2017-10-22: Coincidence Or Conspiracy
- Log: Coincidence Or Conspiracy?
- Cast: Cassidy Cain, Josephine Lovelace
- Where: Baskar Colony
- Date: October 22nd 2017
- Summary: A certain thief and a certain archaeologist meet while robbing an abandoned and very haunted library. In the process, they learn one fact in particular: everyone they know has been holding out on them.
DG: A party led by Cassidy Cain is now entering Haunted Library. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =============<* CHALLENGE - The Library is Closed to Visitors *>============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You come to a heavy oak door. It won't open. The ridiculous part is, it's obvious there's no lock on it. It's just stuck. It's probably been stuck for decades. Will you be the ones to finally open it? =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
She is not one to believe in ghost stories until she lives it.
Not to say that Cassidy Cain can't change her mind; she is not in the habit of ruling anything out, and in the last ten years, she has seen enough strange and fantastic things to at least be able to accept that the impossible could be possible. But the urban legends surrounding the building before her, while remembered, are set aside. Still recovering from a spate of brutal battles that have left her near-incapacitated, her most severe injuries are still in the process of mending together - though at the present moment, they would not be visible. Her posture as she stands in front of the decrepit building maintains the easy, confident ease of a seasoned but reckless operator around these parts.
She doesn't seem to be all that concerned at the prospect of venturing in by herself either.
This is how Josephine Lovelace eventually finds her - two women strung together by the red webs of Fate by virtue of the company they respectively keep, loops of mutual acquaintances that only makes the crossing of their paths to be one inevitable thing. A woman around her age if not a year or two younger, pale tresses left in a wild tousle down her shoulders and back; taller than the average of their lot, though certainly not as tall as Josie herself, lithe and dressed in leathers and a button-down shirt dyed crimson, tucked under a leather corset that has found a second life as a vest - somethhing that has saved her life more times than she can count.
Deft fingers busily thread a few wires looped over a mechanism; a single red light winks in a telltale way in the dark.
The property itself is quiet, undoubtedly whatever vagabonds that have come across the town itself have steered a wide berth. The Badlands are rife with superstition, and she knows this well - it remains one of the places in Filgaia which she absolutely hates.
"Cannae just be a simple lock, ay?" she murmurs once she's rigged the incendiary to the door. "Of course nae anything can be bloody easy in this god forsaken cesspit. Fook the Badlands and everything within it, I say."
Said to the dark and in a low murmur.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
There was a rumor.
That's all it took, in the end. Getting just about anything done out in the Badlands -- well, anywhere, really -- takes money, and to get money when you're a woman of certain means (and ends) means you either take on jobs (sometimes lucrative) or go poking your nose into places that have a glimmer of potential... or are places you just shouldn't be.
Which includes old, abandoned allegedly haunted libraries.
Josephine Lovelace is also an alleged academic. She knows only too well what some people (scholars, sages, people who need to get out more often) will pay for scraps of knowledge, particularly ones that have been previously lost.
Or at least temporarily misplaced, as it were.
This building is a little younger than what's she's used to exploring, she considers in silence, tilting her head to consider the abandoned library. A black and white bird squirms free from its roost near the nape of her neck and hops onto her shoulder, the apparent first to eye the door to the building... and note that neither bird nor archaeologist are alone.
Though it won't take Josie long to note it either.
Not the first here after all, it seems, she considers, arching a pale eyebrow. Unhooking the mattock from the side of her belt, she strides up with the tool loosely in hand.
"Locked out, are we?"
The archaeologist leans in, as if to inspect the mystery woman's work.
"Not a bad idea. But how about a better one?"
She hefts the pick-edged mattock suggestively first Cassidy's way, then towards the door.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, The Library is Closed to Visitors. DG: Cassidy Cain has used her Tool Heavy Grenade toward her party's challenge, The Library is Closed to Visitors.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =============<* CHALLENGE - The Library is Closed to Visitors *>============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You come to a heavy oak door. It won't open. The ridiculous part is, it's obvious there's no lock on it. It's just stuck. It's probably been stuck for decades. Will you be the ones to finally open it? =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
=======================<* Haunted Library - Round 1 *>======================== ===============< Results - The Library is Closed to Visitors >================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cassidy Cain 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Heavy Grenade 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Cassidy Cain 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Wound(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
There was no way her lockpicks would be able to fix the problem at hand, and she is too wounded to heft anything larger than what she has in her person. While busying herself with the task of blowing the door open, a quiet crunch of a boot behind her registers in her senses, though Cassidy does not turn around until the woman deigns to announce herself by offering a better tool for the job. Emerald eyes shot with gold fall on the mattock, inclining her head once at it, then shifting her stare upwards towards the white-haired woman's towering figure.
