ISMA Fizzy Beverages, Hand Puppets and Quick Getaways

The ore looked to be low quality iron ore, with nothing magical about it. The workers arrived with their new mine cart and looked to Soda, waving their arms in protest. They were all corpses in various states of decay, the only one operating a body with a working vocal set shouted, "Please get off the mine cart, you will slow us down and we make commission."

Nep nodded furiously, "See they are not unwilling and the ore is not dangerous. It's just what my tower is made of, it's a big banner to all of the other mages out there of the quality of my material, I refine the ore and sell the metal." He explained while the workers worked out how to get the cart past Soda without him getting hurt.
 
Soda slowly shook his head and hopped off the minecart, moving clear and making his way again to the stairs. "Forgive, Soda is suspicious of necromancer." If they presented no threat, and Soda was not told to do anything, he cared little about the other undead who were working. Them being willing laborers was a nice cherry on top, were they not, Soda may have harmed Nep in retaliation. He still had to consider whether or not Nep was planning something, though. He was somewhat slow to trust as far as humanoids went - kobold instincts - so he kept a hold on Nep's cerebellum that may have felt something like a hand touching the back of his neck.
 
Nep laughed when Soda apologized for being suspicious, "Oh please. It's just good to be taken seriously." He said, grinning at the accusation. He could feel Soda's grip on his physical brain, guarding his thoughts as he knew what Soda was capable of. His surface thoughts constantly streamed out, but he constantly started interrupting any idea he had with, "He's holding on my brain, we just need to go back to ISMA and pay the fine." He said swallowing heavily.

Erika tried to hurry Soda up the stairs, "Come on, Nep isn't getting less annoying and the princess is probably getting impatient."
 
Soda, was not making any attempt to read Nep's thoughts. He considered doing such a thing distasteful, unless he had explicit consent. However, he was quite prepared to tighten that psychic grip lest Nep attempt to make a break for it. Though he had to admit he was beginning to understand Nep wasn't quite as bad as he initially believed, he remained as vigilant as if he was waiting for a move.

With that in mind, he made his way up the stairs, his little legs having to work quite hard to achieve his speed, his bare padded feet pattering on the stone floor. He quickly went up the stairs, utilizing a small branch of his consciousness to scout ahead wherever he went - effectively glancing around corners before his physical body reached them, pathing himself near directly to the Djinn and his friend.
 
Erika ran up the stairs with him, but eventually got frustrating at staying in line with Soda, "I can carry you and we can go faster." She said, building up power in her legs and core so that she could move faster and carry both Nep and Soda.

Nep attempted to relax a little as he heard the plan, but couldn't because he kept having to rebalance himself on her back. He instead gripped her tabard tight and squeezed his eyes shut.
 
Soda grumbled, as his little legs struggled to carry him up the stairs. "...fine, you carry." As he continued to run, he raised both his hands into the air so Erika could grab him more easily. He felt like the baton in a baton race, but he knew Erika was significantly faster than he was so he had no complaints about being carried by the elf.
 
Erika grabbed him up quickly as soon as he was ready and began to leap quickly. Taking a flight at a time and immediately turning and jumping to the next flight. The landings were wide as were the stairs, made so that four people could walk abreast. When they reached a landing halfway up they discovered why, a large number of undead soldiers were stationed on one of the floors of the tower.

Their weapons were held at rest but they were in their path. They parted nearly grudgingly, inviting the party onto the floor.
 
"This mission has been incredibly convenient." The kobold noted, wriggling out of Erika's grasp and up her arm onto Nep, where he took a perch. He was stable on his feet, and even with Erika's inhuman speed he had only moderate difficulty keeping himself in his spot. He kept a firm grip on his gun, lest he need it - he wasn't entirely trusting of a large number of armed folk he didn't know.
 
As soda sat on nep, he began to speak, "maybe convenient for you." he grumbled for a moment before turning to look at Soda, "what are you anyways, I haven't seen your like before."
 
"Convenient for you, Erika not dragging you." Soda replied curtly. It took him a while to answer Nep's question, he considered it somewhat rude, and had to take a moment of thought to decide whether or not he should even dignify it with a response. "Soda is kobold." He finally shared.
He patted Nep lightly with one foot. "Soda not too heavy?"
 
With Sodas comment on dragging, he stopped complaining, "Kobold, interesting, extraplanars always fascinate me." when soda asked if he was too heavy, Nep shook his head, "you're pretty light, thank you for your consideration."

