A World, A Part

thematthew wrote:Fallen Arches trots behind Dynamo, "So, how do you know they actually have a leader? Judging by the mismatched appearance of them and their homes, they may be some form of anarchistic government, or perhaps they live in a anarcho-syndicalist commune where they have some form of temporary governing body. Honestly, these people and their weird land with it's four greater powers of some sort, it's enough to make a pony go a little batty... It must be the sweetness..."

"Yeah, but you never known for sure until after you ask round... Even if we can't find any official we're still learning about how they respond our noncandyness... or even if they can realize that factoid about us, along with us asking weird questions about possible topics they know nothing about. Just sometimes getting a no for an answer is just as important as finding a yes... Just make sure to learn all you can. And use what you learn to help the party I say..." Dynamo retorts in privet inbetween asking around the town about what she looked for. "You never learn, until you ask, and you must try to understand what infomation you gather even if they don't know what they're really telling you..."

"Oh, so you mean that I need to spend time learning about my victims before I strike... You are good at this. I'm really glad I have you to keep my brash impulsiveness in check, there's no telling how badly I could have screwed this up if I just tried to start subjugating willy-nilly." Fallen Arches says with a smile that seems sincere, and kinda disturbing once you realize what he just said.

The Reaper shrugs and tries to hide itself in Dynamo's shadow. The townsfolk probably wouldn't be all that happy to see an avatar of death, even one that is out of work.
Roll (Stealth: Hiding in Dynamo's shadow)

Roll:

Spoiler:

Dynamo does see the horror that Fallen Arches words mean, but she's got bigger issues to deal with right now. And she figures she could be able to deal with Fallie if need be. "Yes that train of logic is sound... I will do what I can to keep you in check. Just make sure you pool your info with me and the rest of the team, if you figure out anything that we might've missed even if we didn't your point of view might help us on the issue to finding out a way to use such info in ways we'd not see at first glace. We're in this whole Realm Building task together you know, so we gotta work together as a team."

"Ooh, I know what we need: a lackey! I'll go find one!"

And with that Fallen Arches trots off to find someone to be a new minion.

Spoiler:

Dynamo just facehooves then went back to her own info quest for any type of leadership in this realm.

When the party approaches there is a lot of staring. Some stare up at the looming form of Gnarl and run away and hide. The rest are either too curious to be scared or are just standing around nervously in an in-between state, ready to run for it if need be.

Dynamo gets a whole lot of nervous but polite hellos and howdies and what are yous and where did you come froms. Eventually she manages to get her question across. When they realize what she's trying to ask they look even more nervous and look back and forth at each other. The general response, given in stops and starts as people interrupt each other, is that this town, simply know as Crossroads isn't really led by anypony due to them being at the intersection of the three realms and it would lead to trouble if one group or person were to be seen as the head of the community.

Meanwhile Fallen Arches tries to intimidate part of somepony's house, mistaking a giant gumdrop for a living being.

All the robot does to explain where she is from is just fair, away, with a small group of oddities like herself. But, Dynamo does ask to why trouble would happen if there was a leader in this town... Also wished to learn more of what these said "three realms" that Crossroads lines inbetween. She explains it off by her group traveling from an extreamly fair place that would hard to explain how to get there from here.

After a bit more of people talking over each other and trying to avoid the issue, Dynamo gets the impression that the three realms are locked into some kind of cold war and one being seen to rule over this town, which is a major landmark and throughway of some historical importance would be viewed as an act of aggression.

As for the three realms, they don't really seem to have proper names, just rulers. These would be Boss Molasses who you gather is some kind of crime-lord become ruler that nopony would dare cross, though some speak well of him and his less overbearing rulership. There is Queen Caramel who is "oh um... uh... just... just great" said by people more or less in an abjectly terrified manner. Then there is Lady Chocolate who is given glowing and dreamy, if somewhat vague praise by those who really have much to say about her.

Dynamo thankfully didn't voice her own distaste of "Queens" nor how in her home realm Queen was just another word for Tyrant. So she already HATED this Queen Caramel character with all of her soul from seeing the fear in the ponies that were willing even to talk of her, even if she didn't think the title was in itself a bad title, she couldn't stand for the fear she saw in the candy people. But this Boss Molasses she liked almost as much as she was hating Queen Caramel, while Molasses was a crimeboss, just hearing some few voices of people that did like him. Spoke valumes to her about the man's character, he was to Dynamo the only "good ruler" (IE: Good at ruling itself, not mortally good) of the three major powers. Finally Lady Cholate was a total mystery to the robotic pony... She'd have to be on the "need to meet asap" list too. Good news: we got three major powers to chat with. Bad news: It seems like we might not get any resources form this realm so easily as I had hoped... And if we take too much, we might spark a war here. She thought to herself and maybe the group as a whole if they do have that mental powers. ((OOC: I think they do have some type of mindspeak system unless I'm mistaken, sure we should know about having that skill, but we didn't think much about it. So um.. Yeah...))

