Endless Sea (Alaki Nuva)

IC: Charek (Dark Walk) Ah. That sounded like escalation. Charek turned, keeping the Dark Walk entrance in his peripheral vision, and winced at the sight of what seemed to be a walking corpse, shrouded in shadow and blood. What in the world was this? Some creation of those death cultists that had once invaded Ko-Koro? A product of Rahkshi magicks- could Rahkshi even do such a thing? Perhaps the result of that "Antidermis" mutagen he'd heard rumors of when he first came to the island? Had the team come face to face with Makuta himself? The figure spoke of a "legacy"- or was it "Legacy", with a capital L? The Toa's earlier paranoia, fueled by anticipation and uncertainty, was receding fast. In its place, it left questions... and a strong urge to pull out a gun. "With all due respect, sir," he called, hand inching towards the rifle at his side, "I'd appreciate it if you were a little less cryptic with your warnings." OOC: @Light

IC: Charek (Dark Walk) "Charek. Six." Charek kept his eyes trained on the entrance to the room. The path ahead might be dangerous, but so too was the path they'd already traveled- and his paranoia was still getting stronger. OOC: @ dark walk crew IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Man. Tough crowd. I'm really not cut out for this investigative business, am I? "Come to think of it, what did happen with Gak, anyways? How does he enter the picture?" OOC: @Geardirector

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) Cephala snorted. "Makuta doesn't care what you prefer," she said. She closed her eyes and waved her hand, and slowly the obsidian effigy turned to glare at Pradhai. "Serve or die. Those are his terms. Personally, I'd rather punch him in his smug face, but something tells me little old me wouldn't live to regret that- assuming he even has a face. Maybe I should ask a Maru sometime..." OOC: @Mel @Geardirector

There's something about this that gives me Actual Set vibes, and I love it. Nicely done. Also, splendid crabbo. =D

IC: Joskander (Obsidan Outpost) "Just a chance meeting, huh?" Joskander raised an eyebrow (insofar as Toa had eyebrows). "I'm surprised you offered to help him with the body, then. That's not the sort of job you usually see people lining up to do, y'know?" OOC: @Geardirector

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) "That's... not an easy question to answer." Cephala bit her lip, looking pensive. Then, after a moment, she sighed and lifted one of her bags- the special bag- to the table. "I know not where Mata Nui slumbers," she said as she emptied its contents on the table: a multitude of colored pebbles, six rocks roughly the size of her thumb, a smooth white stone with vaguely face-like markings, a jagged black shard of volcanic glass. "Be he in the skies, or beneath the tunnels of Mangaia, or somewhere beyond time and space itself, in the place where legends are born and die. But I know this for certain: Makuta will never, ever let us reach him." The Po-Turaga gazed up at her companions from beneath a heavy brow. "And Makuta is here; that much, I know for certain. When the original settlers of this island fled here eleven hundred years ago, Makuta followed. He declared war on them for daring to worship his brother Mata Nui, he who made the stars shine and the winds blow, and that war continues to this day." OOC: @Geardirector @Mel

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) "To be honest," Cephala said, "I'm still not entirely sure what constitutes a 'demon' in the first place. Not used to terms like that. Can't say I'm too familiar with Zataka or Zuto Nui either- I've heard the terms used in passing by some of the folks from your islands, but I've never heard the context..." OOC: @Mel @Geardirector

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) Demon... Well, she wasn't any closer to knowing what a Kanohi Dragon was (besides Big News, apparently), but that word was loaded. "When you say 'demon'..." Please don't say Makuta. OOC: @Mel @Geardirector

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) "Hey there, big man." Joskander smiled down at the Karv, making sure to keep his hands behind his back. He didn't have much experience with Kavinika, but they sure did look like the sort of Rahi that liked to bite people's hands off. OOC: @Geardirector

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) "Thank you." Joskander smiled. "See you around, Outsider." He gave a short nod, turned around, and jogged back over to Mar. OOC: @Nato The Whisperer @Geardirector also @Wotz since Kahlynn's still at the outpost I think

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) You can still save him- Joskander quashed that thought immediately. "I... Thank you. Really. But I dunno." He looked up into Minnorak's eyes. "Someone broke him already. I don't want to ask someone else to break him again." OOC: @Nato The Whisperer

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Joskander shook his head. "We..." he said. "We were there when Ko fell. I made it out. He didn't." OOC: @Nato The Whisperer

