• 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.

[The Gentle Breeze] Chapter 3 - Psychadellic Boogaloo

Female Bathrooms

"Of course it's not that easy" the infernumar sighed as he heard the recently familiar sound of snoring. Not bothering to raise his weapon, Dante sauntered toward the stall with a yawn, all this snoring was making him sleepy. "Hey brigid, i bet you Viz's booze this is another Chongwu" he called over his shoulder as he took hold of the door and opened it.

The stall opened to reveal another koala in a janitors uniform, just like the one dante had found earlier, asleep in the stall. "Wow, i must be clairevoyant" he announced sarcastically as he stepped in and picked up the sleeping koala. Assunig it was under the same effect as the last one he didn't try to wake it, rather he just kept it in his arms like a baby and looked back to his female counterpart. "So we found another useless Civie but where d'ya think the 'computing cluster' is? And what is that anyway?"
 
Female Hall

Royama furrowed her brow and tilted her head with a look of near-disbelief at the tiny, talking hamster. She frequently forgot about technology like this- probably because she had never owned any sort of Chongwu before, "Talking hamster." She murmured to herself, before moving close to the hamster chongwu's little set-up. The doctor moved down to eye level and peered, "Tell you what. I can promise the giant cat stays away from you if you can share what you know. We're trying to figure out what's going on around here and if you've seen anything... well, that'd just be so very helpful." She spoke softly, trying to be mindful of the massive size difference between her and the tiny creature, "We're here to help. Promise."
 
Female Hall

Rikka had been about to reply that she had some limited ability, though not great as it wasn't really her domain, before Jayden scared off the Guinea Pig. She let out a sigh as she watched and followed the small creature's path with her eyes until it hopped into the cage and ran into the small room. She rolled her eyes as Jayden's rampage continued, destroying the halls they were in and wishing silently she had some of those medications that had put Jayden to sleep before during their fight. She just shook her head as she let out a huff and readjusted her grip on the weapon in her hands.

"I can talk to them somewhat, but not very extensively. My domain was judgement, not nature." She explained as she looked up to the halo above her head. The Seraphim tilted her head for a moment and twitched her ears under the hood of her outfit before the metallic ring settled on the top of her head securly, holding the hood in place.
 
Female Bathrooms

Brigid shrugged at Dante. "I'm not jealous, but I wouldn't mind trying out that sword of yours." She said seriously, winking at him. As they entered the room she got quiet, letting Dante take point this time. She was intrigued by the last option on her HUD for several reasons, the least of which was her libido. Until they cleared the bathroom, though, she would hold that option in the back of her head.

Seeing that Dante found an occupant where there shouldn't be, she reasoned there could be others. "I assume it's where they store information and control the dorm's activities." She replied, glancing at the other stalls. Holding her gun forward she started opening the other stalls one by one. Clearly the koala wasn't doing this, so there must be something or someone else in here.
 
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Female Hall


As Sif rubbed her temples at Jayden’s reply, the ball of fur’s beady little eyes peered out of its tiny home.

“This automated communication platform is required to inform you that consumption of Chongwu is illegal in Imperial space,” a pleasant female voice’s pre-recorded lines played to them all. “Remember, Chongwu are friends, not food!” it musically chimed. Hearing all this, the Guinea Pig was having none of that and continued to angrily chitter from its tiny house in the cage. It wasn’t until Royama tried speaking to it that their situation became just a little more clear.

“Bang-bad-bang-growl-smash-raaaaaagh!” the Guinea Pig’s tiny voice shouted at the human doctor, its auto-translated animal thoughts becoming a muddle of floofy anger. Sif sighed.

"If I had to guess, our guest is upset to the point that the thought-to-speech systems aren't working properly," the Tigress reasoned. "If either of you can get an account from our witness," she looked to Royama and Rikka, "That would help us immensely." Gesturing towards the Ligress though, she ushered Jayden out of the room to try and talk to her one-on-one. “I know you have a good reason to vent Jayden, but now isn't the time," the Tigress began. "If I were a first class citizen, I'd have punished you, but I'm not. Could you not act this way for everyone else?" she asked. "Whether you know it or not, this does hurt other people."

