Bay 12 Games Forum

"Yes? What of it?"
Theodore is noticeably terse at this point. Whatever beliefs he may personally have about war or peace or whatever rejoinders he might have to having his supposed ego threatened are left unsaid.

Portals. Another world. Travel between them.

Countless tomes flickered through Theo's memories right then and there, those words having aroused memories of years of Theodore's life. Countless hours of research, countless sleepless nights, countless attempts. He'd believed they were preposterous, yes, but they were worth pursuing, in Theodore's eyes.

It was stupid, what he'd done. He'd thought it'd have been worth it all, for her. But it was irresponsible, foolish, to mess with things that Theodore had hardly believed in the first place and knew scant little about. To understand that these mongrels had done this aroused both anger and curiosity in Theodore, a curiosity that was quickly quashed by sobering reality. If Theodore was foolish to use it for what he had wanted, these fools were doubly so for messing with powers beyond their tiny minds.

Let it go. It was a long time ago. She would want you to. But this cannot go on.

"A portal? Those...mongrels. The risk of something like that....what happens to the matter that is teleported to this other world? What do you know of this world?"

"Another world? I've heard theories like that. Theories that these weapons were drawing power from places beyond our world. That was the province of crackpots and conspiracy theorists."

This was enough to jostle Theodore into action.

He approaches the conversation confidently, stepping around Jack and Lucette to trap Giarna in.

"I even considered it during my own work on these forsaken weapons. They were outputting too much power for any one person to be able to supply it on their own without significant injury. We considered many things in our research; drawing upon whole populations, perhaps the lifeblood of the world itself, or some sort of luminferous aether we had yet to detect. The power of another world was a hypothesis I considered, but it was preposterous. Drawing magic from other worlds.....I've heard of it in old myths and legends, the stuff of fanciful madmen. It wasn't practical magic. Nothing useful. Nothing worthy of my talents."

"Where are your research notes? And what else have you found out?"

Theodore calmly watches the proceedings behind Jack and Lucette.

The stink of alcohol. The boorish man before him. The dark, small room before them. Theodore's fortune was made in cider, but it didn't make him a fan of alcohol, not one bit.

A tinge of disgust and unfulfilled wrath fills his eyes. He lets Jack and Lucette handle this, for now.

13-9, stab some monks

"Your assistance is much appreciated."
Erica adjusts her glasses slightly to reseat them properly; that last hit had slightly dislodged them.
Declare Target: Fencer. 3-17, blast the boss.

Ai
"U-unharmed? Uh...my neck's sore....but apart from that I'm...fine. What happened?"

---

Ito concentrates on the next opponent, his armor returning to wherever it resides when not in use. Yamato absorbs the nuclear fire that comprises Haruko's power, his sword flashing with the pulsing red of the flames of the sun itself.

[Now Playing: Ophiuchus Zoanthrope Theme ~White Fatalis~]
The ground before you trembles. Lapis seems to sniff the air, look around for their target, waiting for whatever Zoanthrope they sensed to appear, waiting and lurking. Wounds are healed, as Spica tends to Yamato's injuries. Not much time for anything more concrete. Not much time at all.

Wait. Is it....no. It's....the Zoanthrope is....inside....

The first sign you get that the Zoanthrope has arrived a subtle, cracking noise. Stone, cracking under the weight of a beast. Behind you, you hear the screaming noises of people running out of the hospital; nurses carting patients on wheelchairs out, Eden Foundation troopers aiding the doctors and trying to get the highest risk people out of the area. Ambulances are being manned already; you hear sirens in the distance, presumably the police and whatever other hospitals in Touto can be rallied. Something has gone deeply, horribly wrong inside the hospital.

Before you can react, however, a shower of concrete and metal debris smacks into you all, forcing you to dodge to avoid being clocked by stones and shattered glass. The roar of a massive beast fills your ears.

In front of you stands a towering, reptilian beast, about the same height as the whale-like monster you faced before. Its gargantuan body is rippling with muscle barely held together by silvery-white scales, the skin tearing apart in areas to reveal the sickening, pulsing musculature beneath, the wounds weeping a fluorescent, yellow liquid across its massive thighs and forearms. Its eyes are a pale, glowing red, resembling that of an insect's rather than a reptile's, the moon's light shimmering on the giant, metallic fangs barely fitting into its mouth. A giant tail flickers behind it, twitching and shaking as if a current were running through it.

It has set its sights on you as its next victims.

Zoanthrope Engaged