Dragonball M, Chapter 3: In Blood, Bone, and Ash! The Way Forward Unlocked!

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

She chuckles.

“Oh my, going to visit that old grumpkin? Good luck.”

She passes the knowledge into Inanna’s mind.

“And thank you for the invitation. I’ll take you up on it, sometime. Take care, and travel well, Inanna.”

"I've a thing for magic, and he seems like he's right up my alley~" Inanna said with a smile. With a wave, and Kitsuna's information burned to memory, Inanna faded from sight where she stood; following the provided information to- hopefully- find herself on the Darkling homeworld. Of course, thinking about how her sudden arrival might be seen was... of little consideration.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

"I've a thing for magic, and he seems like he's right up my alley~" Inanna said with a smile. With a wave, and Kitsuna's information burned to memory, Inanna faded from sight where she stood; following the provided information to- hopefully- find herself on the Darkling homeworld. Of course, thinking about how her sudden arrival might be seen was... of little consideration.

She reappears amidst a twilight forest of tall oak like trees. A hazy yellow moon hangs large in the air, full, well illuminating her surroundings.

A faint sound if a hammer striking metal can be heard in the distance.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

She reappears amidst a twilight forest of tall oak like trees. A hazy yellow moon hangs large in the air, full, well illuminating her surroundings.

A faint sound if a hammer striking metal can be heard in the distance.

"Well now. The din of a blacksmith's hammer." Inanna muttered, before simply following the sound to its source. No sense worrying of what would happen now, right? She was already here after all.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

"Well now. The din of a blacksmith's hammer." Inanna muttered, before simply following the sound to its source. No sense worrying of what would happen now, right? She was already here after all.

Eventually, after about five minutes, Inanna wanders into a small clearing where sits three buildings. A small cabin style house, an open forge, and what appears to be a stable or barn of sorts.

A warm glow emanating from the forge, followed by the hammering sound, fills the air.

It pauses, and a voice calls out, rough and deep.

“Not many people seek me out. What brings a stranger to planet Darkle and to Caladash Banespell’s home?”




A man appears from the forge, sweat on his brow and golden eyes gleaming. He looks at her and frowns.

“An Oni? No...not quite.”

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Eventually, after about five minutes, Inanna wanders into a small clearing where sits three buildings. A small cabin style house, an open forge, and what appears to be a stable or barn of sorts.

A warm glow emanating from the forge, followed by the hammering sound, fills the air.

It pauses, and a voice calls out, rough and deep.

“Not many people seek me out. What brings a stranger to planet Darkle and to Caladash Banespell’s home?”




A man appears from the forge, sweat on his brow and golden eyes gleaming. He looks at her and frowns.

“An Oni? No...not quite.”

"Not quite, indeed." Inanna said after taking in her surroundings, and 'host'.

"Of course, I'd not expected to find a blacksmith hidden away in a cottage, where I'd come looking for a Lord." The woman stared, unblinking. "So I am compelled to ask. Are you truly who I'm after?"

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

"Not quite, indeed." Inanna said after taking in her surroundings, and 'host'.

"Of course, I'd not expected to find a blacksmith hidden away in a cottage, where I'd come looking for a Lord." The woman stared, unblinking. "So I am compelled to ask. Are you truly who I'm after?"

“Retired Lord. I prefer my Forge these days. Easier to work my Magic’s alone. What brings you here, Goddess?”

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

“Retired Lord. I prefer my Forge these days. Easier to work my Magic’s alone. What brings you here, Goddess?”

Inanna gave a half nod, before shrugging.

"Following up on leads, mostly. Your name was in a journal. So here I stand, following up. Plus, nothing like a bit of magic to get me to poke my head in."

[MrSandman]

As much as he fought the visions that poured in, the honeyed words of the Queen beckoned. Upon a small, insignificant mote like so many others, she offered protection from this finite arrangement, a warmth and light in its cold, cruel procession.

Arrayed in a line from birth to death in succession, crossing this life upon the stage of a shattered universe, disparate in all its struggling elements, to say this was the work of an intelligent design would be tandamount to...

...madness.

But Persephone, she was once human. Distant kindred, she was so much more now, but even then she was one who also saw the cracks in the firmament and sought a power to mend it. Despite his transgressions, she offered it to him still.

In silence, Ochazuke's frame stilled as his eyes closed, given over to a moment's serenity. His guard dropped and his hands fell to his sides in silence.