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Female Bathroom


Like the previous one they had found, this Koala made for a big, flat and chubby baby, but Dante was able to carry it handily enough as the two searched through the stalls. They were immaculately clean and empty, with the LED lit latrine inside of each only being describable as a 'super toilet' given the myriad of features built in. However, Brigid opened the med-station as well due to its initial resemblance to the stalls, and quickly found the station lighting up as a seat extended itself forward.

"Please sit down and state your emergency," its smooth, feminine voice asked. At the same time, Dante found another one whispering in his ear.

"Are you looking for something?" that automated voice from before asked the young man again.
 
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Female Bathroom


Brigid mulled over the machine's question. Could the computer help her restore her magic or her lost memories? It was probably worth a try at least. She turned to ask Dante his thoughts and it hit her when she saw the koala Chongwu. Her lips turned up in a smile as she concocted a simple plan to find out what happened to them. "Dante, hand me the koala. I'm going to see if this med-station can wake it up. In the meantime, maybe you could ask the bathroom computer some questions. Something happened to us here and I want to kick the ass of whoever embarrassed us." Brigid said, eyes gleaming with mischief at the thought of torturing the culprits.

Gently reaching out, she took the koala and placed it on the seat. "This Chongwu won't wake up. Could you examine it to see if it's been tampered with?"
 
Jayden continued her destructive rampage through the room, before Sif called her name. She sighed, turning around and following the Tiger out into the hallway, listening to her scolding. It wasn't hard for Sif to tell the moment she mentioned punishing Jayden, the Liger's features soured, and she stood up a little straighter. "If you were a first class?" She asked, letting Sif finish. "You don't need to be a first class to punish me Sif," She said, kneeling down, just to get closer to Sif. "Any one of these second classes could punish me. Hell, the third classes on our team could punish me if they wanted too."

"I'm a fucking animal Sif," Jayden said, standing back up. "Me, the Janitor you find so cute," She growled, walking off. "We're all animals, and don't worry. So long as the Daqin stay the way they are, we'll never have the opportunity to replace you. They'd slaughter us before it happened," She said walking away to a door they hadn't checked and opening it. "Oh look. A person. Maybe you should deal with that," Jayden bit, turning and walking towards the other side of the Dorm.
 
As he heard the other infernumar's request and caught her intent Dante stopped cradling the koala like a baby released it into Brigid's hands. "Don't keep all the fun to yourself" he commented, giving the bathroom a glance over once more before he closed his eyes, unsure how to address it.

"Uhm, Computer? Could you show me your computing block?" He said out loud to the room as he opened his eyes again and saw the back wall open up, he scoffed in surprise "that worked? Thanks computer"

The devil walked over to the back wall and inspected it, looking for the computing cluster Sif ahd tasked them with finding "once you fix the Chongwu or whatever come help me" he said over his shoulder to brigid
 
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Female Bathroom


"Of course," the computer replied to the both of them. As the Koala was placed in the chair, Brigid watched as several restraints came out to fully cover the Chongwu from head to toe save for their mouth and nose. Already, the machine was beginning to slowly power on as a soft hum diffused into the medical stall. "Exhaustion and mild traumatic brain injury detected. Remediating. Please stand clear," came the faintly robotic, feminine voice. As it went to work however, the waterfall like showers around Dante suddenly stopped, running dry as the area suddenly became desiccated like a desert. It was then, and only then, that the back wall of the showers began to slide open to reveal a hidden room. Recessed into this dark space, a black cube with several large, thick wires ominously sat. "Please be gentle," the computer added. Despite being novices however, they could immediately tell that several of its hatches were still left loose, with one of the doors dangling open.

"Uuuhwha - ? "a rather awkward sounding voice spoke up. "Whaa happen?" the Koala groggily opened its eyes.

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Female Hall


"I don't think you're an animal," Sif's flat, plain voice replied as she closed the dorm room, its resident student sleeping away under her sheets. "And, you're here to prove that, aren't you?" she asked as she followed, her face revealing little if any of her feelings like a person with an eternal 1000 yard stare. "Sakamoto should have made it very clear that the whole purpose of us working for her was to prove that there was more to us all. That we deserve better." As she said this, they came to the men's hallway. Glancing down its length once, Sif then fixed her eyes on Jayden. "You're going to start opening one male room after another, aren't you?"
 
