2017-08-19: A Double Date in Unlikely Places
- Log: A Double Date in Unlikely Places
- Cast: Fei Fong Wong, Ruby, Elhaym van Houten, Leon Albus, Lily Keil
- Where: The Guardian Temple
- Date: August 19, 2017
- Summary: After Fei is struck down in the battle with the Demons, Leon and Lily run to his rescue. They meet Elly and Fei there. Together, the five journey into the Temple and find answers.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
LAST TIME ON AHHH SO MANY FLASHBACKS, FEI FONG WONG
Our heroes or you know sort of heroes or okay at least like Drakengard style heroes here were able to reach Siegfried who was blowing shit up at the temple, using a mysterious device for mysterious purposes, and well according to the Metal Demons they were either to find answers or murder the Guardians. As it turns out, murdering Guardians and finding answers while not mutually exclusive are certainly very far afield and words were had on the subject.
Also mysterious flashbacks involving a brooch, Fei getting impaled several times protecting Elly from a negative rainbow, and Elly flipping out and quoting Xenosaga. Ruby won the moral victory by inflicting 4 points of Ruby damage to the guy too so it's time to move on.
Fei was recovered by Elly and taken into the temple because it provided some semblance of cover against the Bart Missiles and Aveh Missiles and Metal Demons. Fei has been injected with stuff and he's been bandaged up by Elly and they've been seperated from others in the assault force.
On the plus side, Ruby stuck by them and her mere presence is improving morale and their survival odds.
Fei and Elly are not too far into the temple, resting up because of their injuries before moving onward. They're eating Hob Steak. It's gotten that bad, but Fei's bleeding has stopped and he has some color back in his cheeks.
"They're still fighting outside..." He murmurs. "I guess we have no choice but to keep moving."
But with just the three of them? Fei's bleak tone suggests that they're in serious trouble. "How are you holding up?" He asks of his companions, looking first at Elly, then Ruby.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
We return to the adventures of Calamity Ruby- Blaze Tyrant of the Silver Moon!
Right now Ruby is eating hob steak- well done.
Gnawing on the edges, she doesn't seen to be complaining too much. When Fei mentions the fighting outside, she looks up from tearing meat off her steak. Her cheeks are full from a moment, then she swallows, "I hope the others are okay- Oh what am I saying I know they'll be fine! Jean won't let them do anything stupid... unless she's doing something stupid herself in which case-"
No. No. No. She agreed she wouldn't do this. Fei was in a way worse state than the others all were. It was the right call.
Shaking her head as if to clear off her fur... "Shouldn't we be asking you? I mean you got impaled by a freaking death rainbow and without a pot of gold to show for it!"
Ruby gives a long sigh, "I really wish you'd worry about your safety a little more Fei..."
She doesn't answer the question on how she's doing.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly is not having flashbacks, for better or worse. She has taken off her tunic because it has blood on it, but that's squeamishness. It also let her make some improvised bandages since her one absorbent gauze pad wasn't going to be enough.
The hob steak is helping. Even if she has to eat it wrapped in what looks like a lace hankerchief, to avoid getting grease on her hands. Ruby is speculating on her comrades, while Elly is putting food in her gut to replace what got beaten out of her.
With her tunic off, Elly looks like she's wearing a dark brown singlet and tights. This is because they are breathable ballistic nylon. It is good enough that it is a lot of why Elly has 'a severe set of bruises on her right side,' rather than 'bloody gashes, evulsions, or other things with nasty names.'
"... I'm sorry that I put you in that situation, Fei," Elly says after Ruby has her say. "It doesn't sound like it's letting up... Do you think we should try to press on through?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon Albus, when everything went to hell, decided to leave the Yggdrasil and make a beeline towards the Guardian Temple. He had one thought on his mind: he needed to get to Fei Fong Wong. He had seen, on the long distance feed, Fei fighting the Quarter Knight. That was all he needed.
He did not come alone, of course.
He rushes through the entrance of the Temple now. Argent Divider is out, the weapon unfolded, and it's gold-and-silver blade flecked with the silvery blood of Metal Beasts that he cut through on the way. He storms forward, breaking past some of the initial fighting. He breathes hard, as he starts to round the corner. "Lieutenant, keep an eye open! He must have gone further i--"
He stops as he finishes rounding the corner, though. His silver eyes fall on Fei first, looking relieved -- then to Ruby, looking confused, and finally to Elly, who he has never seen before. "Fei! Ruby. A friend of yours?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
No, Leon did not come here alone. She would have come even if she hadn't been asked, to make her way in to help Fei who was fighting a Quarter Knight, to get her answers for what the Demons really wanted here, what they sought to gain.
She knew Riesenlied was here as well, but Fei...
Lily Keil rushes with Leon, behind him, through the entrance of the temple as well. She has a rifle out and prepared, and her strange malevolent aura for those who can sense it follows her as she eyes the corner. "Right Captain," she answers, and then finishes rounding after Leon, which has her briefly pointing a gun at the others before she lowers it.
Leon handled the introduction just fun, and Lily turns to cover the entrance for a moment before stepping around a little closer, able to keep an eye on both. "Are any of you wounded?" she asks.
For Elly's benefit, Lily Keil is a woman in obvious military garb, pants and jacket, with a satchel slung at her hip. Long black hair, tied back with a ribbon, all in black. She speaks in a Kislevi accent.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong shakes his head. "I was the one who felt we should come." He thinks for a moment. "I still think it's good we came. Who knows what they would have done if they weren't interrupted...I wonder how Aveh knew we'd be there...well, I guess it doesn't matter. It's a good thing they were there, I'm not sure Bart would have made it on time--" He isn't mentioning specifically the NEGATIVE RAINBOW but it seems that he figures it's his responsibility to keep Elly safe since it was his idea to show up here in the first place.
He groans, standing up. He smiles at Ruby fondly. "Well, I'm feeling a lot better already. I'll try to be careful, though." Ugh dirty lies. "I mean, if nothing else we have to catch up with Hiro and the others. I'm sure they can handle themselves for a little while but they'll need your help eventually."
And that's when Leon and Lily show up. Fei startles briefly, but then he recognizes the voice. His posture relaxes and his mouth splits into a huge grin despite everything.
Of course he's in a good mood. Nobody (he liked) died!
"Leon!" He says. "Lily!" He grins. "I guess you caught up!" He bobs his head briefly and looks to Elly. "Yeah, she's a friend. It's Elly. She saved my life." She looks back to Leon, then to Lily. "I'm...glad you're here. We're still pretty banged up, honestly." And the bandages are, well, improvised. "How's Bart?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby doesn't know much about Aveh other than what Bart has said, which puts her a little bit on edge thinking about it. She's not sure if she believes Fei though when he says he'll try to be careful. She does look inordinately proud though when Fei says Hiro will need their help eventually but- "You better be buster... I'm not afraid to knock some sense into Hiro when he's being reckless and I sure won't hold back on your account."
She then turns to Elly, "Elly don't apologize for Fei being..." Upon hearing footsteps, Ruby whirls around, fur standing a little on end as she rises in the air on beating wings but- "Huh!? Leon- Lily?"
She hasn't forgotten their last meeting. Unlike Hiro she won't assume they're not enemies until they prove otherwise, which is why she keeps their eyes on them. Leon- "Yeah that's Elly."
Lily asks that question, and Fei's answer doesn't really satisfy her. "Fei- saying that doesn't tell her how badly you got hurt!" She admonishes, before returning focus to Lily, Fei got hit pretty hard by Siegfried. We thought he was a goner until Elly patched him up..."
She respects Lily but she's not going to immediately offer for her to go check it, nevertheless, and once she does she'll be wary.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly chews her hobsteak and doesn't answer Fei's speculations. (She actually doesn't know, although she presumes if Fei heard about this, other people did, too.) Swallowing, she says, "I don't know why they wanted to come in here. If nothing else, we slowed them down..."
Then people arrive. Elly turns her head to look at them, her expression completely blank. She has no weapons on her, but those weird tights of hers are Gebler issue and annoyingly durable. She finishes off her last bite of the hob-steak as she moves as if to rise -
Then she's identified. BY A CAT. "Pleased to meet you," she says. "I'm sorry to, ah, to meet you like this. Ruby's correct, I'm Elly..."
Shouldn't she be more confident about this?
Elly tells Lily, "Fei is the worst off." Her right arm has a ton of nasty bruising on it but she's using it, so there's that. Ruby of course may not have even a speck of blood or dirt on her pink pawsies; Elly did not check closely.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Bart's holding up. I think Aveh's forces may have him busy," Leon says, with a shake of his head. "Of course, things went so pear-shaped... who knows, by now? We're likely not leaving here just yet."
The tactical problem of how to break out of a temple surrounded by enemy troops is something that Leon is struggling with. He looks to Ruby, pushing that thought aside. He nods to her, once. "Ruby. You're well? We came to find Fei. You... nnh. I saw you get hit. That was when we left the Yggdrasil."
He shakes his head once to Elly. "Elly, then. It's quite all right. I'm Leon Albus." The same one from the wanted posters. He also speaks with a Kislevi accent. He steps in closer, before he turns to look at Lily. He regards her, thoughtfully, for a moment.
There is probably some meaning passed in that glance. "Lily, can you...?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Fei startles, and Lily thinks that's not a terrible impulse, though it's not the best. She pauses to look again about the others through the introductions such as they are though, her eyes lingering an awful long few seconds of scrutiny on Elly as she's given the name.
Ruby is helpful to Fei's answer though. "She's right," Lily points out. "You can save time on the battlefield by giving me a sense of your injuries." She lets Leon answer about Bart and how things went pear-shaped though, because they definitely did. She instead watches bruises, hears Ruby's explanation... And when Leon looks at her thoughtfully, the Lieutenant nods, lowering her weapon and slinging it over her shoulder as she walks in to see the others. "Leon is right. We weren't going to leave you in here." A pause, as she puts a hand out to Elly, to shake or not at her option. "Thank you for the information. My name is Lily Keil. ...It's good to meet you."
She takes her hand back regardless after a moment, draws in a breath. "I don't have time for full examinations in these conditions, but..." Lily closes her eyes and puts out a hand, before a deep crimson circle appears before her hand, rotating slightly as it glows with runes. All around this section of the flooring, encompassing the group, there is a bright red glow, sparkling with power that mends wounds with a faint feeling of light and heat.
Lily's hand shakes slightly after she finishes and steps backward, catching her breath. "That... Should help..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei certainly believes he'll try to be careful but we all know he won't. He grimaces as he's chastized by Ruby because when a flying catdragon chastizes you, you know you've done something wrong ninety eight percent of the time with a two percent margin of error. "Sorry, two slashes across the chest then three stab wounds. Some minor bruising from where he hit my arms." Lily can heal the slashes and 'stab' wounds but they're still red once she's done healing him. It must have been something pretty brutal that hit him. But then again, you'd know, because Leon saw it!
"Ah--you saw it..." Fei sounds embarrassed by that. He stomaches his instinct to apologize for it because with lives like theirs, they are going to get hurt from time to time. "We're alive though, and as long as we're alive..." The healing hits him and he breathes out a relieved sigh. "That's much better. Thank you, Lily!"
He smiles and says, "I was thinking we could look for another way out by going through the temple. What do you think? I mean, we still have to figure out what the Metal Demons were up to after all. They said they wanted 'answers' but--that they also wanted to kill the Guardians. I guess it depends on how far out you get from Riesenlied." He's starting to understand the various political 'factions' of the Metal Demons even if they don't actually have 'factions'.
He performs some light stretches to work out kinks in his body before adding to Elly, "Leon and Lily have helped me out a lot too. Ever since Adelhyde. They're good people!"
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"I'm as good as it gets after a fight like that..." Though she didn't really fight, unless you count ineffective attacks of opportunity. Mostly she got sand in her fur which is PRETTY BAD if you've got fur... but not actually injured.
Lily may say she's right but she's still somewhat wary as she approaches.
The spell comes and her breath hitches and- then she let's out a sigh of relief. "Alright. Good. I was worried they'd open and I'd have to battlefield cauterize them or something before he bled to death..." She's done that once before. She really hates doing it because it hurts the person she does it to so much. Lily had more finesse... with doing something like that.
Eventually Ruby addresses Elly and Fei though- "Yeah it's pretty much like that. Riese wants answers on why the Guardians reject them when they just wanna... you know live..." Ruby trails off for a moment, "...the rest of them... they probably just want the Guardians to all die. You can't really trust Riese to not go along with the rest of them there."
But at Fei's comment, Ruby just hovers in the air and finally looks at him waving her pink pawsies his way dismissively, "Okay look Fei- like Hiro you are wayyyyy too trusting. Shyeah Leon and Lily are good in a fight, I respect them a lot- but they'll be the first to tell you they're not good people- so be careful assuming things like that. Ask them sometime, they'll give you a whole speech about poisoning wells and shooting people in the back and how they feel no remorse for it."