OOC: [2]

As the vision of things to come drew ever closer, and Ochazuke felt his very soul being pulled from his mortal shell....a voice whispered to him in the darkness. Not his captor, but something smaller....quieter....barely familiar enough to register in his mind.

"You lament your fate...the pain, the loss, the inevitability of it all. I cannot understand, I am only an observer. To take her offer....to exist without fear of death, in perpetuity.....the lure is strong for your kind, I've bore witness to those who hunted immortality, those deluded into thinking they've achieved it. Only the void is eternal, unchanging......and......I envy you. I envy the pain you feel, because I have never felt it. I envy your loss because I have nothing I could ever lose. I envy your inevitability because I will never change. Is this the fate you wish? To forever exist as a still-life in the painting of a child who fears death even more then you?"

"I offer you one last time.....a pact. Not as a pawn, not as a minion.....but, partner. Speak now. Are you a puppet of the gods, a puppet of the void....or are you Ochazuke, the man who would defy both?"

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Inanna gave a half nod, before shrugging.

"Following up on leads, mostly. Your name was in a journal. So here I stand, following up. Plus, nothing like a bit of magic to get me to poke my head in."

He nods.

“Come into the Forge then. We can speak while I work.”

Up close she can see he wears a strange brownish red armor, his form right at 4 feet or so. Despite this there is an air of....command, a presence that makes Banespell seem larger than his actual form.

[MrSandman]

"Hold onto me, we'll find an opening, and to do that, we've got to get a bit closer." Still spent from the combat in the chamber.

Righting his pace, he began to build up the Pressure Kicker within his legs before leaping off, conserving his momentum with Wuxia Levitation. Amid the chaos of orderly spells clashing with the primordial energies raging across the sky, a small streak of blue-white light traced its path about him as he leapt away from Persephone's image and set foot upon Vortigern's army

After all, this is our world we're fighting for here. And guys like us, we're not spectators, not while we live in it!

Slab after slab rushed toward him, and defiantly he continued to run up the image of the mountain, further up to the sky. With every stride forward, Zaofan only seemed to move yet faster.

As the Martial Cook reaching the apex of the mural mountain, so focused on his ascent, only the beginning of a warning from Morgan reached his ears before he foot failed to land on solid rock. The top of the mountain had opened right where Zaofan foot intended to land..the rock of the mural opening as an unnatural mouth...and from the other side a delicate hand reached forward and grabbing the wayward cook by his ankle and pulled.

Persephone ripped Zaofan from Morgans grasp, pulling him through the gap and throwing him hard against the mural behind it....one depicting the symbols of the void lords. The cook landed at their center, and the rock melded like liquid...spashing up and around his arms and legs before hardening. Struggle as he wish, they would not bulge.

The murals rotation ceased with but a casual gesture from Persephone hand, and the mage queen flew over him with a exasperated expression. "Your spoiling the mood you know... maybe if I pulled your arms and legs off you'd stop fluttering about and watch as your told....I'll fix them later....if you behave." A blob of animated material, both transparent and seeming forming from the ether, formed behind the queen....and a tendril of it expanded outwards....taking on color and shape until it was a soilid metallic point ah the end of an almost fluid tentacle. It shot forward with lightning speed, attempting to pierce Zaofan where he lay......

A shadow flew between them, and an equally dense disk of the same material spread out and solidified into a shield. The spear like tentacle slammed into, and through the shield buckled and the mural underneth them cracked from the force....the shield held.

"Zaofan....You ok..." Morgan stood over him, braced against the mural while she held her shield aloof. At this range, Zaofan could make out the magic she used....having already been familiar with it as the very same magic that she had weaved her centuries long repair work. Rather then fixing something however, this time she had crafted something entirely new from nothing.

".......Conjuration. Oh you are my little familiar after all." Persephone mused with what seemed a little too much like legitimate praise. "But its a bit on the weak side.....see..." Her spear pulled back.....and then split into a dozen more, each expanding to the size o the original before plummeting towards them.

"Hold on!" Morgan let on of her hands fall and placed it against the mural Zaofan had been sealed against. The material became fluid, and then parted...freeing Zaofan and allowing the both of them to fall to the rear side of the mural before Morgan re solidified it and then channeled her magic into the mural itself. The exact result wasn't immediately obvious, until the dozen spear tips embedded themselves into the mural and it held. More then held in fact...it fused with the spear tips.

