2023.04.21 Rorg Goes RAWR!

04.20.23 Charting the Future
Iris and Trey are discussing his in-process natal chart; Irsa and Branton join and all four discuss pickles and packhouse gifts.
IC Date	04.19.23
Players	Irsa, Iris, Trey
Location	The SPACE BOAT
Spheres	Garou, Bastet

Space Boat - Low Earth Orbit

Space. The final frontier. Hanging in low earth orbit within the Aetherial realm is this patchwork ship. It looks like a gigantic child smashed several kinds of earthly ships together and forced them to be a single object. Many floored and wrapped in balconies like a paddle boat, spiked with massive masts like a galley, it could hold a small village worth of folk aboard it comfortably. The ship is outfitted for long voyages away from home, and crewed almost entirely by spirits. There's a glass enclosed garden to produce food that's overseen by Sun and Water and tended by plant Naturae. A Lounge is available for drinks and food, with tables, beanbag chairs, and of course a karaoke machine that is jealously guarded and powered by an Electricity elemental. A section of the lounge has been built entirely of glass, so that one can sing and dance amongst the stars without getting lost in them. The bridge is dominated by bizarre devices of umbral exploration, from a bejeweled armillary sphere for steering to consoles of mounted maps and strange navigational devices. There aren't intercoms on the ship, but there are large mouthed lizards that yell the captain's orders across the ship when needed. A pennon waves at the highest point of the ship, and it's sails are huge, marvelous things of red and gold, black and silver. A small row boat kept at the stern provides a quick and automated way to get to a planet's surface and back again.

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MORE homework happened. Like Iris isn't a pain in the ass type of teacher or anything, but she's really pushing for Trey to learn certain skills, such as piloting a boat in space. But they're packmates bound to adventure like bosses, so if anyone's going to get a lot lot lot of nudging to learn these odd skills, it's gonna be Trey. Even if they have to go over it a million times before he truly picks up the fine art of planet chasing. "Hey, you've got Fae-ness, do you think you could answer some questions for me? We need to go to a place, but I want to prepare a little bit better first, and I think your knowledge will play a role in it. What do you know about Pan?"

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Trey never minds being pushed -- his brain is always on overdrive, except when he's snoring. Piloting is definitely going to be a necessary skill, especially so Iris can get moments to breathe and not have to be on the helm. Plus, I mean, who *wouldn't* want to learn to pilot a space boat in the Umbra? "I can answer all the questions you like," he says with a smile, keeping his hands on the controls under her watch. They're not actually going anywhere right now, but getting the muscle memory is good. Right? "Pan. Greek god of flocks, protector of shepherds, half man, half goat. Like a satyr. A wanderer. Also a lover of music and a proficient flutist. That culture also considers him the father of the European lynx." Hence why he knows so much, maybe. "Satyrs have similar traits, but are more about passion and carnality."

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"Well there's a super famous sculpture of Pan about to show a she goat a good time, so I think maybe the carnality and passion still applies." Iris says with a chuckle while fiddling with some piloting tools on the bridge. "Okay, let's see if we can put what you've been learning to practice, and see how it all shakes out. This is your target," she points to Saturn on the little solar system model, "Triangulate your position, do your math, and set a course. We'll find out if you did it right when we get there. Or don't get there. Whichever happens." She makes a 'have at it' gesture with both hands, and isn't going to side seat drive this time, like it's a semester test to see how much trey's memorized or learned. While he's working, she asks, "How's your fetish prep going, by the way?"
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Trey rolls Intelligence(4) + Occult(7) (11 dice) vs 8 for 5 successes.
2 3 5 6 6 7 +8 +9 +9 +10 +10
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Trey rolls 2 (2 dice) vs 6 for 0 successes.
1 10
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Trey draws in a breath and looks at the many bits and bobs of the control system, grinning. "Okay, first we triangulate here. X coordinate... roughly here..." He shifts something around and into position. "Y here..." And some more shifting, "And descension along this..." He studies it, and begins to make smaller adjustments by regarding the model and inching things here and there as he explains. "Oh, I have the diagram and notes on the top of my backpack if you want to look. The moonfeather from that bird you were chasing is part of it now. I made a bell out of faerie silver that's also the reflective surface. The wand is prepared, made it from rowan -- which I will note is not cheap to buy -- and worked the sigils in, wrapped them in rabbit leather for speed. Those symbols are 'Wyld, 'Journey,' and 'Umbra.'" He stops for a moment to rearrange a lever, and steps back to regard his work, adding as he does, "All the parts of it are ready. I was planning to assemble them tomorrow, if they pass muster, and then perhaps do the summoning Sunday morning." Irsa has arrived.

