2017-08-20: Unhappy Medium

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DG: You don't have a party leader right now! Start a party yourself with +party/create, or go make a friend with +party/join.
DG: Layna Manydays has left your party.
DG: A party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

A game

for a child

who knows not her own limits.

Despite Riesenlied's voice and care, and Noeline's reassurance, the Trial Knight's words still echo in Ida's head as she advances deeper into the temple. Noeline and Riesenlied went on ahead already--and Morgan and Cassidy moved out, too. Ida hung back, waiting in a little alcove that probably housed ritual offerings at one point before this temple was buried. She was wounded in the fight against Siegfried, and spent the better part of five minutes forcing herself to drink a heal berry cordial and rest. Just keep moving, she reminds herself. One foot in front of the other.

Gunshots and snarls echo down the corridor. They haven't stopped in quite some time. Ida forces herself to stand again; her legs are steady enough to bear her weight. She is a sight for sore eyes--her arms and torso are covered with bandages, which hide both the burned remains of her jacket and shirt and the burn wounds inflicted by Siegfried proper. Her poncho is tattered. A rifle hangs from its strap across her shoulder. A bloodstained brooch with a crest of arms of some sort is still pinned to the poncho, and in surprisingly good shape.

Keep going, Ida thinks. If I am going through hell, I will keep going until I die, or am no longer in hell. She reaches around to the small of her back, where Devil's Due used to rest. She pulls out a small canister pockmarked with holes, draws her spark-striker, and lights the fuse.

The canister lands in the hallway a moment later, and erupts with a tremendous flash and a thunderous bang. Ida emerges a moment later, pistols drawn, laying down a withering field of fire against the Metal Beasts. Her eyes are like steel.

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

After meeting with Tethelle a day or so before and beginning to recover some of her confidence, Talise joined the group at the temple - and now she's caught up with the rest of the Drifters after fighting her way through a squad of Metal Beasts. Rastaban's already covered in oily Metal Demon viscera by the time she claws and fights her way to the entrance of the temple and links up with Ida and the others.

Only to emerge into hell.

"Damn it, there are too many of them!" she shouts over the din of battle. With a hard swing of Rastaban she cleaves through a Metal Beast, only for another to claw at her arm. A few links rip off of her chainmail shirt.

The sound of gunfire ahead draws her eyes - and she widens her eyes at that flash, and who's behind it. "IDA!" she shouts over the battle noise. "Ida, I'm coming your way! Hang on!"

Talise still has two of her knives with her. Ripping one off her belt, she throws it into the horde of Metal Beasts. The knife hilt unleashes its spell in an explosion of lightning bolts, cascading through the horde of monsters in the hopes of clearing a few of them out. Then Talise is diving into the thick of things, swinging Rastaban and cutting down another of the monsters in her way, pivoting to slash at another.

She keeps herself focused on getting into formation with Ida. Whatever else may be going on in the naturalist's life, she's still Talise's friend, and friends help each other. Even friends like Talise who don't belong on this world.

DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Bomb Knife toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

To say that things have been chaotic is a criminal understatement. Shit has gone officially tits so far up that they've circled Lunar and come back. They've been fucked up in such a way that what has been fucked may never again be unfucked. The How Bad Things Are Continuum has wrapped so far around that it's eaten its own tail. The only way things could get more confusing is if Yaro could suddenly speak in complete sentences or if Berserk had a thought that wasn't immediately applicable to violence.

Ida fires her weapon. Talise hurls her knife. A third body darts out of the shadows and...

Smacks the back of his sword across a Metal Beast's schnozz. "No! Bad Goldie!" The beast turns from slavering monster into guilty puppy, whimpering and whining and sort of shrinking back on its hind legs to give this mysterious man the biggest, roundest puppy-dog stare. "No! No, do not give me that. You are not supposed to be in here, you are supposed to be OUT THERE. Uncle Zeik needs you!" The creature whimpers. Its tail waggles and it presses its head right up into the man's belly. Zed sighs and sort of squeeshes the point where the beast's flabby jowls meet its argon gills. "Okay, okay, I'm not mad. I know you were just being enthusiastic, but you have a mission! Now get!"

The beast...

Waggles its tail. And gives Zed a big, sloppy kiss across the everything before just kind of bounding back out of the hole it crawled out of.

Zed huffs. He sighs.

Then Talise's dagger explodes nearby. "Uh."

Zed turns and stares at...

O-oh.

"Oh."

Ohhhhhhh.

"Heeeeey guuuuys," Zed waves, "You uh. Haven't seen Riesenlied or Noeline move through this way, have you? They've kind of... Disappeared."

DG: Zed has used his Tool Smoke Bombs toward his party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise immediately starts moving towards Zed as if she's going to attack him next.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Last time we saw Rosaline, she had triumphed over Yarobeleedt with Elena and Arleph's help!

However, the situation was only getting more chaotic as their battle ended, with no signs of stopping. The nun has been separated from her two allies in the ensuing confusion, as Drifters and Demons alike scrambled into the temple, knowing full well the escape would only be temporary.

She now finds herself at the center of a pitched battle, tears in her eyes, barely holding it together. She tries to make every clip count, putting bullets between herself and the hordes of Evil.

That is, until she trips as she rounds a corner, tumbles, raises her ARMs with trembling hands towards the ones who stand before her...

Her tear-stricken face lights up. "Ida! Talise! Thank Granas!"

She gets back up on her feet. There's no time for celebration. Instead, she holsters her weapons and clutches her Crest, directing her magic towards relieving her friends of their wounds and weariness.

What are the odds that (most of) the Fox Company will be reuniting now? Spoiler alert: Rosaline will attribute it to divine providence. On some level, she might actually be right. Just not the level she thinks.

But wait, there's... Zed too! She looks at him with wide eyes. Well.

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia and Chauncey have not been taking part in the battle directly - while Sephy and Chauncey are a potent combination on the battlefield, the girl had decided that her talents as a healer would be more immediately valuable--but the front lines have moved so quickly now that there's no more time for her to be shy about the fighting.

Chauncey slams into a Metal Beast, sending it flying into another and knocking both Beasts down. Sephilia pulls out a folding chair from the backpack she rides in and Chauncey takes hold of it and begins wailing on the two down beasts!

Moments later, Sephy, fortunately for Zed, spots him just as Talise does, and Chauncey rushes into the space between the two--and Sephy launches herself off of Chauncey's back into a tackling hug. "Zed!" she cries.

DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Folding Chair toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida lands in the middle of what was once an elaborate mosaic, arms outstretched. She fires three shots towards one Beast, whirls, and--

A bomb knife hits the one she was about to shoot. She realizes, a moment later, that she heard Talise's voice. "Talise!" Ida says. She sounds like the weight of the world has just left her shoulders. She pivots again, targeting the third, only for--

"Zed?!" Ida is openly showing confusion. Bewilderment. Things truly have gone tits-up. "Talise, no! Zed, what in God's name are you even doing here? I--" Rosaline! Ida swallows as healing magic washes over her--she looks like she's fighting back tears.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Things had been going great. Layna had assembled her crew to help defend the Guardian Temple and the Drifters who had rallied there, and then she went off to go fight the Quarter Knight, Lady Harken.

It had been exciting. Exhilarating, even. She found she never felt more alive than when she was fighting full-force against the Metal Demons. And then, unfortunately, her fight had been interrupted by the arrival of a third party.

That had really put a damper on her mood. The more she thought about it, the more furious she got. No one got in between a pirate and what she wanted. There was plenty of cannon-fodder on the battlefield to deal with, sure, but that wasn't what she wanted, and she didn't even know how her crew was doing.

There was only one thing she knew - the safest path to survival was heading into the temple itself. And so she makes her way there. She can hear the sound of a familiar sword cleaving through enemies, moving away from her towards the sound of gunfire.

That way lie allies. But between them and her was a field of Metal Beasts.

Let them come.

One of them lunges toward her and Layna grabs it in mid-air, twisting her body and hurling it straight into a group of its way.

"Outta the way, ye scurvy blaggards, or I'll run ye through!" Layna roars.

She's a storm of destruction right now as she makes her way toward her allies...but she has left defense completely by the wayside. What kind of condition she'll make it to them in is another thing entirely.

DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"W-woah, hold on there!" Zed backs away from this ANGRY SWORDSWOMAN. "I'm not here to fight! I'm just looking for Riese and-- blarg!" Zed is tackled! He's ambushed by a tiny fastball special'd Lunar girl. "S-sephy! You're here too? Ahahahahahaha--" Zed hugs back, and pats this girl's head. "Ah, it's been a while, no? But, yes! Do not worry friends! I, Zed, am here not as an enemy today! We just lost track of Riese and Noel, so I'm here looking for them. Also for Guardians. I have questions! Historical questions."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Zed is spared Rastaban to the face by virtue of Rosaline showing up and Sephilia and Ida intervening. Talise stops, then smacks another Metal Beast in the face with one of her gloves. She throws Ida a confused look.

Last time she saw Zed, he'd revealed himself as a Metal Demon and tried to stab her and her friends in the face, at Berserk's bullying whim. She hasn't run into him since. She does at least not stab Zed. "Ugh, fine!" she shouts, the frustration at being out of the loop quickly replaced by a growing spark of elation as Rosaline and Layna pile into the fighting. "We'll talk later, Zed! So long as you're on our side this time!"

Then she fires up her gauntlets and punches another Metal Beast square in the mouth. "Ros', Layna! Let's form up!" she shouts.

DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Clash of Beasts.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve is on the wrong side of this engagement.

Further away and just out of sight, the Demons do battle. A sorcerer of some sort -- Kalve can't distinguish types of magic without seeing tattoos involved -- unleashes spears of ice, hammering into Beasts between Kalve and the magic-user. The insectile-armored figure dives under the bodies and flings them forward as he emerges on the other side, staggering the man and the gunslingers with him. Snake-like arms slash forward, and he leaps --!

The fighting there is short and vicious. Kalve emerges from it breathing deeply, watching the battlefield from amidst the chaos. He feels deeply at peace. His Master called it the samsara of battle, and he's rarely felt the pull to engage that endless cycle of strength and wills... but it only lasts a few seconds. He spies familiar shapes moving on the temple. His three eyes flicker and rotate, the alien geometry spelled out on what passes for his face changing as he focuses.

He says something uncouth, lost to the sound of cannonfire. The creature shrouds himself in grey cloth and disappears into the haze of smoke and gunfire, diving into craters blown in the landscape.

Kalve emerges from the other side, his human(ish) self and incredibly loud poncho making it easy to pick him out in the carnage. One of the Beasts does exactly that, and Kalve goes from running towards the temple to thrusting a boar spear he wasn't holding a moment ago into the path of the charging thing. He plants it on the ground and braces shoot out of the bottom of the weapon, leaving a huge spike of a barricade between himself and the understandably mistaken attack while he bounds away from it.

He ends up around that same corner, skidding to a halt in a low crouch. "Zed." A half-beat. He looks alarmed. "Ida. What happened? Why are you --?" Another boom. He doesn't finish the sentence, but honestly, it's kind of a given what he was going for. He absolutely notes the gathering crowd of sometimes-hostiles, but with Zed and Ida here... well, maybe it'll all work out. At least long enough to get some answers.

DG: Kalve has used his Tool Silhouette Engine toward his 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 *>============================
======================<* 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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   0 --(4)--> 4                   Pass
Flare Grenade                       2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     0 --(3)--> 3                   Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      0 --(2)--> 2                   Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               0 --(3)--> 3                   Fail
Silhouette Engine                   2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 0 --(4)--> 4                   Pass
Folding Chair                       2   Combat  Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     0 --(4)--> 4                   Pass
Bomb Knife                          3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 0 --(3)--> 3                   Pass
Smoke Bombs                         1   Combat  Effects: Embolden and Fanfare 
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           0 --(20)--> 20                 Pass
Conditions: Fright(2)|Suffer
Effects: Embolden(1)|Stalwart(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Goldie scampers off to go help Uncle Zeik. Unfortunately, that still leaves several angry, slavering beasts for everyone to deal with, and while they are all varying degrees of disoriented, they are still plenty murderous. One of them takes Talise's bomb knife right in the flank; electricity crackles over its frame, leaving it open to three shots from Ida and a violent finishing strike from Rastaban. Ida sees something flicker out of the corner of her eye, a familiar blur in the air around a form that's too tall and lanky to be human. She doesn't get a good look at it before things to to hell again.Another lands its teeth in Layna's shoulder as she tries to approach to melee, but gets whacked right upside the head by a folding chair before it can clamp down and tear into the pirate's flesh. Its persistence earns it more bullets, more slashes, a finishing punch.

The third beast--blinded, disoriented, unable to tell friend from foe--hits Kalve's boar spear and keeps right on going, the weapon still trailing from its belly. Ida's eyes widen, and she snaps off the last of her rounds into the beast before it can savage Kalve. "Kalve?!" Ida's eyes snap open. As the final Beast's body hits dirt, she starts reloading, examining her allies for wounds--Kalve first, then the others. She turns to Zed once she's done. "Riesenlied and Noeline went up ahead! I didn't think to stop them, but it's not safe for them to be here!"