She takes a long breath- "But I can tell you that you can usually trust them while you're on the same side- when we're all in this together like today. They care about people who are their comrades... but just... keep that in mind for if you ever aren't."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei blinks at Ruby a few times. What is he going to say to THAT grave charge?
"Well," He says after a moment's thought, dusting off his pants. "Nobody's perfect."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly blinks several times when Leon reveals that their mission was to find Fei. The Kislev accents do not escape her; the information is toyed with, but there are a lot of things going on. The presence of Ruby is a subtle reminder of ALIEN FORCES. (If cute ones.)
Elly does take the handshake, smiling at Lily. The smile makes her entire face seem to light up, or at least, engage all the muscles and subtle quirks there. "Thank you for taking care of him," she says, seemingly without thought, and then comes the m m m m m m MAGIC; which Elly does not resist.
There is the peculiar visual of her bruised-up arm going from blackish-purple, to purple-yellow, to yellow, to 'a few reddish lingering spots.' Elly lets out a breath she didn't quite know she was holding. She is able to get up then, and she tries to sound as completely normal and local as she says, "And thank you for your help."
Fei raises a plan. Elly looks at Leon for a moment now, because he may be the officer here. I wonder if he's first or second, Elly thinks, trying to recall the Kislev organization. But then Ruby begins explaining things. Including why they shouldn't trust Leon and Lily!! The floating cat speaks wisdom, Elly thinks, though her eyes return to the two of them.
"... Well; I suppose we -"
Elly stops at Fei's remark. Her lips thin. It is the face of someone restraining a giggle.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby facepaws.
It slides down her face agonizingly slowly.
She mumbles, "I can see saving you from your own low self-esteem is going to be a full time job..."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon, briefly, makes a face when Fei calls him 'good people.' The reason is a small, flying cat that breathes fire. The former Captain of the Black Wolves listens, eyebrow slightly twitching, before he lets out a long sigh. "Ruby," he says, and it is somewhere between cosmic acceptance and a word of warning. "...We don't make any lies about who we are and what we've done for Kislev. But I don't think this is the time or the place."
Because, really, he doesn't think of himself as a good person. He stays quiet, though, for a moment -- at first, out of a sense of concern. Will Fei have problems with this? Will Elly? He looks, sideways, at her for a moment. He watches her for a moment.
Then Fei speaks up. His silver eyes narrow and he looks to the side, jaw setting. It isn't discomfort. It is also an effort to not chortle.
"I think that's a wise idea, Fei," he says, finally. His voice is quieter. "We should see what we can find. Maybe we find a way out. Maybe... we find what Riesenlied was looking for. She must have a reason. She isn't the sort to turn to slaughter, first."
But the rest of the Demons are.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Wow, Elly has a brilliant smile. Lily shows none; she's businesslike, thoughtful, but she hasn't smiled at all since she got in here, even meeting Fei who she was looking for. "Of course," she says to the thanks, and considers what it says about Elly.
Lily is here to handle people who aren't very careful. ...Except herself. That's what Leon is here for. Lily herself listens to Fei's explanation of his wounds with a nod, considering them as she works her magic.
"Right. Alive is the first step," Lily says. "Glad it helped." A beat, and a look to Elly, "You're very welcome. Tell me if you're hurt again." Her voice sounds warmer than it did before, which is probably strange to everyone but Leon and Ruby. She closes her eyes to recover herself, which means she misses... some of the nuance of what happened, but not all. She can still hear fine.
"It's better to avoid that," Lily agrees with Ruby. ...Not that she hasn't done something of the sort herself in the past. "There'll be no bleeding to death if I can help it." A pause, "Through the temple is best," Lily agrees simply, though she pauses, when Fei calls them good people, shaking her head. But she doesn't have to be the one to answer that.
Instead, Ruby has it covered. Fei's response to it makes her roll her eyes and almost laugh, but she does add, "Ruby's right. But I don't think Fei's as rusting as Hiro. I think I'll save the speech." Leon says it's not the time or place, and Lily lifts a hand as if deferring. "Another time, then."
There are a few hints that Lily is the one doing the deferring here.
"But I agree. If we're lucky we can meet up and ask Riesenlied herself what she has in mind, and she'll be willing to tell us." She stops and then actually lets out a low chuckle.
"Be ready for danger. I'll take the rear guard, Captain."
DG: A party led by Leon Albus is now entering The Guardian Temple. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - A Clash of Beasts *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Metal Beasts have forced their way into the foyer of the Temple, along with other members of the Metal Demons. For those who seek to push in deeper, there is a battlefield to be crossed. Gunsmoke ARM shots shoot across the way, scarring the ancient stone of the foyer. Spells occasionally hurl across, lightning and ice scarring the very ground that they walk on. The Metal Beasts are ill-inclined to let others pass. As you make your way through the confusion, a pack of armored hounds begins to lope after, anger visible in their steely green eyes. They leap -- fangs bared, claws raised, and the battle is joined before you can reach the door that leads deeper into the Temple. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Fright===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
ACHIEVEMENT: CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR - MAKE THREE PEOPLE ALMOST LAUGH AT THE SAME TIME.
Fei Fong Wong chuckles himself, grinning briefly at Ruby. "It's true. You're a hard worker." He isn't ungrateful. Even if Ruby isn't wrong, what would life be like if Leon and Lily shot him in the back? It's not something he's sure he could survive. He's also not sure it's something they could survive. Right now surrounded by enemies, this isn't the time to worry about it.
The team heads inward and, though some of them are refreshed, they are finding themselves caught against a slew of Metal Beasts that the Demons have left behind to guard this particular foyer. Fei cringes, raising a hand to warn the others as he takes a look around. "This is going to be hard to sneak across... But maybe we can move carefully we can avoid a confrontration."
He glances over to Elly, though, wondering if she knows--that Lily also uses ether. He takes in a deep breath and starts carefully moving along when suddenly--
--BAM! A pair of large metallic frogs drop down in front of him. Fei says, "Shit--everybody, watch out!"
He grips his RPS Badge tightly in his hand and tackles into one of the frogs to keep them off the others.
"We can't afford a protracted fight...!" He says. "I think if we just knock them down we can make a break for it!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly gives Ruby a slightly frowny look as she mentions Fei's self esteem, but does not speak her mind on the issue. Moving forwards, Elly volunteers to Leon - mostly, since Lily's moved further behind them, taking up the rear - "I can use attack magic, so don't worry about me..."
Her eyes meet Fei's. She may be about to ask him what's on his mind when
FROG
The metallic amphibians appear and begin their assault. Fei moves to wrestle one. Elly's eyes widen and she looks towards the other of them, and despite a moment of fluster, she thinks to herself:
Why can't I do that thing again?
Absolutely no reason why not.
Elly's brow furrows and her eyes narrow as if the frog just told a joke that she found offensive and she's about to make things socially awkward by asking him to explain it or saying that her mother's a Lamb or something similar. Her displeasure instead takes the form of a two-centimeter square on the side of the frog's head. There's that feeling of etheric PRESSURE -
And then the sun-surface-heat eruption, possibly with much greater effect, as an evil frog - PROBABLY - doesn't have Siegfried's defense talent.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Forward, then," Leon says. He looks at Fei, nodding. He nods to Elly, too. Good information to have.
Then he steps up -- and he pauses, as he sees the Metal Beasts fighting. He grits his teeth, ready to try to sneak around it -- and then the very ground under his feet shakes. The ex-soldier hisses softly, the earth rocking under foot, and he takes a couple of steps backward as he gets a good look at metallic frogs.
He isn't quite stunned, but he waits a moment longer than he should. Elly proves she has magic, though, and sees the massive fiery conflagration that Elly summons. He looks back at her, eyes widening a moment.
"You weren't exaggerating," he compliments, before the blonde-haired man dashes forward. He swings out Argent Divider, which slashes at the frog's side as he runs past. Then he swings up his flare gun, in his other hand, and shoots it to the side. The flare explodes, a bright flash of light.
A distraction, he hopes. "Go!" he calls out. "Try to slip past! We don't need to fight them to the last, or we might get bogged down!"
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Flare Gun toward his party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Leon gets a momentary glance. "Pretty sure it's always the time and place to make sure someone is looking out for themselves properly... but whatever." But on calling her a hard worker, she finds herself almost laughing. Almost. It's a snort. "Got that right Mister."
She doesn't comment on Riese but then they head onward and-
Metallic frogs- "UGH! We don't have time for this!" Ruby springs into action.
By flying high.
Every so often she drops down and takes an opportunistic swipe with pink pawsies which causes scratch marks to materialize in the air. "Let's settle this quickly!"
A number pops up.
2
Again she dives. Another Metal Frog gets a gout of flame right in the eye!
A number pops up.
4
Welcome to the authentic Lunar 2 experience- where the pink mascot isn't even a valid party member.
Elsewhere. Chu-Chu sneezes. For no reason.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily says nothing else about what she might do to Fei, or not do to Fei. It isn't the time. She focuses insead on moving inward, pulling her ARM again and keeping it ready to use at the first sight of danger. But quickly...
Quickly there are many, many creatures, and as Fei warns them Lily eyes the battlefield, storming with lightning and ice. Like Leon, she prepares to sneak past, taking stock of each of their members, but--
That doesn't happen. There are instead frogs. "Fei!" Lily calls, immediately preparing to move up closer, but he has it covered. He has it partially covered, anyway. And Elly...
Well, Elly said she had attack magic, and Lily watched some of what happened outside, but that sense of pressure builds and the older woman's eyes widen. Even before the eruption she can feel it, and once it happens she has to glance away from the sheer power of that spell. She shivers briefly, until Leon uses his flare gun and she brings herself forward. Her rifle is slung on her shoulder again.
"Very nice," she murmurs, and puts out both hands, taking a breath and focusing again. There is another sense of Ether, but in this case it is the opposite of pressure, something giving, imploding as a dark cloud appears above the frog Fei didn't tackle and drops like a hammer, seeking to disintegrate flesh and bone no matter what it's made of with a hiss of sheer unmaking.
If it doesn't kill it, it should daze it. Lily then takes her weapon back into hand with a clack and rushes forward. "I'll cover you!" she shouts, and starts shooting her way across after the others.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>=========================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - A Clash of Beasts *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The Metal Beasts have forced their way into the foyer of the Temple, along with other members of the Metal Demons. For those who seek to push in deeper, there is a battlefield to be crossed. Gunsmoke ARM shots shoot across the way, scarring the ancient stone of the foyer. Spells occasionally hurl across, lightning and ice scarring the very ground that they walk on. The Metal Beasts are ill-inclined to let others pass. As you make your way through the confusion, a pack of armored hounds begins to lope after, anger visible in their steely green eyes. They leap -- fangs bared, claws raised, and the battle is joined before you can reach the door that leads deeper into the Temple. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Fright===========================================
=====================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 1 *>====================== =======================< Results - A Clash of Beasts >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 0 --(11)--> 11 Pass Flare Gun 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 0 --(17)--> 17 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 0 --(14)--> 14 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Fright(2)|Suffer Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 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: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - Variable Gravity Well *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter the next room, you find a square-shaped room that has a pit filling the middle of it. The pit drops down ten feet, into a series of sharp spikes that would be painful to cross. Leaping over the pit -- or using some other means -- wouldn't be so hard. But, when you step forward, a complication appears. A black hole, a pinpoint of gravitational force, blinks into existence over the pit. Rocks, debris, and dust all swirl up into it and gravity causes the course of any leap to be thrown askew. Just before you could time a jump, though, the black hole vanishes... and reappears elsewhere in the room, over the pit. Crossing will not be easy. =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Hesitate======================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong clobbers into one Toad with his fists, keeping it back moments. The frog screeches a robotic, "FEELS GOOD MAN! FEELS GOOD MAN!" which seems to be an autodialogue rather than any indication of sapience. Nevertheless, while Fei's busy trying to punch a robot monster to death, Elly throws a sun-cube at it and scientifically speaking, something that will scorch through Siegfried's armor will absolutely iradicate a frog robot minion. It explodes vibrantly and well that's one down. Some of the shrapnel slams into Fei but that's okay. He can take it.
Leon and Lily handle the other frog. "HUMANS CAN'T MEME!" It screeches. "HUMANS CAN'T MEME!" Meme is clearly something that doesn't translate well from the original Hyadean language. Linguistic Scholars might find some use in investigating these frogs--well, probably not.
Leon sends a flash of light into its eyes and Lily unleashes a dark cloud upon it, disorienting it and causing significant damage but it recovers enough to leap into the air and hit Lily and Leon with a shockwave bounce. Ugh, don't you hate it when there's a little sliver of life left on a monster fight?
