2017-07-11: Cover-Up Crack-Up
- Log: Cover-Up Crack-Up
- Cast: Yarobeleedt, Kaguya
- Where: Old Petra
- Date: July 11th, 2017
- Summary: In which Yarobeleedt and Kaguya attempt to probe the ruins of Old Petra to remove any lingering items or information that the humans might try to use against them. They travel inward, unaware that they are now the protagonists of a buddy comedy - or that there may yet be sequels.
====================================================<* Old Petra *>===================================================== Old Petra -- as it is now known to Adelyn locals -- was once a bustling colliery village back in the heyday of the iron rush. But as the veins dried up, rumors of unsavory business and thuggery began to drive people away from the village. Bandits and monsters became a more and more common sight around this desolate village, and eventually, there was no one left to care for it. It simply became one of the many ghost towns that dot the wild frontier. Most recently, Old Petra has been outed as a Metal Demon base and a climactic battle took place there. Now, the village lies as mostly a smouldering wreck, a reminder of how horrible war truly can be -- on both sides. However, a nearby mine appears to hang in the distance, rumoured to be a base for the Metal Demons... BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRzlHGmr_EE
==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Phantom Villagers *>===========================================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
The remnants of the town of Old Petra lay before you. At first glance, it
seems to be a complete wash - the village is in dire straits, wrecked and
left to the dust. But something seems to be a little bit off - there are
villagers that move about their daily business as if they don't realise
you're even there, and they don't realise their town has been smashed to
bits. A bit of investigation might reveal something terribly damning.
Upon closer inspection, these phantoms don't appear to have any reaction to
your touch! Just what is going on with these phantoms??
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Old Petra had a nice, short stint as a New Petra of sorts, but it was still called Old Petra. A nice happy home out of a hollowed out ghost town for those filthy, disgusting, sub-demon ^Tainted^ as a pathetic excuse for a military base... and then it got blown up by things only spoken about as 'circumstances.'
No, let's try... -circumstances-. That sounds more accurate.
There have not been many opportunities to covertly send Metal Demon scouts to go try and take what they can that remains before it falls into enemy hands. Now that the Lacour Tournament of Arms has been reaching a fever pitch of excitement, and not at all because he is ashamed about having his own personal covert plot to destabilize and terrorize the good people of Filgaia a few times over already, the one and only - which is two too many - Yarobeleedt has decided he will have the honor of... not being ambushed by human hordes while picking through what's left.
It takes him a while to work up the courage to even cross any tall shadows among the wreckage, having remembered that deep, instinctual, borderline genetic mortal terror of a certain destroyer as he crawls about like the lowly slug he kinda-sorta is.
"Now for the importing!" He says, puffing out his chest like he has any sort of clout as a leadership figure (of which he does not). "I am in the charge! Also the cash and the credit and the cheque!!" This can be freely ignored at will. "We will finding the remains of a the post-outpost! Leaving too much for the Drifters to find!! Fufufu. So silly, s--"
A holographic villager walks by, clipping through the wreckage.
Yarobeleedt screeches and hides as the hologram's form shudders, turns to static, and resumes doing its thing, utterly oblivious to its environs.
...
This is going to be a long day.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Phantom Villagers.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya was fond of the new Old Petra; her time here was short, but it was memorable, and she wasn't present for those circumstances. Her wagon got saved though. She rode on it, and allowed Yarobeleedt to sit beside her. ...After she put down a tarp so that he didn't get gunk everywhere. The plan is to burn the tarp.
She was asked to come, and those are her orders, and... Frankly she wants to.
But here they are, Kaguya's wagon hidden and trapped as she approaches in herfine clothes, peering around. She hears what Yaro says, and basically ignores it at first. Figuring out what he means is almost soothing. Almost.
"Yeah sure, you're in charge," she says, boredly, in that way only a teenager girl can really do. A pause from there, as she hears the screech and the hologram. "Wow..."
"You're uh, you're seriously an idiot. Come on, look at that static. Let's see how they work..."
Kaguya starts using science, prodding the phantoms from a few angles, leaving something in there... shooting one with her hard light.
But she looks around them, too. She totally doesn't warn Yaro.
"I don't remember these being her before. ...Whatever, the Tainted could use the help seeing what's happening."
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Phantom Villagers. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has passed this challenge! The party gained 12 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: There are no challenges pending.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
The hologram doesn't respond to the touch. Kaguya's finger goes through, and it feels funny and tingly! It's a fine way to pass four seconds of her time, maybe. When she shoots, there's another loud screechy noise as the shot digs into some mechanism or another that still managed to churn out the holographic villagers. They fizzle into pixelated static, and then...