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"I'm here cause I was ordered here," Jayden muttered, as she walked to the otherside, lumbering rather than walking with her displeasure. "You might get better though, so, woopie," Jayden added, raising a hand and twirling a finger sarcastically, opening the first door on the men's side of the dorm. "Person," She said, looking at Sif as she asked her question.

"Well," Jayden said, looking between the doors. "Everyone is trying to solve this mystery. Have some smart, genius plan to figure the problem out as fast as possible, because that's the kind of thing that gets attention from important people," She explained, walking to the next door and opening it. "Person. Though, the way I see it, is that is not only arrogant, but really lazy, you know?" She asked, crossing her arms. "I mean, if we find someone who is awake, then they might be able to tell us more. We know people might be in the dorm rooms, which means that if we go to the dorm rooms then we might find awake people. It's like trying to climb a mountain. There's a rope you can climb that goes all the way up, but people are climbing half way up without the rope. Just climb the rope."
 
"Looks like someone else wasn't gentle" Dante muttered to himself as he inspected the Black cube and the wires attaced to it, humming discontentedly as he saw a door dangling open.

"Sorry computer this isn't my forte" he said apologetically before he reached a hand into the cube through an access panel and searched around, one item of interest catching his eye.
A device had been plugged into the computer which didn't seem to belong there.

Dante's eyes lit up with delight as he spotted the device and grabbed it, looking over to one of the thick wires he sighed before yanking the device out. "Hope that didn't hurt computer" he said passively, too interested in the device to actually care about the computer.

He held the device up to brigid incasr she was looking and whisteled to get her attention. "I think i found our blockage" he said over the comms for the rest of the squad to hear, trying to access the device and see what was on it, mostly just to prove he was of more use than seducing witches.
 
Brigid patted the Koala on the head gently. It was pretty cute in a weird way, but she preferred the little guinea pig. She stopped patting the Chongwu when it started moving around. Giving it a little time to wake up, she watched Dante examine the device. He did have a nice butt, she noticed. It had been a while since she'd gotten laid properly, and nobody else in the squad had the proper equipment except maybe Sakamoto if she felt like it.

"Hey Dante. I'm down for a fuck later if you're interested." She said casually, turning back to the Koala.

Now that the janitor was awake she had a few questions for it. "Hello. I'm Brigid, and this is Dante. We're working security in the dorm. It appears that you were attacked somehow. Can you tell me anything about what happened?" She asked, turning on the emotionless tone that Daqin preferred.
 
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Female Bathroom


"Systems restored," the voice in their helmets remarked. "Operating at 90% capacity. Error, data corruption detected." As the lights came on around the black cube, a grid pattern popped up on their HUDs, with a small portion marked red. "Retrieval and restoration of corrupted data is in progress. Thank you for your cooperation." The core's hatch swinging closed on its own accord, the Koala that Brigid was tending to rubbed its eyes like a small child.

"Oh hey Brigid," the denim jumpsuited Koala began, its voice surprisingly low and smooth rounded. It evoked the mental image of child-safe scissors, and was somehow, very familiar. "Hey Dante." Looking around the medical booth it was in though, it seemed to be trying to find something but couldn't. "I don't see Dante here though, but what can I do for you?" the Chongwu asked. "Is there something I can fix or clean for you maybe?" he asked. Leaning out from the char, something far too large for it, the Chongwu slowly began to climb down before taking almost tottering steps much as a Koala would be expected to. Eyes settling on the other Infernumar, it waved. "Oh, hi Dante!" it greeted him. Looking back at Brigid it asked, "My name is Charly. I was doing maintenance stuff, and then I started talking to myself, and then I woke up here," Charly admitted, looking up at Brigid with a happy, obliviousness. "Do you know where my maintenance cart is? I can't seem to find it."

Despite its easy going, maintenance focused nature though, what it said didn't sit right with either Brigid or Dante. The moment that Charly said he was talking to himself, they couldn't help but think of the other Koala. Was that also a Charly? What were they doing? Was it dumb enough to see something happen and not realize it was important? They both needed to grill this thing for answers!