Luckily Ruby spews fire into it and finishes it off with four points of damage. So close!
The group manages to slink into the next room with moments to spare. Whew!
"Yeah, Elly's got a real knack for it too." Fei grins, though he's kind of wondering why she didn't pull that shit out against the wolves in the forest. "You should've seen what she did to Siegfried." BUT YOU NEVER WILL.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly seems faintly embarrassed as she glances at Leon, who - complements her. She blinks several times, but then Leon is striking forwards and urging them ahead. Elly doesn't need much encouragement THERE.
The frog lingers on the edge of life, but with its pants exploded and its comrades dead, does it have any choice? Especially when Ruby spits fire on it with an audible 'tink'. So much for the tolerant Drifter.
But there is a square shaped room ahead of them. Elly notices it first because she's moving in the lead, but Lily may experience it too if she steps ahead - even Elly, filled with the beans and pep of Gebler and/or having allies who complement her instead of fearing her power or encouraging her to use it to fulfill her dark cravings, has hesitated at the threshold of this leap.
"Ruby, do you - oh!" Elly's half-baked plan to see if Ruby can carry a rope over or something details when there is a sudden flicker of SOMETHING, a dark pinpoint that produces such a dramatic swirl, INCLUDING tugging at the free long objects that are Elly's individual hair strands. It vanishes, reappearing elsewhere, Elly's hair going after it.
"... I think it's a point gravity source," Elly says. "I don't know if that means anything to you. Um-m."
It moves again.
"... I'm not sure I see a pattern... maybe we should just try to move carefully over those spikes...?"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, Variable Gravity Well.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The shockwave from the frog's last leap makes Leon stumble, and he almost loses his footing -- but he recovers, and then grips the wall on his way out. "I can see that," he says, with a glance back at Elly. And yet, he thinks, that magic looked familiar, too. He looks at Lily, once -- then, he looks back at Elly. "Are you a Symbologist, then?"
He steps through the next room, the frog's voice still in mind. He scowls, though -- and gasps as he sees a dark pinpoint, and the way that the very air around them ripples. Something far beyond his ken, he thinks, dully; he looks sideways at Elly.
His mouth opens, then closes.
"This is--maybe," he says. "No, hold on."
He unspools his climbing rope, before he throws it. It catches the ceiling, along a crenellation. He tugs once, and then watches. "Wait for it to appear, then--look, that piece of debris shifted. You can try to skirt along it, and it throws you at the end. Like... so."
He leaps, using the rope, and hopes he can get his gravity slingshot.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, Variable Gravity Well.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby's jaw drops as she watches the BLACK HOLE open up and start to draw things within.
She's still staring when Elly asks that of her. "... Do I... you were... about to just ask me... to..." She seems to realize instinctively that the plan was going to be to have her carry something.
Ruby's laughter sounds a little high pitched in it's anxiety. "OKAY! I'll just... just... fly over the TERRRIFYING anomaly!"
Leon throws a rope, it catches hold. "OH THANK ALTHENA!"
Instead of actually doing any work, Ruby attaches herself to Fei's shoulder, And now that that's settled. Nope... nope... not flying over that."
Her claws dig in, fortunately just into fabric and not into skin.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The explosion is good. Lily appreciates the explosion. But the incomprehensible frog is not destroyed when it's the one she and Leon are dealing with, and Lily watches her spell not work as effectively as it did on...
Well, she's still practicing. It's a new magic. And this magic? Well, this magic is some kind of shockwave that knocks her from her feet to skid across tiles for a moment.
Her rifle goes back on her back as she hops back up and conjures mist around herself to make her at least a less easy target.
Once she's up and leaning to the wall, Lily looks around the hallway and nods. "Yes, Elly, you're very talented." She doesn't ask whether Elly is a Symbologist. But stepping into this room...
That flicker gathers Lily's attention, and she stairs with gold eyes as her hair, too, lifts and floats towards the black hole. A... "Localized point of gravity other than the planet," Lily restates after Elly's explanation. "I don't see a pattern either..."
Leon leaps, and his approach looks wise,a nd Ruby is--well--"Just be careful Ruby." Lily looks to Leon again, and stares at the black hole again when it appears the second time. "...Damn. I wish I could study this thing..."
Shaking her head, Lily takes another breath, and moves back to give herself some room to run. "Time it for when the anomaly dissipates..."
She's going to do this the old fashioned way.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Variable Gravity Well.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong stares ahead as they reach the next challenge before them. There's seriously a black hole there. "What the heck kind of guardian is this... that has a BLACK HOLE in its temple??" He smiles over to Ruby as she lands on his shoulder. It almost makes it worth all the doom and dismay to actually have a catdragon riding his shoulder. It's a nice experience between all the brutality of the day. In fact, he thinks, if he fucks it up he can throw Ruby the rest of the way. "Now I'm gonna be careful Ruby, but if I end up falling, I have a plan, so don't worry about jumping the rest of the way." He pauses. "I'm not saying that in a way just to be self sacrificing." Pause. "and I'm not just saying that to try and convince you." Pause. "I might know a few tricks if I mess up but it's not a hundred percent so..."
He then runs, grabbing for the rope to try and swing across to the wall and run alongside that like some sort of ninja to make it to the other side of the room!
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Variable Gravity Well.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - Variable Gravity Well *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter the next room, you find a square-shaped room that has a pit filling the middle of it. The pit drops down ten feet, into a series of sharp spikes that would be painful to cross. Leaping over the pit -- or using some other means -- wouldn't be so hard. But, when you step forward, a complication appears. A black hole, a pinpoint of gravitational force, blinks into existence over the pit. Rocks, debris, and dust all swirl up into it and gravity causes the course of any leap to be thrown askew. Just before you could time a jump, though, the black hole vanishes... and reappears elsewhere in the room, over the pit. Crossing will not be easy. =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Hesitate======================================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 2 *>======================= ======================< Results - Variable Gravity Well >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 11 --(6)--> 17 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 17 --(9)--> 26 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 14 --(7)--> 21 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 15 --(6)--> 21 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 10 --(20)--> 30 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Hesitate(2)|Overwhelm|Suffer Effects: Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 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> Ruby has posed.
"FEI- STOP TRYING TO REASSURE ME AS IT IS DEFINITELY NOT WORKING! JUST JUMP ALREADY!"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly considers lying to Leon when he asks that question. She runs a hand over her mostly bare shoulders. Leon is with Bart, she thinks. Looking at him with a wan smile she says, "Not exactly."
Ruby protests - and Elly squeaks, "I didn't know it had a gravity point in it!" Elly may later explain at some length about how she isn't thinking it's a literal black hole because the theoretical physics of black holes are well known and heavily explained and blah blah she got top marks in astronomy even though nobody in her homeland looks at the stars.
They have photos, thank you.
"I'm sorry," Elly concludes to Ruby lamely, even as her cheeks burn.
They're all taking the rope!! Elly grabs it while it swings back, kicking off the wall in a blind haze of embarrassment. Yes: She had no reservations or qualms about igniting a metal demon into a pre-fusion plasma (well, a little of it - but it only takes a little) but she is feeling mortified at having made a flying cat feel uncomfortable.
The hole pulls her off course and Elly kicks up and twists her entire upper body around on a reflex to avoid noodlefication. The result ends up slamming her calves and shins into the small of Lily's back, the springy yet comfortable boots she's wearing giving her a little oomph extra; Elly herself follows a moment later, letting go and hitting the ground hard enough to roll twice.
BUT...
Nobody died! Yet
DG: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Collapsing Bridge *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next chamber comes to a stop over a wide, gaping chasm that extends through the deeper parts of the temple. The bottom is lost in darkness, but you can see that the way ahead is across it: a door on the other side. The chasm, mercifully, has a well-worn rope bridge across it. Unfortunately, it is too well-worn. As you step onto it, the ropes begin to fray. The ancient boards begin to crumble. You will have to run quickly -- or find another across -- as the bridge begins to give out underfoot! =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Injure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Ruby, be careful," Leon says. "Your claws aren't suited for this rope, I think." He looks back at the little dragon -- and then focuses, as he makes his leap, swinging in towards the black hole. He feels the hairs on his forearm rise, even under the coat he wears. It has nothing to do with the temperature.
Leon walks, then, stumbling a little. He turns to look back at the others, as they land. He walks over to Lily, to reach a hand out and help her up after the Elly collision. "Well, we're through that. Only a little further, everyone," he says. "Now, let's see..."
He keeps walking. Leon slows, though, as he steps through the next room. 'Not exactly,' Elly said. He wonders -- even if he knows.
Inside the next room, he sees the gaping chasm across the floor. He swallows, as he sees the bridge. "This doesn't quite look sturdy," he says. He pulls on his rope -- and then tosses it again, securing it to the other side. He tugs, once. "Hold onto this, as you cross."
He starts walking first. After a few steps, the first board collapses underfoot -- and another, then another -- and he turns, shouting. "MOVE! It's collapsing!"
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, The Collapsing Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Are you sure?!" Fei asks, mid-run, "I can still sto--oh wait--" He is mid jump now. "I can't! AAAAAHHHh..hhhhhhh..." He lands perfectly.
"Oh, guess we made it! Haha!" Fei laughs. He crouches and offers Elly a hand up as well. "I think we're making good progress!" He feels like...
He's just strangely at peace right now. Nothing is particularly bad. Everything is fine. Everything is just dandy. With Elly, Lily, and Leon all here, he feels like he's surrounded by people who care for him and whom he cares for back. Ruby is the same, of course, but he does know he has to at least get her back to Hiro and her friends. Everybody else, he could stay together with them forever. The swirling psychic madness that lurks within his mind is, at the moment, a distant memory.
"I'm glad you got to meet them," Fei tells Elly, relatively quietly though he isn't trying to hide what he's saying. "They're soldiers, like you, but--" He frowns. "Well it's not my story, but--heh--I almost punched Leon, you know, I was like really mad because he was from Kislev, but then they both told me off and helped me get my head straight."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Sorcery is an interest of mine," Lily says to Elly at her statement, and that's all. She's not sure what else to say; it's strange for her for other reasons.
Lily can hear Ruby shouting, and it's a more pleasant backdrop than it could be to what's happening here. ...Elly's explanations wouldn't be unwelcome to Lily, though. But for now...
The rope. The move across. Lily almost misses it outright, but Elly hits her on the way through. Thus, she ends up hurt, but not falling onto spikes, hitting the ground gracelessly with an ugly sound. With insult to injury, Lily's hair wafts towards the gravity point again.
At least Leon helps her up. Lily takes his hand and stands up, nodding. "A little further..."
But there's the bridge. As before, Lily is at the back, and this is in part because she is probably the slowest. Being the slowest... is not ideal in this situation. As they move the boards start collapsing and Lily, gripping the rope he put across, starts to rush across.
As she does, a burst of blue-white mist crashes around her, starting to freeze the bridge before her to try to stabilize it without doing the same to her allies.
"Have I mentioned I hate rope bridges??"
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Collapsing Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Are you sure?!" Fei asks, mid-run, "I can still sto--oh wait--" He is mid jump now. "I can't! AAAAAHHHh..hhhhhhh..." He lands perfectly.
"Oh, guess we made it! Haha!" Fei laughs. He crouches and offers Elly a hand up as well. "I think we're making good progress!" He feels like...
He's just strangely at peace right now. Nothing is particularly bad. Everything is fine. Everything is just dandy. With Elly, Lily, and Leon all here, he feels like he's surrounded by people who care for him and whom he cares for back. Ruby is the same, of course, but he does know he has to at least get her back to Hiro and her friends. Everybody else, he could stay together with them forever. The swirling psychic madness that lurks within his mind is, at the moment, a distant memory.
"I'm glad you got to meet them," Fei tells Elly, relatively quietly though he isn't trying to hide what he's saying. "They're soldiers, like you, but--" He frowns. "Well it's not my story, but--heh--I almost punched Leon, you know, I was like really mad because he was from Kislev, but then they both told me off and helped me get my head straight."
And of course that's when the bridge starts giving way. "Shit--gotta move! Ruby, make sure nobody lags behind!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Collapsing Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"That's why I'm clinging to Fei for dear life Leon!"
Dragoncat gives her a +10 bonus to any fabric related climbing and grapple checks.
Fortunately they make it over. She may have let out a little shriek when they jump.
Ruby's pink fur is a shade paler afterwards.
She's still clinging to her shoulder when he's talking to Elly about how he met them- "Sure sounds like them."
But then at the collapsing bridge- "Got it!"
Ruby detaches from the group and flies behind to become motivational rearguard-
"MOVE YOUR BUTTS PEOPLE! GO GO GO!"
Well that's one way to make certain noone falls in.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly takes the proffered hand, smiling at Fei and possibly making it all worthwhile. As she gets to her feet, she doesn't make great haste to let go, saying as she does, "Thank you..."