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Mercy has been running Trey through his pilot's paces, poor guy gets a lot of homework on how to work an imaginary ship! He's just now finished getting some things set on the bridge under her watchful eye, plotting their course and what not. When he makes an 'I'm done!' noise about it, she releases gnosis up towards the red sails and the black sails, both sets floofing out as if caught by wind, and the ship sets into movement, pulling away from the earth. And YES, okay, she fucking forgot Irsa was in the never ending pantry talking to rats and mowing through cookies! KIDNAPPED AGAIN! "I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product, I think you're gonna do *great* at it, Trey. Really great!"

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Irsa steps out onto the deck of the ship and blinks. "Uh.. all right. Where we goin'?" she asks the others. "Mars, Jupiter, th' Mons of Venus?"

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Trey grins and says, "If you guess right, we make sure you're near the barf bags for the deceleration!" He chuckles and adds, "Saturn, this time... didn't even realize you were still aboard but hey! Day trip!" He keeps hands on the controls and notes to Iris, "I hope so. I feel like I've been working on this for a long time, though it's only been a couple of months. I'm really excited, though. Someday, I'll pass that to my student, or one of my kittens, so they can explore." He explains to Irsa, "My Umbral cat-toy is almost ready for the spirit. Just doing the last assembly sometime tomorrow."

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Mercy GASPS dramatically and says, "STOW AWAY! Holy shit, I completely forgot you were here! I'm sorry! I'd offer to let you off if you need it, but..." She gestures to the rapidly dwindling Earth behind the ship. She grins though and tells Trey, "I'd love to see you in action, but I'll wait to hear about it till afterwards. You don't need audience pressure!" She double checks the course setting and what not, and then says, "This is gonna take a few hours, let's do some karaoke and have lunch while we're en route." she suggests, paving the way for a musical montage to quickly speed up time.

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"Yeah, I kinda got caught up with gossip with th' rat crew. Plus, them cookies in th' pantry slap hard." Irsa joins the others on the bridge and checks out the sails. They're colorful, which she approves of, and sturdily made, which she likes even more. No one wants to be in an Umbral shipwreck. "Yeah? You’ll have t' tell me 'bout the spirit you'll be askin' for help. And hell yeah, lunch! Uh, d'ya got any Earth, Wind and Fire on th' box?"

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Trey smiles at that and says, "Oh, you'll definitely hear the details. When I pull this off, I'm going to be wound up for hours with excitement." He's all down with the karaoke and food -- well, he's always down for food. "There are cookies?" His brows quirk. "Or is it past tense?" He pretends to mope for about half a second. He can't manage it much longer. Just not his thing. "Oh, I have a specific Night Spirit I'm asking. I did a little listening, a little gossip-chain from a couple of rogue ravens, and there's one whose name I'm not going to speak who apparently has helped cats before, so that's make it easier, because those buggers are *willful.*"

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"They do get pretty willful, I mean they were first, you know?" Mercy says, and oh there will be some Earth, Wind & Fire, surely! One of the crew spirits hangs out to keep an eye on things, just in case they need to sound an alarm if we're about to run into anything. Which DOES happen after a little bit, actually. The DING DING! of the warning bell sounds across the ship and Mercy jumps up so she can kill the sound on the karaoke machine. Which the electricity elemental isn't a fan of, but what are you gonna do, you know? She also kills the disco ball light, the room lights, and says, "Someone go cover the garden greenhouse and get the sun spirit under wraps!" Outside, the ship is aiming towards a massive wall of floating stones, some as small as a brick, some larger than skyscrapers, lumpy and broken shapes that shift between shades of grey and brown or the deep blacks of shadows cast by their shattered forms. There's a quiet, subtle sense of dread as the ship is darkened. Not completely, you NEED some lights, but any that aren't needed are being snuffed out.