DG: Talise Gianfair has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Spartoi Pincer *>=========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 Even in this hallowed place, the risen corpses known as Spartoi can be        
 found. As you round the next corner, the skeletons are already lurching       
 forward. Their blades have not been dulled with time and gleam in the dim     
 light here, and their eyes come aglow with a fell green light. They cease     
 lurching and rush.                                                            
                                                                               
 In the clatter of their advance, you may not notice another clatter. Behind   
 you, a trio of Spartoi drop down from the ceiling and land in a crouch.       
 They, too, rush in -- and you seen find yourselves being attack from both     
 sides!                                                                        
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Bad Luck=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise gives Kalve a wary look as he trundles up. She recognizes him - he's been useful in the past - but she vaguely recalls Ida mentioning that he's a Metal Demon, too. (Were ALL of her friends Metal Demons? Zed, Kalve, Riese....)

"Wait, Riese and Noeline are here too?!" she exclaims even as she shoves the wreckage of one of those Beasts aside. With a sweep of Rastaban she ushers the team forward, clambering through the entrance and into a long, crumbling corridor behind. Outside, there's a thunderous boom of artillery, and the entire temple shudders as a round slams into it, dislodging pieces of masonry from the ceiling.

It's not all that's dislodged. Dropping down from above, a group of Spartoi clatter into combat stances and begin to lurch towards the party. "Look out!" Talise shouts, snapping her hand to her belt and slinging her other knife right into the thick of them.

Yet even as the lightning bomb goes off, there's a clatter of bones. Four more Spartoi drop down behind the little band of Team Chauncey friends and Metal Demons, blades flashing as they charge the group from behind. Talise gasps.

"Damn it, they've got us in a pincer," she shouts as she attempts to hack down one of the Spartoi that got past her lightning bolts.

And yet this is still safter than outside, she realizes - better a frenetic fight with an enemy she can comprehend than dodging bombs from afar.

DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Bomb Knife toward her party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia and Chauncey know what to do with skeletons. "Chauncey!" Sephy cries, once again passing him the folding chair. "Let's break some bones!" She doesn't care about the pincer...Sephy doesn't get tactics or strategy beyond "Chauncey hits things hard."

DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Folding Chair toward her party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline hears the voice of Layna and witnesses Sephilia and Chauncey springing into action. "My friends... Praise be," she says, under her breath. (Yes, she is indeed chalking it up to divine providence.)

Talise is stopped from stabbing Zed, who claims to be here as a friend. In a way, it's as if nothing had changed. She wishes that were really the case. Her shoulders slump slightly. Well. It's not fine by her, not quite, but she's in no mood to complain. "Zed," she says simply, in greeting, and not without some warmth. The news that he's looking for Riesenlied leaves her with... mixed feelings, too.

And then comes Kalve, whom luckily Rosaline has never had the pleasure of meeting, on either side of the battlefield, and so he's spared all the ambiguity. "Um, hello," is what she says to him. She didn't catch him in monster form, because she may have very good senses, but also everything is exploding right now!

Including her!!

A moment later, Rosaline feels a pang of guilt as her own healing magic washes over her. She got too caught up in the moment, it left her careless and so she had to waste some of her power. What a pity.

But the battle isn't over, as she brings the rear of this semi-impromptu party. Spartoi!

"Please repent!" she calls out to the approching skeletons, raising a hand as her habit blows in the wind. She's fairly sure they won't repent, but she only has so many quotes for offensive spells.

"Luminous motes!" And true to name, luminous motes appear to bombard the undead monstrosities. Hopefully that will be a weakness hit, but sometimes these things are more arbitrary than you expect.

DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida slips both revolvers back into their holsters. She might look awful, but having people at her back has rekindled her fighting spirit. "Your Uncle Ziek is not the man I pictured him to be," she says, and honestly, she doesn't sound as irritated--or even as angry--as she feels she should be about it. Where did Ida get those burns? Did Siegfried give her those?

The ceiling rumbles and shakes. Debris falls down. "Incoming!" Ida says, as Talise shouts her own warning. Skeletons? Ida has an answer to those.

That answer would be to pivot on a heel as the group marches up on her comrades from behind, letting out a kiai as she slams her fist straight into a Spartoi's bony sternum. (With the bad arm, Kalve would note, the one she nevertheless favors.) She sweeps up her offhand forearm to block a spear, the decaying wood slamming into her bandaged flesh as she shoves the weapon out of the way.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Shit," Zed's face falls at Ida's answer. They went deeper into the temple? Alone? Those... "You don't say? Well, I guess we're going in after her, because I sure as shooting aren't going to leave her to rot away in he--"

Wait. That voice!?

"Kalve!" Zed grins, clasping his FELLOW DEMON'S shoulder tight, "Wow! What are you doing in here? Uh. Well, anyway, we need to go deeper! There's no time! I don't know about Noel, but Riese... I don't know if her body'll hold up in a place like this!" Zed tightens his hand around his favorite sword. "Come on, we've got to--"

*THOOM*

"Oh!" Zed says as if he wasn't interrupted at all. Even when there are literally skeletons falling from the sky. "The kitty-nun! Hello! Long time no see? I think the last time was Adlehyde? Is your orphanage funded ye-"

A skeleton smacks him across the back of the head.

It makes a distinctly hollow *GONNNNNNNG* noise.

Zed cranes his neck back at the inexplicably befuddled looking undead. "Excuse me," he huffs, "Do you mind?" The Metal Demon... Just kind of punches it in the face, but clicks his tongue when he notices just how surrounded they've become. "Well. Do they have us in a pincer, or do we have them in a CRAB-BREAKER!?" Zed grins, and hurls... Something to his feet.

Smoke begins to fill the air, even as Zed's sword begins cleaving through the skeletal hordes...!

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

a n a t h e m a

It isn't so much a voice as something that tingles along the edge of Zed's consciousness. For a moment, it feels as though he's being watched.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve's spear should have worked. He knows how to brace against a charge like that; he's fought against Beasts before, even, to learn just such a thing. Except...

Except the ground doesn't cooperate. The stone he spiked it into softens to the consistency of mud the moment the Beast collides with the spear, letting the momentum carry through. Kalve gets knocked backwards instead of moving of his own volition, claws ripping at his poncho and scraping against the armor plating he wears underneath it. Gunfire finishes it before he gets more than scraped up, but the moment of confusion sticks with him anyway.

"They would be," Kalve remarks, glancing at Talise with a moment's recognition. "I suspect we seek some of the same answers." He picks himself up, inclining his head politely towards Rosaline, a sort of wordless greeting that works best when, say, the place you're standing in is under heavy bombardment. Her attire gets a weird look, but maybe he's just unfamiliar with the uniform. Kalve smiles a little at Zed's familiar gesture. "Yes. If they are ahead, then we should endeavor to meet them. I have a bad feeling about this place."

(Understatement.)

Kalve sticks near Ida as they move in, asiding, "He has his moments. We should discuss this when we are in less mortal peril, however," on the way. The presence of some kind of undead guardians is only slightly surprising. He would have expected, say, themed statues, not the unquiet dead. The metal pieces set into Kalve's gauntlets glow a faint yellow color, and the ball of light that pops into existence above it becomes what looks like a hammer made of same-colored stained glass the moment he curls his fingers around it. It's a pretty hefty warhammer, actually -- the perfect thing for smashing through skeletal minions.

DG: Kalve has used his Tool Silhouette Engine toward his party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Uncle Zeik is a perfectly fine guy if you're not human," Zed says with just a LITTLE BIT of shame. "He's really smart, you know! And wise! But he's... Very angry too, and..."

Beat.

Something sounds in his head?

"...Anime??" Zed squints. "What?"

============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Spartoi Pincer *>=========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 Even in this hallowed place, the risen corpses known as Spartoi can be        
 found. As you round the next corner, the skeletons are already lurching       
 forward. Their blades have not been dulled with time and gleam in the dim     
 light here, and their eyes come aglow with a fell green light. They cease     
 lurching and rush.                                                            
                                                                               
 In the clatter of their advance, you may not notice another clatter. Behind   
 you, a trio of Spartoi drop down from the ceiling and land in a crouch.       
 They, too, rush in -- and you seen find yourselves being attack from both     
 sides!                                                                        
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Bad Luck=========================================
DG: Zed has used his Tool Smoke Bombs toward his party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna could see that creature off in the distance. She recognized it from that fight during the Battle of Adlehyde...but now wasn't the time to worry about it. That was well enough - it wasn't long before it vanished anyway.

She eventually joins her allies, but she's looking significantly more bloodied than before. It doesn't seem to be slowing her down, at least.

"Good to see you all alive and in one peace, aye? And...looks like we're not alone here, too." She comments, glancing toward Zed and Kalve.

Hmm...Zed she remembered, but there was something familiar about the other...where had she seen him before...?

Hmm, when she thought about it, he was vaguely similar, to...

The person Zed had fought alongside during his fight against Claude and Ida at the Lacour Coliseum! Yes, of course.

She hadn't seen him anywhere else.

That notion was ridiculous.

It was fortunate her wounds weren't slowing her down, because as soon as they made their way into the temple, they were beset on all sides by skeleton soldiers. Layna curses and turns around.

"I'll handle these blaggards!" She says. She wasn't the only one going after the skeletons that were trying to flank them, of course, but she rushes in with bone-shattering strikes. She aims more to strike them with her shields than the blades on her gauntlets, meaning that she is essentially trying to backhand the heck out of those skeletons.

DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Spartoi Pincer.
============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Spartoi Pincer *>=========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat    |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 Even in this hallowed place, the risen corpses known as Spartoi can be        
 found. As you round the next corner, the skeletons are already lurching       
 forward. Their blades have not been dulled with time and gleam in the dim     
 light here, and their eyes come aglow with a fell green light. They cease     
 lurching and rush.                                                            
                                                                               
 In the clatter of their advance, you may not notice another clatter. Behind   
 you, a trio of Spartoi drop down from the ceiling and land in a crouch.       
 They, too, rush in -- and you seen find yourselves being attack from both     
 sides!                                                                        
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Bad Luck=========================================
=======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 2 *>=======================
==========================< Results - Spartoi Pincer >===========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   4 --(3)--> 7                   Pass
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     3 --(7)--> 10                  Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      2 --(9)--> 11                  Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               3 --(4)--> 7                   Pass
Silhouette Engine                   2   Combat  Effects: Embolden             
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 4 --(4)--> 8                   Pass
Folding Chair                       2   Combat  Effects: Stalwart             
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     4 --(2)--> 6                   Pass
Bomb Knife                          3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 3 --(3)--> 6                   Pass
Smoke Bombs                         1   Combat  Effects: Embolden and Fanfare 
------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           20 --(15)--> 35                Pass
Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Fright(1)|Injure(2)|Suffer
Effects: Embolden(1)|Stalwart(1)
================================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline's ears twitch reflexively upon being called a kitty-nun. She still isn't sure about that nickname. Sadly, he will never find out if the orphanage is funded yet. (It's really not.)

DID YOU KNOW? Rosaline ended up donating the funds she had collected up to the Adlehyde attack to the city's reconstruction and charity efforts. This includes Zed's very generous donation. ~Irony.~

She can't believe he's being so casual about this, but then Zed has never been what she could call normal by any definition. Kalve only gets an odd look for what seems to be yet another unusual ARM, but is spared the brunt of RACISM because the nun has yet to put two and two together regarding his identity.

"What is anime?" Rosaline asks, distracted as she casts, unaware of what she has just wrought.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed pauses.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Suddenly Rosaline's hands are not alone. They are being clutched by a Metal Demon whose eyes have APPARENTLY TURNED INTO STARS. "IT'S THE BEST THING EVER, I HAVE SO MUCH TO SHOW YOU."

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia shakes her head. "Later, Zed, Later."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

As she chops at a Spartoi, Talise glance towards Kalve for a second. "You guys aren't just following along hoping we'll let you take a swing at the Guardians, are you," she asks warily. She's been burned by Metal Demons before. She doesn't want to be burned again.

But the two of them do seem to be helping. And it does feel a lot like old times with them here.

The Spartoi are a formidable enemy. But they're dealing with Team Chauncey and Friends, and Team Chauncey and Friends have been through a lot of hell over the past six or eight months. Singing blades and warhammers pulverize the skeletal attackers; Chauncey's folding chair smashes one into rubble. A couple of skeletons mill about among the smoke of Zed's bombs before Ida steps in and slams her fist through one of them. Before long, the way is clear - save for the broken bones and shattered skulls sprawled across the stones.

With a huff of breath, Talise pushes a gauntleted hand through her hair. She's still wearing it bleached blonde.

"Zed, Ros', kissyface later," she urges. "Right now we need to get through here. See if we can find these Guardians Tethelle's always talkin' about."

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline goes "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia turns bright red. "K-k-kissyface? With--" She stammers, and pouts, and then throws up her hands. "BOYS ARE DUMB!"