She smiles; if she is caught by surprise by this intrusion, she takes this in stride. Friendly enough, amiable enough, that expression cuts like a knife, teeth gleaming like pearls under the silver-blue light of Filgaia's two moons overhead. There's a bit of a laugh, though she smothers it enough to keep it low.
"Ach, well. At least I would nae have tae count this as a loss right away if I accidentally set everything on fire," she tells Josephine, relieving the door of its incendiary charge and slips it back in her pocket. "Thought I was the only one bloody mental enough tae pry the lot of this open and see what's inside." She takes several steps sideways, giving the other woman a theatrically deferential bow, the mark of a practiced performer with the way one hand folds against her torso while the other set of fingers flutter towards the door's way.
"I'll leave that tae you, then." She lifts her head in the midst of her bow. "Looking for anything in particular, or you just a fan of old books?"
Whenever Josie takes a swing at the door, a portion of it shatters into splinters. A few more hacks will whittle down enough of its structural integrity that a well-timed application of an unforgiving boot will get it open.
Which Cassidy obliges her, slamming her foot into the destroyed set of doors and sending them flying, apart. Within curtains fashioned from dust-clung cobwebs, the old library's lobby looms before them like a tattered wraith, its edges framed by the silhouettes of old, ruined furniture. Must, the growth of mold and moss and the faint whiff of dead things tickle their noses.
"Singing telegram!" the blonde thief calls into the darkness, uncaring to the state of it.
Save for the ominous creaking from a building clearly sagging against its foundations, silence is her only reply.
"Everyone's a critic," she says, planting a hand on her hip and exhaling once. "Even the dead ones." She rolls her head over her shoulder to look at Josephine. "Dinnae scare easy, I hope."
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== =====<* CHALLENGE - Books Have Spines Does That Mean They Have Skeletons *>===== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A large number of skeletal remains lay on the floor in this room, heaped where they must have died. A terrifying disembodied laugh echoes and the skeletons lurch to life, rising to block your path, clawing at you with bony hands. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
When in doubt, just knock the damn door down. It seems to save heartache in the long run, in Josie's experience.
"You'd be surprised what you can do with the right charges," Josie comments idlely, sizing up the door as Cassidy steps aside and getting a good two-handed grip on the mattock. Steeling herself, she grits her teeth and--
TWOCK.
Plus one to grow on.
Suffice to say, no one's going to have to worry about getting locked out of this library again for a while. There's little left but a few chunks of paneling... and the darkness beyond.
It's silent, even in spite of Cassidy's remark, one that prompts Josie to smile crookedly.
"I'm an archaeologist," Josie says, as if that's an explanation for why she's just knocked down the door to an abandoned library. "If I scared easily, I'd need a new line of work." She shrugs, then strides on in after Cassidy.
A swirl of dust rolls through the room, followed by the sort of dull aching chill that really only manifests during late autumn nights. There's the impression of a low amused chuckle. ...Or is that just the wind?
But what might really catch the eye are the bones strewn across the floor just inside the library entryway, as if a whole slew of random creatures -- no of course not just people -- were slain here.
"Huh," Josie comments. "Well, that's unexpected. How long did they say this was abandoned again?"
Whereupon the bones lurch themselves upwards -- on cue, of course -- and assemble themselves into a crude approximation of living creatures.
Well, that head usually doesn't go with that body, and typically most humanoid skeletons don't have six legs, but it's the thought that counts.
"Huh," Josie comments again, before glancing sidelong at Cassidy. "Well. Hope you're armed!" Josie calls over, sliding her rifle from its holster across her back mere moments after re-hooking the mattock onto her belt. Squeezing one eye shut she takes careful aim--
Penelope, the pigeon, hunkers down on Josie's shoulder as if this is merely routine.
--And fires, aiming straight for the skull of the nearest monstrosity.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Books Have Spines Does That Mean They Have Skeletons.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
I'm an archaeologist.
Cassidy's expression flattens immediately, though a hint of amusement clings to the line of her perpetually smiling mouth. "Ay, another one? You're about the third I've met in the last few months alone. Would nae blame anyone tae try and eke out a living in this dying planet, but this must be a sign that I'm going tae be doing more scrabbling in the dirt than I'd like. Cannae describe tae you what kind of ludicrousness I've run intae since deciding tae run with those of your lot. What with boulders that defy physics and bear cats being glued tae krakens. You must really love your work."
They venture further within the lobby, the distant sound of something hollow breaking reverberating in the darkness. Like ceramic, only not, and the blonde lifts a leg to peer at what she has just stepped on, having managed to step on a skeleton's hand, dislocating its digits from its knuckles.