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Irsa has saved some cookies to share, she's not a greedy monster! That way lies madness, and a serious drubbing from one's tribe and tribal Totem. "Man, I clean forgot ya already told me th' spirit type. Very first talens I ever made were askin' those spirits for aid. Nightshade talens are th' literal bomb. My pack used some I'd made on our totem quest for Fog. Now that was hella wild." After lunch, she throws herself into karaoke with a will, but lo! Soon there's a random encounter, surely rolled on a handy chart by the gods of PRP. "On it," Irsa grunts to Mercy, sprinting for the greenhouse.

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Trey grins and swipes a few remaining cookies. Bottomless kitty! "I was looking at the notes on the Nightshade talens -- those look like something I want to make, in case I ever have to break into someplace. I can be silent pretty easily, and the Bangle will help with stealth at night, but having those talens would be great for people who don't have fetishes, especially. Or if I need to break into a bank or something."

He's been enjoying the hell out of the karaoke, and is not above doing falsetto backup vocals. He's even pulling out moves he found from TikTok videos to dance along. The pants have created a DISCO MONSTER!

When prompted, he darts out onto the deck, covering the sun spirit with care and an apology, pulling the tarps into place and securing them neatly, just as he was shown on one of the earlier trips. When the spirit's light is secure, he looks up at the dimly-illuminated stones of all sized and shapes, grinning. "Think I could grab one to take home?"

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Some earthly spirits are there and ready to help Irsa and Trey get some bigass canvas up and over the greenhouse to cut off the sunny glow of the elementals in there making sure the food crops are doing well. The deck darkens significantly with that covered up, and soon the ship is lit mostly with just some emergency lighting, and a few alternate sources, like spirits that produce their own glow, stuff like that. Mercy is up on the bridge, reducing the speed significantly and keeping the same course Trey set, but with hands on the wheel to dodge any bigass rocks. "You should, if you can, but be very, very careful not to fall overboard. This is the realm of Rorg, a wild, partially destroyed celestine. Governing patron of the Red Talons, and not a very welcoming host at all. His stones make hellish war fetishes." Somewhere out in the vastness of space within the asteroid belt there is a keening howl, low and savage but carrying with it a sense of mourning, loss, and desperation.

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Irsa tosses a small item to Trey while they're working. It's a small glass vial filled with an inky-black liquid, capped by a rough cork sealed with black wax that's been marked with glyphs. "No time like th' present. If ya wind up usin' that today, get with me later and we'll go over th' making of 'em together." When they're back on the bridge, she looks concerned about Mercy's words. "Better get in somethin' more surefooted," she grunts. She begins to shift, taking on her Neanderthal form. Wolf shapes are great, but they don't have hands that she'll need.

<---======##=============[ Item Nightshade: 905845 ]==============##======--->
Charges:................6 Equipnote:.....Nightshade Gnosis:.................5
Magic Type:........Fetish Name:..........Nightshade Owner:...............Irsa
Reference:.....WW3801/303 Type:...........39/Fetish
Updated:....20220905-1627 by SassyCat
Created:20190406-1555 by Equipment Manager
Description:An ounce of fluid, magically distilled from the night itself.
Effect: See +equip/note 905845. Distilled from the very essence of night. When quaffed - one fluid ounce of this liquid turns the imbiber’s body into shadow rendering her virtually invisible in darkness. Only a watcher searching actively for the user can make a roll to spot her. This effect lasts only an hour.
<-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice winces and says, "He sounds lost," and there is a note of sadness in his voice. He ohs as Irsa chucks him the talen, scooping it up neatly and studying it with a quick but discerning eye, then tucking it neatly into a pocket. "Awesome, I'd like that!" With that said, he climbs up onto the bridge's roof and tries to snag some stones -- for himself and the two theurges. Think about how badass a talen you could put in this? Maybe an I Got A Rock From Hell? Maybe they're shapeable for beads, gems... he says, "I got Catfeet, I'm good, but maybe some claws would help..." With that, he shifts to Crinos form, his clothes fading into designs in his fur. "There." He uses the foot claws to hold on as he tries to snag some rocks.