Elly walks forwards in relative peace as well. She would almost smile, even in the face of the bridge, and she says to Fei as they go along, "Did they...? I'm glad..."
"I've been in a few places like this," Elly says as they come up towards the bridge, eyeing just how rickety it looks but estimating - INCORRECTLY AS IT WILL TURN OUT - that they can just go across one at a time. "This is almost... a relief, compared to some of them. And I don't have anyone giving me the - I don't know how to put it- dirty looks half the time, either. So that's positive..."
She takes the rope Leon threw, steps, forwards, and - crunch - "Oh no," Elly says, even as Fei is ahead of her. She runs, even as boards yield, moving with speed and perhaps something approaching grace and - in the end - leaps up, sliding along the undersurface of her boots as Lily attempts to freeze the ropes and boards up and give ice's blessing to the inevitable decay of all matter!
"I'm trying!" she answers Ruby. "Ah -" But with some more wrangling and a final kick off, she lands, this time with more actual grace, in a three-point stance on the far end of the bridge.
"there's going to be a third one of these, isn't there," Elly says in a small voice.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, The Collapsing Bridge.
=============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Collapsing Bridge *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------- The next chamber comes to a stop over a wide, gaping chasm that extends through the deeper parts of the temple. The bottom is lost in darkness, but you can see that the way ahead is across it: a door on the other side. The chasm, mercifully, has a well-worn rope bridge across it. Unfortunately, it is too well-worn. As you step onto it, the ropes begin to fray. The ancient boards begin to crumble. You will have to run quickly -- or find another across -- as the bridge begins to give out underfoot! =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Injure=========================================
========================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 3 *>========================= ========================< Results - The Collapsing Bridge >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 17 --(6)--> 23 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 26 --(13)--> 39 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 21 --(6)--> 27 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 21 --(6)--> 27 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 30 --(15)--> 45 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Hesitate(1)|Injure(2)|Overwhelm|Suffer Effects: Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1) =================================< Dream Chasers >==================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus 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> Leon Albus has posed.
"A relief?" Leon asks Elly. "What places have you been?"
He asks as he keeps a firm grip on the rope -- and he starts running, in double time as the boards freeze and the collapse slows. They manage to bolt ahead, though he gasps to see Elly leap and then jump... and land in front of him, in a three-point stance.
"Impressive," he says, as he steps off. He takes a moment to catch his breath. Then, he glances at Fei -- and then to Elly. "It was during the invasion of Adlehyde," Leon says, by way of explanation. "We... ah. Tempers were high. But we managed--even if it was a close-run thing, a few times." And, of course, they didn't save the Teardrop or the king. But, perhaps, they saved the city. They secured the Golem, too.
He doesn't mention that.
He rolls both shoulders, before he looks at the door -- and starts walking. They should, he decides, keep moving. "Ruby, keep a close eye out. You have the best vantage point of any of us."
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Engulfing Slime *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you move down this hallway, the path becomes narrow and difficult to maneuver through. Soon, you are forced to walk single file, for the hallway will fit no more than one person at a time -- and that is being generous. Which, of course, might make the suspicious suspect a trap. The suspicious are correct. As you walk, a huge glob of bright green slime drops down from the ceiling and tries to land in your midst! Those it lands atop are suddenly engulfed in choking, burning fluid -- and have to be extracted before they become the slime's next dinner. Those outside of it find its pseudopods lashing out, trying to draw the others in as its next prey. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Wound===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
When Lily almost loses her footing- Ruby proceeds to just ram right into the small of her back and continue pushing her along. This works better than it ought to mostly because Lily is creating an ice road, "You and Lemina with your ice spell cheat tricks! Geez!"
It sounds almost affectionate in it's admonishment.
And once on the other side. Ruby flies high- "Got it-! Hey... I think there's something on the ceil- OH MY GODDESS!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Talk of memories takes a back seat for Lily for now. Leon has it covered, and talking much at all is too much effort for Lily to expend in the moment of trying to get across the bridge. She can see others leap across, Elly with such grace, and Lily... Well, Lily has to try to hang onto the rope as she starts to fall, kept up only by Ruby's efforts. She huffs as she gets back up, gritting her teeth, "They're--useful!"
But eventually she makes it across the end, falling into a pile on the other side. "I... wonder that too, about where you've been if this is a relief. But there's no reason to give you strange looks..." Lily glances to Fei then, trying to be encouraging, but it might just look strange before she gets to her feet.
Get to her feet she does, and the group loos ahead to a very... very narrow hallway, which makes Lily frown. "This is a trap," she mentions, and suddenly there's a--slime!
"Au-mfpf--" Lily starts to say something untoward about slimes, but she's the first caught up in this slime, coughing inside as she can't breathe and instead burns. It tries to draw in others into its great space.
In case it hasn't been said, Lily Keil does not like slimes.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Slime.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei frowns. "Do you really get dirty looks all the time?" He remembers, at the cafe, that he sort of wanted to tell her to quit Solaris and just run with them, but he stopped himself by reminding himself that SHE at least still had a family. Even if she wanted to, could he really just suggest that she leave them behind?
"I haven't leaped down a pit and messed up the jump yet," Fei says with a kind of cheeriness that suggests this didn't only happen once or twice during his misadventures. "Plus I'm with friends, not a group of strangers or anything--"
Fei nearly walks right into the slime as he's lost in thought. He jumps back sharply and says, "Thanks for the headsup Ruby!" He draws out his RPS Badge and flashes it before the slime monster.
And he sees that it can only throw paper with those pseudopods so he throws Scissor!...and then scissorkicks the monster... IN THE, well, in the slime. His leg glows with chi due to successful RPS combo. "Hold on Lily!" He shouts.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Engulfing Slime.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
After another round of dusting herself off, the forward motion proceeds. Then two questions come to her, from Fei's dear friends.
"Well..." Elly begins to answer Leon, with a tone he may recognize - the tone of someone considering military secrets, or what to tell in conversation. "I know that I had to leave Adelhyde, and that was worse than this, even if the situation is similar." In reality, of course, Elly's stronger now! Or feels stronger. Maybe it's Ruby.
She looks at Fei then with no clear expression. That may mean yes.
Then:
"Ugh!!" Elly enunciates in the face of SLIME TIME: her reaction is to look at Lily with momentary anxiety, but then to start doing that flame-ether trick on several visible green globs, which, well, is kind of effective. "Hold on! I'll wash it off you, Lily-" If Leon doesn't have another answer (or Ruby's precision fire pawsies), Elly's solution is going to be ice cold water spray, but that takes her longer to do.
Precious moments.
Precious moments in which LILY IS DIGESTED
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Engulfing Slime.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Ah... mm. Adlehyde was worse," Leon agrees with Elly. He nods, though ge glances at Fei -- and then hears the glooping splosh of the slime that descends. He whips around, eyes wide when he sees who it engulfs. He swings out his flare gun, firing it above the slime to try to flash-heat some of it. At the same time, he shouts, and a note of panic almost enters his voice.
"LILY!"
Argent Divider comes out in a flash. Silvery light rips up the length of the sword. If there was any idea it might be a Gunsmoke weapon, it is gone. The energy blade slices at the slime, and then he reaches a hand in. He feels it burn at his skin. He doesn't care; ice and ki is bombarding it already.
He has to pull her out.
"Grab on!"
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Flare Gun toward his party's challenge, Engulfing Slime.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"I never said they're not! You just need to train harder so you don't slip!" Is what she said before...
But then Lily is engulfed by slimes. "Lily!" Ruby responds to this solution, with FIRE! ... ... ... ...
That small puff of flame is super ineffective. It's like taking a tiny blow torch to it.
The others are definitely going to get her out of it faster. Thankfully Leon does, and Ruby can fly high before another slime engulfs her instead.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Engulfing Slime *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you move down this hallway, the path becomes narrow and difficult to maneuver through. Soon, you are forced to walk single file, for the hallway will fit no more than one person at a time -- and that is being generous. Which, of course, might make the suspicious suspect a trap. The suspicious are correct. As you walk, a huge glob of bright green slime drops down from the ceiling and tries to land in your midst! Those it lands atop are suddenly engulfed in choking, burning fluid -- and have to be extracted before they become the slime's next dinner. Those outside of it find its pseudopods lashing out, trying to draw the others in as its next prey. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Wound===========================================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 4 *>======================= =========================< Results - Engulfing Slime >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 23 --(8)--> 31 Pass Flare Gun 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 39 --(18)--> 57 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 27 --(8)--> 35 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 27 --(7)--> 34 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 45 --(15)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Exhaust(1)|Injure(1)|Overwhelm|Suffer|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus 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: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>=========================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Barbed But Makeshift Bridge *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Another chasm cut through the Temple's inner chambers lay ahead. Like others that you may have encountered, it splits the room in two, and the door leading further in is across it. This chasm, however, is far too long across to safely jump. Only one thing might act as a bridge: a huge pillar of gemstone, which is part of the natural caverns that the Guardian Temple was built into. However, this pillar poses a problem. The sides of the quartz-like gemstone is razor sharp and has little spikes of stone covering it, which are sure to cut and tear flesh if handled carelessly. Knocking it over the chasm and moving it into position will be difficult, to say the least. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Suffer=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Right--Training--"
But that was back in the room with the bridge, and Lily isn't saying anything now, or nothing anyone can hear through bunches and bunches of goop. But the party moves quickly, with concern.
Fei's kick makes the whole thing rumble but does not itself free Lily; it instead hurts the slime. Bits of glob slime ignite with a horrible hissing thanks to Elly's great magic, Ether burning slime away with a horrible noxious smell that causes it to recoil.
Ruby tries, and Leon, with that note of panic, sees Lily still unable to breathe, and his weapon starts crashing into the slime. She can hear him only dimly, but the ex-soldier in the slime can feel him, grabbing onto his hand and being pulled out from the slime.
Ruby is floating up by the time the group's continued assault melt the slime into so much useless liquid, Lily wheezing for breath and obviously burned. "Fuck... slimes..." she says, ladylike somehow in swearing.
She lifts a hand and once again red heat moves up from the floor to envelop them after the attmpt of the slime to drag each of them inside.
"Thank you..." She looks to all of them, but her eyes linger on Leon, a quiet look entirely for him before she looks away. "I'm fine. Let's keep moving. ...You all work well together."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"We do? Oh," Elly says, shyly, at Lily's praise. Ugh, they're being nice to me, she thinks. For, of course, while she has not been playing things entirely accurately, it has had great EMOTIONAL truth to her - which was deliberate, to make things more plausible - but - ugh!
They move along, and are faced with two great things.
One is a hole in the ground. It is huge and massive. Perhaps Ruby could cross it but even Ruby might be concerned about the whistles. The other is the vast pillar of crystalline rock - the massive singular gemstone - that makes Elly goggle in simple astonishment. It's jagged... sparkling...
"What kind of a 'Temple' is this...?"
But they have an issue. Which is that the only way across seems to be to somehow knock this pillar over.
Elly rests a hand on the little leather hip pouch which has several automatic injectors, one of which contains -Drive-, another Rosesol, and a third a potent paralytic neurotoxin. She gazes at the stone -
AND THEN...
MEMORIES OF JUGEND
"You're making a category error, Elly," Kelvena explains.
Elly looks at Kelvena like a golden retriever puppy. She does not, at least, bark pleadingly.
"Think of it this way," Kelvena says: "Every cucco is different. Even the ones we raise in the ag sector are genetically distinct, even if it's not a strong distinction. But every single cucco, no matter what... is a bird."
Elly nods once.
"But not every bird," Kelvena says, "is a cucco."
NOW, ONCE MORE
Elly murmurs, "Not every rock is a gemstone... but every gemstone is a rock."
Elly raises her hands then towards the pillar. "Um," she begins. "I think -" And some of those razor-sharp gem chunks start to fall off, possibly worthy of collection for later resale or regifting. "I think, if you can help break it loose - I'm - I'm not sure I could pinch it off at both ends at the same time, without risking it falling into the chasm. Can you all try to break it at the base?" Tingle! Sparkle!
Those are a lot of hazardous quartzlike chunks she's ablating off. In her mind's eye, Elly imagines that cliff near Lahan, the one that, even now, has a series of strangely heart-like protuberances, though the wind and rain have started erosion...
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Spy Purse toward her party's challenge, Barbed But Makeshift Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"I've got you," Leon says, as he pulls her away from the slime -- and its remains. He looks down at the burnt, melted fluid. His silver eyes regard it, balefully, and he shakes his head. Then, he wipes at his brow, and lets out a sigh. "This temple... I don't feel this place is something simple. This place was built for a purpose beyond worship."
He swallows. He can't imagine what that purpose is.