She pauses, emerald eyes lifting to catch an entire array of skeletons on the floor, brows furrowing faintly. She is no stranger to death, not a novice when it comes to remains, but...
How long did they say this was abandoned again?
"Word varies, from between a few decades tae about half-a-century or thereabouts," she supplies; the air changes around her and she tastes it in the air, already curling an arm behind her back and hooking her fingers around the engraved pistol wedged at the small of her back underneath her jacket, a gift from Noah Hawthorne that has seen much use since the day he gave it to her - stolen from someone else, of course. Some redhaired bounty hunter from June City.
Her stare ticks over to Josie...and blinks at the sight of a pigeon. Earlier, she had thought it was a fluke, but it seems to be rather attached to the white-haired woman.
Hope you're armed!
"As armed as a lass like me ought tae be!" said through the sudden hail of gunfire from Josephine. Releasing her grip from the pistol, suddenly realizing there isn't much anyone could really do against enemies that are already dead, she turns around and picks up a heavy chair, throwing it bodily towards a cluster of skeletons with enough main force in an effort to shatter them and split them from their legs.
"Is it always like this when you types go poking around old places?" she wonders, picking up another chair and bowling it into another set of skeletons. "Ugh, Hawthorne, wherever you are, your hobby is ridiculous!"
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Books Have Spines Does That Mean They Have Skeletons.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== =====<* CHALLENGE - Books Have Spines Does That Mean They Have Skeletons *>===== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A large number of skeletal remains lay on the floor in this room, heaped where they must have died. A terrifying disembodied laugh echoes and the skeletons lurch to life, rising to block your path, clawing at you with bony hands. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
========================<* Haunted Library - Round 2 *>========================= =======< Results - Books Have Spines Does That Mean They Have Skeletons >======= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cassidy Cain 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 5 --(10)--> 15 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Cassidy Cain 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Wound(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"It's a living," is Josie's answer about her life's work and apparent passion. "I suppose there are a number of us out here in the wastes, but you know how it is-- it helps having someone who knows where to go, how to excavate, and what's worth anything at the end of the day, don't you think?" She's grinning brightly. "Dug into a few ruins yourself, I see~ It's the unexpected element that really adds flavor to days of digging under the hot sun."
She pauses, as if for emphasis.
"Sometimes, there are even ghosts!"
...This is a plus, apparently, rather than a minus.
Well, a haunted ruin is a generally unexplored ruin.
"A few centuries, huh... Well, I suppose we could always split anything we find and see what the market asks. I tell you, I explored a warehouse ruin about a week or so ago, and do you know what we found?"
Here, Josie's cheer fades.
"Just boxes of mostly blank books. I was able to sell a few for scrap, but it was hardly worth it..." she laments.
She appears to be a very practical sort of archaeologist.
"So, armed to the teeth, I hope!" Josie calls back, the report of the rifle further adding to the disarray of noise echoing throughout the ruined library. If there's anything at all still in here, it probably knows they're there.
But it was already too late for the subtle approach by the time they knocked down the door.
The large-headed skeleton -- lower half apparently consisting of part of a horse or something, from the hooves -- moves swiftly; the bullet cracks home into a dust-riddled bookshelf far in the distance with a plume of debris. Josie mutters something foul, rolling back a step as she reloads.
Far more effective is the heavy chair. It rolls into the horde of skeletons like a bowling ball knocking down a full set of pins -- they scatter with a clatter.
...Their various mismatched limbs and other bits scatter too. They don't seem to be particularly into getting back up again.
Reholstering her firearm, Josie purposefully treads on one of the broken skeletal hands, grinding her heel as she goes.
"Sometimes~" she answers finally, a little too cheerfully for someone who has faced down a half-score of undead monsters. "It depends on how cursed or haunted a ruin is, you know? Once or twice they even have a thing to say about it. 'Whooo dares defile my grave~'" she trills out, wiggling the fingers of her left hand in an apparently spoooky fashion.
But the playful grin on her lips pulls a little more thoughtful.
"Hawthorne, huh?"
She glances back at Cassidy. "You wouldn't happen to be talking about a no-good womanizing ruins-robber, would you?" Her gaze hoods knowingly. "Hmmm~ What did you say your name was again?"
DG: Cassidy Cain has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =======================<* CHALLENGE - Riddling Ghost *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A cackling spirit appears amidst the seemingly endless shelves and challenges you to a game of riddles. If you can correctly answer enough of the spirit's difficult riddles, the spirit promises to guide you to a valuable treasure hidden among the stacks; if you fail it will follow you and hurl insults and ridicule your inferior intellect until it gets bored. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Treasure========================================
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Sometimes, there are even ghosts.
