"I would hope that what she wants with you, is you." she says while looking at the embers drifting towards the unnaturally black sky.
"I found you because she asked me to. Ordered me to."
You notice the ambiguity in her statement. Does she mean you specifically or someone like you? A large crash interrupts your thoughts. Some support column finally gives way, causing a large part of the roof to crumble, sending up a rain of glowing embers.
"Yes, I know. Not the answer you're looking for."
She shrugs and makes a gesture to indicate helplessness. Perhaps she is not allowed to speak more, perhaps she doesn't know more, perhaps she wants to keep toying with you.
"A better answer to your question would be that she wants what all royals want from other royals: To use you."
She turns her head to look at you.
"You should seek to do the same: Use her to become stronger."
"It's what I do." she adds with a smile and a wink.
A while later, she abruptly gets up.
"Sadly, while pleasant, this conversation must come to an end. It is time for me to go."
She turns to face you as you get up.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, my Prince. As was fighting with you. This Knight of Silver salutes you."
She bows with one fist on her chest.
"If you keep this up, I am certain we shall meet again."
Napoleon was a bit confused and a bit disappointed. "After all of this: the sudden appearance in this... wherever we are, the fighting, and the revelation that it was all a test and a game, you and your Queen are content to leaving me? Mon Dieu, where am I supposed to go now?! What am I supposed to do?"
With a deep sigh, Napoleon managed to compose himself. If the Queen wishes to use him to her advantage, surely he must do the same. After all, the Doll Prince has no true master save himself. Napoleon then gave Amarante a bow. "Very well then mademoiselle, it seems that my new journey is only just beginning. No use pining for my life back home. No doubt that hiding in the house while interacting with the outside world via dolls disguised as people gets old very fast. If the Queen went through the trouble of getting you to find me yet haven't told you to take me to her, perhaps she instead told you where she expect me to go to next. I don't know where on earth am I, assuming that I'm even on planet Earth anymore."
Regardless of Lady Amarante's answer, Napoleon will take a burning plank from the museum to use as a torch.
"You'll find your way out of here." she says, still smiling that knowing smile, clearly knowing more than she is telling you.
"Farewell and good luck."
With that, she raises her arms. Lines of green light escapes her body, assembling into a humanoid shape above her. The shape gives you one final salute and flies away, disappearing into the darkness within a few seconds. When you look down again you see your doll staring at you, now back to normal, once again connected to you and under your control. Or so you feel, anyway. Maybe she has left some surprise for you, just waiting for the most inconvenient moment to spring it to you.
You approach the burning building. The heat is unbearable. You raise your hand to protect your face and eyes and try to grab a still burning plank. Even its non-burning portion is quite hot. You spend a few seconds shaking your hand after burning it. You revise your plan and use a piece of cloth to grab the plank instead, using it as an insulator.
You quickly move away from the burning building, not wanting to risk staying close to it more than you have to. As you walk away, you notice that several more lights have appeared while you were turned around, leading away from your current position. Old gas lamps have lit up, creating spots of light in the darkness. They reveal a path going away, ending on a small door against a great wall. Your torch would be of great help should you choose to follow it, helping light the way in the dark patches between the lamps.
Campaign: The Wandering Arms
Zechariah politely speaks with the heavily-accented gentleman, trying to weasel his way out of the strange conversation. Upon noticing the "clean men," he realizes the gravity of the situation. He puts his drink to his mouth and slowly sips away. After a bit of quick thinking, he put his drink down and turned to his new acquaintance.
"This 'other crew,' you said - they're in the back, right?" Zechariah smiles awkwardly, trying to appear as friendly as possible. "Can we go meet them? I'd love to see the sort of weight class you fight at."
Try to use this as an excuse to get up and leave with the fighting man. If this succeeds, try to slip away to the hallway containing the room where the meeting is being conducted, and try to alert Ike to the impending danger.
If there's time afterward, find the fighting man again and apologize for getting lost. No use in not making friends in a strange land, after all.
The man (who you realize still hasn't told you his name) is overjoyed by your proposal
"Haha! Good! Good!" the spiky man exclaims.
"Z Fighterz will be happy meeting boy."
The man grabs you by the shoulder and all but drags you with him, his armored hand gripping you close to him in a sort of half-hug, leading you towards the back. The 'clean men' watch you but make no move to follow you, instead talking with each other with... you're not sure. Anger? Concern?
The back room appears much more lively than the front. You can hear loud music and louder shouting as you make your way through the corridors leading there. When you judge you've gone on far enough, you make your move.
"And so Metal Warriorz sendz their bestest dance-fighter out on the arena. Z Fighterz sendz me. And Metal Warriorz are all shoutingz-"
"Erm, may I be excused for a moment?" you ask.
"Huh? Wazup?"
"Well, you see, I need to use the little boys' room. I think I had a bit too much to drink."The man things about it for a few seconds. You can feel the alcohol in his breath.
"Oh! Oh, sure!" he says with a smile.
"Meet you in back room then!" he adds.
You quickly move away, leaving the man behind.
You move through the corridors until you find a stairway leading up. The guard stationed there says you can go up and so you do, climbing the stairs and reaching the room Ike is in. Once there you deliver your warning to Ike.
Campaign: The Hills of Midnight
I shake my head.