He looks at Lily, briefly. He lets out a sigh of relief, then flicks his sword to the side, before he slides it back into his holster. He follows after Elly -- and he frowns, sharply, at the glittering pillar. The glittering, sharp pillar. He watches Elly's spell cut away the razor-sharp chunks. He swallows, then he nods. "Yes," he says. "I think we can. Lily's an explosives expert."
He steps forward, then looks at Lily. "You place the explosives, Lieutenant, and direct me where to push."
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Barbed But Makeshift Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong smiles at Lily. "Thanks. Course, I don't think any of us would still be moving if it weren't for you. I've done a couple of ruin travels with Elly. Well. One, unless you count uh...yeah." He is trying to reassure Lily that just having bad luck with some of the traps and dangers of the ruins doesn't mean she isn't helpful. Still, he does feel a little worried. He knows it has been pretty hard on Lily lately.
"This is a temple for the Guardians, correct?" Fei asks. "Maybe its distorted nature is a reflection of Filgaia's current status. Out of balance and full of suffering." Yeah Fei you're giving the Guardians a lot of credit and frankly he doesn't even sound sure of it even when he says it.
Fei Fong Wong chooses this moment to take a chisel from his artist's toolkit, ready to get to work. He tries chiseling off some bits off but he steps back afterwards and says, "I don't think this tool's the right one for the job." He steps back so he doesn't get slathered in crystalline splinters.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Barbed But Makeshift Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"A pretty crazy one if you ask me. Back on our world the temples all make sense! ... ... ... In so much as they're filled with moneygrubbing clergy."
Ruby looks at the challenge of the makeshift bridge. She hovers in space, flapping and- "Yeah I'm not going to be any help whatsoever here. So... I'll just be... waiting over here. Away from the blast zone."
And then she does that.
Sometimes a tiny mascot can only do so much.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei steps back a little closer to Ruby. See? He isn't completely reckless, just like mostly?
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Little further back," Leon suggests.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong steps back further. He figures he doesn't have to usher Ruby who will listen to sensible advice without prompting. "Here?" He asks.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"... even further." And when Lily is about ready to set them off she screams, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
...
...
"Sorry, wanted to say that ever since I came to the Blue Star and discovered the wonders of T-N-T."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei steps back again and then ends up duck and covering when Ruby shouts fire in the hole way earlier than he really needed to.
"...Ruby..." He says from his position on the floor.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"TNT?" Elly asks, because she isn't familiar with the acronym.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"And I got Fei to take cover early... so mission accomplished?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon groans into his hand, which is now covering his face.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Leon says he has her, and Lily keeps hold of his hand for a few moments still after. She glances back at the fluid... But prefers not to dwell on it. Besides, Fei smiles at her and speaks up, and she closes her eyes, nodding. "I appreciate it," she says. It has been difficult, in her lie and in here. "But so long as we all make it through, that's enough." She says this quietly. Then, Elly questions her and Lily answers, a little raspily, "Yes." That's the only confirmation she needs to give of what she said at first.
"It's unlike any place of worship I've been to," Lily says. "At least on the surface." She answers everyone with that. "I'm... not sure the Guardians can manipulate a temple like that. Can they?" She thought they were a myth until recently. "Ruby, though, I don't like the sound of moneygrubbing clergy..."
But they move into the area, and it's lovely in its way. Jagged, sparkling...
"You..." Lily thinks she can feel what's happening with the pillar thanks to Elly's will, intuiting what it is, that the falling fragments are for that reason. It could be hazardous... But Lily finds it beautiful.
She glances at Leon once, and then straightens, still looking not really at her best but making crisp motions regadless. "Yes, sir." Lily starts to open up her satchel and pull out a few strange box-shaped charges, which are less strange to those accustomed to explosives. She walks over to the pillar and looks thoughtfully at the base of the pillar before she--
"Damn," she murmurs, and kneels down, setting down the explosive and taking off her gloves, to reveal bizarre markings on the back of her hands, metallic more than ink like tattoos, a vibrant red in color to match the red of her healing. The gloves she shoves in, and then she rolls out explosives to shape the charges, setting them around with careful calculation as to where to hit the the pillar to tilt it the right way. She shoves the fuses in, and stands.
"...Stop helping," she says to whoever it is she says it to, and walks away from where the blast is set to happen. She turns towards it and flicks her hands--
The markings on her hands spark orange and after a second's delay, explosions start to rock the base of the pillar as she lights the fuses by Ether.
She stares into it. "You're all ridiculous." A pause.
"Heh heh."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Explosive Charges toward her party's challenge, Barbed But Makeshift Bridge.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>=========================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Barbed But Makeshift Bridge *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Another chasm cut through the Temple's inner chambers lay ahead. Like others that you may have encountered, it splits the room in two, and the door leading further in is across it. This chasm, however, is far too long across to safely jump. Only one thing might act as a bridge: a huge pillar of gemstone, which is part of the natural caverns that the Guardian Temple was built into. However, this pillar poses a problem. The sides of the quartz-like gemstone is razor sharp and has little spikes of stone covering it, which are sure to cut and tear flesh if handled carelessly. Knocking it over the chasm and moving it into position will be difficult, to say the least. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Suffer=========================================
=====================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 5 *>====================== ==================< Results - Barbed But Makeshift Bridge >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 31 --(20)--> 51 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 57 --(17)--> 74 Pass Explosive Charges 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 35 --(18)--> 53 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 34 --(23)--> 57 Fail Spy Purse 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Conditions: Collapse|Overwhelm|Suffer|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 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> Ruby has posed.
Ruby has no idea what TNT means, "It blows stuff up real good."
And that's when Lily sets it off.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly steps away as the glitter sparkle shedding stops, nods once at Lily, lets herself let out a sigh -
And that's why she doesn't get more than horribly thrown back, approximately near Fei, when the explosion goes off! If she was holding her breath, that could've been bad. But she wasn't!
The beautiful and gorgeous thing is badly burned and falls over at an angle, but sticks pretty well. The party may continue over a bridge of something once glorious, natural, and precious, ruined by the arts of Man. Or something like that, at least; not everything is a metaphor.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei starts to stand himself back up because he took cover early and that's what his instinct tells him to do. That means that he gets up just in time for Elly to come crashes into him, sending him crashing to the ground and bashing his head against the floor.
"...Ouch."
Yeah his player's sure this is way more hilarious.
DG: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Hidden Switch *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The door at the end of this hallway is closed. A push won't open it, and some examination indicates that it must lift up into the wall above it. There isn't an immediately obvious way to make it do so. However, a large set of reliefs are carved into the wall around the door. They depict the Guardians in stylized form, each surrounded by elements of their domain. Perhaps, they provide a clue -- or hide the way forward. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The explosion throws Leon back. He slams into the ground, rolling a few times, and shakes his head. "In... in the future," he says, "we should be more mindful of the explosives. Also, Elly, that is TNT."
He stands up, trying to dust himself off. It only sort of works -- but he can see the glittering column, now suspended over the chasm. He can take it. He walks across carefully, and rolls his right shoulder. He hurt it when the explosion sounded. He can deal with the pain, though.
When he comes to the door, he pushes.
It doesn't budge. He frowns then looks up -- peering across the door, and then up at the reliefs. The Guardians are depicted there: the four elemental ones, who he recognizes slightly. His eyes widen, before he reaches out. His fingers slide behind the relief.
"Maybe there's a button?" he asks. "Lily, check your notes?"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Hidden Switch.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily of course is also hit by the explosion harder than she expected, and her cover slams into her as it blasts her over. She drags herself back to her feet from where she'd slie away, rising again.
"...I must've miscalculated," Lily says, shaking her head and dusting herself off as well. "I apologize. But at least we can make it through."
Lily looks to everyone, just in case, and says, "Embarrassing. But I think I see why; it's the shape of the chamber..." She murmurs to herself a little further, and pulls a small notebook that she begins writing in. So she already has her notes out when Leon asks her to check them. They're just at her side.
"Hm. Guardian iconograophy," Lily murmurs. "These..." She frowns. "Not my area of expertise, Leon," she admits, and opens back up her notebook to flip through. "But something like this..."
She moves forward once she finds a page, kneeling to check pressure, looking for plates while she looks at her book.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Kislev Field Manual toward her party's challenge, The Hidden Switch.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby splats against the wall in the wake of the explosion.
...
...
"Sorry Fei..."
At the door, Ruby flies up instantly over to the one representing Moor Gault- looking like a flaming dragon/firebird thing she instantly declares: "I like this guy."
Fengalon on the other hand gets a big hmph, when she sees the representation of the giant wind tiger.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I think the sword one looks particularly worn...?" Elly guesses. From her expression, she has never seen -
"wait," Elly says, murmuring to herself.
"All of those little charms people had... those were so similar to these." She fingers the gimbal-rings pendant she still wears, which still has some of Fei's blood on it. "Were they all worshippers..."
Elly trails off and shifts slightly closer to Ruby. Maybe I can claim I'm from Lunar, Elly thinks. That works really well for - no, she concludes with a sag of the head, all the people from Lunar would spot me out. There's no way Bart the pirate doesn't have at least one.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Hidden Switch.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong actually checked a book out on this from the Linga Library. Well okay he actually tore a page out of the book. He reaches into his pack and withdraws a page of Guardian artistic designs. He glances between the wall and the arts. His eyes focus on the door. He says, "Hmmm... I think I got it!" He pauses as he sees Elly fiddling with the pendant. "Ah! Those were from the ruins from the Zeboim era." How did he know that? He doesn't say. "I thought I almost could make it out but..." He shakes his head. "Guess they worshipped a guardian too? Probably the very one Lunata's been carting around. Anyway..."
He looks back to the door. "I figured it out. See, the frescos correspond to the Guardians, and the temple is in disrepair so..."
He throws a karate kick at the door!
"It's probably not well secured!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, The Hidden Switch.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Hidden Switch *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The door at the end of this hallway is closed. A push won't open it, and some examination indicates that it must lift up into the wall above it. There isn't an immediately obvious way to make it do so. However, a large set of reliefs are carved into the wall around the door. They depict the Guardians in stylized form, each surrounded by elements of their domain. Perhaps, they provide a clue -- or hide the way forward. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 6 *>======================= ========================< Results - The Hidden Switch >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 51 --(4)--> 55 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 74 --(3)--> 77 Pass Kislev Field Manual 1 Wits Effects: Rally and Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 53 --(4)--> 57 Pass Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 57 --(10)--> 67 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 70 --(20)--> 90 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Stalwart(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 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: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>=========================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Shifting Tiles *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- When you enter this room, you are immediately greeted by the sound of rushing sand. A flowing river of the stuff moves through the center of the room, and it moves far too quickly to wade into -- not to mention that no one can be sure how deep it is. However, something else moves through the sand: huge tiles of obsidian, which float across it, and are wide and sturdy enough to hold a person. Crossing will require leaping from tile to tile, even as it moves underfoot, until you get to the other side. You certainly want to reach the other side. There, a huge doorway awaits. Three relief statues of the Guardians of Water, Fire, and Wind are sculpted around it, beckoning you forth. You suspect few of the other groups of Drifters have found these trial rooms, so deep under the ground. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon doesn't find a button, but he hears the ideas being offered. He pulls his hand back, then turns his head. He blinks at Elly. "Nnh?" he asks. "These are the Guardians--some cultures venerate them, as spirits of nature. They're nothing real, of course."
But he doesn't believe in any god.
He gives Ruby a look, as he stands back, and then tilts his head. His shoulders shrug. "Mm, seems all right," he says. "I suppose it all has a certain artistry--ah, there we go!" He sounds excited, as Lily presses down on a pressure plate and is rewarded with a satisfying 'click.'
The door, however, is old. It swings in -- and gets stuck. Until, of course, Fei kicks it. The door swings open then, dust spreading out. Leon tilts his head, before he cracks a smile. "Well... that worked out. Let's see what's through there."
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"He's a giant dragon of flame Leon."
...
...
She kind of expects someone to get it. Noone does.
"And thus he's everything I aspire to be..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Ha!" Fei says. "It worked...!" He glances to Leon. "What about ...oh maybe you didn't see it, but Lunata has been carting around some sort of lich that's been following her around or something. I am pretty sure a Guardian has been helping her." He shakes his head. "Or 'helping'..." He even makes the quote signs. "The thing is...it's been pushing her to do things of its own accord but...well I said I'd trust her..." But he is feeling uncertain all the same. He keeps moving on though.
I am starting to like the little one
His brief smile fades though as he sees what's before him. A sea of sand and huge tiles that one must jump across to get to the other side.
"Finally..." Fei leaps down. "Jumping!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Mm," Lily says to Leon's explanation. She is thinking. She is watching. "...That pendant..." Lily stares for a moment at Elly, at the pendant she wears, recognizing it for one she wears under her shirt right now. She focuses on that as she considers that Elly hasn't even seemingly heard of the Guadians.