...Nothing.
It really is nothing!
Yarobeleedt nervously peeks out from the rubble. "Is gone?? Good. Good good. Yes. The cisive action! Fufufu." Of course he's going to take credit for it...
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
======================<* CHALLENGE - River Side Ransom *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A roaring river runs through this underground prison, likely carved out of an aquifer that ran below whatever town was abandoned long ago. There are floating platforms that could support you... but not for long. The slow and clumsy will be swept down the river, perhaps doomed to start from the beginning again! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Pop pop. Kaguya sets her advanced shotgun back to her belt and stretches... Before Yarobeleedt peeks out and he starts taking credit. "Hey." Kaguya steps closer and glares at Yarobeleedt. "It was good. We're going to be nice about it, right?"
She doesn't sound nice. She doesn't sound nice at all.
She steps into the mine, yanking back on the brutally heavy iron door with one thin arm. It bangs hard on its hinge.
Once inside, they quickly reach the sound of water... and then the sight of water. "Uuuugh," Kaguya says, "This sucks!" Kaguya frowns. "Whatever, you can probably just swim, slimy little shit..."
Kaguya starts hopping for the platforms, but she's not... super fast.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, River Side Ransom.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Kaguya can see the moment in which Yarobeleedt starts to renege on his ill-gotten recognition. The way she stares. The way the larger, snakier, meltier, wordier (...in a sense) creature just... shrinks. He gibbers quietly as he follows after her, making obnoxious scraping noises between his morphing weapon-hands.
"Fufufu. I know base like the acid!" That makes no sense at all. "You say offal? Awful...!" He inches up towards one of the platforms, at which point his bluster takes another hit. There... isn't any wall or ceiling around the river in which to take a shortcut. He has to play ball with the platforms.
"Just waaa----"
The platform gives out and dumps him into the river, where he flails and screams and otherwise just makes a big mess of splashing around like a drowning toddler.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward its party's challenge, River Side Ransom. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has failed this challenge! The party gained 2 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya can sure see it. Her pale green eyes just bore up into Yarobeleedt's, and it works. She has the fierceness of the short girl, not even five feet tall, and other fierceness besides.
"Quit that weird noise," she says. And then... The...
"Acid, base, what? Put them together and find a solution, because you're giving me a headache!" She naturally gets headaches.
But she tries with the platforms, and where Yaro is dumped into the river first, it serves him well to stay there. Kaguya slips and bashes her face on one of the platforms, and falls into the water, bubbling up after a moment. "Bluh--Bluh!!"
She kind of looks like a vampire...
That is not the last time Kaguya falls into the water on their way up to the next door; in the end they're best off hanging onto the platforms and staying in the water.
"Ff--c-c-cold," Kaguya complains. "This place sucks!!" But they're on land; the next door is ahead.
DG: Yarobeleedt has drawn a new Challenge.
===================================<* CHALLENGE - The Password is Always Swordfish *>===================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
You've come upon a metal door in the recesses of this metallic prison
complex, with a complicated entry terminal with a keyboard and a screen for
a password entry.
A warning message reads: 'EMPLOYEES ARE NOT TO LEAVE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF
PASSWORDS BEHIND'.
A taped-up note on top of the warning from some fellow who clearly has
troubles remembering passwords reads: 'The password is not Swordfish.'
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
One water park adventure later in which both are left sopping wet, and with Yarobeleedt having all sorts of interesting debris stuck in his lower half that he writhes and wriggles around for a while to get out, they manage to get somewhere that looks reasonably secret base-y.
Yarobeleedt surges ahead. "Oooh. It is ununclosed~" OK, that's good, that means the Drifters haven't been here yet - probably. There's enough layers of dust all around that might get the sniffles out of Kaguya, depending, as he slithers along up to the entry terminal with a clear message about not leaving behind physical evidence of passwords.
"I know path word!" Yarobeleedt gets a half-melted finger against the keyboard. Type. Type. Type.
However, his fingers are kind of fat on account of not staying solid, and he finds himself backspacing a lot with annoyed screeches that build in pitch and intensity.
"I no the passworld!!!" Yarobeleedt insists. "Is key board too bored to be key?!"
Does Kaguya trust him to get the password entered?
