Cagalli in the bathhouse isn't an odd sight at all. It's pretty much her favorite place to relax alone, even if the 'alone' part ends up not working out for all that long, depending on the day.

If you don't really look closely, there's nothing out of the usual here, but beyond that... she's a bit smaller, her face just a little more youthful. She also looks like she's ready to slip into the water, just that little bit, and take a nice deep breath. Not that she's considering it, but she really wears her emotions out in the open.

"Father..."

Another day in the Overlord's Fortress.

Today, Zetta sat in his throne lazily, feet up on the most freaking sweet ottoman in creation, grinding out a few levels of the freaking sweet new game he'd picked up on XaXing (Nuclear Death Apocalypse Extravaganza: The Annihilation of All Mankind: Tactics) on his freaking 99" widescreen TV.

Yeah, he'd gone pretty wild at XaXing, to judge from the various tapestries and banner's now hanging on the walls, the statues positioned in key places around the fortress courtyard, the sapling planted in one corner that visibly distorted time around it, and various and sundry other luxury goods.

Oh yeah, and he apparently had a body. What's up with that?

[[OOC: So, uh, since Zetta's de-age is, as noted, as subtle as the Overlord himself, and we don't want an obvious reveal too soon, it would be appreciated if any characters who wander by not run off to tell lots of important people quite yet. ^.^ ]]

Bowser, acting as Zetta's VERY reluctant minion thanks to a bet gone horribly, horribly wrong, has been keeping himself busy by doing heavy lifting and drudge labor for the past couple of months... while complaining loudly, dragging his clawed feet, and generally being as obnoxious as possible, which helps explain WHY this state of affairs has dragged on for so long.

Shore leave is no different, especially since Zetta somehow managed to earn himself boatloads of money to play with.

Right now, Bowser's SUPPOSED to be hauling a small mountain of Zetta's purchases back to the ship posthaste. Instead, he's doing his OWN shopping, which involves yelling at some unfortunate stall owner while leaving Zetta's goods haphazardly piled next to him.

"-- you've gotta be kidding me! Someone's gotta be selling lava on this dump of a planet! EVERYONE knows that a castle's almost useless without a moat of molten rock, and you're telling me that you don't have it!? What kind of shoddy business are you idiots running!? And another thing-!!"

As you enter the Sensorium today you find a most peculiar sight.

A large black wall with a 8-bit logo reading "Monsters and Mazes"

And two simple words.

"Start Game."

Upon choosing this a new menu appears showing a series of options:

Fighter
Paladin
Hunter
Rogue
Wizard
Cleric
Bard

What to do what to do?

With the help of Minion #1 Tavros, Bowser found his way to the Sensoriums and wasted no time recreating huge swaths of the Mushroom Kingdom, cycling through various locales as fast as he could. After wasting copious amounts of time going HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING GWAHAHAHAHA, the Koopa King calmed down enough to remember that he had a duel with a certain book Overlord('s minions) to think about. Bowser decided to go with a flat platform of rock inexplicably floating above a sea of lava, deep beneath the earth- his favored battlefield, back when he'd stolen those 120 stars and sealed everyone in those paintings (just... you know, without the bombs that Mario had thrown him into).

And then it was time to warm up. Bowser cracked his knuckles...

A few minutes later, the Koopa King skidded backwards on all fours, his clawed feet leaving deep gashes in the rock as he braced himself. A split-second later, Bowser catapulted forward with a roar, swinging at his opponent with enough force to smash boulders- and only found air as the unassuming, somewhat chubby mustachioed man in overalls jumped out of the way with impossible speed. Grim-faced, the plumber flicked his wrist, flinging three fireballs before he even touched the ground.

Bowser shielded himself against the first two with his forearms. With a laugh, the hulking dragon turtle straightened up and contemptuously swatted away the last one- "ARGH!!"- before immediately regretting it because OH GOD that stings. Frantically waving his injured hand to cool it down, Bowser snapped his fingers with his GOOD hand. "Goombas! To me!!"

"GOO-RAH!" A horde of squat fungoids dashed toward the plumber just as Bowser fell back, but the human turned on a dime and jumped onto the first Goomba, stomping it flat and catapulting himself onto the next one. In fact, the plumber's feet never touched the ground as he worked his way through the horde, right toward Bowser-

- and the Koopa King immediately sent a stream of fire in Mario's direction. The battle was once again joined.

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]