#used the slashes because i don't want any of them clawing all over this post >_>

[theophagie-remade]

Twitter terfs have been having a field day lately with going full "conspiracy theorists who see "lizard people" everywhere" and insinuating that any random cis woman is akchually a man (but ~they can always tell~). Like, it has always been a thing, but in light of what's happening in the US it is really reaching absurd heights

[thescribblings]

LONG POST AHEAD! Lots of text and no drawings after the cut!

So, I've been procrastinating this post for a while because i don't have any art explaining his new arm except this one, and i wanted it to be pretty similar to, or even better than the first prosthetic post, but i don't think i can do anything more than an infodump today, lmfao sorry

But here it is! In all of its glowy/floaty glory!

Some facts and features about his arm under the cut

So, I'll just copy and paste what i wrote in my notes, since my brain is complete mush lately

The notes are unfinished and in no specific order, but i figured it might be interesting if you think my au is fun ,^,

His arm! Made of a mix of carbon fiber and whatever the fuck the metal future donnie invented is

-the metal parts of the arm are matte, for style, obviously

*The nails are made of a type of nanotech so he can customize everything about them, with some limits due to there being limited nanotech stored in the hand itself.

- he can have claws, short nails, stilettos, talons, or even a mix of them. He knows a thing or two about programming nanotechnology due to his other prosthetic, so he can customize it on his own eithout issue. And yes, he does

paint the nails on it, as well.

*Some form of electromagnetism keeps his hand and forearm attached, without it they'd just fall to the ground. Some things it can do with this feature involves;

-see how his sword is situated on his back? He couldn't possibly get it off without bending over backwards, it's too long, right? Actually, he can grab the handle with his prosthetic and then detach the hand from the forearm, this will let him independently control the hand, which lets him pull the sword out of its scabbard no problem

-the limbs can move independently, the only limit being his ability to focus enough to smoothly control the individual pieces. This lets him easily take his sword out of its scabbard with the hand while simultaneously blocking a hit with the forearm, for example

-since the hand is the only part that doesn't glow, it's much stealthier, so he can surprise attack opponents from behind, even when he's standing right in front of them

-are the parts sentient? Do they have independent will? He doesn't fuckin know, and neither does Donnie. He discovered that they can move independently on a whim and decided that it's best not to question it. He's totally not extremely cocky about having potentially created artificial intelligence on accident -Stickbug

*The individual pieces of the arm can hover, letting him do things like what is shown in the illustration

*Nanotech is stored in the individual pieces

-if something were to, say, slash his prosthetic forearm and leave a gash, the nanotech would mend it immediately, letting him keep fighting unaffected until he can properly fix the damage

-if something were to slice the entire forearm in two, the electromagnetism would pull the pieces together while the nanotech seals the gash, making the forearm good as new

*What is it powered by?

-i didn't mention this in the thigh prosthetic post, but his thigh isn't actually powered by anything, it doesn't need more than the guidance of his muscles to function

-the electromagnetism in the arm is powered by his ninpo, it lets him turn it on and off on a whim, and it gives him a more natural sense of control when he operates it

-his ninpo powers the electromagnetism, but what powers the rest of the arm? Trick question, it's the electromagnetism! It triggers mechanisms in the individual pieces that powers all the mechanical features, such as the nanotech, fingers, and a coupleo nes on brand with it being genius built:tm:

-since the arm is technically powered by, and connected to his ninpo, he can teleport it much like his nagamaki!

*since it's powered by his ninpo, if his ninpo gets spazzy he cannot use the arm. If he were to try to use the arm when his ninpo is spazzy, a lot of things might happen

-first things first, why would his ninpo be spazzy? It's a side effect of his body effectively sustaining itself with his ninpo for over a decade. It made up for lost sleep, lack of food and water, and everything you might need to, y'know, live. This quickly drained his ninpo until it was little more than a spark, and anytime that spark flickered out from him overworking himself, he'd crash and pass out for the next day and a half. He didn't actually know this was going on until he popped up in the present and everything just kinda started making sense

-it could switch on and off sporadically, causing it to fall to the floor and snap back into place at random

-the hand and forearm might suddenly shoot off in a random direction, which is hilarious, but also dangerous

-he would have basically no control over the arm, leading to jagged movement and randomly activating different features

-it might randomly teleport to or from him, depending on how he feels

*at first glance the previous point might seem like bad design choices, but it's actually a necessary feature! Since he tends to overdo it pretty often it's important that he can't use his prosthetic when his ninpo is spazzy

-his ninpo only gets spazzy if something triggers it, it's kinda like it switches between rest and survival mode, this gets triggered if he's overused his ninpo and it got too close to when he relied on it for survival

-the only way to fix his spazzy ninpo is, well, rest. A lot of napping. Which is why it's so important that he literally can't use his prosthetic when he needs rest

*It can teleport?

-why yes, it can! Being able to telepoort the pieces to and from himself gives him a huge advantge in battle. Since you can't disarm him! Pun intended

*it's a very silent piece of tech, which is ideal for his fighting style. the only part that makes the typical 'tech prosthetic' sounds is the fingers, as they are connected with joints instead of electromagnetism

*the flexible parts

-the main part covers the delt/ shoulder of his residual limb and wraps around his neck for a snug, comfortable fit.