Erika opened a final door which led to another staircase that James was at the top of with the Djinn, "the princess is unharmed."

"of course she is." Nep said almost taking offense, "she is of political importance."
 
"More like you may be killed if she is harmed." Soda croaked in retort. And ah. There they were. The xenophobe. Despite his outfit which completely concealed his identity and made him resemble a small patchy ghost, he was nervous about a possible hostile response from the Djinn regardless. Still, he didn't hold it against them.
Soda had in his youth, grown accustom to receiving vitriol from other humanoids - though he was pleasantly surprised to find that very few people disliked his kind, unlike his homeworld, where they were almost universally reviled as pests.
 
The princess observed Soda with his snout and turned her head to the side, she couldn't tell what he was through the patchy sheet but she could tell he was extraplanar. She ran between the two groups, looking Soda over, taken aback by his appearance. She flipped up his hood to see his face and her eyes began to sparkle, "Oh my god! Cute little lizardman! My hero!" She said, wrapping her arms around Soda without asking.

Nep rolled off Erika in the confusion and pulled an amulet out of his pocket, throwing it over the head of the floating dead vampire and jumping back, falling into the heavily armed crowd of the dead.
 
Soda, upon being touched unexpectedly and without permission, only barely fought the reflex of biting down on whatever he could, and instead released a noise similar to an excited french bulldog and immediately began squirming to try to get out of their grasp. In the process, he broke concentration on both the vampire and Nep's brain, causing the vampire to drop to the ground and Nep to get into the crowd.
After a few seconds of desperate struggling, he managed to shout "Get off me human the Nep is escaping!" Squeezing his eyes shut, Soda summoned a small sphere in the air above his head, which rapidly expanded into a large sticky web that rapidly enveloped everything in a ten metre radius.
 
The vampire corpse clasped a hand on the amulet as soda dropped it. He threaded his head through the loop as the webs spread, enveloping him and catching nep.

Erika tore through the webs to get to nep, only to be stopped by the hand of the vampire grabbing her wrist. His wounds were stitching together, leaving blood red markings where they once were. The princess screamed to see the corpse of her vampire rising from the dead.

Nep laughed as his undead armies began trying to pull him from the web, "looks like the experiment was a cursory success"
 
"James! Elevate!" Soda shouted, telekinetically yanking his gun into one hand, while the other deftly loaded it with an orange shell and locked it in place. Being so small and in such a crowd, he had to gain elevation to get a good shot on Nep - he was going to use the thaumaturgy bullet to create a localized field of intense gravity, the intention being to immobilize Nep and his minions - though Erika would be well inside the field, Soda was confident she was strong enough to resist it's pull.
 
James dove through the web, shredding what remained of it with his metal body, and landed next to soda. He picked up his friend and put him on his shoulder.

Erica began fighting with the newly risen vampire, punching half of its face off with one strike. It grew back a blood red face in its place, bones not fully solid, eye not fully formed.
 
With his new perch, Soda had a good line of sight on Nep to centre the gravity field onto the necromancer. Soda was a master marksman, and nailed him square in the chest with the orange bullet. Half a second later, a 10ft radius sphere of 3x gravity, enough to force most people to the people to the ground.
 
Nep had been fleeing, so Soda's bullet actually hit him in the back and fell under his own weight. He wasn't the strongest of folks, but with the help of his undead soldiers he kept moving. Erika ran into the crowd of soldiers and began pulling them apart as she went, the risen vampire corpse beginning to follow her. James kept Soda up but shuffled his feet impatiently, "Do you still need me to hold you up, it looks like Erika could use some help."
 
"No, help Erika." With that, Soda slowly levitated into the air - he wasn't yet able to easily lift himself, which is why he needed Jimmy's help to get the altitude; but now that he had the height, he could easily maintain it.
From there, he provided his own assistance, loading a yellow marked casing into his rifle - it cost him a small fortune but to ensure the capture of a bastard like this it was worth it - he was sure if he made a directed effect spell one of Nep's undead would block it, so this was a chain lightning spell that should function a bit like a taser with way too much power - enough to stop the heart of most humans.
It required about a single second to take aim and fire, as Soda was attempting to avoid his friends and the undead and strike Nep directly - stopping his heart wouldn't be such a problem, after all, he could restart it if need be, and if he couldn't, it wouldn't be so bad.
 
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