• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

IDS Yīnghuā - Log 2.0: "If you are far from the enemy..."

"Uuuugh," the tiger princess groaned. "It is," she referred to Jun's political input...which was surprisingly accurate.

In the end though, time moved differently for the Daqin.

While they did one thing in virtual space, their bodies were doing something else in meatspace. The new governor of the city was much more accommodating than the previous one, and soon enough, they had all their cards gathered in their hands. That left one last step.

______

???????
Pínqióng (貧窮) System
Tiāntáng (天堂),
Sub-Tropical Region

It had been a long journey, and ahead of them, an even greater expanse loomed. But this only highlighted the importance of what they were set out to do. Exhausted by the day's travels, Lady Nimue of Cinna had wordlessly entered her tent and, after having her handmaidens peel off her sweaty clothing, collapsed onto her bed.

"May your words bear importance," she mumbled face first into her pillow at the figures.

"Her somehow noticing us aside, do we actually wake her up?" Hoshiko asked before licking her ice cream. Clad in a bikini, their virtual space was now setup as a beach-side resort. In meat space, she ran a diagnostic over their suits - the sound dampeners and active camouflage pigment cells were all running properly. So the question was, how did this half-asleep Aos'Si notice them?
 
"You are the highest ranking princess, you decide. I suggest diplomacy, but let us be your guard." Wen suggested, while running his own sensor suites. Unlike the Princess, he was using his virtual brainpower to evaluate different tactical scenarios at the same time as his meat mind, pouring over the local terrain, people around them, and possible outcomes. He had to prepare for the possibility that they could all be vaporized with a single thought.

"Our detection could be a number of things. Active camouflage is only for the visible spectrum. We cannot prevent lidar or echolocation from detecting us, though I am not detecting any sound waves or direct radiation emitted onto us. I am, however, detecting high spacetime fluctuations centered on the Aos Si."

Wen took a step forward in front of Hoshiko, raising his firearm. "Careful, Princess. This Aos Si is a fox, and seems to be a powerful "mage"."
 
Xian would carefully co-ordinate with Oumijia and Wen directly, running [her own private channel using sound only to conserve bandwidth and reduce the chance of intercept... which seemed to be a moot point with the other shared virtuallity running. "I'll stay by the entrance. The two of you should remain between the Aos Si and the Princess" The thinking was simple, one Aos Si inside the tent and far more than that outside. If there was trouble, the big fight would be at the entrance. Instead of carrying the more ceremonial sword and pistol, Xian had brought a Type 3 rifle that she thought would be more reliable in a damp forest than the Type 8, and far more lethal than the Type 12 Jian which she still carried packed away on her back with her other things.

"We're looking for an invite to your big Aos Si Get Together, and we were hoping you could help us out. Of course we didn't come empty handed." Jun had a rifle much like Xian, but that rifle was packed away on her back because she needed all that space for her goodies. Her weapon of choice was the slim case in her hand which she held out towards the Aoi Si and popped open with a 'Psssssttt....' as a cold, foggy gas rose up from the absolutely fridgid container. Inside were a series of citrus popsicles that had a bit of alcohol and a tiny sprinkle of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine mixed in. A perfect summer treat for a party.


In the virtuality, Jun had on a open shirt that was so thin as to be transparent, as well as a orange bikini that provided a bit of color to contrast with the white of the shirt as she lounged about under an umbrella, "Hoshiko, you do know you're not supposed to sneak into a girl's room like that without a really strong invite? We could have offered her dinner first before showing up here."
 
The warm, synthetic sun of the virtual beach grated on Oumijia’s senses. It was all distraction, ice cream, bikinis, cocktails with pharmacological additives. His mind remained on the tent. His eyes flicked to Hoshiko, then Wen, then Xian. Positions were good. The comms net was stable. Their meatspace camouflage still held.

He ran a quick refresh on their EM signature profiles, searching for anomalies, residual distortion, heat shimmer from the suit’s internal systems, maybe a stray reflection off a visor lens. Nothing. Nothing quantifiable, at least. But spacetime fluctuations around the Aos'Si were spiking, according to Wen. Oumijia's own scan was simply redundancy anyways, but it was practiced language to let the others known he was paying attention and listening.

He didn't flinch when Wen raised his firearm. Protocol would have demanded he do the same, but Oumijia remained still, eyes on the bedded noblewoman, trying to piece together the equation. This wasn't a kill-house.

Xian’s voice crackled through his private channel, low and deliberate, giving him his role: middle ground. Between the Princess and the Aos'Si. Oumijia didn't answer verbally, or digitally, but mechanically. He slid two steps left, enough to create a clean visual cone toward the tent entrance. Measured movement. No threat posture. But his dominant hand was loose near his own sidearm. Not raised—just ready.

A glance to Jun. Open shirt. Virtual drink in hand. Bright smile. Tactical nonsense.
 
A weapon was drawn. A pointed ear twitched. A busty bimbo opened her mouth.

