Empyrea

[Venom3001]

"You," Mason immediately growled, stopping dead and staring at Martin and Maria. He flexed his fingers and loud crackling noises emerged from his knuckles. He began to walk forward slowly.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn seemed to brighten at Mason's arrival; she looked up and smiled, at least, though her eyes remained a little red. The smile faded when she saw where he was headed, however. "Please don't!" she called, "That won't do anything!"  

[SiberDrac]

"Ah. That makes sense. So it wasn't weaponized in the sense of being aerosolized; it was weaponized in the sense that you," she turned to Maria, "somehow managed to manipulate and employ people as insane as the ones who attacked us without having them attack you. What's your game, woman?" she asked, stressing the next-to-last word purposefully. She was totally ignoring Dawn, Henry, and the associated conversationalists. "I promise you, I have the same academic curiosity in this disease as you claim to have. So let's see if you have it. A few questions, if you don't mind.

"First: what have you named the disease? Surely you have some method of communicating with others. Just because your professionals are inaccessible doesn't mean no one can investigate." Her gaze didn't waver from Maria's eyes until they snapped over to Martin.

"Second: what treatments have you attempted? What's the progression of the disease? Have you documented individual cases? Or have any of you?" She swung Alex's gaze to the Workmen before moving back to Maria.

"Third: who was patient zero? The first host? Have you narrowed anything down?"

Suddenly, Chris was interrupted by the new arrival. Upon seeing his monstrous appearance, she squeaked with fright and after a quick search for safe points, retreated back to Ton'yell, not even having realized she had stood up to address Maria. A fit of blinking later, Jesse had surfaced. "Cool!" he said, beaming at the golem-like humanoid. "Hey! Hey, Carpenter, what is that?"  

[NativeForeigner]

Carpenter smiled inwardly (seeing as he had no mouth to smile externally), the situation was starting to look better for the Workmen, but they still couldn't afford to give any slack with the situation.

Carpenter gestured at Mason with his head, "Manor, Mason, can't fight in here. Two on three, we'll take this outside later."

Carpenter glanced at Jesse, "He's one of us, Mason."

Maria was shocked at the assault of question coming at her from Chris, but she didn't stutter this time. "Well we haven't always been able to control the infected." she admitted, "Only just before we came here were we able to, the MADHATTER helped with that, he did, and he brought us here."

She smirked, ready to answer the questions. She planted her left hand on her hip, which was now swung to the right, and held up her left hand with the index finger extended, "We've decided to call it the MANIAC'S PLIGHT."
She now held up two fingers, "We've tried a number of things, we have, anything we could. From any kind of drugs we had, some herbal treatments, bleeding out the infected, sweating it out, whatever we could. The only thing that seemed to prevent it was removing the infected tissue before it spread."

She held up three fingers, "We're not really sure who the first Infected was, either someone on the very outskirts of our land or someone in the very center of it. We're not really certain, we're not."

She beamed, proud of herself for answering the assault of questions effectively.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn looked up at Carpenter with wide eyes. "You're... going to fight them? Can I help?" She blinked, then bit her lip. "You're not going to hurt Miss Maria, are you?"  

[Isa-sama]

Ton'yell was rather surprised at the introduction of a new character. From the little information she'd gathered in those few seconds, this man was a Workman. At the very least, he sides with them. She watched as the man started walking towards the MADmen. And here comes another fight. In a moment of weakness, she just wanted to go home. She wanted to forget all of this and just enjoy life in Corona.

She was quickly brought out of it when Chris returned to her side. As nice as it was that Chris came back, it seemed a bit out of character. No time for that. Right now I believe we have to worry about this man. And of course, Jesse popped up at the introduction of a new a person.

"So where have you been doing your experiments? Do you have any scientists with you currently?" she asked Maria.  

[Venom3001]

"Aye," Mason agreed. His voice was slow and deep. "Cutting out the infected tissue indeed," he spoke with a nod, raising his enormous left arm. Closer inspection showed the stone seemed to merge with the living tissue just above the shoulder. "Of course, if you don't get bit on a limb, you got no chance," he continued. "They tag your chest or your neck or your face, or you're just too slow, and your best bet is knocking y'self off and having some good friends around to cut all your limbs off so you won't be a danger when you revive."  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Shepard punched Mason lightly on the arm, apparently unfazed at the fact that he had impacted his fist against pure stone. "Good to see you again, Mason," he said with genuine pleasure. "You're certainly welcome now."