-there's a sliver of it cutting the metal of the palm in half right between his fingers, giving it more mobility. (Try gently bending your own palm, it's surprisingly flexy)

-there's a small sliver at the 'wrist' of it, since it wouldn'tbe able to bend properly if there wasn't something leting that part of the hand bend, as well

-the flexible parts in the hand is yellow, while the piece covering his shoulder is green, adorned with his iconic shoulder stripe, in yellow, of course

-the green and yellow aren't a perfect colour match, they're a bit more saturated than his skin and markings, but it's not very noticable at first sight, so if he wears a hoodie over the arm his hand could be mistaken for a real hand, letting him hide it in public, to avoid stares

*The hand

-it has a softer, kinda rubbery material covering his palm and the length of the fingers that lets him tell different textures apart better, even if just by sound. It's a lighter, more desaturated green than the hand, even lighter thann his skin

-the soft material is not smooth, but rather textured, not bumpy, per se, just somewhat rough. Maybe a bit sandpaper-y

-the textured material gives him better grip, especially in battle, since it wouldn't exactly be ideal for a sword that is 5'7 long to suddenly fly across the battlefield. As funny as it would be, lol

-it also lets him control his grip strength better, so he doesn't accidentally crush someone's hand, or whatever object he was holding

*There's a good chance you might find him walking around with just the shoulder/bicep piece, since he can teleport the other pieces to himself at will, and it's less draining when he leaves them somewhere, off

Have nice day :]

[theglitchywriterboi]

Drive

The first thing I took in was the pain in my right eye. It wouldn't open, but I expected as much.

I don't know who took me or why. We drove in silence. Looking around the car for an escape, I heard a familiar purr. I had ignored it because... It couldn't be that...

After a bit of looking silently, I spotted that the back window was ever so slightly open. I slowly scooted myself closer, doing my best to not make a sound.

Only my finger could fit through. But that'd be enough - I hoped. I stuck one in & began to use my limited strength to pull the window down. I had already tried to see if there were any buttons or cranks to assist my situation, but they were either taken out or covered up.

I had gotten it down far enough to reach my hand out when the driver finally took notice. I was surprised it took them so long - they were deep in conversation, but surely it couldn't have been that interesting to take as long as they did to notice?

The one in the passenger seat hopped in the back with me as the driver began to pull into what I presumed to be my second & final location. The passenger seat person grabbed me, yanking my hand out of the window, giving it a nasty bruise, before he reached for a cloth I could only assume was doused in chloroform or some other drug to put me out.

But before the cloth could reach me, a loud ear piercing hiiiissssssss came from the dashboard screen.

Both of our heads whipped in the direction of the sudden noise. On screen was - my cat. A virtual pet I've had since I was about 8 - having owned him for coming on 13 years. Taking care of him daily, even in high school when all my friends had long since discarded theirs due to the thought it was embarrassing to spend time with their childhood virtual pets. But I hadn't.

"What the fu-" The driver started, when my cat slashed at the screen. The passenger began to chuckle, before they heard the driver yell in agony. My cat slashed again. And again. Each time the driver screamed, blood began to splatter all over the car, but my cat kept going until their screams stopped.

My cat turned to the passenger. Wiser than their friend, they began to scramble out of the car. But just because they were wiser than their friend, doesn't mean they were at all wise. They had so long to run before my cat had turned his attention to them, but they never moved an inch until now. Too in shock to move I assume.

They had made it out of the car faster than I would've assumed. I watched as they ran, before I looked at the screen. My cat was gone?

Looking through the now open door, I saw the passenger yelp before crumpling to the ground. They hadn't gotten far,

They pulled out their phone, throwing it as far away from them as they could, frantically scooting away from it.

It was quiet for a moment. but that didn't last long. A blue cyan colored claw emerged from the phone. It moved & zapped wildly - it wasn't a large jump to assume it was made of electricity. Then a second came, quickly followed by a third & fourth.

The passenger let out a whimper.

My cats head emerged from the phone, made up from the same cyan electricity as its claws were. He bolted for the passenger.

I closed my eyes while it happened. I had a much better view of the passenger, and I didn't want to see... I didn't want to hear it either, but while I dug my fingers deep into my ears, the screams were still deafening.

After what felt like forever, the screaming stopped. I kept my eyes closed & ears plugged for an extra few seconds to be sure.

Before my was a mangled red mess. I quickly shut my eyes. I know these people were scum - they had kidnapped me. But I still felt sick to my stomach. I knew if I wanted to go home I'd have to open my eyes back up. But for now I tried to calm myself down in the peace of my closed eyes.

I felt a soft fuzzy body rub against my chin, before the phone fell into my lap.

It was time to get going now.

Story I posted on reddit for the prompt: "[WP] You have been kidnapped. The only one to have noticed and is coming to your rescue is the digital pet you've been taking care of since you were a small child."