"Ay, I bet," Cassidy replies with a laugh, though to her credit, she doesn't sound skeptical. "Unwanted digging intae the bloody past's liable tae raise the head of angry spirits who've nae gotten over whatever it is they suffered. But I s'pose whatever keeps things fresh and exciting, ay? You've only got one life, after all."
This said while bones and skulls explode on impact, sent flying in different directions as the thief just keeps throwing furniture at the wave of undead skeletal beings attempt to overwhelm them, though she seems able enough to hold her own even without the presence of any fancy ARMs; save for her grenades, her three pistols and the innocuous looking knife sheathed on her hip, she doesn't appear to have a lot of fancy tools at her disposal.
With the danger dispersed, she dusts her hands off, angling a look over at the other woman. Her ghost impression earns her an appreciative grin. She always tends to get on with those with a sense of humor and unafraid to show it.
"Ever wonder why they open their hauntings that way?" she wonders. "You think being buried for however the fook long they'd come up with better material, or nae waste everyone's bloody time and just get tae the heart of the matter. Sommat like 'I'm here tae possess your body' or 'I'm nae trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me' or 'get off my unmentionables, you filthy fleshy pervert, just because I'm dead dinnae mean I'm immodest.' That sort of thing."
Her smiling companion picks up on the name, and the blonde turns her face her way, her own smile broadening slightly. "Ay, figured you might have heard of one another, given you're all in the same line of work. Though I would nae call him completely nae good. He's verra good at what he does." Mirth dances in her eyes. "Would nae be able tae comment on his womanizing, nae one tae judge, but that one kens his stuff. Speaking of, what's you're specialty, luv? Aside from kicking up ghosts, that is, though I s'pose you cannae be an archaeologist of any stripe if you dinnae ken that much."
What did you say your name was again?
Lips part to answer her when the room goes cold and another ghost appears - the spirit is a woman, dressed in a tattered dress, spectacles on the bridge of her nose broken on one lens, half her face disfigured from some malady or catastrophe; birth defect or fire, nobody can tell given the way her ectoplasm waves around her face. Her hair, what's left of it, is tied in a tight bun.
"Would you like to play a game?" she asks; her voice echoes eerily in the room.
"If I said nae, would you give us a bloody choice tae begin with?" the blonde wonders, slightly exasperated.
"Here is my bargain. If you can answer my riddle, I will guide you to treasure - knowledge from even beyond the Age of Collapse. But should you fail..."
"You will destroy us," Cassidy interjects dramatically. "And send us back tae the depths of Hell where we are doomed tae suffer tortures and lashings beyond the mortal ken for all eternity! WAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!"
Pause.
"...unfortunately," says the librarian ghost. "I'm not a high level enough of a spectre to promise you that, but I'm persistent and I'll probably just latch onto the both of you and scream infuriatingly inappropriate things about the feminine loins that birthed the both of you, and probably your choices in men."
"Well, that's annoying, though nae going tae lie, you'll probably be verra accurate in said choices in men."
"INDEED." The ghost librarian lifts her finger. "And now, the riddle:"
"The two of you walk up to a forest that has two paths. One leads to the other side of the waterfall that you intend to reach before sundon, and the other will get you lost among the forest spirits for all eternity. Two young boys, mirror images of one another, know the path that leads to the waterfall. Now, you can ask them only one question, except that one can only lie and one can only tell the truth, and you don't know which is which. So, what question would you ask?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Probably, because it sounds impressive? I suppose I wouldn't be able to help myself either if I were a ghost."
That's Josie's comment on the tone of hauntings. "But you know, I've thought about that," Josie comments airly, gesturing towards the bones littering their path. "My guess is that some people just can't let it go. I suppose living does that to some, this or that thing you can't leave behind you where it belongs..." Her lips curl into a half-smile. "Though that just makes me the worst of all, doesn't it? I can't even leave other people's business in the past where it belongs. Oh well, nobody's perfect~"
She takes the moment to get a better look at her companion for this library tour, taking in Cassidy's apparent lack of anything fancy -- explosives aside -- and her apparent favoring of the furniture rather than retrieving a secret minigun or unleashing sorcery upon the skeletons that got in their way.
Of course, the observant person would also note that she had quite capably handled those same skeletons, weapon or magic or no.
"I thought so. There's only so many archaeologists and the like running around with that sort of name, and he has a way of making himself..." Josie gestures vaguely. "Available." Dark eyes tilt towards Cassidy in an almost 'what can you do' fashion. "Oh, yes, I know he's very good at what he does, since he's one of the few people I could find with his specialty." Her shoulders rise and fall. "It's so hard to find a linguist these days..." She somehow keeps a straight face.