DG: Rosaline Calice has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - A Sudden Rubble Pile *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 The battle still rages outside. Sometimes, it has an effect on those inside.  
 As you walk down this hall, there is a sudden and powerful rumble that tears  
 through the whole of the Temple. The force of it might knock you to your      
 feet and send you sprawling. That isn't the only thing it knocks.             
                                                                               
 Up ahead, part of the ceiling collapses. A huge slab of stone falls down,     
 then shatters into dust and huge chunks of rock -- which then block the       
 hallway up to three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. The rubble will need  
 to be cleared away, because that is certainly a very tight fit.               
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"MY SUPER ROBOT SPIRIT WILL NOT BE DENIED, TALISE." Nope, there is absolutely no guile here.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"Zed, please," Ida says, her eyes narrowing visibly. She keeps her back to Kalve as well as the others, apparently trusting him enough to keep the skeletons off her. When they're all dust, she lets out a breath. "I believe all they want is answers," Ida says. She flicks shards of bone off her bandaged arm. Her right hand glows, faintly.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline is still going "AAAAAAAAAAAH" until the the next challenge card finishes fully loading.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

...Zed squishes her hands through her gloves. "Wow," Zed observes astutely, "These are really soft. Huh."

MAYBE NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO DISCOVER THINGS LIKE THAT, ZED.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Zed, I don't even know what a robot is," Talise says with a glance at the green-haired Metal Demon. "Now could you please stop pawing Rosaline and focus?"

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

"Aye, it's a little creepy, lad." Layna agrees with a nod and a confused glance at Zed.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve's life was already madness. Now it's double madness. Zed earns his almost traditional long-suffering sigh, and Sephilia gets a confused and slightly offended look. He's pretty sure that's just plain rude. Still, this is kind of comfortingly familiar, all in all...

"I do not give myself favorable odds of facing all of you along with the Guardians and emerging victorious," Kalve remarks. He brings the hammer back to a neutral stance and moves along, stepping over the crushed bones. "It is as Ida says: I am looking for answers. And," he adds, "if I may prevent my... friends," he doesn't say 'brethren' or 'comrades' because nobody's outright pointed and screamed at him specifically yet, "from suffering grievous bodily harm in the process..."

LOOKIN' AT YOU IDA

"...so much the better."

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

A-ANYWAY,

The party pushes on through the skeleton horde. Rosaline's hands slip out of Zed's as she dashes right through the opening the group just made. She's even briefly going quadrupedal as she runs, apparently now leading for a brief moment.

The nun's dash deeper into the temple is interrupted, however, as the entire structure rumbles, causing Rosaline to stumble forward and narrowly avoid being pulverized by falling stone as she scampers backward.

The rumbling stops, and Rosaline's reddened face has already gone white at the sight of the rubble before her. "WELL!"

She's getting used to situations like these. She pulls out a stick of Holy TNT from her satchel, lighting and placing it before she runs back to her team. The gang is starting to know how that stuff works, but Zed and Kalve might be in for an exciting surprise!

DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Holy TNT toward her party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia, now scowling angrily, glares at the rock in their way. "CHAUNCEY!" she hollers. "LET'S BREAK STUFF!"

What's got HER so riled up?

Whatever it is, Chauncey is always up for a good smashin', and even without pausing to equip his usual digging claws, sets to hammering rocks into smaller, more managaeable chunks for the others to move.

If only Sephy would stop hollering "TAKE THAT! AND THAT!" while he did it. She's letting her anger out about something anyway.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise glances at Kalve again, then inclines her head. "Alright. I'll take your word for it," she says. "Besides, I'm from another planet too, so I guess we're both kind of aliens here."

THe temple structure ahead heaves and crumbles. Vast chunks of falling stone crash into the corridor. "Althena's hairclip!" Talise swears, jumping back several feet to clear the worst of the cave-in, but a few chunks of debris still pelt her mail-covered shoulders. Wincing, she shakes them off as best she can.

Setting her jaw, Talise wipes the blade of Rastaban and sheathes it. "Alright. This is where I come in," she says, thumping her gauntleted hands together with a steely crash. Then she bunches her shoulders, sets her feet apart, and lets the magic flow from the gauntlets. Muscles in her neck and arms tighten, clench and swell subtly. Alone, Talise is almost terrifyingly strong, even for her size and build. With the ogre's magical strength flowing through her, she's capable of impossible feats of strength.

Talise stalks forward. She takes a moment to examine the rockfall and gets a sense of what needs to be moved first.

Sliding into the shadow of one of the largest rocks, she crouches, then groans as she begins to lift the immense slab up off the floor. She's attempting to lift it back through the hole in the roof, through which light streams from outside through the dust smoke.

"Screw these Aveh guys!" she shouts as she attempts to flip the slab out through the opening. Hopefully it tumbles down and squishes a Gear.

DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Ogre Power Gauntlets toward her party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida lets out a huff of breath. "I am not made of spun glass, Kalve," she says, with a bit more irritation in her voice than she'd normally allow. "To be honest, I'm most concerned for Riesenlied; she may well be attempting to commune with the Guardians as we speak." Then the ground rumbles--probably a shell hitting nearby outside, Ida realizes--and the ceiling collapses. "Damnation," the naturalist says, and she turns to Talise. "I can assist."

If Ida still had sleeves, she would roll them up. Instead, she hangs back, allowing Rosaline to place the TNT, before advancing with Chauncey. As the doll smashes the debris into managable chunks, Ida picks them up and tosses them aside, using her core and legs to do it just like Claude taught her to. It is a far cry from the Ida that had serious trouble handling stones of equal size back in the Leck Mines. "I agree, inanimate objects do make for a fine way to vent frustration at this situation." She throws a rock at an empty part of the corridor, and it splits in two.

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed huffs. "It's not creepy! It's just... It reminded me of something else, is all." Zed's hands squeesh open air as he distantly recalls the pure joy of being able to pinch those pretty pink pawsies. Ah. Of a life lost now forever. How long until he can do that again? How long until they can have peace...?

Well.

Maybe after Aveh stops being total dicks about blowing up cultural monuments.

"Wow, those guys are jerks," Zed observes, totally forgetting that he's a member of a species whose current racial goal is religious vandalism writ large. Chunks of ceiling begin to collapse, and Zed scrambles right up alongside Ida and Chauncey and Talise and begins just straight up doggie-digging through the debris. "Wow, Ida!" Zed calls, "You've really bulked up, huh? Your muscles're practically glowing!!"

(Or maybe it's that they are literally glowing)

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

"You alright there, lass?" Layna asks, walking up behind Rosaline and looking up at the pile of rubble that had dropped down in front of them. It didn't look like she had gotten hit in the head by any of it at least, fortunately, or at least not enough to leave any lingering wounds.

She then turns her attention back the task at hand, and reaches into her coat.

Everyone's who's Dug with Layna before knows exactly what's about to come out.

She pulls out a bottle of liquid - obviously alcoholic in origin - and takes a deep drink.

"I've got refreshments here if anyone needs 'em!" She calls out.

After assessing the structure of the rubble and taking a drink to clear her mind, she knows how to handle this. She moves forward, joining the others in ripping chunks out of the pile and hurling them out of the way.

============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - A Sudden Rubble Pile *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The battle still rages outside. Sometimes, it has an effect on those inside.  
 As you walk down this hall, there is a sudden and powerful rumble that tears  
 through the whole of the Temple. The force of it might knock you to your      
 feet and send you sprawling. That isn't the only thing it knocks.             
                                                                               
 Up ahead, part of the ceiling collapses. A huge slab of stone falls down,     
 then shatters into dust and huge chunks of rock -- which then block the       
 hallway up to three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. The rubble will need  
 to be cleared away, because that is certainly a very tight fit.               
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
DG: Zed has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - A Sudden Rubble Pile *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 The battle still rages outside. Sometimes, it has an effect on those inside.  
 As you walk down this hall, there is a sudden and powerful rumble that tears  
 through the whole of the Temple. The force of it might knock you to your      
 feet and send you sprawling. That isn't the only thing it knocks.             
                                                                               
 Up ahead, part of the ceiling collapses. A huge slab of stone falls down,     
 then shatters into dust and huge chunks of rock -- which then block the       
 hallway up to three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. The rubble will need  
 to be cleared away, because that is certainly a very tight fit.               
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida's face starts glowing as well as Zed's comment, except in a slightly less literal fashion. "Zed," she says, sounding honestly flustered in a kind of adorable way.

a n a t h e m a

The feeling prickles through the back of Kalve's mind. Something deep and bestial growls from behind him, but should he look, there's nothing there--

Nothing but the lingering, trailing shadow of a massive jungle cat, melding into the darkness. A cold, fearful wind stirs his poncho.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

"You are?" Kalve looks to Talise. "I would like to hear of your home, should we both survive this." And emerge from the other side still on speaking terms instead of MURDERIZIN' TERMS. That's a thing.

"No, you are not. It is still dangerous to push yourself beyond your limits without allowing for time to properly recover." Kalve is... is worried? Kind of? He's concerned about Ida, at the very least, and showing it in his own kind of rigid way. He moves up following her, keeping a wide berth from things that look explosive. He tries to help move it with his bare hands -- 'all' two of them, wink -- and at least widen the gap enough for them to be able to get over it. It looks a bit like the cave-ins from the mine, if accessible from the other direction. "This is --"

Kalve stops. He turns abruptly, fingers dancing in precise little motions. A revolver manifests in his grip, pointed at nothing. He keeps it that way, sweeping the passage warily. "..."

DG: Kalve has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Sudden Rubble Pile.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - A Sudden Rubble Pile *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 The battle still rages outside. Sometimes, it has an effect on those inside.  
 As you walk down this hall, there is a sudden and powerful rumble that tears  
 through the whole of the Temple. The force of it might knock you to your      
 feet and send you sprawling. That isn't the only thing it knocks.             
                                                                               
 Up ahead, part of the ceiling collapses. A huge slab of stone falls down,     
 then shatters into dust and huge chunks of rock -- which then block the       
 hallway up to three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. The rubble will need  
 to be cleared away, because that is certainly a very tight fit.               
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 3 *>=======================
=======================< Results - A Sudden Rubble Pile >=======================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   7 --(24)--> 31                 Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     10 --(21)--> 31                Fail
Holy TNT                            2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      11 --(18)--> 29                Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               7 --(15)--> 22                 Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 8 --(13)--> 21                 Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     6 --(15)--> 21                 Pass
Ogre Power Gauntlets                2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 6 --(18)--> 24                 Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           35 --(5)--> 40                 Fail
Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Injure(1)|Overzealous(2)|Suffer|Tire(2)
Effects: Strengthen(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has failed 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> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia glances at Kalve. "Oh, Ida's not that bad off, really, I've been helping her heal with magic!" As she says this, Chauncey continues to smash. It's not as good as when he has his digging claws, though...

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

"I'm okay," Rosaline tells Layna with a small smile. She looks more embarrassed than anything else.

Chauncey and Zed dig. Ida, Layna and Talise clear the rubble, albeit at different scales. Kalve keeps an eye out.

And then... BOOM!

The Holy TNT's explosion washes over the party like a pleasant breeze, giving them strength to redouble their efforts, as well as opening up a hole almost large enough to go through. They can see the other side...

The temple rumbles again.

This time, a slab that dwarfs all of the previous falls right on top of the rubble pile, narrowly crushing the party in the process. All that work, for nought. Clearing THAT giant thing away might well take an hour, at this rate. Those Aveh guys are jerks!

"I think we should find another way," Rosaline sheepishly suggests.

DG: Zed has drawn a new Challenge.
==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>===========================
========================<* CHALLENGE - The Sand Box *>========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 As you walk down the hallway, one of your number feels a slight give -- and   
 then the tell-tale click of a pressure plate being stepped on. A loud crash   
 sounds from ten feet behind you -- and then a second loud crash in front of   
 you. Two stone walls come crashing down, blocking off the exit ahead and the  
 exit behind. This, alone, would be concerning.                                
                                                                               
 But then you hear a rumble.                                                   
                                                                               
 Two vents on either side of the wall open up, and sand begins to pour into    
 the room. It isn't long at all before it is ankle deep and rising quickly.    
 You will need to find some way through -- be it to smash down the wall or     
 the stop the flow of sand -- before you are buried alive in this Temple.      
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"--Eh?" Zed turns his head at just the right time.

Three things happen in short sequence.

1) Rosaline's TNT explodes.

2) A chunk of buried temple inexplicably goes flying right into Zed's face.

3) Zed goes flying comically into an adjacent temple wall.

This alone wouldn't be anything too particularly strange, but then a few MORE things happen.

4) The wall gives way, and so does most of the adjoining floor and ceiling, revealing what looks to be a conspicuously well-placed slide.

5) Zed goes sailing right over the slide without even having the opportunity to use it.

6) Zed ends up buried head-first in an enormous pit of sand.

...And should anyone go in after him to pursue this NEW AND CONVENIENT MEANS OF INGRESS, they'd find that the slide would suddenly fold up into the room, and the sand underneath would rapidly begin to rise.

Zed is still upside-down, kicking helplessly in the air. Somehow, it looks like someone's also tied his shoelaces together? How???