But Fei explains. He even mentions the era of the ruins, which gives Lily pause. A lot of pause actually. Tired, she loos up at him in... concern, mostly.
A shake of her head. "I have a pendant like that," Lily says instead, and goes back to work work until--click.
"It's a very pretty door," Lily says, completely deadpan, and rises after Fei makes his kick. Lily huffs out dust. "Right. Let's." She pauses, to add to Ruby, "...Huh."
Instead, "I've seen what Lunata can do. It is alarming, but not ultimately our business."
"Let's talk about the ruin you got that pendant from sometime," she says, and sighs to look out at the sea of sand and huge tiles. "Leon," she says, "Do you think if I tried hard enough I could melt a glass pathway?"
Lily shakes her head, and... Starts staring ahead at the path beore she judges a pattern and tries to leap. "I wonder why Earth isn't here?" she comments once she touches down ungracefully on the beginning.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh," Elly says to Leon in a small voice.
Then she asks Ruby, "Dragon? But I thought dragons were huge and terrifying -" DOORKICK! "Ah!"
A sea of sand and doubt.
By doubt we mean grout, and by grout we mean tiles.
Then Lily notices her pendant. Elly puts a hand on it, even as Fei brings up that name, Zeboim. Elly gives Lily her Wan Smile, patent pending, and says, "Really? You went to that temple too, didn't you?" Nodding once, she leaps down and starts jumping.
Elly jumps pretty well. Must be the leg development. She is helped by her boots, and only slightly hindered by needing to let her hair stream out prettily behind her.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"Oh I sawwww it." She grumbles at Fei talking about the lich thing just after the door gets kicked down, "Couldn't miss it."
Ruby crosses her precious pink pawsies at Elly's comment, "Once we get older sure! I'm pretty young for a dragon!" Ruby considers this dilemma of Lily's... "I tried melting a lot of sand back where we used to live near this pretty desolate wasteland. It seems like it'd be too fragile. And with sand shifting like it is..."
She points, and points, Feels like it would break apart from the movement behind it before you could manage it unless you and Elly were working together and reached a really high temperature for a vast volume. It'd be tricky."
...
"I think about burning things a lot."
Ruby doesn't need to jump. She can fly. She touches down on every moving tile anyhow behind the rest of the group... because she wants to fit in and there's no danger at all to her.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon does not get it.
He looks at Fei, though, and his eyes widen in surprise. "The... thing in the cube? That--" His brow furrows. He is less certain of that. He keeps walking, and then stops as he sees the fast moving river of sand. He swallows, his whole body tensing for a moment. He reaches to his side, and then he unspools the climbing rope once more. He turns it around a few times. Then, he nods at Fei.
"You could try, Lily," he says. "It might be too fast, though. Nnh..."
He throws the rope, catching onto another crenellation on the ceiling. He tugs -- to be sure it is secure -- and then he swings. He touches down on a tile, before he kicks off it, and keeps swinging over the river of sand.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>=========================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Shifting Tiles *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- When you enter this room, you are immediately greeted by the sound of rushing sand. A flowing river of the stuff moves through the center of the room, and it moves far too quickly to wade into -- not to mention that no one can be sure how deep it is. However, something else moves through the sand: huge tiles of obsidian, which float across it, and are wide and sturdy enough to hold a person. Crossing will require leaping from tile to tile, even as it moves underfoot, until you get to the other side. You certainly want to reach the other side. There, a huge doorway awaits. Three relief statues of the Guardians of Water, Fire, and Wind are sculpted around it, beckoning you forth. You suspect few of the other groups of Drifters have found these trial rooms, so deep under the ground. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure=============================================
=====================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 7 *>====================== =======================< Results - The Shifting Tiles >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 55 --(6)--> 61 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 77 --(8)--> 85 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 57 --(4)--> 61 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 67 --(6)--> 73 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 90 --(5)--> 95 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Quicken(1)|Stalwart(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 5 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.
"The writing," Fei says. "It reminded me of writing I saw on a music box at Doc's before. It was one of the last things I saw before..." He frowns, lowering his head. "...I hope it still works." That's odd to say, but he clears his throat. "I turned it on the day Lahan was destroyed." It's so much easier to talk about it now, he only hesitated a little bit, for a few seconds. It's kind of unnerving. "There was this beautiful picture of--the sun. It shone so brightly. A statue of an angel--with two wings--in the center. I heard that music before...I..."
He remembers the melody, even as the group manages to get across the tiles with relatively little trouble. He stops as he hits solid ground.
He hums the melody to himself. He thought he had forgotten it, in all the time since then. He feels...warm.
He stops.
"We're almost there. I hope." He looks at Elly and he smiles at her again. Warmth can compound.
The team moves on.
DG: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Impossible Task *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The deepest rooms of the Guardian Temple are also the largest. This cavernous chamber stretches out, and each of the walls has extensive murals painted by hands deft and light -- hands that have produced art so sublime, with such finesse, that one might wonder if human hands could master them. The murals show the Guardians in abstract splendor; without revealing their form, and yet with such care that one cannot doubt the form that they have chosen. Three tiles, each a gleaming silver, stand in the center of the room. Around them are twenty-four statues on round pedestals. Each shows an abstract concept related to each of the twenty-five Guardians: a sword, a sun dial, a flame, a wave, and so on. As you enter, the three tiles flash. The ghostly images of three Guardians appear: the enormous, tortoise-like form of Schturkdark, the four-winged dragon form of Moor Gault, and the winged tiger of Fengalon. Each rears up and looks upon you. Schturdark speaks first: "We call upon your wisdom to break the past." Moor Gault speaks next: "We ask that you show the understanding that ever escaped your ancestors." Fengalon finishes: "We ask that you show us that you know mankind's place in the cosmos." They fade away, but a twenty-fifth statue appears on the central tile: one of a featureless, stylized human. It looks almost childish. Each statue can be moved -- including the human statue -- to show where you think you might fit in the cosmos. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Reckless, Madness===============================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon lands on the other side, and he lets out a long sigh. He shakes his head, before he looks at Fei, and his head tilts to the side. The melody is unfamiliar to him; the imagery, too, is not something he recognizes. He hesitates, before he nods. "I hope that we are, too. I wonder... what we're going to find. I'm not sure that we have our tunnel out of here. But..."
He shakes his head. They can see. He strides towards the door with the many statues and reliefs around it. Far more than the one they passed through to enter here, and yet, Leon finds the door opens when he presses it.
It isn't until all of them step inside that the three silver tiles all light up and cast a glow through the room. The three ghostly images appear: a four-winged phoenix, a tortoise, and a winged tiger, far too tall and huge, and enough to make Leon step backward uncertainly.
He just said they weren't real.
"We call upon your wisdom to break the past."
"We ask that you show the understanding that ever escaped your ancestors."
"We ask that you show us that you know mankind's place in the cosmos."
The twenty-fifth statue appears in the room's center. Leon looks from statue to statue. He can see that they should move; he can even see what some of them represent. And yet, he realizes...
"...I don't know," he says. "They're--they aren't supposed to be real. How... how could anyone know this? This is something priests study for ages, not something we could--what is any of this?"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
And then they arrive at the room. Ruby squeals as Moor Gault appears alongside the other Guardians, "It's him it's him!" She whispers to Lily quickly, How does my bow look? It's not all messy and crooked right?"
But then come the questions. "Eh!?"
Ruby doesn't say anything for some time after that. "How could they ask that?" She finally whispers.
Ruby thinks upon it for a while. She's lived upon a world where everything is controlled by the Goddess. Everyone knows their place, benefits from their gifts. But she's also seen that the Goddess' will isn't always correct, or just.
She's been to Filgaia where she's seen the Guardians reject people for things which were the fault of their ancestors.
It's a question which causes her to beat her precious pink pawsies to her forehead in frustration, Gah! I DUNNO! What the heck Guardians? I'm a dragon! I know my place- but I can only help people. I can't tell them theirs. Like how can anyone know? You make it so tough when we all have so many questions!"
Huffing out a long breath, she slumps in mid-air, "Maybe it's just anywhere... and nowhere too..."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I did," Lily answers Elly, "More than once. I found it fascinating. ...Truthfully I wished I could study it more." Lily likes Elly so far. She spots that particular smile, and even so. But one thing...
Lily has to admit that she's jealous of her sheer grace, and has to shake her head as the younger sorceress leaps forward.
"It's worthwhile to think about how to burn things when you can make fire," Lily points out to Ruby. But Leon seems to agree with her, and Lily sighs. "Yes, you're both right. Unfortunately. It would be faster just to.. jump."
So she does, but only after looking at Fei again. She becomes the last to move. The writing... and a music box.
But Lily does make it across, with difficulty. She lands hard on her shins more than once as she tries to leap, or on her side. But eventually she's on the other side, aching and endeavoring not to show it.
"We're almost somewhere," she says to Fei, and moves forward.
Somewhere, she thinks, but this... This is something more than somewhere. When they all step inside, Lily's eyes widened to see these images. "Ruby," Lily chides as she's staring. These... voices. Escaped their... She listens to the questions, and looks at Ruby finally to say, "...Your bow suits you. It's not messy."
But the whisper ges there, as Lily looks to Leon. "I don't know," Lily says to Leon, "But it's here in front of us."
Lily looks to Ruby, to the others, and pulls her notebook again. "...I have some writings, though... What the Guardians want and what I've learned from Nisan might be very different." She shakes her head. "I don't know what the Guardians believe, if they can speak to us..."
That they're real.
Lily sighs. She flips through, but before she does she says, "We'll need to move the statues regadless. I hope I have notes on what the Guardians are, but I... don't think that I do. I wouldn't put humans at the center regardless. We don't have a world oriented around humans, let alone a cosmos."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Kislev Field Manual toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh, of course," Elly answers Ruby. She's young; makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't dragons resemble cats when they're smaller?
Elly thinks as Fei shares his memory: Drifters would have scavenged that. It sounds like a beautiful treasure. Easily sold.
"I hope so too," she tells Fei, and smiles back at him, and then the gods show up and address them.
Elly stares dead ahead at them as her wisdom is solicited; asked to show the understanding that escaped her ancestors; asked to show that she knows mankind's place in the cosmos.
Some part of Elly thinks: Which part of mankind do you mean? It's the purpose of my people, to manage and guide - but if this place is some kind of sacred space for creatures beyond the human, then they wouldn't think like that, Elly reasons. (Later, she may be troubled that she came to that thought so easily.) And even if it was only a puzzle, with holograms, Elly thinks further: The makers wouldn't have been from -
Elly's eyes turn around the symbols she barely recognizes. The statues. They linger.
"... These statues are really well made... I don't know the first thing about them, but I can tell exactly what they represent."
Lily gives her opinion, and without looking, Elly speaks. "But we're humans - I'm sorry, Ruby, most of us, I mean to say - and we can't understand the universe in any other way. But..."
Elly is silent for several seconds, and then she walks forwards. "... I think I understand. I imagine it's their weight - Fei, everyone, can you -"
Elly stops, stricken with self doubt. Then she gestures, broadly; "Those, the... element and geography ones, they go behind us... and we go towards those other ones, with the created things and the - I don't know how to put it -"
"But we'd be in the middle, with the life and death ones. And time. And, um - dice? No - fortune...?"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"You do?" Fei blinks at Lily, on the matter of the pendants, mind rewinding a bit. "...Oh right! I think I remember. You got it from the ruins too? I guess they're basically just cute baubles because we can't read them, heh." He thinks about that melody for a bit longer, collapsing into his own thoughts for a moment.
Em...
He smiles at Elly. "Thanks. That kind of makes me think it's doing okay." ACTUALLY IT FELL APART IT WAS SUPER CREEPY but Fei doesn't know about that. He nods at Ruby, though. See? Ruby understands. "Well it's natural for a dragon, right? I mean I assume. I never met a dragon! But you hear stories. I guess I shouldn't make presumptions when I could just ask a friend."
Fei heads into the room after Leon, having dallied due to his bout with a nostalgia he doesn't truly recognize. He sees the phoenix light up and asides to Ruby. "There's your hero." He points up to the phoenix with a finger. He assumed it was some sort of hologram like (Praise) Tails but then the guardians start gabbing. "Is that...is that really them?" Fei manages, eyes wide. "I figured they existed but..."
He looks towards Ruby, wondering if she has the answer but... nope!
Fei then looks towards where the Guardians were. "..."
He looks down. He looks up. He looks down. He looks up again.
"...You guys don't know the answer yourselves either, do you." He doesn't even consider it a question. His temper is starting to flare up. "We're here, getting LASERED to death by metal demons and bombed by Aveh, and you're giving us riddles you don't know the answer to. Ugh!"
He stalks off and reaches into his artist's toolkit and starts sketching on his sketchpad. He is going to at least draw the statues and their original placement in case they come by again.
