inside the Metal Building
"While you wait for your companions by the way" the Griffon pipes up.
"Perhaps you wish to use our equipment generator?"

He explains the basic gist of it as she points to an odd looking booth in the corner of the room. They weren't expecting so many of you, so it only has power enough for one item each. It is essentially a supercomputer-teleporter-replicator type deal - you input one single word (it will ignore prepositions and the like) and it will produce an item matching that description... more or less. If you try inputting multiple words, it will use the first noun/verb/adjective/adverb in the sequence.

It can summon live things, but anything that would be considered "people" is beyond it's remit, although in place like this, who knows where exactly the borderline for that is.

"Please consider your choices carefully&#33; We won't be able to power it up for a second run until we deal with... one of our issues. You will be fighting powerful foes in all liklihood if that helps choose..."

[PyroTechnica]

Mikhail thought carefully. His mind flicked back to the bullet that had fallen with him, and he considered asking for a revolver. But he only had one bullet, and he had no idea how it would react. The bullet could blow up in his face. He had enough weapons for now, they had never failed him before. He remembered the floating stones, and wondeeed if there was magic in this world. If there was, could this machine create it? It could create life. Having nothing to lose, Mikhail said

[NFX]

Mira stepped to one side, allowing the others entry, and took stock of the situation. Several figures, with a beak, horns, tendrils and a set of armour that looked in very good condition respectively, along with a creature that looked at once both reptilian and avian. Although, given the mishmash of figures in the crowd outside, they wouldn't look too out of place.

Wait a minute, 'Saviours'? Mira didn't recognise who the majority of them were, but judging by the style the figures had been depicted in, and the poses chosen for them, this was obviously intended in reverence to them. Maybe Melded had gone through something similar in the past, and if so, the angry man in the top hat that arrived with them had been heavily involved in resolving it, positioned as he was front and center in the image. He would have to be asked about it when he rejoined the group, she thought.

Her attention was brought to the equipment generator in the corner. Its explanation was fairly straightforward - you give it one word, and it provides an object to suit. However, each would only receive one shot to generate an item. Plus, with Mira, there was the added issue of her difficulty interacting with physical matter, the ring and the parasol took effort enough at this early stage. Pondering for a moment, she leant in toward the machine and spoke a single word in her native Illuxian tongue, sounding faintly modulated and with a soft echo to it, translating roughly to "small, incorporeal weapon". Illuxian was a tricky language to pick up, after all.