"Me? This and that, but I'd like to think I've been making a name for myself on Zeboim tilework. I've even written a few papers! ...Before the money dried up, that is. What about you? I guess you're not one our special little circle of dirt-diggers, are you?"
She asks Cassidy her name.
There is a pause. A silencing chill sweeps over the room.
So, speaking of ghosts, as it were...
Josie's dark-eyed gaze tilts over to the spectral remnants of the librarian. Her forehead wrinkles faintly. A fire, perhaps...?
Her mild reaction -- perhaps this isn't the first or last fell spectre to cross her path like so -- comes in contrast to the bird on her shoulder.
Penelope erupts in a plume of feathers, fluffing up so mightily that she's nearly spherical.
This, too, is apparently normal; Josie doesn't so much as glance at the puffed-up bird.
"Well, at least she's asking first," runs her commentary on the promise of a 'game' from the ghostly librarian.
...Her lips quirk in a barely-stifled attempt to not just bust out with a laugh. "Wouldn't be the first time--"
Only to regard the spirit with a tilt of the head and raised eyebrows -- as if acknowledging that something was unexpected, but fair. "I don't suppose you could change it to comments about my father? I never knew my mother, you see, so it wouldn't be fair to you to float around insulting her only for me to shrug it off..." The fact that she's too solemly serious when she says this though may give the ploy away.
But in any case, they've been faced with a riddle.
"Just one question, is it... tricky, tricky. Hmm... Easy. Ask one of the boy's if he's ly--OW!"
That was a foolish guess, and thus, Penelope, ire already raised by the spirit's presence, has dutifully bitten Josie on the ear.
The pigeon hasn't let go, pressure increasing dutifully on the earlobe caught in her beak. Josie winces as she attempts to dislodge her disloyal companion's determined grasp.
Maybe someone else needs to try this one.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Penelope toward her party's challenge, Riddling Ghost. DG: Cassidy Cain has used her Tool Pocket Lighter toward her party's challenge, Riddling Ghost.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =======================<* CHALLENGE - Riddling Ghost *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A cackling spirit appears amidst the seemingly endless shelves and challenges you to a game of riddles. If you can correctly answer enough of the spirit's difficult riddles, the spirit promises to guide you to a valuable treasure hidden among the stacks; if you fail it will follow you and hurl insults and ridicule your inferior intellect until it gets bored. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Treasure========================================
=======================<* Haunted Library - Round 3 *>======================== =========================< Results - Riddling Ghost >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cassidy Cain 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Pocket Lighter 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Penelope 3 Wits Effects: Resilient and Liabili ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Cassidy Cain 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Stupify(2)|Treasure(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Through her decimation of skeletons, the pale-tressed woman moves with the practiced agility of one who isn't averse or a stranger to dangerous situations, seemingly oblivious to the way the white-haired woman's eyes observer her even with the pops of the intimidating-looking ARM she wields. Where do these archaeologists get all their wonderful toys?
She laughs at the remark on ghosts. "I can think of other things I'd rather be doing if I were a spirit doomed tae walk the earth even after my death," Cassidy tells Josephine, giving her a sidelong glance. The devil's own mischief curls along the line of her smile, imprinted there as if a permanent thing. "Would nae be lingering around the site of my death, that's for sure. Heard stories in the far east about the kinds that latch ontae people's backs, tae be carried off tae stars-know-where. Though I s'pose it's up tae how masochistic a spirit is, dinnae think all of them would like tae be reminded of the shite they're missing."
Josephine's remarks about letting go, and the difficulty of it, resonate - the woman hardly knows her, but she tosses the accidental barb unerringly in the wind. It lends an edged quality to her smile, dancing along the razor's edge of humored and not; it's a question she has asked herself many times, one of the few questions she has asked herself in terms of her own character, wondering why it's so easy for her to leave things and people behind, but so difficult for her to let them go. For a woman who uses words as her primary and preferred weapons, it is an eternal conundrum - there is certainly a difference between the two, from where she is standing.
"Well, seems tae me that you're just a lass who relishes making things interesting for everyone," she tells her instead. "Cannae say I dinnae ken what it's like." She has practically made a career doing the very same. "Perhaps we've more in common than at first blush, Miss...?"
She, too, prompts for a name.
But whatever else she has to say about Noah, she is prevented from providing her opinion as well as her own name by the ghost that appears. Tabling all issues for the moment, she fishes out a lighter from her pocket, a small, silver and well-loved thing, made distinct by the delicate engraving of an ouroboros on the front plate, scratched as it is by countless adventures, tiny sapphire snake eyes catching stray light slipping through the slats of broken windows. A cigarette finds her lips, her thumb striking the flint. She spend the next few moments in silent contemplation, watching the way Penelope clips her beak against Josie's ear.
