Palace of Power - Common Room

The common room of the Palace shows the most influence from the Gamemasters, and is one of the most lived-in-looking places in the Palace. A large television fills one wall, getting programs from Videoland's city and the many zones with the appropriate technology. A pool table fills part of the room, and a closet holds many board games of various types. A small refridgerator rests in a corner for snacks, and all-in-all, this place would look much like a college dorm lobby... if it weren't for the opulent surroundings.

Contents:
Videoland Pamphlet

Obvious exits:
<U>p leads to Palace of Power - Guest Suites.
<S>outh leads to Palace of Power - Audience Chamber.

Lady A arrives from Palace of Power - Audience Chamber. Lady A has arrived.

Dias Flac arrives from Palace of Power - Audience Chamber.
Dias Flac has arrived.

Lady A walks into the common room of the palace, quietly, not interrupting ongoing conversations. Not having anything to do, say, or offer to the room at this point, she simply approaches the television area, and, pushing the buttons on its front, disdaining the remote sitting on a nearby chair, does a brief scan-through, with the volume muted.

There's a newcomer in the Palace tonight. Well that's nothing new, you'd think this was just another bewildered hero who happened to stumble into a warp zone. But tonight's guest is a bit different. Though this is her first time in the Palace, she's known about it for awhile. She's a visitor from Expel, Ashton's homeworld which is now suffering from an unknown epidemic. Luckily for Celine Jules, however, she was off the continent of Cross for awhile, and hasn't contracted the virus herself. She decided to go to the location where Ashton found the initial warp zone, and see if she could meet these people that are supposedly helping Expel out in this time of need. Little did she know, though, she was being followed.

The fancily dressed women enters the Common Room, and looks around. Her outfit is... bizarre to say the least, even moreso than Ashton's is. Not being one least bit shy, she looks at the people gathered and says "Excuse me, I'm looking for people called... gamemasters?"

One newcomer? Make that two, except this one was not looking for anyone in specific like Celine and is actually surprised to see her...how would anyone know of this surprise? Dias' left eyebrow moved a little. Okay, he isn't exactly the kind of guy that would show any emotion easily. His first reaction to this odd coincidence is to simply cross his arms and wait, staying out of sight of the cress sorceress and listening instead of making his presence known for he was annoyed by the royal ruling that no ship could go to the Cross continent and was intent to find out why. With a little luck...he might just do that without even having to say a word.

Bizarre outfits do not faze Lady A in the least.

For the love of god, she's wearing two pairs of tube socks.

Lady A simply nods to this newcomer, and paces back from the still silent television to regard her...and try to guess her zone of origin. "I am one. Do you have a question?" The Gamemaster crosses her paddle arm over her unarmed one.

Celine Jules ahhs... sounding just a tad disappointed. She had heard about two Gamemasters named Station and Captain N, and here she was hoping to see if they were as handsome and dashing as Claude was. Of course, she really shouldn't behave that way, being engaged to the Prince of the Cross kingdom, whom she can no longer see for now, due to the epidemic. Oh well. Still, she has her questions to be asked, not so much about Expel. She's mainly curious about Videoland, the people, the worlds, but most importantly... "Salutations darling. I'm Celine Jules, from the planet Expel. I was wondering... do you know of a good place to shop in this world?" You can feel free to thud now. Celine of course, has her OWN priorities to take care of first.

Dias Flac wouldn't see things the same way Celine does, beauty were a triviality to him...travelling from place to place, doing various jobs and slaying monsters he had no time to enjoy a fair maiden's face. Still he listens carefully...and certainly feels like he just wasted a good five minutes of his life at the question as he speaks out from his corner, letting his presence known. "Perhaps why the Cross Continent is not accessible by boat and the harbors forbid travel there might be of a better interest." He says, not introducing himself nor moving toward the two.

Tourists. Lady A knows this drill. "Certainly. You can visit the downtown areas of SimCity, New York, Europe... or, River City is very popular." She thinks again, a moment... "It mostly depends on what you are looking for. Clothes, weapons... giant robot parts...?" She eyes Dias at this last statement. Obviously, she does not mean the last. "Where is the Cross Continent near?"

<Hero-IC> Street Fighter Ryu says, "Ryu, reporting in for the day... Is there anything I should know about that is going on, or am I allowed to just continue on with my travels undisturbed?"

<Hero-IC> Guybrush Threepwood says, "I belive you can ramble on my friend. But that's just me..."

