The Secret of CHIM

Ezzo Empire. The violently glitched landscale is but a few kilometers in the distance from the southern edge of the island. It's a surprise that anyone found anything that was still left outside of the enormous dome structure that serves as a barrier between what went so horribly wrong during the Apocalypse.

To some, it may be no secret that there are many old Gnome fortresses beneath the ground that have been abandoned for a long time. Most of them are rife with high level monsters, and the occassional Elemental Machine.

The people arriving a bit later than the initial party would find a few markers leading them to the fortress itself, delving down into the mine-like tunnels of the Gnome Fortress, until meeting up with the initial party - who've managed to find the complicated puzzle-like room that served to prevent further access into the depths of the fortress. Luckily, that party had a Puzzler on their side.

Once the meetup is completed, the team begins to proceed deeper into the depths of this Gnome fortress. Occassionally, they'll notice carts suddenly rolling by in the walls - grooves giving some limited view of 'mine carts' rushing past. Some kind of transport system that is still running to this day.

The stone ahead is smoother than it was outside of the 'lock'. And they step into what looks like... a 'bay'. There's multiple complex metal contraptions against the various walls that look like they are meant to hold something up for repairs. There's pieces of metal and rock littered around that look like they've long lost their luster and usefulness, but they are situated in piles and shapes that suggest that they were once in wooden baskets or the like.

On the ground, there's a symbol that looks suspiciously like an Elemental Machine, and a Wrech over it.

There is no internal lighting here so far. The team has to keep torches up, or their own magic. Otherwise, they are having to deal with utter pitch darkness. There are a few gems in the walls here and there which may have once served as sources of illumination, but they appear to be 'dead' now.

There's a hall that heads out from the chamber they are in now.

Proteus has always appreciated the Ezzo Empire for various reasons. Places like this are one of them. Before the Black Wave, the Imp Archaeologist flitted around these structures, picking over lore nodes and salvaging bits and pieces wherever she could manage to get around any encounters too big for her to handle.

That changed, of course. Now she's having to deal with the fact that she has to actually work with other people to do what she used to do. The puzzle-adept Imp helped with getting people in, and now it's a matter of getting what they came for... Among other things. The Imp, once they reach the outer room, begins examining the area with a cursory inspection, her hand raised with a mechanism that sweeps a beam of light about, highlighting various Points of Interest. Each gets a little look as she considers the room. "This looks like a maintenance and repair area for the Machines." Proteus comments to the others present. "But it's been so long since it's been in service that it looks like it's not functional at the moment. We might need to keep this in mind, however, for later. I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up elsewhere in the complex." She kneels next to some of the piles, prodding through them for a moment to see if there's anything more useful and/or interesting than the raw, aged scraps present.

    Setsuna had been intrigued by Ms. Uta's attempt to discover the secret of the chims, and it had already been worth something. He had never been outside the dome, never sen the glitch landscape, or the trouble the apocalypse caused and it almost confused him just looking at it. However he stayed focused and followed the lead parties path down into the depths of one of the fortresses. Usng fire magic to light his way he goes a bit slower then normal, if only to make sure to not miss a step. He enters the chamber and meets up ith the party in the middle of Proteus's explnation, moving to stand in the back now and listen hoping to learn something.

As a scout, Mikage had been largely concerned with keeping an eye out for trouble that could find a way to the party. This close to Ezzo, glitched monsters and other chaos were a very real threat, and thus she had lingered behind for a while, making sure that they weren't followed or persued by anything that might be lurking outside of the ruins.

Upon joining the others, it's Rama who races out of the darkness first, leading the way as Mikage follows afterwards. She has a sort of quiet awe at the machinery bay, or what is left of it after the passage of time. The Ranger uses her sword, lit slightly with magic, to cast a glow upon the symbol, as well as some of the surrounding metal equipment along the walls.

"Maybe there are some clues here as to how the Elemental Machines were built." She had joined Uta's expedition due to an interest in them, built out of some strange parts she had acquired. Thoughtfully, she touches the edge of the symbol, then pushes herself to her full height, looking around.

Rama, too, seems to be listening, his ears swiveling to sounds of the carts, or perhaps other distant rumblings in the dark.

It's a small miracle that anything survived the Black Wave of Lia Fail unscathed. Honestly, he wouldn't have expected it, even though there was always some possibility that the wave would have stopped just short of some place of vital import. Ezzo's remoteness and the danger associated with even approaching it has caused Prophylaxis of the Scale Emblem Alliance to focus his attention mostly on problems that are nearer an dearer to the affairs of the Aincrad Tower and its denizens.

But the prospect of uncovering a mystery as critical as the chimlink (and the Chim-Chims who may or may not be responsible for operating it) is too enticing to leave be.

And so the Doctor of Tolbana has come to lend his... Expertise? He's an old hat at this kind of world-poking exploration. It comes part and parcel with being an avid fan of classic offline RPGs. If you don't know how to solve the multi-step, game-spanning puzzle to get the ultimate weapon, you're never going to have the full experience after all!

His staff glows as he steps across the threshold into the smooth-walled tunnels. Electrical Fuzz may be a simple spell, but it's an effective one, especially for situations like this. "Amazing. You know, there are some spider infested-ruins like these closer to the other root towns, but I don't think they're anywhere near as pristine...!"

And if they can figure out how to build Elemental Machines while they're here... Well! The utility of such knowledge speaks for itself!

Also, robots are cool and big robots are even cooler.

Goldenblade is one of the people holding a torch for illumination. She looks warily around the space we find ourselves in, peering around by the flickering light. Given what happened before, her first order of business is structural integrity. Once the ceiling is confirmed not to be falling in, the ground not falling out, nothing on fire, and no impending disasters. Next search is hostile monsters, but notning like that, that she can see. So far, so good. All the buisiness about elemental machines and chims and whatnot has not been clearly explained to her (and it'd take a lot of extra explaining, the basic briefings were not enough), so she lets the others worry about it.

Uta walks with the help of her staff, whose gem has been enchanted with a low-intensity-long-duration spell of Light to provide some illumination. She approaches her own gem to the dead ones in the wall, and sings a few short magical melodies to attempt to transmit some of the light magic to the 'dead' gems in the wall, without much hope, but hey, worth a try.

"I know I have been saying something like this a million times," Uta begins, "but please let me repeat this one last time. This is an /exploration/ mission. We are here to learn about the chims. Go in. Look at them. Take notes. Draw a picture. Get out. Get it? No unnecessary fighting. No angering the locals. Do. Not. Engage. The. Chims. No Greek firing anything unprovoked. /Especially/ any elemental machine that might still be around, or the chims." She turns to face a specific party member. "Yes, that means you, Merek." Back to addressing the party in general. "Very. Simple. Easy-peasy. Get in. Take notes. Get out. And this party is going to be juuuuuuuuuuuust fine. I can guarrantee it."

This party is doomed. Uta can guarrantee it. This is going to be like herding catgirls. With explosives. Explosives hidden into balls of yarn. Ball of yarns which happen to be on fire. Which means the catgirls are going to be on fire soon. Everything is gonna be on fire. So much fire.

Uta closes her eyes, inhales, and looks around for a familiar face to reassure her from her pyromaniac phobias.

Here gaze lands on Prophylaxis.

The party is doomed.

Cyrus, traveling with Mikage on this expedition, rubs his hand along his head as they step in. He's using multiple potions on his chest to serve as sources of light. Each time he moves, the cast of light shifts with him, staring at the bay in bewilderment. "What the heck were they repairing here? We've not seen any man sized mecha." He points out.

Mikage notes that this may have some clues on Elemental Machines. And halting over the sigil at the center of the room, he lets out a thoughtful hum. "I thought that Elemental Machines were just monsters. I didn't think the Gnomes had anything to do with that." He remarks, before stepping to one of the sides of the room, as one of those carts rushes by.

He tries to duck his head down to get a better view, but the carts are just too close to the overhang, making it impossible to get a good look. "The lights aren't working anymore, but the carts are? What gives?" He mumbles.

Hearing Uta, he then chuckles; "It is never that easy, Uta. It is /never/ that easy." Cyrus points out. "But I promise I won't attack any Chims... assuming I even know what they are when I see them. I guess INSPECT will help with that."

Shiruba is fine with her own senses and scanning relic, but taking the size of the party into consideration as a whole still strikes one of her fire arrows against the stone to light it and uses as a torch. Fire is not her concern. She's got other worries on her mind.

"At keep your eyes out for anything that could be 'glitchy' to avoid. We don't know how far this fortress extends underground, we may get closer to the corrupted area the farther we go without realizing it." That said, she holds her improvised torch up so she can examine the image on the floor. "But Gnomes do tend to lean towards forging and tinkering and magic-mechanical applications much like that gateway puzzle. Mayhaps they were trying to study the Elemental Machines to refine their own practices?"

She lifted her gaze back to the passageway, tail swishing with a mix of anticipation and anxious precaution. "The only way to find out is to proceed forward. To -explore-." The emphasis isn't really needed after Uta's moment of unusual seriousness, but she emphasizes it all the same.

Adventure is a wonderful things. Uta needed some help with her Chim project so here Gwen was. I mean she did keep putting Uta in all sorts of outfits so she owed her this she was one of the first ones to arrive. The glitched landslide. Still being in Ezzo was concerning to Gwen to the point she was only half as bubbly and bouncy as she normally is. She would look over to Uta for a moment. 5R
"I brought extra supplies, and I understand I could try to make a plushie with the crafting system. Then make a good hand made one when we get back."