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Mercy tries not to so much as blink while she's weaving their way through the belt. The silence is oppressive, or maybe it's that blanket of dread that hangs over the floating rocks. Celestial realms are potent things; when on Mars one becomes more aggressive, when on Earth one becomes consumed with care for life, and when on the moon there is wonder, mystery, and the urge to shape shift. Here, it's a primal feeling, and not a very nice one. It's the feeling of a dangerous beast that's been cornered and knows death is near. It's the loneliness of a great creature with none like it anywhere within the call of its voice. The cries of the cosmos's angriest child that's lost something terribly important to it, but it hasn't got the wherewithal to remember WHAT it's lost. It's a feeling that urges tears and fury, and the desire to punch something, anything, to try and feel better. The silence is broken by a pair of asteroids the size of cities smashing into each other a little ways away, the sound booming and dragging on and on as massive objects slowly annihilate each other. "Oooooh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..." Mercy mumbles worriedly as the crashing is punctuated by the howl coming again, closer this time.

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Primal Figure tilts her head, listening to the howling more closely. "The howls of the lost, the angry and the dying," she rumbles quietly to Trey. "That is what you here in the voices of the Red Talons. Their wolf kin die, and the tribe slowly dies with them. They hate men as much as they hate the Wyrm. But this? This is Rage that drives one to the edge of Harano. Even spirits hate being alone." If her ears could flatten in this form, they would be right now. "Shit, that's close," she mutters to Mercy.

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice exhales, and says, quietly, "Harano seems so much closer to your people than mine. I have never met or heard of a Bastet with it. But we are solitary creatures, mostly... which is its own sorrow. I find that I am alone at times, but not truly, not any more. The man part of my shape needs, too, and men are not solitary beings. Humans need other humans. Just as wolves need other wolves." He has an armload of assorted stones; he jumps down onto the deck and puts them into a box somewhere in the office, to be sorted and sifted later. He then comes back to Iris and says, "If you need me to do something, tell me." He's not going to babble at her right now -- keeping it short and sweet. Or maybe the oppressive dolor of the region is affecting him, too? "I need some fire laser beam things," he mutters. "For the ship. We need cannons. Fire cannons." His teeth clench as the stones move closer.

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Mercy is genuinely afraid, which is not a normal thing for her! She's sweating a little bit while having to do more and more course correcting as the asteroids seem to almost be aiming for them. One rock the size of a car zips by, narrowly missing our heroes before blasting through the gunwale to leave a ragged gap. "He knows we're here." she breathes with horror. "Cannon's that way!" she shouts, giving up on being quiet to expel her 'oh fuck!' feelings in a quick burst. "DON'T shoot Rorg, you'll just piss him off! Try to knock stuff into his way or knock things away from us! Irsa! Get the paint, it's in the hold! Try and patch holes and keep the ship healed!" There are indeed cannons, they're just under some covers right now. A little team of spirits are ready to follow Trey's cannon orders and man the ones near whichever one he picks, and another small team of spirits is ready to follow Irsa's orders with ship repairs. WHAM! A very small rock makes a very nice window hole in the side of the lounge.