DG: Zed has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Sand Box.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed's shoes don't even have laces!!

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Where did they come from? Why!?!?

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Chauncey yanks Zed from the sand and dangles him in front of Sephilia, who is still scowling. "Would you be CAREFUL, please, Zed?" she asks. "Now look what you've got us into! It's a good thing my Dad's journal has something about this..." The girl rummages in her satchel and pulls out the journal, apparently feeling no sense of urgency, while Chauncey continues to dangle Zed upside down...

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephy finds the appropriate page, eventually, and points it towards Zed. It's full of George Lampbright's scrawled shorthand and some stick-figure diagrams. It may be depicting something useful about their current situation...it may not. From upside down it'd be hard to tell even if George's shorthand were readily decipherable to anyone but Sephy.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Ida's gotten tougher over the months, Talise can't help but observes as she watches her friend handle the debris pretty well. She smiles with a certain warmth. "See, we're starting to rub off on you already, Ida," she quips with a quick wink as she starts attacking another huge rubble chunk. Then, "Hey Layna! Gimme a sip!"

eventually, they clear the rockfall out, and Talise catches her breath with a heavy huff. She looks back to Kalve with a crooked smile. "I'll tell you about Lunar sometime, then. Look me up. I promise we won't punch each other in the face."

Then the room begins to crumble away and Zed goes flying into a sand trap. Talise begins to move after him, wide-eyed. She jumps down into the sandpit.

A sandpit which begins to rise even as she sets to work trying to wrestle Zed out of the sand. "Damn it, this place is a death trap!" she growls, looking back towards her friends. "There's got to be some way to--"

Once she's gotten Zed about as far as she can get him, Talise turns and channels her gloves' power again. Lunging towards a wall - one of these was the outer wall, right?! - she begins to pound violently on it, attempting to smash a hole in the bricks through which the rising sand can drain.

DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Sand Box.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Dad's Journal toward her party's challenge, The Sand Box.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed is yanked up out of the sand, dangling upside down by his mysteriously hog-tied ankles! "Uh," he says into Sephilia's book as it's shoved into his face. "It says... Add leaves, apple peel, Let boil for two minutes. Serve hot with milk and honey?"

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve follows Zed by the most expedient method imaginable: by accident.

He backsteps into the rubble, looking towards the TNT like some kind of action movie amateur after it goes off. His heel hits rock, and he stumbles, and the giant slab that falls nearly crushes him. It misses him by fractions of an inch, making him jerk back the other way. He plants his feet -- and the ground becomes smooth, fine sand underneath them, sending him arse over teakettle into the same mess Zed ends up in.

Except Kalve doesn't have a negative amount of Luck; he's just being actively malevolence'd at. Lowercase 'm.' Very important.

Kalve jumps up and sets to work immediately. He lets go of the materialized weapon, letting it fade back into motes of odd yellow light, and looks left and right. His alarmingly colorful poncho ripples unnaturally, and four extra arms shoot out from underneath the covering, extending with too much length and too many joints with wide, metal, petal-like 'fingers' at the ends.

The extra arms press against the vents on opposite sides of the chamber. Kalve's two primary hands fold in an almost prayer-like motion, and part to allow a sphere of that yellow light to materialize again. He makes tiny motions against it, and coils of the same color flicker up his extra arms. Little blocks like puzzle-pieces start to appear in the flow of the sand, creating translucent barriers that slow it and come apart under the extra weight, endlessly recycling and replacing the pieces as Kalve puzzles out better and better ways to block it up.

"Please hurry," he tells Talise, sounding remarkably calm about the whole affair.

DG: Kalve has used his Tool Manipule Array toward his party's challenge, The Sand Box.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia rolls her eyes. "Not THAT part!" she says, pointing at the relevant passage. "Ugh, can't you even see the diagrams?!"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Uhhhhhhh. It says... 'Experience BIJ-- no wait that can't be right." Zed huffs. "Maybe try the ceiling?"

============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Sand Box *>==========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 As you walk down the hallway, one of your number feels a slight give -- and   
 then the tell-tale click of a pressure plate being stepped on. A loud crash   
 sounds from ten feet behind you -- and then a second loud crash in front of   
 you. Two stone walls come crashing down, blocking off the exit ahead and the  
 exit behind. This, alone, would be concerning.                                
                                                                               
 But then you hear a rumble.                                                   
                                                                               
 Two vents on either side of the wall open up, and sand begins to pour into    
 the room. It isn't long at all before it is ankle deep and rising quickly.    
 You will need to find some way through -- be it to smash down the wall or     
 the stop the flow of sand -- before you are buried alive in this Temple.      
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia snaps the journal shut in Zed's face. "That's right! Try the ceiling! So...ALLEY-OOP!"

Did...

Did Chauncey just launch Zed at the ceiling?

Yes. Yes he did.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

"Aye, you can have more than a sip!" Layna says with a grin. Talise will soon find a whole bottle in her hands. Any others who might be interested will also have a bottle tossed their way, too.

Hey, if being trapped in a temple to the gods while a battle between several very angry forces wasn't time for a drink, what was?

Probably not being trapped in a room that was steadily filling up with sand, but when would that ever stop Layna?

"Well, if these plans don't work, I'll stir up some wind and clear us a path here, aye? It won't last long, so I'll have to be quick about it." She suggests. She'll then began to prepare her incantation, ready to cast whenever the group figured out their course of action.

DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Sand Box.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Uwaaaaaaaaaaah---" Zed screams as he's hurled bodily at the ceiling. But then... THEN...! "AAAAAAAHZEEEEED KIIIIIIIIIIICK!" ZED CONTORTS, HIS LEGS EXTEND! HE KICKS THE CEILING!!!

But will it be enough!?

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline's tail stands on end as she watches Zed get flung into even further trouble. Like the rest, she leaps after him, sliding down into...

Sand.

Rosaline has a complicated relationship with sand. This isn't even a catgirl joke. She grew up in the desert, you see, but that doesn't mean she has to LIKE the stuff.

"Oh no... Oh no!" she lets out, as she scrambles to keep her feet on top of the rising sand pile. "Luckily, we can take the parable of the stars as an example..."

She takes out her Extreme Teen Bible. "From the book of the Broken Jaw!" she announces.

"Lo, once I was told, that the very world would roll me. Nay, I am not the sharpest tool in the hut." She flips the page, hurrying to the relevant passage.

"So I ask thou: With so many things to do and see, is taking the back alley truly a sin?"

She looks up. "I think there might be a secret passage! Perhaps with a hidden switch? Hold on..." And so, she darts around the room, setting out to find JUST THAT.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida is used to Zed taking pratfalls. This takes it to a new, horrible level.

The naturalist leaps backwards as the ceiling falls, landing in a three-point crouch and pressing a hand flat against her chest. Dust billows outwards from where the ceiling fell; her heart races, but she has no time to regroup. "ZKALVE!" Ida screams, as the Demon sprawls outwards--she sees Zed go flying, but Kalve almost got crushed. She scrambles to her feet, eyes widening in alarm as the floor suddenly loses structural integrity and sweeps Kalve into the room, after Zed. Ida reaches for him, but all she manages to do is touch his fingers.

No.

Ida scrambles after Kalve, landing in the rising sand. She seems remarkably unperturbed by the sudden EXTRA ARMS, and immediately goes for her mother's journal, even though she almost doesn't need to at this point. "West wall!" Ida says. "East is Grudiev's! West is Fengalon's! Fengalon is air, it should be outside!"

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flora's Notebook toward her party's challenge, The Sand Box.
DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Extreme Teen Bible toward her party's challenge, The Sand Box.
============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Sand Box *>==========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 As you walk down the hallway, one of your number feels a slight give -- and   
 then the tell-tale click of a pressure plate being stepped on. A loud crash   
 sounds from ten feet behind you -- and then a second loud crash in front of   
 you. Two stone walls come crashing down, blocking off the exit ahead and the  
 exit behind. This, alone, would be concerning.                                
                                                                               
 But then you hear a rumble.                                                   
                                                                               
 Two vents on either side of the wall open up, and sand begins to pour into    
 the room. It isn't long at all before it is ankle deep and rising quickly.    
 You will need to find some way through -- be it to smash down the wall or     
 the stop the flow of sand -- before you are buried alive in this Temple.      
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

For a few minutes, Zed has the unenviable problem of being stuck headfirst in a sand pit. The dirt and debris start pushing into his eyes, his mouth, his nose--trying to blind him, choke him. By the time Chauncey gets to him, he may well be light-headed, which would certainly explain the vision he sees as he's thrown into the air--

A massive beast, all scales and muscle, big as a mountain, and solid as the earth itself. Crystalline protrusions rise from its flanks. It looks down at Zed, the full focus of its disdain entering his very being.]

a n a t h e m a

==========================<* The Guardian Temple *>===========================
========================<* CHALLENGE - The Sand Box *>========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          | 
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 As you walk down the hallway, one of your number feels a slight give -- and   
 then the tell-tale click of a pressure plate being stepped on. A loud crash   
 sounds from ten feet behind you -- and then a second loud crash in front of   
 you. Two stone walls come crashing down, blocking off the exit ahead and the  
 exit behind. This, alone, would be concerning.                                
                                                                               
 But then you hear a rumble.                                                   
                                                                               
 Two vents on either side of the wall open up, and sand begins to pour into    
 the room. It isn't long at all before it is ankle deep and rising quickly.    
 You will need to find some way through -- be it to smash down the wall or     
 the stop the flow of sand -- before you are buried alive in this Temple.      
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
=====================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 4 *>======================
==========================< Results - The Sand Box >==========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   31 --(5)--> 36                 Pass
Flora's Notebook                    1   Wits    Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     31 --(5)--> 36                 Pass
Extreme Teen Bible                  3   Wits    Effects: Fanfare              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      29 --(4)--> 33                 Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               22 --(6)--> 28                 Pass
Manipule Array                      2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 21 --(5)--> 26                 Pass
Dad's Journal                       2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     21 --(6)--> 27                 Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 24 --(6)--> 30                 Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           40 --(20)--> 60                Pass
Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Reckless(2)|Suffer|Tire(2)
Effects: Enlighten(1)|Stalwart(1)
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Zed has posed.

Well. It's certainly not the ceiling. Zed screams even more incoherently than usual as he smashes right into the surface to no apparent effect. Kalve's barriers manage to keep the rising tide of crushing sand at bay-- but for how long? The temple seems to be intent on killing them all, seeing these travellers crushed against its hallowed halls. But perhaps something happened to Zed during the course of his ascension. Maybe he saw something that frightened him-- or maybe he had some kind of revelatio--

ZED SEES A GIANT SPACE GODZILLA.

ZED SCREAMS EVEN MORE INCOHERENTLY THAN USUAL AS HE PIVOTS TO KICK IT IN THE FACE!!

In Real Space, he others watch as Zed inexplicably rebounds off the ceiling and proceeds to go flying right into the western wall, which ALSO gives way upon exposure to the unstoppable force that is Zed's Skull. "I KNOW I AM ANIME," Zed yells at his nightmarish fever-dreams, "YOU DON'T NEED TO KEEP TELLING ME, GOD!!"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

...Well. At least it's a way out. Looks like Ida and Rosaline had the right idea, there WAS a hidden passage! It just took a Chauncey-propelled Zed to open!

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Stairway *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 3          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 Sometimes, stairwells lead to higher and lower levels. As you round the       
 corner, you come across one such stairwell. Rubble has collapsed from the     
 ceiling and filled this one to the brim. Unless you can find another way      
 down, which would involve backtracking, you will need to remove it. It        
 promises to be an arduous process, though, because the ceiling will need to   
 be supported -- and the rubble moved carefully, lest you cause an even        
 greater collapse than before.                                                 
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure, Overwhelm==================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Sand spills out into the corridor. Ida rides the wave as best as she can, breathing a little heavily as she scrambles free of its crest. "Is everyone all right?" she says, doing a quick head-count. She grabs Zed's wrist, pulling the stunned Demon free of the sand before he ends up stuck in it again. "Which way now--?" North, it seems. And they're down a level, so perhaps this portion of the temple is free of the debris--

No such luck. Ida's lips tighten into a thin little line. "Talise, Zed, Lord Foxington, if you could kindly brace up the ceiling? The rest of us can clear the stairwell." She turns to Layna, in anticipation, because this is going to be awful. Once the libations have been distributed, Ida gets to work, lifting and hauling as carefully as she can.

She still seems to be completely unphased by Kalve sprouting four extra arms.

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia has calmed down a little bit, fortunately for all involved. "Right! Consider it done, Ida!"

Chauncey lumbers forward and moves to be a brace.

DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise pauses her punching just long enough to take a swig of Layna's potent brew. It sure does help.

As the wall crumbles under Talise's fists, the half-Beastwoman soon begins to clamber onward once she's satisfied the work is done.

Of course, what follows is another corridor full of rubble - and this one quite precarious. Talise presses her lips tightly together as she looks at the mess of debris, precariously balanced like a cardhouse. "Yeah. We're gonna need to hold that roof up," she agrees, moving over to Layna for another drink.

