2017-08-15: Butterflies in the Dark

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DG: A party led by Fei Fong Wong is now entering Rujm el-Hiri.
DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=============<* CHALLENGE - The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception *>=============
|Type: Entry       |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 You ascend up the mountain range and witness the only known entranceway into  
 Rujm el-Hiri, slipping through an open grand archway of stone into one of     
 the dolmen that surround the site. A low thrum echoes throughout the solemn   
 chamber. It sounds like a chorus, sung from an ancient language most should   
 not know. Yet, an echo of meaning emanates at the back of your mind, as if    
 your subconscious curiously understands it, intuitively:                      
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 The solitude of the stone-sea                                                 
 Protects Her from human vanity.                                               
 Couched in steel, so late the pyres.                                          
 The starless sky holds no applause.'                                          
                                                                               
 A pedestal of stone rings sits atop the altar, mirroring the structure of     
 the Ruin proper: a series of enormous concentric ring passages. The true      
 path forward would only be permitted by discovering the trick to these        
 rings.                                                                        
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong knows that it's going to be a while before he can come back into the area but he knows that Lunata Croze found a gear at Rujm el-Hiri, one that he doesn't really understand but makes him feel pretty uncomfortable even if it has been useful. Figuring he better check the place out and get a feel for the sort of place the gear came from, he has put out a call for adventuring to these very ruins. He can't afford pay but he can offer to split loot if nothing else. Besides, isn't adventure the true treasure?

He ALSO saw this as an opportunity to help Elly out. Elly told him THAT SOME JERK told her that she'd be better off as having been killed by Corwynt and that she wasn't well liked with her fellow Sky People. Maybe in the ruins there's something here that could be a saving grace for her or, at least, a confidence boost. More importantly, it's an opportunity to get to know her a bit better without being nearly murdered by wolves. Instead they'll be nearly murdered by ????.

Either way, he's brought Elly along in the hopes that it will be a good adventure for her. Or at least take her mind off other problems.

"This is where they found it," Fei tells Elly. "The power of the Death Waitress..." He nods firmly and without irony. He raps his fist against the side of the entrance door.

"It's probably well plunged by now but who knows? We might find something." He adds to the others.

The group heads on upward. The usual song hums into his ears though it's the first time Fei's hearing it. As far as he remembers. He looks around and makes his way towards the pedestal of stone.

"Mm..." He says. "I'm not sure what to make of these."

DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna's only been to the Rujm el-Hiri the one time. She lingered outside and then got stabbed by a Metal Demon. It was one of the less pleasant experiences in her life - possibly the least. She'd meant to come back but the occasion had never arisen, until now.

She's changed into her new armour - a subtly patterned steel bustier and a pair of loose bluish-grey pants and boots, the pants loose and bordered with her usual pattern. Shortsword in hand, she moves along behind Fei with a quiet frown - mostly at the nickname he's throwing around.

It reduces the Guardian to a novelty - and reduces Lunata to a figure of fear. Catenna bears it with a touch of discomfort.

"In a place such as this, there may be things of greater import than treasure," she answers Fei, her voice quiet as she steps forward, towards the stone pedestal. The thrum of that song echoes around her. Tilting her head, she opens her mouth just slightly, and her eyes widen for a second. The language feels like one she almost knows, in a way that goes beyond just the fact that she can understand the words.

With care, she lays her hands on those concentric rings, beginning to move one of them. "I believe... that these move," she murmurs, lifting her eyes to Fei and Elly again. "If we can arrange them in the proper alignment...."

DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly has been working on some boring-ass project in the academy town, which seemed, from what Fei could have inferred, to involve a lot of identifying books. They don't leave, she doesn't burn them, or (as far as can be told) copy them - past this she has never said, but perhaps Fei is glad to take her out anyway.

Elly is in blue jeans with a waistline so high it must be the 80s and a loose peasant blouse in butternut. There's a belt around the waist with some cheap colored beads on it. She also has a flimsy sun hat on, and has brought a purse.

And a combat baton but that's stuck in her pocket in case she's unhappy to see someone.

Elly doesn't contribute to the door-banging. She hears that song, though, and she hums to herself in the background. Perhaps, she thinks, only she can hear it.

No. "I recognize this, I think," Elly says. "It's a Tower of - a tower puzzle, I mean. Ah... I'm trying to remember what the trick for it is, but it's supposed to take a whole lot of moves if you don't know it. Fei, did you see how it was set before...?"

DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

It's been a little while since Cyre's last foray into Rujm el-Hiri. Since then, he's spent weeks bashing his skull (literally, metaphorically) against a totally different helltrap halfway across the wasteland. Perhaps it's time for a little bit of a vacation, he thinks. Perhaps it's time for a return to the dread halls of Rujm el-Hiri.

It's only upon Cyre's arrival alongside his fellow caravaneer and amazing fashionista that he realizes...

Maybe... He should try LESS head trauma sometime.

But, on the other hand, it's also kind of his job to go into places like this, isn't it? Especially with mysterious red-headed women and shiny foreheaded men snooping around inside a decidedly sacred place. Hmm.

"They do," he nods to Catenna and begins adjusting one of the other rings. "I think I remember one of the combinations. Let's try... Moving it this way?"

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

The funny thing about feeling a vague sense of deja vu about nearly everything is that, well, once everything seems full of meaning for a past you can't recall, everything does.

Still, Avril has a funny feeling about the 'Singing Ruins'. Like the title of a book you can't quite recall, but you remember the color of the cover, against the odds.

A call had been put out by someone Avril knows (Fei in this case, not Elly) for assistance in the ruins, and, with little else to do at the moment while they pondered their next steps regarding golems, Lolithia, and her missing memories, she had briefly parted ways with her friends to take a little side trip into the mountains with a group.

Sometimes, you must do something on your own.

"...Have I heard this song before?" Avril says, tilting her head slightly to her right as she gazes upon the pedestal. "This isn't usual, is it? I cannot say I have heard music while exploring a ruin before." A gloved hand rests against her chin, and she takes a few steps towards the pedestal.

"Hmm..."

"This moves, doesn't it? What if we try this combination, Cyre?"

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre's ears twitch. It might just be the music. "Don't worry too much about the song," he says as he plays with the rings some more. "It'll get into your head if you let it. We might need it later though."

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia, for her part, found herself coming along partly in a vain attempt to get herself away from the growing sense that she was sitting in an inn room waiting for an event flag to happen. She knows little of Lunata, but apparently the waitress' strange powers came about in this place. It hadn't felt like a Guardian, but similar, in ways...

Even now, without the Teardrop, she finds herself pulled by a sense that she needs to be somewhere. The voice grinding into her thoughts leaves her pinching her head above her eye, a familiar gesture of pain. Is it the Guardians, or just something akin?

Irrlevant, perhaps. She produces the Tinder Staff. Everyone else seems to have moving the rings in hand, so she stands by with the staff ready, because pyres make her think this thing needs to be set on fire at the end. She's good at that!!

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has used her Tool Tinder Staff toward her party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Avril creases her brow, only to nod. "I see. Then, I shall disregard it for now." Her blue eyes settle on the device again. "...Cyre, try moving it this way instead," she says, before quickly taking a step back, her hands fleeing the ring she was touching. "--Oh, that's an interesting approach. Perhaps this is what is meant by 'lighting one's way'?"

<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

It's been about one month since the battle of Old Petra. Fenrir needed to get out of the Gutters - she had practiced that whole time, she was ready, she was still capable of combat. Still capable of getting things done. The Wolf had appealed for something, a task of some sorts that she could do, a way to be useful. Eventually, she got tasked with something - sneak among humans into a ruin to see if there's a Guardian Statue inside. Sneaking with humans? It...it was not an enjoyable task, but as Tainted, she didn't have much choice.

Therefore, among the party, was what appeared to be a 'wolf Beastman'. Long silver hair, furry ears, golden eyes, fangy teeth. What was most noticeable about Fenrir, though, was the fact that she was apparently missing an arm or had a wounded one - her digging jacket had a tied up sleeve, a shield taped to her right side where her arm would be, and the right side of her face was bandaged below the eye and around the eye and ear. Her left hand was wolf-like, a clawed paw, and she didn't have any weapons. Regardless, she seemed unafraid of what was coming up ahead - as if it seemed trivial to her.

However, when they're actually inside the ruin, Fenrir's ears just move slightly at the song, and she tilts her head in confusion. Noticing the ringed passages, she squints at them, before looking at the stones. Her voice is rough and loud. "Hell does this mean?" The Metal Demon has absolutely no clue how to solve this puzzle, but she's not going to show that. Instead, she moves up to the stones, glancing at them briefly. "What if you tilt them this way?" A push on a stone, trying to see if it'll move. Maybe it'll...do something?

Also, unrelatedly - every few minutes she finds herself glaring at Cyre. Something about him rubs her the wrong way, but she can't tell.

DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=============<* CHALLENGE - The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception *>=============
|Type: Entry       |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 You ascend up the mountain range and witness the only known entranceway into  
 Rujm el-Hiri, slipping through an open grand archway of stone into one of     
 the dolmen that surround the site. A low thrum echoes throughout the solemn   
 chamber. It sounds like a chorus, sung from an ancient language most should   
 not know. Yet, an echo of meaning emanates at the back of your mind, as if    
 your subconscious curiously understands it, intuitively:                      
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 The solitude of the stone-sea                                                 
 Protects Her from human vanity.                                               
 Couched in steel, so late the pyres.                                          
 The starless sky holds no applause.'                                          
                                                                               
 A pedestal of stone rings sits atop the altar, mirroring the structure of     
 the Ruin proper: a series of enormous concentric ring passages. The true      
 path forward would only be permitted by discovering the trick to these        
 rings.                                                                        
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
=========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 1 *>=========================
===============< Results - The Yawning Gate of Non-Perception >===============
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       0 --(5)--> 5                   Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             0 --(6)--> 6                   Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     0 --(5)--> 5                   Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    0 --(5)--> 5                   Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              0 --(5)--> 5                   Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   0 --(5)--> 5                   Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    0 --(6)--> 6                   Pass
Tinder Staff                        1   Wits    Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               0 --(15)--> 15                 Pass
Conditions: Stupify(2)
Effects: Enlighten(1)|Fanfare
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei listens to Elly humming along. He rubs at his arm lightly, only slightly flush in the face.

"So you've been here before, Cyre." Fei says. "Oh uh, but do we... NOT want it in our heads? If it's useful later?" How is he not going to get it stuck in his head with Elly outright humming along to the melody? Luckily, there are some distractions. He helps Cyre and Avril with rings, largely following their instruction for the moment.

"I'm guessing the you before you lost your memories was well traveled," Fei muses to Avril. "Maybe you were here before." She gets deja vu a lot by his reckoning so clearly she's been to a lot of places! He should have thought about doing that before he got amnesia! He lost the chance!

He glances over to Fenrir as she arrives and says, "Hey. You coming with? Name's Fei. Nice to meetcha."

He doesn't comment on the missing arm in the slightest. He does however give a nod as Fenrir finishes pushing it about and steps away so she can--

--yes!!! LIGHT IT ON FIRE!!

That seems to help a lot more than all the pushing about since it apparently...opens the way to the next area? Apparently setting things on fire is the solution to many puzzles.