Fallen Arches trots back over to the group, "Wow, nopony here wants to be my new lackey. Oh no, there are definitely four powers here, they just don't know about the fourth because they are ignorant of its sinister existence, otherwise there would probably be someone who wanted to be my minion." He pauses for a moment, "I did mention that, didn't I?"

When Fallen Arches mentioned the fourth power everyone backed away from him.

Dynamo blinks. "Um... What? A 'fourth power' huh? And why'd everyone back away like there is such a thing. Are you all hiding something? You like following some fourth power or something?"

"I haven't hidden anything from you, if I can't be honest with me mentor who can I be honest with. I just somehow know about there being 4 powers in control of this place, one of which is somehow foreign or something. Is this making sense to you, 'cause I really have no idea how I know this right now. Ooh! Maybe I can impress the locals with my mastery of the mystic arts, that ought to get them on our side!" He starts fiddling with the clasp of his cloak again.

"Um... No thanks, don't think magic's going to help us right now... Please just stop talking Fallie, right now might be smarter to stay quiet..." Dynamo said with notable worry in her voice. Something weird is going on right now... Then she whispered to her ward. "Maybe we'll need to, deal with this mystery fourth power or something... Given this reaction it might be the only think to save ourselves right now. But first lets see what the others think and do right now... Then follow their lead if they got a better idea."

stealth check:

Fallen Arches leans over and whispers, "So I should stop talking about this mysterious 4th power that seems to have the natives visibly upset, and just watch you use your masterful techniques to get them to do what you want? So this is a learning exercise, I should take notes." And then he sits down and starts writing into a big, ominous looking tome titled 'My Diary, read only if you want me to make you part of it.'

Spoiler:

More data required for deciding on a course of action.
Possible method of acquiring data, found.
Setting in motion
Vinnie walks alongside Dynamo, then leans over and whispers.

"I have an idea. I'll meet up with you guys once you're out of town. I wont go too far, so Kyath will likely be able to contact me. I'll probably have more information then.
If the natives ask what happened to me, tell them I was dying of sugar poisoning. Alien species and all that."

With that said, Vinnie lets out a loud gasp, coughs, and keels over. As he does so, he loosens the connective networks of the swarm, dispersing into dust and blowing away on the wind.
A few hundred meters out of town, he starts the process of reforming, making sure he only does so out of sight of the village.

Gnarl, not being privy to the plan or the swarm's capabilities, led the charge of panic completely by accident.

"What in the name of the Lifestar just happened to that sprout?" the...gnarled...old tree barked out, a sound suspiciously like a nervous cough erupting from the middle of his sentence, or somewhere thereabouts. A dangerous look passed over his face. "Who did this?!" he shouted to the area in general, angry flames forming spontaneously on his shoulders.

It wasn't exactly what one expected to see out of a tree.

Spoiler:

Dynamo's eye twiches at she feels just everything going wrong all at once.

Kyath just sighed quietly as he wheeled and spun lazily around the town. They'd been here 5 minutes and already they were trying to scare the locals.

The Reaper comes up from Dynamo's shadow, jams the butt of it's scythe into the fabric of reality and hastily scrawls, in burning letters upon the air itself, in it's surprise and fear not fear (why the hell a reaper would feel fear is beyond me...*cough*).
Well I haven't reaped hishertheir? soul. So I think they are still alive.

The townsfolk all scatter except for a lone filly who just stands there going "oooh" until one of her parents rushes back for her and drags her off.

"Don't mind me, I'm just going to go hit my head on the ground for a bit..." Then the robot starts hitting her head in the ground over and over again.

Fallen Arches pokes Dynamo, "So... does this mean the learning part is over now? Because I already know how to bash my head against the ground." After a couple of seconds he adds, "also, I'm reasonably certain that this is bad for your physical and mental well being. So you probably shouldn't prolong this course of action."

The Reaper just wanders off to see if any of the townsfolk have died of fright.