The Last Oddetsey

[alex_holt]

LELAND AND CLEO
Even as they knock on the front door, some information flashes up on the computer about this accountant.

Vociferous Tench
Species: Eel-gnome
Likes: Swamp-beet wine
Reading the Daily Mail
Complaining about things
Supporting his local Swampball team - the Bridgewater Bitterns
Dislikes: Most other things
Any other swampball team

After a few moments, Vociferous opens his front door - he stands about 2 foot tall and has smooth, slimy dark silver skin, big reflective eyes and webbed hands and toes. He peers at you suspiciously.

"May I help you?"

AURELIA

While your team inspects the new recruit, you talk to the Donkey, who is currently very upset. His name is Meander and he is the librarian at the Library of Arcane, Thaumatological and Mystic Studies in Melded - the most renowned gathering of all books of magical subjects in this arm of the galaxy.

What seems to have happened is someone has got into the super tough inner vaults where the most dangerous books are kept and taken three incredibly unique volumes:

Notes on the Origin of Doomforall - by Dr Shah
Tales of the Outer Dimensions and their Powers - by Travavian the Wanderer
A Study of Rift Energy - by Anjushree

[majinb]

Aurelia turns to the Efreet and the hamster.

"Dear Efreet and hamster, sadly The Spanish Inquisition can only handle 1 case at any given time, but if you give me your contact details I will make sure we will come to a satisfactory solution."

And back to Meander the Talking Donkey.

"Meander! You are in luck, because the writer of "A Study of Rift Energy", Anjushree, is in the castle you are observing right now. I propose you and I enter this castle and we shall inform Anjushree of this situation. Maybe the gryphon even has a spare copy!"

And Aurelia and Meander walk into the castle...

[Badnik96]

Slammer glances curiously at some of the mechanical components.

"Some of these pistons look powerful. Perhaps I could upgrade my flipper with them..."

"I'd just need someone to fit them in for me. Once we get back to base, possibly someone there could help?"

[alex_holt]

AURELIA

The Efreet and the Hamster are fine with waiting - they are glad these cases are getting any attention at all.

As Aurelia brings in Meander, the Griffon addresses the two of you "Ahhhh and who is this you bring to me?"

PHANTASMIC SLAMMER

After rummaging through the robot, PS has found a few different options that would fit his systems. These include enough components to reinforce the rest of PS to be able to accomplish these feats.

Liquid osmium hydraulics: Would produce a very slow but incredibly strong lifting motion - capable of lifting 200 ton weights.

Serpentine hydraulics - rather than a single piston, hundreds of tiny pistons along a segmented body (OOC: think Dr Octopus arms) would allow equal strength to currently, but allow the flipper to move freely in any direction as something slightly closer to a fully functional limb.

Electromagnetic lifter - Designed in such a way and with such power than while not firing (at a strength of 10 tons) PS would be able to hover off the ground when needed.

[alex_holt]

AURELIA

After reviewing the recruits, your team makes the following observations:

Shandra is a supremely skilled fighter, capable of dispatching opponents with ease, as well as an accomplished field leader.
Voxel is a decent fighter, but seems to be better suited to espionage.
The Vlobleths are strong fighters, but rubbish tacticians, and need a strong leader.
Mr Rayner has no fighting or tactical skills at all, but his music is so amazing he is capable of inspiring friends or scaring foes.

[majinb]

"Anjushree! This Donkey called Meander is the librarian of the Library of Arcane, Thaumatological and Mystic Studies in Melded, and recently he had 3 of his books stolen, amongst them your A Study of Rift Energy.

How dire is this? And is there any chance you have a copy yourself?"

[alex_holt]

Anjushree eyes up Meander, and the Donkey backs away a little... Griffons are known for eating horses, and donkeys are much of the same stock, however after a bit of consideration.

"I'm afraid the story behind that book is not the normal publishing method - only five were ever made, and Doomforall took them all, and in exchange I was to voluntarily accept a mind wipe of all that I had learnt and even that I had written a book in the first place"

She pauses dramatically, and then a griffonic smile crosses her face.

"Fortunatly, I am not the greatest master of counter-magic across several universes for nothing, and I managed to install some delayed recall spells in my mind to hide the general gist of what I'd done. I do recall the outline if not the specifics of what I discovered - essentially I was hired to learn the capabilities of the rift and if anything could counter it. I do recall that I did find *something* that was effective, but exactly what was too big a secret to conceal from a spell even for me, and besides, as much as he could be pretentious, brooding and a bit of a ham, I trusted him with that power more than I would with most people.

Anyway, I assume that whoever took that book somehow knew to look for it in this secret library of yours, and that means resources and connections..."

