The Guild Capitol: Chapter One

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The entrance to the portal that led to Asteroid Manifest was grand -- a great stone arch depicting sculptures of feathers and scrolls scribbled with Archean text guarded it, along with two Peacekeeper sentries who looked that the newcomers, nodding once in hello, before returning to their alert stations. The whole scene looked almost from a storybook, instead of smoothly paved asphalt, instead pretty marbled cobblestone (which was oddly flat to walk on) and a wide road headed towards many buildings that seemed almost out of place with how advanced they were compared to the stone roads. A large fountain rested in the center of a circled town square, four figures sculpted into it; one was a woman with a dryad looking face, her body wrapped in tight clothes as she was forever suspended in a graceful bound. A second creature looked to be almost spiderkin, but was quite large in comparison to vavare and had a much taller and leaner torso, with insect eyes and mouth that was locked tightly with vertical razor teeth. A third man was also sculpted, vaguely familiar to any who had met with Arya on the first mission; a simple silhouette with an almost cartoonish skull for a face. Finally, the sculpted man most heightened was none other than a depiction of Ragnarok himself, his swirling flames across the bottom of his robe forever suspended in stony projection.

Cafe store fronts littered with different aliens of all kinds and likeness, many walked around and avoided the new tourists though did smile and wave a few times as they passed. The large fountain was occupied by a woman, with fox ears and tail, wearing a top half of a kabuki mask while playing a shamisen, three orbs of water of different shades being played around with by the three draconic serpents that seemed delighted with her presence. On the other side of the fountain was a group of Terrans -- or would have been, if many of them didn't look malformed or changed, one man with spindly arachnid legs sticking out of his side as he wore a mask, a few of them having differing features of cross species from the Galaxy. One old geezer was covered head to toe in runic tattooos and was tiredly carrying heavy and thick gossamer dragonfly wings on his back as they sang merrily.

Across the way were a group of three normal looking Terran, all women, who were handling equines of massive size, two of them easily twelve feet in height, the third dwarfed by about four less feet. While the first two were powerful and the color of the sky; one a blue roan and the other a stormy gray, the smaller was spindly, quicker, and of a dark black, looking almost skeletal. The final oddity about these horses were the fact that they each had a pair of alarmingly huge wings. The bigger two gracious and feathery, and the tinier one with large, leathery bat-like ones.

Kay was attracting attention again. This timeby a group of three almost elvish looking people, all wearing that same wolf-embroidered tabard. They then quickly lost interest when they spotted Flora, who was waving them off, chuckling and returning to speak among themselves.

"Welcome to Capitol Square!" Flora said happily, "This is basically everyone's entertainment center for the more city-minded folk."

[I wonder if the Vavare might have some suggestions, their planet is full of oversized insects which they seem able to control, or at the very least domesticate. ] Kay shrugged, he got the impression giant spider people might freak the Drakkan out too though.

Mourn was bored of this and looked around at the code. "Bugs, can translate?"

Swarm looked to Akili, tilting their bird-like head. "We assure you, we cannot harm you. We are Swarm, we feed on knowledge, we are many, but we are small and we are fragile. We would appreciate not losing more of our number. " The looked back to Mourn and took off from Starr's hand, gliding over to land on Mourn's shoulder and look at the code floating around.

Kay looked at the code, yep, it was all gibberish to him.

---

Matt nodded, set his rod down, took his shoes off and waded into the water. Hey, he could dry his clothing out, but wet shoes were annoying to squelch through water in.
He chuckled to Sawna. "showoff."

Asher really had no ideas on the subject of the Drakkan homeworld. Since Swarm seemed to be safe, he focused his attention on Daniella's code. He'd seen his own code and James', and this was completely unlike that. "I wonder, since my and Daniella's source code is very similar, if I might be able to talk to her OS," he said thoughtfully, "Anamcara magic is very strange."
He hadn't mentioned to Akili that he was an android earlier. Oops.

Sawna wagged her tail, but resisted grinning at Matt, since she knew he was scared of wolves and didn't want him scared of her.

Kay frowned. [Are you certain that's safe? ] Hey, Asher had been worried about Mourn interfacing with the anamcara, which meant it was potentially risky.

---

Matt rolled his eyes. "Shapeshifters man. " He tentatively patted her on the head. Yeah, he may be kinda freaked out by wolves but she wasn't a wolf, she was Sawna... right?