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward its party's challenge, The Password is Always Swordfish.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya already has some sniffles after all that, and when Yaro opens the door the Veruni starts sneezing immediately, loudly, and painfully. "D-don't--!" Sneeze. "Just open--" Sneeze. "Aaaugh, whatever, It's--" No sneeze. "Fine.."
Sneeze.
"This is dumb. This is... Huh. A terminal." Kaguya blinks down at Yarobeleedt. "I... Do not even slightly believe you, you strange, sad Demon." Kaguya shakes her head.
"I guess the Tainted take all kinds, even you." Kaguya steps forward, "Get out of my way." She shoves the rolling chair so it rolls to the side, pulls out a handkerchief, and wipes down the keyboard.
"We probably have a few tries. It's fine." Kaguya starts guessing wildly. 'Mother'? More if that doesn't work.
"If you slobber all over everything again I'm going to salt you."
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Password is Always Swordfish. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has passed this challenge! The party gained 12 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
"What?? Not sad! Mad sadless, gladly badly!" Yaro croons while flailing an arm about, either dismissing her or flailing and panicking for his life, maybe a combination of both.
The rolling chair scoops up Yarobeleedt and dumps him in the corner with a crashing noise as Kaguya works at it.
It's not 'Mother.'
It's not 'Swordfish,' but the note says that.
It's not... a lot of things, and also not a number of insulting stream-of-consciousness phrases that Kaguya might put in there in frustration.
"Yarobeleedt not lowly ^Tainted^! Yarobeleedt pure like Mother majesty~ pure like delicate blend of neonate meal tube~" This is not going anywhere good.
"What pepper!!" Yarobeleedt flails his way back to the keyboard. He starts trying to stab at the keys, screeching individual letters at a tone that is just almost out of the range of normal human hearing.
The keyboard gets stabbed a bunch instead of much of anything meaningful being accomplished. The monitor explodes from overload, and the door opens anyway as a failsafe measure safely fails.
...Which works.
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Pipe Nightmares *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A small squadron of strangely dressed soldiers in blue robes have managed to get your team into a pincer attack in the midst of a large room laden with piping and overhangs! They've got steel pipes and pipettes, and don't look like they'd mind making you pipe down with it! Better put some ideas down that pipeline, or success will be a mere pipe dream! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Gladly whatly? Why can't you just talk normally! Ugh!" Kaguya glares at Yaro again. "No... No... I'm helping. I'm being good. Be good Kaguya. Put up with him, he means well, he can't help his speech impediment. Or his odor."
Kaguya works at the password, including trying some very, very rude passwords that it's for the best don't appear on her screen. This is going nowhere. But Yaro...
"What--" Kaguya darts out of the way as quickly as she can when Yaro charges the keyboard. "Lowly!?" Kaguya narrows her eyes at him. "Oh great. Look what you did! You broke it! Useful shitty terminal, and you break it. Ugh. And you're hurting my ears!" Kaguya shakes her head and starts for the door, muttering as she goes before she finally speaks up, "The Tainted aren't lowly anyway." A pause, and a grin. "I should tell everyone you compared yourself to Mother." It is not a pleasant grin.
Soon they're moving through the hall though, dark bricks all around, until suddenly... Blue robes. "Aw, fu--"
They swing with pipes, and Kaguya starts firing wildly.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Pipe Nightmares.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
"I speak granular! With whit of silber and wizardly dumb!" I don't know how anyone can transcribe 'silver wit and wisdom' as that...
More frustration mounts as the thing explodes and it breaks.
"Wh-what?" Yarobeleedt gasps. Did he hear that right? Did he just hear Kaguya say that the ^Tainted^ aren't lowly...? That does it! He's totally telling someone that the ^Tainted^ are grandstanding and comparing themselves to being worthy of Mother's recognition and grace and he is so incensed by this very idea that he sort of mentally skims over the implication that he's about to be embarrassed about bieng compared to Mother, but why would he? He's the Favorite Chum of Mother!! Metal Darkman Yarobeleedt!!
THen, they come across blue-robed figures. In truth, Yarobeleedt kinda-sorta knows what these do, what they are, and how to deactivate them. But Kaguya is clearly a filthy ^Tainted^ lover so he just stands there, rubbing his nasty little weapon-morphing melted hands together with scraping sounds.
"Fufufu. What is sorcerous script for salivating??" And then he gets clonked on the back of the head by the pipe.
"What! No! Nononono! Yarobeleedt is local produce!!"
