• 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.

______

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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.
 
There was something far off towards the perimiter. Something moving.

"Heh....heheahahaha!" The Aos'Si laughed at them. "I'm sorry, but that was perhaps the first un-curated expression I had seen on one of your kind," she gestured towards Hoshiko. "No deviled delights before bed," the Aos'Si informed Jun in turn. She was however, oblivious to what the Daqinren heard through their Zhànshòu (戰獸), their gorilla war beasts. Something was nearing the perimeter, and they may not be smart enough to designate it as a threat. Unknowing and uncaring of the situation, the Aos'si returned her icy treat to the cow-woman's box, she then put away the scroll and stood from her bed, politely bowing. "I suppose introductions are in order. I am Lady Nimue of Cinna, as you may already know. And you all are?"

"Princess Hoshiko of Korui," the tigress introduced herself. Inside their virtuality, Hoshiko brought up an arcade screen and a control deck. "Something's up. Some sort of local creatures," she informed the others. Rolling a coin into the slot, she punched 'Player 1' and panned the heavily armed gorilla's head to look about. The bushes rustled, and a red mass blurred through the air! Bayonet out, blue ichor splattered across the screen as a giant crustacian impaled itself on the machinegun-turned-spear. "Buuuuuuuuugs!" Hoshiko shouted. "Don't let the Aos'Si know we have them surrounded!"

The pack descended on their war beasts.
 
"I do apologize for the abrupt nature of our arrival." Jun said, putting the treats away for the moment. "I'm Princess Jun Jian, certainly not important enough to be of something just yet but we don't need to get caught up in the specifics."

"Don't give her the impression you're ignoring her! We're already being rude by showing up like this!" Jun replied in the virtuality as she looked over Hoshiko's virtual shoulder to see just what it is they were shooting at.

Xian wouldn't waste time, she left the front entrance of the tent and began her counter-attack immediately. She'd move directly towards the closest report of attack as she spawned in a table in the virtuality.

"Be careful not to hit the Aos Si." She stated simply, now in a crisp uniform as the table populated with a map and some plastic army-men to represent the surrounding area. She would be moving the pieces around on the map to reflect the latest information from the Daqin's war beasts.
 
Wen stood straight as a statue, playing the role of bodyguard as the two princesses conducted their diplomacy. In virtual space, however, he was at the table was Xian to coordinate the camp's defenses.

"It will be difficult to fight off the local fauna, and to prevent the Aos Si from putting two and two together." Wen commented, taking control over several of the pieces. He ordered the gorillas under his command to keep to melee weapons, to stay behind bushes and trees. He sent the bats overhead to provide eyes for the gorillas. Once a bug came into range, he'd move a gorilla out to stab it down.

"Oumijia, prove your worth." Wen stated to his junior, tossing several Chongwu pieces to him to control.
 
Reina internally sighs. Things are already complicated and she still doesn't quite understand why she's here at the Empress's invitation, but she might as well play the cards she's been dealt... Besides, old children stories of magic and fantasy pale in comparison to actually meeting a mage in the flesh. To make herself less imposing, she coils herself in a pseudo-kneeling posture, lowering herself a good foot or two and bows slightly toward the Aos Si, "I am Mochizuki Reina, a doctor of Kaguya."

In VR, she joins the others at the table overlooking the surroundings from the data scan, "You know... I detest fighting at the best of times and I'm not very good at it... but I think I might have an idea."

She points at a few places on the map and brings up live feeds of the crustation-like creatures swarming over to the Chongwu from their perspectives, "I believe we've interrupted their natural migration pattern and that's why they're attacking. If we move our forces here, here, and here," she says as she points out a couple positions that form a natural arc around the camp, "and ward off the ones that get to close, we might be able to route them, get them back on track and away from our discussion. I don't have a military background... but I think that might lessen our coverage... but its probably better than facing THAT, head on."