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) "Friendly," Joskander murmured. He almost chuckled. Almost. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Is he... uh..." Is he what, Joskander? "Yeah, I dunno what I'm looking for." He shrugged, then winced as a tiny jolt of pain darted across the back of his shoulder. "Yeah, the guy was travelling with me, and he wanted to get back to Ko, so I told him to go on without me while I helped with, uh..." Joskander gestured at Gak's body, now accumulating a fresh layer of snow. "Y'know, the last time I met Dahkapa was before the cultists got him. I worry, man. I'm really friggin' worried." OOC: @Nato The Whisperer

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) Pradhai's voice began to fade into the background as Cephala processed this new morsel of information. An evacuation order? An entire ruling family leading a mass exodus? Surely she had misheard the old woman... right? She couldn't have missed an entire fleet turning up on her doorstep, right? Slowly, she turned her head to the window. The harbor was full. Ships she'd never seen. Crystal-armored Matoran and Turaga and Toa crowding the streets. When in the world had this happened? And for that matter... how many Rahkshi must there have been to force so many people to leave? (wait what was that about dragons) "wait what was that about dragons" I am very good at paying attention yes yes OOC: @Mel @Geardirector

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) "Heh. Thank you for letting us do the do, friend." Joskander was silent for a moment, fingers absently brushing the underside of his mask, then added, "Say, did you happen to pass a Toa of Ice on the way here? With a Hau and a cloak?" OOC: @Nato The Whisperer

I still feel a little bit like I was metagaming when I wrote that, but honestly, I bet Skorm probably would have been in the best position for that if he hadn't been yoinked.

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Joskander shrugged. "Truth be told, I was gonna let the guys at Ko know anyways. When I see a couple guys lugging a body around with no context, I get a little suspicious, y'know? And the Skakdi- he's still inside the Outpost, by the by- he tried to pass himself off as the toll guy when I got here, so clearly he's not afraid to try and mess with us. Or just me, I dunno." OOC: @Nato The Whisperer IC: Charek (Dark Walk) "Think we can get our ceiling man to check 'em out? Put a closer light on 'em? If they're important, that is." Charek left out the fact that his sense of unease, for some elusive reason, had suddenly spiked. He was pretty sure that at least some of the others felt it too, and there seemed little point in saying "I have a bad feeling about this" if he had to append the statement with "and I don't know why". OOC: @Krayzikk @Leaf @Keeper of Kraata Btw @ARROW404 try typing a bit of the name of whoever you're tagging, deleting it while leaving the @, and retyping the name with the first letter in a different case than what you used before. That usually works for me when tagging starts acting up, which happens pretty much every time I do it!

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Joskander straightened up immediately, making a quiet "eep" of mild shock. "Just a minute!" he called out, shifting the corpse in his hands. "I got an old man here who's seen better days." Gently he lowered Gak's body to the ground beside Mar. He wiped his hands in the snow, then spun on one heel and jogged over to Minnorak, waving as he did. "Apologies, mister," he said earnestly. "Ran across a plasma Skakdi and that Toa of Sonics over there-" he gestured at Mar- "handling a body. Skakdi didn't seem to know how to treat the poor thing with respect, so I offered to help bury it. Sorry we didn't ask permission- as far as I was aware, you fellas weren't in town anymore." OOC: @Nato The Whisperer @Geardirector @Wotz

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) Cephala blinked. "More or less," she said with a sheepish smile. "I can't kick the tops off mountains like I did back when I was a Toa proper, but..." She traced a lazy circle on the tabletop- and a thin trail of sand followed her fingertip wherever it went. "Presto. I am become sand lady, nightmare to table cleaners across the island. Fear me." OOC: @Geardirector @Mel