[slovo-theshattered-onion]

Musings on my Own Neurodivergency

I'm not sure what's possessing me. For one, whatever it is, it prefers proper capitalisation in what should by all means be a ramble post and therefore lowercase; for two, it feels different to how I've felt in... Gosh, a very long time, now.

It's bigger, for one. It is still a prey animal, but only in the sense it doesn't search out meat for itself, doesn't hunt; it could, if it wanted to. Like a lot of non-carnivorous animals in nature, even though it isn't built for stomaching blood or tearing chunks out of flesh, it could, and at times will. When scared, mostly. When hungry. When lacking.

What I mean, of course, is how I interact with people. The natural bend of society may not be a primordial forest, no metaphor that relies on behaviour of wild animals could ever be adequate, but it illustrates my point; I'm not scared of my claws right now, even if I know they could slash someone without good reason. I'm not compacting myself. I'm dangerous as much as I'm in danger, and it feels... Okay, right now.

All of that preamble just to say, I really don't think 'autistic' is a label that suits me. (because i'm polite and know a decent amount about publicising, the rest is under the cut)

Externally, sure. My behaviour gets clocked by autistic people as prompt for a 'one of us, one of us, one of us' chant far more often than I could keep track of (affectionate, amused, absolutely strawmaning every autistic friend i ever had but only mildly), and I've identified with it for a very, very long time, because it came closest to having a community I could relate to. Internally, though?

It's... Harder to explain, but the vibes are off.

Doesn't say much on its own. The mind is fallible, the chemicals, hormones running the brain are not absolute nor divinely inspired, in a traditional sense. I've long since come to trust my vibe readings, though.

They allow me to reliably clock other people's feelings over text, sometimes before even they realise their mood/state of mind has shifted, for one. They allow me to understand writing on a viscerally intimate level, they allow me to conceptualise my own feelings when all there is in my brain and body is empty void.

The vibes I get from autistic people don't line up with mine, though they come much closer than possibly anyone or anything else. The logic y'all use is sound, not the least because you're aware of it, because you've had to think things through to a much deeper extent than most allistic people for half the credit, but it doesn't line up, doesn't rail on the same track as mine. It's close, annoyingly close for my liking as all I want is to belong, but it's... It's not right to my brain.

(small tangent to clarify: 'not right to my brain' is very specifically referring to My Brain and says absolutely nothing about objective fact. 'logic' is not, can not be, objective and i am not passing any moral judgement so much as i'm just bitching and moaning about not fitting in)

Take 'takes things literally', for example. I only recently learned, through this Ember Green video, that what it means in terms of metaphor is not necessarily 'panics when hearing 'break a leg' because they can't see that it's not a literal wish of harm on them' but something closer to 'pictures a broken leg while understanding the intention behind the words, very possibly even knowing the social context for how the saying came about'.

I fit that! Down to a T, my thinking does tend more literal in that regard, and in regard to questions like 'do you hate eye contact, yes or no' I tend to think 'no, i actually don't mind it sometimes'. Do I know what the question's actually asking is, if I struggle to make socially acceptable amounts of eye contact? Yes. Would my answer change based on that understanding? Also yes, I absolutely struggle to make 'acceptable' amounts of eye contact, and in fact I don't particularly love looking at people's faces too much- unless I really like them- full stop.

... Does it line up the experience of autistic people as I perceive it? Not quite.

The way I hear it described, it sounds a lot more... Natural. Like it's your first instinct, like you had to pick it apart to find where your understanding and thought process misaligned with the understanding and thought process of the people asking.

As far as I remember- which isn't saying much, emotional and literal amnesia barriers are a bitch- I could always at least glean the intricacies of that divide. As far as I remember, there used to be a time I was just as imprecise with wording, understood the core of what people meant when they used sloppy-ass definitions like that, all relatively intuitively- even I don't think I ever liked it much.

It feels like, at least the second example of my 'literal thinking' is a result of me getting deeply obsessed with writing, prose and word choice more specifically. It feels like a lot of my more internal symptoms are not that inherent to me, though the external ones I've clocked all the way back before spring of 2020.

I... Understood, social implication. I understood passive-aggressiveness, I understood hints, I've used both as manipulation, on purpose, as early as about 12. I understood for as long as I remember myself. Again, not much of a useful admission; my memory is incredibly, weirdly good at its best and unreliably faulty at its worst.

Still.

Learning about society and structures that govern it, learning about nature and bodies and minds and tools, watching, fucken, PhilosophyTube and whatnot, hasn't given me new intuition so much as it expanded, grew, budded out of a really small and relatively inconsequential seed that was always in the soil. Oh, there's plenty of new thought processes, plenty of new explanations of my logic, plenty of pedantic pickings apart of all the concepts I once held for granted!

The core, though, is the same. Live and let live, all people are unique in some way. If it doesn't demonstrably hurt anyone, let it be. I do remember, distinctly, thinking almost these exact words, so many times over my teenage years. Earliest I can remember is at my old laptop, mystified at some discourse I glimpsed somehow; maybe through my parents' routine argument about feminism, maybe through some kind of early left-tube video.