"I can't believe it. We crossed THREE death bridges to get here. Three! Four if you can't the thing with the black hole...!"
He forces himself to calm down, though, because once he has the positions noted on his pad, Elly starts giving directions. "...Worth a shot, though!"
Wait didn't he just say there was no answer, why is he listening to Elly now?!?!
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Impossible Task *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The deepest rooms of the Guardian Temple are also the largest. This cavernous chamber stretches out, and each of the walls has extensive murals painted by hands deft and light -- hands that have produced art so sublime, with such finesse, that one might wonder if human hands could master them. The murals show the Guardians in abstract splendor; without revealing their form, and yet with such care that one cannot doubt the form that they have chosen. Three tiles, each a gleaming silver, stand in the center of the room. Around them are twenty-four statues on round pedestals. Each shows an abstract concept related to each of the twenty-five Guardians: a sword, a sun dial, a flame, a wave, and so on. As you enter, the three tiles flash. The ghostly images of three Guardians appear: the enormous, tortoise-like form of Schturkdark, the four-winged dragon form of Moor Gault, and the winged tiger of Fengalon. Each rears up and looks upon you. Schturdark speaks first: "We call upon your wisdom to break the past." Moor Gault speaks next: "We ask that you show the understanding that ever escaped your ancestors." Fengalon finishes: "We ask that you show us that you know mankind's place in the cosmos." They fade away, but a twenty-fifth statue appears on the central tile: one of a featureless, stylized human. It looks almost childish. Each statue can be moved -- including the human statue -- to show where you think you might fit in the cosmos. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Reckless, Madness===============================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 8 *>======================= =======================< Results - The Impossible Task >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 61 --(100)--> 161 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 85 --(100)--> 185 Fail Kislev Field Manual 1 Wits Effects: Rally and Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 61 --(100)--> 161 Fail Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 73 --(100)--> 173 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 95 --(10)--> 105 Fail Conditions: Injure(1)|Madness|Reckless(2)|Stupify(2)|Tire(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Stalwart(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Leon Albus is too exhausted to continue! DG: Lily Keil is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fei Fong Wong is too exhausted to continue! DG: Elhaym van Houten is too exhausted to continue! DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Leon Albus has successfully explored The Guardian Temple!
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Guardians' Resolve *>==================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The final statue is moved into place. There is a click, and then a soft light fills the room. And then, shimmering in the air, green energy swirls and pulses -- and a figure appears. He is a small black housecat, standing upright, wearing a glorious red cap which swirls after him. Dan Dairam twirls, with none of the dignity that one would expect of the Guardian of Time. "I didn't expect you to pull that one off!" he says. "And that's because you didn't. Because there's twenty-five Guardians and however millions of you and exactly that many opinions about where humans belong in the cosmos." He sighs. "...but you did good. Maybe--just maybe--you'll give our resolve something. Maybe you'll make a difference when we couldn't. The Demons want to destroy our statues. If they do... that's it. Mother comes back and we can't handle her at full strength again. We lost so much..." The cat nods. "So go! With our blessing! With our hope. You're not what we asked for -- but maybe it's time we not get what we asked for." Dan Dairam fades, then, but a collection of stone tablets -- one for each of you -- appears where he stood, and the room falls quiet. OOC: You have acquired the Stone Medium for one of the Elemental, Terrestrial, or Celestial Guardians. You can pick which you receive. If your character is not a Zoa Priest or a Shaman, their use of a Medium will be limited. Please refer to recent +bbposts for information. Thank you for playing at Dream Chasers MUSH! =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon's scowl only deepens. He has no answer, both when Ruby asks how they can ask that and when Lily observes that the Guardians are in front of them. He looks sideways at her, then nods at her observation. In the end, he looks back towards Elly and listens to her observations. There is something surprisingly serene in them; something deeper than a guess. A guess is all he has. He nods.
"All right," he says. He grabs the one of a mountain, and then puts his back into it. He begins to slide it as Elly indicated. His eyes turn towards Fei, and he frowns a little, as he does.
The statues slide into place. There is a soft click -- and then there is a flood of green light. It rushes up, and swirls into place, and forms the strangest thing: a black house cat, with a white belly, wearing a fabulous red cape. He does a little twirl.
"I didn't expect you to pull that one off! And that's because--" And then Dan Dairam, Guardian of Time, gets a good look at the violet eyes and red hair of Elly van Houten, and pauses for a long moment. "...Actually. Nevermind."
He sighs, then sinks down, resting atop the statue with a sundial on it. The cat-like Guardian lounges against it. "The Demons want to destroy our statues. If they do... that's it. Mother comes back and we can't handle her at full strength again. We lost so much..."
He sighs. Then, he turns, and looks right at Lily. "...and you're in rough shape to do this, too, aren't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly, honestly, was figuring the floor would tilt or something. If they had ten people she would have said 'go stand on the left side' to try it out. I mean, what else do they have to do? This room is pretty and it is remarkably free of Shakhan's shelling or Metal Demons.
Green light - a cat appears, with a cape. Another hologram, Elly thinks, especially when the manifestation speaks AND THEN IT LOOKS RIGHT AT HER
And seems to recognize her.
"???" She is too baffled to speak or otherwise interrupt, especially when the hologram seems to have context-sensitive awareness of Lily as well. Elly looks at her for a moment, but mostly seems perplexed.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"They are," Lily acknowledges about the statues, and then pauses. "We're humans," Lily repeats dully, and nods. We can't understand... Lily isn't sure of that, but Elly seems to have a vision here, and the older woman knows how to take direction when it's ahead of her.
She closes her manual, which gives her nothing about this scenario. She puts it away. "...All right, Elly. We'll do it your way."
At that she moves, and one that she pushes is a representation of the sea. She doesn't answer Fei's question, though she does appreciate the fact that he sketched them out. But where they are?
"What do they know?" Lily asks, and it's a sincere question. "I've never..."
But they do it. Moving statues is hard work, and frankly Lily is exhausted, entirely wrecked.
But the soft click becomes green light, and Lily rockets back upright with a half-breath in her lungs to see... Something completely... cute.
Dan Dairam stands before them, and Lily blinks at him. "Nevermind...?" she asks, uncertain. But the talk of Demons makes her watch. "Mother," she says, looking to Fei and back to Dan Dairam.
Lily steps a little further towards Leon and then freezes. "I--what?" She glances around. "I'm..." She suddenly sounds a lot less gruff than Fei is used to her being.
"I don't know what you mean," Lily admits. "Are you really a Guardian?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "Huh..." as the Guardian of Time shows up. "...I guess I was wrong. I guess there is an answer. I figured it was gonna be some sort of 'There really isn't an answer' thing but..." He grins at Elly. "You did it!" He beams brightly. "I have no idea how you figured it out, but you figured it out! You're incredible!" He gives Elly a big hug. "My foot is firmly in my mouth!" He seems happy about this strangely. He wonders what the Guardian was GOING to say but figures it's probably not worth worrying about. It worked!
"You're the guardian of time, right?" Fei says, sobering up just a little bit as he turns back around to face it. He glances at Lily with the mention of Mother. That's what his vision said too.
"I have to ask something. While you're here. It's uh. Two things actually. But the first thing."
He looks back up. "What's wrong with me?" He asks. "You're the Guardian of Time so you should know, right? Why do I keep getting visions from a thousand years ago?" He shakes his head. "I'm ... I'm in them. Elly's in them. What's wrong with me?" He glances over to Elly briefly. Now that he thinks about it, the Guardian...recognized her, didn't he?
"...And..." He frowns. "...Is it possible to stop them without destroying them? They don't all want to hurt you."
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
"A cat!? It talks?"
Really Ruby?
Ruby just sort of puts her pawsies out as Dan Dairam gives them the score, "Okay okay slow down a little kitty. Okay... so... stop their Mother..."
But then she's just looking at Lily with an expression like what does it mean? But even Lily doesn't seem to know...
Fei I mean... sure but... if all of them regard her as their mother..."
She doesn't really finish that thought. She just knows that given the way Zed talked about her... the way others have. It sounds like they'd all defend her to the death.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"There's not one answer. There's a lot of answers. But that's semantics!" Dan Dairam chirps in Fei's direction. Leon stares, for a moment, at the Guardian of Time -- then looks sideways at Fei hugging onto Elly. Slowly, one eyebrow lifts up, like it might fall off his face. It doesn't, though. He closes his mouth.
Then, he opens it again. "...Like Lily asked," he says. "Are you real?"
"As real as it gets. And yes. I said Mother -- the god of the Metal Demons. Something that will kill the whole world. We're using our statues to seal her. You need to protect them--you have to protect them. You're it. All we got. Our last hope."
The cat turns, looking at Ruby. "Bingo. Ruby got it. They're loyal to her. That'll make it hard to save them. But... kid." He turns to look at Fei. "I'm the Guardian of Time. I've seen a lot of stuff. Maybe... maybe you'll figure out a way. Even if you can't save everyone, maybe you'll save some. And the great thing about some is that it's something!"
The Guardian turns, then, head looking back at Lily. Those golden eyes are almost playful -- and then a sort of infinite sadness enters them. A kindness, reserved for humans. "I'm sorry, kiddo. You... you need to see it. I don't know what tainted you like this, but you need to know... so when I purify you, you'll understand and won't let yourself fall into this again."
Dan Dairam closes his eyes.
And then, everyone can see it: a darkness around Lily. A purple, vile mist that roils and rolls off her, discolors her skin, and makes her eyes glow with a sickly yellow light at odds with the gold. The Malevolence around her is revealed, even to her, and they can all feel it for a moment.
Leon stares, his jaw agape. He remembers what Lunata told him -- that something about Lily's aura worried her. He hesotates, and he starts to step closer. "L-Lily?" he asks, not quite comprehending. "Are you--"
"She'll be fine.)]" Dan Dairam looks from Leon to Lily, then speaks, his voice intoned with something heavier than before: {"As you should be, so shall you be."}
The vile purple light flashes, a brilliant sky blue washing over it. Unlike the Shepherd's flame, this is a wash of particulate light -- a flow of spectral blue sand, and then the Malevolence is whisked away from Lily in a moment. Her might be the easiest that she has breathed in weeks.
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby sort of gawks when she sees the malevolence tainting Lily, "Lily!?" She can feel malevolence normally, but... she's been around Lucia so much that she's kinda dulled her senses to lesser malevolence. "... Who did this to you?"
She says in wonder. She's pretty sure it wasn't Lucia. Pretty sure because Lily hasn't been around her enough for THIS MUCH.
The purification happens in a bright flash, "Whoa!" She shields her eyes against the wash of blue sand and-
"It's gone! The Guardians can purify malevolence!?" As far as Ruby knew, it was only the Shepherd who could- and maybe the Goddess herself... This fact... "I've gotta tell the others! I mean we still can't let Lucia be purified but..."
That knowledge... she had a feeling it would be more useful than they could know.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Admittedly, Lily's Nisan's sensibilities are... She doesn't know what to think about Fei's answer, the answer to Fei being many. It hits dully on her mind.
There are many questions though, and those Lily doesn't try to answer. She glances back at Ruby in some uncertainty, and back to Dan Dairam again. The truth of Lily in the moment is that she is battered and burned and so tired that it's difficult to do much; she has to focus and will herself to action at all.
And she had her own question. Leon speaks it more clealy, and Dan Dairam answers. Surely anyone would say they were...
Lily shakes her head at her own paranoia, and listens to the charge given them. At the hope placed upon them. She hesitates. "I'm not... I'm not the person to rely on for anyone's hope," Lily says, still quiet, still without her characteristic dullness. "We have a mission."
Some is something, huh? Lily glances down. But not long; she looks back up again, unwilling to keep her eyes off of a Guardian in front of her. So it is that she sees his eyes, looking at her, gold and gold, with sadness. "To... see it?" Lily asks.
But then she knows. Her heart feels like it has something gripping it at Dan Dairam's words. But it is worse than that; the mist rolls off of her and it chokes Lily for an instant, as she looks down to her hands with violet in her skin, the markings on her hands seeming to pulse with menace. She cannot see her eyes but the others can as she looks around to them, starts to step backward. "No--" That chokes her, too. She hears Leon but it comes in ripples, strange. "I'm not--"
The Guardian says that she'll be fine, but that she doesn't hear. She hears something different, and this awful, Malevolent creature of a woman looks towards him as a sudden spike of it makes her wary, makes her hands fall to her sides--
And light washes over her. Lily stops short as it fades, golden eyes wide staring into nothing, and then puts a marked hand up to her heart. "I--" She manages the world, inhales a deep breath and... starts laughing. Warm, happy laughter like only one person here has ever heard from her. "It's gone. I... I can feel it. Or I... I can't feel it."
How long has it been?