She notes as she looks to Merek, she'll pause open her inventory and pull out a cup of coffee which she drinks down while everyone gets in order.

    Merek looks about the place while he takes a moment to adjust that potion belt which he wears. The man nods to Gwen, while he takes a moment to check on the place, "Well, it's pretty interesting, pretty advanced."

Unfortunately, there's nothing of particular use to be found as Proteus looks around. This place either had all of its useful things removed, used, or otherwise has decayed so far that...

A shatter of light.

One of the pieces that Proteus picks up shatters as its Integrity goes from 1 to 0, simply by picking it up. Like a rock turning to dust.

Another series of carts roll by, but it's still impossible to tell what they're carrying. If they're even carrying anything. The light that people are casting is just enough to even tell that they are carts to begin with.

Going deeper into the ruins, they have to pass a stone bridge that passes over an enormous chasm. Those who get too close to the edge will notice that some of the stone is breaking off, meaning that this stone bridge is clearly not particularly stable.

The chasm seems to go down for what seems like forever. Their lights not shedding enough light to see all the way down. And above them, it seems to go on for a while as well - until it hits a ceiling. It's as if a massive sword drove through the earth, and the Gnomes bridged the gap between the two sides. The bridge goes on for a little while, until they get to the more internal section.

Their light does give them enough of a view that they can see other bridges like theirs a bit lower than them. Carts rolling past, but there's too many shadows to get a good look at the carts themselves. There's at least one bridge to the left that seems like it used to run carts, but has been broken in half.

Finally making their way across into the deeper fortress, they come upon a large hall. There's multiple pillars in the nearly perfectly circular hall. At its center, they'll spot a sizable Elemental Machine. It's got crystals of a variety of colors in it, but currently seems to be dormant. It's holding a singular axe within one of its four arms, and seems to have a large 'tube' on its back that is connected to a long wire heading into one of the many rooms that branches off from here.

Uta's warning gets a little laugh from Proteus. "I won't hurt any Chims, but I make no guarantees about Elemental Machines. I find them.... very interesting. Machines don't just /occur/ on their own. At least if you want to accept that they don't just spawn out of the ether." Proteus takes this opportunity to gesture to the side, as if acknowledging the fourth-wall divide between 'game mechanics' and 'lore reality'. "We'll just have to find out more. I /have/ seen machines larger than a man. Or at least, /a/ machine. It might not have qualified as an Elemental Machine, but I wasn't really in a position to do a detailed analysis of it." She doesn't mention where. "So don't be too surprised if we encounter one."

At least Prophylaxis will be fine with all the exploding fire-yarn-balls. Proteus then looks up as Shiruba mentions the glitches. "... Yes. We're in Ezzo territory, and some of the corrupted creatures might be on this side of the barrier. If we do see one, avoid them. We won't be able to kill them without... special resources that I don't think anyone here has." Haseo? Kite? Nope, not here. "... I should have brought Haseo..." She mutters, then sighs as the bits she pokes at simply disintegrates. "This stuff is useless. Let's move on."

Over the chasm and through the hall, to the fortress they go. The sight of the mighty chasm gets a glance from Proteus, as does the state of the bridge. "Someone be ready to set up a makeshift bridge if we have to escape. We don't want to fall down that chasm." She mentions.

They move on, and the sight of the Elemental Machine in the hall, dormant, gets Proteus' eyes to widen and her sharklike grin to widen even more. "Heeheehee... Now this is more like it." She says, skittering closer to the machine and looking it over... But specifically not touching it. She glances down at the wire, and looks down at hoe it trails into one of the other rooms. Proteus turns and begins following that wire. "We should see what this is. My guess is it is going to lead back to a power source of some kind." She says, not even waiting up for the others.

    Setsuna chuckles a little at Uta's plead for peace with the chim's and whatever else e find here. In some ways he feels like the kid who didn't do his homework before class and now was a bit loss. So we would do what any kid would do in that situation and fake it till he made it. The carts moving, apparently by their own were ntriguing and as soon as he could get near one long enough to look he would nvestigate it, even just a passing INSPECT on one. However as they move into the hall, all possible thought about the carts vanished. Following close behind Proteus and likely others he takes in the details, specifically the crystals. The tube is interestng too, "I wonder if that tube is some form of energy call. Like a giant double A battery." At the mention of another power source he follows the wire, "So is this some form of charging station? Damn I forgot my phone at home to, it probably is absolutely in need of charging."

Goldenblade nods to what Uta says. She's not here to fight. But getting rolled over by a boulder is something she's looking to avoid as well. And the elemental machines ... are they like robots? Because who knows, with robots. They could do anything, and then might force our hand. She nods at what Proteus says, and will definitely attempt to avoid rather than engage.

She hrms at the mention of a makeshift bridge, and says, "That's not something you pull out of a pocket, you know." But ... she looks around. -Are- there materials here she could use to make something bridge-like? The one thing broke just from being picked up, she's not quite ready to trust found materials.

"Best behavior, I promise." Mikage swears, "But we'll defend ourselves if we have to." She looks across towards Cyrus, shaking a momentary look before giving a click of her tongue which seems to draw Rama's attention. The lynx moves to her side, the command to guard rather than to search.

Uta's warnings do not fall on deaf ears, however, as her gaze does linger on Merek briefly before focusing forward again. She does her best not to touch anything, following the group as they move on, across the bridge. The Ranger does pause, looking down into the shadows that descend further into the underground, obviously taking in everything about this unusual location.

Upon discovering the room with the Elemental Machine, Mikage lingers a bit back from the others. She seems to be the sort to observe from a distance first, especially with something that is both unfamiliar and a threat. "Be careful." She advises, blue eyes watching Proteus' approach.

Despite her own curiosity, she tries to focus elsewhere, "It's the Chims we're looking for. They're the first priority."

There are other things to do right now getting better conditions for the workers an idea but shop around the idea offered here would be much cheaper and improve things still. She would move along and not touch anything after she sees Proteus touch a rock and it just avoids it.

"If we get attacked I have a job to do Uta. Which is to protect the rest of you. I can promise you I won't pick fights though."

She moves ahead deeper into the Fortress as she takes it all in and she'll pause at the crystals taking a look at it and then she pauses for a moment looking at the Elemental machine.

"Oh deep-six me..."

Uta nods at Mikage. "Defense is fine. I'm explicitly warning against /needless provocation/."

"...My research... didn't turn up much, to be honest, she answers Cyrus, "But there seems to be some strange connection between the Gnomes, the Chims, and Elemental Machines. While not a primary goal of this particular expedition, it would probably be something interesting to learn more about." Uta keeps walking, "We are /defeinitely/ going to inspect them. I am running a medical inspection. In fact, I would urge /everyone/ to inspect them, using their specific skills. Appraisal, Armor Forging, Monster and Animal related skills... we don't know if they are animals, or monsters, or machines, or imans like us, or... something else entierely. It's best to keep as many options open as possible. It would also seem that different people have different skills levels, so maybe..." she glances sideways at Prophylaxis again.

So much fire.

"...maybe where one of us fails, the other will succeed."

The chasms seem to enthrall her, enthrall her so much she completely spaces out, mesmerized by the massive gap. She stops and stares up. Time elapses. She stares down. More time elapses. She doesn't even blink in the meantime.

"According to Dante's Inferno," she begins, "hell was created when Satan fell from Heaven. A massive conical crater was dug as he plunged to Earth, giving rise to the Mountain of Purgatory on the opposite side. Satan is described as being still located at the bottom of the whole thing. She smirks at the rest of the team. "As I was telling Kauchemar a while back... people have liked their underground dungeons with final bosses and Tower Climbs with rewards at the top for a while now, eh?"

Uta facepalms at Proteus. "Proteus, haven't you learnt anything from European renaissance poetry? What did I just say about the final boss at the bottom of the dungeon?"

Uta nods at Mikage. "Defense is fine. I'm explicitly warning against /needless provocation/."

"...My research... didn't turn up much, to be honest," she answers Cyrus, "But there seems to be some strange connection between the Gnomes, the Chims, and Elemental Machines. While not a primary goal of this particular expedition, it would probably be something interesting to learn more about." Uta keeps walking, "We are /defeinitely/ going to inspect them. I am running a medical inspection. In fact, I would urge /everyone/ to inspect them, using their specific skills. Appraisal, Armor Forging, Monster and Animal related skills... we don't know if they are animals, or monsters, or machines, or imans like us, or... something else entierely. It's best to keep as many options open as possible. It would also seem that different people have different skills levels, so maybe..." she glances sideways at Prophylaxis again.

So much fire.

"...maybe where one of us fails, the other will succeed."

The chasms seem to enthrall her, enthrall her so much she completely spaces out, mesmerized by the massive gap. She stops and stares up. Time elapses. She stares down. More time elapses. She doesn't even blink in the meantime.

"According to Dante's Inferno," she begins, "hell was created when Satan fell from Heaven. A massive conical crater was dug as he plunged to Earth, giving rise to the Mountain of Purgatory on the opposite side. Satan is described as being still located at the bottom of the whole thing." She smirks at the rest of the team. "As I was telling Kauchemar a while back... people have liked their underground dungeons with final bosses and Tower Climbs with rewards at the top for a while now, eh?"