At that point, I was at least starting to think in English, lest I probably wouldn't remember it as my brain has banned all other languages. 7th grade, then? 8th? I went to school at 7 years old, skipped 6th, so probably also about 12 years old.

(yes, i did have to double-check on paper because i'm miserable with maths. you can't prove it in a court of law /j)

Either way, my point is, I've grown and changed since I was 12 (obviously), but it didn't come as a rebirth of any kind. There weren't big realisations about the world or other people, only a sort of 'oh, duh, fucking finally i have it in words'.

(unless you count the repeated, highly annoying, 'other people are just as complex and intelligent as i am' realisation that i have to drill into my head over and over and over and over and over every once a couple months. i prefer to ignore it in this context WHEEZE, it's technically less of a realisation and more of a practiced understanding anyway,,,)

Maybe that's the common experience for autistic people, too. Maybe it's just how most people think, even, maybe it's ye old confirmation bias. I know how to recognise when my brain is trying to talk out its ass about something it absolutely had no clue about, I know how to recognise I was wrong, most times I'm pretty good at both!! But I'm still human, still fallible, no matter how impressed the people who brushed up against my communication practice and social theory are with me.

I have always had somewhat of a god complex, but that's neither here nor there-

Anyway. That's just one example. Take 'likes strict routines' for another, and you'll find the biggest reason I don't want a 24/7 d/s dynamic is that the only routine I like to keep to is my tea making one in the morning, and the only one I ever struggled to break was taking my meds before bed.

At that, the meds were less of a routine and more of an addictive habit- not to the chemicals, I don't think, but to the safety of being assured I'll sleep soothing the anxiety of the danger losing sleep posed according to my mother- and the tea, I easily and without much thought fudge every once in a while. I don't care about routines; instead, I care about sudden changes of plans, or major changes in environment- expected or unexpected- possibly in a very allistic way, even.

I honestly have not studied allistic thinking enough to be able to tell. It's more intuitive, right? Not going through the logic of things but acting, far more split-second, in accordance with subconscious knowledge. That's what I gleaned, and I blame the very low amount of research done on allistic people for my knowledge gap. Anyway-

Yet another example, sort of related, is rules. The typical autistic stance on rules, as far as I know, is 'if it makes no sense i will Not Follow, if it does i Almost Certainly Always Will', and like... Yeah, sort of me! Not really. My 'tell no lies' rule, just like the rest, is not absolute and is active only when it is in line with my core aforementioned philosophy of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone, it's fine'. I dislike rules, and not just because I'm an anarchist.

If anything, it's the other way around. Realising on some level no rule could ever be perfect or all-encompassing has very much led me down the 'fuck it, no gods no masters' rabbit hole, and very much established in my mind that I must have a core philosophy, rather than a set of rules, if I want to be any level of sure my mind is flexible enough for doing as much good as possible in as many situations as possible.

I'm not a robot, and there're a lot of feelings mixed into this mess, but this precise bullshit is why I still struggle to think of myself as categorically a human. Am I homo sapiens? Uh, I sure hope it does (/ref). Do I think and feel in ways that the humans around me seem to display?

...

Come back with a warrant.

And that's the core of why I don't think I could be autistic, innit? Autism is for humans, even if it may make you feel like you aren't one. Autism has a community where it fits in, autism is a relatively common social difference, it is at least somewhat understood, at least possible to find insight on.

It is not, as far as I know, a common reason for feeling intrinsically alien to other people who have diagnosed autism, or people who self-diagnose as autistic. It is not, as far as I know, so deeply changed by learning about social justice that it becomes nearly unrecognisable as itself to an informed observer. It is not, to my understanding, very explicitly writing a story where the worldbuilding very explicitly included, and I'm very lightly paraphrasing the direct wording I still remember using here, 'a mental illness which is basically like, anti-autism'.

('anti' in this context is used as 'thematic opposite', not as 'i hate you and everything you stand for')

It's... Weird, to me. It's lonely, but validating. It's fun, comforting in a way and despairing in another, fucking miserable and the most exciting thing since Sigmund Freud's theories to my psychology-loving mind, it's torture of the unknown and it's very possibly got something to do with C-PTSD, it's incredibly hard to explain and trust myself on but it's what has felt true for years and years and has stayed far more consistent than, say, my Possible Plurality, it's every contradiction you can think of, and I love to gnaw on it like a wolf on a bone or a rabbit on tree bark just as much as I hate it, just as much as I feel compelled to crush it in my teeth as false and impossible.

It's annoying, is what it is, and I'm gonna go chew metal about it (/lh /j).