"I should start bringing matches to these things," He quips to Elly.

DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>===============================
========<* CHALLENGE - The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness *>========
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 The song leads you into an underground chamber, perhaps once arrayed like a   
 library, now nothing more than a maddening stanza of spiralling stairs and    
 labyrinthine passages that cast a shallow glance into this once-proud         
 repository of knowledge.                                                      
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Seek not to know.                                                             
 I once sought to Know, in the hour of my sleep.                               
 The Wheel has left us ignorance as a solace.'                                 
                                                                               
 Somewhere, someplace, there is a passage forward, but did the inhabitants of  
 this place become intertwined in their hubris as they gazed deep into         
 knowledge? Or did they array their knowledge into a futile guard to push      
 against what was not meant to be known?                                       
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly's eyes trail over Cecilia for a moment as she produces her staff and holds it to hand. Others receive a smile - Elly doesn't get into the stone-rock moving because it doesn't seem like they need an extra pair of hands, and who knows what would happen if they break one?

That'd be bad. "Maybe... or a lighter," she answers Fei, with another smile that sits on her face uncertainly, like a leaf that fell on new snow.

FORTH!

The song draws people downwards and Elly looks round, surrounded by shelves of stone, now bare.

A lot of them.

Her arms fold as she says, first, "Um," then, "We should fan out a little to look for an entrance or a stray book or something like that. That's what I would expect in something like this. Everyone call out every minute or so, just so we know everyone's alright..."

Of course she lingers near Fei but that didn't surprise anybody, did it? To Fei, in fact, and perhaps another person who joined them in the miracle of 7 not being divisible by 3 without a remainder, Elly says, "Do any of you know what's... singing, like that...?"

DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious
Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Turning pale grey eyes to Cyre, Catenna regards the man for a couple of seconds, then nods slowly. "I shall be guided by you, if you have been into the depths of this place before now," she says as her hands glide along the ring.

"It is not usual," she answers Avril. She seems able to bear the music once that initial wonder has passed. Looking back, she focuses her gaze on Cecilia briefly, watching what the princess does.

She seems to be feeling something too, she realizes. Many of them are. There's something about this place and she's fairly sure she can put her finger on... ...part of it. Part, but not all.

Drawn downwards by the song, Catenna falls in behind Elly, rising on her toes and peering down into the maze of empty stacks and winding stairs. "How curious," she murmurs. That song continues to tease at her senses; she tries not to dwell on it overlong. "But your suggestion is a wise one." Moving down the stairwell, she begins to move off - but with a glance towards Elly again, she bows her head. "I cannot say what sings... but there is something about this place, to me...."

Catenna trails off. She keeps close to Cyre; he's a friend, after all, and she trusts him. As the two move along, she dips into a pouch at her belt and sets down a stick of something on the stone near her feet, then lights it with a little flick of a match.

It's a stick of incense - a ritual sort. The scent of it drifts up; she draws it in, attempting to clear her thoughts. "...Perhaps to the left, Cyre," she murmurs.

DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Catenna confirms this isn't usual. "I thought not. None of the other ruins I have visited have had music, particularly not music with such words."

She fidgets with the device some more, trying to click it into a different position.

"Perhaps so. I cannot discount the possibility. Cyre has suggested that I may have been a priestess. If so, it might have been that I traveled a long distance before whatever incident occured that caused me to lose my memory," Avril speculates, taking another step back as the device bursts into flame thanks to Cecilia's staff.

And the door opens.

Within the gateway is a hall, full of stairways. Stone. Endless bare shelves, as if this place once would have held countless tomes. Avril gazes upwards... and upwards, craning her neck as she stares. "There's... something about this place, however," the green-clad woman states. "I felt something else when I arrived, beyond the song in the air. A resonation...?" She trails out, straightening to shake her head as she glances between the others. "Well, I will not get anywhere if I only dwell on it. We must see what we can find." Fingertips trailing on the wall as she ascends some of the stairs, she slowly begins an investigation of one of the many passages.

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious
Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

"Ahhh, yeah a couple of times," Cyre says to Fei as he continues to fiddle and turn the rings this way and that. A single ear flicks in Fenrir's direction as if compelled by some primal instinct bubbling up from the depths of the priest's mind. "Maybe twice, or three times? This might be my fourth. You've probably noticed. About how weird this place feels?"

"Anyway. The song's fine as long as you can... Think through what it's saying. It gets into your head, burrows into the soul, stays there and festers and if you're not the right kind of person to deal with it, it could be bad, you know? It's not the happiest so--" Cyre is about to say more, but then Cecilia gets bored and lights things on fire. Because apparently she's easily bored??

...

Well at least it worked!!!

But... But then...!

"...This place again?" Cyre mutters, brow furrowing. He nods to Catenna, "Alright. Split up, but sound off if you find something. I've got..." He digs around in his robe, and extracts...

A ball of string.

Don't worry about why he carries around a ball of string. It's obviously to mend his robes and nothing more.

NOTHING MORE.

"Come on. This should help keep us on track." He trails it behind him as they go. It might just be of use in this awful maze.

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna's eyes visibly brighten as Cyre pulls out the ball of spring. She struggles to keep it from showing in her face.

She succeeds, but only because she looks away and clears her throat softly.

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious
Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Okay," Fei admits. "I think I get what you meant, Cyre." He rubs at his forehead before adding, "It's hard to say. But... I have a cheating solution to this. This time he DOES reach into his artist's toolkit and pull out a soft pallete of paint colors. Fei pours some of his water from his flask to wet it and then dabs at it with his paintbrush.

And he starts dragging it around the walls in the hopes that this way they won't get too twisted around.

He looks over to Elly for a momen as she makes her own suggestion and he shakes his head. "Maybe it was that ... spirit that's following Lunata around now?" He hasn't exactly heard it chatting or anything, but he's not sure what else would be there, really.

Periodically to test Elly's own theory to pull out a book or tap a stone with his paintbrush.

"We probably shouldn't set the books on fire." He says. "...I mean..." He frowns. "I hope that isn't the solution." He nods to Cyre with his string. "That's good. that way we have multiple paths to follow." He pauses as Avril too mentions the song. He rubs at his neck sheepishly. "Me too. I wonder how they're able to make songs like that from so long ago be understood by us." He pauses. "Oh! Did I mention the thing I wanted to show Dean?"

DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

The Tinder Staff solves a great many problems! The staff blasts a wave of flame out like a tiny, pocket-sized flamethrower. Cecilia smiles, pleased to have helped by setting the stones ablaze. "An offering requires a pyre," she chimes, helpfully, then her face grows worried. "Although, I worry what we are meant to offer, if the flame alone was enough..."

They proceed, just the same. "I find it useful!" she chimes, as people muse about the power of fire. She shares a glance with Catenna, too. Yes, this place...something about it bothers her. But before much can come of it...!

Cecilia looks around in naked awe. "What a fascinating place!" she gasps, delighted. "An ancient library! I wonder if it connects to the Sealed Library...!" She trots off without explaining what THAT proper noun was, and soon realizes the problem. "Oh," she murmurs. "It's more like the trap library..." Sad.

WELP NOTHIN' FOR IT

Fei's comment comes just as she pulls out the Tinder Staff again. "Oh, of course not," Cecilia says, running along the shelves.

Then she finds a more-empty shelf and immediately blasts it with a gout of fire. "But fire dispels illusions pretty well!" she declares.

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has used her Tool Tinder Staff toward her party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

Well, pushing things didn't work, because someone else set things on fire. Fenrir turns to glance at Fei when he greets her, nodding her head. "Fenrir. Don't worry about me. I can handle any heavy lifting." And then, another puzzle.

A library. Books. What are they looking for, here? At Elly's call, Fenrir splits off... and finds herself trailing Cyre. She glances at the string, and then starts looking through the shelves. "So, what exactly are you? Those ears. They're furry, but you're not a dog. Too human, and the ears are the wrong type." Fenrir doesn't realize the irony in stating such a thing, as she begins to look around bookshelves, tilting them over to look behind them as well. "Fenrir, if you didn't hear my name before. Remember it."

DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Avril glances back towards Fei, pausing atop a flight of stairs. "I believe so. Was it that human-sized golem you said that you located? I am certain he would be interested," Avril says, ducking down as she stares down the length of another labyrinthine corridor.

Which is a nice way of saying, 'Dean's head might explode from sheer excitement'.

"Hmm, do you think any of these books might be relevant?" she calls out, peering at a row of them in the little alcove she finds herself in next.

===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>================================
========<* CHALLENGE - The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness *>=========
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The song leads you into an underground chamber, perhaps once arrayed like a   
 library, now nothing more than a maddening stanza of spiralling stairs and    
 labyrinthine passages that cast a shallow glance into this once-proud         
 repository of knowledge.                                                      
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Seek not to know.                                                             
 I once sought to Know, in the hour of my sleep.                               
 The Wheel has left us ignorance as a solace.'                                 
                                                                               
 Somewhere, someplace, there is a passage forward, but did the inhabitants of  
 this place become intertwined in their hubris as they gazed deep into         
 knowledge? Or did they array their knowledge into a futile guard to push      
 against what was not meant to be known?                                       
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"What kind of something?" Elly asks Catenna as her incense senses the passage of wind. Fingertips trail walls...

A ball of string...

Cecilia busting out flames on a stretch of empty shelving, which, thankfully, was not RUJMELHIRI brand shelving, made of particleboard and Swedish dreams...

"Wouldn't it be following Lunata around? I suppose you mean that strange cube friend of hers," Elly says, nodding along with Fei's statement. "Though I suppose it's not impossible that some kind of... entity.... could be in multiple locations at once."

Then: "O-okay," Elly says to Fenrir's insistence, before something out in the center goes CHUNK. Elly turns her head.

-- "Oh! Look, the stairwell... unfolded?" Elly says, pointing downwards. "Everyone, I think this is the way to go deeper... Was that the same experience you had?" she asks Cyre, who said, after all, he's been here before.

===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>===============================
========<* CHALLENGE - The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness *>========
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 The song leads you into an underground chamber, perhaps once arrayed like a   
 library, now nothing more than a maddening stanza of spiralling stairs and    
 labyrinthine passages that cast a shallow glance into this once-proud         
 repository of knowledge.                                                      
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Seek not to know.                                                             
 I once sought to Know, in the hour of my sleep.                               
 The Wheel has left us ignorance as a solace.'                                 
                                                                               
 Somewhere, someplace, there is a passage forward, but did the inhabitants of  
 this place become intertwined in their hubris as they gazed deep into         
 knowledge? Or did they array their knowledge into a futile guard to push      
 against what was not meant to be known?                                       
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
==========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 2 *>==========================
==========< Results - The Forbidden Library of Conscious Nothingness >==========
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       5 --(8)--> 13                  Pass
Artist's Toolkit                    2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             6 --(8)--> 14                  Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     5 --(9)--> 14                  Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    5 --(10)--> 15                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              5 --(13)--> 18                 Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   5 --(11)--> 16                 Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    6 --(10)--> 16                 Pass
Tinder Staff                        1   Wits    Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               15 --(15)--> 30                Pass
Conditions: Overwhelm|Stupify(1)
Effects: Enlighten(1)|Fanfare
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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: Catenna has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>================================
==============<* CHALLENGE - The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes *>==============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The song echoes like a low, heavy drum in the background, the air thick with  
 a reverberation that shakes the very soul. The chorus continues, quietly      
 slipping into the very back of your mind:                                     
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Time is the hound of the Wheel.                                               
 Upon the Wheel's bidding do the hours run before him.                         
 He goes ceaselessly upon his way,                                             
 and behind him, all are withered and old.'                                    
                                                                               
 A remarkably large clock runs along the ground. Stone hands, one for the      
 hour, one for the minute, and one for the second, are placed along an         
 ancient mechanism. Is the song a hint, or is it merely the lamentations of    
 those that have come before?                                                  
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre craaaanes his head back towards Fenrir. His ears twitch as if to say 'um excuse me it is rude to point out other people's super cute ears.' "Well, you're pretty beasty yourself, lady. These here are grade-A awesome, Mark 1.0 ears." They twitch again. "Not dog, though. Or rabbit or fox. Some say they're cat, or tiger, or whatever. There are many ears like them, but these ones are mine, Cyre H. Lorentz's."

