Cross Effects 3.0 - June 23, 2016—April 02, 2018

[Umbra of Chaos]

Oren

It took a little while but the Fae eventually grabbed onto Breeze's hand instead of flitting from place to place. The hold of the blonde anchored her and kept Oren walking next to the warrior girl at a slower pace. "Well, I have to wear the skin of something before I can become it. That's why most of my forms are animals and monsters. The only human ones I have are of adventurers that died in my forest trying to kill the beasties there."

[Kat]

Mordred

Unlike Oren, Mordred didn't resist Breeze holding her hand or anything. In fact, she appreciated how warm her touch was. She tried to lead them to a smaller shop she had visited, but stares of people probably directed at blanket wearing Oren didn't make her comfortably about this. Neither the statement of Oren.

The Changeling stopped, ceased to hold Breeze's hand and face Oren, looking at her as if she scrutinised her closely.

"Suspicious. Are you sure those deaths just happened?"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Oren

The dark haired girl tilted her head as the other blonde stopped. She seemed more confused than anything at her question. The Fae scratched her head a bit in confusion, but she still held onto Breeze's hand with the other.

"What do you mean? People die like that all the time where I come from. Most of the people don't even live in big cities like this. They hug the forests and die all the time if they cut down the wrong tree, or go into some Crone's territory, or stumble into a monster den, or get caught in the hunting grounds of a beast, or desecrate some old spirit's home, or try to hunt down the things inside the forest. It's a really, really long list! I just scavenge whatever's around the forest for new shapes."

[Aiden]

Auspicious Breeze

"Ehhh? You mean people don't have priests to pay the gods to not eat them where you're from, Oren?" Breeze asked, tilting her head and frowning because that was really weird. "I mean, that's what people do, right?"

Actually, speaking of gods, she hadn't seen any recently... well unless Oren was one and not Chosen of the Moon like the Solar thought she was. She still wasn't sure there, but this whole skins thing kinda made it fit.

[Kat]

Mordred

"But that's bad! And we live in civilization! Skinning any dead body you find is plain disrespect! You give it to a priest so the priest can say prayers and bury it." Mordred started lecturing Oren sternly. If just barbarian habits were all that was behind her story, she'd just civilize her. "And no, Breeze, nobody self-respecting worships such gods here. Jesus is not eating people and doesn't need money!"

[SINIB]

Jeanne

"If I want this? I think you're taking things for granted here Shirou." His teasing hands did have an effect on her though, as her breathing got heavier and she even felt a familiar wetness spread from between her legs. After taking a deep breathe, she turned him around and pushed him down on the couch while ending up on top herself. "It's my turn now" With that she started kissing him with an intense passion.

Shirou Emiya

Shirou leaned back and allowed Jeanne to push him back against the couch and lay on top of him. He smiled as he felt her wetness begin to leak out of her body.

"Your body seems to be telling me something else-" He began to say before she pressed her face against his. Her breath smelled like the liquor she'd just chugged. She pressed her face so close to his the smell was almost suffocating. "And-your mouth-as well, it seems." He said between kisses. He brought his hand to her face and put his finger to her mouth, holding her back an inch. "Hold on, Little Saint." He said to her with a smile. "Let's take it slow and enjoy ourselves to the fullest."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Oren

The apparent barbarian responded to Breeze first. What she was saying made a lot of sense to the Fae. "Well sometimes you can pay off the spirits or the crones with some sacrifices. The one that lives in my forest asks for ears and she gives the villages that listen to her magic acorns that do real nice stuff! But there are a lot of people who don't listen to the priests anymore. Only a few do now. A lot of them are migrants coming to chop at the wood, and they don't listen when they're told how to live near the woods. There aren't a lot of gods anymore."

Then she thought about what Mordred said. Was skinning bodies bad? She never heard anyone say that before. And if it was desecrating the body that was bed, well, people did that all the time! But there was one other thing too. "Who's Jesus? Did he eat all the other gods from your world? Is that why he doesn't eat people?"

[Aiden]

Auspicious Breeze

"Huh, really? There's a lot of gods where I'm from!" Breeze explained. "Mistress said they're assigned by the heavens to take care of parts of the world, so if we want to use their rivers and trees and mountains and such we have to pay them for it since they're not supposed to let you do that."

That wasn't precisely how it worked, unbeknownst to Auspicious Breeze, but it was close enough to the truth to work. It was a lot more complicated than that, but she didn't have the education to parse it all out. The basics and a good sense of intuition were enough for her.

Mordred was confusing her though. "Are you sure? Because the lake goddess around the tower I was staying in is really nice! She has this really pretty harem of lake nymphs who like to braid hair and collect pearls, and the goddess likes kisses from girls so I kissed her."