Uta facepalms at Proteus. "Proteus, haven't you learnt anything from European renaissance poetry? What did I just say about the final boss at the bottom of the dungeon?"

Hopefully no one gets vertigo!

Shiruba has been up mountains enough times to not be bothered by altitude, but she still keeps a safe distance away from the sides of the bridge, just because that's logically the most fragile part of a cliff or edge. She does creep close enough to point her relic out at one of the other bridges, but it's too far away in the darkness to get an accurate scan from up here. Which is about what she expected, but she had to try. "The level of automation they've reproduced down here is amazing considering the lack of technology in the rest of this world," she muses.

And speaking of such things just a moment ago, there's an Elemental Machine in the chamber beyond! Though it doesn't seem to be active.

How long will it be until someone in this crackpot crew changes that? Probably not very... She quirks a brow at Gwen. "Doesn't deep-six apply to underwater? We're underGROUND."

    Merek looks then to Uta in perplexion at the woman's words, though he takes a moment to look about the whole of the place. The man nods a little bit, while he takes the potion belt to adjust that. He nods to people when they look his way, within taking a moment to try and meditate. He thinks about it, "Can we talk about anything else besides philosphy, please. I just want to explore."

If Prophylaxis is the one Uta is going to be relying on to keep everything from exploding for all of time, forever, then...
Actually, he seems pretty stable today. Well-rested, even. There aren't even any bags under his eyes! It's like his mind is no longer being balanced atop a pinhead, poised at any moment to topple irrevocably into unconsciousness, mania and madness the moment anything at all sets him off...!!!

It's weird.

This is weird.

Prophylaxis himself seems unbothered though. "Not to worry. I don't intend on doing any harm to this place that it doesn't force upon itself. I can't guarantee we won't set off a lava trap or unleash some kind of cththonic horror from the depths of the earth, but that's always the risk you take when you're dealing with these kinds of things, no?"

On that cheery note, onwards! Onwards. To...

An inactive Elemental Machine. Prophylaxis whistles softly as he brings his staff-light up to illuminate its body. "That's an Elemental Machine alright, but the colors of those gems... Are they able to be built to have more than one elemental affinity? Or... /all/ the elemental affinities? Fascinating."

Proteus skitters into the dark like the gremlin that she is, and Prophylaxis nods along before moving to follow her. "Surely, messing around with that machine's power supply can't possibly cause any problems we can't deal with. Let's see what there is to be done, hmm?"

Cyrus seems far more at ease this close to the Ezzo 'hellscape' border, than he is in the Tower. The youth glancing back at Mikage, nodding to her, and stepping in line with her, following across the long stone bridge. He's staying healthily in the middle, while grabbing one of the potions and pointing it ahead a bit like a searchlight.

"Let's make sure we don't fall. I think I have some wind and earth techniques if needed. But nothing that can easily catch anyone at this time." He points outs.

When they get into what seems to be some kind of central area, he remains a bit close to the entrance, concerned with any kind of threat range there may be on the Elemental Machine, and kind of 'hugs the wall' so to say, looking at the various pillars. "I think I hear something moving ahead." He calls out as he approaches the wire section...

Setsuna thinks on their feet and remembers they have INSPECT. Aiming at the cart, they get a quick flicker of something rushing past, before finally locking on...

CART

It's a cart. At this distance, it doesn't look like they can get anything useful on this one.

---

Inspecting the Elemental Machine declares; ELEMENTAL MACHINE - MODEL 434F4F4B. It has all the symbols of a Monster, and its threat rating is Yellow.

Inside, once Proteus gets close enough to the Elemental Machine, and before anyone properly even has a chance to investigate the room the wire is coming from, those elemental stones suddenly light up. It ripples from color to color, almost like a slot-machine, until it ends up on Red!

Its eyes then open, and the thing spreads its arms in the air, seeming to roar out a metalic whining sound!

A red shield immediately surrounds it, and it takes a heavy step forward. It's about three times the size of a regular person. Nothing as enormous as some of the enemies that people have been facing recently, but it's still sizable. As is that axe in its hand!

The thing seems to seek with its eyes for a moment, before declaring; <"Intruders detected. Eliminating unauthorized presence."> And remains... standing for a bit.

As a sixsome of small black creatures suddenly hop out from various hallways. Each carrying a different weapon. A pitchfork with only two teeth, an enormous metal and very flat shield with a hole at the top, and some kind of... metalic rod with a handle attached to it!

The little hopping black things that are quickly moving to deliver these items, upon inspect...

CHIM CHIM

With not a single symbol on them. They don't register as gray, or green, red, orange, black. No threat colors. They just have a name, no symbol, and that's it! Each one has a white symbol on their belly, each appearing to be unique to the Chim Chim. Their little feet making cute hop-hop sounds with each step!

Rama's ears immediately swivel when the machine begins to light up, as if the lynx can hear the inner workings of the machine. His fur stands on end, back arching slightly as warning, even before the color flickering settles on Red.

"Shit." Mikage takes a step back, her sword still held in front of her more as a light than as a weapon. She falls back into a defensive posture, but she moves closer to the walls, trying to avoid being in direct line of fire with the Elemental Machine.

When the Machine seems to pause, though, her head tilts, "It's.. not attacking?" There is some confusion in that, but the question is quickly set aside in favor of the new creatures who emerge.

She looks to Uta, "Is that them?" Certainly, a quick inspect seems to suggest as much. "I've never seen anything without any kind of symbol before."

Goldenblade hrms as Uta recommends everyone inspect everything, and so she will pause in her scanning and try inspecting the bridge? And the walls, and the spaces and the machines. Because who knows, particularly in a place like this? She's never inspected objects before, so she's not sure what will happen. She stays away from edges, and will only get close enough to the machines to inspect them. The more innocuou things get a hands-on inspect. Because who knows? But she doesn't want to be the one to cause disaster. She sidles a bit farther away, over on the other side of the group, now.

And then, and then ... the one detects intruders. She's pretty sure she's not the one that set it off, so there's that much, but can remainin quiet and still help to avoid detection?

When the Chim Chims come out, and people start calling out to stop them from delivering those weapons, Cyrus is at least on the ball. He's been in countless raids with maddening mechanics, this one seems simple enough. As one of the group of Chim Chims starts getting close enough to the Elemental Machine, he throws a potion to the ground, creating a frozen over patch!

The Chim Chims proceed to step onto it and try to make progress, but between the axe's weight and their slow movement, they just kind of... hop-hop in place, trying to go forward, and failing to do so.

"I've got the... Spear group? I think that's a spear." Cyrus remarks.

"It's probably just winding up its attack. Be prepared to attack it." The Cait Sith then notes, keeping cover behind one of the pillars.

ALARMS! ALARMS! ALARMS! "Hm," Prophylaxis considers amidst a chin-rub (and most certainly not a Chim-Rub, that would be /extremely rude/.) "I guess we should have figured that would happen, what with the whole 'power tube hooked up' to it thing." Are they going to have to fight? Is Uta's attempt at herding catgirls (f) and catgirls (m) about to go up in smoke before any diplomatic contact is even made with the chims!?

Yes, but also no.

Because the chims... are now here.

"Oh," Prophylaxis' eyes go wide and he claps a hand to his cheek, "They're... /adorable...!/ I thought the name sounded cute but this is really something else. Hm."

But they seem to consider the adventurers to be threats. That's a problem. Prophylaxis frowns and...

Sets down his staff.

He takes a step forward, his hands held in a placating gesture, "Don't worry friends, we are only here to talk. Here, perhaps you underground-dwelling fellows might like a jewel with some history...?" An item materializes in the doctor's hand. It's an old gemstone, its surface scratched and damaged, but there's a deep inner fire beneath the tarnished facets. This jewel once belonged to an ancient king.

"Here," the doctor says, offering the gem to the nearest chim. "An offering of peace. We mean no harm to you and yours, we only wish to learn."

    Setsuna looks at the machine as it starts to stir and whir, " Ok I just want everyone to know. I didn't touch it." Backing up a step he prepares for the slaughter, maybe even the danger bumping up to red or black. It doesn't come though and then he sees them the things that they came all this way for. " Chims, I presume." At the mention of the symbol he turns his head and Inspects the chims, "Not a monster or an animal. Not even one of the new symbols." His curiosity does lose out though as he remembers the danger and turns back to the machine. " Ok either its charging up to be able to move and attack, or it can't attack ." Hearing Cyrus's comment he adds, "Or that. Someone should probably disconnect it from the wire." To many variables, not enough information, best to let the opponents make the first move.

    Merek takes a moment to think about it, while he watches the chim chim that are coming about after the machine begins to activate. "Alright, well that looks to be interesting," the man notes while he inspects the Chim Chim.

"Think outside the box. Earth Pillar is pretty useful, you know?" Proteus replies to Goldenblade. "I'm sure we'll make it work."

That said, Uta is admonishing Proteus and using literature to do so. The mid-gremlining Imp pauses and glances over her shoulder back to Uta. "I'm sorry, I didn't take... /liberal arts/ courses." Proteus replies with amusement. "We're not here to rush to the end, Uta. We're here to explore and understand. And that means being thorough." She then resumes gremlining.

Or would, if the Elemental Machine didn't light up. "Well, that's a thing. Type COOK, huh?" But then there's the matter of the sudden appearance of the CHIM CHIMs that are delivering objects to the machine. Her eyes land on one in particular, and she mouths something silently before moving over to the Chim that caught her eye and simply... reaching out to grab the thing it's attempting to deliver, holding onto it to try to keep the Chim still. "Hello." She says to the Chim in question. "Can we talk? Can /you/ talk?"