She again points and a feed from one of the bats shows a massive swarm of the creatures headed toward their Chongwu, "I'll hop to it and take a few of the Gorillas to help, but I think I'll defer military tactics to one of you... though maybe we should decide quickly..."
 
There was a moment of awkward silence as one of their number remained quiet.

"And 'Mister Big-and-Quiet' here is Captain Sun Wen, acting as one of our bodyguards," Hoshiko broke the pause. Since Xian had excused herself to head to the action, she had one 'big and quiet' less to introduce. "To be straightforward, The Daqin Empire originally intended to observe but not interfere with the affairs of the Aos'Si. As magic has returned however, we cannot afford to do so any longer," Hoshiko began. "We are now both in danger, but each of us lacks something that the other has. Working together, we can both survive the change."

Having said her piece, the tiger princess paused, waiting as the Aos'Si's golden eyes peered deep into her blue gaze with thought.

"I'm not ignoring her! I was freaking out over her realizing the ice pops were spiked!" Hoshiko shot back at Jun, frantically mashing her arcade buttons and jostling the joystick. Though their beach-side virtuality was technically calm, chaos had erupted as their gorilla war beasts beat off their attackers in vicious melee combat. Pinching, snapping claws lashed out like guillotines, sparks flying off of the stealth paint coated steel plates while bayonets stabbed and slashed to keep the chitinous horde back. As Wen panned the video-feed from the overflight bat-recon however, the sheer scale of what they were facing became clear.

By now, Xian's powerful legs had easily cleared the quickly erected wooden walls of the Aos'Si encampment on the hill. Landing on her feet outside the clear-cut perimeter, she looked into the distance. Various flying creatures took to the air as the forest canopy shook, the nighttime cacophony spanning as far as she could see! Even so, Xian knew that if she hurried, she could join their own war beasts in combat against these endless odds.

"You all heard the doctor!" Hoshiko called out. "These things are migrating! Get our Zhànshòu out of the way!" Rather than ordering them to 'knuckle up' and fight in tight circles, the princess hoped that they could all command-move their units out of the way. It wasn't going smoothly for everyone though, as a trio of war-gorillas under Jun's command started getting pulled out of formation by ravenous pincers. Even if they lost a few units though, as long as they didn't open fire, the Aos'Si would be none the wiser! "You better have practiced your combos Jun!" Hoshiko yelled at the other princess over her arcade machine.

"An interesting proposition," the dark skinned Aos'Si began, her golden eyes gleaming with unknown thought. "And, what would this 'working together' look like to - " Lady Nimue paused, a finger held up in the air. " - you, 'Mister Big-and-Quiet'?" she pointed to Wen.
 
"We should counterattack immediately," Xian replied, "Be fast and decisive." She didn't show to much thought given to the plans provided by the others. She was committed to her plan, and was already mid execution. The warbeasts were already engaged with the attackers, so it was easy for Xian to pull an overlay that showed her where her targets were even through the dense jungle.

But before she could get to shooting, the war creatures were being re positioned to let the other creatures pass by. She would identify the three gorillas getting pulled out of position and move in to close the distance. She would get in close while their opponents were distracted, targeting one of the crawfish like dogs... (or dog like crawfish, she didn't actually care what they were)... as it grabbed the gorillas, press her rifle up against the monster, and use its body as a silencer to quickly put a few rounds through the creature. She'd try to clear off the most aggressive creatures as quickly as possible.

She moved quickly, and precisely, knowing exactly what she was doing.

"YOU KNOW I BUTTONMASH!" Jun replied, sounding a bit shocked that she was now expected to have mastered the techniques of the 8way dash. She had already brought up a window to look up move lists but the technical manual for the gorillas wasn't the BEST of ways to quickly learn how to get combos, especially for someone who was only casually piloting drones in the first place.

She really wasn't too concerned with the gorillas.

"Wait, why are you getting like this over the ice pops? I'm sure you've tried them before right? We've been to some of the same parties. Air conditioning and a light show would blow these Aoi Si minds."
 
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