There's a beat, then. And... A stairwell!? Does that mean all of their searching was fruitless!? Cyre sighs and winds his ball o' string back up. "Well, at least we managed to find a way forward, right?"

To... A giant clock.

"Tch, it's getting louder, isn't it...?" Cyre mutters, tugging his hood up over his head to try and block out that dreadful noise. "We need to make the clock run forward, I think. Hey, heavy lifter!" He gestures at Fenrir, "Push the minute hand, would you?"

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna's eyes dart towards Fenrir. Then up towards Fenrir's ears. Her eyebrows rise sharply, a hint of colour briefly appearing at her cheeks before fading. "Catenna," she introduces herself simply as the scent of incense wafts about her. Her accent is quite heavy and distinctively 'not from around here' - it's not consistent with anything from Ignas, not even the Baskar.

Her gaze shifts to Cyre; she moves by him, coming out past the stacks and easing her way over to Elly, following her down the new stairwell. "I am not sure what sort of something it is," she murmurs, head bowed slightly. "Only that there is something familiar to it." Is it just because of Lunata... or something else...?

At the base of the stairwell, an arched entryway gives way to a circular chamber with a vast clock cut into the stone itself. It's as big as a dance floor. At the moment, the three hands of it sit still, motionless and waiting for someone to take some action. Catenna bites gently down to her lower lip, listening and trying to focus on the song. It seems to want to reveal things to her, and yet it conceals them in the same token.

It frustrates the mind a little. Again Catenna sparks a stick of incense and sets it down with care, letting the clarifying scent of it begin to waft through the vast chamber. It's a peculiarly ritual scent, the activity as much devotional as it is about clearing her thoughts and focusing herself. The priestess inhales, then lets it out in a slow rush.

"I think we need to push it," she muses as she runs a hand along the hour hand. "Beginning with this arm of the clock. Make the hours run before us... until something begins to occur."

DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre craaaanes his head back towards Fenrir. His ears twitch as if to say 'um excuse me it is rude to point out other people's super cute ears.' "Well, you're pretty beasty yourself, lady. These here are grade-A awesome, Mark 1.0 ears." They twitch again. "Not dog, though. Or rabbit or fox. Some say they're cat, or tiger, or whatever. There are many ears like them, but these ones are mine, Cyre H. Lorentz's."

There's a beat, then. And... A stairwell!? Does that mean all of their searching was fruitless!? Cyre sighs and winds his ball o' string back up. "Well, at least we managed to find a way forward, right?"

To... A giant clock.

"Tch, it's getting louder, isn't it...?" Cyre mutters, tugging his hood up over his head to try and block out that dreadful noise. "It's like Catenna says, we need to make the clock run forward, I think. Hey, heavy lifter!" He gestures at Fenrir, "Push the hour hand around, would you?"

"Rest of us, probably should be waiting and looking for something to change," he huffs. "Hopefully, it won't be one of us. I don't want to deal with that kind of horror today."

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

It takes a moment (After FIRE YET AGAIN SOLVES THE PROBLEM, she should get some fire herself) for Fenrir to realize that she is also pretty beasty and that her reaction was odd. "Yeah, I haven't seen one with ears like yours, though." Brush off! But wait. Mark 1.0? Grade-A? Unique? ...Are they a weapon of some sort? This requires closer inspection.

Fenrir touches Cyre's ears. Just, her hand reaches out to pet the ear, feel it for a second, and then pull it back and move over to the clock. "Yeah, yeah, sure...24 hours, maybe?" Moving over to the clock, Fenrir takes her wolf-paw, and grabs the clock hand, pushing. It takes her a moment, but soon, she's running the hour hand around in a circle, trying to see if it'll do anything. "Rrragh!"

DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna doesn't stop moving along the arm of the clock, but she does give Fenrir a long look as she starts touching Cyre's ears.

To someone who doesn't know her, the way she looks at Fenrir is simple and placid.

Those more familiar with her may notice the hints of tightening around the corners of her lips.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"We must have set off a trigger point of some kind while messing around," Elly speculates as they descend downwards. "So... that's likely what did it. I don't know if it's any worse because we didn't do it deliberately... we're not trapped, and that's what matters."

She says to Fei, quietly, as they approach the clock, "Though I don't know where we're going, or how we'll know it when we get there."

Faced with the clock, Elly lingers back for a moment, and that smile comes back to her face.

"Do you think it's 'time' for these to get less mystifying?" she asks Fei, glancing towards him and - is she - just going to watch?

Maybe. But supportively! Too many hands, and all of that.

DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"Nothing here," Avril reports, exploring yet another little side-corridor. "This must have been an immense institution at one point," she remarks, glancing this way and that. She blinks, then frowns. What was--

Ka-chunk, goes the doorway opening below, and neatly interrupting her train of thought. "Was that the doorway? I will be right down--"

Footsteps on stone probably follow.

Until Avril emerges out into--

"Oh, it's a clock," she remarks mildly, raising a hand to her chin as she considers the puzzle laid out before them.

As Fenrir and Cyre pass, bantering about ears, Avril raises a silvery eyebrow. "Are they unusual ears for a beastman?" she asks, as bluntly as only an innocent can.

But Cyre calls out that the rest of them should spread out and search for clues. "Of course. Let us see..." Slowly, she paces the exterior of the room, pausing every now and then to search the wall.

"There are three engravings here, and there, here again. Perhaps it could be 'three o'clock'?"

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>================================
==============<* CHALLENGE - The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes *>==============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The song echoes like a low, heavy drum in the background, the air thick with  
 a reverberation that shakes the very soul. The chorus continues, quietly      
 slipping into the very back of your mind:                                     
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Time is the hound of the Wheel.                                               
 Upon the Wheel's bidding do the hours run before him.                         
 He goes ceaselessly upon his way,                                             
 and behind him, all are withered and old.'                                    
                                                                               
 A remarkably large clock runs along the ground. Stone hands, one for the      
 hour, one for the minute, and one for the second, are placed along an         
 ancient mechanism. Is the song a hint, or is it merely the lamentations of    
 those that have come before?                                                  
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Fenrir straight up gropes Cyre's fluffy, cuddly cat ears.

They feel soft and addictively pettable in Fenrir's paws. In fact, his hair is, in general, remarkably fluffy. His eyes widen. His pupils widen too. He wobbles on his feet--

And then bounds up and away like some kind of horribly spooked cat and inexplicably ends up attached to some kind of strange lantern arrangement bolted to the ceiling. "Nyargh! No! You do not just reach out and touch a guy's ears like that! That's only for private time, not to be done all willy-nilly in public!!"

"I mean, how would you feel if I went up and started ruffling YOUR ears like that, huh!?"

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre is also presently upside-down.

Because of course he is.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Oh look it worked! Cecilia beams. "I must have found a phantom candle!" she declares, with zero evidence except the fact that she's a princess and right about everything automatically.

Onward again. The clock and the song together see her stop, pinching her forehead again like some piercing pain were haunting her. "My head," she mutters. She distracts herself from the pain by attending to her Tinder Staff, but something about it - imperceptible to the common eye - has her frown. "...probably best I not," she mutters, and slips it away to walk forward toward the dials and help like a normal adult. "Uhm--"

Cyre jumps straight the hell away. "Good heavens!" she squawks. Wow, what agility! Beastmen really can move. "Well...uhm." She nods to Catenna and Avril's suggestions and just moves into position. She can push things that are supposed to move! That's easy.

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei looks over to Fenrir, confused. She's acting like she hasn't seen a beastman before despite being a beastman? That puts him a bit on edge, but he doesn't comment. Drifters are often bizarre so one acting bizarrely doesn't mean much in of itself. "Yeah I was wondering if maybe it was just in multiple locations at once," Fei admits to Elly. "Or uh. Maybe the songs are from its...victims." He cringes even as he says it. "I'm sure it's uh. I'm sure it's fine. Maybe we'll find the source at the end."

He walks around the stone clock, clucking his tongue thoughtfully as he paces around it.

He pauses as Fenrir starts pushing and growling. "....Mm..." Yeah he's probably overthinking it, he thinks.

"I guess I did, heh. Sorry, I guess my memory isn't good normally either. I haven't run into him since the first time--"

He hopes that Cecilia has enough fire to solve everything, Fei reflects, as he works on pushing the clock hands.... BACKWARDS. "I figure it means backwards right?"

It's probably not THAT simple, Fei. He looks back to Elly, smiling back at her. He thinks about how you can't really turn back time, right? Not really? He can't help but chuckle at the pun, though, and says, "I think that every...'time'. But I'm sure we'll 'clock' this puzzle since we've been given so many 'hands'."

He pauses to just sort of laugh into his hand, sitting down, looking strangely relieved.

He looks up to Elly, smiling. "You usually keep going until you're exhausted." He says.

DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>================================
==============<* CHALLENGE - The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes *>==============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The song echoes like a low, heavy drum in the background, the air thick with  
 a reverberation that shakes the very soul. The chorus continues, quietly      
 slipping into the very back of your mind:                                     
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Time is the hound of the Wheel.                                               
 Upon the Wheel's bidding do the hours run before him.                         
 He goes ceaselessly upon his way,                                             
 and behind him, all are withered and old.'                                    
                                                                               
 A remarkably large clock runs along the ground. Stone hands, one for the      
 hour, one for the minute, and one for the second, are placed along an         
 ancient mechanism. Is the song a hint, or is it merely the lamentations of    
 those that have come before?                                                  
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
==========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 3 *>===========================
================< Results - The Forgotten Room of Time's Echoes >================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       13 --(11)--> 24                Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             14 --(12)--> 26                Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     14 --(9)--> 23                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    15 --(8)--> 23                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              18 --(10)--> 28                Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   16 --(8)--> 24                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    16 --(10)--> 26                Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               30 --(15)--> 45                Pass
Conditions: Overwhelm|Stupify(2)
Effects: Fanfare
================================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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> Catenna has posed.

"Please do not molest anyone's ears while we are in the middle of an ancient ruin," Catenna chides with a slow shake of her head, fixing Fenrir with a look.