"It... it would appear so?", Uta says, scratching her head at Mikage. "I have never seen anything like that either." Her eyes squint at the creaturs. "So... it's just not me? Nobody can't get anything except CHIM CHIM and a small HP bar out of them? Nothing else? Not even threat colors?"

"Seriously, people!", Uta exclaims. "Get it together! Spahtjahr, a machine so advanced it considers us insignificant, mentioned that the Chims are among the few who can rebuild her leg- Oh, snap! I forgot to ask Jazz if she had something we could use to show the chims we might need repairing Spahtjahr's leg!" Uta facepalms. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Thumb, index, and middle finger reach for her temples, while her eyes stay narrowed into horizontal slits. "No, no, Uta. Don't. Stay focused. Look at the chims and-"

"...Oh no...", she whimpers.

Her eyes, which were almost always (and unusally) narrowed in some sort of intense stare of concentration during the rest of the mission, pop open, all the way, in terror. "they... they are adorable!", she gasps, and does so not with pleasure, but with /dread/.

"They... are... adorable! SQUEEEEEE!", she exclaims, the dread now completely gone, with Uta having geared up into fangirl mode and rushing to... hug them. Just hug them.

They found the Chim Chims!

Awkwardly it's because of the alarm, and they appear to be coming out with weapons to load the rest of the Elemental Machine's arms. Not the weirdest mechanic she's seen happen, but it seems rather impractical compared to all the other automation they've seen around here.

But how are they suppose to stop the rearming without hurting the things they were here searching for in the first place? Well no one said to not attack the weapons they're carrying.

That's exactly what Shiruba does. When Uta goes to grab the Chims in a hug, which isn't really a surprise, Shiruba tries to grab the weapon/tool they were carrying and pull it away from them.

Gwen just looks at the Elemental machine she will raise her shield but not go for her sword she look at the thing for a momehnt as it powers up. She does not like the look of this, heck it sounds like an glitchy police robot in an old movie she saw once. She backs up slightly as the six critt show up wait they are chimm.

"Are those the Chim?"

She asks wioth a curious look on her face as some people try the peaceful option she'll hold back for the moment.

Between Proteus grabbing the /really heavy knife sharpening rod handle/ (making little progress in picking it up, at least serving to slow down or halt the Chim Chims), and Cyrus frosting the floor to stop the giant... meatfork from being delivered, there's still one item that does get delivered. The 'shield'... which, now that Proteus has translated its name, suspiciously looks like a really heavy duty chopping block!

Well, it would, if it wasn't for Uta suddenly trying to hug one of the ones carrying it. They look her way, and make a confused singing sound, trying to quickly speed things up. But Uta manages to hug the one at the back of the line. And the one at the front ends up stuck carrying all the weight of the chopping block, unable to make progress on its own! But it sure is trying! Little sweatdrops appearing on its head. But it's too heavy.

It seems to grimace at Shiruba, as Shiruba picks up the other side of the plate and they get into a tug of war. One that Shiruba... notably is losing. The Chim Chim is /strong/, its tiny manifested little purple 'arms' barely holding on like a teddybear's arms. But not strong enough to really make any progress without the other Chim helping.

They're all trying their very best.

The Elemental Machine seems to almost 'wake up' after a period of time, almost like it was waiting on some kind of timer to elapse. Perhaps expecting the Intruders to depart. Before turning its red searchlights on Prophylaxis as he approaches one of the Chims Proteus is dealing with to try and give that gem. The little thing motions its hands up, trying to take the gem, releasing the item, causing the other Chim to have to try and drag it on its own. Again, it's strong... but Proteus can handle it. Thanks to the weight of the weapon weighing it down.

Then suddenly, down comes the enormous 'axe' - which is notably suspiciously a lot like a butcher's knife - cracking the stone where Prophylaxis stood moments ago, presuming he did not fail his 'DOOOOOODGE' check. The Chim still holding the gift. It then swings the blade at him again, trying to follow up.

<"Intruders detected. Eliminating unauthorized presence.">

It seems that is the only realy sentence it knows how to speak! Stepping forwards, the line detaches from the bottom of that tube on its back, and the thing points its arms at the various people... and starts spraying flames their way. Magical flames blasting their ways, clearly intended to Roast them!

    Setsuna quickly pulls up the earth infront of him protecting him from the flames and any chims around him as he does his best to quickly come up with a plan, "The wire was in the tube, then maybe.." Taking a deep breath he shouts to the group, " We need to pull this things battery, remove or destroy the tube! Especially if we wwant to end this with as little damage as possible. I'll try to pin it and you guys do wwhat you need to." Stepping out from around his barrier he begins to cast, "Thorn Bind Hostage!" The vines and thorns appearing around the machine trying to hold the machine in one spot.

The ChimChim is MUCH stronger than their small size would suggest. Shiruba grips the 'shield', digs in with her heels, but the thing is still successfully dragging her along. The best she's done is slow it down a bit by being additional weight.

But the Machine turns and opens fire across the chamber, and she's forced to let go to avoid it. Not entirely successful in doing so, as even after rolling away she's got to keep rolling to put out the flames she's been lit with, before finally getting back onto her feet. "Only Gnomes would be mad genius enough to turn a kitchen appliance into a security system!"

She gets an arrow into her bow and takes aim, the Third Eye briefly appearing flickering above her as she focuses on a small and difficult target to hit. "Disable it's limbs, that's it's main means of attack even without weapons!" She does just that, aiming her shot into one of the arm orafices the flames are coming out of in an attempt to block it up.

    Merek lifts up a magical shield which begins to shimmer along in front of the man, making sure that the flames will shift away. The man then begins maneuvering to the machine, "Alright, I am going to try and take care of the machine without you know, breaking the thing." He then begins to use a spell, while a hand will point to the machine, a firebolt blasting into one of the mechanical arms that are wielding the devices.

There is a long look of confusion on Mikage's expression, torn between wanting to preserve the Machine and the Chims and the very real need to not only defend themselves, but eliminate a very real threat to their lives. "Damnit." She mutters in an undertone, frustration evident on her features.

The fact that the creature may very well be some sort of Chef is also lost on her, the pieces of that clearly not as obvious to her as it might be to some of the others. "I'll... see if I can slow it down." She moves her hand across the flat of her sword, channeling some water magic into it before pointing it upwards, circling the blade to create a small storm. Her breath hangs in the air.

Then, with a gust of air magic, it is sent towards the Elemental Machine, where frozen rain begins to pelt down. The intention obviously to form ice along the outstretched limbs, slowing them or entrapping them in ice rather than seeing to do damage directly.

Hm, perhaps putting the staff down was not the best of plans. It is, after all, kind of an important tool to have on hand when there's a flame-throwing elemental machine throwing flame all over the place! Prophylaxis is just a moment too late on the draw, just a fraction of an instant too tardy. Fire nips at his heels and singes his back and shoulders. It hurts! It stings! But not as badly as the prospect of fighting these adorable little creatures or even letting them come to harm...!

And so he resolves... to not do that thing.

It's biased. He'll never claim that it /isn't/ a biased attitude. But they're not monsters, they're just defending their homes! And they're small and cute and deceptively strong!! And also well within flamethrower range. Prophylaxis grits his teeth and presses through the pain. "Please, small ones," Prophylaxis pleads, "Stop your security system before we're forced to do something we'd regret! We come in peace and only wish to talk!"

But he does not simply speak when he does so.

Instead he... attempts to target the chim he offered the gem to... With the <CHIMLINK> MENU...!!

It's a wild gambit, a shot in the dark, but he has to try.

Also, he's erecting a wall of stone between himself and the nearby chims and the Elemental Machine. Because flamethrowers hurt!!

Uta guessed right! So. Much. Fire.

Her valiant attempt at dodging (while still holding onto the Chims) almost succeeds. Fascinating word, 'almost'. A very nice way of saying 'doesn't'.

Lying down on the side, moaning, wings twitching as her cheek presses against the ground, chims still being held in her grasp (and probably trying to wiggle free?), still covered in flashing red and stipples, she mumbles, "...I don't care... months and months of hugging slimes without having the [Handle Monster] skill have prepared me for this..."

The Chims make a singing sound of surprise when hugged? Uta seems to realize this only now. One can tell by sudden expression of surprise on her features. Taking their choir as a main theme, she attempts to weave it into a calming, soothing vocalized song, which starts similar to what she's heard, a few times, picks up complexity, and progressively slows down into a soothing lullaby.

Goldenblade shrugs to Proteus. "Maybe?" She can't do Earth Pillar, so she can only guess. Maybe she'll have to work out a way to cram Bailey Bridge sections into her inventory, then she can be something like one of those military bridelaying tanks in the old newsreels from her youth. Those always seemed pretty cool.

Then she's leaping aside, a heartbeat ahead of all the fire in the world. It takes her a few moments to get her wits about her after that, and to make sure nothing's on fire. She darts back in, the soles of her boots scraping across the floor of the cave as she delivers a fierce blow to the Iron Chef. She doesn't want to become the next meal!