"Not sure at all," Asher said. "My code is much more like hers than Mourn's is, and my mind is much more... consistent. Mourn is both organic and mechanical, which makes how his thoughts work a bit less consistent, I would assume." He frowned, uncertain.

"But she is a mix of organic and android now too" Starr said, looking to Asher also. "She is unique now."

~~~
Sawna dipped her head then tilted it, trying to speak telepathically since she couldn't speak as a wolf. Yes, I am still Sawna, I keep my mind, just change the outer appearance. If you do not wish me to speak like this, I will stop

Matt shook his head "It's fine, my brother's a telepath remember? I'm used to it." He chuckled. "its funny, i'm the only one who can stand it. Web has some pretty serious mental barriers up thanks to Fate's stupid visions and Esk just doesn't seem to like the sensation, he gets mad and yells at Kay to talk normally which is kinda.. crappy. " he shrugged. "our sister always found it unnerving as well. I remember our foster mother used to always have to remind him to speak verbally as a kid. He would get excited or angry and forget he wasn't using words any more. " He laughed fondly. "I still remember her scolding him, use your words Kaylr, use your words. Poor guy. Of course now he can't but... yeah.. Don't worry about it."

Kay frowned, he looked worried.

Mourn tilted his head. "She not just organic and robot, she magic too. Even wierder."

"Magic does rather complicate matters." Swarm nodded. "Some of this.. almost looks like dna sequences transcribed into binary."

Mourn frowned. "That make sense suppose. What about laws? Can we find laws?"

"We are not certain, what are we looking for?" Swarm asked.

"That problem. Terran cause big mess." Mourn looked around, translating what he could as quickly as possible.

"True," Asher agreed with Starr's point. "I guess the question would be, which type of compatibility would be more important here? Because Mourn matches the organic half better, but I'm most likely a lot more similar to her android half." He smiled softly, "Or it could just be a bad idea to plug ourselves in. Who knows?"

"I willing to take risk." Mourn declared. "maybe stupid Canid put in failsafes to stop corruption. Who know?" He snickered.

Swarm buzzed and chittered to themselves worriedly. "your system is already corrupted Mourn." They pointed out.

Mourn shrugged. "Good. then what have lose?"

Kay frowned at both of them. [I'm not entirely convinced just plugging into a strange computer is the best idea. Can you bypass the screen but still use the computer as a go between?]

Mourn shrugged. "could write program to find laws, if they in there. But no know what form they take now."

"they may be embedded into her very essence, her... genetic and magical code for want of a better term. This isn't just a corrupted machine, she is mechanical, organic and magical. Unravelling all this may not even be possible. " Swarm pointed out. "We had to say it, but it may be kinder to shut her down completely."

[No.] Kay's eyes narrowed.

Swarm nodded. "their own creator may have a solution, but from what we have been told about this particular individual, helping people is not a priority. "

Kay frowned, and his other had left the ship. She might have actually been useful. He shook his head, no, he wanted nothing more to do with damn creators. [That lot are more trouble than they're worth. There has to be another way.]

"Drakkan were once known for their magic and technology, have you any suggestions?" Swarm asked Akili.

"I'll take note of that." Akili told swarm warily.

As if on cue, Rusty wandered back in, still limping on his mangled and twisted paw.

"Medicine, Rust, medicine." the Drakkan reminded her canid friend, who snorted as he set down some chips and salsa, catching the bottle that was tossed to him from the coffee table. He unscrewed it and began picking out two tablets as Daniella watched everyone warily. "Please be careful. I don't want anyone hurt because of me."

Kay watched the canid. [Are you alright?] He asked. He couldn't help it, medic instinct.

Mourn made a face, ignored the Canid and patted Daniella on the head. His tail was swishing though. "We want help, not fair what happen, need fix."

"What happened to you?" Swarm asked Rusty curiously, unable to hold that question any longer.

Rusty turned his marred face towards Kay sharply, hesitating. "Just pain. I'm used to it. Can't fix it, only numb it."

Again, when swarm asked him, he hesitated. "You could say I've had a taste of my own medicine."

"That's a little blunt, don't you think?" Akili looked up from her musing at her assistant. He shook his head.

"You can't be anything but blunt in these situations." He said in a raspy voice, his snout and jaw twisting as it moved up and down. "A few years back, my ship was raided by people under the work of someone called the Doctor."

Starr looked to him sharply at that name. "Him again?" The same one that had the hawks taken and that hurt the kids and so many others.

Sawna tilted her head at Matt then dipped it, chuckling softly inside It is understandable that he would have trouble when he had no teacher She looked back to the wolves, waiting for their instruction

Kay flinched, oh yes, he remembered what the spider kids had been through. [I'm so sorry.]

"Don't apologize." Mourn scolded. "Nasty Canid, even he say deserve it."

Kay shot Mourn a warning glare.
[I used to work as a triage nurse.] He explained. [What are you taking?] He looked to the medication.

Swarm stared at Rusty. "They did this intentionally? For what purpose?"

---

Matt nodded. "yeah well, guess his father didn't think to hang around and make sure he could control his abilities. Is it ... bad I kinda hope the guy's dead? Because the other option is he's an asshole and that's just... crap. Our Foster mother definitely deserved better men in her life." He sighed.

The canid shrugged, otherwise ignoring Mourn as he showed Kay, the pills being little more than powerful pain medication and calcium tablets.

Again he addressed Swarm. "I was apparently assigned to be the subject to test bone reconstruction. The fur apparently got in the way of watching the external effects on the skin so instead of going through the hassle of shaving it every few weeks, they hastily burned it all off."