It doesn't take much to move the hour hand of the clock; Fenrir's raw power is a huge help, as are the efforts of Cecilia and the others, and the guidance of Avril. As the hour hand rotates, the minute and second hand turn in perfect time with it. Churning gears work within the mechanisms of the clock, ticking and ticking, something else grinding off in the distance. The second hand sweeps in now and then and obligates the group to step over it; the minute hand passes by less often but also needs to be jumped.

The clock hand passes by three O'clock - and something off in the ceiling chimes with a subtle, echoing resonance. Then there's the sound of stone grinding against stone.

On the far side of the room, a vast slab slides out of the way. It exposes another arched entryway, wide enough for two or three abreast. Beyond, the song seems to emanate just a little louder, teasing at the senses.

With a breath, Catenna tosses her hair back, then moves one hand to her sword belt and looks back to the others. "Let us hurry," she urges, gesturing with her free hand and starting towards that entrance.

As she passes the dangling Cyre, she sighs and looks up at him. "Come down from there," she urges him just a bit tartly. "And if she is bothering you, perhaps you should put your hood up until we go back to the Caravan."

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=======<* CHALLENGE - The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were *>=======
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 You've descended onto a great ring-chamber in the dungeon, which moves with   
 an unsettling precision not usually afforded to ancient Ruin gimmicks. The    
 song seems especially audible here, perhaps owing to its origins upon the     
 great Wheel:                                                                  
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Ponder not on the Scheme of Things.                                           
 The works of the Wheel are not meant for hours calm.                          
 Thy life is long. Eternity is short.'                                         
                                                                               
 A flash of passageways are before you, and there is a great stone wheel that  
 could be manipulated to slow the movement of the ring that you're standing    
 upon... a very heavy stone wheel, at that.                                    
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

"I did put my hood up," Cyre protests as he unhooks himself from the mess of twisted metal and drops back down onto the clock face. "That's twice now, people just reach right in there and start groping around! Hrmph." So rude. Such violation. Wow.

As they proceed into the next room, two things quickly become abundant: The song is getting even louder and that the world around this team of intrepid adventurers seems to be spinning on some invisible axis. Or rather, the floor of this vast chamber is revolving at incredible speeds. Any jump from it to one of the outer passages would be frought with danger and might just lead someone to leap down into the grinding, gnashing machinery driving this thing's momentum.

Cyre stares at the spinning wheel and promptly reaches into his cloak to fetch an ornate, brassy censer. "That thing in the middle," he says, igniting a match and dropping it into his thurible, "I think we need to get to it to slow that thing down. Just breathe deep, folks. It should help." Very soon, fragrant, soothing smoke begins to waft through the room, and Cyre hops onto the wheel to begin spreading it even more rapidly than it normally aught to. It even seems to push back the dizziness that one might normally associate with being spun around a room.

Now all they have to do is get to the center of this thing and try to turn the huge stone wheel.

That... Might be easier said than dne.

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Invigorating Vapors toward his party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never
Were.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly smiles at the first one, and is positively giggling into her half-clenched fist by the end of it. Then, she says to Fei, "Do you really think -- Oh, you meant in these expeditions."

Smooth(?)

Speaking of smooth, as Elly descends, she blinks at the speed of the wind - which is enough to lift up her hair a little behind her. This alarms her, perhaps out of concern that it'll get caught on something and she'll get scalped, which is probably how Tolone got started.

Cyre speculates. Elly calls to him, "Right!" and reaches into her purse to pull out - something? It looks sort of like a lipstick - and throw it towards the center of the room, towards that huge stone wheel and the floor near it. It bounces, skitters, vanishes and -

Shortly thereafter, SOMETHING is gumming up the works of that spinning deck, an efficient adhesive doing its fell work to try and slow the spin towards death that faces them all!

DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Spy Purse toward her party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"I am sorry," Catenna says with a small shake of her head, moving up beside Cyre and reaching up to touch a delicate hand somewhere much safer: His shoulder. She flashes him a faint smile before stepping away, her loose pants brushing together with a low hiss of blue-tinged grey fabric.

The song floats up from the vast Wheel as the group steps onto it. It unsettles Catenna a little more than before, but she tilts her head to listen to it anyway. "...the most dreadful of all of them," she murmurs distantly to herself, remembering some explanation she gave to her companions at some point in the recent past. A few thoughts linger in her mind but she tries to focus through them, on the spinning wheel that seems to control the way the ring is revolving under them.

As Cyre lights his herbs up, Catenna inhales; the warmth of it suffuses her pleasantly enough. Not unlike the incense she's been carrying with her of late, she realizes.

Then she pauses, a flicker of horror crossing her face for a fleeting second before she forces herself to lift her stoic mask once more.

. o O ( ...Did I just get inspired by him? How shameful-- )

With a huff, she shakes her head and sinks to one knee to try and lower her centre of gravity. Cradling the stone tablet she carries with her, she murmurs something quietly in some language not of this continent.

The song of the dungeon is, briefly, underlaid by a hint of some other resonance. An invisible force seems to grip the wheel; it churns a little more slowly, then slower still, as though restrained by an unseen hand.

DG: Catenna has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

As Cyre jumps back, Fenrir shifts into a combat stance, before reverting to moving the clock hand once it turns out he's not fighting. "Yes. They are not like normal beastman ears." She's bluffing, because these are the only Beastman ears she has ever seen. When Cyre starts asking questions as her, she responds. "Why would you normally touch ears at all? I was only checking how how Grade-A and Mark 1.0 they were, as you said. Unless you were lying about that." A pause. "If you came at me and started touching my ears, I would assume you were coming to attack me, and tear your hand off...which means that you could have just seen me as attacking you. Ugh." A scowl. Fenrir screwed up - no, she didn't, Fenrir doesn't screw up. "But I wasn't. I gave plenty of warning. Like walking towards you slowly and asking about them." And then a puzzled glance at Catenna. "Why does the location matter?" She shrugs her single shoulder, and then they move into the next room.

A giant spinning wheel. There's an object in the moddle that needs to be turned. Well, then the solution is simple, and Fenrir acts before thinking. Her arm starts to grow, until it is about as long as she is, and the claw is large enough to grasp around a person. It's unnatural to watch, as Fenrir turns to the nearest person.

This happens to be Avril.

"Let's go." Grasping her claw around Avril's waist, Fenrir picks her up, throws her at the giant stone wheel, and then leaps over the chasm herself, using her claw to throw herself off and at the stone wheel, which she immediately begins grasping to try and pull back, attempting to force it to a halt with sheer one-armed might.

DG: Fenrir has used her Tool Smasher Claw toward her party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre stares at Fenrir.

This is kind of hard since he's on a spinning platform, but he stares nonetheless. His mouth gapes a little as his eyes widen into saucers of terrible realization-- is the jig up!?

"Oh my God," Cyre gasps, "You're... Some kind of ONE-ARMED PUFFERWOLF."

Welp.

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna's spell breaks off for a moment as she watches Fenrir spawn a single massive talonious arm. The priestess stares for several long seconds. Her hand comes to rest over her Medium.

"I wonder if that is normal for a Beastman," she mutters; with Fenrir's ears, she's assumed that's what she is. Now she's not so sure.

All of a sudden Catenna has a very worried feeling about this woman, and she's not sure why.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"Groping around...?" Avril repeats, tilting her head to one side as she gazes at Cyre intently. He seems upset. "I see. Then, beastmen do not like to have their ears touched," she observes, hands briefly clasped before herself, before she starts that slow pace around the room to investigate for clues.

Twelve and three does the trick, just as the carvings on the wall suggest they might. That many repeated patterns suggests a certain theme; perhaps there was once something ritually important about three PM.

Maybe tea-time.

"The song has certainly gotten louder," Avril remarks, gazing out at the spinning wheel. "Could it be that it originates from this point?" She pauses then, inhaling a breath of the smoke circulating in the air from Cyre's incense. "Cyre, what do you burn when you use the censer? It has an interesting--oh?!"

Her question is cut off as Fenrir suddenly grabs her around her waist. She struggles briefly. "What are--"

Before being flung over the gap.

"...This seems rather familiar..." she murmurs, oddly calm in spite of being thrown by one of their adventuring companions, who has, now that she notices, tumbling slowly through the air, gained a large clawed arm.

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never
Were.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia steps back as things resolve themselves, a hand coming to her chest, resting in an old, familiar location for a moment. It takes her a moment to realize why the motion feels wrong.

She moves on, breath coming a little short as the pain in her head disrupts her thoughts.

Cyre's incense helps her think, and she slowly releases a breath after it wafts across her, visibly relieved. The song is less in her head, now. If that indeed is what that was. She doesn't really have spells for this particular task, but that's OK because everyone else does! GO TEAM!!

Though she does gawp a little at Fenrir's mighty arm. "Wow," she murmurs. "Martial arts are really an amazing thing..." Look she's already met a guy who's basically made of fire, arm pumping seems entirely plausible to her. "Well, if we're using abilities like that!"

She spins her staff around, motes of purple light flashing around her, and then: "HYPER!"

The motes turn red, and then race away, sweeping around and gently encircling the party to bolster their strength!

So that they can help her get across. Please help. She skips everything day.

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never
Were.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei laughs a little. "Well, I guess ruins are not entirely unlike it." He's from a farming village. He ain't TOO shy. But he is shy enough because he kind of quickly looks towards the wheel afterwards though, particularly as Elly reaches into her purse and throws out.... ANCIENT SOLARIAN LIPSTICK??...and he laughs, "Nice work!" And he says it not in a jocular manner but in a serious compliment. That will make it a lot easier for everybody else, as far as he can tell.

He himself doesn't have any fancy tools like that. He just leaps down and tries to stop it from moving with good old fashioned brute force. Maybe...

Maybe he really just wants to show off for Elly. He is pretty muscular. Maybe. No no no he is clearly just trying to help.

"I wonder...if that's a good thing or not..." He admits to Avril. Cecilia's magic is certainly going to help him with the shoving at the very least.

DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never
Were.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=======<* CHALLENGE - The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were *>=======
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 You've descended onto a great ring-chamber in the dungeon, which moves with   
 an unsettling precision not usually afforded to ancient Ruin gimmicks. The    
 song seems especially audible here, perhaps owing to its origins upon the     
 great Wheel:                                                                  
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Ponder not on the Scheme of Things.                                           
 The works of the Wheel are not meant for hours calm.                          
 Thy life is long. Eternity is short.'                                         
                                                                               
 A flash of passageways are before you, and there is a great stone wheel that  
 could be manipulated to slow the movement of the ring that you're standing    
 upon... a very heavy stone wheel, at that.                                    
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
=========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 4 *>=========================
=========< Results - The Great Antechamber of Lives that Never Were >=========
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       24 --(12)--> 36                Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             26 --(13)--> 39                Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     23 --(13)--> 36                Pass
Invigorating Vapors                 1   Brute   Effects: Cleanse              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    23 --(16)--> 39                Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              28 --(12)--> 40                Pass
Smasher Claw                        3   Brute   Effects: Rally                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   24 --(11)--> 35                Pass
Spy Purse                           1   Brute   Effects: Cleanse              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    26 --(12)--> 38                Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               45 --(15)--> 60                Pass
Conditions: Overwhelm|Stupify(1)|Tire(2)
Effects: Cleanse|Fanfare
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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: Fenrir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=============<* CHALLENGE - The Drowning Chamber of the Mother *>=============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 The song echoes, dimly hushed by the errant stream of water that must come    
 from an underground aquifer somewhere. The water flows from the vase of a     
 statue depicting a well-dressed woman, in a robe with many pleats and folded  
 clothes, her expression enigmatic and silent.                                 
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Embrace it all, like a holy mother.                                           
 Upon an innocent face, will the Moon smile in jest.                           
 We are but harlequins on puppet-wire.'                                        
                                                                               
 The entrance to the next chamber is deep beneath the water, and there         
 appears to be no visible contraption to control the water. Is there a hidden  
 hint within the chorus of the past, or is it just pertaining to some archaic  
 ritual that has far exceeded its relevance?                                   
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

The great wheel of death/time/destiny/deckmilling is evidently no match for a mixture of raw, brute strength, especially amplified by a strange cocktail of :catdrugs: and crest magic. With Solarian Lipstick (NOT MADE FROM PEOPLE, QUALITY CERTIFIED BY KRELIAN BRAND COSMETICS) transforming into a strange, gooey mess of vaguely sticky, gummy fluids in the gears, gravity magic grappling the wheel itself and at least one and a half pairs of arms grappling the arresting mechanism, it doesn't take very long for the room to fall still.

But then, there's something eerie about that, isn't there? All this talk of the Great Wheel turning on and on. For it to need to stop to complete a simple puzzle... It's almost like this place is trying to send a message. A grim, awful, depressing message.

Cyre is too busy staring at the enormous dog limb to think about it, though. His gaze flickers between it and his censer and back, "Okay. My ears are totally real and awesome but I think I maybe put something weird in my incense today because this is getting kind of trippy."

Beat.

He turns to an exit and walks off. "Well, come along everyone! Daylight's burning!

<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

Well, Fenrir realizes everyone looking at her. She's about to fumble for an excuse, when Cyre makes one for her and she squints at him. "What? It's not called that. It's a technique I've practiced for many, many years." This is actually true! "The heck is a pufferwolf? Don't call me weird things."

The song starts to get quieter, but not because the tune itself has quieted - the sound of rushing water is masking it. A woman with a vase, pouring a stream that is deep enough to sink in - or swim in. Glimmering at the bottom of the stream seems to be some sort of metal...an archway of sorts? It'd appear that the water gets blocked by it, not passing through due to what appear to be drains on either side of it - it must be the entrance to the next room. No lever or anything seeming to stop the vase, just the enigmatic woman holding and pouring it.

Fenrir's immediate reaction is to dive downwards and try and swim to the bottom, seeing if she can't reach that archway. She couldn't use her other ability, not when people are already suspicious.

DG: Fenrir has used her Tool Grapple Claw toward her party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Oh yes, this place again.

"Okay so I am pretty sure there's a mechanism up there that can turn the water off, buuuuuuuut--" Cyre unfolds an enormous, parachute-like cloth. He flaps it into the air and whispers a secret word that fills it with a rush of dense, clean air. "Why go all the way up there when you can instead just walk along the bottom of the pool with me, hey?"

He glances at Fenrir as she goes to dive right in and frowns, "See? First instinct is to swim. Puffer fish and wolf. Pufferwolf. Well, I'm not keen on getting too wet."

Instead he waits for whoever else wants to come along to slip inside and hops right into the water in his makeship bathysphere.

It worked the last time! Hopefully it'll work now, too!

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"...I suppose I shall take your word for it," Catenna murmurs, scratching at her cheek with one hand as she watches Fenrir huff her way along. Somehow she's even more bothered than she was a minute ago.

Moving her Medium back to her belt, the Zoa Priestess starts off after Fenrir and Cyre, keeping pace with the group readily enough. The babble of water ahead, rushing from that vase, nearly drowns out the song. Catenna nevertheless listens, gazing up at the statue with a silent interest. There's something behind her eyes.

She mouths the third line of the song, then bows her head deeply and folds her hands over her heart. In the silence of her soul she shares a brief, internal prayer, before looking up with eyes seeming much clearer than before.

Fenrir dives in; Catenna moves to the water's edge and watches as Cyre somehow manages to make his parachute into a little submarine. "How does that even work," is the first thing she says.

She rolls her eyes, then takes a quick look around the water's edge. Unhooking a length of rope from her belt, she digs her grappling hook into a solid housing, giving it a few firm tugs as if to test it. Then she looks down into the water.

"I thought I was done getting wet," she mutters, blushing deeply. At least this time she's decent.

Catenna keeps one hand on her rope as she dives into the water. She swims quite adeptly; holding her breath, she keeps ahold of the rope like a lifeline as she swims down quickly, attempting to simply slip through that entrance while she's still got breath - and praying silently that there's a room with air in it on the other side.

DG: Catenna has used her Tool Grappling Hook toward her party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Avril goes sailing.

Avril, uh, hits the wall and bounces off to land back on the spinning wheel.

Avril, understandably, sort of lies there sprawled for a moment or two, tweeting blue birds optional. And slowly, slowly, the wheel begins to cease its rotation. Unsteadily, she gets to her feet. "That was... unpleasant," Avril comments, looking mildly concussed. Her gaze eventually refocuses, settling on Fenrir. "Excuse me, but do not do that again." It's a firm enough statement, but in spite of her situation she appears to hold no rancor...?

She trails after the others through the doorway.

Only to pause, her gaze first on the statue, then down towards the water. "Aha," she murmurs, sighting the doorway.

"Let me see if I can help to make this easier for you first, Cyre." Drawing an unusual flat octagonal device from beneath her gown, she closes her eyes, as if in devotion. "Lucadia, please... I ask you for your assistance..." she intones.

The Medium begins to glow.

It might be fresh water, but perhaps the Sea Guardian can yet intercede in a situation like this.

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

The sight of Fenrir's massive ARM briefly distracts Elly, but she doesn't do more than sort of gasp a bit. Cyre's words make her say to Fei, almost in passing, "It's not something that's actually burning..."

Is she talking about the daylight? You mean the sun isn't just a big lump of coal?

They're then faced with a flow of cold water from some kind of aquifer. Elly attends to Cyre now that he is not emitting harmless vapors and is instead emitting explanations. The rest of the group's motions tend towards diving, but Elly looks carefully... And crouches down to squint at the water, despite the ripples that people are putting into it by thrashing.

Elly may just not want to get her hair wet, but even so, she approaches the wall, snuggles up against it, and takes a careful step out...

Then another... Another... Her fingers curl to clutch against the wall as she keeps staring straight ahead, keeping herself pressed there. It's easier to do because she knows that if she falls she just gets wet, she doesn't die or anything, but there's a scrape from the buckle of her belt as her boots grip at the irregularities in the wall.

The posture is kind of like a puppet dangling from its strings. If she reaches the other side, Elly just -- walks over to try and tilt the vase upwards.

If not: Sploosh.

DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei has suprisingly not been agitated by the song during this venture so far despite talking about life being long, eternity being short and all that. He does think wryly, at the back of his head, life sure is long yes. At least it feels that way. "You mean the sun?" He asks of Elly. "If it's not burning, what is it doing?" It certainly burns to look at it for a long while anyway. Fei doesn't do that anymore.

The next song is definitely unnerving to Fei. It's a familiar comforting but painful and strange feeling that he tries to just ignore and push through. Fei watches Elly as she starts---to walk across water. His mouth drops open and he stares at her for a moment, speechless--utterly.

Is it...an invisible path? Fei quietly walks after Elly. He taps the ground with his foot before taking a step to follow Elly's path and--


--He falls face first into the water with a heavy splash.

DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia eventually manages to get across as the wheels are aligned! She smiles cheerfully. "Good work!" she chimes. Though she does keep an eye on Avril. "Do you feel well?" she prompts the mysterious woman. "I can heal with Crest Sorcery if you need..."

Ah. And then...a problem appears. Ah. "Water," she murmurs. She moves for her Change Rod, when Avril begins to chant, and her eyes snap to the woman with naked surprise. "Lucadia," she murmurs. "A medium..." Will the Sea Guardian be able to help with this? It's more Schturdark's domain, but she's not really worked up enough to channel the Muse energy she'd need to to invoke the Black Tortoise. But maybe she can do something similar, at least. The Aqua Wisp pulses quietly in her pouch as she reaches out. She can't part the waters like some ancient sage - but perhaps she can lessen the flow just a bit? (The notion that a Priestess of Schturdark needed to be prompted to think of using magic against water is probably fine. Juuuust fine.)

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Drowning Chamber of the Mother.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
=============<* CHALLENGE - The Drowning Chamber of the Mother *>=============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility   |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 The song echoes, dimly hushed by the errant stream of water that must come    
 from an underground aquifer somewhere. The water flows from the vase of a     
 statue depicting a well-dressed woman, in a robe with many pleats and folded  
 clothes, her expression enigmatic and silent.                                 
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Embrace it all, like a holy mother.                                           
 Upon an innocent face, will the Moon smile in jest.                           
 We are but harlequins on puppet-wire.'                                        
                                                                               
 The entrance to the next chamber is deep beneath the water, and there         
 appears to be no visible contraption to control the water. Is there a hidden  
 hint within the chorus of the past, or is it just pertaining to some archaic  
 ritual that has far exceeded its relevance?                                   
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
=========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 5 *>=========================
===============< Results - The Drowning Chamber of the Mother >===============
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       36 --(4)--> 40                 Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             39 --(3)--> 42                 Pass
Grappling Hook                      2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     36 --(3)--> 39                 Pass
Reverse Parachute                   1   Agility Effects: Rally and Quicken    
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    39 --(4)--> 43                 Pass
Sea Medium                          3   Agility Effects: Fanfare              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              40 --(3)--> 43                 Pass
Grapple Claw                        2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   35 --(3)--> 38                 Pass
Sassy Boots                         2   Agility Effects: Stalwart             
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    38 --(2)--> 40                 Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               60 --(15)--> 75                Pass
Conditions: Slow(2)
Effects: Fanfare|Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1)
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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: Avril Vent Fleur has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>===============================
===============<* CHALLENGE - The Great Hall of Soul's Repose *>================
|Type: Climax      |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 This great room bears the semblance of an ancient hall. Braziers, tapestries  
 and shelving further suggest a residential purpose, complete with a great     
 table that could house a feast for dozens. However, eeriest is is the         
 uncomfortable stillness that permeates this otherwise huge chamber, as if     
 the house has had its Time robbed from it: Poor, macabre imitations of        
 citizens hang in place around the table, frozen in place.                     
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Jewels of joy ensnare the sensous mind.                                       
 Yet a tide has set from the Sea of Silence.                                   
 Only when quietude has swept the cities clean,                                
 Shall the Wheel crumble into soot-ash.'                                       
                                                                               
 A sickly, faint feeling permeates the air. The light fades, absorbed by the   
 immanent black aura of a gigantic black butterfly ascending from the          
 darkness below. It lets out an eerie, sorrowful noise, perching upon one of   
 the macabre imitations... and the statue turns into no more than dust.        
 Whether this creature is a guardian or an intruder to this time-stilled       
 place is unknown: the only thing you know is that it is a dire threat to      
 you.                                                                          
=Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

With a mixture of homemade bathysphere, a grapple, Fenrir secretly transforming her arm again while underwater when no one is looking to grapple herself to the archway (and then reverting it back to normal), and Cecicila's lessing the water, everyone is able to make it down to the archway safely and never swim again ever.