[Panda]

Annabeth

The Hunter followed along, eyes widening as Rikuyo pulled back a fist to punch at the trees blocking their path. The amount of aura she was gathering in her fist was monstrous...and was that electricity?

Nonetheless, needless to say it smashed a hole in the obstruction for them to pass easily. Ron followed soon afterwards, scraping himself bloody against the jagged ruin seemingly on purpose. With his healing, the wound would close quickly, so she wouldn't have been surprised if he was just using it to mark a trail in a hurry.

Handy. Perks of having a werewolf boyfriend, I guess. ...well, one of the perks...

Shaking her head to put that line of thought out of her mind, the Hunter followed them in, unable to help noting that the strange feeling grew stronger the further they got in. While she was less sure about this course of action now, it was way past too late for regrets.

[Kat]

Mordred

"No, no, why Jesus would do such absurd sounding thing? He's a human who became a god but stayed human. It's complicated, but what human would eat other humans? Only someone fucked up in the head. So he ain't eating other gods. More people pray to him than people pray to other gods. And Breeze, I'm pretty sure they maybe are not all gods. If you can kiss one, they are just normal people, spirits and what not. I mean, I killed malicious beings that claimed to be gods. I guess they were not divine enough contrary to their claims."

Honestly, from what weird places they were hailing from. To be frank, she only prayed to Jesus just in case he would really claim her soul after her death, so she was not particularly pious. It was more like insurance. She maybe should pay some respects to Buddha so that in case Jesus doesn't take her in, she didn't get reincarnated as some small lizard. If she couldn't be a human in next life, then a dragon would be second best choice. She wouldn't get eaten by a cat or something.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Oren

"Huh? That sounds silly. Gods always want things from people. If they didn't they wouldn't bother talking with puny mortals! And I know some humans that eat humans. He was one of the druids that lived in the forest. Meat is meat is what he always said. It's not like where it came from makes it special. A carcass is just slowly rotting meat in the end." Or in some cases quickly rotting meat. Oren had the displeasure of tasting something that a crone had cursed. It was birthing maggots as she chewed it. It was pretty terrible overall.

But this talk about religion was getting real boring. It didn't really matter what gods were around or not. It mattered if they actually did things. So until some divine intervention happened Oren was certain that it didn't matter what people believed in! That's why people were so much more interesting. They did things directly. Terrible, wonderful things! She yawned a bit and leaned on Breeze.

[Aiden]

Auspicious Breeze

"Huh... I'm pretty sure they're really gods. I mean, gods are spirits," she said after a moment, before shrugging. "I guess it doesn't really matter here, though! The only ones I've seen since I got here are all elementals and I had to punch that one cause it wouldn't talk and tried to eat us."

At least the foremen at the arenas never made them eat human meat! Or at least, not any meat that looked human. On Ysyr you couldn't really be sure because of all the mutations, but mistress had never done that and never complained about anyone doing that so it probably wasn't done.

"We should do the shopping now instead of arguing!" Breeze said, nodding and smiling to both girls.

[Kat]

Julius

Kuro's irony was lost on Julius. "Is that so? But is not horse racing practiced in this age still? It only proves that creatures like him didn't lose relevance. He can serve me loyally as well as in my age. And a mere machine cannot feel bond with its owner."

Soulless means of transportation had no use of him. He just could not feel any attachment to such contraptions.

"I am afraid that this matter is something that a child should leave to adults." The count had no intention of mixing a child into his business. Slaying Satanic horrors was not an activity for children.

[Kat]

Mordred

"Jesus only wants people to behave good. That's simply a common sense!" That's probably all he wanted. Priests who charged money would go to hell or become some pathetic like a worm writhing in the dirt. This mention of some cannibal druid didn't help with Mordred's mood. "Oren, he was just a psychopath. Only psychos and monsters like vampires eat people. That's just disgusting and I would just kick his ass so hard that he would be the first druid in space."

So she regarded as a god every single spirit? Even some toilet "god" and other shitlords like that, maybe? "Eh, whatever. Just for me, if I can beat something, it can't be god for me. Have I shown you my spear?"

Mordred manifested her precious weapon. "It got stained already by blood of many evil guys who claimed to be gods. I guess it makes that a godslaying spear in your definition."

[Kat]

Petra

"Just don't do anything reckless, please. Please only shoot if the situation gets out of hand." Honestly, the police would ask uncomfortable questions if the burglar died here. And she wanted no trouble with authorities. She already tried to stab a guy today, though she doubted anyone in the police would take such loser's testimony as something serious.

Petra carefully followed Liam into the apartment.