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Joskander nodded absently, squinting into the snowy wilds. That voice had sounded vaguely familiar... and now that he thought of it, so did its owner. "I think I recognize that guy from the first couple times I've been through here. One of the guys that used to run this place." He turned back to Mar and grinned. "Yeah, I'll go say hi. But I want an answer to my question once I get back, 'kay?" OOC: @Geardirector @Nato The Whisperer For the record, I see Joskander as having travelled by cable car a couple times back when the Outsiders were still active, so he's at least seen Enforcer before offscreen (or off-post, if you will). They probably never interacted much, mind you. IC: Charek (Dark Walk) Not for the first time in his life, Charek was quite thoroughly regretting running his mouth. Yeah, sure, let the Toa of Plasma be a light source, he won't have any problems with a little darkness, right? Ha. No. This wasn't "a little darkness". This was... what, advanced darkness? Supreme darkness? Darkness within darkness? It was nasty stuff, at the very least. He and his comrades' shadows seemed unusually stark, right down to the shaded recesses and cracks in their armor. More distressingly, there was actually a defined edge to the light of his conjured star where it outright ceased to be, where just inching over it would put one in total blackness, and that edge seemed closer every time he looked at it, no matter how powerful that light was. He was almost tempted to start strobing the darn thing just to taunt the dark- not that doing so would really accomplish anything other than making his companions angry. It was just as well that he'd refused Kehuri's explosives. Untrained as he was, he would've been far too likely to blow himself up by accident even with proper visibility. Even running, were things to come to that, would likely be a nightmare- he'd probably need to hug a wall the entire way up (and the walls were quite far away, Great Spirit have mercy why were these tunnels so BIG), something that would be tough enough if he needed to carry someone out. Actually fighting was undoubtedly going to be a nightmare- Charek stopped that line of thought. Risk assessment was all well and good, but panic brought down teams with ease. He exhaled, reminded himself that he'd lived through nightmares before. But then he looked behind himself again, and the edge of his starlight seemed closer than ever before... OOC: @ARROW404 Just a heads-up that Charek didn't take the bombs. He doesn't actually know how to use them xD

IC: Charek (Dark Walk entrance) "Don't worry too much about blinding people, sir," Charek said. "I've got settings on my plasma that aren't 'Great Spirit preserve us, my eyes!', I assure you. That said, I'd like to stay towards the back, just in case I need to use this-" he tapped his Kakama- "to rush someone out of a firefight. Won't give me a clear shot unless we get flanked, but it sounds like some of us would rather I keep my gun to myself anyways." OOC: @Leaf

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) Cephala shook her head. "I only arrived a little while after the Dark Walks opened up. All the Rahkshi by that point were mindless things, never going out into the sun, and I wasn't in any hurry to go down to meet them. As for before I came here..." She shut her eyes, and for a moment, but no more, she heard a serpentine screech at the back of her mind. "I don't know. So many of us lose all our memories when we come to this island- myself included." The Turaga stared into the bottom of her cup, sloshing the last dregs of liquid around inside. "I'd like to think I haven't, to be honest," she said. "I want something in my past I can be sure of, so I know for certain I have a reason to be proud of being a Toa... but from what I understand, Makuta only sends out his Rahkshi when he means to start something serious." She looked up again, staring into Pradhai's eyes. "You never did tell me quite how bad it was at your home. I don't want to pry too much, because it certainly doesn't sound like a good memory... but if you're willing, I do want to know." OOC: @Mel @Geardirector

IC: Joskander (Obsidian Outpost) Joskander flashed Mar a smile, even though his back was turned- in his experience, some smiles were big enough to be heard. "I'm Joskander. Pleased to meetcha, Mar." He thought for a moment, then added, "How'd you get mixed up with the Skakdi over there? Judging by the way he's been pushing you around, something tells me you're just along for the ride here."

I feel sorry for him at this point.

IC: Cephala (Tidalpool Inn) "I don't really have a reference point for you Dasaka fellas," Cephala said as she scribbled, "but to my knowledge, the Rahkshi haven't been on this island for too long. First contact was a couple years ago, a little before the Maru became the Maru. We had a couple intermittent appearances where they absolutely destroyed everyone they met, then the Dark Walks opened up, then the Maru happened and all the Rahkshi went feral or something." She absently tapped the side of her mask with her pencil. "I'm getting sidetracked with a history lesson I'm hardly qualified to talk about, but the point is, they're not common here, and we generally go out of our way not to fight them these days. Tough customers, even when mindless. Stack 'em one-to-one against a Toa and they'll win every time." Cephala's eyes met Pradhai's. "I've never heard anything about the slugs infecting anything. Never. And the island may not have a long history with Rahkshi, but it's been terrorized by Rahi with infected masks for over a thousand years, and if this "disease" you're talking about is the same sort of thing, you might have seen one of the most important things in this island's entire history." OOC: @Mel @Geardirector