This just got a lot messier. Proteus frowns as she tries to keep the Chim from delivering the object, which turns out to possibly be a good call as the IRON CHEF begins acting to provide Adventurer Flambe. The rotating flames force her to break out one of her best defensive abilities, and her hand flicks. + U K

The humming barrier of energy forms, and Proteus turns to try to block it, but the thrumming field just isn't enough to stop everything. The fire washes past, catching Proteus with the burning wash. Sometimes... Having a big cloak like that just doesn't work out. With the wave of pain washing over Proteus in a flush of red damage-glow (and a corresponding drop in HP. the Imp grimaces and looks back to the Chims. "You need to stop it." She says to them, and then leans in and whispers a word to the curious creature. It might not be something useful, but it's something to try... The correspondence is too important to ignore.

Cyrus remains behind the Pillar, raising his own barrier of fire to halt the flamethrower. "Shit! This thing is beefy, and has some serious DPS. I don't want to think what would have happened if it'd gotten its weapons!" He calls out to the others.

He notices that Mikage is trying to help slow down the Chef Bot and takes some time to find a potion to solve this whole situation. Especially as the ice is melting under some of the Chims. That's when he hears Uta... and the echo of some chims starting to sing along.

So he grabs the whistle he normally has on him, and begins to use it from behind the pillar. Slowly keying into the soothing lullaby that Uta is starting to call out, and melodically uses lower tones to create a soft line underlining her tone.

He doesn't often use the flute, but he knows to use it when needed. It's barely even a hobby. But years of playing the recorder back in grade-school has prepared him for this moment!

Gwen would stare down the Iron Chef, she doesn't flag the Chims as a problem to her. Uta would be very unhappy, sad and maybe even mad if she hurt the Chims. So they are not on the target list for the moment. The IRon Chef on the other hand? Gwen is able to trigger an ability before the flames come for her.

"ANCHOR HOWL!"

Tha is all that saves her from the flames and then Gwen is counterattacking with several rapid sword strikes.

"GALE OF SWORDS!"

However they are not aimed at the Iron Chef no she's trying to use the winds to keep the Chims tied down and force them back rather than out right trying to kill them.

Merek's Firebolt slams into the Elemental Machine's arms - but it halted by the flame barrier it created earlier! The flame barrier fails to die under the assault of fire, it'd seem! And its flamethrowers are significantly dangerous enough that each moment one stands in it, they are taking more damage!

Mikage's ice descends upon it, causing multiple icicles to rain down and hit its hot barrier... and blasting it away! The red gem stops glowing as bright as it did before on its body, allowing others to properly push through.

The thing moves in jolting manner as it tries to find its targets as they attempt to hide or otherwise get out of the way. The joltiness starting to slow as Setsuna pushes the Thorn Bind hostage into its body, stopping it from chasing people with its 'rampage'. Shiruba's shot into its arms seems to barely miss the target, breaking a part of its left arm flamethrower however!

Prophylaxis' earth wall stops some of the Chims from trying to approach the Elemental Machine. But attempts to target them with the Chimlink menu fail. He can't friend them, and certainly not communicate like that outside of his Party and Raid channel during combat. The chims just stare at him for a while... wobbling side to side...

As they begin to dance a bit, letting out a sweet singing sound that might remind someone of a Mogwai from Gremlins. Little tuning sounds that weave into Uta and Cyrus' attempts to play a sound. Except, the little creatures seem to change the tune into something they understand. Simply... standing there as a choir, tuning their song. Proteus' words seeming to influence the cadence of the song, but not much else.

In the meantime, Goldenblade finally reaches the Iron Chef, right as its red gem stops glowing, and flicks to Blue! Suddenly, a blue barrier springs up right as her fist hits its chest, punching it back a few feet and denting its armor!

Gwen then gets its attention, slashing into its body with Gale of Swords while holding her Anchor Howl on it. Its spread out attacks ensuring some opportunity attacks in there for her.

As its blue barrier starts to falter under continued assault, it suddenly spreads out its arms. The top two arms changing into some kind of crystal tipped devices...

And bubbles of water suddenly begin to spring up within the region! Left, right, everywhere! Trying to trap people and drown them, before it switches back from Blue to Red...

And attempts to sous vide its enemies!

Luckily, the Chims are too distracted to aid the Elemental Machine at this time.

    Setsuna dodges the bubbles and is fortunate to do so as the bubbles turn into boiling water and the steam from the machines attack can be felt. " Thanks for stopping the chims," He says to those that were trng to keep the chim chims busy. Looking at the machine, " Seems like water and fire are available to it now," taking another moment he debated between his attacks before he begins to channel magic into the ground under him. " Pilla of earth rise and strike my target" A pillar of earth would launch towards the machine, particularly Setsuna's target on the machine. The tube.

    Merek looks to the flame barrier while he begins to draw up the divine shield which protects the man. He then nods a bit, while he takes a moment to pick up one of his potions, then he throws that magical explosive into the machine. It aims for the devices, while he then begins to swish his longcoat, a small explosion beginning to shift along the creation.

The strange choir that the Chims create is enough to act as a distraction, causing Rama's ears to tick back as the cat seems uncertain if these should be treated as a threat or not. Still under the command to stay defensively at Mikage's side, he does little more than snarl warning.

The cat's more keen senses are tuned enough that it gives Mikage a moment to be able to react as a pool of water starts to form beneath her. She rolls out of the way, a bit supernatural energy making her feet blur as she manages to avoid being boiled by the Elemental Machine's attack.

A bit of sweat beads on her brow as she turns back towards it. "It's... using the elements we throw at it." She theorizes, without any real knowledge to back up the statement. "Still, probably better to try to use opposite elements."

With another surge of water energy, she slashes her sword out low to the ground, sending a surge of ice magic towards the Elemental Machine's legs while still trying to keep her distance.

In spite of the doctor's best efforts, the chims do not seem to respond to his pleas! Clearly creative thinking is not going to be the way forward here. Singing might be, but he isn't exactly known for his melodious voice.

That song, though... There's something eerie and haunting about it. Unfamiliar as well. If this is a song that the Landers do not know...

What? What does that mean, exactly? Are there lost songs...?

Also, there's a moment where he nearly drowns, so that's always fun.

"You know," Prophylaxis grunts as he emerges from his near-watery-grave, "I did not come down here to break a machine I would rather prefer to study, or to assault a bunch of strange elemental creatures." The doctor's staff whirls, then slams into the ground. A wall of wind erupts from underfoot, encircling the raging golem and preventing the chims from making any further progress.

It's honestly a little more than a 'wall' of wind. Really, more of a small localized hurricane, but it serves its purpose.

Goldenblade fights frantically with the Iron Chef. She's quite agile, and lucky besides, and between both those talents, she's managed to keep most of her HP. She peers at the colored gems glowing, and takes a moment to try and work out what that could mean. Only for a moment, though, before deciding it -could- mean anything, and she had better get on with trying to smash the battery. She attempts a precise thrust with her blades, but rather than striking the battery, they catch on a bit of machinery, and her blades are turned aside without effect as the machine shifts.

The crystals on the machine flick and change colors... and the elements in use seem to change when they do. That has not escaped Shiruba's attention.

Like when bubbles start to form to try and trap people. "Oh bother... Terra Firma!" She forms several spikes of rock around herself to pop the bubbles before they can close in around her. Unfortunately that leaves her wide open to the blast of flame that follows.

Or it would, if Gwen wasn't there to play Protective Big Sis and intercept the fire blast!

"Now that's the Gwen I know and admire, thank you." Gwen tanks, and Shiruba keeps up the DPS. That's the way they've always done things.

She turns her attention back on the Elemental Machine and it's crystals that corrispond with elements, earning its name. Draws an arrow and nocks it, takes aim... "Let's see if we can't scramble this a bit by adding a different element to the mix." Seeing as people are protecting the Chims she's not too worried about area effects.

The arrow is aimed to hit as close to the glowing crystals as possible. "LORD. OF. VERMILLION!" Being underground doesn't stop the powerful surge of magical lightning that comes crashing down, slamming the Elemental Machine several times! Arcs of electricity crackle away from the impact!

It's been using Water and Fire, Shiruba is hoping throwing a different element into the mix will help scramble the machine's regulation or something.

Cyrus is forced to duck and roll from one of the water spheres suddenly coming to grow right near him, avoiding the jets of flame. The Cait Sith is remarkably quick on his feet for a support class. Grabbing at his hat as he rushes to a secondary pillar closer to Mikage, flinging a few healing potions about. But he's having trouble keeping up doing that, and keeping the Chim Chims at bay at the same time.

What's more, he notices he's being... drawn into that other melody. Not in some kind of supernatural manner, but rather in the way that a choir's numbers ensure the line of a song. Sinking into the melody, he goes along with it. A little delayed on some notes, but keeping up.

"I think this is keeping the Chims occupied." He remarks in between some of his notes, finding a moment of pause to throw another potion, but it sails over Prophylaxis' head. "Shit." He mutters, before he returns to the flute's melody.

It's just like in that Studio Ghibli movie!

There was this girl that started singing Take Me Home, Country Roads, then the guy who dreamed to travel abroad to become a famous flute maker chimed in with the flute he made with his own hands, which was not as good as his grandfather's, but he was trying hard, and they made a harmonious song together!

It was sweet enough, but then, all of a sudden, an unexpected impromptu concerto happened while a bunch of soot balls entered the room and started a choir.

