The Last Oddetsey

Oh god, not again! Twitch was really starting to get frustrated with the teleporting all over the shop, he just couldn't seem to stop his head from swimming. Once he'd gotten his bearings back, though, he noticed he was back in the main hall, alongside Aurelia, Vengy, and a woman who looked as though she was made out of liquid. While this was strange, he decided to go to a quieter spot, and flew off into a nondescript hallway. Coming to rest on a suspiciously empty pedestal, Twitch began looking through his bag of holding, grabbed his communicator, and immediately got in contact with the witch in red.

"Eudial!" he called, "Eudial, it was the Felix guy that the rift was coming from! It wasn't Ti-..." The macaw paused momentarily. "...Titanicman." he spoke, carefully and deliberately sardonic. "Felix...Funnyface or something, I dunno. But we should go after him instead!"

SUMMARY OF INFORMATION SENT FROM TITANICMAN INVESTIGATION by GEORGE

A summary of the file uploaded to Phantasmic Slammers Memory of the one documented rift incident believed to belong to this person:

General Schedule of Titanicman and the Rift:
12 hours ago: Defeated a gang of Balrogs who were selling the infamous drug "Pipeweed" to children.
2 Days ago: Stopped the infamous Ballet themed bankrobber "The Nutcracker"
2 Days ago: Fought some dinosaurs. No clear reason.
5 Days ago: Teamed up with Fleems the Moonfox to defeat Mecha-Titanicman
6 Days ago: Fought Mecha-Titanicman, but retreated to keep civilians safe
12 Days ago: Rescued Sally Streater from Felix Fairlynasty, renowned Evil Industrialist
14 Days ago: Punched some ghosts on the moon. This was the occassion where no Rift energy was detected.
15 Days ago: Fought a Fairlynasty Industries Flying Robot hit squad with Pentraxianite gun.
15-18 Days ago: Teamed up with numerous heroes to push back an invasion of the Antelope-men of Dimension-Antelope.
21 Days ago: Had a misunderstanding-then-teamup battle with Fleems the Moonfox.

MECHA-TITANICMAN
- Claims he has never seen Titanicman use the rift
- The only time he has seen the rift was when someone took him out with it when he was attacking a bank vault. Titanicman was dead at the time.
- Felix Fairlynasty was there with the press and some others.

SALLY STREATER
- She has never seen Titanicman use powers like the rift.
- She covers almost every single Titanicman adventure so should have seen it if ti was there.
- Sally saw the rift at the Mecha-titanicman vault incident
- She claims Felix Fairlynasty used it.

FLEEMS
- Eudial persuades Fleems not to eat her, although doesn't much like her.
- Fleems has detected rift i nthe vicinity of Titanicman, but not from him directly, and he would have been able to tell. Someone or something else that is often around Titanicman is the source.
- The rift power dropped off substantially at the time of Doomforall becoming a rift nexus in space.
- However, after he finally died a few days ago, the rift level has expanded and begun to grow again to far greater levels that before.
- Fleems has never witnessed this power being used, or seen any evidence that it has been.

VIDEO OF THE SINGLE RIFT INCIDENT
- Felix Fairlynasty gives a speech
- Mecha-Titanicman attacks and the building begins to crumble
- The camera falls over and you see debris falling, Sally Streater shout that they are trapped, Felix Fairlynasty appears unconcious
- Black shards fill the screen and Mecha-titanicman falls over.

(OOC: Apologies steve, just making you wandering around the Castle for the sake of plot)

AURELIA AND VENGEANCE

Upon Aurelia asking, Vengeance leaves the room (it looks like he was only passing through anyway, but the Waerwoman doesn't notice this)

After Vengeance leaves the room, the water woman gives the information:
- Apparently Vengeance (or someone who looked just like him) was the one who gave her the orders to steal the books, and is apparently in control of PTT Industries, but he was wearing different clothes. He was also wielding some kind of black energy, possibly the rift.

With Eudial informed of his plan, Twitch flew back to the main room, after his usual one or two wrong turns. This time he had come across a room made entirely of mirrors. When he reached the main room, though, he spotted something on a display to one side. Vengeance was still oddly quiet, and Aurelia was sill preoccupied with the water woman, so he decided to take a look.

