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Zanthe likes to consider herself a reasonable person. When she kills people, it's for a reason; Alaine's mom needs fed, she needs some cash, she's bored that day. If someone offers criticism, she gives it all due consideration before stabbing them. She's perfectly happy to cooperate with others, even, as long as they follow all of her commands to the letter and don't question her or have an annoying face or something.
(To be fair, by Alternian standards this puts her somewhere just below Troll Mahatma Gandhi.)
At the moment, however, she is feeling decidedly unreasonable. Leo blew off her perfectly good advice to leave the goddamn sliding puzzle alone and kill himself into immortality, and what's worse, Alaine backed him up. She's used to him agreeing with her ruthless play style, but for some reason he felt like the pointless sidequests would be useful, and "it's not like we're in some kind of hurry, right?"
So, like the reasonable person she is, she stormed out of the computer room and went off to explore the meteor and steal people's stuff from the chests. So far she's found Sky's lacy underthings, a handful of boonbucks, Ari's lacy underthings (which she files away for later perusal), and more weapons than anyone could reasonably need, all of which have gone straight into her inventory.
She opens another door. It leads-
to a refreshmentblock?
She draws a heavily alchemized dagger and advances slowly toward the beveragetable. "If Troll Ashton Kutcher shows up, I'm stabbing him in the face," she warns the empty room.
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girls-just-wanna
miracle-of-miracles
"Alchemizer's this machine that takes things and combines them into other things if you feed it grist - grist comes out of dead monsters, it's a thing. Anyway, it's handy for making random cool shit, but it's really good at weapons. Like, you can toss a weapon in there with pretty much any other object and it'll come out ready to massacre things. It's kind of a hobby of mine. As you might be able to tell."
first-loyalty
"Yes. I'm beginning to wonder if your world even has mages of a kind I would recognize..."
miracle-of-miracles
"Well, we've got a mage. She's the planet-burny one. But that's just her Fated Role. Is it like... a species for you guys?"
first-loyalty
"Not exactly. Some people are mages, and some aren't. The only relationship with species is that dwarves don't produce mages at all. But we three are the only people with fated roles I know of and there are many more mages than that. And mine is not Mage."
first-loyalty
She inspects some more wands, looking for one she would be willing to pick up even if the fate of the world were not at stake.
miracle-of-miracles
There are fewer wands than blades, and they are, fortunately, the least ridiculous of the bunch. Apart from the FROGINATRIX 3000, which may be politely ignored.
Searching eventually turns up a silvery wand with a shining blue stone in its handle. The tip glows faintly cyan.
Searching eventually turns up a silvery wand with a shining blue stone in its handle. The tip glows faintly cyan.
first-loyalty
Acceptable. She picks that one up and looks over to see how Stalas and Sefton are doing.
not-only
Methodically sorting through sharp objects! Why do so many of them have faces. They are watching him. It is no good.
first-and-final
Stalas is being slightly less methodical about his search, but is equally disconcerted by the faces. The face-emblazoned swords are getting piled on a separate table so he doesn't have to look at them.
miracle-of-miracles
Not all of the silly blades have faces! Many are just covered in fur, or made out of razor-sharp teddy bears, or similar. (One notable broadsword is constructed entirely out of pornographic magazines.)
There's still some viable weapons in the stacks, though. Many basically just look like swords (or daggers, as the case may be). One pair of daggers emit a faint haze of caustic red smoke; another dagger glows with what would appear to be the shining light of Hope.
There's no Hope sword, but there is one which, when Stalas touches it, begins to burn a startlingly familiar shade of blue.
There's still some viable weapons in the stacks, though. Many basically just look like swords (or daggers, as the case may be). One pair of daggers emit a faint haze of caustic red smoke; another dagger glows with what would appear to be the shining light of Hope.