Even with her strength, this is going to be a nightmare.

Once she's suitably liquored, Talise ducks beneath the crumbling roof and places her hands on it. She lets the power of her gauntlets do the work. Even with the ogre's strength, however, her muscles strain and her shoulders shake for a moment. Her feet shift against the ground as her knees struggle to bear the weight of an entire corridor at once, even with Chauncey's help.

"Whatever you're gonna do, make it quick," she groans through her teeth. "I can only hold this for a few minutes--!"

DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Ogre Power Gauntlets toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline, who no longer has her nose in a book or her eyes set on trying to find hidden switches, finally notices that Kalve has extra arms. This is all very upsetting! Not 'Berserk Rosaline' upsetting, but still enough to be plain on her face.

But at least they've found a way out, if only through further pratfall. And once again Zed is shouting about anime. "Seriously, what is... No, no, nevermind."

She's all too glad to be out of the sand, brushing it off her ears with her hands. And then... more debris.

The nun lets out a long sigh. She glances at Layna. A drink sounds VERY tempting right now but... no, no, she can't.

"Please let me help. Holy Sword!" That should at least take some pressure off the ones bracing the ceiling up, as the apparently versatile spell strengthens even further for the challenge ahead.

"Would TNT still work, do you think?" she asks in Ida's direction, "I just want to be sure..." It didn't work out so well last time, and it seems this one is even more delicate. Still, she pulls out a stick and places it gingerly, attempting to be strategic about the demolition effort.

DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Holy TNT toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Uuuugh," Zed groans, rubbing at his poor, sore head. A cartoon lump seems to have sprouted from his moss-green hair and there's this big x-shaped bandaid plastered all across it. "What's with this place? It's like it's out to kill us, or something!"

Nope. Just you. Specifically. Also Kalve. Also specifically.

He shakes his head as Ida directs him to the collapsed ceiling. He bobbles his head, sets himself underneath and braces upwards against the crushing weight. "Uhhh. How long do we have to hold this for, exactly?"

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

They finally escape the sandtrap and what awaits them is...more rubble!

"This place is really falling apart...sure hope it doesn't just collapse on top of us..." Layna muttered. She couldn't blame shoddy building, really. The war going on outside probably had more than a little bit to do with its current condition.

Ida turns to her, and Layna offers her a wide grin.

"Don't worry, lass, I've got us all covered here. 'Nother round on me!" She says. Another round of drinks goes out.

With that done she gets to helping with the obstruction, drink in one hand while the other deals with rubble.

DG: Layna Manydays has used her Tool Quartermaster's Stash toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Stairway *>=======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 3          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 Sometimes, stairwells lead to higher and lower levels. As you round the       
 corner, you come across one such stairwell. Rubble has collapsed from the     
 ceiling and filled this one to the brim. Unless you can find another way      
 down, which would involve backtracking, you will need to remove it. It        
 promises to be an arduous process, though, because the ceiling will need to   
 be supported -- and the rubble moved carefully, lest you cause an even        
 greater collapse than before.                                                 
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure, Overwhelm==================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"As long as you can!" Ida says. She's working quickly, but there's just so much crap to clear out that it's taking a while anyway. She nods to Rosaline as she moves in to place the explosives. "Kalve, do you have any more efficient means?" Now there's a challenge--

t r e s p a s s e r s

It shoots through Kalve's mind, and Zed's mind, at once. This time, the entity is visible to both of them, clearly--a tortoise big enough to bear the world on its back, if it had to, wise and ancient. A force of nature. Again, there's that terrible, crushing sense of having angered something old and powerful beyond measure. The scent of the sea creeps into the Metal Demons' minds, even though they are nowhere near it. With it comes dread.

Good thing Layna has booze, at least?

============================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Stairway *>=======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 3          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
 Sometimes, stairwells lead to higher and lower levels. As you round the       
 corner, you come across one such stairwell. Rubble has collapsed from the     
 ceiling and filled this one to the brim. Unless you can find another way      
 down, which would involve backtracking, you will need to remove it. It        
 promises to be an arduous process, though, because the ceiling will need to   
 be supported -- and the rubble moved carefully, lest you cause an even        
 greater collapse than before.                                                 
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure, Overwhelm==================================
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed squints.

"Wait--" He says, seemingly to the empty air, "You're the one... At Lacour..."

"...Turtlefriend, why...???"

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia turns to look at Zed. "What? Zed, are you imagining things? Are you being Dumb?"

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"--Turtle?" Ida says, her eyes widening. "Zed, what the hell is going on?"

Ida continues to swear openly. That's just how far out there things have gotten.

DG: Zed has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve bursts out of the room that was trying to kill them with sand. The four extra appendages go rigid behind him, and then fold in on themselves, curling up and vanishing underneath the poncho. It ripples again. The eye slides off of it for a moment while it does. Then, it is still, and all is normal. He looks... normal.

He doesn't feel normal. Something strikes him on a level beyond the physical, an attack that batters at his carefully-constructed demeanor. He grimaces, then scowls, averting his eyes from... everything. He looks around frantically for a moment, and then squeezes his eyes shut, whispering harshly, "There is no sea here."

The moment passes. The sensation of crushing weight, infinitely unkind depth and a fear that is not and should not be his own does not go with it. It lessens, but he's shaken, rattled in a way he rarely is. "No," he tells Ida, perhaps a bit too sharply, perhaps a bit too hastily. He clenches his gauntleted hands into fists and steps forward, making to move the rubble one piece at a time.

A third, normal-length arm with a perfectly normal (if armored) hand snakes out from under his poncho and snags the drink. It swings it around, and Kalve empties the offering with a cough. He gets back to work.

DG: Kalve has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Collapsed Stairway.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Stairway *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute     |Challenge Rating: 3          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 Sometimes, stairwells lead to higher and lower levels. As you round the       
 corner, you come across one such stairwell. Rubble has collapsed from the     
 ceiling and filled this one to the brim. Unless you can find another way      
 down, which would involve backtracking, you will need to remove it. It        
 promises to be an arduous process, though, because the ceiling will need to   
 be supported -- and the rubble moved carefully, lest you cause an even        
 greater collapse than before.                                                 
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure, Overwhelm==================================
======================<* The Guardian Temple - Round 5 *>=======================
========================< Results - Collapsed Stairway >========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   36 --(9)--> 45                 Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     36 --(15)--> 51                Fail
Holy TNT                            2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      33 --(10)--> 43                Pass
Quartermaster's Stash               2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               28 --(9)--> 37                 Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 26 --(12)--> 38                Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     27 --(10)--> 37                Pass
Ogre Power Gauntlets                2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 30 --(10)--> 40                Pass
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           60 --(20)--> 80                Pass
Conditions: Injure(2)|Overwhelm|Reckless(1)|Suffer|Tire(2)
Effects: Strengthen(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Clearing the stairwell is tedious, terrible work--and the group has a time limit, consisting of the time a woman with enchanted strength gauntlets, a Metal Demon under mental assault, and a magically-animated plush doll can hold up the ceiling. Ida chokes down the liquor. She keeps going, sparing a few seconds to pat Kalve on the back--he's rattled in a way she's never seen him, and combined with what Zed just said...

The Guardians. Can they see? Do they know?

The stairwell is clear. Ida and Layna brace it with a wooden beam that fell down with the rest. The group continues.

DG: Kalve 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> Kalve has posed.

It turns out that flowing sand is something of a theme.

The stairs lead downward into a cavernous chamber, with a wide expanse of stonework on either side bridged by the enormous river of sand. The river itself flows west to east, with the western side of the room dominated by a gigantic deadfall of the same with a cloud of dust emulating a waterfall's spray. The eastern side instead seems to abruptly terminate in a huge gap in the wall and descend into a bottomless pit... but it's probably not actually bottomless, if the sand isn't infinite. Right?

The hiss is so loud as to be nearly deafening. Obsidian tiles descend with the 'sandfall,' tumbling and then abruptly righting themselves, bobbing like logs in a river. They pass with some speed, and they move back and forth... are there currents to the flow of sand? Who would design something like that?

Kalve, having been tormented by at least a couple of these Guardians by now, has a fairly good idea.

"We should move quickly," he says brusquely, striding to the edge of the stone, tearing his eyes away from the statues on the far side. He watches the flow for a few long moments and then takes a jump, leaping to the nearest of the tiles. He isn't especially agile, but at least he doesn't seem to weigh half a ton, either...

DG: Kalve has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

By the time the heavy holding-up is done, Talise has worked up enough of a sweat that she actually pull off her mailshirt and overtunic and slugs them into her inventory. She sticks with her tank top. It helps her feel like she's aerating a bit.

And then they come to the next room - and the sand gushes through it like a river.

"Althena," she groans. "A jumping challenge. I hate jumping challenges."

She nods to Kalve, once, then looks back towards Ida, Sephilia and the others, as though gauging their readiness. Then, clapping her hands together, Talise steps back a few paces - and breaks into a sprint.

Talise leaps. She sails across the sandy gap and lands in a crouch on an obsidian slab, the sand carrying it along. "No time to think," she growls as she lunges for the next one. She barely makes the landing. It continues to carry her down the sandspill but she sprints across it and hurtles towards yet a third.

She's just going when her instincts tell her. No time to stop. No time to worry. Just see, measure, do.

And don't try throwing a rope, she decides. Fuck ropes.

DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline looks puzzled as Zed and Kalve speak of sea and turtles. This is... odd.

But her main concern is getting through the blocked stairwell before the others' strength gives out. At least THIS particular stick of TNT doesn't make things worse!

And then is time for... more sand. What a day.

Rosaline notices the statues in the distance. She isn't very well-versed in Guardian lore, but she's at least familiar enough to know those are what she's looking at, and that one of them is... a water-aspected turtle. Hm.

Kalve says they should move quickly, and luckily this is one of the very few things Rosaline is confident she's good at. "A-All right, then."

She has little way of helping the others besides taking point, leaping from one moving tile to another with uncanny agility and balance. The clawed feet beneath her habit offer some extra grip, too, which helps. And if someone slips, she'll be ready to extend a hand to prevent from from falling to their doom!

.......hopefully.

DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Ehhhhhh jumping challenges aren't THAT bad," Zed says with regards to THIS ROOM FULL OF SAND. No seriously, how is it even getting here? How do these sandy rivers flow? From which headwaters? To what reservoir? It barely makes even a wick of sense...!

"Well, most of these ones aren't bad," he suggests, tugging his scarf off his neck with a grin. "NOW THEN! FOR OLD TIMES-- SEPHILIAAAAA-"

Zed... Breaks into a sprint. "--AAAAAAAAAAA--"

ZED SEIZES SEPHILIA AROUND THE WAIST! "--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

ZED HURLS HIS SCARF INTO AN INVISIBLE GRAPPLE POINT SOMEWHERE MUCH CLOSER TO THE CEILING THAN THEY ARE NOW!! "--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

And he goes... swinging across! Provided that the Guardians don't choose RIGHT NOW to break his brain, it'll be PERFECTLY FINE!

DG: Zed has used his Tool Grapple Scarf toward his party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida takes a moment to catch her breath. The sight of the statues is heartening--and it implies consistency in the design, which her mother's notes told her about. The four elemental guardians are always aligned around the poles of a room in a predictable manner, and in this case, it looks like the missing one is Grudiev. Which, honestly, explains the earth trap facing them.

"I know," Ida says, to Kalve. Chi courses down through her legs, and she doesn't so much leap into the air as bid the ground goodbye for just a moment. She lands on a tile, skids a bit on the smooth surface, and catches herself a few moments before she eats sand. Another jump carries her to another tile. And another. And another--

And of course, since this is the absolute worst time for Zed--

"BEGONE!" howls a voice in the back of Kalve and Zed's minds. The smell of burning wood, superheated metal, charred earth--it filters out of nowhere. Before them is yet another phantasm, a great firebird.

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia, who had just finished shrinking Chauncey down and had been looking dubiously at the tiles, set far enough apart that she would have been hard pressed to make the jumps with her stubby legs...

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

SCREAMS.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIII CANNNN'T STOOOOP," Zed yells as the firebird catches him MID-LEAP and he's kind of forced to just... sort of cannonball right through the apparition.

This might be a problem considering he's holding onto a Sephilia.

But more importantly, it means that Zed is being exposed to LITERAL HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE. But he can't fail here. If he fucks up, it would be... It would be REALLY BAD!!

DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shifting Tiles.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise makes a landing beside Zed. She looks at him for a minute.

And then she attempts to pick up Zed who is picking up Sephy, and lunge to the next platform with him. She's using her gauntlets for this one so it's basically like carrying a pretty papier-mache Metal Demon.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Aaand...more sand!

"By Althena, what is with all the sand? Can't they get any more creative than this?" Layna asks. She sounds a bit annoyed, actually.

This obstacle would be perfectly fine if it was, say, water-based...but sand again?

So, she decides to elect not to bother with it all. She takes a few steps back...

And attempts to take a running leap over the entire thing with the power of her Wind sorcery at her back.