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"Rage," Neanderthal-Irsa mutters back to Trey. "It was our Gift, but too much of anything is never a good thing." It might be hilarious that for some reason she's totally lost her regional voice here, but no time to ponder that! Serious shit is happening, right the hell now. "On it!" she barks out in reponse to Mercy's order, and legit BOLTS to nab that paint and start patching like a fiend.
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Primal Figure rolls Gnosis vs 7 for 4 successes.
5 5 5 5 6 +7 +9 +9 +10
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Treads-on-Thin-Ice ducks as a rock zips near one of his eartips. "Well, shit," he says, and moves to the cannon, having apparently forgotten in the stressful moment that it existed. Normally he'd make a reference from some movie, but right now, things are too grim. "Your Rage has a different flavor," he adds, and then he starts loading the cannon. His Rage is working up, but it's a small campfire compared to the conflagration of Rorg. He motions spirits to his six, nine, and three, figuring to surround the periphery as best he can. "When you see a big one coming toward us, shoot!"
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Treads-on-Thin-Ice rolls 6 (6 dice) vs 6 for 2 successes.
1 2 5 +7 +7 10
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The cannons are fetishes, just like the paints are talens, there's so few legit mundane things on board! Paints are bright and pretty, and the cannons are ready to WRECK SOME SHIIIIIIT! They shit talk like a drill sergant while waiting for Trey to give them the spark and let them GIT SOME! GIT SOOOOOOOME! When Rorg's call sounds next, it's VERY close, and the loss and pain are massively overshadowed by a mindless rage and a readiness to murder the shit out of the tiny trespassers that bring their light and their comfort where it's not wanted. Holes are patched with ease by Irsa, and Trey doesn't exactly blow an asteroid up but he and his cannon crew very definitely deflects it from slamming into the boat, which is super good. The ship pitches and shifts wildly, Iris is trying to speed run her way through the asteroids while the crew fends off the attack. And there he is. A massive, hulking beast, like a gorilla and a garou made a weird baby is perched on a huge floating stone. It's hairy and horrifying, maybe a little bit scaley in places. Huge curling horns rise from its head and it's eyes blaze a baleful red that can be seen easily even at this distance. Roaring angrilly, it slams its clawed fists down, *rips* a piece of stone off, and straight hurls it at the boat.

Primal Figure loses one Magical Essence
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Primal Figure rolls Dexterity + Athletics vs 4 for 4 successes.
1 3 3 +5 +7 +8 +8 10
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Treads-on-Thin-Ice rolls 6 (6 dice) vs 6 for 1 successes.
1 2 2 3 +8 9
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"Oh shit!" Neanderthal-Irsa blurts out, instinctively snatching up the now-empty paint can. Tapping into her spirtiaul strength, she hurls that thing directly at the incoming boulder. It flies straight and true, glowing with a pale blue light and leaving a little rainbow trail in its wake. Surely that'll make it hit or something!

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice is focused on the rock coming toward them; he works to aim, but Irsa beats him to the shot, pegging it right on the beam with a paint can. He shifts, re-aiming, but he's not a cannoneer, yet... his shot adds to the deflection, but isn't enough to break it up. Getting it off course was the next best thing, though! And with him, the spirit cannoneers add their shots, blowing the rock off course and sparing the ship for now.

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All the thrown stones can do is scraaaaape against the hull, not really damaging the ship, though it leavesa few nice gouges in the wood that look a lot like gigantic claw marks. The distant being screams his frustration, and that becomes an action. A small army of madness and destruction spirits heed Rorg's call, throwing their weight behind a storm of small stones to send them hurtling towards the ship like a screaming hailstorm, each stone leaving a fiery streak behind it. Some miss, some begin to pepper the ship in bursts of splintering wood, and others... Well that's up to how Irsa and Trey handle the situation. Mercy, meanwhile, is aiming for a gap between some big ones that are slowly lumbering their way forward to squish the boat. Beyond those though, open space, and like 90% less death.

Primal Figure loses one Willpower
<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Primal Figure rolls Charisma + Leadership vs 6 for 0 successes.
1 1 2 5 5 7 10
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Treads-on-Thin-Ice rolls Manipulation(0) + Expression(2) (2 dice) vs 4 for 2 successes.
+9 +10
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Treads-on-Thin-Ice rolls 6 (6 dice) vs 6 for 0 successes.
1 1 3 3 7 8
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<---======##====================[ Dice Roll ]=====================##======--->
Primal Figure rolls Charisma + Leadership vs 6 for 4 successes.
2 4 5 +8 +9 +9 +10
<-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============------------->


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Treads-on-Thin-Ice gets up at the cannon, and then he GETS DOWN. No, seriously, he yells out to the spirits, "Check out this sick routine!" And then he does a full on TikTok level disco dance of something he's been watching for days, the Crinos lynxmonster doing the full-on body rollin', shoulder-poppin', leg-bendin' DISTRACTION BOOGIE. "Keep firing!" he calls out, clapping his hands, spinning, and shaking his tiny-tailed lynx ass for all it's worth.

