ISMA Fizzy Beverages, Hand Puppets and Quick Getaways

Moose

Squiddily diddily
Benefactor
@Geck0
James tapped his fingers on the surface that he was resting on. It was a metal table that was simply a squared circle, a pile of magazines on the lower part of it. He would be fusing with it to get moving, but that wouldn't work, it had no moving pieces. He would just feel the table and get pain as it was damaged, but he needed something to do while he waited, so tap tap tap away he did. Erika was working on repairs for his most recent construct body that he was going to be using for the upcoming mission. He disliked being away from his home where he could work in his shop and simply make the repairs himself, but he needed to meet up with Erika and Soda, and Erika had the biggest house.

She finished tightening down the ribbons that would give him the resistance necessary to fight properly and stepped back quickly as he impatiently leapt onto the construct, bloodwood taking root in the structure. His joints clicked as they moved his metal humanoid form, various exposed threads that gave him the ability to move like the muscles of humans. He began putting the plates onto the body to protect his threads, "All right, so now that we are ready... I guess we can begin. This is a high profile case, bigger than usual." He said, the eyes lighting up on his body to begin displaying a hologram of the person they were going to rescue. They looked like an ordinary human, but their hair was dyed blue and green.

"We have a Djinn who is the leader of a small country in the plane of water, they pay taxes to ISMA, and Nep the Necromancer who has kidnapped her does not. He lives in his tower in the Earth Plane and that's where he is keeping them." The hologram of the human was replaced with a tower of metal that had two bodies ornately curling around each other but never touching till the tip where there was a sharpened point. "Now, despite their androgyny, I have been assured that they have female genitalia, and will accept female pronouns. When carrying them be careful of their chest as they will want to either be insulted or aroused depending on their opinion of you..." James blinked and the hologram disappeared, "She... They are a xenophile, so I would recommend you be especially careful if you have to touch them Soda." He explained.

Erika chuckled, "What about the vampires?" She said. She was dressed as one might say a barbarian might be dressed. She was a muscular elf woman, wearing metal plated gauntlets and boots with a tabard, and nothing else. Her hair was brown and cropped closely to her head with an undercut.

"We will not be getting paid extra if we extract them, however we are to be advised they are her pets and she might refuse to leave without them. Any questions?" James finished.
 
While Erika prepared James' body for him for the mission, Soda occupied himself with his scroll, which he'd had unfurled for a few hours previous, poring over it's contents, updating some texts and images, and improving upon some of the magical formulae written that had been previously haphazardly scrawled in seemingly at random. However, sensing that James was moving into the body, he hastily dried the ink and wound the scroll back up so he could give his friend full attention.

As soon as James began briefing he and Erika though, he opened the scroll again, and began writing notes into it, pausing only when James mentioned that the blue-green haired human was xenophobic and that Soda should be careful of it, snapping his gloved hand and pointing a finger gun of comprehension at him.

Several thoughts ran through Soda's mind: chief among them, was why a xenophobic human would live in the plane of water, though trailing behind that was that James never mentioned vampires, though Erika did. He was already formulating a plan regarding the mission being in the plane of earth. The tower's presence implied that he'd have decent sight lines for long ranged combat, but he'd be wary of stealthy enemies that he knew to be common to that plane.

He did however, have one question: "How strong is Nep?" Knowing Soda, it probably wasn't a specific question of physical strength, but rather his potency as a necromancer - though naturalized, Soda had a notable speech impediment that caused him to use short sentences.
 
James stopped himself from scratching his head when he was asked how strong Nep was. It's been years but the habits of humans are hard to shake. He made a throat clearing sound, "Speaking frankly, Nep managed his spire because he became an immortal through necromancy. He is able to enslave thousands of souls and once fought a battle of the wills with a god. It ended when he took his focus off the souls he was controlling to fight, but still, that's the level we are working with here."

Erika grimaced at the description of the necromancer's power, it was one of the magics she couldn't stand, subjugation. She tightened her hands into fists, "When do we get to kick his ass?" She asked.

"Glad you mentioned that, because you will be distracting him by fighting his forces while we extract the princess. Then once we're ready you'll make your way to us to get away."
 
Soda lifted the wooden idiosyncrasy of a rifle he kept on his person into the air and injected some magic into it, causing it to whir to life. "Avoid Nep." His hat bobbed forward as he nodded his head. It was quite clear he was ready for action and raring to go, but only if you personally knew him - he had a subtle way of showing enthusiasm, and his tone and body language was almost always serious.

A tier seven necromancer in the plane of earth who'd achieved immortality and could subjugate thousands of souls at once and can for any length of time hold their own against a god was a dangerous precedent, one that was triggering the extremely potent kobold fight-or-flight instinct in Soda, so much so that his psiionic ability was unintentionally communicating to Erika and James. That said, Soda's heart rate was steady as a rock, and he was remaining calm as ever.

This, was the exact kind of thing he lived for.
 