But yeah, there are my musings on my own neurodivergency !!! if u want to commint or have a convo in the reblogs. pblease do. just don't be a rudeass (to translate: basically just keep to no insults of anyone or any cruelty toward any group, i'm not about to tone police otherwise) because i'm not being paid for dealing with that and you will get ignored or blocked. godspeed out there 👍

[cebwrites]

scar headcanons (Hiraishin Pirates)

a/n: wanted to get these onto paper before I forgot because I haven't been inspired enough to write them into fic form, lol

oc crew word count: 0.8k

Kirin

A scar vertically across his left collarbone from getting in the middle of a fight between Daz Bones and Bon Clay when they were all still Baroque agents (Bon-chan didn't leave him unhurt either, their kick to Kirin's head gave him a hell of a concussion)

A spiky, horizontal scar (frantic, poor stitching) across his abdomen slightly under his navel from his desperate teenage dysphoria brain taking control and attempting something very very stupid that he still hears about to this day

A diagonal scar going into the inner thigh of his left leg, and stitching scars all across his right leg post-Marineford

A big, jagged scar that gets darker further in from his brother post-Dressrosa (he had a rough time getting around in the direct aftermath of receiving that wound, so hasn't healed that well); this scar tends to hurt on rainy days

And small nicks around his waist and lower back, almost as if they were made by the end of a hook

Aside from those, he has smaller scars here and there all over his body, Kirin's not as particularly fussed about protecting precious skin as his partners' are - ironically no other scars on his torso though, even as he struts around shirtless two thirds of the time with active goading to whoever tries to challenge that

Reiji

Miscellaneous (slashing) scars on his arms in no particular order, and some on his legs but not many, Reiji also has stitching scars on his right thumb + pinky and his left index + ring finger

His biggest scars are a big spiky one just above his heart that comes out through his back

[There are no other scars on his back or other parts of his body, some would say that's fitting for a swordsman but he'd rebuke it]

Rio

More than they care to count since they blur together after a while, especially on their back, the majority of them whipping and laceration marks

Rio doesn't go out of their way to avoid reflections of their back anymore - the tiger tattoo covering that accursed dragon claw on their skin - but they don't need to see it to know those scars would always remain; he feels them, constantly, whenever they move or shift even the slightest amounts

Rio has more scars on the back of their upper arms and legs but they've gotten used to those, barely feel em anymore

On the under side of their left arm, they have a long, jagged gash Post-Timeskip; when Rio stands with one hand over the other, sometimes they'll brush their fingers against it out of habit

Izzy

A mildly disturbing fact Izzy realized about himself after getting his devil fruit is that, after a while, his scars don't seem to last nearly as long as they should

Small nicks he'd expect, but at some point they began noticing what should be life-long mars on their skin start to fade, even if from a long time ago, almost like an old tattoo

It kind of instilled a deep-seeded fear that one day he too would fade like ink underneath someone's skin they didn't bother to touch up, gradually, helpless to stop it, and without anyone really noticing - a partial drive behind his dream to leave his literal mark on the world, by tattooing 10,000 people they'd never truly be forgotten and live on through their work

Tetsu

A lot less than some people would typically assume - Tetsu wants his body to be a canvas for his husband's art, so there's no way he could let that art get damaged, right?

He still has quite a few, though, namely on his torso and legs from direct stab wounds (his arms are surprisingly clean)

He has a circular bullet scar on his right shoulder after taking a shot that was initially for Bepo, now it's the center of a beautiful wave illustration from Izzy that he takes to brag about any chance he gets

Alto

Much like Izzy, most scars he gets are impermanent - but only on Alto's "puppet" body, and unlike them, as soon as Alto returns to his human form, they're no longer there

If they're injured in that fleshy form, though, that scar is forever, even transferring over to the next body they carve; this is possibly why no matter how many times Alto carves himself new wings, they never sit comfortably and eventually always have to be shed

The new wood he attaches to his head is unmarred, but mind and body (the human one) still retain the memory of his flight being ripped away by cold government hands

Migi

Stitch scars all around their right hand, slightly below the wrist, where they received their namesake from (the mission gone awry that marked them with this still a fresh, bitter memory before the timeskip)

They have a scar over their right eye as well, usually hidden by her scope; the damaged caused was bad enough that she needed a replacement, but luckily enough someone with the most gorgeous obsidian eyes was kind enough to give her theirs

Migi has few other scars aside from these two, their position as a sniper usually keeps them far from the toils of melee combat and even if there is trouble close up, one of their crewmates is quick to back them up

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 6

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, the party, after making their way to the torture wizard's evil torture tower, made a sneaky entrance via the window... into the room full of traps. One would think going in through a window and being immediately attacked by torture robots would teach them to, say, not go in through another window again immediately- but Looseleaf had other ideas, and those ideas got her attacked by several flying knives on the fourth floor.

Does she survive?

Barely! She loses over half her health to the initial onslaught, but manages to drop back down and close the window behind her before the knives can give chase, thanks to her racial ability to have two extra arms- she can shimmy down a rope and close a window in the same turn.

They're not out of the woods yet, though- the knives, frustrated in their assault by a pane of glass, turn around and head down the chimney through the fireplace on each floor. The party's ready for them as they emerge, though, and a couple rounds of combat later, the animated knives meet their ends without doing any further damage.

There's still a couple of beefy animated armors up there, though- so the party spends a tense couple turns waiting at the bottom of the stairs for them to make their way downstairs to the trap room. And they do, but... the translucent barrier blocking the stairway seems to block the armor, too, and they just stand menacingly at the bottom of the stairs.