A glance towards Avril from Fenrir. "Fine. Was just trying to help, have it your way." A hmph as she continues along towards the next room.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly, having reached the far end, makes a visible "!!" as Fei goes sploosh. "Fei?!"

But if he's not drowning, she can at least try to fix the jar before diving into the -Mother's- embrace.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

She's definitely still somewhat dazed when Cecilia asks if she's alright. Nonetheless, Avril shakes her head. "I have been better, but I will be alright in a moment. We should conserve our resources, other dangers may be lurking ahead."

Though the statement might be a little undercut by her slight failure to walk entirely straight as they head out into the next room, but details.

Lucadia appears to answer her call, speeding the descent and approach of their little craft towards the entrance below. Once the door opens, the water simply sluices out, spilling freely into the room ahead, a great hall.

It's littered with statues--

Wait, what are those? Are they supposed to represent people? They sit and stand in various poses, their limbs and expressions off just enough that they seem more like mockery than depiction. "Look out--" Avril cries out suddenly, eyes wide as she stares into the still chamber. "There's something--"

A horrible chill, as cold and inevitable as the grave, billows out across the chamber. There, as cut in anti-light, a great black butterfly manifests itself. It shakes its wings soon after it lands, flickering glittering black dust across the hall.

Whatever the dust touches, it seeks to drain all life and vitality from.

Avril squeezes one eye halfway shut, cringing away from the ennervating powder. "This... is..." she utters, unable to shake the clear and present spiritual sense of Danger. "Everyone, be on your guard, and do not hold back!" With that, she spins out a hilt-like device from beneath her gown, finger slipping over the trigger as she approaches the hovering butterfly with hurried strides.

Light arcs out in the next instant, once, twice as she lashes the beam whip at the threat before them.

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Beam Whip Mode toward her party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna comes up from the water, quite drenched but this time not having lost any weapons or important elements of modesty. She pauses for a moment at the edge of the water to wring out her hair, then flips it back over her shoulder with a soft sign before looking on ahead at where the water is flowing into.

A chill races down her back - and it's not entirely voluntary. It's as if someone has opened the door to a mortuary and let the bodies walk free.

"Then this is what this place is," she murmurs, her hand moving up to her chest, and her eyes lift, the sight of something vast overhead at this point expected. The great death butterfly slights, shimmering midnight dust trailing beneath it and rotting away all that comes near. The Priestess presses her lips together tightly. Whatever this aura of death may be, there's no questioning one thing: That it is if nothing else a test, and incredibly dreadful.

"Do not let the dust touch you," she calls out as she begins to move into position, breaking into a sprint and moving towards the edge of the room. Her right hand flashes down to draw her sword but she doesn't even consider getting into a melee with a thing that exudes powdered decay and rot and has wings. She's gaining distance on it, putting more space between it and herself before she pivots and crouches down, planting a knee firmly in a position where she could easily spring away on short notice.

Holding her new (well, restored) sword defensively, she squeezes her Medium in her other hand, chanting under her breath as she invokes that lunar power, here in the place of death. She lets the power of gravity close in.

It does not come as a blow. It comes as an irresistable pressure in the air. All of a sudden, gravity will attempt to propel the butterfly backwards several metres. It won't physically harm it beyond that, simply dragging it back and away from immediate striking distance.

If this were a video game, Catenna would've just shoved the dread butterfly into the back row.

DG: Catenna has used her Tool Celesdue Medium toward her party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Don't worry about how or why Cyre's mysterious makeshift bathysphere works. Just know that it does. Know and despair, for the workings and methods of the Guardian of Wind are as mysterious and capricious as the laws of meteorological kinetics.

In any case, Cyre emerges whole and unscathed at the end of the watery corridor. Which is good, considering what's waiting for them beyond.

A hall of statues, frozen in the midst of what was surely some manner of jubilee. Their gathering has been preserved here for all of time. Or perhaps it's not that at all. Maybe these simulacrums are crude imitations of life in motion. Nothing more than wax statues wiling away the endless aeons. Maybe they're waiting for something.

If someday death dies, what then happens to the dead?

"It's here," Cyre hisses a hushed whisper as distant wingbeats catch his ear. "That monster is still here." Of course it is. Why would it leave? This place is perfect for its purposes.

"Don't let it touch you," he raises his hands, twisting his fingers into occult patterns as if clawing into the stale air itself and stirring the lifeless stagnation into sudden dynamism. A great gale whirls to life to blast the butterfly back, even as razor winds scythe in to tear at its wings. "Its touch is death. This place... This place isn't just a ruin. It's a temple to death itself!"

DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

Wow, this is already tiring. How are humans able to do this so regularly, crawl around and solve puzzles and stuff? Fenrir refuses to let herself be beat, as they move into the next room. Statues...huh. Fenrir's never been in a ruin, however, and especially not this one - so she doesn't know what's coming next.

The chill crawls across, and the Wolf is in combat position, claw outstretched, as the great black butterfly lands and starts flickering dust. Fenrir's solution to this is simple - ignore the dust and run claw-first into the butterfly, strike with the right and then the lef-

Wait. She can't. Fenrir bites hard on her lip as the realization sinks in, and screams loudly at the butterfly, taking her anger out on it. "SCREW YOU, YOU PIECE OF TRASH!" Again, just straight rushing in to claw the hell out of a butterfly and try and rip a wing off.

DG: Fenrir has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei doesn't seem to be drowning. He manages to right himself and says, "I'm okay!" to Elly.

He wades through the water for a moment, waiting for the water to recede somewhat before swooping down to the the exit. When all is said and down, he asides to Elly, "I used to jump into the well at Lahan all the time," He laughs heartily. "I guess I just got into the habit of it because there wasn't much to do there, so sometimes jumping into the well was basically a kind of self entertainment."

Of course then they enter an ancient hall. He looks over to the giant black butterfly and takes in a deep breath. Is this...related to Lunata's...

He shakes his head rapidly taking in a deep breath. "It turns stone into dust... is it speeding up their time?"

He grips his RPS Badge tightly and reminds himself...some things are just timeless.

He rushes towards the butterfly and starts JUMP KICKING it. This might not be the smartest plan to use against a giant death aura butterfly.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't work either.

"Well yeah~" Fei shouts back to Cyre. "I kind of noticed!"

It's like some people don't have the infinite lives cheat code plugged in

Fei is too busy to listen.

DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

'Soot-ash?' Elly thinks.

Of course she's faced with an evil butterfly. Cyre, who has experience, is aiming her sights high. Elly takes a deep breath and clasps her hands together before her, as if in an attitude of prayer, and stares at the butterfly even as that woman who has the muscle-arm leaps upwards. Elly watches as she gathers her thoughts.

Even Fei leaps ahead and here Elly starts to get anxious. She doesn't say anything to the creature because other people might be getting murdered by it shortly. Instead she sub-vocalizes: 'hhaaahh--'

The air twitches as if struck. It may seem like a curiously lively sensation compared to the gloom of the ruins. A sense of eyes opening.

Elly's hands unlace and a beautiful interlace of red and orange gleams there for a moment before becoming a HOWLING STREAM OF ERUPTING FIRE, 'shrieking' through the air as if Elly just threw a bucket of red-hot molten steel from a steelworks in Guild Galad or Kislev out to try and smash it directly into the face of that gorgeous yet melancholy butterfly.

DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia nods quietly to Avril. Well enough, then.

The next room gives her a headache again. She flinches, clutches her head and grimaces. "This...place," she groans. Like a voice, calling out to her across an impassable ocean...!

She actually doesn't notice the butterfly until the dust of the shattered statue hits the ground, a sound like falling sand. She stumbles back a step, sucking in a deep breath. A temple to death...!? "Ge Ramtos," she breathes. This is not the Reaper. Is the Medium even still here!? Too many questions crowd her thoughts, but only one answer shines clear:

She has to fight.

She swings her staff up, a Crest Graph whirling around her as a formula appears in the air before her. She grips the staff with her other hand and thrusts it forward, crosswise, the tip of the staff and the Crest Graph intermingling while Cecilia cries out: "FRAY! GEO!" Crests of fire and earth flash before her, And then: "DEVASTATE!"

A pinpoint of light forms near the creature's core - and then explodes outward, an eruption of raw magic tearing out from within.

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Great Hall of Soul's Repose.
===============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>===============================
===============<* CHALLENGE - The Great Hall of Soul's Repose *>================
|Type: Climax      |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 This great room bears the semblance of an ancient hall. Braziers, tapestries  
 and shelving further suggest a residential purpose, complete with a great     
 table that could house a feast for dozens. However, eeriest is is the         
 uncomfortable stillness that permeates this otherwise huge chamber, as if     
 the house has had its Time robbed from it: Poor, macabre imitations of        
 citizens hang in place around the table, frozen in place.                     
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Jewels of joy ensnare the sensous mind.                                       
 Yet a tide has set from the Sea of Silence.                                   
 Only when quietude has swept the cities clean,                                
 Shall the Wheel crumble into soot-ash.'                                       
                                                                               
 A sickly, faint feeling permeates the air. The light fades, absorbed by the   
 immanent black aura of a gigantic black butterfly ascending from the          
 darkness below. It lets out an eerie, sorrowful noise, perching upon one of   
 the macabre imitations... and the statue turns into no more than dust.        
 Whether this creature is a guardian or an intruder to this time-stilled       
 place is unknown: the only thing you know is that it is a dire threat to      
 you.                                                                          
=Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
==========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 6 *>==========================
=================< Results - The Great Hall of Soul's Repose >==================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       40 --(4)--> 44                 Pass
RPS Badge                           3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             42 --(4)--> 46                 Pass
Celesdue Medium                     2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     39 --(3)--> 42                 Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    43 --(4)--> 47                 Pass
Beam Whip Mode                      2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              43 --(4)--> 47                 Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   38 --(2)--> 40                 Pass
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    40 --(4)--> 44                 Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               75 --(0)--> 75                 Pass
Conditions: Maim|Slow(1)
Effects: Embolden(1)|Fanfare
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 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: Cecilia Adlehyde has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
===========<* CHALLENGE - The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles *>===========
|Type: Final       |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 A forlorn chamber of great size awaits past the great hall, its size fit for  
 giants rather than humans. A massive stone throne is affixed upon the centre  
 of the darkened chamber, bearing numerous effigies and fetishes of worship    
 in ages past. Perhaps, it is the seat of the watcher of an eternal vigil.     
 The song has reached its peak here, and is more audible than ever before.     
 Those with particularly magical or spiritual natures can feel the powerful    
 ebb and flow of its chant.                                                    
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Gaze thee upon the Ark of Ge Ramtos,                                          
 Her sails wrought of the ashes of hope.                                       
 Her heart is but olden dreams once dreamt by time.                            
 The Guardian's lament has made her tall,                                      
 Charged of deathly innocence, rowed forth by people's fantasies.              
 Her Eyes gaze ever eternal, upon the Princes of Old,                          
 The People who have Never Been...'                                            
                                                                               
 A large altar stands before the giant stone throne, possessing lightly        
 shimmering runes that seem to echo with lilting notes not altogether          
 dissimilar to the chorus. Perhaps, it is finally time to sing back to the     
 chorus...                                                                     
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Dust, horrible clinging dust billows forth once more as the butterfly again beats its wings, rising from its perch as black-beyond-black light glimmers forth in an aurora around it. The pull of the grave is for a brief instant horrifically real and gripping--

But only for an instant.