The display showed a handy collation of information about Titanicman, indeed all of the information the group had acquired. Twitch glanced at Sally's information, which he had been given first hand...or first wing, or something...and began to examine the rest of the information. The more he read, however, the more bemused he began to look, glancing from the newer information, to Sally's information, to the schedule, and back to the new information...

Everyone seemed to agree on one thing: the rift was definitely not coming from Titanicman. That meant - as Fleems said - the source had to be around or near Titanicman on a regular basis.

The schedule only showed a single recent instance when rift activity near Titanicman was not detected: the incident a fortnight ago when he was on the moon punching ghosts.

As you do.

But then if the only incident with no rift energy was on the moon, then the source had to be something that didn't go to the moon...or maybe couldn't go to the moon.

And then there was the incident at the vault. That seemed to be the one place where their suspects had eyewitness accounts rather than hearsay. "George, can you play the video of the vault attack..." Twitch half-asked. If one were to watch the macaw at this point, they may have been able to watch his little avian brain piecing this one together.

The video opened up, and there was Felix Fairlynasty, up at some kind of podium and speaking in a more grandiose manner than might have been appropriate. Sally had told Twitch that the rift was Felix's doing, so he kept a particularly close eye on him. The scene kept rolling, a mechanical Titanicman arrived (presumably Mecha-Titanicman) and started smashing the building apart, the camera dropped to the ground, and it all looked suitably ruinous. Civilians running around, Sally shouting about being trapped, dust and debris filling the shot, but in the midst of all this, something had caught the parrot's eye...

...Felix wasn't moving.

And then the rift came, shards of darkness shooting across the screen, tearing through Mecha-Titanicman and sending the cyborg crashing to the ground...and static. The parrot stared at the faintly hissing screen for a moment, knowing he had all the clues in front of him, a slow look of realisation crossing his face.

The rift source was almost always around Titanicman, couldn't follow him to the moon, was there at the vault during the attack, it wasn't Mecha-Titanicman, and it DEFINITELY wasn't Felix.

"Oh, crap..." Twitch suddenly plunged a claw into his bag of holding, frantically rummaging around until he found the communicator. The water-woman could be put on hold for a little bit, and he would deal with Eudial's inevitable wrath later. She would hate him even more having been sent in completely the wrong direction. Flicking the communicator to all channels, he called out to anyone who was willing to listen.

"Everybody, we need to go back to the News-Hawk! Aurie, bring your truth dagger!"

Marisa decides to go check out the tree before trying to deal with the whatever else is going on.

'Geez, ze, I really need to keep up.' she mumbled to herself as she wandered off.

MARISA

Although Spod had glanced at the tree in his search for vengeance upon Shrews, Marisa examines the Timesplitting Oak more carefully and with a magical eye and notices things which didn't come at all to the attention of Spod...

For a start, the bees, butterflies, beetles and hummingbirds coming and going through the tiny portals aren't actually real animals at all - to the casual observer and the non magical, they project an illusion of these things, but are more like the magical equivalent of roots, spreading out searching for... for lack of a better word... spiritual energy, and judging from the multitude faces that can be glimpsed in the tiny tree-portals, from a very specific source...

Every one resembles the other - tall, caucasian, thick tatty dark brown hair, heavy brows, grey eyes... some old, some young, mostly men, a few women, some heroic, some less so... and Marisa recognizes at once who they all are... or are at least, are versions of...

A man in heavy powered armour, pocked with dents and caked in dust, the last man holding a doomed bridge against the horde....
...Doomforall
A younger man walks through a frozen wood, leaning on a wooden staff, an owl on his shoulder...
...Doomforall
A woman floats smiling at the heart of the sun, face flecked with golden energy...
...Doomforall
An ageless man struggles to bring peace to a world that doesn't really want it...
...Doomforall
An older man crosses a marsh, camera in hands, sketchbook at his side while he records strange birds Marisa has never seen...
...Doomforall
An old woman sits meditating by a waterfall in spring, the cherry trees in bloom around her...
...Doomforall
A man sits in a quiet corner of his second hand bookshop, vaguely hoping no customers will come to disturb him...
...Doomforall
A young man sits at his computer, typing the very events that Marisa is experiencing....