Celine Jules blinks in surprise and turns around at the voice. She thought she sensed someone following her. "Well, hello there stranger, haven't seen you in months." She places her hands on her hips "What, you think that just because you're all tall dark and broody, you can just take off into the night whenever you feel like it and leave your friends behind?" She waggles a finger at him, God how much she loves tormenting Dias. But as much as she loves it, it seems some explanations are in order. The people here aren't as informed on their situation as she thought, even Dias is in the dark, but since he only pays attention to things that happen right in front of him, she's not too surprised.

She coughs "Well Darlings, looks like I'll have to explain a few things first. The Cross Continent is on Expel, and right now it is plagued with a rather serious epidemic." She turns to Lady A "I think you should be familiar with Ashton Anchors? We are both friends of his, from the same world." She turns to Dias "And if /you/ would spend any more time in a town than you usually do, you'd probably know little things like current events."

Well, that's just prime...wait, wrong serie. His eyebrow moves again at the words of the Crest sorceress, quite a few times at that, once at the mention of the word friends and once at the plague talk. "I have better things to do than stay in a town to view the contents of beauty parlors and clothing shops, but this plague sounds...unusual. And as a note 'Miss' Jules, travelling together hardly makes us friends." Says the swordsman, thankfully not using the word 'whatever' else he'd cause much anger in the other so-called friends.

Station arrives from Palace of Power - Audience Chamber.
Station has arrived.

Ah. Trouble? Lady A immediately sits down on a nearby chair, and motions for Celine to sit, if she will. "Tell me, please, about this plauge."

Station is walking his way into the common room. Calm? Yes. He is aware of all what has happened, from Alice being kidnapped to the suffering at Expel. Though, he gives a bit of worry. He meets up with the others, then he offers them a smile, then a bow. "Greetings."

Yes, trouble. Lots of it. But first, she playfully slaps Dias on the shoulder and turns back to Lady A "Oh don't pay ANY attention to him. He acts like that to keep up a cool, macho exterior." Cheerfully, she walks over to the chair, and sits. "Well, have a seat Dias..." She blinks, realizing that Dias didn't introduce himself, not that he would anyway. "Oh, this is Dias Flac. I'm Celine Jules. And you are...?" She also realizes that she didn't catch Lady A's name either. Then Station enters, and she arches an eyebrow curiously "Well hello there! And who might you be Darling?"

Dias Flac never asked to be introduced, but the harm is done. Saying not a word he pulls his katana and sheath out of his belt to put it next to him as he sits down. If you're expecting him to retort to Celine's playful comments by something elaborate, think again as the only word leaving the swordsman's mouth is "Whatever..."

The Gamemaster offers a smile, then he nods, "Greetings, I am Station.." Then, an eyebrow raises towards Dias Flac. He narrows his eyes sharply towards Dias as those....words... are uttered. You can see Station twitch, but it slowly subsides, as Station's trying not to let it get to him. . o O ( Ugghh.... )

"Lady A." Pause. "A pleasure." Lady A won't prompt, but she is waiting to hear if there is a crisis the Gamemasters can help with... "Have a seat, Station?"

Celine Jules blinks "Oh hoo... so /you're/ Station?" Celine grins, he's better looking than she thought "Ashton's mentioned you briefly in the few times I've spoken to him before this whole epidemic started. I'd love to get the chance to have tea with you sometime Darling." She ahems, despite what she would LIKE to be doing, there is still matters to attend to "At any rate, I believe at least YOU must be familiar with what's going on on Expel. Right now the epidemic is still contained on the Cross Continent..." She looks at Dias "The two of us were lucky enough to have been in Lacour at the time. Unfortunatly Ashton and Bowman weren't so lucky..." She sighs "I wish there was something I could do to help, but healing isn't my forte... So I decided to try and make my way to this Videoland Ashton mentioned... apparently Dias stumbled upon it as well..."

Dias Flac looks at the man for a moment, doing what every silent swordsman would do: assess his strength. Satisfied by the man's look and understanding a little better why that bumbling clumsy Ashton would trust him, and albeit that woman that 'greeted' them had clothing tastes nearly as odd as Celine she did look strong as well. Probably not anywhere as strong as he was but both seemed okay by his standards..."I don't stumble." He adds, for he has his pride afterall. Nevertheless he says nothing more because he is genuinly interested in knowing what's going on.

Station begins to sit down next to Lady A, "Thank you, Lady." He shifts his attention back towards Celine, "In due time." He may as well be friends with people. However, the visage turns serious as she gets to the point. "Yes, I am familiar... I wish there is more that we could do. He then sighs, "I see." He hrms to himself, pondering of what he could do. "So far, we have been sending medical supplies. We wait to see if we can do anything else, like actually getting to the cause of this."