Spells, weaponry, the power of the Guardians, the careful but timely inspiration of a badge, many things are put to the test against the fierce might of the butterfly's very presence. Dark beams of anti-light lance out across the room as the butterfly strikes against those who would cut it down, shaking the very foundations of this place as they strike.

But in the end, cut down it is. It dissipates in a cloud of inky darkness, black motes spiraling up towards the ceiling.

The presence departs, pressure erased. The room is still and calm.

Only the next doorway awaits.

<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

Despite her attempts at slaughtering a butterfly, Fenrir gets hit by dust, and finds her strength and energy rapidly depleting. While the beast is slain, and she manages to drag herself to the next room, she ends up slumping down, sitting next to the throne. "Ugh. I hate this, hate hate hate this. It's the song, right? That's what we need to figure out? Do any of you remember the lyrics? Something about a Wheel, right?"

DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia cannot entirely escape the dust, even with all the firepower brought to bear. She ducks behind a crawling, weeping statue and wheezes, feeling the miasma sink into her bones. So this is Ge Ramtos' power...the horrible certainty of death. She's spared none of it. The Shaman must not look away. She knows that, somehow, reverberating in her blood.

The knowledge does not make her breath come easier. It's a few moments before she straightens enough to walk, breathing painfully. "Alright," she says, and onward they move.

The next chamber appears perhaps the most temple-like of the places they've seen, and the song thudding through her brain means she actually physically stumbles, staggering up to the altar and leaning against it as she pinches her head again.

Looming overhead, shimmering runes, aligned to musical patterns that surely exist but are not what are used the men of Filgaia today. Her eyes, bleery, wander around the room, taking in the runes. "I hear it," she mutters. "It's in my head." And rubs her skull again. "But the pieces...they aren't all here...."

She reaches for the Tinder Staff and steps away, searching; sending out gouts of flame to try and illume more corners of the room. There's another rune, somewhere. She can feel it.

DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has used her Tool Tinder Staff toward her party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.

Despite her attempts at slaughtering a butterfly, Fenrir gets hit by dust, and finds her strength and energy rapidly depleting. While the beast is slain, and she manages to drag herself to the next room, she ends up slumping down, sitting next to the throne and glancing at the musical patterns. "Ugh. I hate this, hate hate hate this. It's the song, right? That's what we need to figure out? Do any of you remember the lyrics? Something about a Wheel, right? Is anything spinning like a wheel? Any of the runes?"

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Holding the spell takes more out of Catenna than she'd hoped; the butterfly is airborne and not all that heavy, and she's obliged to ramp up the gravity to hold it back. But soon enough, it goes down, dissipating away, and she breathes easier, slumping forward with a heavy breath. "The wings of death," she murmurs, soon straightening up with a flick of her hair.

Quickly, she glances towards the rest of the group, as if to check if everyone is alright. As she moves towards that next chamber, she finds herself falling in beside Cecilia, keeping pace with the Princess of Adlehyde.

The song echoes in her ears, the voice of death shimmering all around her - and somehow through her. The lunar priestess closes her eyes and cups one hand to her heart. She's tired; it's been a long slog through the Rujm el-Hiri, and she was busy half the time that resonant voice was singing. "I think I remember it," she murmurs.

She sings a few lines, very quietly - but she stops in the middle of the third line when she realizes what she's doing. The song is in a language she doesn't know, yet understands, her mind translating it into her natural language.

Catenna's first language is Zortroan.

Approaching the vast stone throne, Catenna gazes up at it, thinking for a moment as she tries to find the right words in the tongue of Adlehyde. She finally gives it a try.

"Seeker of the Key... the solitude of the stone-sea...." she attempts. It turns out she has a very good singing voice. She's quiet, but there's a certain lilt to the sound of it, as though she's used to singing hymns like this. It's just a matter of finding the right words.

The right words to please the Guardian of Death.

DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei lands after his kung fu. He seems to be doing pretty well, if wet. He looks over to Elly who unleashed a HOWLING STREAM OF ERUPTING FIRE. How do people underestimate THAT, Fei wonders. It's pretty incredible, isn't it? Still, he supposes that in a military environment, bad luck isn't something they'll make excuses for. Though come to think of it, if Weltall was made for him, what was Solaris's involvement in it? Wasn't it a Kislev weapon? Fei rubs at his forehead and decides it isn't worth worrying about. The trouble will come to him.

Fei says, "It shouldn't be..." to Cecilia. "If it's following Lunata around, anyway."

Fei starts writing the lyrics of the song they've heard on a wall in chalk. "This should make it easier to remember." He says. "If we have to sing after all." For some reason he remembers a fair chunk of it, especially those two versuses that particularly stuck with him.

He passes by Elly again. "I guess this probably wasn't the most uh... high spirited ruin, but...uhh...I actually didn't mind it that much. I enjoyed it, actually."

He kind of looks awkwardly at the ground.

DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly coughs into her wrist too, but she was lucky; the wind aftershock of her screaming burst of thermal ether didn't get dust on her. As they move onwards, though, Elly gets a lingering tugging sensation in the back of her mind. A sense of...

Something. She hasn't been here before. That throne, of course, puts her in mind of a Gear immediately and sharply as she looks up at it, but the things that surround it, the offerings that have faded in the mists of time and stray entropic eruptions from the evil moth they kind of just wasted, maybe.

Elly says, "... me too," to Cecilia, and approaches the great throne.

She must see something, because her eyes are resting on a particular point, on the left of the throne. Elly walks right straight past the altar then, crouching near a heap of withered and gray textile, to reach downwards into there and draw out -

It jingles, slightly. Three thick strands of bronze wire, badly tarnished but intact, make a bracelet - with teeth on it!!

Animal teeth. Probably. Heavily polished. The ivory is yellow now but it's less rotten than most things. Walking over, Elly starts to hum as other people do, turning over the teeth. It would make sense if there were runes carved on them, of course.

But there aren't any.

She looks up towards Fei and smiles again, still toying with these ancient animal teeth. "Thank you for bringing me. Do you want to look at this? I don't know how it caught my eye; I suppose the - fangs? - they're just so brightly polished, it caught the light."

She joins in on the next round of song, though. HELo~PINGo~

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Only once the butterfly is well and truly gone does Avril exhale a slow breath. Charge for the ARM expended, the beam weapon fades, leaving only the inert and harmless (mostly) hilt of Absolute Zero. Her blue-eyed gaze flickers hither and yon, as if searching for something. For now she's silent, trailing through the door ahead only after the others venture before her.

Her gaze fixes on the altar, on what looks to be no less than a throne. Familiarity burns, yet remains unrooted anywhere solid. She stands there, as still as a statue, her gaze fixed and unfocused.

"Something... was here."

Avril speaks this aloud rather suddenly.

"I... know..." Her gaze refocuses, suddenly. Settles on Cecilia before the throne. "...Are you also feeling strange?" she asks, approaching the stone altar.

Catenna's voice breaks out into song near her. "Oh... the words of the song. Perhaps if we were to try..." Avril takes a breath.

"...Protects Her from human vanity," she begins to sing, the words coming as easily as if she had memorized them perfectly, her voice clear and pure. "Couched in steel, so late the pyres..."

DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

There is truth in this place.

Cyre staggers into the final room. At first it may seem to be ordinary fatigue, but there's a black mark burnt into his robes, near one leg. His face is pale, even in the dim light of this bleak, death-touched place. Cecilia is in no better state. Certainly, the others are feeling it, too. That terrible, awful, encroaching feeling. The dull throb of the heart's rhythm beating out a slow march to the final breath. Each beat is one step closer to death. Each one here moves inexorably towards the inevitable, certain end that waits at the terminus of all paths.

It's enough to crush a soul.

It's enough to shatter the mind.

Cyre leans against his staff. He sucks in a breath, then another, then another.

No. This isn't how it should be.

He needs to do something.

He should. To show the path- to reveal a truth, that's part of his job, isn' it?

Then this is his sermon.

Cyre straightens. He draws in a breath in defiance of the creeping pallor crawling up his leg. He... Sings.

The Land churns.
The Sky breathes.
The Sea dances.
The People sing!
Someday, silence may yet reign.
But The Wind still howls, The Earth still thrums,
The World still Lives.
And so we each must tread our own lonely road.
With words of old to guide our way.
And dreams of bright tomorrows to light our hearts.
For Death is but another step.
As night surely gives way to day.
That wheel may break tomorrow.
But for today, it still turns
But for today, We who Are still sing--
--The song of life and dream--
--The hymn of hope and rising wind!
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles.
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
===========<* CHALLENGE - The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles *>===========
|Type: Final       |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 A forlorn chamber of great size awaits past the great hall, its size fit for  
 giants rather than humans. A massive stone throne is affixed upon the centre  
 of the darkened chamber, bearing numerous effigies and fetishes of worship    
 in ages past. Perhaps, it is the seat of the watcher of an eternal vigil.     
 The song has reached its peak here, and is more audible than ever before.     
 Those with particularly magical or spiritual natures can feel the powerful    
 ebb and flow of its chant.                                                    
                                                                               
 'Seeker of the Key,                                                           
 Gaze thee upon the Ark of Ge Ramtos,                                          
 Her sails wrought of the ashes of hope.                                       
 Her heart is but olden dreams once dreamt by time.                            
 The Guardian's lament has made her tall,                                      
 Charged of deathly innocence, rowed forth by people's fantasies.              
 Her Eyes gaze ever eternal, upon the Princes of Old,                          
 The People who have Never Been...'                                            
                                                                               
 A large altar stands before the giant stone throne, possessing lightly        
 shimmering runes that seem to echo with lilting notes not altogether          
 dissimilar to the chorus. Perhaps, it is finally time to sing back to the     
 chorus...                                                                     
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
=========================<* Rujm el-Hiri - Round 7 *>=========================
=============< Results - The Eternal Vigil over Imminent Cycles >=============
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       44 --(9)--> 53                 Pass
Artist's Toolkit                    2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catenna                             46 --(6)--> 52                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyre H. Lorentz                     42 --(7)--> 49                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur                    47 --(8)--> 55                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir                              47 --(8)--> 55                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   40 --(8)--> 48                 Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Adlehyde                    44 --(8)--> 52                 Pass
Tinder Staff                        1   Wits    Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Fei Fong Wong               75 --(40)--> 115               Pass
Conditions: Maim|Tire(2)
Effects: Enlighten(1)|Fanfare
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success!
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has successfully explored Rujm el-Hiri!
==============================<* Rujm el-Hiri *>==============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - A Useful Pendant *>======================
|Type: Discovery   |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 As you unseal the throne and descend past the open gateway, the               
 overwhelmingly striking sight of a ruined city that's been lost to the ages   
 catches your attention. A city of a civilisation lost long ago, consumed by   
 hubris and inviting the frightening touch of the black butterfly... just      
 what could have really happened here?                                         
                                                                               
 As you turn towards the town streets, you see a sorry sight -- one of the     
 macabre imitations of humans is curled between two houses, clearly            
 attempting to hide and yet met their end by one of the butterflies that now   
 spread all over the ruined, lost city. They're clutching a pendant that       
 releases easily. It must have some use, and perhaps if not, it will console   
 over a long journey.                                                          
                                                                               
 Unfortunately, further access is impossible at the moment - more and more of  
 those big, black butterflies patrol the area, and to fight such a great       
 number of death-wielding monstrosities is, at best, folly. You'll need some   
 other kind of tool or approach, and greater strength, to venture deeper into  
 the lost city...                                                              
=Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

The songs, the hunt for runes, all of it slowly comes together. Fei helps them to remember the words, for those who aren't burdened by the song blaring in their thoughts. Cecilia's fire lights up the corners, revealing more runes that pulse and spin for Fenrir to assess and the others to gauge their work by. And the rest...they sing, their hearts rising up in praise or melancholy - perhaps all these are the same to the Guardian of Death, whose hand comes to all.