...Hey, where'd Vayen go?

Luckily, Looseleaf had the foresight to soul-link to the medical kit she provided him earlier, meaning she can detect where he is at all times by sensing its spirit. She notes that he's gone upstairs via the window, and Saelhen follows. She finds him... perusing the torture equipment on the tables on the fourth floor, suspiciously. Vayen's surprised to have been followed, but points out, on the table, a strange weapon with a cross-shaped guard and four thin blades spaced wide- almost certainly the murder weapon used to kill the Nicksickles. He rolls a nat 1 on... something, and then just sort of hands it over to Saelhen without making a fuss. Huh.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Looseleaf tries to knock down the barrier with magic, and we end up making the exact same joke:

They've managed to split the attentions of the torturebots, but they don't have any way to keep the remaining bot occupied- so the rest of the party makes the decision to hurry up the rope and rejoin Saelhen and Vayen before the enemy can regroup.

Saelhen, seeing the bot coming, heads up to the fifth floor to get some distance on it, leaving Vayen behind. When Looseleaf and the others come up through the window, Vayen is gone- but Looseleaf can still sense him in the room via the bugged medkit. It seems he's turned invisible...?

On their way up the stairs, the closest armor slashes at Orluthe with a spiky claw, and- while Orluthe smacks it with an opportunity attack- gets through. The attack hurts, moreso than it should, thanks to some sort of magical pain effect, and Orluthe's Concentration-based buffs immediately expire. The party unloads some attacks on it, but it's a sturdy bastard!

Looseleaf: 16 hits? Benedict I. (GM): It does not. This thing... its spirit is pretty resilient. Apparently its creation was a labor of love. Looseleaf: Damn. Everything in this tower is so resilient. Saelhen du Fishercrown: AC 17, maybe? something brutal Benedict I. (GM):It's a big suit of metal! You want to know its Armor Class? Its class is armor! Looseleaf: i mean, spikes are gauche as fuck it can't be that classy

As they're fending this thing off- and it takes a disturbing number of hits- a third painbot inexplicably pops into existence next to the one attacking Orluthe. As it technically just entered Orluthe's range, and he has the Polearm Master feat, it gets smacked with an opportunity attack... and immediately vanishes. Some kind of illusion- which it doesn't take long for the party to blame on the invisible Vayen.

They keep wailing on it, but it's pretty sturdy.

One of them eventually goes down:

Benedict I. (GM): That hits! You catch the thing's helmet and it goes clean off its nonexistent shoulders. The rest of the armor collapses to the floor. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "There, Yamatake-san! The brain." Oyobi Yamatake: "Wh- that wasn't its- don't be a dick!"

The other one keeps chasing, though, and it's joined by the slow lumbering of some giant coffin-like device that's waddling its way over to join the fray. The party opts to make a fighting retreat up the stairs to the fifth floor. Arrows pepper the thing as it pursues them- and Saelhen and Looseleaf have approximately the same idea.

Remember back in town, they purchased, collectively, six thousand ball bearings?

Well, short story shorter, the stairs are now covered in ball bearings, making it very difficult for the automaton to continue its pursuit. It makes its dex saves, though, and it keeps pursuing them- until the party reaches the top of the stairs, and Zero has Orluthe shove the thing as soon as it catches up.

I believe you can predict the outcome of this shove, considering you saw the image at the start of this post.

Benedict I. (GM): so it's sustained 25 damage now Looseleaf: and it's stuck all the way at the bottom of the stairs again. Looseleaf, now, is thinking that- well, Vayen's not invisible anymore, and now Vayen is pincered between a painbot and a deathcoffin. Maybe we should do something to save him. He could very well die otherwise. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Vayen, how nice to have you back with us, and apparently invisible this entire time without telling anyone!" Vayen: "Gaaaaaagh," he replies. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "We will of course protect you from the results of the decision you made, think nothing of it." Oyobi Yamatake: "Naturally! Because we're a team, right?"

Orluthe- who's a kindhearted soul and has been giving Vayen the benefit of the doubt- rushes downstairs to his aid, and, uh, rolls a natural one on his attempt to not trip on the ball bearings.

After this little snafu, though, the party successfully dispatches the other animated armor- and the coffin thing approaching them is, uh, very slow. It doesn't have legs. And, in fact, it seems incapable of climbing the stairs after them- so they head up to the fifth floor, having more or less won the combat!

The room turns out to be a bedroom, and doesn't seem to feature any sadistic suits of armor or flying knives- so the party stops for a short rest to dress their wounds. During this downtime, they interrogate Vayen regarding his recent behavior. He denies casting the illusion, and claims the invisibility was just a self-defense measure against the torture robots. His sudden disappearance, he claims, was just an attempt to take advantage of the moment the painbots were on the stairs to get around and flank them without being seen- he didn't want to give away his movements by announcing them.