Lady A nods to Station now. "So...you've been there?" She looks over to Dias and Celine again...fulling expecting that Celine will be the one who speaks. "Please, tell me what you've seen, if you can. Maybe something similar can be found in in the history records another zone, and we can derive a cure."

Station shakes his head at Lady, "Not exactly, Noel came by to deliver the message about the situation, I was one of the people who met with him at the Warp Zone." He then shifts his attention back towards Celine.

Celine Jules sighs, there's still one more thing that needs to be explained to Lady A and Dias. Of course, this is something that Dias is NOT going to react well to. It might even cause him to make a facial expression. She speaks again, mainly regarding Dias "From what I've found out, from talking to Noel and Chisato, this whole epidemic was caused by the Gods Ten Wise Men." DUHN DUHN DUUUUN! "Soon after the Energy Nede appeared in orbit around Expel, a small meteorite-like object fell from the Energy Nede, or specifically, according to Chisato's monitoring equipment, from Fienal." She shrugs slightly "I don't know how they're alive again, but from what I've heard of THIS place, maybe Ashton's stumbling upon Videoland had something to do with it. At any rate Dias, it looks like Indalecio and his boys are up to no good again." She turns back to Station "We're grateful for your help, but at the moment there's not much that can be done. We think Dr. Bowman is getting close to a cure, but he himself is affected by this plague, I don't think he'll be able to concentrate on it much longer." She turns back to Dias "Don't go trying anything foolish, Cross Continent is off limits for now. Either stay here or go back to Lacour, but you won't be able to prove anything by catching this plague yourself."

Dias Flac frowns. "So they were not dead...hopefully they only live twice, because I don't intend to let them do as they wish so easily." He says, yet...he doesn't rise to walk off, he's not stupid. "I'm no fool, if we are to stop this then we don't need to be sick as well, got a plan to get inside their little stronghold ? I don't think the method we used last time will work twice." says the blademaster. "And what right do we have to ask these people for help? They don't need to risk their necks for our world, we can take care of this."

"Nonsense." Lady A almost interrupts Dias, shaking her head once, but emphatically. "It is what we do. Help others, and other zones and worlds." She stops to think a moment. "An object from the sky?" There are only so many RPG plots.

Ah, RPG plots, those are Station's favorite plots. Yet, Station's play has yet to play SO2, screw you. Station nods in agreement with Lady A, "Yeah, we have to help people from different worlds, it's what we do best." He grins, "We won't sit here and allow this to happen." He gazes towards Celine, then he ponders over thesituation. "Erm, there should be a way to protect us from the disease long enough for us to get through to find the source, even if it means going to the meteorite or Fienal itself..." He shakes his head. "Very risky, and the tilting is definately not in our favor."

Arm Commander yawns, walking in the room. His stance is definatley not that of a high ranking military offical. More like a dude running on 2 hours of sleep in 3 days. His face is sporting a thin beard, and his eyes look around the room. He came here looking to spot a few hours of sacktime. As he spots others in the room, he straightens up, looks somehow presentable in a matter of seconds. Just remember kids, this things you learn in basic last you forever. Especially looking parade ready when you're not.

Celine Jules shakes her head softly "No Dias, I don't think we can go to them. We have no way to get on the Energy Nede, the barrier surrounding it is still up." And she then shoots him a bit if a glare "Maybe we could defend Expel if it were a threat that came from Expel itself. But when an outside threat faces us, we need outside help. Don't forget that Expel wouldn't even EXIST now if it weren't for the help of the Nedians. We NEED allies in this, especially now... but..." She folds her arms slightly "If it comes down to a battle against them... I'm afriad that myself, Dias, Noel, and Chisato are the only ones who can do it..." RPG-plot-hole coming up! Woo! "The Gods Ten Wise Men have, what the Nedians called, Integral bodies. I didn't understand the explanation of it, but I believe it all meant, their bodies existed on a different plane of existance than ours do. They were able to attack us, but we couldn't do a thing to them. We faced them several times, and lost to them miserably each time, before we finally came upon a way to hurt them..."

She reaches into a pouch that is strapped to her belt, and takes out what looks like a jewel, endless black, with swirling stars in the center, so it looks "The Nedians called this Anti Matter. As long as someone holds this, they can affect those with Integral bodies, so we were finally able to fight them off." She places the jewel back in her pouch "Even so, there was 10 of them, and 12 of us... but we barely scrapped by with our lives..."