"Zaofan.....Sorry, I need you to hold on a moment longer." She smiled, pulled Zaofan towards her and then pushed his hand against the mural. "Use it for cover.....I'll distract her."

With a forceful gesture, Morgan flung the Mural aside, pulling the embedded tendrils with it....and Zaofan if he managed to hold on. Then, summoning two giant arms armed with sword and shield at her sides, she flew forward to meet her faux mother in combat.

[Miburo]

A terse grunt left him as Ochazuke stepped within the Golem's stony frame.

"The fight ahead may serve well to meet it," he said, "but be mindful. Appearances and deep-rooted impressions can be quite deceiving, especially for the desperate."

Folding his arms, he leaned back.

"We are moving in on the resistance against That Man. They will not go quietly, but perhaps, as you had proposed, they may be reasoned with."



The episodes of the alternate timelines was still fresh in their minds. Entire worlds had been changed, the Earth in particular cast from its familiar course from circumstance. Whether the decisive attention of a repentant Goddess to the minutae of everyday lives, the tides of karma cast their flow in great, sweeping ways. A moment's negligence there, a twist to obsession here, how much would even the most insignificant difference alter the tangle of thousands of intertwined lives that were shaped by circumstance?

"His skills were honed keen as his edged weaponry, good enough for Rautt's confidence to whet his mercenary appetites," Ochazuke chuckled bitterly. "Had he something greater to fight for than himself, Chris the Knife, perhaps he would be more than a stain upon the winds right now?"

He'd heard some tell about The Doctor's schemes, a grand design rendered to reshape the universe, the countless lives discarded to serve as the mortar to the one, ideal form. To attain perfection in so fleeting a thing. Who ought to decide what it is that endures forever?

The ion storm bristling within the black clouds above served as a grim reminder of those harrowing forces that stood beyond common reckoning, descending from the stars or twisting between the planes seeking to prey on a moment's weakness. The price of knowing is perpetual vigilance.

"Always prepared," Ochazuke mused as Held indicated his payload of capsules.



Jack, who had quietly settled near Damask, blinked hard, then set his narrowed eyes sharply on Held. He'd seen this once before as the nicotine withdrawal had set in, thanks to the resort security at Space Vegas. And when the chips were down, the moment he found out the dealers had been cheating them under the table...

"If it comes down to it, then what you have to do," he muttered darkly. "If she won't go peaceably, if she's still spoiling for a fight...all I'm saying is, she ain't exactly family to me, understand."

"I'd rather not engage until we know what we're dealing with," Ochazuke said, "I know Kenshiko may stay her hand, given sufficient impetus. There is still something I may yet use to bargain with her. But the Colonel might not be swayed. For years now, she's fought to take down the World Government. Whatever they've found here, there's a chance she'd rather attempt on our lives than part with it."

Jack grumbled under his breath, and stepped inside the Golem. Even as he tried to put it behind him, right now his thoughts were thick in his past thievery.

"I know that I would."





Damask pondered Blizzar's question. and placed his hand on the stone below them. The ground split and raised, and from crumbling earth was raised a crude facsimile of the hollow hill before them.

"We are not a conventional standing army. They who would shed his blood for their comrades would be a brother in arms. Our intelligence is one in our common cause." Damask struggled with his words, until Jack pressed him.

"There are two locations:"

"The King's Grove in the Inner Sanctum. It was once my Creator's sanctuary, and the Leylines are most concentrated in this area."

"The other is the Excavation Archive. The remains of Old Vermilion were forcibly pressed into the bedrock below this place, sunken into the black sea. For the sake of preserving what remains of my liege's memory, I cannot enter it directly. But if Colonel Rautt has found anything, the extracted artifacts may be there."

"Hmm." Held pursed his lips as he considered the information imparted by the Gollem. "I suppose where we should go, depends on our assessment of how successful we think the Raiders have been to this point."

He frowned. Had had no idea. After all, he only caught wind of their schemes, and although Ocha was knowledgeable that they had found something up until this point, if they had found what they sought remained to be discovered. "I guess if we examine and inflitrate the Archive we may be able to gain some something to help clue us in on all this is all going...."

He titled his head, still unsure, thinking more out loud for his own benefit that the others.

"The Kings Grove, huh?" He mused, "I don't know what to make of that one, really. I like a nice grove as much as the next guy, but I can't entirely see what would be so special about that, outside of the Leylines...."