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Male Hall


Sif quietly listened to Jayden, and it wasn't until the Liger was done that she finally spoke.

"If I remember correctly, you had asked Sakamoto to take you in, which isn't a bad thing," she pointed out. Though her tone of voice was the same as it always was - a flat, emotionless monotone - what she had to say suggested that deadpan snarkyness wasn't what she had in mind. "It showed initiative on your part, which is what Sakamoto likes. It's also why I'm trying not to do everything for everyone," Sif added. Pointing to herself, she added, "I already managed to earn my citizenship, ears included. But, it doesn't help you. Nor does tearing the doors and stuff down." With nothing of interest in this latest door, the two stepped over to the next one. "Doing this though, does, since it means you're thinking on your feet, trying to make sure the people we're in charge of protecting are ok. They like that sort of thing." Sif crossed her arms in annoyance though. "I was hoping you would all start combing this place from top to bottom though," the squad leader admitted. "Search through the trash, climb through the vents, do all the searching stuff sooner." With that said, Sif reached out to open the next door as though to emphasize the point, only to immediately close it.

"People," Sif observed, coughing as she turned away. They had found their missing person. "Could you...disconnect them? She's on top," she asked, back turned to Jayden as she referred to their unconscious charges. "Actually, hand me Viz's alcohol, please."

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Female Hall


With the others gone, the guinea pig continued to stare at Rikka with its tiny, beady eyes from the refuge of its little home. She could only guess at the beastly rage that dwelt behind those black, endless depths. The Angel knew that despite its cute, fuzzy appearance, it was like any other raging beast. She had to tame it! Calm its nerves! Only then, she could extract the vital details of his heinous crime and exact justice!

At least, she was very certain that there had been a crime.
 
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"Damn i must be magic" Dante grinned after he pulled the device out and the system annouced it's restart, rather obtuse to the fact he was magic, he took note of the red area on his hud for a moment before brigid spoke.

Seconds later dante seemed to emulate his HUD, his red skin turning a deeper colour as he comprehended what she had said, he dropped the device to the floor in surprise. "Tha- what? Why would you just say that?" he responded, comepletley taken aback.

As the koala spoke his name Dante was pulled back from his surprise to to focus on the small chongwu "you know what, it doesn't matter, maybe later" he replied properly to the infernumar, shaking his head dissaprovingly more to himself than her statement.

"think i saw a cart of sorts in the janitors closet" he said shifting his focus back to Charly, he crouched to pick up the device he dropped and to stay on the smaller persons level. "How long have you known us?"
 
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Female Hall

Rikka tilted her head at the creature as it stared back at her, blue eyes locked on the black ones as she came closer to the refuge. She lowered herself until her eyes were lower than the creatures and searched the interior from her spot to see just what all was inside before she spoke.

"I apologize, if my friends scared you. Are you ok? Are you hurt anywhere? I have some limited healing capabilities, I may be able to help you?"

Rikka rested her fingers just on the edge of the enclosure the creature rested in, curled slightly as if to invite them to touch her.
 
Brigid didn't know why Dante was flustered by her statement. He was an Infernumar too, so why would he be embarrassed about sex? Unless he didn't spend much time with the rest of the species. It would be fun to take the lead and see him squirm, she thought. "How cute, you're blushing." She said, winking at him. She pushed those thoughts away for later and turned back to the koala.

She knelt down to talk to Charly. "Relax a second. After we talk we'll find your cart and you can get back to cleaning if you want." Brigid said. "You said that you were talking to yourself. Are the other chongwu like you also Charly? I would also like to know what you talked to yourself about. It could be important."
 
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Male Hall

"Thank you," Sif replied, eyeballing the flask that the Liger Chongwu tossed over to her. Though she was less than happy and grumbled, Jayden still did as she was asked - not ordered - and 'uncoupled' the couple. "I'm....just displeased by the appearance of males," she tried to explain, unscrewing the cap of Viz's booze. "I'm sorry I have not provided good direction," Sif then apologized. "I was hoping everyone would look good if they did things and solved the problem on their own. I think you did well though. Sort of." Though her voice was as flat and emotionless as ever, the Tigress's ears drooped as her tail hung between her legs. She wasn't too happy herself by the looks of it. "Odd. This is a mana potion," Sif realized. Before she could say anything more, one of her feline ears stood up like a radar dish, pointing back towards the lobby.