A few more gang up on Yarobeleedt and just continue to beat at him while he screeches bloody murder. This might even pull a few off of Kaguya.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Pipe Nightmares. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has failed this challenge! The party gained 2 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya has no idea what Yaro even means more than half the time already. Even his gasp is incomprehensible to her. So she ignores everything for the next little while as they walk, because seriously this guy talks so much.
The blue figures are fine at first, except that they close. Kaguya gets beaten by a bunch of them too, another and another before she uses an explosive round and rockets backwards. Yaro keeps others off of her... as they beat him, and beat him, and beat him, and Kaguya keeps picking them off as best she can. Eventually--finally--they succeed.
"...So I noticed you were just tanding back while I was getting hit with pipes." Kaguya approaches Yarobeleedt... and kicks at him with incredble strength while he's down.
"You talk too much like humans talk too much. You suck. And this place sucks. And everything sucks. And another thing," Kaguya isn't going to stop for a while as she heads for the next door.
DG: Yarobeleedt has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Metal Gate: Solid *>=========================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- A heavyset metal gate blocks the way forward. It's at least eight inches of solid steel and mechanically bolted into place, making for a rather tiring challenge for all but the mightiest of Drifters or the craftiest of those with explosives, depending. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt continues writhing and cowering, covering and flailing even as he's not being beaten at any more. It's not even kind of pathetic! It's truly pathetic! The Metal Demons of old are renowned as a warrior race that stopped at nothing, otherworldly terrors who seemed impossible to do away with short of developing weapons of unfathomable scale to push them back.
Then you have Yarobeleedt, a pathetic, wounded, half-melted slug-snake-worm-thing who looks up at Kaguya with those beady little eyes.
"Stand back? Nononono. Strategy! It is the ^Strategem^." This would fool nobody, and he is promptly kicked with enough force to send him tumbling down a nearby pit. This might even kill him, which Kaguya might be rewarded handsomely for, let's be real.
Kaguya's journey takes her not only through a door, but a series of tunnels that terminates before a huge metal gate. There's no obvious control panels (also not any hidden ones), it's been bolted into place by precision mechanics, and it's at least eight inches of full-on solid steel. The only way through would be to break through i--
Yarobeleedt screeches as his own series of tubes he got punted down terminate before this gate, tossing him against it with a clatter before he rolls to a stop at Kaguya's feet. His disgusting tongue lolls out of his mouth, dripping poisonous ichor that leaves tiny plumes of smoke rising from the ground every time something drips on it.
"Kehhhhhhhh------"
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Metal Gate: Solid.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Writhing, cowering, flailing. Kaguya rolls her eyes, her clothes still soaked. He's nothing like the Metal Demons she's met so far. And he keeps getting down on the Tainted. Or did he just do it once? She dosn't know.
Either way she sees him tumble down a pit, pauses... and then shrugs as she moves on. "No big loss."
Once at the gate and staring though, she steps back when Yaro tumbles against the gate. "Ew!" Kaguya says, and kicks Yaro against the gate again. He doesn't get through it, so she kicks him again... and again. "Get away from me you disgusting ugly... Ugh!" Kick. Maybe it'll work.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Metal Gate: Solid. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has passed this challenge! The party gained 12 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Kaguya just keeps punting the nasty creature in front of her with a fervent animosity that might even make Berserk turn his head for a moment, have a guffaw, and get back to whatever it was he's doing. Or maybe join in. That would be a situation that would benefit absolutely no one present.
Yarobeleedt's lower body is not only gross to look at - the way it pulsates, shifts, squirms, twists, and otherwise moves to continue being the serpentine blob that his lower body half is - it's nice on the feet. Were Kaguya not so angry, she could probably rest her feet on the stunned Yarobeleedt and... relax. Sure, it's gross, but it's the spa-esque kind of gross where it's goopy but it feels great?
One digresses.
The gate just does not seem prepared to handle something of Yarobeleedt's overall bulk being punted against it over and over and over, and the whole thing buckles over and collapses, leaving Yarobeleedt sprawled out on top of it.
Then it starts sliding down the tunnel. Hop on!
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
====================<* CHALLENGE - Now Available on Steam *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Whoever enhanced this base is clearly not complying to Workplace Health and Safety standards, because the many metallic vents appear to be releasing piping-hot bursts of steam into the precarious plank routing across the room. Fortunately, they release in predictable bursts, but one wrong move and you'll be scalded! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Berserk is not here. Kaguya is alone with her enmity, with her thick boots and... Wait, she's not alone. She's not alone at all, because Yarobeleedt is here, and that's just terrible. She's sure her boot must be slimy, her leg must be slimy, and she's huffing and puffing even as Yaro breaks through.
