Guild's War 4: Operation Popping Daisies

[Lord Hayati]

Mage Manor, Under Siege:

Krisseh froze at the sights of her own friends, the mages, hurling spells at her. While she was able to barely dodge the fireballs, some singeing her robes, she was not prepared for the other type.

"Ellen, Go get help! We're Under att"

Ka-ZAP!

Right then and there, Krisseh was impaled by a lightning bolt. Although the pain was unimaginable for those around her, She had experienced worse. this was like being stung by a bee, rather than being locked out of her body for a year by the underdeep.

For a simple spell, It had almost fried her, since she was technically made of water. The damage was extremely severe, not so much as on the outside, but inside her. So much, that she lost all of her senses. she collapsed on the ground, seemingly dead to everyone. She even thought to herself that she was dead.

But she wasn't dead, due to one simple reason.

the underdeep wasn't finished with her.

[Pixie]

None of the mages answered her plea. She glances horrified at the jelly girl, Krisseh, as a bombardment of fire and lightening rains down at her. She hears the last exclamation before the poor Usul is impaled by a lighting bolt.

I better do as she says... that's her last wish.

The streams of tears renew themselves, and she hollers "N-NOOOO" Before the sobs overwhelm her ability to speak.

She faces Hellas, who had sent the attackers, then turned back to alabaster. Something was wrong.

He's a silver-tongued politician. My emotions bleed through, but he must be able to control every single impulse of body language if he can be so deceptive. Is that a smile...? I'm not sure, I can't read folks well at all but...

"Sir... Sir Alabaster. Why... are you smiling? Blood lust? or.." She whimpers, as the sense of panic begans to numb her.

Krisseh is DEAD. He's smiling... I can't think straight!

She doesn't wait for an answer. Instead, she rips open her pouch, and downs a quarter of a bottle of pungent blue liquid. She recaps the speed potion, and begins to sprint back towards the manor to look for the portal. She wasn't sure it would work, since she didn't know the password, but running to the Castle would take too long if there was any chance otherwise.

[Celestial]

((Castle Kestrel))

Celestial returned Hunty's glare, not intimidated by the pirate in the slightest and deciding not to ask questions about the horse which she had for some odd reason only just now noticed. However, she broke off from glaring and bowed to Death, figuring it was best to show respect to such a famous individual. She listened carefully to what he had to say.

The news about the scythe in particular disturbed her.

"But how did she even get your scythe in the first place? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you just lose," she asked.

((Mage Manor))

He was right. The conflict had begun. The mages had begun attacking the Manor itself. With the Manor went his books. Especially the dangerous ones. If they escaped, there was no telling what they could do. The jelly mage was also in trouble. She had meddled with the underdeep and like all who meddle with the underdeep, she was going to pay the price.

The librarian had no choice. He took off his gloves, revealing hands made out of a black writhing mass. He never bothered to hide those since they were always covered by the gloves. Those things were the only part of him that was actually made of something besides his body, in case somebody accidentally brushed against his hands.

"Hold these," he said to the nearest mage, Tiger, and gave her his gloves. The librarian looked Alabaster right in the eye and mimicked his smile. He did not feel the emotion behind the smile, he just knew it would cause the maximum amount of fear.

The librarian fell apart like he was made out of string. For a moment, a dark puddle writhed where he had once stood before darkness spread in all directions from it, wrapping around the zombies, the two generals and the mages, covering them all in complete darkness.

It was not keen on showing his true form. It much preferred reading books and acting as Mage Manor's librarian. But as it stated before, it did not have much choice.

"I'm sorry, Sir Alabaster Bode Pilkington-Emmett, I know it was an old cliche. But alas, my voice tends to crack if I keep it normal for too long. I wanted to warn you before it came to this," the underdeep creature said, its voice echoing out across the dome.

Right now, it needed fear. As much as it wanted it out of the two generals, it had to earn it first. For now, the fear of the living mages would have to do.

Several tendrils covered in teeth crawled out from the dome and headed for the undead hoarde. As soon as they touched one of the zombies, they inverted and swallowed up the creatures, leaving nothing left. Systematically, the creature began to work through the army.

[Amneiger]

Amneiger had spent less than a minute in Mage Manor before hearing noise outside. The Manor groaned somewhere deep in its foundations, and he instinctively reached for a doorframe to support himself.

He pulled out his commlink. "Commander Fraze, I just got into the Manor. I haven't met any mages yet, but the zombies are attacking. You said not to take direct action without talking to you first. What are our orders?"