"Fascinating choice for a pet. Another associate of mine's got a sand cat." Another familiar mention, doesn't Morgan Newkirk have one of those? "Noah's got a ferret." A ferret she bought that the dark-haired archaeologist appropriated for his own.
"My new best friend's got sommat there," the conwoman says, cheeks hollowing out to deeply inhale of her cigarette. "Would refine that tae asking both lads 'What would the other one say?' Would work, methinks. Let's say the correct path lies on the left, ay? And you ask the lying sonuvabitch what he thinks his other half would say. The liar would know the truthful one would say it's on the left, so he would say the correct path's the right one. The truthful one, however, would nae lie, but he would also ken that the other one would be lying so he would say the same thing, that the path would be on the right, because that's what the liar would say. So we would ken that the correct path's on the left."
The ghost librarian frowns visibly, drifting closer to both women. She peers at Josephine and her bird, and then the blonde woman. After a few moments of silence, she huffs.
"Correct," she mutters, a grudging note to the eerie tones. "Come and follow me, then." With a sniff, the tattered spirit turns around, to drift further into the building.
The blonde smiles blithely, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "Ay, before Noah, dinnae come across anyone with that specific specialty, mind. Though dinnae come across anyone who specialize in Zeboim tiles, either. Sounds verra specialized, then. Would nae ken an authentic one from a forgery, but that would nae be surprising. As you say, nae exactly part of your august company of academics. My specialty lies in other areas."
Another step into the darkness and she pauses, turning to look at Josie. The cherry-red ember of her cigarette burns like a single infernal eye in the darkness, silhouetting her pale features. The golden shards in her otherwise virid stare glitter like a cat's in the dark.
"Name's Cassidy Cain," she tells Josephine. "A fine day tae meet a colleague of Noah's. Dinnae ken him long, but it dinnae take a lot of time for the likes of us tae get in a shite-ton of trouble together. So how do you ken the ridiciulous bastard anyway?"
The classic case of pot calling the kettle black.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Shut the Door! *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You're traversing a series of small rooms, most likely once reading chambers. The skeletal remains of what appear to be a group of Drifters like yourselves lie against the wall of one of the rooms, puzzling you slightly, when from behind you comes the sound of a door slamming shut in the distance. Then, another, closer--the doors behind you are shutting in sequence! There are still several rooms between you and the stairway ahead--can you make it to the stairway before the doors close on you, too, leaving you to await a terrible fate? =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Lovelace. Josephine Lovelace," comes the response, in those errant seconds before they receive an unexpected spectral guest. "But please, call me Josie."
And in the seconds after the rules of the game are posed to them, there are perhaps other concerns than asking Cassidy her name again. Like her bird, still relentlessly attacking her earlobe.
PENELOPE HAS DRAWN BLOOD HERE THIS DAY!!
"Sand... cat? You don't say," hisses out the archaeologist, attempting to one-handedly prise the bird loose. "Seems like -- Penelope, let go or I will wring your neck."
The pigeon finally lets go a few moments after that ultimatum, hops on over a few inches and settles down to squint darkly at the spirit. Pressing a suddenly produced handkerchief to the wound, Josie mutters something foul under her breath before adding, "Seems like sand cats are as common as foxes these days..." An idle comment, paired with a rather knowing glance. Maybe logic puzzles aren't quite her forte, but she's as sharp as a tack when it comes to piecing together disparate clues.
Which might be why she settles back once Cassidy starts down the path towards the proper answer to the riddle, one pale eyebrow lifting as Cassidy navigates the narrow and twisty paths of the logic of obligate liars and truthtellers both. Poor ex-librarian, she may have to await other reckless fools before she gets to get her haunt on.
Josie just grins at the ghost.
"Hmm, not bad," Josie comments to her library-robbing companion, as they trek on after the spirit, slipping the stained cloth back into the depths of some pocket. "Though, aren't we supposed to ask a riddle too?" she asks of the spirit. One look at her face would suffice: that twisting smile can only belong to someone about to attempt to be a pain in the neck. She claps her hands together as if something's come to mind. "Oh, I know. What's the difference between a lion and a comma?"
Maybe the intent is to provoke their spiritly guide to finally let go and move on by reminding her how annoying people can be.
There had been bones before in the entry of the library. There are more bones here now, scattered here and there as they progress through the chambers.
The conversation tilts back towards Josie's are of study. "It's a very narrow field," she answers, that half-smile still on her lips. "I suppose, you could say it's a field of one? Though, I really should ask you your name first, you know." Her dark eyes hood as she glances Cassidy over once again. "Maybe I'm the only one with my exact specialty, but it really would be a shame if you were working with one of my rivals in the greater study of Zeboim archaeological fieldwork." She sighs overdramatically and rolls both shoulders in a shrug. "Academia is so cut-throat these days..."