"Did you hear something that way?" the 2nd Class Daqinese woman narrowed her eyes.

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Female Hall


Talking to the key witness some more, she eventually got it to calm down enough to talk. Still, it was difficult for Rikka to gauge the Guinea Pig's expression - it typically defaulted to 'adorable' in most cases - but the fact it didn't bite her fingers was a good start.

"Loud-bang, don't like!" the little pet's speaker system began. "Boob-cat angry-scary," it began to elaborate, still peeking out of its tiny abode as it stayed in hiding. "Don't not-like meow-boob. Not racist!" it quickly added, making sure she didn't play the race card or something. "Just, meow-boob make loud bang. Break things. Like other Thing did," it continued, fidgeting with discomfort, grooming itself with its two paws to try and stay calm. Its use of words was strange, but given the amount of stress, and how often Rikka herself ended up peering down her cleavage to see it given their height difference, it was understandable. "She-cat break things, like monster-grey-terror." For the Caelumar, the words sent a shiver down her spine. Something was wrong. Very wrong. "Grey monster fight-hurt girl-neighbor-cat, away-steal into underdark!"

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Female Bathroom


"Oh, me? Know you guys?" The koala janitor scratched its ear floof. "We just said hello?" Turning its head slowly at Brigid, it cocked its head to the side. "I'm Charly, the one and only," it pointed to itself. "I mean, I'm even the only Janitor here. Charly, twenty-four-seven!" Though the work hours and conditions sounded horrendous, he seemed proud of himself. "Though, its kinda weird, I never got to talk to myself before. Wearing the janitor jumpsuit and everything. But, right after I did, everything started getting fuzzy," he shrugged. "Maybe I should take Kaylee's advice and rest a bit more, take it easy. Not many drones, but they help. Well, when their wheels don't get stuck."
 
Brigid blinked at the cute little janitor. Her thoughts started going rapid-fire inside her head. They had found another Chongwu just like Charly and immediately overlooked it as a possible suspect, even Jayden, though for different reasons. It was the perfect camouflage, but it couldn't just be an illusion, could it? Jayden and Dante had picked it up, and both carried it. It must be something of similar weight to one of the little Chongwu or, more disturbingly, something that can change its mass or shape. Either that or someone had copied a Chongwu and programmed it to do... what? Somehow break everyone's brains at once?

She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop speculating. The current information just wasn't enough to solve this. Right now actions were more important. She engaged her comms and opened a private, encrypted channel to Sif. Probably being overly paranoid but she didn't want to take any chances. As she spoke she drew her gun and rushed out of the room.

"Charly, please don't move from that spot. Dante stay with him, okay?" Brigid called out as she left the bathroom.

"Ma'am, I'm talking to the janitor right now, in the ladies' bathroom. He told me he's the only janitor and said he was talking to himself before everything got fuzzy. The janitor Dante and Jayden found is definitely connected to whatever happened. I'm heading to the imposter's last known location right now. I may need backup." She said, trying to keep the concern out of her voice.
 
Dante raised an eyebrow as he listened to Charly, still crouching on his level as he listened, trying to hide concern as he struggled with the problem of two koalas.

He sat down as his squadmate spoke the their witness, nodding as he heard the order.

"AND I WAS NOT BLUSHING!" He hissed, whipping his head back at brigid as she left the bathroom to help the group. His cheeks were still a slightly darker shade. He turned back to the koala with a smile.

"Now tell me everything you remember since we got here"
 
Royama was still trying to process everything being said by the small, talking guinea pig. Boob cat made sense to her- but something about a grey monster too? They were being spoon-fed an eye-witness account, but they were missing some crucial details. Could the Koala be the grey-monster?

"Grey monster?Are you talking about the Koala Chongwu? Did he do this? The, uh, janitor. I find it a little hard to believe something that soft could cause that much damage." The Doctor squinted at the Guinea Pig and massaged her temples, "Granted, at the same time Chongwu can be made to do all sorts of things- and who'd be upset over the loss of their life? You're being very helpful, little friend. Do you have any other details you can share? Was there anyone else involved?"
 
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