Looking into that one, Marisa pulls back, impacting the Fourth Wall being a very painful experience for the mind. As she looks the insects and birds seem to carry whatever it is they are bringing towards a narrow cleft in the tree and vanish before returning outwards, and returning through the little portals.

Except one stream of the little pollinators ... Marisa follows it as it leaves the courtyard and out to the outer gardens that looks out over the city, and see that the stream is very definitely heading in the direction of the News-hawk Tower...

The tree was a lot more interesting then what she thought it might be. Marisa made a quick mental note to perhaps show it to the others (except maybe Eudial, the other witch may torch it as a method to reduce rage and Marisa couldn't be having that, it felt like a baaaad idea to let the tree come to harm. Just as much for the tree as the people in it.
Maybe.
I don't think the guy with the glowing box would like it very much if it went and exploded or someth--)
Marisa quickly cuffed herself upside the head, feeling very confused about where her thoughts were going and wish they would stop. She quickly adjusted her hat, and decided to focus on following the various bugs.
These bugs know what's up, hopefully!

*Eudial goes with Twitch (begrudgingly)*

(short post)

MARISA, TWITCH AND EUDIAL

The three are teleported down to the city and find themselves in a drab concrete stairwell in a block of flats. Footsteps below them alert them to someone approaching, and in a few moments the tatty dark hair of Sally Streater comes into view. She freezes as she sees them and looks ready to bolt... a small iridescent beetle squeezes through a hole in the glass window behind her and lands on her shoulder, glowing slightly as it does so...

Her eyes glance down at it for a moment and she brushes it off...

"So." she eventually addresses the warily. "I'm guessing you have found out where the rift is coming from?"

"We think we have..." Twitch told the reporter, hovering between the witch and the slightly angrier witch. He couldn't help but glance down at the beetle, though. It seemed important somehow, maybe it was just the glowing when it landed on Sally's shoulder. But there was information he needed to get out of her right now.

"We found a video of the incident at the vault," the parrot began, "And there's something about it that doesn't really add up..." He took a look downwards at his bag of holding, in which the Truth Dagger he had borrowed from Aurelia was lying at the top. Reaching in with one claw, he plucked out the dagger and pretended to check it over to make sure it was clean. After a moment, though, he glanced back up at the obviously nervy reporter, looking for confirmation.

"It was Felix that used the rift, yeah?"

"I have a pretty good idea, yep." Marisa states, looking at the Sally, and then down at the beetle she brushed off. Poor bug, it was just out looking for... whatever it was looking for. 'I swear, if she stomps on that bug, ze...' she thought, before glancing over as the parrot produced the borrowed dagger and pointed it at the reporter.

She watched with interest, and wondered if the lady answered wrong, if Twitch was gonna shank her or something.

Eudial knew something... something was wrong here, whether it was the reporter before them, the beetle she casually flicked aside, or simply the area around them. In spite of this though, she smirked... and, though the internal temperature of her body was reaching that of magma, she gave her companions warning looks. She wasn't going to attack unless provoked, and she didn't want either of the others to do the same...

"Well, if I was being honest... I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to that varied somewhat," said Eudial casually. "But I believe my suspicions are not wrong. Care to enlighten us?"

TWITCH, MARISA and EUDIAL

Sally eyes the dagger for a moment, then her eyes flit to Twitch. There is a pause.

"If I'm not mistaken, that is a truth dagger. Seen a couple of them around, although that one is an antique, one of the ones where they were struggling to get the sensitivities right... is that the one where it also picks up on gerbil poo and aniseed? No, the shape is a bit wrong it's the custard one isn't it?"

Given the intense stares of the trio, evidently the side tracking isn't working...

"Fine... I'll tell you what you want to know... let me sit down though at least, it's been a long day and I'm not in the mood for exposition standing on the stairs".

__________________________

Seated around a small but comfortable kitchen-living room, Sally sighs. Another beetle lands on her.

"So what do you want to know? I'd quite like to get rid of this power if at all possible but none of the magic users I spoke to had a clue what it was, let alone how I got it or how to get rid of it. Also, I don't suppose you know why I am being followed by insects for the last few days?"

