Tyranny, meet anarchy

[aestrix]

The city of Eantasyl is fortunate in its placement, and is considered old for even an elven city. The streets are some kind of shimmery stone, the buildings neatly arranged and well maintained. It's pleasant, and generally considered a nice place for the rich to retire. There's a noticeable lack of greenery and foliage on the streets themselves - the place is kept very dense, and it's can be guessed that its citizens thought they had enough foliage already. It sits at the base of one of the very first world trees. One could be forgiven for missing the city for the tree - it's several thousand feet tall, and its branches bring shade to more than half of Eantasyl. They do not need gardens. They have enough to spare, up in the sky.

(The leaves are a pain to rake.)

Despite many of its flaws (and there are many) the Sunrise Empire isn't actually a horrible place to live. This place especially. Just steer clear of the government, keep your head down, don't join any rebellions, and don't break any laws, and you'll be fine. Probably. Unless there are dangerous criminals running around, causing trouble.

But that hardly ever happens. The Ministry has it all under control.

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[aestrix]

There is silence, from the other end of the crystal.

No one gets in her way, but several civilians flee.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx is back in her box! She closes the door and lets the box fade out of reality.

Time to take a little R&R. She'll be back in Facet really soon, after all- she's just got to see what's under those trees!

After a few minutes' lazing around on her stolen altar, she keys the controls and brings the box back into existence beneath one of the other world trees, aiming for somewhere that looks vaguely central. Governments like centralization, and Jinx is happy with that: it means all he things she wants to explode are in one place!

[aestrix]

Well, she's certainly landed in a very centralized location. This city's bigger than the last. Also obviously more expensive. That's kind of hard to do. But it's just as clean!

Also, there's a world tree. It is slightly bigger than the last one.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx rolls her eyes and bangs a fist on the console. She wanted to be inside the tree! She flips the switch back and forth to see if she can make Viridesence's magic travel device take her into this tree's cavern-equivalent.

[aestrix]

There it goes!

And now she her green box is on a very similar (but fancier) walkway in the middle of the tree. There's a noticable lack of light buddies accompanying her this time, and the water is far, far below. It looks like she's on the other side of this one's guard station.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx pulls out her little Apokalypsi scanner/translator and lights her way with the soft glow of its screen, her other hand drawing her zapper. Assuming the authorities here are mildly competent, (ha!) she's likely to be shot on sight if she's spotted where she shouldn't be.

[aestrix]

That is likely what will happen, yeah. She should be careful.

There's no one obviously around, though. It's still more walkways. What is it with these people and walking?

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx shrugs on her borrowed uniform jacket , and clicks a button on one of her multiple belts. With a shimmer, it shifts to a reasonable facsimile of one of the guards' uniforms.

Then there is more walkway. Walkway walkway walkway. She whistles as she tucks her braids back into her jacket and flicks her hair color over to a more-reasonable red.

[aestrix]

That's a very nice disguise she has there.

One problem, though: the invisible wall is not amused. Along with not being amused, it is right in her way. She might not discover it until she walks into it, actually.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx sighs and rubs her head after bouncing off her second invisible wall today.

Rolling her eyes, she pulls her minigun from its leg holster, and lets it unfold to its full ten-pound two-handed eight-barrelled five-megawatt bunny-eared self.

Taking a short walk away in a tactical maneuver that looks more like a flounce, (even despite the mass of the giant gun in her hands), she turns on the location of the invisible wall.

"Alright, Pow-Pow. Let's see how you stack up against 'invisible annoying wall.'"

She yanks back the trigger, and coherent light blasts from her gun, each shot coming faster and faster as the barrels spin up, until individual pulses can no longer be distinguished, a steady beam of violently red light linking the anarchist to whatever's left of her target.

[aestrix]

Well. The invisible wall is having a bad day, now.

The first few shots are redirected, though none of them are well aimed enough to hit Jinx. And with Jinx's sustained fire... Soon the wall explodes in a woosh of air. Followed by alarm bells.

Parts of the tree are now on fire, but the walkway, while slightly melted, is mostly intact. And the invisible wall seems to be out of commission. Jinx may proceed. Alarm bells and all.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx dashes forwards with a whoop of delight, Pow-Pow quickly folding away as she darts around a melted section of walkway and draws her Zapper, her other hand pulling one of her upgraded Flame Chompers from the bandolier across her chest.

Quickquickquick, cops'll be here any minute, runrunrun!

[aestrix]

Well, first, actually: Invisible Wall, The Sequel.

"Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air," says a voice, from everywhere.