Relaxing would be nice, but not like that. "Y-You just... keep that in--oh, oh hey--" Kaguya leaps up to take a ride down, and they go right on through. Vents start appearing though, with theirscalding steam.
"Aaaaaah fu--"
Kaguya starts calling out Veruni expletives and a few human ones and sprints through the vents.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Now Available on Steam.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt is startled awake by hot steam spraying in his face. He shoots up with a start and, sadly for Kaguya's ears, a screech. "We are on a wild lied?!"
Kaguya, at this juncture, may envy her 'ally' and their apprent flexibility as they flatten themselves against the smashed gate-turned-sled, ducking and twisting and contorting his entire body mass to shift himself and the weight of the gate-sled on the way down the vent-filled tunnel.
Either he has caught a part of his hand in the busted gate, or maybe he has a good grip, because in his almost comical twisting and turning to avoid being blasted by super-hot scalding steam, he's doing a bang up job of driving their would-be sled.
DG: Yarobeleedt has used its Tool Clutch Harness toward its party's challenge, Now Available on Steam. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has passed this challenge! The party gained 22 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"We're on a wild shut your ass!" Kaguya shouts at Yarobeleedt, cutting a masculine figure in her wet clothes as she tries not to fall off the makeshift sled. Her hair sticks to her skin though.
Yaro leads them well though; Kaguya gets dried quickly by scalding steam more than once, each with a cry of pain and honestly anger. "This... place... Sucks!!"
Kaguya kicks Yaro again as they reach the end of their momentum, finally. "Super sucks! Get up already!"
DG: Yarobeleedt has drawn a new Challenge.
======================================<* CHALLENGE - An O-Press-ive Atmosphere *>======================================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- You've taken a turn into a square chamber and the walls start closing in on you. Uh oh. You appear to have entered a trash compactor, judging from the scraps of spent metal on the ground. Better find a way to stop the compactor mechanism fast, before you're flattened and sent to a landfill! =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt is kicked ahead of Kaguya as the gate-sled tips over and dumps them into a short drop that lands them inside a square chamber. Yarobeleedt rolls about the ground as a battered, busted, belittled little... b-word ending.
Then the walls rumble, and he perks up again.
They start to close.
He screeches! He panics! This is bad, this is bad, this is bad--
He stops panicking. He rubs his little awful transforming hands together, with scraping. "Oh. Do not wolly. Is just bluff. Not to be crushed. Wait in sight. Promise!!"
Then Yarobeleedt gibbers something that sounds like laughter as he applies his surprisingly agile body to try and grip the closing chamber and climb up, up, up as the walls close in. "Stay! Stay! Good boy. Fufufu."
Then he loses his grip and falls right back in, getting tangled into the bending, squealing, contorting gate.
Screeching ensues again.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward its party's challenge, An O-Press-ive Atmosphere.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya hops down after, slips as she does and barely keeps her feet. "This is nice--" Her sarcasm is interrupted. Kaguya sure doesn't see a way back up, and her eyes widen. "You're kidding me!"
"I am not dying with a shitty ugly slime guy in a pile of trash!" Kaguya reaches down into the scraps and picks up a long pole. She starts to try to brace the walls, but she doesn't have a lot of... endurance, in her strength. Maybe she'll accidentally hit some kind of switch?
"Hahaha, good job trying to run. Now do something useful!!"
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An O-Press-ive Atmosphere. DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has failed this challenge! The party gained 2 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
The two of them flail and struggle to push the closing walls back, but they do not relent. They keep pressing. Yarobeleedt contorts and screams in agonizing pain, caught where he is in the crushing gate, as Kaguya finds herself with less and less room in which to maneuver. This really could be it. This could be where Filgaia takes her - not because of the planet itself, but because someone forgot to turn the lights off before escaping the derelict Metal Demon forward base!
And she might have to die next to this historical horror as the walls creep towards the final, terminal point...
The remains of the steel gate are pressed to the limits of its elasticity, and something explodes behind the compacting mechanism. Too much stress has been put against the presses, and the whole thing jams to a complete halt. Their lives are (mostly) saved.
Except now Yarobeleedt and Kaguya are tightly tangled within wreckage that's going to take the better part of an hour to climb up and out of.
"I can't feel my meeeee," Yarobeleedt whimpers.
