Dawn of Flame Gameplay

"We're working with Taeress," explains Zaxsha. "We busted you out on her behalf."

A conflicted flicker crosses her face before she replies in a more restrained tone, "Oh. I see. Well, the job offer stands, but I suppose we shouldn't keep her waiting, then. Whatever she wants, it must be important."

The crew escorts Nib back to Taeress's apartment; the Lashtuna quite relieved to see Nib safe, and turns to thank the crew; Nib however puffs herself up and icily cuts her off, "Glad you checked your messages for once."

Taeress freezes briefly, but the two quickly fall into bickering, barbed but ultimately soft insults swapped rapid fire.
"Little wonder you got arrested, seeing you never learned how to keep your snout shut!"

Taeress visibly flinches at that one.

Cate slowly backs away from the bickering pair. "Right, well, we'll leave you two to that. We got information on where the Council is being held so uh..." She looks at the rest of her crewmates. "We should probably go do something about that."

Nib looks up, "Hey, hold on, didn't you have something to tell me? Or, well, I guess there's nothing to do with it until the trouble passes and we can get back to the DCI... Oh, it could even be your first job for us!"

Taeress pulls herself back into the moment and adds, "You're hardly in a position to offer jobs, Nib..." then, to the crew, "But since it seems you are going either way, please keep in touch, at least to let us know when it's safe."

Zaxsha looks confused. "What are we supposed to do, though? Go in guns blazing?"

"We're scientists, not tacticians, we have no idea what you'll be heading into and no idea how you should handle it, unfortunately," Taeress points out, "But even so, we still need your help, we can't do anything here unless the sunrise collective is forced out."

"Well if we can get in a bit more subtly than the police station then hopefully things might be okay, but we do stick out a bit around here," Cate says. "But look on the bright side, if we do wind up having to go guns blazing, we do have some good guns."

Misha pats his gatling gun. "Susan is ready for when sneak inevitably fails."

"Do either of you know if there's any other way to Clearlight without going through the checkpoint?" Cate asks, turning to the pair. "Normally I'm all good for going in spells blazing, but it seems like it would be all to easy for them to deny us the crawler we'd need."

Zaxsha nods in agreement. "That's a decent plan. Let's do it."

Misha shrugs. "If we must."

"It does give us the best chance of getting us where we need to go," Cate agrees.

Xera shrugs and goes along with this insanity.

Voca nods. "Bluffing should work alright. Let's try it."

With the crew in agreement, they pack their weaponry away in baggage supplied by Taeress, and, fortunately, run into no issue on their trip to the linecrawler station. The initial rush seems to have subsided, and as such the patrols they encounter spare only a cursory glare at the crew, but have more important tasks to consider than accosting every random group of people.

Upon arrival, they find the station packed with people, yet, the checkpoint here moves much smoother and swifter than that at Laubu, though the guards on duty seem weary with the sheer volume of traffic. As they reach the head of the line, the guard covering that line curtly adresses the crew, "Name and purpose?"

"We're the crew of the Photon Runner, and we're on a pilgrimage to the Convent of Eternal Sun," Cate lies, taking the lead.

He jots down the reason, and after a tense pause, waves the group through.

Horizon House stands in the middle of an area of lush greenery between the linecrawler station and the Convent of the Eternal Sun, said greenery also serving as a soft buffer between itself and the surrounding neighborhood. The building shines white as a pearl, with a majestic rotunda that immediately evidences it's role as the seat of government for Asanatown, though what was previously a public area has been barricaded, leaving one point of entry or exit for it's new occupants, which itself stands deserted for the moment.

Zaxsha attempts to sneak up to the doors, but as soon as she does, a voice calls out firmly "This area is closed by order of the Sunrise Collective. Leave immediately, or you will be shot. This is your only warning."

"I wonder if they're serious or not," Cate says to herself, before focusing. Before her a beam of golden beam of light appears, a cherubic swordsman in an adorable tiny breastplate and helm, with small white-feathered wings and a paring-knife-sized sword of solid light appears. The angelic swordsman bows to Cate, before turning and approaching the one un-barricaded door.

"You were warned." the voice says as a single grenade falls from the ceiling of the portico, directly at Zaxsha's and the angel's feet, a small red creature with horns and wings fading into view clung to the ceiling