[♥ Azzie]

To Azzie, everything seemed to happen at once. The Librarian arrived, several of the undead attacked Krisseh- and she fell- but Azzie hadn't time to process that before the librarian took off his- its? gloves and wrapped the room in darkness. When it spoke it used a voice that was not human, and certainly not animal. It was downright chilling.

Azzie did what any sensible being would in such a situation: she screamed. She jumped and fluttered her wings wildly, wanting to get off the floor in case the floor decided to disappear or swallow her up. She was terrified, mostly because the undead could now attack as they pleased without being seen, but also because she could tell that the darkness around her felt different from ordinary dark magic. She'd been taught to recognize the Underdeep, of course, recognize it and avoid it, from her first days at the Manor. And what was surrounding them now was the strongest she'd ever felt it. Whatever that librarian was, it had come from the Underdeep. True, it seemed to be on the mages' side. But it could always turn on them.

These were the thoughts speeding through her head as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She thought about letting off a glow, if for her own sanity's sake, but immediately discarded the idea on the grounds that she'd probably get spotted- and attacked- quicker that way. Instead she closed her eyes- it was so dark it didn't matter anyway- and kept flapping her wings.

"Is everybody okay?" she asked whoever could hear.

[Fraze]

((Mage Manor))
Several of the troops began to fall. Out of the corner of his eye, Hellas noticed a sudden darkness spring up and retreat, just as one of the undead mages was attacked.

For a living army, an order like "Attack your shadows" would have caused confused sideways glances and muttering. An undead army has no such qualms.
Soldiers plunged swords and spears into their shadows. Mages cast offensive spells, leaving small craters all around the courtyard.

This attack was quickly overshadowed¹ by the Librarian's transformation. Alabaster reached up with one hand and stroked his chin. "Surround the Manor," he said, after a moment's consideration. The army spread out, circling the building. The skeletons led the way; not being weighed down by flesh, they could move quickly. If the creature wanted to trap them, it would need to trap the Manor and its inhabitants as well. Trying to assess the situation, Alabaster then looked toward Hellas.

He was smiling.

"I once lived in a city with a temple that was said to have a gateway to the underworld," he said with a gleeful voice. "We were told that gods of fear and pain and death lived there. I have always wanted to kill one."

Hellas leapt at the nearest tendril, slicing cleanly through it. He held his sword high above his head, and even in the darkness the blade seemed to shine. "Show no fear!" he cried, his voice reaching all throughout the dome of living shadow. "Do not give it what it wants. Have courage, and we shall be victorious!"

Soldiers began to attack the tendrils, primarily working to defend the remaining mages. Meanwhile, the mages themselves threw blasts of fire, lightning, and shards of ice at the dome.

¹((See what I did there?))
--------

((Spacefleet))
"Commander Fraze, I just got into the Manor. I haven't met any mages yet, but the zombies are attacking. You said not to take direct action without talking to you first. What are our orders?"
Before turning on the comm to respond, Fraze yelled something mortally offensive in several alien languages. Fortunately, the walls of his quarters were well insulated.

He contacted the monitoring system. "What's the situation at the Manor?"
"The zombie army arrived and began to attack, and a--a black dome covered the whole thing up," the comm operator answered. A satellite image of the Manor showed up on the comm's screen.
Nothing could ever be straightforward with these mages, could it. "What's inside the dome?"
"It--the dome, or something connected to it--looks to be attacking the zombies. It might be a defense system, we aren't sure."
"Keep me updated," Fraze said, before switching back to Amnei.
"Do whatever you need to defend yourselves," he began, "but don't actively engage just yet. The black mass outside the Manor seems to be on our side, but don't get close until we know more. Make contact with the mages as soon as possible. Celestial is--" he checked the location of the last transmission from the Archmage. "--At Castle Kestrel. Wonderful. I'm sending you her communicator frequency now. Running around trying to catch her would just get stupid at some point, so find any given mage that you can and try to find out the situation."

[Pixie]

Ellen sprinted towards the manor as fast as she could, but only five seconds later she was met with an unexpected obstacle. She could no longer see her way, as tendrils of black obstructed the view of the area. She stumbled, and nearly spilled over. She stopped in her path.

What is this? Who's doing is this? I can't see anything... and I really, really do not want to run myself onto some zombie's blade. NO!! I need to risk it- time it quick, then make a break for it... since poor Krisseh got impaled already. Death like that was exactly what I was trying to avoid earlier.

She spins around, trying to find an opening in the tenacles. She dashes, under the potion's influence, as fast as she could forward, one arm raised as a guard.

Naturally, brute forcing it did not end well. She had lost her orientation when she was looking around. Even worse, in her reckless rush Ellen was felled by the outstretched leg of a marching skeleton. She hit the ground hard, the impact aggravating the pain from earlier. She glanced up, and found herself back where she had ran from. Two evil men who were occupied with talking to each other....