"It's a minor annoyance really. I want people to be independent, to accomplish things themselves and grow. I don't want people dependent on me, it makes them lesser than if they simply learned to stand on their own. So worship actually is counterproductive to me. someone that wants to serve me though, just one or two, can actually be a nice thing. There's quite a few things I'm bad at or simply could use some help with after all. But even then I'd want them to have a large degree of independence. And yes, I know that independence means making mistakes or doing things I don't like or whatever. It's just... it would need to be something that they want to do, not something they're compelled to do or they think it's their duty or anything like that. And really, it's just... I havn't earned it, at least not in my mind. So I don't go looking for people to serve me. If someone chooses to, and isn't just trying to enslave themselves through blind faith or use me to further their own goals, then that'd be a really nice thing. I don't expect it to happen often though if ever. Hasn't happened yet after all, though I admit to being pretty young hehe."
I'm kinda embarrassed by the question, and try to hide my face by looking down and eating, because I can feel myself blushing by the end of my response once the anger of answering the last question had faded.
"What exactly is your definition of 'wanting' to serve you? If someone feels they should serve you, that it's the right thing to do, that it's their duty... isn't this the same as them wanting to serve you? In the end it is still their choice.""What my friend is trying to say is that it might happen more often than you think."
"Look at all those people." the mage says, making a gesture towards the recruits gathered around the oversized pot Nikolai just transformed or others standing around eating, talking, preparing their tents, going about their work.
"Many joined to protect their homes or to fight their enemies but many joined because of you. Sure, some are afraid of you, but to others you're a hero and a savior. You have not asked them to, but they see you as both a leader and a comrade. They WANT to see you as their leader, as their ally and friend, because it gives them hope. But it's not just because of what they think you can do for them.""There's also those who respect you, who admire what you've done, your morality and the power to see it through. They would follow you where you led them, they would give their lives to protect you, they would do your bidding if they knew what you wanted. That sounds like a follower to me."The mage crosses his arms. He seems quite passionate about the subject.
"Don't sell yourself short."((saving time by putting down here some questions Irine has for the mages, but that she wouldn't want to derail the current conversation for, so she'd wait for after the Q&A session is over to ask.))
"Um, each night, there's been a series of pulses of void magic traveling through the fire magic lines around the country, starting mostly from the east but there's one way back at the fire... capital. place. ruins. thing. who's name I kinda forgot. Anyway, they've been acting to weaken fire magic at least all over. I was wondering if it was affecting you guys too? or is it just fire? Anyway, um, I think I can counteract it, sorta, at least in the area around me. I... The way I interact with magic is kinda the exact opposite of how those void magic pulses work. If I choose to do so, I can enhance all the fire in a pretty big area around me, though it's nothing like the whole country or anything. The thing is, people in this world have magic inside them and as a part of them. The last time that I manipulated the fire inside a person, it was really really painful for them, but at the time I wasn't boosting it, I was dragging it down into the ground below them, and it was an asshole racist fire mage that attacked me cuz I wouldn't be his servant. So I don't really know if me boosting all the fire magic in the area around the camp would have side-effects on the people in it. It's a pretty effortless thing for me to do, so I could show you if that would help, but I don't want to hurt people just by trying to stop the stupid void-pulses."
"This is very troubling news. We need to alert the Headwater as soon as possible."
"The weakening of Fire magic won't affect us directly and should not affect Chizra either. However both the imbalance created and the Dark magic could be dangerous if left unchecked.""Even if they weren't, all the Fire magic they are draining... what would someone do with such power?"
"Not to mention that Ineth is taken. If this is the Sovereignty's doing then they are far more powerful than we realized. And the mages sent to Ineth...""They must be warned! They can't face such dark power on their own!"
It takes a minute or two for them to discuss the implications of what you've just told them. It's bad news in more ways than one. When the discussion is finished they finally address your concerns.
"Removing this corruption is certainly something we must strive to do, if possible, but... Directly manipulating the Flow of another is a... difficult matter to discuss."
"One's Flow will usually resist outside interference but doing so is a very unpleasant experience.""From what I understand you have used your ability in the past but it never affected others. It only affected the Fire mage and only when you focused on him."
"Perhaps your ability can only influence those with powerful Fire magic in them. Perhaps if you merely focus on strengthening fire there will be no pain.""We can always get a volunteer and experiment. I'm sure there are many willing around and it should be harmless, right?""Well, Fire magic is connected to certain powerful emotions. It might not hurt them but it might have other psychological effects, perhaps not pronounced enough to be visible with a short test."
((UGH have I missed a LOT. TWO updates and more?! Auto me if possible because of frustration in not being able to get a reply through))
Theri; Campaign
...I'm lost now. 
Desynchronized with everyone else.
What Lenglon said. It's just talking with each others and NPCs until you decide to advance time. Which works out well for me since I don't have to force you to stop when it's time to resync with Ike. So don't worry, take your time.
Sorry for the erratic frequency of updates. Sometimes I have lots of time, others not so much. Sometimes I don't feel like writing, sometimes I do. So I try to write whenever I feel I can, because I feel like otherwise this story will never be over.
Maximus: External Storage and Armour, Fore Section
<<We'll meet you there.>>
John points in the direction of the Way Station. "Okay, let's get moving and meet up with Icarus. You guys ready?" <<People not here in the ship with me,
what's your status?>>
Get ready to roll out; check on others.
The others are fine...ish. The book guy is still missing his arm but he doesn't appear to be dying, at least not yet. Saevus is still Saevus, a bit weaker due to this place's dampening effect but still a mighty tank. The dwarf is becoming dangerously sober and might start a tantrum soon, perhaps you should include that in your travel plans.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1128136 times)