There's no Hope sword, but there is one which, when Stalas touches it, begins to burn a startlingly familiar shade of blue.
first-and-final
"...Is there lyrium in this one?" wonders Stalas, picking it up for a closer look.
miracle-of-miracles
Ari comes over to look. "Nope. That's the Bloodsword. What's lyrium?"
first-and-final
"...Well, among other things lyrium is technically in my blood... under ordinary circumstances, it's a magical substance which most people are well advised to keep out of their circulatory systems."
first-and-final
"Um, most kinds of magic, really, in our world's terms... I'm an outrageous fluke, most people with this much lyrium in them are either dead or well on their way. There are mostly-safe ways for mages like Katrin to power spells with it, and mostly-safe ways for dwarves or magically deadened non-dwarves to enchant weapons with it, and supposedly-safe ways for humans to use it to get special powers, but apparently the special powers come with an addiction that eventually destroys your mind, and all they seem to be good for is disrupting other magic of the same kind."
miracle-of-miracles
"Cool! Can I have some? I wanna alchemize a lyriumsword so I can stab people with deadly magic poison!"
first-and-final
"...That's really the least of what a sword made with lyrium could do, and I'm not sure I want to give up my only source of it for this purpose."
not-only
"You might not have to give it up," says Sefton from where he is still sorting daggers. (He took the ones with the red stuff for himself and the Hope one for Stalas, but he's not about to just assume that's the best he can do.)
miracle-of-miracles
"Take as many knives as you like," Ari clarifies. "I'm not what you'd call short on stabbing implements."
He turns back to Stalas. "And, yeah, what he said. I have a thingy that can get a card from something without actually taking the item. Can't use it for anything but alchemy, but you can use it for alchemy, so."
He turns back to Stalas. "And, yeah, what he said. I have a thingy that can get a card from something without actually taking the item. Can't use it for anything but alchemy, but you can use it for alchemy, so."
first-and-final
"Well, all right then," says Stalas. He produces a small pouch from somewhere - there is a lot of room in his outfit to hide things, if you're the sort of person who does that - and opens it, extracting a faintly glowing blue rock and a puff of faintly glowing blue mist.
"I don't recommend breathing the fumes but they shouldn't actually kill you," he adds.
"I don't recommend breathing the fumes but they shouldn't actually kill you," he adds.
miracle-of-miracles
Out of thin air pops a camera; the camera flashes at the lyrium, producing a card, and both vanish.
"Sorry if this is rude or something, but: I'm making this thing now." A large patch of floor space is abruptly occupied by a heinously complex-looking machine.
Ari runs over to it and begins fucking around with his cards, and eventually produces a bright blue crystalline scimitar. He brandishes it in delight. "Fuck yes!"
"Sorry if this is rude or something, but: I'm making this thing now." A large patch of floor space is abruptly occupied by a heinously complex-looking machine.
Ari runs over to it and begins fucking around with his cards, and eventually produces a bright blue crystalline scimitar. He brandishes it in delight. "Fuck yes!"
first-and-final
"Well, that's... fascinating," says Stalas, putting away his lyrium. "Is that pure lyrium...? Can I borrow it for a moment?"
miracle-of-miracles
"Sure!" He hands it over. "Also, d'you want some more lyrium, I can duplicate some for you if you like. It's apparently kind of expensive, but 'expensive' is a word that applies to people who don't have six planets' worth of build grist at their disposal."
first-and-final
"Not quite pure," Stalas concludes. "But close. Closer than any smith I've heard of could get and still have the result be something you could feasibly wield in combat. Definitely don't do the thing I'm about to do."
He cuts a fingertip on the edge of the sword and hisses under his breath. His blood is red, but sparkles with glimmers of lyrium blue. "Yeah. That's close to pure, all right." He conscientiously wipes the blood off the sword before he hands it back. "More lyrium would be... an interesting prospect. More lyrium weapons might be more interesting still."
He cuts a fingertip on the edge of the sword and hisses under his breath. His blood is red, but sparkles with glimmers of lyrium blue. "Yeah. That's close to pure, all right." He conscientiously wipes the blood off the sword before he hands it back. "More lyrium would be... an interesting prospect. More lyrium weapons might be more interesting still."