NO!

Her bag had fallen open, she noticed, to her horror. It was a little easier to see down by the ground. A few of her potions had rolled out, but it was too dark to identify them. Her dagger lay near, and she reached out quickly, fearfully, at the it. Her hand grasped the hilt and a bit of the blade. In her state of terror She didn't even notice the blood that dribbled from her fingers . Kneeling, she groped for the potions, her shaking hands making the task rather difficult.

[Jina]

-Some time earlier, at sea-

The previous night, Jina was aboard the White Weewoo, preparing to go to her hammock. Now, she was waking up in a much more comfortable bed. She couldn't quite be sure how this had happened, but the parts of the note in her own handwriting next to her that she could read said "fell overboard", "head really hurts", "lucky there was a ferry", and "don't try to pirate a boat if you're the only pirate there", so she could at least take a wild stab in the dark.

Looking around her, she decided she was probably in a passenger's cabin. She got out of bed and tried the door, but it was locked. So instead, she smashed the window, and hopped out of it onto the deck. She found herself standing next to a lifeboat that hung off the side of the ship. That seemed like a convenient way of escaping, so she pulled the lever to lower it to the sea, climbed down, jumped in, and released the boat from the ferry.

Then, she realised she wasn't quite sure of where she was. However, the ferry had gone past, so she looked at the position of the sun, decided the ferry must be heading towards land, and followed it.

After rowing for an hour, she got tired, and decided to pull the cover off the front of the lifeboat to check for supplies. Underneath she found 2 bottles of water, and an unusual looking machine with the letters MXLVII printed on it. Weird. Must be some Spacefleet junk or something.

Deciding it would only slow her down, she tossed it overboard, drank some water, and continued onwards, slowly starting to see cliffs protruding over the horizon.

-Soon after, under the sea-

The machine suddenly beeped.

Examining surroundings...
Processing...
Water detected...
Liquid mode activated.
Determining location...
Processing...
Target acquired.

Two arms protruding from the side of the machine flattened, and tilted. They then began to spin around the body, propelling it towards the shore.

[Lord Hayati]

Mage Manor:

Krisseh laid still, still seemingly dead. She was extremely afraid she would be reraised by Hellas and Alablaster, fighting against her own friends. It was her own fault. She shouldn't have attacked so early. The spell needed to be charged more... But what will happen to the others?

Wait... Why is everything so dark. Has the darkness come to take her? or is it the Underdeep, taunting her for her failure? Either way... she was helpless.

[icon]

(Brassport, Ninja HQ)

The ninja leaned on the rooftop door, pausing to catch his breath. He'd finally managed to evade that pesky janitor! It had taken him a good ten minutes of running, a bit of old-fashioned roof hopping, and a good chase scene through an early-morning marketplace, but he could finally look around and see that the tank-carrying buffoon was no longer in si-

"Hey! That was a particularly good move there, with the jumping across the belltower. Pretty spiffy, but you almost lost me! Good thing I caught up, otherwise I wouldn'ta known where to go."

The ninja stared.

Clemmens gave him a cheerfully oblivious grin.

After a good several seconds of silence, the ninja took two steps back and slammed the door in his face. There was the sound of a lock clicking.

"...Alright then, maybe I'll try the front door instead," Clemmens mused to nobody in particular. He balanced the strange machine between the water tanks on his back and started down the fire escape. Surely some of the ninjas would know about this odd device.

(Inside the Ninja HQ)
"Anyone around?" The NNPC looked around as he came down the stairs. "Ugh, you will not believe the night I've had. Got a message for you lot, though."

He pulled out a scroll and tossed it on the table, rallying a decent summary. "Apparently Dunburrow's being overrun by the undead, and from the way things looked they're prrrooobably heading east to target Mage Manor. Some of the other scouts'll likely be in soon to confirm that... make of it what you will."

He shrugged and then headed back up the stairs. "I've got to make my morning rounds. Take my advice; head out the back door, there's a janitor in front and he'll badger you all to no end if he sees you." He exited, and a few of the ninjas glanced at each other knowingly. You've got to be careful when it comes to janitors.

[Amneiger]

((Inside Mage Manor))

"Understood," Amneiger said before shutting down the comm connection.

He thought about what to do next. All the mages would probably be out front trying to repel the attack, and any who were still inside were likely to be manning defensive systems and wouldn't have time to talk.

Maybe Celestial wasn't as busy. Despite, you know, being inside the enemy leader's castle.

He switched on the commlink. "Celestial? This is Amneiger. Commander Fraze sent me down to figure out what's going on before we committed to anything. Have you found out anything about the zombies and their leader yet? I'm in Mage Manor, and there's fighting outside."