She receives a name.
There's a low whistle. "Long Con Cassidy, in the flesh? Well, well. Considering what Noah's said about you, I suppose that might just make us partners by proxy." She pauses in her trek for a moment, as if to take the blonde woman in properly, this time around. "And that makes two people we mutually know by now, doesn't it? I don't suppose you know, oh... any journalists?"
"Because I know a red-haired journalist who still owes me a damn mule--"
Josie cuts herself off abruptly, raising a hand as she glances back at the ghost librarian.
Who is no longer there, having apparently vanished back into the ether. In the distance behind them, a door slams shut. Followed by another, and another, and another--
"Son of a bitch!"
Josie reaches out and grabs for Cassidy's arm before moving to leg it towards the stairs ahead as the doors continue to close tight behind them. "That's the last time I trust a ghost!"
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Shut the Door!.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Please call me Josie.
That and her comment about foxes has the blonde pausing in her tracks for just a moment, Cassidy angling her head and giving her companion a more scrutinizing glance. And then, a smile tugs up the corners of her mouth. "Aha," she murmurs. "So you're Josie. Nae gonna lie, lass, you've come up, some mischief or another. Take it you ken Morgan, then? Should nae be surprised, man kens practically every lass from here tae Aquvy. Been married about fifteen times. You're nae one of his wives, are you?"
She catches on what the white-haired archaeologist is getting at quickly as the ghost librarian leads the way. The tattered ghost only chuffs at the other woman, though she seems to balk when they arrive in the next room. And so they will never know the difference between a lion and a comma; the phantasm lets out a loud shriek before she twists into herself and vanishes.
"...the bloody hell...?" the blonde mutters, before peering into the next room...just as the door slams shut behind them.
There's a pause as another door shuts and another, and...
"Fook me running!" she exclaims once Josie grabs her arm, taking off like a shot, running alongside her as the haunted library decides it has had enough of both women's shenanigans as it attempts to trap them within its rotting confines, perhaps forever.
"Nae a rival I assure you!" She hurdles over scattered furniture, tumbles over the floor and launching herself back up, air expelled by shutting appendages behind her brushing against the back of her neck. "Have better...things...tae do with my time than....scrabbling about in the bloody dirt...this...little excursion's just a bloody flu-- "
The door directly before them slams shut. Not pausing for even a second, the thief twists to hurtle herself through the adjacent doorway. Though whatever advantage she has would be nullified in the moment, at least when it comes to introductions, for the archaeologist proves that she, too, is a woman of information. 'Long Con' is an appellation known to certain circles and none of them strictly legal. The realization earns Josie a sudden laugh. "Nae exactly a school marm are you, lass?" she wonders, breathless. "What a naughty, naughty one you are, acquainting yourself tae such a rough crowd."
But with Academia being such a cutthroat world these days, it's probably not surprising. Josie's probably had to make those connections out of necessity. Filgaia has only become more dangerous in the last few years.
Mentions of a red-haired journalist hardly breaks her stride; she tends to carry pieces of those who have very specific associations with her, but Jude's is presently missing on her person, having left the string of bloodstained pearls he had given her in his possession before she had left for parts unknown to pursue her own inquiries on a few pieces of personal business. Now the woman's name is even more familiar, recalling Jude's published article on her work.
But...
"Ken of him, ay," Cassidy says from between breathless puffs. "A married couple by the name of Leon and Lily ran intae a spot of trouble with the lad, for some reason they thought I would have information on him. Be honest with me, Josie, do I look like I ken everything? Because random people seem tae like tracking me down for the sake of asking me questions I would nae ken most of the answers tae. Curious fellow, is he nae? Who..." She narrowly manages to dive through another door. "...ever heard of...a reporter who...moonlights as a bounty hunter...? It's nae like there's nae anything tae...bloody write about...in this godforsaken planet!"
Puff. Wheeze. Ugh, maybe she ought to cut down on her smoking?
...nah.
"How did he end up owing you an ass?"
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Shut the Door!.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Shut the Door! *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You're traversing a series of small rooms, most likely once reading chambers. The skeletal remains of what appear to be a group of Drifters like yourselves lie against the wall of one of the rooms, puzzling you slightly, when from behind you comes the sound of a door slamming shut in the distance. Then, another, closer--the doors behind you are shutting in sequence! There are still several rooms between you and the stairway ahead--can you make it to the stairway before the doors close on you, too, leaving you to await a terrible fate? =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
========================<* Haunted Library - Round 4 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Shut the Door! >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cassidy Cain 15 --(5)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Cassidy Cain 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Stupify(1)|Tire(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Of course I do, Noah introduced us." She sniffs, overtheatrically. "Unlike some other men I could name, he knows how to treat a woman." Though the rest of this information earns Cassidy a raised eyebrow. "Has he? Hmm," she murmurs, perhaps filing away this tidbit for future use. "Haven't been married a day in my life~" the archaeologist proclaims. "Though I suppose if he kept out of my hair he wouldn't be too bad..."