Meanwhile, in the background, the bishounen magician with the mechanical castle was throwing fireballs (or was it a fire spirit?) while the witch from the delivery service was shooting spells left and right to support his mechanically inclined friend who went around slashing his way around with swords, and the little girl summoned some sort of giant ball-shaped raccoon forest spirit thing -- wait. No. The movie didn't quite go that way. How... how did it go?

Six months here, and it's becoming so hard to remember...

Uta frowns, and shakes her head. She'd been singing pretty much on autopilot until now, but now the harmony seems to have taken a turn for the different. She's quick to adapt, and vocalize along. She hums the tune, she can't tell if the Chims are singing words or anything, they're just... musical sounds to her, but she tries to follow along with her operatic 'oohs' and 'aaahs'.

Gwen has been a tank for a long time. Fragment, SAO, ETOffline, and other tames she see what's about to happen to Shiruba and she moves rapidly to interpose herself between Shiruba as she's attacked Gwen takes it pretty bad but she's still in the fight as she takes the damage.

"Shiruba you are getting slow!"

Ths hears Cyrus and Uta's song well the melody at least she keeps up her defences otherwise keeping herself from taking more damage. She'll ready her sword again and lunges at the Chim, trying to disrupt them with an air attack but once again trying to not kill the Chims just scatter and interfere with their support of the Iron Chef."

The problems just keep mounting as the cook tries more ways to (elementally) serve them their heads on a platter. The blasts of elemental energy force Proteus to begin moving, hurling herself out of the blast radius of the IRON CHEF to skid to a halt. However, the Chim also needs to be stopped. The haunting music causes her to grimace for a moment. Proteus never was good at music. She is, however, good at other things. "That might not have worked, but I have other options. Let's see how fast you solve this...!" She flicks her hands, entering another Ability.

                                   ( ! J                                    

A moment later, a gleaming lock manifests and closes over the Chim, bands of runes enclosing around the little creature and attempting to constrain it from doing anything.

A pillar of earth strikes against the water barrier on the machine. The strike aimed at that tube slightly glancing off, but damaging the tube! A wave of 'slowness' appears on the machine. Almost like that strike did indeed halt its movements for a moment.

Merek's explosion shatters the temporary water barrier, but the flame barrier that came up shortly after holds strong! Luckily, Setsuna's earth attack seemed to just pass through.

Mikage's water and ice cascades against its flame barrier, shattering that as well, and creating the opportunity for people to push through freely! The machine stepping back, almost as if it was surprised at its barrier (and mechanic) being broken so quickly!

Prophylaxis serves to protect the Chims with his walls of wind - Gwen helping his direction of magic with her own wind artes, preventing any of the Chims accidentally ending up targetted by its flames! Though one does end up in the water! It's one of those 'collateral damage' things one simply can't do anything about...

And the purple Chim Chim poofs into purple mist as its health rapidly hits zero, and is gone. No shatter, no light. A purple mist.

To the strange background song - definitely not appropiate battle music - the battle continues. Just a few weeks ago, people complained they missed the soundtrack to the game playing in their ears as they played. And now they are dealing with this. Uta and Cyrus continueing to put on their best performance, but keep getting dragged into the melody of these Chim Chims.

Shiruba's punches land against the body of the Iron Chef, pushing it further back, starting to dislodge the tube on its back!

LORD OF VERMILLION suddenly blasts into its body! The lightning attack rushing through its body and causing it to stall for a moment, stunned. It doesn't look like it has an electricity or earth crystal on it.

It them switches again, shutting down for a moment, before switching to a /green/ crystal, creating a wind barrier around itself! It then proceeds to hold its single weapon in its hand... and slashes it down at the ground.

Before a sudden enormous slice carves through the ground, following the airstream of its attack! It then quickly begins to chop at the ground like it were chopping carrots and other veggies, aiming their attacks at the various people in the chamber! CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP!

One of the Chims is just about to step into the way of one of those blows, when Proteus' lock suddenly takes root, and stops it from moving for a moment. It comically stands there, frozen in space, before it finally falls over, three legs lifted, one down, mouth open, stuck on one note, before the ability wears off and it picks up the song once more.

    Merek looks to the machine while he draws up the shield of light which protects the man. Then he takes a moment to begin shifting his magical ability forward while he brings about magical ice along the frame of the machine, a lightning beginning to shimmer along that and into the machine.

    Setsuna dashes out of the way, his boots glowing with a small buff as he turns and sees the good doctor in the way of attack , "This will hurt." He charges towards the doctor and shoves him out of the way as he is hit by the attack. It did indeed hurt as he stands up slowly, " I saw it you stupid machine. Your weakness." A magical circle appears under him as he begins to chant, " I call upon those that have fallen to this beast before. I summon the dead that wish revenge. Rise up minions. Take the tube at all cost." Setsuna sends his minions specifically at the tube to grab it and rip it from the machine.

If nothing else, the shifting colors of the Elemental Machine make it easier for Mikage to read what sort of attacks might be coming their way. The subtle shift to green indicating that there would be an air attack next. "Air." She murmurs to herself, and then calls up some of the water vapor from around her, seeming to form a protective mist arond herself. Then, just as the attack should have hit, it impacts the mist instead, blasting it away. Mikage stands nearby, the distraction of the mist having taken the damage instead of her.

"Shit... running low on mana." Mikage's eyes flick, likely checking her hud. She's been using a number of ranged attacks utilizing her magical abilities, without leaning heavily into the physical. It's all been in an attempt to disable the Elemental Machine, not to flat out destroy it.

"Should still have enough left for one more..." She slashes her sword through the air, creating a trio of slashes which seem to hover like miniature storms for a moment before flying through the air towards the Elemental Machine. They're aimed towards one arm, trying to pull her damage to the extremities if she can.

Uta seems to be into this far too much. She seems to have completely forgotten about the battle raging around her, and she's pretty much sucked into the choir in a similar way Cyrus is. It's Karaoke night at the Chim Chims' place!

As the battle rages on, and the intensity of the song mounts, Uta gives all she's got. She launches into a crescendo, even swinging side to side, while chims get blasted around, locked down, and elementar air attack fly by behind her.

But what are you to do when a jam like this comes on the radio...

...or is it on the 'chimlink'?

Having helpful subordinates can be pretty useful sometimes! Like when a certain Setsuna-shaped object knocks Prophylaxis out of the way of a flesh-flensing shockwave just in the nick of time to keep the good doctor's hp from falling to zero! It goes down just a little bit anyway, because getting pushed around can hurt when your bones are apparently made of glass.

"Setsuna... Thank you for the assistance," Prophylaxis murmurs as he pushes himself up, again slamming the earth with his staff. "I don't know how much longer I can keep up the defense, but we've already lost one chim, and I do not wish to see any others fall here!"

And so there is, again, a wall of earth that rises between the chims and the still-rampaging robot. Prophylaxis' MP bar depletes a little more, a creeping a little closer to zero every moment as he keeps re-casting the spell to maintain the barrier. But he'll hold it for as long as he can...!

Cyrus continues to use the flute. Noting Mikage being low on Mana, he throws an underhanded toss to Mikage, a blue potion. "Catch." He calls to her, as the finishes her wind attack. "I don't think this will be much longer though." He adds, as the music continues.

Rising and falling notes seeming to reach a crescendo on the song as fast as this battle is reaching its crescendo. It's a strange melody, but it's got enough calming elements in it that allow people to better react to the thrum of battle itself.

Honestly Shiruba didn't need to thank Gwen but she is thankful for it. She now turns her attention on the Iron Chef this time her eyes narrow.

"Got a little something for you, I'm afraid you are done in hell's kitchen."

With that she chants and launched into a series of wind elemental sword attacks after she closes the gap with the Iron chef.

"DIVINE WIND!"

It seems Gwen's come up with something new and interesting though given that phrase connotations it could totally give some people the wrong idea of what the Sylph is trying to do.

It is satisfying to see that attack go off... and the way the Elemental Machine studders from the sudden intense shock doesn't escape her notice either. It decidedly did not like an element it did not posess itself. Or was it because she used lightning and it has water. Hmm. What would work against fire on something that also has water...

Her musing pauses for a moment as the Machine recovers and starts chopping and slicing the air. And making the air slice. "Cyclonic!" she calls out, and a spiral of wind whips around the wolfgirl, dispersing the surge of wind with her own barrier of air.

Then back to the matter at hand. She draws an arrow, utters an embuement into it, and fires. This time aiming low, beneath where the Elemental Machine stands. When the arrow hits the ground it causes it to vibrate abruptly and violently. It's less a direct attack and more intended to destabilize the machine's stance, making it more vulnerable. Or maybe even fall over!

And then ears flare up as Gwen shouts with her addition to the assault. It's a new technique Shiruba hasn't seen yet... and more importantly, as native Japanese she gets the impression of something else entirely from Divine Wind.

"GWEN!" she literally barks back. "I appreciate the save but FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODDESSES NO SUICIDE STRIKES!"

A little overreaction since 'divine wind' translates for 'kamikaze'.

Goldenblade's defense is getting sloppy as she grows more deperate to pull that battery. She thinks that's what we're still working on. She's a bit too desperate, though, finishing a long, slow swing without enough time left to avoid its counterattack, and she winces as she's injured by that heavy blade. Still not as bad as RL injuries, and she fights on, or tries to, but she's been knocked back from the melee, and it'll take a moment before she can get back to the fight. She looks around the area, as she rejoins the melee, to see where she can best contribute.