"Well, I'm not so sure about the getting rid of the powers bit, outside of what you are dealing with not really being magic, exactly, I don't think, but I found those 'bugs' in a tree." Marisa said, looking around, and seeing Eudial and Twitch, added "I'll have to tell you guys more about what I saw after. Anyway. The bugs are seeking power, I think. Might be rifty. Probably is, given the tree. Err."

She pondered a moment. "When did you get the powers, exactly? Did they just kinda show up or what?" She felt like she was probably missing something somewhere.

"They appeared soon after I arrived on this world when I was younger. I was a "faller" from another world like all of you, but when I appeared I suddenly gained these powers. I've tried not to use them, but sometimes when I get into trouble, they act out on their own. I've no idea why I got them. They mostly went away since the thing with Doomforall in space, but have returned since that was fixed.

There is a slight feeling of frustration whenever I use them, as if wherever it is they come from, I am not exactly who they should be going to?"

(Just for the record, I am around online, but not with Skype so feel free to post things)

"The tree?" Twitch's attention was suddenly drawn to Marisa at the mention of that. "You mean the tree back in the castle?" Twitch had only caught a fleeting glimpse of it beforehand, presumably while he was careening around the place looking for some room or other, and he now suspected there had been some change in it since he had last seen it.

The parrot flew over towards Sally and perched on her shoulder for a moment, examining the beetles. Marisa thought they were seeking rift energy, but to him they just looked like...well, beetles. He flicked his tail feathers a little with a faint metallic clink, reached into his bag of holding, and pulled out the strange conch shell he had come across. He glanced up at the witches, both of whom appeared slightly confused. "I found it when I got hit by the postcard guy," he explained. Still, they looked just as confused. Twitch's brow furrowed a little. "Okay, what's your plan, then?" he asked, slightly indignantly. With not many other ideas, the macaw pointed the conch shell at the beetles and......just waited to see what would happen, if anything.

TWITCH

Pointing the conch shell at the beetles seems to have no effect, nothing seems to be happening and whatever powers the conch possesses are not activated by pointing it at things.

Well, that was pointless. Twitch examined the shell, trying to figure out what it did. Maybe it would vaccum up seawater and then project it outwards in a beam or something.

"Right, back to the castle, I guess..." the macaw suggested, "But I think Sally should come with us."

If she was indeed a rift source, then it was probably better to have her around, so they would know both where she was and what she was doing. Plus it would be trickier for people to kidnap her if they had intent to. Before calling George, though, Twitch took another look at the shell, and this time decided to blow it at the beetles. It might play 'Super Trouper' from that Abba Gold person.

TWITCH

A long resonant note spills forth from the conch, and even as it ends, Twitch falls to the floor convulsing...

Eudial looked over at the macaw, at the conch, then at the snipe perched on her shoulder, and finally at Marisa and the reporter. "Uh... what's happened to him?" she inquired, peering at her avian party member with some amount of concern.

"What? Yeah, I will get back to your case asap Meander, just waiting for my dagger to return, please enjoy some chants that me and my Spanish Revolution will sing for you in the meantime."

TWITCH

After a while, Twitch suddenly awakens and stands bolt upright as if he'd just been plunged into icy cold water. There is a slightly dazed look in his eyes for a moment before he regains his senses. Meanwhile, the conch shell has entirely vanished without trace...

Marisa gently prodded Twitch.

"You ok, ze? You really shouldn't put random things you find in your mouth. Did it even do anything besides make you spazz out?"

She looked around to see if the shell was still around, and upon realising it was gone, shrugged and turned to the other witch.
"We really ought to go back, like the bird said. He could probably use being poked at-- in a medical way of course. And maybe we'll find something to help out Sally here. Also, that weird tree, ze, you gotta look at it~"

Twitch barely reacted to the prod from Marisa, instead continuing to stare at a nondescript point in the distance. "...yeah..." he replied, clearly not quite all there yet, "...yeah, something else happened..."

He paced over towards the sofa, dragging his wings along the floor behind him, and sat himself down in front of it, still staring at the same point. Whatever had happened inside the parrot's brain during that convulsion had clearly affected him something nasty. If nothing else, he probably just needed some time to calm down, the macaw was still pretty shaky. "...I think we should go back to the castle..." he said, to nobody in particular.