Dias Flac cracked his knuckles as a reflex, they hurted them alright, no matter if they came in pairs, trios or alone they all fell the first time and he was confident they could do it again. "We won once, and we'll win again...although you're right on one thing, we don't have the same numbers as last time and that could prove problematic. I can take one of them on no problem but not all of them." He says...admitting he's not invincible? Maybe. He wasn't going to argue with the allies part, knowing that they could not do this alone he would simply have to hope these people were reliable and as strong as they seemed.

Lady A nods. "If it is your destiny to fight..." that is, at least, what she gleans from all of this odd talk... "Then we cannot change your destinies. But we can perhaps help in other ways." She looks up and nods at the Arm Commander, acknowledgement, before she asks Celine: "Is there any more of this to be found?"

Station nods towards Lady A, then his attention shifts towards Arm Commander, "Greetings..." His attention shifts back towards Celine. "We will try to do what we can. At the moment, the only way we can do it is deliver the supplies. However, if help is needed against the Wisemen, we can help... Though, since the Anti Matter will allow such ways to harm them..." He then glances at Lady A. He awaits to hear if there IS anymore of the Anti Matter jewels to be found.

Arm Commander hears Antimatter, gets interested for a moment, nods absently at Lita and Station, then decides that rank be damned, he's bunking. He quietly moves to a couch, and sits in it, sinking into the deep plush.

Celine Jules shakes her head, as if expecting that question "Only 12 were made, and they can only be made on Nede, which is, inaccessible at the moment. 6 of us are still on Expel, myself, Dias, Bowman, Ashton, Noel, and Chisato. The other 6, Opera, Ernest, Leon, Precis, Rena and Claude, left shortly after the end of our initial battle. And they took their Anti Matter jewels with them, I'm afraid. If it comes down to it, Bowman and Ashton could give their jewels to two of your strongest warriors if we truely needed your help."

She pauses for a moment, and regards Station. He sort of reminds her of Claude, actually. "But we're not even sure yet if we WILL be fighting them. The most important thing now is containing the plague, which according to Noel, they've managed to do thanks to your supplies. And I trust Bowman will be able to find a cure as long as he is able to work. From what Noel has told me, it's vital that we make sure the Wise Men do NOT find out about Videoland, if they do not already know about it. We're not sure how long we could keep it a secret from them, but trust us, they're NOT the types you want teaming up with your own enemies." She looks from Dias, to Station, to Lady A, to the newcomer whom she doesn't recognize "As frustrating as it is. Right now, we can only sit on our hands and wait. We can't do anything against Indalecio unless he makes a move first."

Dias Flac crisped his hand against his bladehilt, the mere mention of sitting on his hands and not doing anything was enough to frustrate him. "Deloyal bastards..." He mutters, thinking of that Indalacio just made his blood boil. "Well then, if we can't go at them and they won't come at us, and if Bowman doesn't manage to do a cure...we're going to let all these people die? I certainly am not going to sit back if that is to happen...when is Noel going to come back to tell us if there's any results?"

Station sighs, then he lowershis head. Not much that he can do. He nods with relunctance. "Great..."

Nothing until he moves first. Lady A frowns. "So," she then says, a non sequitir, to be sure. "You were interested in shopping?"

Celine Jules nods, right there was that. First, she turns back to Dias "Noel goes back and forth from Cross Castle to Lacour Castle almost daily on his Synard. I'm sure you could get some news out of him if there's any to give. And I wouldn't worry about Indalecio, knowing him, he'll be showing up to gloat sooner or later. We'll just have to be ready. So do what you want, I'm not your mother." She then looks back to Lady A "Yes, actually. Thought I'd do some shopping, not every day you get to check out the styles on another world. I also thought I'd pick something up to cheer Bowman up while I was at it. The poor Doc gets so little respect." She turns to Dias and smirks "If you actually want to make yourself USEFUL, I could use those brawny arms of yours to carry my packages. Not that there's much else to do but keep our spirits up, right?"

Dias Flac gave an ice cold glare back at Celine...you do not speak of his mother, regardless of context. "Carry them yourself." He says, standing up and restrapping his blade. "I'll look around and do things my own way, till we meet again." as he heads toward the door leading outside.

Station just closes his eyes, pondering.

Lady A stands, and nods at them both, as they leave. She silently evaluates the situation. Seems...not out of the ordinary, really, if a dilemma.

Celine Jules sighs, he's one of the moodiest people she knows. She folds her hands behind her head in the carefree anime fashion "Don't worry about me, I'm sure I can find a place to shop on my own. Keep in touch Darlings..." Don't worry about her, she IS a Sorceress afterall.

 

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