It's something of a situation for Proteus to be caught between a Chim and a sharp place. The last thing she wants is that thing to get loose and make use of that sharpening tool on the huge cleaver that it sports. With the wind washing around it, Proteus isn't really of a mind to attempt to deal with the barrier it's sporting either. However, at the same time she does have a solution for the massive blade coming down.

The answer is precision. As the blade strikes, Proteus twists, her bracers swinging in an arc to meet the incoming blade, and with a THOOM, a 'Deflect!' prompt pops up as she manages to send the attack awry, slamming to her side instead of cleaving her in half. Normally, she would follow this up with a critical attack, but she has other issues in mind.

That Chim is still about to wobble over and support the damn machine. "I've given you more than enough chances, little singing Chim." Proteus says, and her fingers dance. "How about you go on a little trip?" V . S M

A moment later, the rock beneath the Chim jolts with a sudden almost comedic POING noise, launching it and the tool it carries back towards the hallway it came from!

Setsuna's minions go for the Tube on its back! Pulling and tugging while trying to get through the wind barrier! Magical ice impacts on its front, weakening the barrier, starting to falter as Merek focuses on the thing! Shiruba's arrow then bursts into the ground, sending up rock and blasting the wind barrier with stones, disrupting the magics and causing that green crystal to weaken in its glow...

Prophylaxis keeps up his own barrier, stopping the chims from getting harmed, with Uta and Cyrus continueing their song to keep the Chim Chims distracted - not wanting them to support the Elemental Machine. Luckily, no new Chim Chims have arrived so far!

The follow-up air attacks of Mikage's and Gwen focus on wind, both slamming into the last remnants of the barrier on the Elemental Machine from just earlier, before shattering through! Gwen's Divine Wind chopping into its right arm, while Mikage's howling miniature storms pull on the other arm, slowly starting to pry it off with fierce windsheer... until it finally comes out of its socket and falls to the ground!

Unable to defend itself properly anymore, Setsuna's minions finally pull that tube off of its back, some wires snapping off of the thing - with Goldenblade cutting through to ensure the wires are properly loosened, and the Elemental Machine falls quiet.

The battle over, the Elemental Machine remains at 10% health, with a DISABLED status effect on it that seems to have no timer on it. All of its lights have faltered.

Leaving the Chims to approach at the end of the song, and hope up at the creatures holding that tube, trying to reach it. Clearly, the Chim Chims are attempting to repair the Elemental Machine - some of which get POING-ed away by Proteus' earth pillar, making it impossible for the remaining ones to even lift the enormous 'battery', even if they could steal it from the undead. Two of them remain at the edge of the room, singing amongst eachother though. A different song now.

Uta, on using her Pharmacy to inspect them for special statuses, will notice on status:

< RESONATING - This Chim is resonating with the 'Eternity Song' >

    Setsuna watches as the machine falls over disabled, and grins in a way that wwould make even an Imp shrudder. Giving a whistle to his skeleton minion, he hestitates a moment before frowning and seeing the size of the tube compared to the skeleton, "Well I suppose that's not happening." He dismisses the skeletons and moves over to the tube and begins to inspect it to get an idea on how the 'battery' worked. " I could spend probably a month here and not figure out everything in this damn fortress." It was an idle comment meant more for himself then anyone else as he looks up at the wire to the other room. "Or a year."

    Merek looks to the machine when it's taken care of, then up to the chim chim while nodding to the party, "I don't know what to make of that all, this is all..." The man begins to adjust his potion belt, while he watches.

Mikage catches the potion that is thrown her way with an almost instinctual quickness, popping the cork and downing it before tucking it onto her belt. She'd give it back to Cyrus to re-use later. "Thanks."

She turns, fingers lightly glowing with blue energy as she seems ready to charge into battle with that drawn sword of hers, but that is when the Elemental Machine falls still. "Whew..." Releasing the magic, her breath still hangs slightly in the air. With the lessening of tension, Rama buts his head against her hand, getting a ruffle of his ears in response.

Looking from the Elemental Machine back to the Chims, then onward to Uta, "Do you think you'll be able to get the information you were looking for... despite the fighting?" She sounds uncertain, not really knowing anything about the little creatures.

She does wander a bit closer to the boss, though, her own curiosity getting the better of her.  

Goldenblade looks around in the aftermath of that fight, a bit banged up, but victorious. She looks to Uta and the chims, and asks, "So, have you found out what you came to find?" She's doing a construction-based Inspect of the machine, something like this would be perfect as, say, a bulldozer or to power a crane. Not this, obviously. But a thing like this, if she could make it.

Cyrus peeks out when things go quiet, aside from the two chims singing in the background, and puts his flute into his belt. "It seems to be over. Good..." He remarks as he steps over towards the machine. The Disabled status on it is notable enough. "I never realized these guys needed some kind of powersource? We used to find them in all kinds of places. Usually just using one type of element. I wonder if this one was a Prototype of some sorts." He suggests, rubbing at his cheek.

Gwen sees the Chims are no longer an active threat and will sheath her blade. she'll take a moment to look over to TUa and grins a little bit as she'll take a moment to inspect her friend to see if anything strange has happened to her, she would take a moment to inspect Uta with her own Pharmacy skills. After all the strange things that have happened and she wonders with that song Uta was involved with during the fight. She looks to the rest of the party.

"This went better than I hoped and Uta I'll get to work on some plushies before we head back as templates."

Uta seems to snap back to be aware of most of the world around her. No trace of her previous focus or seriousness are there, she blinks multiple times before the gears in her brain seem to finally catch onto each other and come to a relative approximation of realizing what is going on. "...what happened to Mecha Gordon Ramsay?" She asks, as she wobbles to stand. "...Did what we prepared for it taste like soggy crackers? I... I think I warned you about this?" she says, scratching her head. "I think I did deliver a speech when we entered here, but all is fuzzy. I suspect it might have been about not feeding Mecha Gordon Ramsay any menu-crafted food. It drives it mad." She keeps rambling on and making increasingly less sense, until Cyrus snaps her out of it. "Right! Medical inspection!" She begins singing the new song along the few chims that do, and after selecting the option to inspect from her menu, she moves to pet them lightly, to achieve the physical contact needed for medical inspection.

Her singing stops abruptly.

"RESONATING", she announces. "This Chim is resonating with the 'Eternity Song'." She frowns. "This means..."

She punches her palm. "This /Chim/. It's used /once/. Which means that the first Chim must be the species name, and the second Chim must be the proper name! It's like Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny, except they'd be called Duck Duck and Bunny Bunny- OH MY GOODNESS, that explains the Bun Buns! They're a bunch of Bun, each and every one of them called Bun!" Another pause. "...does this mean they're in a perpetual Strange Mood? The Chims, I mean, not the Bun-Buns. Although... that'd explain a lot..."

"Pluuuuuuuuuuushies....", Uta drools. Her pupils grow a couple of sizes and she just... bluescreens.

It takes a long moment for the combat rush to subside and the full realization settle in that Gwen meant a literal divine wind, not a historical metaphorical one. "Ooooooh. Well..." She ahems into a clenched fist in a moment of embarassment. "Nevermind then!"

There is plenty to divert her attention to, of course. She strolls over to take a closer look at the Disabled Elemental Machine for herself. "Yeah," she replies to Cyrus, "I was thinking the same thing. The elemental combo pattern threw me off a bit because of that. I really should know better than to keep such assumptions... hmm." She picks up a piece of the machine that fell off, examining it.

The Elemental Machine comees to a halt, its rampage nipped in the bud before it could be brought to an unrecoverable state. It's a welcome development, and means that Prophylaxis can focus his attention on mending wounds and making sure nobody is still subject to any crippling debuffs that might result in their untimely and utterly preventable demise.

...But the chims are still circling around that battery like it's... "Hm. If they reinstall the thing, they'd probably be able to fix the machine, and that means we'd be right back where we started."

Uta does Uta things. Prophylaxis stares for only a moment, before shaking his head and moving toward one of the chims circling around Setsuna's undead. He kneels down and reaches to... pat one on the head. "It's too bad we couldn't figure out a way to actually talk to them. Though at least it's good that we know they seem to respond to music, and appear to have a compulsive need to fix broken machines."

He frowns, then. "...I wish we could take them from here. If we left them, they'd be the first casualties if the dome surrounding Ezzo ever failed."

    Setsuna looks up at Cyrus, "I always thought it was the crystals that they had on them that provided power. Seeing the connected wire was the clue. Seems to be size relative too." Turning his head to the Chims, " And I am guessing the Chim's are very much the mechanics and engineers of the creature. " Taking a moment he staands up and looks at the group, " I'm going to follow that wire, probably should have someone make sure the Chims don't plug the battery back in." He motions to the ground before he tries to trace back the wire leading to the other room, seeing how power was supplied could mean a game changer, hopefully it was leading just around the corner.

Proteus, in the aftermath of the Elemental Machine being felled, immediately moves to look over the fallen thing and quickly pilfers a part or two when she thinks no one is looking. The glowing, obviously elementally-aligned crystals are a good target but they're very obvious. She might have to just settle for more of the internal mechanics.

But, one yoink later, the Imp turns her attention back to the Chims, and Uta's response to them. "Resonating... Didn't you say that the others who had the Strange Moods were resonating too? The Eternity Song... I wonder if this is another manifestation of the same phenomena." She rubs her chin. "I'm not good with songs, though. I'd have to talk to Bard Squad at the guildhall to look into it." She more or less just lets most of Uta's rambling flood through.