She thinks she hears something; below the others singing, above the subliminal thrum of information forcing itself into her memory. Shaman...

The flap of wings draws her attention up, and the whisper is gone. She guides them down, into the streets. This place pulses with danger. They aren't ready for this, not against those massive...things with their terrible magic and cloying dust.

"We should get moving," she murmurs, keeping her eyes up. "This place...we've only opened the door, I guess. I don't think we'll last long if we linger here."

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna stares at Cyre for a long moment. Her lower lip drops a couple of inches.

But the songs turn out to be enough. Something faint tugs at her spirit. A cold touch, but perhaps not a disapproving one. Dispassionate. All come before the Guardian of Death eventually, whether the powerful or the downtrodden, the innocent or the Cyre.

"So it is," she murmurs as she keeps pace with Cecilia, keeping a hand on the hilt of her sword in anticipation of something to come. And what comes is, itself, awesome in its terror - a sorry ruin infested with more of those butterflies, long lost to time, the pall of death and eldritch sorcery so overpowering that Catenna's mind reels at it. She can but curl to one side and lurch towards a nearby town street, towards the mouth of an alley -

To behold that curled form. "Cyre, look," she murmurs, her voice thin and a little hollow with awe as she moves down that alley warily, settling into a crouch by that figure and reaching to investigate the pendant.

Her eyes widen with a spark of recognition.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong can't help but startle as Cyre sings. It's a kinda too cheery song for a place like this. He isn't sure if he's grateful or insulted, as he thinks about it.

Fei Fong Wong descends with the group. He frowns deeply as he gazes about and then, without warning, he rushes ahead. He moves easily through the streets, as if he's been here before or at least has some passing familiarity that most of you lack. He looks around, frowning deeply, turning in place for a moment. "This place..." He frowns. "...I've...I've seen this place before."

We lasted a long time this time around but in the end it always becomes this

Fei doesn't hear those words exactly, but he feels it, he feels it deep in his gut. "But..."

He looks suddenly towards an alleyway and jogs towards it. He moves carelessly through this dangerous area but he manages to avoid trouble all the same. He heads down a street.

More human imitations. They're clutching a pendant, crowded around it... Fei frowns. That's...familiar looking, but for another reason.

He pushes onward past them, despite the danger, but he stops before he gets too much father, finding another pair of people lying around a pendant. Two of them, this time, one who was once a man, and another who was once a woman. They are holding hands, with a resigned expression on their face, another one of those pendants caught between their hands, preventing them from actually touching one another.

Fei stares at the two people like looking at his own grave. He's not, he thinks, it can't be obviously. He wasn't here at the time. He knows that.

That doesn't mean he doesn't have empathy, or a painful push into his heart that knows that he and they are not that different.

Maybe not different at all.

Fei crouches down by the two 'people' and ducks down. He takes the pendant there and presses the hands together. He presses down and curls their fingers inward so that their grip is tight. He is both gentle and forceful, the hands do not disintegrate to the touch.

"It's better that way." He tells them. "It's better if you touch."

He stands himself up, rubs at his eyes, and makes his way back to the others, remembering the danger before he gets any farther. Something within him is telling him to push harder, but he doesn't. It's too careless, too dangerous.

But he vows he'll come back one day. One day.

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre has an impressive singing voice, as it turns out.

Perhaps not the kind that might appeal to a Death God except in some strange sideways fashion, but it seems to have done the trick. As the songs draw to a conclusion, Cyre stumbles and only catches himself with the help of his favorite staff. "Nng, might've pulled something there. Heh."

Or he took a death beam to the leg.

He'll be fine. Everyone knows Death comes in increments of two and five, and Cyre is sitting at some level that ends in seven right now. He'll be fine! If a little painful for a while.

But as Cecilia leads them deeper into the city, and as the butterflies thicken the skies, Catenna seems to find something... Interesting.

A pendant.

A... familiar pendant.

"That design..." Cyre breathes, reaching out to trace his gloved fingers across the words and patterns scrawled across the silvery surface. "This is... Like hers, isn't it?"

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly falls silent during Cyre's song.

She walks downa fterwards, meditatively perhaps. She looks over the ruins with a sorrowfully thoughtful look on her face, thinking of Loren's report on the situation that she read and which informed her assent to coming out here. (To be arrogant in Elly's mind: If Loren could survive it, so could she.)

People start splitting up and moving in other directions. She sees Fei dart off and goes after him, but he's outpacing her, not least because of his reaction to surprise.

Elly enters the alleyway just as Fei turns to return. From a ways away she calls to him, "Fei - are you alright?" Her eyes turn upwards as if to silently say: Look out; evil butterflies. She leans a shoulder against the wall of the nearby building, hesitantly, but perhaps all that.... EXHAUSTION, has caught up to her a little.

"Cecilia says we shouldn't linger here long. If those butterflies are like the one we ran into..."

NOW she sees the pendant. "Oh!"

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia, by pure accident of being closest to Catenna, ends up near the other priestess when she discovers the pendant. She watches Fei dash past, possessed by some impulse, and she can't say she blames him. Something here...

She shakes it off, again, and leans down a bit to look. "'hers?' she intrudes, because she is a princess and people must do as she wishes.

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"Yes," Catenna murmurs as she raises her eyes to Cyre, a touch of worry haunting her expression. "It is... the same design, I think. Or it is close enough." With utmost care, her fingers trace across the surface of the pendant. They brush the beastman's fleetingly but her mind is too busy churning through ideas and anxieties that the touch doesn't register as something she needs to blush about.

With delicate fingers, she reaches for the pendant, careful not to touch the being clutching it. It takes her a little gentle wiggling to pry it from that cold grip, holding it up to the light.

"A companion of ours has one like it," she explains as she looks back towards Cecilia, turning a little to better show the item to the princess-shaman. "I had thought it to be... a unique thing. And yet...."

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia keeps her hands to herself, leaning in to examine. "...it seems they are not terribly rare, no. I can't say I know much of it. What a curious thing."

She stands up, looking around briefly, but her eyes keep tracking up. "...I don't sense a Medium," she murmurs. Or maybe she just can't hear the voice without the Teardrop. Who knows. "I think we should get out of here soon. I don't want to catch the attention of those...things."

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"No... I think her Medium is something else. But that is something else that I struggle to understand...." Catenna frowns, knitting her brows and looking down at the pendant, more through it than anything. Lunata confuses her in more ways than she'd admit. Her own Medium is nothing like Ge Ramda. She calls upon Celesdue through a simple stone tablet, not a cube that turns into a lich and is also a katana miko ghost duelist spirit.

The radical differences baffle her - especially because Lunata isn't even Baskar or Zortroa.

"You're right. We must leave." She nods to Cecilia simply, then to Cyre.

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

"I had my suspicions about her, but..." Cyre's lips press into a fine line as he draws his hand back to allow Catenna easier access to the pendant. "Well. I'm sure she'd like to know that there are... More like hers out there. But that just makes me wonder more. I've never seen pendants like hers before, except for right here, right now, in this buried, ancient butterfly hive."

It's eerie.

Also suspicious.

Is Dan Dairam at fault?

Cecilia, being some kind of weird ninja princess, sneaks right up behind the two priests and sticks her nose RIGHT UP IN THERE. Cyre, fortunately, has the senses of a single (1) cat, so her approach is detected by the occasional twitch of his fluffy, pettable ears. "...I think, if there's still a Medium down here, it's past all those butterflies. We're going to need a quicker way to get here if we want to make any more progress, otherwise we'll just be burning ourselves out before we even get to the hard part."

He nods, then. "Yeah. Let's get a move on. I don't want to be here when those things find us."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Cecilia..." Fei says. "This can happen again." He looks over to her, briefly. "Or worse."

He isn't sure why he feels compelled to tell Cecilia that. Maybe it's because she feels like the one willing to carry the burden. And sometimes the one who is willing to carry the burden is also responsible for it. And the one who is responsible for it, well, the one you can count on.

He looks over to Elly finally and offers the pendant to her. He thinks she looks good with pendants even if it's not, strictly, one with a very optimistic story behind it. Hopefully it's not cursed!

"I just feel like I've seen this place before..." Back when it was a city. He shakes his head. He looks up. He remembers. Evil Butterflies. "Sorry, I definitely know Lunata's connected to this place."

He looks towards Cecilia again and then to Cyre. "I think we should talk to Lunata about it. I'm guessing you're talking about her? We can pay her a visit together."

He looks back to Elly and adds, "It's a sad place. I don't like it but it feels...very real. Are you ready to head back?"

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly doesn't just take the pendant; she puts it on, apparently without conscious thought. After that, though, she laughs: "I suppose I'm already accumulating jewelry..."

She put that weird bronze-and-animal-tooth bracelet on her wrist already. It fit well, for some reason.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

"...Lunata," Cecila guesses, to the somewhat oblique description. Fei gets there, too. "She'd spoken to me of a connection to Ge Ramtos." Her eyes track up. "And this place...it's thick with the Guardian of Death's power." She debates saying something else, but ultimately feels like she has little standing to do. So she just nods to Cyre. "Yes. If there's a Medium here, it would be deeper in than I dare to go. Another time, I guess..."

She stars to move away, staff coming to her hand, but...Fei's words sting.

... "It's already happening again," she replies, quietly, and she remembers Harken's blade carving her father near in twain. "There is a Guardian Temple to the west. I will be making my way there, soon. Hopefully there we will find some answers. For now..."

She shivers a little, with the sickness of those damnable butterflies. "Let us go."

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"We should all talk to her," Catenna says with a small bow of her head, beginning to move along with Cecilia.

Quiet grey eyes settle on Cecilia as she speaks of a temple. "I should also like to go there. Perhaps... it may help."

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

"...Mmn, the wind's been blowing me that way, myself," Cyre scratches idly at his cheek. "I think I'd better head there too, before too long."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "The metal demons are gonna attack it so... I guess we better hurry."

You've been saying that for almost a month Fei.