There were a great deal of things about the situation that Eudial was still suspicious about, but it was no good questioning them now. "All right," she said to Marisa, sniffling. "But if it's anything like the Hell Tree that I've heard of before, I'm staying as far away from it as I can."

Eudial shivered. She had heard rumours of that parasitic tree through the galaxies, none of which were pleasant.

TWITCH, EUDIAL, MARISA and Sally are teleported back to the castle.

The CASTLE

As the group arrive at the castle, there is a brief flickering of power and suddenly various bizarre looking technological and arcane devices protrude from the wall as a siren goes off. Severel different scanners sweep across the group before all the implements retract into the wall again as if nothing had happened.

Looking justifiably concerned, Sally asks "What was that about? Now we are here, do you think you can remove the rift from me?"

Twitch remained as still as he could while the devices did their work, before they disappeared back from whence they came, and the parrot staggered forwards a little, still trying to get his bearings after his fit. He did manage to cobble together the faculties to reach into his bag of iteming, and retrieve the truth dagger, handing it back to Aurelia.

Suddenly, though, his eyes shot open, he looked back towards the back, and frantically began rummaging through it. "He said it'd be here...c'mon, where is it?" he mumbled to himself, before pulling out a small orb and instantly flying off through the castle with it, leaving his bag of items behind. Although he didn't seem to be flying straight for some reason, he must have still been quite shaken up by the seizure...

"woah what was that i think i heard something"

"I got my dagger back! Now tell me everything I need to know about your theft and Vengance's role in it, water woman!"

AURELIA

The dagger doesn't detect any lies as the watery woman explains everything that happened:

- The Water womans name is Kelpsie, and she is a Water Nymph
- Her family is poor and she'd supplemented her income by doing the ocassasional bit of theft for hire.
- Recently she was approached by several PTT employees (a floating Goat Skull that called itself Hyborean and a speckled blue alien called Thriloth) who said they had a high paid job for her.
- They took her to PTT headquarters where she met a man who looked almost exactly like Vengeance (although she concedes that that one was possibly a bit older than the one you know). He had the ability to use some kind of black energy she didn't recognise.
- She was commissioned to steal the three books, and was paid enough to set her up for life, but was warned that if she spoke of it ever, she and her mother would be murdered.

After a few minutes, Twitch returned to the group, flying a little more level but still not entirely balanced, and without the crystal ball he had flown off with. The parrot had stowed it in another of the castle's myriad rooms, this one containing a dozen unpainted aluminium shelving units which held at least a thousand copies of the Oxford English Dictionary. Why anyone needed at least a thousand copies of the Oxford English Dictionary, Twitch had absolutely no idea.

Landing alongside his bag of holding, the macaw gave his wings a shake momentarily. "Right, getting rid of the rift..." he said, hovering opposite Sally and looking like he was trying to remember something. "Getting rid of the rift, they said we have tooooo..." the parrot mumbled to himself. "...we have to..." he began quite slowly, "...either use some sort of ritual to get rid of the rift, trap them outside the multiverse, or kill them......also, does anyone know where Melded is?"

Twitch glanced unsurely between the members of the group, before hovering down to the ground and making himself look small again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alex_holt

Looking justifiably concerned, Sally asks "What was that about? Now we are here, do you think you can remove the rift from me?"

---

The Witch let out an audible sigh. Great... please don't tell me I have to do this right now... "Yeah alright, give me a second," muttered Eudial. She was sure at least one of the others had looked at her in some confusion. "You can stop giving me patronizing glances, you know," Eudial retorted blindly. "After that moonfox or whatever decided to not snack on me, I was thinking: Even if the rift wasn't coming from that Titanicman guy, how do we know it wasn't that Mecha clone of his, or something more sinister? We'd need some sort of weird-ass spell to conjure it from... like, whatever it was. Because it's not like anybody can just remove rift sources from people, especially considering people are too afraid to even get near them. Sooooo... I went back to town for a bit. Oh yeah, I spotted Khloe in the church again, but she didn't really say anything," Eudial added conversationally. "so, that weapon store... I found a bookstore a few blocks from that and picked up... this."