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Oh hell no, this is way too many spirits to throw rocks at, look how many there are! Primal Figure snarls out, ~ Fuck off! Go pick a fight with a spirit your own size! ~ she thunders at the closest of Rorg's hunters. She's invoked her Command Spirit Gift -- a big gamble, but a nice pay off if it works.

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The group of spirits backing up Trey are not well versed in the arts of disco warfare, so they try to do what their commander is doing AND get the cannons going at the same time. The mix doesn't work well for them, balls are dropped, fuses are lit at the wrong time, and their aim is all over the place, but then again, Trey gets a whole 21 gun salute while dancing, so that's something! A flock of screaming stones angles towards him, captivated and entranced by his sick moves, but also STILL moving. They all slam into the same spot on the ship. And you might think aw, that's bad! But not really, the destruction is localized to a single spot, rather than spread out, so it minimizes the danger to the crew.

As for Irsa, she manages to talk a few of them out of hitting the ship at all, those spirits deciding to pick on someone their own size by slamming into their flying friends. The ship passes through a deep shadow between the two large, crashing stones, everyone's world is rocked by the loudass sound of their impacts into each other, but as shards rain down on the deck amongst splintered wood, broken ropes and shredded rigging, the group sails out into free, open space again, leaving the howling rage of Rorg behind them with honestly some pretty minimal damage, all considered. It could have been a LOT worse.

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Primal Figure flies into action, running around like a mad thing and tending to repairs. the danger of combat might be over, but that Umbral shipwreck thing? It could still happen, if things aren't patched up.

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice yells, "And don't mess with Pluto's Prancing Pantaloons and our family ever again!" With that, he takes one look at the damage done, and boogies his ass over to Irsa and the pain buckets (and you thought they were PAINT buckets), moving to help fixing the ship at top kitty speed. "We got this," he says, sounding strangely exhilarated despite the sticky situation.

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Since the ship is made of spirit stuff, basic healing or repairs wont help it, it needs something that heals Essence, hence the paint talens! Also it makes the ship look really pretty with weird splatters of different colors on it where holes used to be. There's a few injured crewmates, but nothing lethal, nothing a hug from the captain cant fix, or that they cant fix themselves. Some of these spirits have healing charms, after all. The place looks a mess, but it's just clutter, really. Behind them, Rorg bellows his displeasure, his sound fading as he races through his broken realm. "HOLY SHIT." Iris calls from the bridge, "Well done, everyone!" With a lurch, she kicks the ship into max speed again.

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Primal Figure knows how paint talens work Trey! You can't distract her with your smexy moves forever! The Bone Gnawer flops down on the stairs leading up to the deck once she's done being Miss Craft Repairs. "Holy shit, that was wild," she says. "You good?"

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You say, “Thank you! The pants helped... I gotta tell you, I did not expect these to be so useful! Cool, yes, but... distraction is always a good thing." Pretty paint splashes, he can do! Trey even does a little swirling with a brush here and there before it completely dries to make it artistic and cool. He may not be the artist Irsa is, but he definitely has an aesthetic. He returns to Irsa and Iris with paint-tipped spots on his fur, which certainly makes for a colorful cat. "I am, I'm great, looks like all are present, accounted for? And yeah... that was totally wild!”