Someone...may need to rescue her in a moment.

DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her 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=============================================
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her 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 6 *>===============================
================================< Results - The Shifting Tiles >=================================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   45 --(14)--> 59                Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     51 --(11)--> 62                Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      43 --(20)--> 63                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               37 --(21)--> 58                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 38 --(16)--> 54                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     37 --(21)--> 58                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 40 --(12)--> 52                Pass
Grapple Scarf                       2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------< Party >--------------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           80 --(5)--> 85                 Pass
Conditions: Injure(2)|Overwhelm|Suffer|Tire(2)
Effects: Quicken(1)
========================================< Dream Chasers >========================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

The group files into the room. The door closes behind them. ...There wasn't a fourth statue there a minute ago, was there? There's no place for it--that's where the door was--

The walls seem to fall away into an abyss of nothingness. The four grand Elemental Guardian statues follow, leaving only the smaller statues... and the tiny statue representing Humankind. Ida's eyes widen; she raises a hand, backing closer to Kalve. "What the--"

Something appears in the mist, as if coalescing out of the primal ether that existed before there was a universe to exist in. The smell of the sea filters into the room, along with the sound of waves lapping against the shore--and out of this ethereal, invisible ocean rises... something. There, in the north--a tortoise out of legend, the sort of creature some say holds up the world.

"TRESPASSERS," says Schturdark, Guardian of Water, his voice the crash of a tsunami.

Another disturbance, in the south. The scent of wood-smoke wafts into the room, accompanied by blistering heat. Out of this invisible, ethereal fire rises a great bird whose body is the essence of flame. A great phoenix.

"YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN THIS PLACE!" says Moor Gault, his voice roaring like an untamed bonfire.

Out of the east, the sound of tumbling rock and dust, and the smell of freshly-turned earth. The ethereal mountains move--and from among them rises a mountainous lizard-beast that looks like it could survive Armageddon.

"AND YET YOU PERSIST." Grudiev's voice is like an earthquake, the thunderous growl of stone grinding against stone.

Out of the west, a wind rising from nothing, stirring the phantasmal clouds, whipping them into a display that looks like the sky before a storm. Out of the storm stalks an immense white tiger, as swift as the wind, and as lethal as a hurricane.

"YOU ARE ACCURSED!" Fengalon says, his voice the howl of raging winds.

Another is there, too, appearing from nothingness in front of the party, before Fengalon. A somber-looking woman in fine regalia, her face as pale and beautiful as the shining moon. She raises her staff, and brilliant light washes over everyone--to everyone but Kalve and Zed, it is merely awe-inspiring, a gesture of holy, protective power. To Kalve and Zed, it is agonizing. Kalve may find himself struggling to maintain his disguise in the face of it. Ida turns to him with a look of undisguised horror, but not out of any revelation as to what he is. It's what's happening to him that rends her heart.

"You--" Ida says.

"Silence, child," says Celesdue. There is emotion in her voice, but it is incscrutable. "Now show us. Do what we ask of you. Show us humankind's place in the universe."

Ida is shaking. Her throat has gone dry. She reaches back, runs her fingers along the worn cover of her mother's notebook--the thing that's guided her up until this point. Now she is faced with the impossible, and all she can do is call upon the memory of her mother--and all the things she recorded in her days as a missionary--to guide her. She picks up the statue. She looks back at Kalve and Zed, trembling.

She has no immediate idea where the statue should go. Nothing comes to mind.

DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flora's Notebook toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

The sense of presence overwhelms Talise almost right away. The shimmering forms of the Guardians begin to manifest themselves.

In her past life, Talise beheld the face of the Goddess Althena in the water, pronouncing a dead man to be the Dragonmaster. But the Goddess's presence felt, to her, like a mere image. This is something else. She does not know the Guardians - only the statue of Zeldukes in the square, and a vague awareness that Tethelle is a priestess of Equites.

Yet their rage at the Metal Demons is utterly palpable. They are alien creatures, and the Guardians cast their rage upon them as accursed beings. The light that seems to her like an awesome serenity seems so much different for them as the spirits demand that they demonstrate their place in the universe.

"Excuse me," Talise says. There is a note of tartness in her voice.

The swordswoman, smudged with sweat and sand and dust from a hard journey, takes a few steps forward. She brushes past Ida and the statues, then lays a hand on one of them as she passes to push it out of the way.

"If you guys had a problem with Zed and Kalve, maybe you should've stopped them at the door. I can tell something's been going on since the start of all this," she says in a chiding tone. "What do you even have against them? All they wanted to do is ask you questions, is that so bad? Is it because they're aliens? Because if that's the case, I'm also an alien, and you should kick my ass outta here too."

She narrows her eyes. "Besides, you're asking us to do something impossible."

She slides her gauntlets off and hangs them from her belt, beginning to walk forward, among the statues. Circling around that of Equites, then past that of Rigdobrite, she hooks her thumbs into her belt loops, slouched forward a little. "Because what's mankind?" she asks the room, looking towards the statue of Moor Gault with a cant of her head. "Is it me? Is it Ida? Is it Sephy over there? How about Lyn and Lestaci? Janus Cascade? Some guy down by the docks? And do I count? I'm not even fully human. Do I belong in your world, or do you only give a shit about fully human mankind?"

Bringing a hand up, she touches it to the edge of one of her ears, then moving it down to the stripe on her cheeks. "So what's mankind, then? The truth is, everyone is. No one is. Each of us is a god and we all have a different place in the cosmos. And you know what the best part is?

"None of us know what the fuck that place is," she states as she stops in front of Celesdue's statue, lighting up a cigarette. Drawing it to her lips, she takes a long drag, then lets it out. "We might act like we do, but the truth is, the only place is the one you make for yourself. And even that comes and goes."

Her eyes lower as she walks past Celesdue, past Dan Dairam, and into an open part of the floor. "I thought I knew what mine was," she reflects in a quieter tone. "But every time I find one, it's taken from me. Every dream I've had has been robbed from me - most of them by my own goddess, who nobody here's even fucking heard of. And now here I am on an alien planet, and you're asking me to justify the human race's place in the cosmos. But I can't do that because it's impossible." Taking her cigarette in hand, she points it towards the statue of Grudiev.

"I have no place in your world," Talise finishes. "In that respect I'm no different than a Metal Demon. But at the same time I have no place on my world. So you see, I'm just like someone like Riese, or Zed, or Kalve here."

She tosses her cigarette at the foot of the human statue, and snuffs it with her heel.

"I don't have a place anywhere," she states. "You're talking to the most worthless person in the entire universe. So I don't care if you Guardians don't like what I have to say, because I've got nothing else to lose right now."

DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia steps forward, nervously. "Um...hello. My name is Sephilia Lampbright, and um, I'm not from here. Filgaia, I mean. I think...I think that your question is very interesting and um, I think that..." Sephy swallows hard. "Um. So my Dad, you might know--do you see things on Lunar? Anyway he's a famous explorer and he taught me and..."

Sephy, are you really introducing yourself and telling the Guardians about your Dad? Here?

Apparently yes. She rummages through her satchel and holds up her Dad's journal towards them, open to the first page. "Every volume of my Dad's journal has this same first page. So does mine. It says...it says we should remember that we're just visitors here, only around for a little while, and that we should remember that there were millions of people before us, and millions of people will come after we're gone, and that we need to be respectful to both our ancestors and our descendants. And...I mean, I don't know where humanity's place in the cosmos is, but I know that mine is only brief and that's why I'm going to stand here with my friends and do what I think is right to preserve the world for those who'll come after."

She looks at Talise. "Even if some of them don't always see how important they are too." She looks at Zed. "Even if some of them are...very dumb."

"So could you give us some more of these little statues so that I can show that?"

DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Dad's Journal toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

The feeling is indescribable. How can someone properly put into words the sensation of being so utterly rejected by the world? There's nothing like it. Nothing is its equal. No metaphor or purple prose could stand to properly summarize the feeling. It's every single newly minted orphan. It's the sound of a civilization's collapse. It's a supernova where nobody can see. It's a star dying in the days before anyone could grieve. It's the tear of the last son of a dying race as he breathes his last.

It's all that.

It's so much more.

Zed's scream is even more bloodcurdling because of how alien it sounds coming from his throat. The suddenness of the crushing feeling of rejection shattered any semblance of self-control, any iota of haughty confidence. The lingering pain ground it away beneath a jackbooted heel. He barely keeps himself upright, he falls to his knees, his blade is buried tip-deep in the ancient stone as his weight rests almost entirely on its hilt.

He doesn't fall.

And soon that excruciating cry resolves into something else. The apparent eternity of pain becomes the new normal. Zed grits his teeth, he steels his soul. He stares the Guardian of the Moon in her eye with trembling hands and chattering teeth.

"All this," Zed wheezes, "B-because I wanted to ask... Why you hated us...? Ahah. Hahahahahahaha...!"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline is probably the only party member who doesn't have much of a problem with jumping puzzles. She's made it a fair way towards the end of the room, until a wind magic-propelled Layna sails past her... and right into sand!

Luckily, the nun is here to help, and so rushes over to the edge of her platform to offer a hand and pull the pirate captain out before it's too late. "P-Please let me help!" she stammers out, probably realizing that this dungeon run includes far more hand-holding than she typically ever does.

She's quick to duck into the next room, once everyone has made it without dying.

Rosaline gasps as the walls disappear and the Guardians make their presence known. She knows that to worship them is profane, that these aren't gods in the sense she would use the word, but the sight of legends made real is still awe-inspiring.

They curse them out, for reasons she doesn't understand. The beastwoman shrinks at the words, even if they aren't necessarily directed at her. But then comes Celesdue, her presence soothing, her power a balm she hesitates to accept, but then she has little choice in the matter.

She looks up, hands joined in prayer. What would Granas do? There is no statue for Him, or for God for that matter.

Oh well. When in Rome, it's probably best to try and answer the riddle as intended. Trembling, Rosaline reaches into her satchel again for her good book. She doesn't open it, because she already knows the general shape her action will take. She only wanted to touch it, for the confidence to do or say anything at all.

"We can't repeat the mistakes of the past. Mankind has arrogantly tried to reach for the heavens and met only ruin." She points to a statue with a sigil that she believes mean 'Sky' or 'Heaven'. Solais Emsu. "We could place us beneath them."

That solution doesn't account for the other twenty-three statues, but it's a start, she thinks. ...she hopes. ...maybe.

Talise speaks her piece. "P-Please don't," she says, almost under her breath, but with a measure of admiration visible in her face as she curses out the riddle itself in this way. She looks down, falling silent. Talise doesn't know it yet, but she has earned herself a Hug Coupon.

Sephilia tells her story. Zed screams. Actually, there might in fact be a hug coupon in store for everyone here.

DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Extreme Teen Bible toward her party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
DG: Zed has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

There's a brief moment where Layna realizes that she probably needed a second jump to go along with the first one.

"Well, damn." She says, completely deadpan, as she's about to fall face first into the sand she so despised...

But, fortunately for her, she's not alone here. She sees Rosaline extend a hand toward her and Layna grins, accepting it.

"You're a lifesaver, lass!" She says, using her to help pull her to solid ground. For her help, Rosaline gets a smile and a pat on the back.

They proceed, then. Even though she had no real knowledge of the Guardians, Layna can't help but be awestruck by what occurs when they step into the chamber. It's like an endless expanse, empty except for themselves and the statues. Layna draws her telescope from her waist and looks around. They were alone...

Except, of course, the four images of the Guardians that soon appear from the mists, shouting at them. A fifth image soon joins them. This one...is different, though.

She does not shout out them, and she emits a brilliant light.

Could it be...?

Althena?

No...Layna doubted she had made her way here somehow, and she looked different from all the images that had been made in her honor, and the image that had appeared in the waters those years ago.

And thus, they were posed a question.

'Show us humankind's place in the universe.'

Layna thinks about it...and can't help but chuckle. She listens to Talise give her speech, and nods approvingly, then listens to Sephilia, and nods approvingly as well.

They were all good answers. But hers?

"Like the lass said, we're a long way from home. But fine. You want to know what our place is..." Layna proceeds to point directly at herself.

"I don't know about everyone else, but I decide what my place is. I'm Captain Layna Manydays, of the Ruby Empress! No one orders me around! And right now...it's as the lass says."

She turns toward Sephilia and offers her a smile. "My place is with this lot and me crew, of course, even if you don't approve of everyone who's with us. So, it doesn't matter where the statue goes! Wherever I put it, that's where it's supposed to be!"

DG: Layna Manydays has used her Tool Captain's Telescope toward her 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===============================
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve does not cleanly make the jump. This is nearly entirely because he is faced with a giant flaming bird and all the sensory inputs to tell him that he is leaping through it... except for the actual heat and pain. He lands badly, hitting the edge of a tile and rolling off, dropping into the sand and swiftly getting submerged by the sweeping flow.

The arms come out again. Pincer-like claws slam into the far side of the river and begin dragging him out. Two at first, then two more, biting into the stonework. A brick begins to crack and, whether through curse or simple bad luck, shatters, nearly undoing the effort it's taken to get him that far.