[Draco]

((Brassport, Ninja HQ))

Toshiro was visiting the new HQ. He didn't consider himself a full ninja anymore, but he still had close ties to the guild that was once his home. Gil Maxwell, along with Toshiro, have been helping out with putting the headquarters together. Gil found the guild a semi empty building, and with some persuasion took over the whole place. The few people staying in the building didn't even care much, just moving downstairs. So the Ninja HQ shares it's building with a few small businesses and homes on the first couple of floors, then it's all ninjas. Overall, with all the remodeling, it was turning out well. Secret entrances, exits, rooms, floors people can't even get into without knowing the secret entrances.

Toshiro sighed when the ninja scout walked into the room and reported. He knew he would have to speak to this janitor...

He walked downstairs and out the front door. He looked around and spotted janitor.

"Hello there."

It was at that moment he realized something the scout said. Undead.

"If you have business, be quick. There seems to be a emergency."

[Huntress]

Castle Kestrel, library

"But how did she even get your scythe in the first place? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you just lose," Celestial asked.

I NEVER DID, Death said, his emotions reeling back now, but there was obvious effort behind it. LOOK, I'LL... FINE, I'LL EXPLAIN IT, BUT DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU DON'T GET IT. IT'S COMPLICATED.

And he explained, with a lot of casual six-dimensional terminology thrown in. A Horseman's tool, ridiculously powerful as they all are, needs the divine equivalent of a high profile insurance policy. That policy is achieved by keeping the tools in more than one plane at a time. There's the tool that the Horseman keeps in his hand, or umbrella stand as the case may be, and then there's the boring casual household item in some whole other story plane, like a kitchen scale on a grandma's shelf in the woods, or the wilting rose protected by a beast in a castle, and they're in fact the very same item as the Horseman's tool, they just look different.

And because of that, you can't actually steal a Horseman's item, because for it to be stolen, you'd have to move the overlaid item that's several dimensions higher, and a grandma's scale can't just run off a shelf on its own. Laws of physics get in the way.

However, when you get to that overlaid item of protection and take that, nothing keeps the Horseman's tool from coming along, since they, much like the Horsemen themselves, can go anywhere. And the item itself doesn't even have to physically move, since its physical counterpart, the one with mass and matter, is doing the moving. (At that point, Death went off on a ramble about a stretchy rubber band that's fixed on one end but can be pulled every which way from the other end through the planes without anyone noticing that the fixed end goes anywhere, got sidetracked to plastic ziplock bags and stopped in confusion before resuming his exposition.)

In the end, the overlaid items can be activated with the right spell and the proverbial rubber band channels the tools' power down to the location of the items, as needed... and once you release the end of the rubber band, it just springs back to where it was. No traces. No issues. Miss Jensen just had to find out about the items, find them, borrow enough magic to trigger the spell, and she got zombies in a can.

AND OF COURSE, THE OVERLAY ITEMS ARE SAFEGUARDED AGAINST IMMORTAL MEDDLING, HENCE HER NEED FOR YOU MORTALS, Death finished his tirade. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, THANK WHOEVER TOOK THE GOLDEN DAGGER AND GAVE IT TO HER. THAT WAS MY SCYTHE.

"Well, this could've been worse," Bloody Mary said, thoughtfully twisting a paw in his ear; Death's voice could only be described with one adjective, and it was "booming". "I could've been reading all this in capslock instead."

[Zylaa]

((Castle Kestrel, library))

Zylaa was a bit surprised when Celestial turned up, but figured that since she was busy speaking to Death, she really didn't have a right to be surprised by anything anymore.

The discussion of interdemensional scythe-storage and scythe-usage for the most part sailed freely over her head; her one contribution to the conversation came when Death brought up ziplock bags. "Those have always confused me, too," she said helpfully. Death ignored her. This was probably for the best.

And now it was time for diplomacy. Zylaa's tail twitched. She considered the phrasing of her question carefully. After all, the archmage was right there, but Miss Jensen was, for now, their employer.

"And is this zombie-summoning ability now a permanent sort of thing?" Zylaa asked. Sufficiently neutral, she thought.

[Terra]

Mage Manor

Zephyr ran through the portal and looked around. It sounded like there was some kind of commotion outside...what was going on out there? Had the army arrived?

He began to head for the exit to the Manor when he came across the Spacefleeter he’d seen in the Manor earlier. Interesting, he thought. I wonder what he’s doing here...whether he has some kind of plan.

He approached the Spacefleeter and extended his hand for a handshake.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said. “My name is Zephyr. Is there anything I can help you with?”