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Once they're together again, Jupiter can be seen in the distance, steadily sliding past them with its red eye balefully glaring out into the darkness. "Remember when I told you how our solar system was made?" she asks Irsa while wiping some sweat off her brow, "THAT is what they all used to be like, our planetary mothers and fathers. Poor Rorg never got to calm down and get himself together the way the rest did, or didn't captured and have a chance to heal and change the way Luna did. He's still the same way he was back when it was a free for all fight for position." She WHEW!'s out a breath and says, "Sorry about that! I was REALLY hoping he wouldn't notice us, but you cant get lucky every time, I guess. This is only the second time that's happened, though, so I feel pretty good about things."

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Primal Figure shrugs at her mentor. "Bound to happen." She finally realizes what she currently sounds like, and clamps her mouth shut. "So, uh. That was intense. Any other hazards along th' way?"

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice waves to Jupiter as they pass -- not for any reason, just because -- and says, "That's a sad thing for him, never knowing anything beyond all that fury." He is still sympathetic, even after *all that*. "But I suppose I could spend a lifetime feeling sorrow for all the spirits who live to be difficult concepts and... well, it still is saddening." The corner of the cat's mouth quirks up. "Not sad enough to let him pulverize the boat, though. Hell no." He looks over to Irsa and says, "Well, Saturn's next, and I don't think any of Jupiter's moons are going to come after us... I hope..."

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"No! No not really, I mean nothing stuck in place like that one, any how." Mercy confirms for Irsa, "I should have detoured, but I didn't want to add a bunch of time to the trip. It's SUPPOSED to be a quick one!" And yeah, Jupiter is just covered in moons, like one of those overly fertile dads that just can NOT keep it in his pants. Up ahead, Saturn begins to come into focus, slowly but surely, like a shining sombrero lost in space. "If you think about it from a planetary standpoint, it hasn't been all THAT long, but from a teeny tiny living creature stand point, it's like holy shit, MILLIONS of years like that? Not fun."

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Primal Figure runs her hands through her short-cropped hair. "No one died or got hurt too bad, so I say that's a win. Sometimes? Ya gotta take a risk. Life's short, y' know?" She kicks back against the steps, watching the shifting of the winds and spirits. "Do spirits really even get th' passage of time, when they get this big?" she asks Mercy. "Gafflings don't even have th' first clue."

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice grins at that and offers Irsa a fluffy, clawed high-five. Uh. He rethinks that and shifts the huge crinos paw back to a more manageable Sokto one, and then goes for the high-five again. "I doubt they think much of time like we do. Maybe like eons are days or months? Something." He shakes his head. "Why would eternal beings care? They don't die unless killed."

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On this side of the asteroid belt, the solar road the ship sales on is easy to sea, a sparkling golden river of light. And just take a second to marvel at how FAST we're going, that a gas giant is just floating by the same way a large building in the distance floats by while you're on the freeway. Sometimes, when you blink, it seems to have jumped farther past than it should have. "I don't think so." Mercy answers, "I think when you're very very large, you perceive time differently. We measure it in days and nights, sleeps and wakes, they just... *are*. With so much to do, so much to command, I'm not sure that they notice time anything like the way we do. A millenia might be a nice, normal day for them." she says with a point of agreement to Trey. "Well... I mean they're not *really* eternal. Everything has a life span, though that span might be billions of years." For Branton's sake, the ship was just riddled with holes, and all those explosions is probably enough to wake a dude from a nap. They scooted through Rorg's belt and he wasn't super happy with it. Irsa and Trey have been painting most of the damage back into shape, there's only the most minor of injuries, but quite a few repairs happening inside the ship.

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Primal Figure slaps that offered high-five from Trey like a boss. "Yeah, city spirits seem t' have a better handle on that kinda thing, when they get to a certain size. If ya'd asked Abel a month ago what 'time' was, he'd have no clue. Now? He knows it passes for us in th' Tellurian. It's crazy how things change."

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Treads-on-Thin-Ice hrms. "Abel's grown as you built up his domain." A slow nod follows. "I figured that was what happens, but it's one of those things I never thought to ask. Butterfly seemed to know, but she was a Jamak spirit, so that's different, she was with me a lot." He smiles ruefully. "Rorg's Belt, zero Yowls out of five, would not recommend."

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