He claws his way out through grit and determination. He drags himself to the surface and the other side, crawling onto solid ground. His entire body shakes, and fine sand dumps into heaps all around him. He chokes and coughs. Then, he stands. Slowly and deliberately, he enters the chamber.

It is not, ultimately, a wise decision.

The room fades away. The Guardians, one by one, appear in admonishment. Kalve turns to each in turn.

"The way was opened," he retorts, coughing sand. He swipes a hand across his face, spitting dryly. He stares at Schturdark with that same uncanny tremble, the unnatural fear of the crushing dark coming back to him. "We are no greater trespassers than the humans."

He turns, snapping around to the south. The fear is changed, his body language turning defensive. He keeps his voice even, though there's a rising volume to it. His control begins to slip further. "We have defeated your guards," he says, eyes narrowed against the flames of Moor Gault. "We have completed your trials!" His hands curl into fists by his sides.

A sound of avalanche. Kalve turns again. Grudiev's grinding voice could wear a man down simply by hearing it. He looks up at the beast -- the monster, he thinks. His voice turns to a shout. "We can do nothing else! We will do nothing else!"

Fengalon manifests. Kalve twists, pivoting on the spot. He feels like he's rooted to the ground. His poncho billows in the ethereal wind. His voice screams defiance against the rage of the elements. "WE ARE HYADEAN!"

Kalve shakes with barely-contained fury. The display of the elemental Guardians drives him nearly to violence. The touch of the light makes him want to howl in anguish. These are what has caused them so much grief. These are what has driven their people to such lengths to merely eke out an existence on this miserable rock. These are what passes judgment for crimes they have not committed -- or, perhaps, merely have yet to commit. If they persist in this madness, why wouldn't they? Why shouldn't they?

Because perhaps there are reasons not to. Talise tells them of suffering, of seeking a place and not knowing where it could be in a way Kalve can't help but empathize with. Sephilia imparts the wisdom of the place of descendants and ancestors that makes Kalve, for just a moment, wish he knew what having a family like that was really like. Layna shows a sort of loyalty he never expected nor thought he deserved from anyone not of his kind, and his respect for her grows. He feels something else well up to replace the fury... but it's too little. Too slow. He tightens his jaw, suddenly uncomfortable, his gaze drawn to Rosaline and knowing for a brief, sad moment that no such prostration will save them now.

He can no longer stand in the light as he is. The agony is too total. The violation of his self is absolute. His carefully-constructed mask, built over the course of centuries of discipline, of engineering the self, falls away. His altered body, adjusted with care to allow him to better stand amongst the humans, rebels against the changes he wrought and forcibly reminds him of what he is.

He's slowly driven downward, towards his knees, shuddering with each seemingly minute motion. His poncho twists and gathers in the writhing wake of the arms on his back, the four extra limbs striking the floor with three-tined talons to keep him supported. The armor he's wearing cracks and bends, driven into his body like it was being hammered by unseen smiths until it takes the place of any flesh that may have been beneath it. The shape of something like muscle merged with articulated armor stands out where it's visible, but it shifts weirdly beneath skin that seems suddenly washed-out like a faded piece of clothing. It's too fluid to be normal. Too mercurial to be anything but alien.

His body narrows, contorting. His torso seems more insectile, a dull steel carapace visible where the cloth has been pushed away. His proportions seem off, very slightly too long and too lanky. His legs have an extra joint, but it's inconstant, a weird metallic clicking and rattling coming from his extra knees as they seem to flip back and forth in protest of his gradual folding towards the floor. The gauntlets on his hands aren't that at all anymore, melded seamlessly with his arms, with veins of black snaking up to nearly his shoulders like cabling was set beneath the skin.

Kalve lifts his head with what feels like glacial speed and Herculean effort. A marking like a third eye in red is set on his forehead, with lines of the same slashing across his face and the two real ones, bisecting the sclera like it was cut into it. Silver marking like symmetrical scars cross between each of his 'three' eyes, crossing red lines and abruptly terminating before they reach his hairline or past the bridge of his nose. Neither of those seem terribly different. Small favors, perhaps.

"We khh-" His voice is deeper, more resonant. It does not have the same unsettling quality it did during the invasion, but it smacks of it. "-came... for answers." The sensation of utter rejection makes it hard to form words. His instincts are not to speak -- they scream at him to strike. To destroy the things that would do this to a proud Demon of Hyades. He clings to scraps of self control, reminding himself why he came here. His eyes roll. He sees Ida, and he keeps them still for a span of seconds.

Kalve drags himself forward. His knees never quite touch the ground. His six arms claw the floor, and he moves on eight limbs like some kind of alien spider. He does not go far. "We do not -- not know why -- why you hate --" His voice fails him. A sound of contempt escapes him, followed by another purely born of frustration. He stares into the light blindly. His body tells him his eyes should boil any moment now. They do nothing of the sort.

The Demon makes another sound. He lifts one hand -- one of his two 'real' hands, the black-armored ones -- and thrusts it forward and downward. It isn't at a statue, or in a fit of rage. He just can't communicate his intentions through words anymore. He wants violence. He needs action.

Kalve's outstretched hand just barely presses against one of the three silver tiles. He hangs his head, letting it loll bonelessly. They belong here. This is the only way. This is the only way.

DG: Kalve has used his Tool Manipule Array toward his party's challenge, The Impossible Task.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida's heart leaps into her teeth--the sound he lets out is soul-rending, and the tears she's been bottling up start to flow. She kneels next to him, resting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing--trying to provide something of a human presence in the face of these vast elemental beings. It doesn't get any better as Kalve shouts defiance, his anger and fear almost elemental. That defiance--that purpose--

"You are the murderous, treacherous fruit of a poisoned womb," says Celesdue. Her face remains unreadable, even as she witnesses Zed's anguish and agony.

Vast and elemental. As divorced from the human experience as a human is from the experience of an ant, if not moreso. And they're asking them, this group of people who happened to brave this deathtrap, to justify the existence of all humankind. As if they were children who were trying to regain privileges they'd lost from taking things that weren't theirs. It rankles. It coils around her heart, and as Talise pours out an astonishingly-deep reservoir of bitterness, Ida has half a mind to join it. She wants to scream at them, to call them a lot of incompetent do-nothings who have sacrificed nothing to keep Filgaia safe. Granas did.

'P--please don't.' There's no mistaking the reservation in Rosaline's voice, or the admiration on her face. Who could blame even a priest for wanting to shake a fist at Heaven when Heaven is unjust? Layna speaks, somehow managing to be as cocksure as ever despite the madness around her. Everyone the Guardians asked seems to have a response... except Ida

Is that it?

"You asked five humans that question," Ida says. "You received four answers. But I will add mine." She chokes back tears. "In your haste to judge us, you--you fail to understand us. You are elemental. We are not. Every one of us is many, many things. We contradict ourselves. We feel conflict when we're forced to choose between two things we love. Like when we are forced to choose between our family and our ideals, or when we are forced to choose between people we lo--" Ida chokes. For a moment it sounds like she's about to swallow her own tongue. "we love, and some abstract greater good. I have no doubt that if you were to examine any one of us, you would find us lacking. We are fallible. And as long as we are, you will see us in your own terms."

Kalve's body is shifting again. He crawls forward, and Ida can stand it no longer. Despite the Guardians, despite her own fear and doubt and shame, despite everything--she reaches down, and pulls him off the floor. She holds him close, supporting him as best as they can. Both of them make their way to the dais. Ida grips one of Kalve's hands, and together, the two of them press their hands against the little figure.

"Does that answer your question," Ida says.

===========================<* 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 7 *>=======================
=======================< Results - The Impossible Task >========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ida Everstead-Rey                   59 --(100)--> 159              Pass
Flora's Notebook                    1   Wits    Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosaline Calice                     62 --(100)--> 162              Pass
Extreme Teen Bible                  3   Wits    Effects: Fanfare              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Layna Manydays                      63 --(100)--> 163              Fail
Captain's Telescope                 3   Wits    Effects: Fanfare              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalve                               58 --(100)--> 158              Pass
Manipule Array                      2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sephilia Lampbright                 54 --(100)--> 154              Pass
Dad's Journal                       2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talise Gianfair                     58 --(100)--> 158              Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zed                                 52 --(100)--> 152              Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey           85 --(10)--> 95                Fail
Conditions: Injure(1)|Madness|Overwhelm|Reckless(2)|Stupify(2)|Suffer|Tire(1)
Effects: Enlighten(1)|Stalwart(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Rosaline Calice is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Layna Manydays is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Kalve is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Sephilia Lampbright is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Talise Gianfair is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Zed is too exhausted to continue!
DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over.
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has been fully Exhausted by The Guardian Temple!
DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
===========================<* The Guardian Temple *>============================
====================<* CHALLENGE - The Guardians' Burden *>=====================
|Type: Escape      |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 4          | 
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
 Try as you might, the Temple of the Guardians is made of sterner stuff than   
 you were prepared for. As the last of the fight goes out of you, and as       
 things look their most grim, there is a shimmer of light before you. Soft     
 blue light erupts upward, and then a twisting, turning sea serpent floats     
 there. Its scales are in purple, with fins of gold and blue.                  
                                                                               
 It looks down at you with soft eyes. "You have been pushed to your very       
 limits... and you have failed our trial." Lucadia, the Guardian of the Sea,   
 sounds sad about this fact. "And yet... these are times in which we cannot    
 be as exacting as my brethren would wish. The Metal Demons seek to destroy    
 our statues."                                                                 
                                                                               
 The serpent shakes her head. "They cannot. You are not the hope we sought.    
 But you are the only hope we have. Go with our blessing -- and with our       
 burden -- so that we do not lose our precious Filgaia."                       
                                                                               
 The ghostly image of the Guardian vanishes. However, a collection of stone    
 tablets -- one for each of you -- appears where she vanished, and are yours   
 for the taking.                                                               
                                                                               
 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"Every time," says Celesdue. Her voice is inscrutable. There is no grand flash of light, no ceremony--just seven people who attempted to justify themselves to the gods. "Every time, humanity has failed. Every time, greater chaos, greater destruction.

""Oh dear! Oh me, oh dear! But Celesdue..." The voice comes from a strange stone sphere trailing glittering stardust.

"Silence, Rigdobrite," says Fengalon. Rigdobrite pays the great tiger no heed.

"But what choice--"

"Do we have?" A graceful sea-serpent, just like the legends, alight upon the waves stirred up by Schturdark's presence.

"They shall be our lament." A great lion, whose mane ends in forks of thunder and lightning, playing through the winds brought by Fengalon's presence.

"All others have failed." A somber figure in white robes.

"Humans, says Moor Gault. "Know this. You have been found wanting, but we have no other choice. We share with you our blessing, and our deepest grief. Filgaia must survive."

And you, Demons. If it is in your nature to do anything but murder, we would see you do it. Otherwise, you will be swept aside."

"As ash."

One by one, the Guardians dissipate into the ether that spawned them. The group is back in the room--that terrible, crushing presence is gone--and the statuary is gone as well. Instead, the five humans find an unexpected blessing--five stone tablets, suspended in the air before them.

Ida reaches out to take hers. She does not let go of Kalve's hand, nor does she stop supporting him. Not for a minute.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"So, what? Because of where we're from. Because of who made us-- you're going to condemn every last one of us?" Zed wheezes as the silvery light of the moon washes across his face. "No matter what we try, or how hard we fight to do what's right... Because of some... Some tiff you have with Her, you're gonna kill us, is that it? 'There's no place here for you because we don't like your mom?'"

Zed staggers over the dread, bleak sword as he falls forward. Finally, the Guardians begin to fade, but... But...!

"Wait. No, not yet--" Zed is crawling forward as the great spirits disappear. His jaw sets, his hand burns as he reaches into that pale moonlight.

And goes to try and seize Celesdue's immaculate ankle. "Not yet! Not after we came all this way-- you... You'll tell us why you hate us. Why we have to suffer, to have to fight over and over and over! Do you think we all want to kill!?"

He forces himself up, the agony is indescribable-- but he must. "If you hate us so much, tell us why! If... If you don't, then-- then you're just as responsible as we are! We can't help but fight if the whole world wants us dead and we don't know why!"

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Sephilia's verbal pat on the back gives Talise a bit of a lift. She looks back and smiles faintly at the girl, then nods towards Layna approvingly. Part of her wishes she could give an answer that certain. It's a nice feeling to have friends backing her up on this one.

It's broken as Zed starts screaming. She turns back towards him with teeth clenched. What he did to their group was awful - a knife in the back. But he does not deserve to suffer like this. It's not the same as a face-to-face confrontation and an airing of grievances in battle. This is just--

This is just torture.

And then Kalve changes. Talise blinks a couple of times. "Is that," she begins, but cuts herself off, a little stunned. Moreso as Ida shows off her emotional connection. "Geez," she murmurs. "What the hell were you up to while I was in that tournament, Ida?"

Then the Guardians start speaking again. Talise squares her jaw.