There's no solid proof he was responsible for the illusion, so the party backs off on that- but Saelhen brings up something else. I think I'll paste this whole exchange:

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And while I would be willing to call this an isolated case of awkwardness..." "...Vayen, a lady's bedroom, in the middle of the night, is a place one should not enter without explicit permission." Vayen: He goes stiff for a second. "...I don't know what you mean." Oyobi Yamatake: "Oh, come on! I heard you in there!" Looseleaf: "Heard him in- what?" Oyobi Yamatake: "You banged your leg on something and went 'Ow'!" Vayen: "...Overactive imagination." "Didn't happen." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You really weren't very subtle. Oyobi heard you open my door, and close your own. I never left my room that night. And I left a few ball bearings by the door, as insurance. Ball bearings which had moved in the morning." Looseleaf: "...Are you saying that Vayen did something to you overnight, while I was asleep?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Would you like to accuse me of sleepwalking?" Looseleaf: "Vayen, is this true?" Vayen: "I never opened your door." Oyobi Yamatake: "Wh- no, I guess not, but-" Vayen: "I never touched her." "Nothing happened that night. I tranced the whole time." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I'm sure. As for the contents of my bags, and, ah, personal effects... who can say?" Vayen: "I touched nothing of yours. I have no business with you." Oyobi Yamatake: "Oh my god. Seriously?"

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Is he getting worked up at all, or is he maintaining his flat affect? Benedict I. (GM): He's staying calm.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And I imagine you wouldn't want any suspicion to fall on you, yes?" Orluthe Chokorov: "I, uh... I don't think Vayen would do something like that, yeah..." Vayen: "What he said."

Oyobi Yamatake: "I can't believe this." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Having twice acted such that we suspect you, thanks to... let's call it something neutral, for now, like miscommunication?" Looseleaf: "I mean, it could legitimately be miscommunication, possibly," Looseleaf says somewhat lamely. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Perhaps! We are calling it that for a reason." Vayen: "Yes." Looseleaf: "But... I doubt Oyobi and Noeru would both lie about this. Oyobi's convinced that someone opened your door and opened Noeru's door, and that she heard your voice coming from Noeru's room." Vayen: "So what you have is Oyobi's word?" Looseleaf: "What's the alternative explanation here? An unknown party opened both doors, then went into Noeru's room and made a convincing imitation of your voice?" Vayen: "Or Oyobi is lying to make you distrust me." "Pretty standard elf move." Oyobi Yamatake: "Oh, you are not playing that card!" Vayen: He shrugs. Looseleaf: Looseleaf looks at the two of them. She can already see where this is going. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah, the happy topic of racial politics! Sure to lighten any conversation." Looseleaf: "Okay, yeah, no, we're not playing that card," she says. "If it's deception we're worried about, I invite you to... allow me to perform a soul-read of you. Both of you, that is; you too, Oyobi, just to be fair." Oyobi Yamatake: "What? No, why?" Vayen: "I decline." Looseleaf: "It's not thought reading, but I can read alignment and intentions, if you let me." Vayen: "I decline." Looseleaf: "I mean, the alternative is- it is not fun being in a party cleaved down the middle with two sides that mistrust each other!" "Well... okay, I mean. If you decline, I'm not going to do that on you against your will." Oyobi Yamatake: "But- I mean, we're roommates! Don't you trust me?" "Over him?" Looseleaf:"Yeah, but, like, it's not fair that I only check one side, if I'm checking at all." "Fairness is important." Oyobi Yamatake: "..." Vayen: "Don't you have something else to be doing?"

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Vayen. I would like to believe that this is a misunderstanding. But you understand that as of yet, you have done nothing, at all, that indicates that you have any interest whatsoever in preserving our lives on this trip?" Vayen : "...Correct." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah." Saelhen blinks... and then chuckles a little. "Ah, ahah, did not think I was going to get that one out of you. That's kind of admirable, honestly." Vayen: He shrugs. "Your well-being is not relevant to my mission statement." "Mine need not be to yours." "Just... pretend I'm not here." Oyobi Yamatake: [I like that, actually. Let's just ditch him in the middle of the night,] Oyobi signs to Saelhen. Looseleaf: "And, what, let you walk into being pinned between spiky magic armor guys again?" "I mean, it's your call, legitimately." Vayen: "I'm fine." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "So you scouted ahead to give us information... despite the fact that you have absolutely no interest in whether we live or die." Vayen: "I scouted ahead to obtain information." "Anything else is your assumption." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Let's say this, for now. Vayen, if you'd like to scout ahead for information, feel free. If you scout ahead for information without telling anyone, and if you return without any information, I will assume you are up to no good. Does that sound fair? Fair-ish?" Vayen: "...Assume what you like." Looseleaf: "...And, if you want us to assume you're not there- well, then, if someone shows up in our rooms at random, that's going to be assumed as an invasion of personal privacy. If Vayen-the-contributing-member-of-the-party doesn't exist, then there's no good reason for you to be in someone else's rooms at night against their will."

Man, what's with this guy? Might as well be wearing a giant neon "I'M EVIL" sign over his head. What a creep-o!