"Also, we have a secondary mission while there." James added, over the din of Soda's internal monologue, "I'm sure you've seen enough movies to be aware of the concept of 'Protection' well, we are supposed to show him what happens without ISMA's protection. As much collateral as possible is to be extracted on Nep's end." James watched the gun.

"You got this?" Erika asked, getting ready to open the portal to the plane of Earth/
 
"Soda has not seen movies with 'protection'. The kobold confessed bluntly. Subtextually, he also didn't even know what James could have meant by that, nor did his tone give the oft oblivious kobold any clues. However, he was quite adept at thinking on his feet, so whatever he meant, Soda was sure he'd work it out when the time came. 'cross the bridge when he gets there' as the saying went.

"Soda ready." The small hooded spellslinger announced, bouncing on his digitigrade feet, ready to hop through the portal the moment it opened, gun blazing. In preparation, it was already humming, Soda having injected a concussive wave spell into it via thaumaturgy.
 
James hemmed for a moment, "Well, protection means that since he isn't giving ISMA money, we break his stuff." He said, deciding to not go through the intricacies of extortion just before a mission and just explaining what it means for the mission.

Erika nodded, "All right, stay safe Soda." She said, opening the portal and jumping through. James waited for Soda to go through, following in so that he was last inside.

On the other side of the portal was the spire of metal, reaching up into the sky, near the portal immediately were skeletons bathed in the sallow glow of the illuminating rocks. On the Earth plane there was no sun, but the rocks provided illumination.

James detatched from his constructed body and broadcast a message into Soda's mind cover me, I'm going to find the princess. With that, he attached to the building, his roots beginning to spread throughout the tower.

Erika began to take apart the skeletons and moved towards the tower, disappearing behind a door.
 
With his two companions making their roles clear, Soda realized the only thing left was for him to utilize his psiionic ability to locate Nep. The benefit to a necromancer was that the mind of their minions were weak enough to not be mistaken for a living human. That known, Soda expanded his mind towards the tower, enveloping it in a near-undetectable field and filtered out the weak signatures that would be the undead minions, as well as the signatures he knew were James and Erika.

Soda, of course, understood such a technique required the vast majority of his conversation, and left him vulnerable, but considering he'd only just entered, believed he was in low risk of an ambush. In fact, so great was his concentration, that after only a few moments, he lost balance, and his legs gave out - but even the impact of his tiny body against the ground didn't affect it.
 
James popped off of the building after a moment and hopped back onto his body, "You ok? Nep is in the basement and the princess is at the top of the tower. Nep has the vampires, let Erika know." James offered out a hand for Soda to help him up.
 
Moments after James returned to him, Soda ceased his psychic scanning and snapped back to his body. "Nep is in basement, target is in dungeon at top." He quickly told James. He accepted James' help, coming to his rough-scaled feet and started walking as fast as his little legs could carry him. "Soda gonna kill Nep, James get target." Thanks to his psiionics, he had a good idea of the distance, so he was going to open a wormhole straight into the basement to surprise attack the necromancer.

Even while casting a spell to open the wormhole from his location to the basement, he telepathically messaged Erika. "Nep is in the basement with the vampires, Soda's gonna surprise Nep, you reinforce in a few seconds. Will keep this wormhole open." He sent Erika a mental image of what he could see, that being the location of the portal that he was right about to open.
 
James nodded when Soda said he was gonna go kill Nep, "All right, don't get yourself killed." He said as he hopped onto the side of the tower and began to scale up it.

Erika got Soda's message, smashing up the desicated corpses and freeing their souls in the process. She gritted her teeth as she fought through them, they weren't the best fighters but there was a lot of them. She managed to clear her way back to where Soda was at the entrance, mowing down the enemy.

She hopped through the portal and entered the room where the necromancer was working on the two vampires. There was a third vampire, was being the key word, it had died. The other two were strapped in chairs, missing several fingernails a piece and bleeding from the mouth. From their gritted teeth, it was apparent that Nep had removed a few before they got there. He looked to the two that entered, "Oh dear, I forgot to pay my dues, didn't I?" He asked with a smirk, dropping the tool he had been playing with in the lap of one of the vampires.

"Too late for that Nep." Erika said with a growl.
 
Soda had of course beaten Erika through the portal, his gun aimed square at Nep's chest, glowing dimly with blue psiionic energy, a way to quickly pop off a psiionic spell if need be.

If pressed, Soda would admit that his loyalty wasn't really to ISMA, and his motivation for things like this wasn't to punish people for not paying the dues. He considered himself quite heroic, and his motive here was to rescue 'the princess' and punish the bad guy who kidnapped her and her vampire friends. He glanced at the vampires, noting that one was deceased, and focused his attention on the necromancer. Then he realized, that he wasn't specifically told what should happen to Nep, whether he should be arrested or killed.