And now there is an invisible wall behind her, too. Isn't that charming. You'd think they'd mix it up a bit, maybe get rid of parts of the walkway or something. But nope, more invisible walls.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx rolls her eyes, holsters her Zapper, and pulls out Fishbones. The gaping steel teeth of her rocket launcher grin menacingly at the general area as she levels it at Annoying Invisible Wall Number Two.

"Nope!"

SKOOM.

(That is the sound of a five-meter-globe-containment antimatter charge impacting against an invisible wall and detonating. It would be very pretty if it wasn't so terrifying.)

[aestrix]

Pop goes Annoying Invisible Wall Number Two.

The voice from nowhere has nothing to say to that, apparently.

Jinx now has free reign to continue down the walkway.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx grins and beats feet down the catwalk, Fishbones' fin swaying back and forth on her shoulder as she reloads in motion.

[aestrix]

There are no more invisible walls! Apparently the people in charge have gotten sick of her blowing up their nice things. Or something.

Or possibly they are planning something else.

Does Jinx have the ability to, say, sense a tiny dart filled with really awful poison flying towards her person right now?

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx is not quite that good at intercepting tiny little darts she doesn't expect.

But she grew up in Zaun. Zaun doesn't fuck around, regarding poisons. And she's fought against Twitch and Singed and all the rest of them on the Rift.

... That doesn't really make her any less in pain, but it does mean that she's still alive and moving despite the toxin in her blood.

"Fuck!"

She shakes her head and pulls the dart from her skin with a hiss.

"You guys fight dirty."

She smiles through the pain.

"I can respect that."

She tugs a grenade from her belt, and with a complicated-looking gesture she has a syringe in her hand, which she stabs into her shoulder- and then she's up and moving again, keying her little scanner with one hand while she scatters more stun grenades with the other.

C'mon, c'mon, these assholes have got to be coordinating somehow. Gimme a network!

[aestrix]

They do have a network, actually! A lot of networks. And their defenses are no match for the powers of SCIENCE.

"- target has shrugged off the poison. Likely alchemist counter. Palini, give me a list of counters for it and where they could come from."

"Yes, ma'am," says another voice on the network.

"I don't think that was pre-prepared, ma'am. She was too taken by surprise."

"... Agreed. Arcanist, then, one of Inavet's?"

"Who else could it be?"

"We could have another rogue, this doesn't seem Inavet's style. I'd expect it to be less... Pointless and brute forced. And our little traitor's not one for chaos. This is someone else."

"Tervarys, alert squad Phi. I want this woman dead or wishing she was."

"Ma'am!"

"We might have tipped her hand. And it's obvious she has inside information, if she knew about the arcanist tracking device. Garenda! Find me the traitors."

"Ma'am."

Well isn't that interesting.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx could talk back, if she wanted to, but this is far too entertaining. She pops in her earpiece and keeps moving, a little more slowly now - it's a good thing these assholes jumped to conclusions, since she only has so much body to convert over to scrubbing toxins from her system.

She keys her ride on her own secure channel; she wants it dematerialized and ready to pick her up at a moment's notice if she needs to GTFO.

... Hmm. Wonder if these people have any secure information anywhere on what the giant tree does?

Let's find out.

[aestrix]

They do, actually!

The giant tree does the following:

Regulate the temperature of the planet

Monitor various ecosystems nearby and keep them stable

Prevent any natural disasters from occurring

Stabilize the sun so that it will never, at any point in the future, blow up

All in conjunction with the other giant trees scattered across the world. One being blown up would not take down the magic, but a majority of them being taken down would likely cause a lot of natural disasters. And probably a few collapsed ecosystems. And a blown up sun, eventually.

So, essentially, if she would like to cause a lot of havoc to Facet, this is the place to blow up.

[itstandsforjinx]

BLOW UP THE SUN.

Jinx lets out a little squeal of glee at that entry.

Okay, how does it work? What does she need to blow up?

(She pings her vicinity for this Squad Phi, just in case.)

[aestrix]

It works by... Very complicated magic. Very, very complicated magic. The water below her seems to be for feeding the tree so it can do its complicated magic stuff. The best way to kill it is... Actually, right below her. Do something to corrupt the sawdust water that's feeding the plant, or find a way to keep the tree from processing its food. It'll die in weeks if that happens and isn't fixed.

(Squad Phi isn't near her yet.)

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx puffs air out of the side of her mouth.

Okay, blowing up the sun is cool, but weeks? She does not have that long.

Okay, where are asses in her earpiece? Better yet, where are their bosses?

[aestrix]

Asses in her earpiece seem to be mostly in a command center in the center of the giant tree.

Their bosses are in various places in the country, but a good number of them are in a building in this city.