[Badnik96]

Phantasmic Slammer eyes the three options and decides on the electromagnetic lifter.

"This seems interesting. Electromagnets? I know they're banned from ARC, so if they're that powerful that should be the best choice."

Thinking to himself, he adds: The other two look interesting though, I think I'll grab the really hefty looking one too (OOC: the one that can lift 200 tons) and see if anyone else can make use of it.

[NWOWWE]

As he knocked on the door, information spilled across the screen of the tablet. Oh now there was information on this accountant! Wonderful. Gaunt gave an annoyed sigh and quickly read the information and stuffed it back in his pocket once more. No sooner had he done this then the door swung open. Gaunt looked down at the creature.

"Hello Mr. Tench. As I understand it you are employed by by Ms. Triablos as the company accountant. Well I'm going to be having a business meeting with her today, but I was not given much background on the company itself. Being a business man myself I know that the accountants are the most straightforward and analytical employees of any company so I figured I'd come to you directly first so I could get a very unbiased opinion on the company. Now I don't want to take up more of your time than absolutely needed since I imagine this is a day off for you and I'd wouldn't want to take away your time for relaxing with the paper or watching the game."

Here Gaunt gave a playfully envious smile.

"Now I know mostly about what the company does, but very little about people. It's very hard to do business with people you know almost nothing about! Now you'd certainly be in a position to interact with Ms. Triablos on somewhat regular basis I'm sure so you could probably tell me how she does business. The last I want is to go there and say or do the wrong thing and kill off any chance of getting any productive business relationship."

Gaunt took a bit of a breath and put on a slightly apologetic tone.

"And you'll have to forgive me for rambling on like that. Old salesman's habit. So do you think you can help me Mr. Tench?"

[alex_holt]

Tench initially seems very suspicious, but after a bit of blagging on the Demon's part, Gaunt is invited in. Eventually he gets talking properly, and finds a number of facts about Ms Triablos - she goes outside to smoke a cigar at 6pm every day after finishing work, she doesn't hold with the traditional Demon = evil stereotype and has funded several television campaigns with the slogan "You CAN spell Devil without Evil", she loves her pet affenpinscher - a remarkable animal in that it is 100% an entirely normal affenpinscher, likes Thai food, candelit dinners, foreign language films, complicated legal documents and growing bonsai triffids, dislikes theatre, limes, the colour pink and basketball. She recently broke up with her boyfriend, after finding him at home with some highly illegal Emmerdale DVDs. She is a shrewd businesswoman and Triablos Industries have done well under her supervision, expanding into the lucrative home-necromancy business.

EVERYONE

George messages everyone to say that upon the defeat of the Death of VHS, a new system unlocked back at the castle:

You may each place any ONE item of your choice that wasn't aquired from the item library system into this machine and select option S, T or P and it will upgrade that item accordingly. Unfortunatly the system seems to have been built on the assumption that the user knew what that system did, so what S, T and P mean is unknown.

PHANTASMIC SLAMMER

Somehow, the electromagnetic system is able to be automatically installed, and PS finds itself able to hover a little way off the ground when needed. It would seem the castle has calibrated systems to be able to install things remotely using the teleporters.

[kodster]

(summary post)

*Eudial goes to a weapons store near the area and buys:

- a vintage dragon gun - like an elephant gun but bigger and with some minor magic busting enchantments
- a Hyperion class bolt launcher made from superlight alloys, never needs reloading and very accurate, but way less stopping power against heavier foes
- a rifle snipe - basically it is a common snipe, that has SAS training as a sniper, and has a small but powerful gun he will follow orders of whoever purchased the contract to the letter, and is a veteran of numerous armed conflicts with an impressive/scary killcount

all for 55,000*

*she also expresses her desire to return to the castle post-haste*

[alex_holt]

Eudial is teleported to the castle.

The Snipe introduces itself as Fletcher - the intonation is that of a gruff badass, but reality is high pitched and piping in sound.

"Do you have any standing order ma'm?"

[kodster]

Eudial went to the new machine and placed the dragon rifle into it, and selected option T.

[Badnik96]

Phantasmic Slammer admires his new floating chassis.

"Let's see Fulcrum flip me now!"

He also takes the rolling pin and puts it into the machine. He then presses P.

[alex_holt]

EUDIAL:

There is no obvious change in physical appearance to thew sniper rifle after an energy pulse fills the capsule with light, however, when Eudial picks it up again, she feels a change in herself. As she holds it in her hands, her normal skin begins to scale over slowly, inching up her arms and then through the rest of her body. It would seem while holding this rifle, it gives the wielder some of the properties of dragonsflesh - immunity to fire, resistance to just about everything else, including magic. Once it leaves the wielders hands the scaling recedes back down to the fingertips before vanishing.