Then she reaches back, and draws Rastaban with a steely hiss. It's almost startling in the sobriety of it all. "You know what?" she says as she takes a step forward. "You don't have any right to find us anything. You're no different than Althena." Her voice has taken on a growling note. "Always on and on about our sins and our failures and how awful humanity is. Well, fine. Go ahead."

Twirling her sword, she plants the point of it against the tile. "Go ahead and pass judgment while you stand there and torture Zed and Kalve for just wanting to ask you questions. The honest truth is this.

"I don't give one single fuck what you think," she states, moving over towards Zed.

She reaches down, and claps him firmly on the shoulder as he struggles to stand. "But this guy does," she shouts into the emptiness as the Guardians fade away. "If you want to lord over this dummy then at least tell him what your damn problem with him is!"

She doesn't go for the Medium. Not right now.

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia regards her tablet with wonder, reaching out and touching it gently, first with one finger, then, as it falls from suspension at her touch, grabbing it with both hands. "Whoah," she says. "Thank you very much," she says to the statues, curtsying. "I...I wish you could be less disappointed in us. I know I'll try to live up to the hope you're placing in us...whatever it is I need to do."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Celesdue is gone before Zed can touch her. It's not hurried, but at the same time, it feels deeply personal.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline quietly lowers her arm and shrinks when the rest of the group makes little to no attempt at solving the riddle. Or was it a riddle at all?

Zed and Kalve seem to be suffering. Rosaline clamps her hand over her mouth as the latter turns into a monstrous form. The two scream out their frustration. Maybe it's an understandable one, she finds herself thinking, in spite of their crimes. In turn, her companions give their answers or pointed lack thereof.

This question was unfair, wasn't it? Rosaline quietly chastises herself for being such a coward. Tears are streaming down her face now. She isn't sure when they started.

The Guardians speak of a blessing, of grief, of hope for Filgaia. Why them? Because they have no choice. Three aliens to save a world that isn't even theirs. Two unbelievers to heed the warnings of false gods. Two demons to be swept aside.

Rosaline remains silent, attempting and failing to stammer something out between her sobs. After what feels like an eternity, she croaks something out.

"This isn't fair! THIS ISN'T FAIR AT ALL!"

It's too late. The Guardians are gone.

She blinks away the tears, wiping the rest with her free hand. The stone medium in front of her is puzzling, but she reaches out, tentatively. She holds the Bible in one hand and the tablet in the other. She weighs it, examining the sigil of Solais Emsu, then quietly puts both objects in her satchel.

"So," she says, quietly, "if anyone wants a hug, or... healing, or to talk about anime, um..."

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna chuckles.

"For a bunch of gods, you lot are really disorganized. If you were the crew of an enemy vessel, it'd be far too easy for me to take advantage of that and commandeer your ship." She comments.

"You should listen to your comrades more. Because this? This display? It's pathetic. Are you sure humans are the problem? Maybe your problem is that you can't come to a damn consensus that isn't 'insult everything that displeases' you." She asks.

Of course, by this point, the Guardians are already gone. She shakes her head and strolls forward, taking one of the stone tablets in hand.

It fills her...with a familiar sensation. One that she's felt many times before.

The sea breeze on her face, wisping through her hair as she sails along...

"You and me...maybe we'll be able to get along." She murmurs to it, then glances around.

Specifically, her eyes land on Zed and Kalve.

"...Hey, how are you two holding up?" She asks.

She didn't seem...particularly concerned about the appearance the latter had taken on. Not anymore.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve doesn't have anything else to say. Zed can do the talking. He's all out of words for these creatures.

The moonlight disappears. He feels the crushing weight and the searing agony fade away. He can move again without wanting to scream. Or fight. Sensation comes back. He feels something... warm. He looks up, and sees... Ida. It's always Ida, he reflects. That's... good.

He slowly rises. He doesn't let go of Ida, either. His extra arms fold behind him, tucked away but not out of sight this time. The poncho is a hazy cloak thrown about his shoulders, now, a shroud in grey rather than a bright and colorful garment. "This world is not fair," he murmurs. There's a trace of bitterness there.

He's quiet for a long moment. His eyes are downcast, his expression still colored in frustration. "I will live." He glances aside, and his frustration lessens, face softening somewhat. "...thank you. All of you."

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

She's gone before he can grab her.

The look on Zed's face is... To call it heartbreaking is an understatement. The frustration there is obvious. The tears streaking his cheeks are born from more than just the agony of being exposed for so long to that... That spiteful, angry light. Zed sags against Talise's bracing arm. His shoulders tremble with what can only be a choked sob.

He was so close.

He was... So close.

Why didn't they just... Listen...?

...

Zed shudders into a breath. He straightens his back, shoulders rising and falling once. Twice. "I..." He wheezes, "I'd... Love to talk about anime. But--"

He reaches into his scarf. When his hand emerges, it's clutching a sealed envelope. "Just... Need to leave this somewhere, okay? Just-- give me a few minutes."

Zed lurches forward out of Talise's grasp, tugging his sword out of the floor with a sharp rattle of metal against stone and makes his way toward one of the altars laid out in that wide circle.

...And sets the envelope down on top of one in particular.

...If they don't want to listen even when he comes to their house-- Even when he comes this far--

Then he'll just have to make them listen.

He'll just have to go further.

No matter what, no matter how much they push back, he'll just have to push harder.

How else are you supposed to make friends with someone so full of hate?

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia looks at her friend. "Zed...I..." She trails off, not sure how she can help. Maybe she can't.

She hates that.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

The moon goddess is gone without giving an answer. Talise just presses her lips together and looks down at Zed. "Hey," she says quietly, doing her best to support the man who by all rights she should punch in the face for the lie he told her and her friends.

But there are standards of decency. And her argument with him isn't racial.

Quietly, she watches him lay down that envelope. Something tugs at her heartstrings. He didn't come here to kill, to harm. Her eyes soften, and she allows a faint, fond smile to shine through. "You're a hell of a guy, you know that," she murmurs, too quietly for Zed to hear.

For a moment longer, she watches him. Then, she moves forward. Stepping towards that ring of Mediums, she stares at it. A voice in her head screams at her:

FUCK THESE GUYS

Talise forces it aside. Reaching out, she picks up one of the stone tables. Cradling it in her hand, she stares at it, as though she could somehow hear a voice from it. Something tells her it is there for her.

That in itself pisses her off. Of all the nerve.

"Let me make one thing clear," Talise says to the Medium with a scowl. "I'm not your chosen anything, bud. And I'm not going to beat up Metal Demons just because they were born from something or whatever. If someone deserves a beating, they'll get it, but not if it's a racial thing. Got it?"

The Medium doesn't say anything. There's a lightning bolt carved into its face. It just sits in her hand, practically mocking her with its silence.

Talise sets her jaw, then lets her breath out through her nose. (Do not let your anger rule you.)

It is hard not to be angry. Divine beings are inscrutable. Talise has never met one who hasn't eventually treated her like hot garbage - expected her to obey without question. As she looks down at the Medium, she inhales, then lets it out, and tries to centre herself.

She finally shrugs. "You want someone to save your world. Fine," she says to the empty air, looking up towards the ceiling. "I'll be your hero if that's what you want. But I'm only doing it for one reason: Because Lady Chloe would do it."

Talise tosses the Medium in the air flippantly, then catches it in her trailing hand. "You're only comin' with because I choose to let you," she informs Noua Shax before cramming the Medium in her pocket next to a bunch of lint balls and her pack of cigarettes.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida holds Kalve as though he would slip from her at any moment. "I was afraid I was going to lose you," she whispers, into his ear. "This isn't fair. None of this is fair. The world is a deeply unfair place.

But here today, they at least showed the Guardians something that no one has ever showed them before--the children of Filgaia, the children of Lunar, and the children of Hyades don't have to be enemies. When they work together, they can defy the cruel fate laid out for them.

"No," Ida says, to Kalve and Zed. "Thank you. You risked everything by coming here, and you did it to try and save your people. I'm... I'm so sorry it had to be this way."

The Medium pulses in her hand. It's warm. It feels, metaphysically, like the spark-striker. "Moor Gault," Ida says, her eyes opening a little in surprise. "I'm flattered. And far be it for a lady of good breeding to turn down a gift... even if your manners are distinctly lacking." It's a stab at humor.

"Come, dear," Ida says, to Kalve, in a voice that's not even a whisper. She says it tentatively, almost hesitantly, as if she's not sure he will get it. If she's asking too much. "I can help you to the door if you need it"

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia blinks. "W-wait...D-dear? Ida are you and Kalve..." She blushes, and then glances--for SOME REASON--at Zed.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Man," Talise says as she looks towards Ida and Kalve, her eyebrows coming up sharply - but it's with a smile. "Ida, you could've told me you and Kalve had a thing going on here."

She pauses and scratches at her cheek, frowning. "...Actually, maybe you couldn't," she concedes. "But good for you two. Maybe it's weird of me, but interracial couples are always so touching. Probably because my parents were one."

Talise's smile returns as she begins to move towards her scientist friend, eyes atwinkle. "C'mon. Let's get him and Zed outta here."

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna chuckles a bit.

"Well, well. I never woulda thought." She says. With that said, reaches into her coat once more for a round of drinks.

"I'm sure we could all use this right about now, aye? We still have to leave this place, and all that."

She says. Hopefully, the Guardian of the Medium she picked up didn't have any problems with excessive drinking...

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve only doesn't have a comically large question mark over his head because this is absolutely not the time nor place. He isn't sure what to say to any of that, though. He recognizes Ida's distress and hugs her, murmuring, "The risk was necessary. I am sorry I gave you cause for concern. The potential benefits..."

He trails off. It's a silly thing to say anyway. "I'm sorry." There.

It's hard to say if he gets it. His demeanor is largely stony again, slipping back into that mask as he recovers his senses. He casts frowning, maybe slightly-embarrassed glances around. "I... would not object to the assistance." He might be able to manage it, but it's best not to take chances. (And he might appreciate the proximity of someone he cares about after a moment like that... not that he'll ever admit it.)

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Are you actually in a relationship if the other member doesn't really completely understand the concept?

It's a work in progress.

Ida clears her throat ever-so-slightly. It just kind of slipped out, but now the others are... oh dear. "I'm... sorry if I assumed," she says to Kalve, remaining there to support him. "And yes, Captain, I could use that drink. Once we're out of here."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Right now I could go for a whole case of that stuff," Talise admits with a grimace as she lights up another cigarette. It may be a filthy habit, but let me tell you a little secret.

Talise is a creature of habit. Including many of the bad ones.

"But right now we've gotta get out of here," she tosses out. "Those Aveh guys aren't going anywhere until this place gets torn down. And we can't really hide in here."

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

After a few minutes consisting of quietly adjusting his letter's position and rubbing his face furiously with his scarf, Zed makes his way back from the altar.

He sees Ida.

He sees Kalve.

"Oh my gosh you two," Zed gawps, somehow even more aghast than he was when Celesdue blasted him with moon power magic. "I-in public!? Do that at home!!"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline has been frozen with her hands over her mouth for almost a minute now.

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephilia pouts. "Ugh, Zed, you are SO DUMB!"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"W-wh-what!? Me!?!?" Zed points dumbly at his own gaping mug. "No! I'm not the one that paralyzed the kitty nun with their SCANDALOUS CUDDLING!"

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

"Don't worry! I don't know about you, but I can drink and run at the same time!" Layna says with a grin and a chuckle at Talise. She then walks over to Rosaline, puts an arm around her shoulders, and offers her a bottle. This one actually isn't alcoholic in origin!

"Isn't love a beautiful thing, lass?" She comments with another chuckle.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline finally unfreezes, making sure the offered bottle is indeed not alcoholic, before having a nervous laugh and taking the offered drink with a tiny smile. "I suppose it is."

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

'MAYBE you could do with a little bit of SCANDALOUS CUDDLING, Zed! Maybe it wouldn't be that bad!" Sephilia scowls, makes Chauncey big, and ducks into the backpack to sulk.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Cuddling's not that scandalous," Talise points out with a hand at her hip. She opens her mouth to describe what is.

She stops herself, and frowns as Sephilia goes into the sulk bag.

"Poor Sephy," she murmurs.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed's brain ticks.

Zed's brain tocks.

"Ah," Zed says, tapping a fist into a palm. "I see what the problem is."

Zed... Goes to pick up Sephilia.

And then Talise.

And then Rosaline and Layna and Kalve and Ida. "Yes! I understand! If we ALL cuddle scandalously, it will no longer be scandalous! Ahahahaha! Sephilia you are brilliant!"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

"A group hug is a good idea," Rosaline states softly as she lets herself be dragged.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"I am all for a group hug!" Talise manages, flailing a bit as Zed drags her along.

<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.

Sephy tries to keep pouting, but can't in the face of Zed's dumbness. "Zed, you're so dumb," she says, enjoying the group hug.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna laughs.

"Ahahah! That's the spirit lad, that's the spirit!" She says, grinning and joining in whole-heartedly.

How could anyone hate such a lovable dork, really? The Guardians didn't know what they were missing.