Thus, he prepared a non-lethal spell, deft hands quickly loading a red-glowing cartridge into the barrel, causing the gun's glow to change from blue to red. Paralysis of motor controls, should do the trick. Meanwhile, though, he retrieved a pair of shackles from his bag using his tail. "Also ze kidnapping." He added, hoping to give any kind of contribution to the 'conversation'.
 
Nep raised his hands, a skeleton rising from the ground in an attempt to take the blow, but it was a bit too slow for Soda's gun, letting Nep get hit undefended.

After Nep became paralized, Erika moved past Soda and grabbed him by the collar to prevent him from falling, delivering a single punch to his face to break his nose. She spit on him once she dropped him, "And that's for capturing unwilling souls of people." She said angrily.

Nep was paralized but was still glaring at Erika, she clapped her hands together, dusting them off, "How long does the spell last?" She asked
 
The little kobold passively watched the necromancer and his friend as the former's nose was broken by the latter's fist. He found little enjoyment in his work, but with a draw fast enough to prevent many from reacting in time, he considered himself quite good at it.
"Maybe ten seconds, maybe ten minutes." Soda replied calmly, tossing his shackles to Erika so that she may restrain the rogue mage. Meanwhile, Soda primed a blue spell into the gun in case the paralysis wore off too quickly, which he'd use to mentally assault the soul subjugator in order to indirectly prevent movement.

Meanwhile, clothing glowed blue, as he searched for James' mental signature to message him.
 
Erika quickly cuffed the necromancer as she didn't like the sound of how it might wear off so soon. When she got him cuffed, she slung him over her shoulder and began carrying him out.

As James felt the Kobold reach out to touch him, he responded, "Hey Soda, I'm at the top with the Princess, there's stronger undead up here. Looks like Nep was working with composite souls. Might want to wait a minute before coming up, they're a bit rough." He said, projecting an image of the monstrosities that he was mowing through. There were several abominations of human bodies with extra arms, they were highly muscular and looked extremely vital for undead.

The image cut off when James cut one of them in half with his arm.
 
Had Soda been more prideful or perhaps bored, he may have ignored the advice of his friend James and left Erika. However, Soda was a pragmatist, and thus, telepathically acknowledged James' warning, and kept his trusty gun trained on Nep even after Erika hauled him onto her shoulder.

When Erika headed for the portal he'd made, Soda stowed his gun, using a branch of psiionic power to telepathically hold it above his head while he went about removing the restraints of the three vampires including the deceased one. Using another branch of psiionic ability, he telekinetically lifted the corpse of the third vampire above his head as well, while he focused his attention on the two who were still alive.
 
The two that were alive popped their joints and shook out their hands, their wounds healing up, "How many years did we lose in this?" He asked his companion.

"Must have been three hundred, that's how much Pat had." She said, taking her blouse off the floor once her wounds had healed.

"Well, we have to get to the princess soon, I only have about five years left."

The woman vampire rolled her eyes, "She's still captive and that's what you're thinking about?"

James contacted Soda, "They're all gone, come on up."

Erika stepped between the two that were bickering, the man wearing only pants and the woman wearing only her long blouse, and grabbed them both by their necks, "This is not the time. Count your years when we're out of this."
 
Soda walked the few steps required to reach Erika and tugged on her tabard to get her attention. "James has Djinn. Time to go." He headed for the door out of the basement but found himself unable to reach. Grumbling, he let his gun and the vampire sink to the ground, as his clothing began to billow and turn blue. The door in front of him creaked and juddered, slowly bending outward before soon being blasted from it's frame and slamming into the stairs leading from the basement.
The little kobold cleared his throat and lifted his gun and vampire corpse again, moving the door out of his way to go up the stairs. He was frequently irritated by the way many objects in the world were not suitable for those of his stature.
 
Nep stayed still on Erika's back, there was a flicker in his eyes as Soda was no longer pointing the gun at him, but it went away nearly immediately as he remained immoble. Erika walked out of the basement room with Soda, seeing minecarts that just went on for miles, all of them filled with ore. There were occasional gaps between them where there were sets of stairs leading upwards.

"Ok, you've caught me, I'm not resisting, and you can deliver me to the authorities, please leave my ore alone." He said, the sound of a minecart in the distance beginning to screech closer on the lines, "Also, please leave the workers alone too, they are willing and I pay them a salary to send home to their living families." He explained.

Erika sighed at the man on her shoulder, "Well, the paralysis wore off." She commented, ignoring his words and heading for the closest stair well.
 
Either in spite of or perhaps because of Nep's protesting against touching the ore he'd had miners dig out, Soda approached one of the minecarts and carefully climbed up the side to inspect the ore within. This being a villain, Soda was of course distrustful of whatever he'd be digging up in the plane of earth, known for it's exotic magical materials.

The lack of paralysis on Nep did not go unnoticed by Soda, though. Even now, the little kobold was reaching into the back of Nep's mind and grasping his psiionic talons around his cerebellum, preparing to yank it if Nep tried to cause issues.
 
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