Instead she looks to the other markings and takes notes. One of the Chim's markinds was known to her, but the others present might be useful in other ways as well. She'll have to research later and compare her notes. From there...

"Do we have everything we are planning to get from here for now?" Proteus asks. "I think this place is going to take more than one visit to properly plumb. at this rate." She follows along with Setsuna. There's always possible opportunities for more learning.

And theft. But mostly learning.

Maybe a little theft. As a treat.

When Setsuna checks on the chamber beyond, he finds that the wire is sticking out of a wall... where some of the carts keep arriving to. There's a series of crystals collected in a neat pile, but right now, they're not really being serviced or having anything done to them. There's nothing to power after all. It is easy to destroy the wire to a point where it would not be easy to fix.

    Setsuna looks at Proteus and then back to what they have found and sighs , " I guess expecting some obvious blueprints or a computer to program it was out of the question. Then again ..." His eyes fall on the crystals, " Do you think these are the same type of crystals that were in Mr. Choppy back there?" It had been an idea of his to research them since seeing the barrier magic and here might be a huge stash of unused crystals and the sight was tempting. Who knows what security systems pilfering would activate though.

Uta turns to Proteus as she's called into question. "...Yes. Yes. I got a readout for Fey Mood, 'The subject is Resonating with this world's Primordial Song.'." And for Mujou, "'The affeted is resonating with the Earth Song.' I saw a status named as 'Yuugen', twice, but I couldn't get the readout either time." She frowns at the Chims. "These, conversely, just get RESONATING, not a specific name..."

"I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to remove them from here...", she says, hesitant and uncertaint. "We don't know what they eat, drink, we don't know how social they are, if they have family, just how intelligent they are... they seem capable of a technology beyond what any Adventurer can..." She turns to the group. "And they seem to have feelings." At least she's turning her back to the Chims right now, so, if anyone wanted to pocket one without Uta knowing, this would be their opportunity.

Uta's information is helpful and filed away. "It's definitely a mystery." She agrees with the Slimentist. "But the nuance eludes me still. We're seeing the results of the phenomenon but nothing about what precisely induces it or why. If it was possible to, maybe, observe someone falling into Resonance then maybe it might help understand how it works."

The pile of crystals gets a little smaller as Proteus gets near it for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Certainly not because the Imp is liberating a half dozen of them and shoving them into her inventory. She can't hear you over her swiping elemental batteries, Setsuna. "Most definitely, Setsuna." She agrees. "These bear much more intensive research. I have some... plans." Plans that will only be advanced by having a proper power system methodology to integrate.

Shiruba glances up to the others as she drops the piece of machine in her inventory. "What would we do with them, anyways? They seem to be made for working on this weirdly advanced ancient tech, which none of us have been able to replicate... and they only seem to fix, not build, so..." she shrugs a little. "But we might have to come back and explore other parts of the Fortress, too."

    Listening in on the others Setsuna laughs for a moment and shouts out to Shiruba, " What if Chim Chims are the people who fix all the damage we cause? Maybe they are around here simply due to all the glitchiness and extensive damage." It was random crackpot theory in Setsuna's opinion but well he's heard crazier as of late. As he turns back he notices the pile of crystal smaller and then looks at Proteus and then back to the pile. "Well then I should grab one or two, for research purposes. " With that said he reaches out to the pile without the skill of Proteus and just picks up one and waits for the temple to crumble and the giant rock ball to come crashing down. If it doesn't he would put it in his inventory and move along.

The temple does not crumble, the crystals are just... picked up. And as Proteus gets a better look, no doubt expecting them, she might note that they are simple methods of storing magical energy. She could probably produce these herself if she had enough money for some Catalysts, or could get an Alchemist to create some for her. Some work of an Accessory Forger, and this would be a fairly typical item to get out of that kind of skills merger.

Uta agrees with Shiruba. "Let's leave them in their natural habitat. As I've told you, pretty much all sources I've consulted seem to indicate that they are very picky about where to live, and you find them in very few places." She gestures around, while her gaze is lost into the distance, "I mean... none of us had never seen one before, right? And it was hard enough to pinpoint them to /this/ cave in the first place..." Going into exposition mode, at least, makes Uta miss Proteus's and Setsuna's sampling of the pile of crystals. "I'd say that if we can come back and assure that no damage is done to the environment, and that the Chims can be treated safely, then that's good. I'd also definitely look into whether we can somehow set up an arrangement whereby we can get them to fix Spahtjahr's leg. She did imply they could..." Uta trails off.

An abrupt change of subject, "...I suppose relocation could be considered only as an extreme measure if, for some reason, this place became non-viable. Say, for instance, if it started glitching..."

    Merek picks up a few of the crystals as well, if he can. The man begins placing that within that pack with him, while he nods to Uta, "Aye."

    Setsuna does one final thing after hearing that we wouldn't be back again, he reaches out to the wire extruding from the wall and nods, " If we are coming back we should make sure they can't recharge the bot." Giving it a sharp tug he looks around and then over to the group, "Anyone with something that can cut, I could use a distinct cut as close to the wall here as you can on this wire. "

"I'd recommend against damaging the cable or the machine any further," Prophylaxis says as he rises from his Chimspection. "We don't know what exactly is needed for a chim settlement to thrive, and it may be that by permanently damaging the Elemental Machine, it would cause the chims to move on or worse. We know that they appear near Elemental Machines, so it may be that there's more to it than just 'maintaining' the things."

"In any event," he says with a shrug, "We know it's here and a threat now, so if we return it shouldn't be too much trouble to just remove the battery again, right?"

    Merek looks at the battery, then the chim chims. The man walks up to them while he takes a moment to look at the crystals. Then he points at the crystals while he nods to the chim chim, "Do you want it back?" he asks. The man looks like he's mindful of the chim chim.

The Chim Chim does not appear to understand it. But if he wants to give them a crystal, the Chim Chims will gladly take a crystal... and return it back to its 'basket' behind the wall.

    Merek nods a bit to the chim chim, "There you go, little guys." The man smiles, then he begins to adjust that potion belt, while he finds a few things from the inventory to offer to them, trinkets. Then he walks along while he thinks about it.

The Chim Chims will gladly take any Trinkets Merek gives them... and squirrel them away in the same 'basket' behind the wall. They don't give him anything for it. But they do gather around him to receive more items.

Uta keeps on rambling about Fey Moods. "It's interesting how different the readouts are from time to time, though." She turns to Prophylaxis. "While you were under its effect and I inspected you, you read out just as 'Fey Mood', but got no readout for it. The readout about resonating with the Primordial Song came from someone else who also had a 'Fey Mood' status."

"I think there is a lot to explore here, yes. For instance... we could look at that zippy cart system of theirs. It's faster than anything I've seen in this world, maybe we could study it and see if we can create something similar on the surface? Maybe we can have trains again...", Uta suggests. "And there is so much to explore! The bridges, that chasm that goes both up and down..." she trails off.

And listens.

"...but yes, here we walk in, like invaders, talking of this place as if it was ours. Technically, I would say, it's the Chims' home. Maybe we should hear their opinion on the matter?" She moves close to the remaining chims. She'll fade in the background, trying to see if she can make any sense of their musical language. Like one would with a completely new intelligent species they meet. Pointing at objects, trying to get their 'word' (or melody?) for it, things like that. Occasionally joining into song. To... establish good relations. Not because it's fun. This is a serious anthropological expedition. Yes.

Crystals of this nature aren't revolutionary, but having the proof-of-concept allows the Imp to base more advanced designs on it. Getting these things back to the Plant Duck Workshop will allow for some... interesting options, especially possibly for future renovations.

The Imp doesn't bother dealing with the wire. At this point, she looks around and emits a low hum. "We've more or less extended our non-interference mandate to the point of absurdity at this point, don't you think?" She asks, not bothering to hide the hypocrisy of her mentionining it when she was one of the primary violators. "Well, I suppose we should get moving at this point. There's little more we're getting done here without an extended examination into Chim behavior."

The sight of them mobbing Merek handing things out causes the Imp to giggle a bit. "Funny you mention trains..." The Imp asides, but doesn't elucidate. Instead, the Imp simply begins slipping out towards the exit to the hall, where she'll just watch the antics and see if there's anything else of note to pick up on informationwise before she leaves.

Shiruba is just watching the ongoing with a bit of amusement, not wanting to disrupt the moment as people work with the Chims in various ways

    Merek seems to think about it, taking a moment to look to every chim chim. He then begins to place the trinkets about in places they can all find it. He's not got an endless supply, all the same he keeps a lot of little things from expeditions that are definitely trinkets. The man offers a little pet to one of the chim chim, then he tries to sneak away to the entry way. Perhaps the words from the machina about not seeking them were important. Not because of the issues they would bring to Adventurers. Maybe they were just a society who kept things all working. "Ya, I think while it's good to research, well let's not keep anything that might be important."

As Merek tries to sneak out, he'll realize quickly that Chims have managed to kind of appear from various nooks and crannies in the room, picking up the Trinkets. More and more kind of mob them. And when he tries to depart, there's another one that immediately is in front of him, and he ends up tripping over the Chim. The various Chims just kind of surround him... stepping over him, one of them jumping on him, trying to see if items will fall out again.

And thus, that was the last anyone heard of Merek for that day.