Once the two climb up to the top, there's probably another route to somewhere else that stands to provide a wonderful bonding experience between the two best of friends.
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
===================<* CHALLENGE - Aggressive Beast Charge *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- An uneasy silence hangs over your descent through the base. Then, you hear it: A low snarl, followed by another and several quadruped armor-clad Metal Beasts charge around the corner and bull their way towards you! In this tight metal corridor, you'll need to act quick before you're flattened by their charge! =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Here. Here, for all that. "Justice is a joke," Kaguya mutters as she tries maneuvering further, makes sure not to look at Yarobeleedt in the face of all this and to scoot away from him to avoid being entangled in is... slime.
But now they're save. And they're in this kind of wreckage. And...
"Uugh," Kaguya complains, an ugh of legend, stretching out as she lets her head fall into a wall. "This... place... sucks." A look over at Yaro. "I can't feel my me either. I think I'm going to throw up." She reaches into her belongings and pulls something out, popping it into her mouth with a sip of water from her belt.
But there's another place. "Come on. I don't want you wandering off without me." Pause. Kaguya eyes him, considering something. ..."Mutter... mutter..."
Going down, down, down, it gets darker and then quieter. Suddenly, two mad quadrupeds, seemingly done in by something here, crah towards both of them. In these tight corridors...
"Aaah nice animal!" Kaguya starts shooting.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Beast Charge.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
"Wander? Wander? Wonder." Yarobeleedt babbles, as though contemplating ditching her outright. Like Kaguya, he's probably only tolerating this so much as it meets their collective aims. A tenuous partnership, frayed at the edges by volatile chemistry and grievous injury as Yarobeleedt slithers at a slowed pace a ways behind Kaguya as they come across a number of large Metal Beasts.
"Fufufu. You a frayed of ^Metal Beast^?" Yarobeleedt is uncharacteristically bold today, slithering in front of her. "Lowly lowly ^Metal Beast^, look up on ^Metal Demon^!" He raises his stringy, melted, reforming forearms as if either offering a hug or showing off his relative lack of greatness. "Do as I say as I do I do say, do I! Oh, bay!!"
...
This is going to go as well as anyone imagines.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Aggressive Beast Charge. DG: Kaguya is too exhausted to continue! DG: Yarobeleedt is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has passed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. Your party can no longer continue and is forced to retreat! DG: The party led by Yarobeleedt has been fully Exhausted by Old Petra!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Wander!" Kaguya answers with a frown. She was going to help. She was fine with it, even though Yaro was weird. But no. Not happening. Except that it is happening, and that sucks. Yaro though does something... really really creepy. Really...
"I'm not 'afraid' you little toad!" Kaguya says, and for a moment she expects it to work. ...But then they're just attacking him. Kaguya waits about fifteen seconds before she starts shooting.
She is exactly that petty.
They handle the fight, but it's... tiring. It's all tiring. Kaguya breathes hard. Too hard. But... there's something called an emergency exit right nearby..
"Okay slug. You're tired. I'm tired. We leave and don't tell anybody this happened. Then I get in my wagon and leave your weird ass behind." Pause. "Good talk? Good talk."
Kaguya goes for the door and looks over her shoulder. "Kinda hope you die."
She goes.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Those fifteen seconds are terrifying but also hilarious. Yarobeleedt gets a short-lived stint as a rodeo clown as he is bucked about by a bunch of furious Metal Beasts whose control apparatus have been all but destroyed by Old Petra's ravaging.
It takes the entirety of those fifteen seconds to determine that Yarobeleedt has no future in being a rodeo clown, and gets trampled underfoot for a while as it is more through Kaguya's gumption and fine shootin' that the Metal Beasts become Metal Bits and Pieces, and the two of them have themselves a nice heart-to-heart discussion that is mostly Kaguya insulting him while he whines and wheezes and... whoops? Whooping? Yarobeleedt is so garbled a translation that some doubt can be cast on the words of even the neutral narration regarding him.
"Geeeeeeeldgldkggggfrrrrr----" He babbles, allowing Kaguya to leave in peace as he lies sprawled around the quicksilver-stained corridor ground. When she leaves him behind...
"So high and kitey, ^Wilting One^." Yarobeleedt spits. "Will not take in state of rest! No lying down or standing up! I--"
Then another Metal Beast comes - a grievously injured one with no fangs - starts to gum at his lower body because its mouth hurts and wants something to chew.
Yarobeleedt screeches as he's dragged off.