"What." Golden eyes opened as the Aos'Si emissary realized the situation, her back still turned to the strangers. Meanwhile, Hoshiko rubbed her temples in virtual space as a duplicate of herself appeared to start mixing up a Piña Colada for herself. Though cocktails were not very popular in mainland China, its descendants were a different story.

"Well, I didn't want to have to deal with her guards," Hoshiko poured herself the drink. Her duplicate vanishing, she helped herself to the pineapple and coconut concoction. Focused on the entrance, Xian could still pick up the other Aos'Si, who kept a healthy distance from their emissary's tent. That meant they had a good amount of space, but not necessarily time. Their collective sensors could pick up the faintest uptick of anomalous gravitation activity from the Aos'Si. Even so, time was 'faster' for the Daqinren. "I kinda thought one of you guys might have started shooting already or something," she admitted, generating her answer to the alien.

"My fellow princess did not want the fanfare of greeting horns or angry guards," Hoshiko quickly tried to deescalate. Reaching out in meatspace, Hoshiko gently pushed everyone's guns down, and certain that the tent flap was closed, decloaked and removed her helmet. Hearing the seals hiss, the Aos'Si rolled over in her bed, clad only in a thin, white night robe.

"And suspiciously heavy armament aside, what, pray tell, will be the boon that I will receive for such a thing?" she asked, her golden eyes briefly lingering on each of them - cloaked or not - before glancing at Jun's offering with suspicion.

"Oh! She doesn't know what those are!" Hoshiko realized.
 
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It took Jun a moment to internalize that the Aos Si didn't know what party favors were. The shock of having someone disregard the effort she put into keep these frozen during the journey into this stupid forest-place nearly caused her to collapse.

"Just give one a try, these will go over great at your party." Jun explained, still holding out the freezy-case and taking one of the popscicles to consume herself, as to answer any fears that the Aos Si might have about them being poison, or perhaps just to show how one would eat a popscicle.

Aos Si had to have popscicles right? How is it possible she didn't know?!

Jun would of course demonstrate how to consume one, licking the frozen treat and imbibing the small but still body-warming dose of 3, 4 – Methylenedioxymethamphetamine before telling a knock-kneed queen, "These are great, How is this not enough of a boon to get us into your party?! I know where here with guns and all but come on. This will make you the life of the party. Zero Percent chance anyone there is going to have something just as fun."
 
Wen maintained his vigilance. Each of them had a role to play, and here, he was the princess' escort. And that for the prince's consort, reluctantly. His weapon stayed down, but his arms were like springs, ready to rise up and fill the Aos Si with holes at a moment's notice.

The rest of the group could feel his annoyance at the situation, specifically towards Jun, as his head was covered by a grey mist. However, it was mostly anxiety at the situation. He was already commanding the Chongwu outside the camp to crawl towards their designated fire positions. Passive sensors were brought with them that could detect ever possible emission of known reality. That way, if they were detected, at least the Daqinren would learn how these Aos Si are constantly breaking their stealth capabilities.
 
In their virtuality, the tiger princess continued to stew as she drank her cocktail. Her expectations for them was low, but her demeanor started to change once something entirely unexpected started to happen.

In meatspace, the Aos'Si reached out to delicately take Jun's ecstasy laced Popsicle.

"Wait, what?! This is actually going to work? You goobers aren't gonna fuck it up this time?!" Hoshiko exclaimed in shock and awe. Examining it with her golden eyes, the Aos'Si gently sniffed its icy cold surface before deciding to set the frozen treat in a bowl by her bedside. Sitting up from her travel mattress, the chocolate and gold woman then reached into a nearby trunk and pulled out a scroll. The moment she unfurled it, Hoshiko's ears dropped in their virtuality as she feigned curiosity in meatspace. "Oh no."

The scroll contained a litany of Aos'Si text, arrayed in circles within circles, and all written in catonite laced ink. The if-then-else conditionals were shockingly complex, but all pointed to one thing - detecting and analyzing spiked food or drink. Bowl and Popsicle placed in the middle, she palmed the text, and with a red glow, the ink on a blackened box moved to reveal new text.

"A deviled delight?" the Aos'Si raised an eyebrow at them.

Hoshiko could only stare in horror.
 
"Slightly deviled.... I Mean its not a micro-deviling but its no where near a heroic-deviling." Jun explained, as if the Aos Si would understand some particularly daqin terms, "It all goes down great with the frozen juice and the 5-hydroxytryptophan cuts out on the blue Mondays."

"Of course this is going to work. I'm a great guest at a party. You all could learn something about being sociable... besides its not rude anymore to do a little reagent test on gifts. Don't hang out with people who get upset about that kind of thing." In meatspace, Jun had already licked one of the popsicles so she just continued to lick it while waiting for the other Aos Si to decide what to do. She wasn't going to waste it.

In the virtuality, she also summoned a popsicle to match the one she was eating IRL.
 
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