Then he nodded slowly at Carpenter. "Yeah, there's Munk...but he was black and white at the time, and we were fighting him. There was no opportunity for him to have spoken to the boy."

Henry nodded exasperatedly at this, continuing the lie. They appeared unaware that Munk had paused time for them to speak to the bassist, and Henry was perfectly OK with that fact.

Martin began to grow uneasy once a third Workman arrived. If Munk would just show up already, they would still have a serious chance...but without that, they were rather outmatched. He stepped slightly in front of Maria, his umbrella's tip rising slightly from the floor. He wasn't going to let them hurt his dear sister.  

[Venom3001]

Mason rolled his eyes at Martin's movement. "Boy, if we weren't on th' neutral ground I could snap your little b***h parasol in half in a heartbeat. With my normal arm."  

[SirBayer]

"You steamed them? Bled them? What is this, the fourteenth century? Have you tried antibiotics? Anything? Bleeding is a miserable idea. So you resort to amputation... we'll have to teach you a little about medicine." Arthur shook his head. "What about a quarantine? Why didn't you seal them in and flee? You came here, and you seem to have no interest in going back. Can you even do that? You could have left them there, destroyed or blocked the portal... no. Everything you've done is wrong. Every. Last. Thing." Arthur sat heavily. "Just finish it. It's over. You've no defense left."  

[Isa-sama]

Ton'yell ignored whatever Maria had to say since she heard Dawn ask about fighting. Oh HELL no, the little girl is not fighting. "Dawn," That was her name, if I do recall, "I really don't think you should fight. It'd be terrible if you got hurt; I would hate to see you hurt." She looked around to see the threats escalating. This is not good for any of the kids here. "Why don't you come over here with Jesse and me?"

It was dangerous for the girl to still be hanging onto Carpenter. Not because he was a bad man, but because it seemed like the fighting was about to start. I may not care to be in this fight, but I care for these kids.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn looked over at the woman curiously, but did not let go of Carpenter. "But..." she said hesitantly, "I won't get hurt; Carpenter and Shepard will protect me. They always do," she added, this time with more than a hint of pride.  

[Isa-sama]

Okay. This would be a little harder to get the girl. Ton'yell didn't doubt that Carpenter and Shepard cared and protected the little girl, but she DID wonder whether they could simultaneously fight the MADmen AND take care of Dawn.

"Well then why don't you come over here and keep me company? I'd like to be your friend, if you'd let me." Maybe she could get the girl in this manner. She stared at Dawn with a little bit of worry in her eyes. She sincerely wanted the girl safe. My misplaced motherly affections are going to get me into trouble someday. She knew that she had issues when it came to children - yet again was the problem/issue raised its head when facing another child.  

[Elesariin]

Dawn looked at her intently, her expression very similar to the one she'd worn while studying Henry a few minutes before. Slowly, her eyes widened with something that looked very much like surprise... or horror. For a second or two, her grip on Carpenter only increased in firmness. Then she bit her lip, slowly let go, and walked over. Without any sort of pause, she wrapped her arms around Ton'yell, her expression oddly determined. "I'll protect you, okay?" she said firmly.  

[Isa-sama]

Ton'yell stiffened under the hug, but then reached out to return the hug. It felt...nice. It had been a long time since she'd received a hug from anyone. That may have been because the majority of the people she knew were patients; or any guy that might have flirted with her, she'd run away from. I missed this.

She had no idea what to make of the girl's statement. Ton'yell could take care of herself - she was strong, fast, and smart. She didn't need anyone to help her; it was what she'd been striving for. But even she could admit that she'd been emotionally weakened...how Dawn would even know something like that, Ton'yell didn't know. I'm probably over analyzing her words.

"Thank you, Dawn. And in return, I'll protect you, okay?" She had a small smile on her face. It was sweet that the child wanted to help. And it only made Ton'yell want to take care of the girl even more.