~~~~~~

"Find a target. Fish swim nearby periodically, and leap for it. Be aware of the water refraction. If you want to know which way the water is refracting, look at another person's legs and see which way it is warping." Sica said, her voice lowered.

[But it didn't kill the nerve endings?] Kay frowned and glanced to Asher. He was thinking of Sawna, but surely they had access to such healing here too? [Isn't there anything they can do to ease it a little?]

--

Matt nodded. "Got ya." He waded a little deeper. He had a better plan. "Don't worry, I can breathe underwater!" He told them, before ducking his head under the surface so he could watch the fish with no pesky refraction. His vision was pretty terrible, especially underwater, but he could still sense motion.

"Only the outermost." Rusty shook his head, his throat so bad it sounded like he smoked fifty packs a day, "The nerves that don't connect with my skin... are constantly feeling the pain of softened, warped and rehardened bone. The Guild members have tried pulling me back together but they can only ease the pain. They say the inside of my leg is messed up so bad it's a wonder how I even still have it, let alone walk."

Kay looked sympathetic. Oh he knew that pain... way too well. He nodded. [What of magic? ] If his body could heal constantly breaking bones, why couldn't other magic fix this? okay he really didn't much understand magic, but there had to be a way. He glanced to Starr, she was the magic expert here.

Mourn snorted and went back to looking at the code, trying to find anything that looked like the laws, anything that looked familiar.

Sawna looked to the water to wait for a fish to swim by so she could try to catch it like this.

~~~
Starr frowned at that then sighed "Sawna's magic may work to heal him, I would be afraid to do anything without knowing what that maniac did first."

Kay nodded. Bone regrowth and softening, similar things happen in those infected with lycanthropy. And in shifters. Shifters heal, our bones soften, shatter and reform. If we could harness whatever magic prevents that lasting damage... He telepathically communicated with Starr, not totally comfortable with discussing this so freely. He also wondered if simply amputating that leg would give this guy a better quality of life.

"They've tried magic, but apparently it's so warped they're afraid of they mess with it too much they'd make it worse than it already is. The anatomy to learn and to memorize against the new puzzle of my current leg was very complicated apparently. They'd ask if I'd rather be amputated, but I refuse to lose this leg. A replacement... wouldn't be the same." Rusty growled hoarsely.

So it is like what happens to you, that is interesting Starr thought back to him and watched Rusty then sighed Still, we don't know what was used on him, any help could cause more damage than actual help Then looked to Rusty again as he explained "Sawna has a different way of healing than we are used to knowing, but such would be between the two of you."

Kay nodded. [It is of course your body and your decision ultimately. ] he frowned. [What were they using to warp your bones? if.. you don't mind talking about it.]

Rusty frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. It was some kind of liquid that felt like it was burning... and then they warped and sculpted it by hand..."

Asher tried to hide any emotion from his face. What had happened to Rusty was simply horrific, but in his experience, people who had been victims of horrible events rarely wanted pitty. He let the others talk, he was by no means a medical professional after all.