With that, Eudial hauled a somewhat large book out and flipped open a few pages. "This wasn't easy to find. But apparently there's some sort of charm in here that can draw out - ah!" Eudial spotted it. "Alright here it is. Hold on..."

She noted the reporter's further trepidation. Ungh... cowardice. I hate dealing with this. Viluy is better in these situations than I am... "Hold still, this'll only take a moment..." muttered Eudial. I hope.

She pressed her index finger to the reporter's forehead and muttered a few words. And...

All of a sudden, the book in her arm pretty much EXPLODED. Eudial shrieked as she went flying across the room and landed heavily on the floor. "Aaaaagh...!" What the hell was that?! She could feel her arm had nearly been blown off... the only assumption she was able to make was that her own powers had prevented further harm to her.

She managed to stagger up. "Wha... wh-what happened... why did that..." she stumbled over words wildly. Then she realized. "Hey, what happened to Sally?!"

OOC: Melded is the City everything has been going on in :P

EUDIAL

Thrown across the room by the blast, Sally gets up and looks around confusedly before focusing her attention on Eudial.

"You did it! I've no idea how you did it, but I'm free of it finally! Thankyou so much!"

Anjushree has wandered into the room just as this was happening and watched the proceedings coldly and intently before walking changing original direction and heading to the library.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alex_holt

EUDIAL

Thrown across the room by the blast, Sally gets up and looks around confusedly before focusing her attention on Eudial.

"You did it! I've no idea how you did it, but I'm free of it finally! Thank you so much!"

---

Eudial blinked. "It... worked? Uhm..." She wasn't really expecting that to work, and especially not after the exploding text had nearly torn her arm off. She also wasn't expecting loads of gratitude either. After all, she never got anything of that sort before. She was a villain, after all... or was even that now starting to wear thin?

She began to stammer. "U-u-uhh... y-you're uh, you're welcome? W-whatever." Eudial looked at the others, a bit pleadingly. Help?!

Marisa looked a bit wide-eyed at all the events that had happened in front of her, though since nobody had died yet, she took it as a smallish victory on the group's behalf.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kodster

She began to stammer. "U-u-uhh... y-you're uh, you're welcome? W-whatever." Eudial looked at the others, a bit pleadingly. Help?!

---

"Y-yea! Good job!" Marisa cheered, also suprised it had worked. "Glad one of us was able to find the solution to your problem, so quickly too, ze!" She had personally been expecting to have to do research or something but whatever!

"If you like, we can always send you back to wherever you like around here, I think, though right now I'm more interested in making sure my witchy companion here hasn't torn something, and with the poor bird too... ah, well, if you do go, make sure you let us know if you spot something else going on involving that rifty stuff!" Marisa tugged the side of her hat a bit, hoping that she was actually being somewhat helpful or something, while making a mental note to ask Eudial where the heck she got that book from.

Slammer doesn't really know what's going on at the moment and would like a brief summary of what's just happened.

(OOC: Alex, if you please?)

"Right, I'll just be a minute or two...maybe." Twitch tells the group, before grabbing a hold of his bag and flying out of the room for some reason. Presumably some sort of side quest, maybe involving a magical statue of some kind.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE LAST ODDESTSEY

- After Doomforall's death, the Gryphon Anjushree said that before she had gone up there to co-ordinate the shield, she had detected 3 other rift sources, but the identity of them remained unknown...
- The first was identified as The Death of VHS, who the team managed to dispatch.
- After a lead suggesting that the next rift wielder was the immensely powerful Titanicman, the team followed the leads to learn the truth.
- The actual wielder was Sally Streater, a reporter who followed many of Titanicmans exploits who has showing residual rift from Doomforall, having some connection to him. Eudial freed her from this using a mysterious spellbook, leaving but a single rift wielder remaining.
- Meanwhile, Leland Gaunt and Cleo were following leads to infiltrate PTT Industries, and had connections to try and get inside.
- Aurelia was looking for books stolen from the library on the subject of the rift, and after cornering the thief, found out that the head of PTT and potential final rift weilder was none other than some sort of duplicate of Professor Vengeance.

AND NOW, ON THE LAST ODDESTSEY....