She's actually smiling as she steps the rest of the way to look up at Leon. "I..." She pauses, and looks back to Dan Dairam, both hands up on her chest now. "Thank you. I didn't realize..." A flick of her eyes to Ruby, "I never expeced..." She seems a bit overwhelmed, frankly. "I..."
"All right," Lily says. "I'll help. For this world. I'll do what I can. But..."
"First I..." Lily actually blushes, an steps the rest of the way to Leon to put two hands to either side of his face to stand on her toes and pull him straight down to kiss him right on the lips.
It takes a few moments.
But then she drops down, turns around with a quick breath. "Now I can listen to what you have to say."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly finds herself being suddenly embraced by Fei. She laughs, startled, even as her face starts to turn red. "I, I just thought... I mean, I don't know, but I thought it couldn't be anything too bad or too good, right--"
Fei talks about weird dreams in which she's present and killed. She can infer they're specific dreams. "... How long have you...?" Elly asks him, simply gazing in astonishment. She isn't pulling away or screaming, but this is a second impossible thing.
Then Dan Dairam addresses Lily, looking towards her. Elly does too. And what's revealed is - "Ah!" Elly says, although she doesn't sound as surprised as she might. "... Then, you can combat it....?"
The answer to that question is yes.
The manifestation is clear to Elly, although she wonders for a moment at how Lily had that within her and Elly, despite her extrasensory training, had no idea... how common is that? She has no idea. Sucking in breath through her teeth, she smiles a little when Lily laughs, but her eyes return to Dan Dariram a moment later:
"The statues... can we relocate them?" she asks.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Not all mothers care for their children." Fei tells Ruby. "...Some kids get to understand that."
Fei looks back to the Guardian of Time. He gets something of an answer about the metal demons. He gets something of an answer there. And that almost protects him from what he feels next as he rapidly grows to understand that the Guardian either doesn't or won't answer his question about himself, not really, and-- It dawns on him that whatever is wrong with him, whatever his DEAL is, he's going to have to figure it out himself. Again.
He feels that anger from before returning from when he was throwing his arms up at the Guardians. He doesn't care about that anymore. None of that matters.
He closes his eyes. He could throw himself into the sands. He could do it right now. It wasn't even that far. While everybody's distracted, he could drown himself in the sand. He's looking forward to it. He just wants to KNOW what's wrong with his HEAD! The pain of not knowing, knowing that surely this entity knows something and is just not telling him. It is a deadly familiar feeling.
FEI PSYCHO 99
He is about to do something crazy. He just knows it. He has a headache. He isn't screaming or anything, not this time. Everybody's distracted for good reason. Fei runs a hand across his hair, shaking it out. Haha you want to go up against the Guardian of Time now? Hahaha you psycho!
But then it happens. Dan Dairam does SOMETHING. He somehow--undoes Lily's aura of Malevolence. Fei didn't know what it was, but he felt it. He startles to just see it out there like that. Is that what he felt? What he's been feeling around her. She seems to be feeling better. She seems to be doing better.
FEI PSYCHO 50
Yeah, not even mad about this one. Figures.
Fei laughs to himself and turns to look at Lily. He gives her a big smile. It's strained, but it's there.
"I'm so glad... that they were able to help you."
He then turns back to Elly, starting to walk back the way he came. He looks to Elly, briefly, as she asks him that question.
"I...A month. Or so." He frowns. "Felt like longer. You were dying and... I think it was their 'Mother' who did it. I didn't say because...haha...I thought I'd sound like a lunatic." He shakes his head. "...But I said it here, thinking maybe...It doesn't matter. Lily's better. That's more than we hoped for. We should be grateful."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Mmf--"
Leon gasps, surprised, and then he isn't breathing so much after that. He puts his hands on Lily's shoulders, though, closes his eyes, and leans down. He pulls up after a moment -- and smiles back down at her. How long has it been, since she looked and laughed like that? He isn't sure. He smiles, before he nods, and steps around -- and then slides an arm around Lily's shoulder.
Dan Dairam looks at the two, before he looks over at Fei. He shakes his head once. "Easy there. I'm not going to give you a nice platitude. I'm not sure--but you can find your answer. I think... it's with the people around you. The ones you care about. Not some spirit or god or anything else." The Guardian turns, then, and looks back at Elly.
He pauses.
"Awk-waaaaard. So. Um. I meant... our real statues. Not these statues. They're scattered through Ignas--mostly off in the Badlands." Dan Dairam shakes his head, then floats up. A quintet of tablets appears: stone ones, with the image of a Guardian engraved upon each, and some Baskar runes. "I'd pay a visit to the Baskar. The statues... they've changed location a lot over the years but they may know something. We're not strong. We're not omnipotent. We need you. But..." He motions to the tablets. "These will help. One for each of you! And Ruby... don't chew on yours!"
Dan Dairam floats up, then. He looks at them -- winks -- and vanishes in a puff of light. When he does, a doorway appears behind where he stood -- and leads to stairs, leading up. The exit they hoped for, perhaps.
Leon stares at it for a moment, before he looks sideways at Lily. Then, he looks back at the others. He smiles, then nods. "...Well, it looks like we have our work cut out for us, doesn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Heh, he knows it's you
Fei is quiet for a moment as Dan Dairam talks to him. He looks to Elly for a moment and adds, "You're right," He tells Dan Dairam. He's still not exactly happy but he's past anger and starting to head into the acceptance stage. "I feel calmer around them. I guess I don't need Gods." He pauses. "But I'll protect your statues anyway. I owe you one."
He approaches one of the tablets. He looks over to Ruby, for a moment, and then picks one.
It's a tablet for Moor Gault, Guardian of Fire. A phoenix. A symbol of rebirth and death, constantly oscillating between the two. Somehow, it feels right.
"Guess so." He tells Leon. "...But he helped Lily, paid in advance really, so it's not the worst Drifting job I've taken."
<Pose Tracker> Ruby has posed.
Ruby averts her eyes at the kiss.
...
...
She steals a look.
Then whispers to herself, "Okay... I'm officially jealous."
She's nodding along and- "Visit the Baskar... find the statues. Got it."
But then comes a quintuple of tablets-
"I'm not going to chew on mine!" She sounds scandalized before darting forward- to the smallest one, that's officially Ruby sized. "Ho boy ho boy Fei got the best one- I hope I got Moor Gault too!"
Rushing up to it she grabs it between her pink pawsies and-
It's not the symbol of Moor Gault.
It's the symbol of Celesdue.
Ruby sorta freezes as she looks at it- as if groping to recall that thing on the Guardians she read, but it's unmistakenly a Moon symbol.
"Huh!? What the heck? Just because I'm from the Moon? I mean- I'm sorry that I'm not a fire dragon from the Blue Star but- you darned cat! You set me up!"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Leon is with Lily. That feels right to Elly, but Fei - she looks towards him. He's disturbed, something's bothering him. Elly can't tell what. But - "Wait," she says to him, reaching out.
"... I don't know what that means, but you aren't a lunatic for having a recurring dream," Elly tells him. "Even if there's no meaning to it..."
If.
And then they're given tablets. Elly looks at the array in front of them and for some reason there is an icon of a man in a robe that she reaches for. Stepping forwards, Elly cradles it in her palms, raising it up...
"... Heh," Elly says, smiling just a little.
She then shows the icon of Solais Emsu to Fei: "Who is this?"
Back to Leon: "I suppose so..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's arm is touched by Elly. He stops sharply.
It's really just a simple gesture of kindness. The answer lies in others. He says, hoarsely, "Thank you, Elly. That...that means a lot to me."
FEI PSYCHO 30
Fei looks down at the icon of Solais Emsu. He manages a smile. "Heh. Solais Emsu. Guardian of the Sky. Bet they'll be happy with that."
They? Oh Gebler. Yep, looks like she'll be able to work well there after all. This was the plan right?
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily misses a lot of what happens around the area before Dan Dairam helps her. It all seems clearer... But at the same time, it's all so overwhelming. There's so much.
But she smiles at Leon, and stays against him as he slips an arm over her shoulder, sighing once. Still she feels sore; her spirit was healed, and not her body. The Guardians really aren't omnipotent, it seems. ...But she wouldn't dream of complaining.
She might if she'd been given that answer Fei got, but maybe not. "Fei," she says, a voicing of support. Her voice is a little raw, but even so.
"Not these," she repeats. But there are.. tablets. The Baskar...
"All right," Lily says, but she listens more to this since that they aren't strong, that they need them. "Tabl--Wait--"
She pauses, and sighs, shaking her head a little fondly. She looks out to the exit, and to Leon, sideways up. "Paid in advance. I suppose he did, looking at it that way," she says to Fei leaning her head against Leon for a moment. She seems to have no idea of Ruby's jealousy. But she does see Ruby's irritation...
Snrk.
"Mm..." She seems to be largely out of words, but she picks up one of the tablets, cradling it in her hands as she looks down at an icon of Lucadia, Guardian of the ocean that gives death and life in their own measures, of a freedom in its own way.
"...Before we go get ourselves into any more trouble," Lily says, and her fatigue is obvious to Leon who she's sagging against, "Let's make sure we aren't all too hurt for it." Lily looks again to everyone and closes her eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"You have a good point, Fei," Leon says. He looks down at Lily, cracking a smile -- and the arm stays around her shoulders. He glances at Lily; he doesn't say much more, before he looks ahead, and back to the tablets. He slides his arm away, before he picks up the last of them. One with a large, draconic figure on. Dinoginos, the Mountain Guardian.
He turns it over, silver eyes regarding it with wonder. A real god, he thinks -- and one that saved Lily from a threat he never could see, much less understand.
Something to think on.
His eyes close a moment and he nods, before he stands back up. He looks at Lily. "Good idea," he says. "The fighting is probably still happening out there. Let's take a moment."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly doesn't take her hand off Fei's arm. She smiles at him.
Fei reminds her of everything. She immediately feels guilty.
"... Ma'am," she says to Lily. "I understand if you decline, but I have a - fatigue-fighting medication with me. It's a preparation of Rosesol. If you want it..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"That's a good idea," Fei admits to Lily. Elly's presence is basically keeping him cogent and talking. If she wasn't here he'd be staring at a wall wondering where to go from here? What to do? He is still wondering those things.
But part of him is wondering, and not for the first time, if any of that really matters when he gets to be with this woman.
It kind of doesn't.
"Elly, when we're safe... let's talk. I've been thinking about something you've been mentioning."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
A real god. Lily has a lot to think about, too. The Medium is packed carefully into her satchel, as Lily continues to obviously lean against Leon for support as well as general affection. ...Especially because this much PDA is unusual for her in the first place.
"Good ideas are part of my job description," Lily says wryly, looking over at Elly and Fei together, and then at Elly in particular.
Ma'am, she calls her. Lily's not that much older than Elly by her estimations. There's really not a need for her to be so formal.
Lily does not tell Elly not to call her ma'am, though. She's like that.
"You..." She considers. Rosesol. Lily makes some udgements about herself and her physical and mental state.
"I'll take it, she says a moment later, and leans into Leon a moment. "I'm dead on my feet, and I'm your medic. It's solid thinking." She pauses. "What method?" She looks over to Fei. She says nothing to him, favoring Elly instead.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong has no shame. Elly could be wearing a 'I <3 Shakkhan' t-shirt and he'd still be flirty with her.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly reaches into her thigh pocket strap thing and pulls out - a pen? No, it's... an automatic injector. Kind of peculiar. She offers it to Lily in both hands, after sliding the tablet of Solais Emsu in that self-same place.
"It's double sided," Elly explains. "... You're welcome to test one ampoule on me, if you're concerned."
She seems to be assuming distrust, but, Elly thinks, these people are intelligent and are likely former Kislevi operatives. Her own origin isn't exactly hard to hide, even if it's not stamped on her forehead.
She looks at Fei, surprised. "Um. Of course. Just be careful, alright? So we don't have to put it off even further."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily's really not in the mood to shame young love at the moment. Tired as she is, the air alone feels cleaner, even down here in a musty ruin. So much does. But the 'pen'... Lily looks closer at it. "Fascinating," she answers, though she shouldn't really be fascinated by Gebler tech.
Lily holds up a hand, "No need. I'm not concerned. You kill me off and you're hurting yourself." ...She is being nice, but her paranoia doesn't die in an instant. She looks wry at Elly for a moment anyway.
But she slips out from under Leon's arm after another little lean on him. Lily takes off her satchel and then her jacket after all, and what becomes apparent is that she has serious muscle in her arms, and also that... She has strange metallic markings all the way up her arms. They're red, at the moment. She is bruised and very burned, but her markings are still apparent.
She takes the injector and jabs it straight into her arm with the practiced care of someone who is so desensitized to needles that she barely has to look first. Her eyes close as her breath quickens. It's... fairly fast-acting, apparently.