Anyway, in between the interrogation and the wound-dressing, the party searches the bedroom for loot. And loot they find- Looseleaf locates a pillow in an armoire that seems ridiculously comfy. When she naps on it, she finds that she recovers as if taking a long rest during the span of this short rest. It seems too good to be true- so they make some Arcana rolls to see if they can determine the nature of its magic.

Cool! Great! Probably fine!

Looseleaf: well, in that case, i lavishly describe the powerful effects of the best pillow ever, while being all smug about how i got to use it. and then promise that everyone else will get to take turns because i am a good moth. Orluthe Chokorov: "Wow, that's... could I try that next time?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "It was adorable, you realize." "You're like a cloud who's gotten attached to another, puffier cloud." Oyobi Yamatake: "I don't sleep, but that sounds great for you!"

Saelhen, meanwhile, finds in a drawer ~5gp worth of jewelry, and... a rug. Which jumps out, unfurls itself on the floor, and beckons with a tassel to stand on it. Saelhen is by no means willing to fall for whatever trap this is, but Looseleaf...

Looseleaf: If you're not stepping on the obvious flying carpet, Looseleaf will.

But... it's not a flying carpet. It seems to just be a normal carpet, which wants to be stood on more than usual. That's... probably fine, right? Yeah. They opt to take it with them as a pet, because why not?

Looseleaf: "I will name my new pillow Cloudberry, and our new carpet friend Tasselhoff," Looseleaf declares.

They also notice that there's a secret door in the room- it's in the central pillar of the tower, and opens up into a hollow chamber that seems to span the height of the tower. From the inside, with Looseleaf's darkvision, they can spot additional secret doors hidden on the landings to each of the other floors, which were simply missed earlier. There's no obvious way to traverse this shaft, but they keep it in mind. They also keep in mind that there appears to be a basement of the tower, which they didn't notice earlier.

That squared away, the party heads up to the sixth and final floor of the tower.

Benedict I. (GM): This room is... It's large and round, like you might expect, with vaulted ceilings held up by wooden beams built into the central pillar. Right by the stairs is what appears to be a large furnace, with multiple compartments for burning different things. Looseleaf: oh, this isn't the roof. for some reason i was imagining this was the roof itself. i guess the roof is just, like, generic wizard tower shingles? Benedict I. (GM): The roof is sloped and shingled- you can tell there wasn't much up there, and that this appears to be all there is to the interior- no undiscovered attic. There is a large table to the left, a work desk of some description. The main thing of note on that desk- besides a bunch of papers you can't read from here- is a collection of colorful glass bottles with little glowing motes of light inside. There is a very comfy-looking chair by the desk, between the two windows, with a humanoid figure slouched in it. Motionless. Looseleaf: looseleaf would immediately be convinced that these glowing jars are some form of soul-jar- ah, that's probably our wizard Saelhen du Fishercrown: does it look like a corpse? Benedict I. (GM): To the south of you, there's a sort of nice living-room-type area with a rug and two large sofas, which seem excited to have guests. Oh, yeah, looks like a corpse, though you can't tell from this distance for sure. Probably, though. Not visibly breathing. To the very south of the room seems to be... Some sort of sloped basin, sloped down towards drains set into the central pillar. The basin is splashed all over with bloodstains of varying sizes. There is, by the basin, a very large section of the wall and windows that has been smashed open, and rubble and glass has been swept to one side in a pile by the stairs.

The body, on closer inspection, is in fact a corpse. It's not hard to identify him as the wizard who owns the tower, by his age and attire- and it's not hard to identify how he died, by the characteristic pattern of stab wounds in his chest.

The papers on the desk, meanwhile, contain extensive notes on different humanoid nervous systems and their pain responses, much of which is kind of indecipherable just because no one in the party is a neurobiologist. Plus some stuff on various magical interventions and diagrams thereof, which are likewise kind of tough to make sense of. And they're all... about a year old, representing about a month's worth of research. Apparently the archived research is kept somewhere else.

The glowy bottles, as far as they can tell, do some sort of magic with colored light, but the party doesn't experiment with them- they conclude pretty quickly that they have something to do with the nightly magical lightshows visible from outside the tower.

Looseleaf: "So, yeah, this guy definitely died a year ago when he got stabbed with his own four-pronged petard, and since then someone else has been going around and using the petard to assassinate people in Barley," Looseleaf concludes.

Before they do anything else... the couches approach, menacingly. Saelhen volunteers Oyobi as a guinea pig for the "is it safe to sit on the couches", theory- and luckily, that does appear to be the case. The couch she sits on squirms in contentment, much like the rug from earlier.

The other couch flies into a jealous rage and charges.

Quickly enough, Saelhen jumps onto the other couch, sating its sitlust for the time being. So, that potential hazard is nipped in the bud.

Looseleaf gets a 20 on her investigation roll to look around the room, meanwhile. With that, she's able to note that the bloodstains in the basin vary in age, some of them as fresh as a couple weeks old. She also notices there's not much splatter- as if the sources of the bloodstains weren't killed here. Her animism, applied to the floor stones, tells her the same- no echoes of death in the basin.

Also...

Next time: clearing out the rest of the tower!