Leylines. He had learned more about them in five minutes, than he had in his entire life, only barely scratching the surface of the secrets they held. Whatever mystery was within them could just as easily be the key to understanding more of what Kenshiko and Willia sought.

"....Damask, to be clear, the Leylines have more applications that transport, right?" He asked, turning to the Gollem, "I guess I can see why someone would want a transportation hub nearby, but it kinda defeats the purpose of a sanctuary, if everyone can come and go as they please.."

Then again, the only thing I've ever seen manipulate them is Damask, so there's probably a low chance of that happening.

"I would be lying if I said I didn't want to get a closer look at them." He admitted, pursing his lips once more, "Although that might just be a detour for my own curiosity...But it seems weird to build a spot over where the highest concentration is, for the hell of it."

He shrugged.

"It doesn't help that I don't exactly know what I'd be looking for in the ruins, unless it's practically radiating power. I like to think I have an eye for things of value, but I can't exactly discern the entire cultural heritage of a people at a glance..." He turned to Ochazuke, "If anyone would have an idea what to look for, I imagine it would have to be your or Damask..."

I guess the real question is: Should we investigate in pairs, or all together? Ochazuke and I both sensors, so if we do split, we'll certainly have to be on opposite sides...

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

He nods.

“Come into the Forge then. We can speak while I work.”

Up close she can see he wears a strange brownish red armor, his form right at 4 feet or so. Despite this there is an air of....command, a presence that makes Banespell seem larger than his actual form.

Inanna nodded and followed, noticing that the man seemed larger than himself. Commanding presence for a relative dwarf of a man. How interesting.

"The journal you penned was... informative, you know. Though the magic itself was disappointing. Subverted by a novice Saiyan; who simply finessed it with negation."

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Inanna nodded and followed, noticing that the man seemed larger than himself. Commanding presence for a relative dwarf of a man. How interesting.

"The journal you penned was... informative, you know. Though the magic itself was disappointing. Subverted by a novice Saiyan; who simply finessed it with negation."

He nods and goes to an anvil, taking a blade out of the fire and working it a few moments before speaking.

“My measures were hasty and haphazard, yet still strong enough to last longer than most civilizations. Not only that, but the death element was strong enough to kill 99.9% of any being in the universe at that time. Forgive me for not predicting a sudden influx of more powerful people. Foresight isn’t my forte.”

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

He nods and goes to an anvil, taking a blade out of the fire and working it a few moments before speaking.

“My measures were hasty and haphazard, yet still strong enough to last longer than most civilizations. Not only that, but the death element was strong enough to kill 99.9% of any being in the universe at that time. Forgive me for not predicting a sudden influx of more powerful people. Foresight isn’t my forte.”

"Time makes mountains out of mole-hills, yes." Inanna replied, watching the man work.

"In any event, this new group of... Palatines, lets say, have recovered the majority of the Dragonballs. I'm merely tracking down the names held within the journal in the hope that their- your- struggles might prove useful in dealing with that Old Dragon. Stripped of his ability to appear when mentioned however, one supposes he's been de-clawed." The woman said, with a chuckle.

"Of course... that's certainly not the only reason I've come calling." There was a flicker of... something, there beneath the veneer of cordiality. "Insight into Magic is a... hobby of mine; a way to attain its truest form my- perhaps foolish- goal. So what say the Blacksmith?"

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

"Time makes mountains out of mole-hills, yes." Inanna replied, watching the man work.

"In any event, this new group of... Palatines, lets say, have recovered the majority of the Dragonballs. I'm merely tracking down the names held within the journal in the hope that their- your- struggles might prove useful in dealing with that Old Dragon. Stripped of his ability to appear when mentioned however, one supposes he's been de-clawed." The woman said, with a chuckle.

"Of course... that's certainly not the only reason I've come calling." There was a flicker of... something, there beneath the veneer of cordiality. "Insight into Magic is a... hobby of mine; a way to attain its truest form my- perhaps foolish- goal. So what say the Blacksmith?"

Banespell pauses, then hammers an intricate pattern of runes into the heated blade via use of a floating etcher by his head.

“True Magic? Pure Magic? Before it gets tainted by our own perceptions, causes, limitations, and ideas? Hmm, lofty goal indeed. It’s not something easily attainable. I’ve been crafting magic for millennia, and only run across it three times outside the Wish Dragons.”