This is before the library decides that it's had it with its current Drifter infestation and opts to try and eat them all alive. Or whatever is going on, precisely, as doors slam shut and the whole place seems like it's locking itself down.
No way but forward. Josie legs it with Cassidy in tow, Penelope opting at some point during the shenanigans to plunge for the back collar of her longcoat and bury herself there.
Bones crunch underfoot. More than once she has to leap a hurdle of sorts in the form of scattered books... or whatever that dark thing back there was.
Some things should not be named.
"Well--"
That better not be a closing door ahead.
"--that's--"
That was a closing door ahead.
"--good--"
Hard bank to the right.
"--to know! I've had enough academic sabotage for one lifetime!"
Point in fact, perhaps, for the necessity of Josie's choice of circles. As if their list of shared acquaintances weren't proof enough. Naughty, naughty, indeed. In spite of running a little fifty-yard dash here, Josie barks out a wheeze of a laugh. "That's me-- a regular reprobate," she gasps out, ducking low and hauling Cassidy along with the motion as the latest door attempts to pin them in one of the dark reading rooms. "You know-- how it is-- one day you're publishing papers--"
The stairs are just ahead.
"--Next, you're selling priceless artifacts to make a few gella. I'm not sure how it happened!" Honest.
And there at last, the stairs--
The last door slams closed just as they arrive on the bottom step. Josie leans against the railing for a moment, wheezing out a breath. Cassidy's not the only one who might want to consider quitting...
Though a pair of names forces Josie upright from her slouch. "...You're kidding me. You know those kids, too?" As if to ask silently what sort of planet this even is, she gestures open-armed towards the ceiling. "I guess it's a small world after all." Her lips quirk in that halfsmile once again. "I don't know. You might want to try a whirl at being an information broker at this rate or something, Cassidy. It seems like you know almost everyone I know. I don't suppose you know about, oh..."
Josie pauses, frowning faintly before plucking a description from the depths of her mind.
"Blue-eyed men with a penchant for stabbing poor innocent travelers?"
It's a long shot.
Josie leans back against the railing again, then shakes her head. "So, don't tell me. Jude came to you asking about Lily and Leon too, right?"
Pausing a moment as she glances up the staircase, she adds, "I gave him a light once." ...As if that explains why he owes her a mule.
DG: Cassidy Cain has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Endless Stairs *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The stairway up to the library tower is ahead. It stretches on seemingly endlessly, doubtless due to some otherworldly weirdness. You'll have to climb, and climb, and climb to the top. Some parts of the stairway have collapsed - you'll need to leap across, or carefully edge your way up. No one said this would be easy. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
I'm not sure how it happened!
"Do you? I can make a few guesses!"
Cassidy is unable to say anything else, at least for the next few moments - too busy making sure they aren't trapped in these hauned hallways for all eternity, light emanates from the end of the proverbial tunnel. She hurls herself along with the taller woman through the doorway, the appendage slamming shut and ending their mad dash through the dessicated innards of the building with a caverous sound. A hand reaches out for the banister of the stairs before them, stretching out in a seemingly endless fashion to the second floor landing above them, taking several deep breaths.
You know those kids, too?
"Well, nae surprised that you ken Lily, that little troublemaker gets around." Another case of the pot calling the kettle black. "But ay, I ken them both." A small world indeed, hadn't she just explained it to Leon most recently? That the world seems large and vast, but it only takes running into a familiar face to realize just how small it truly is. Straightening up, she takes a breath, and upon looking around to ensure no more undead are after them, she starts climbing the stairs in a more sedate pace.
"That line of work's more trouble than it's bloody worth," she says with a smirk. "Would nae trade in information if I can help it. Could you imagine? You'd never get a single moment's rest, all these bastards from here tae kingdom come knocking on your doors and windows, demanding answers like you owe them sommat. Nae thanks."
Blue eyed men with a penchant for stabbing poor travelers?
"Managed tae escape that one in Lacour," she supplies, as casual as can be, as if she isn't speaking about a serial killer whose infamy is steadily growing in Western Ignas. "What, dinnae tell me he nearly killed you."
A few more steps and she starts to frown; she doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.
"Ran intae him once or twice, some manner of shady business or another. Dinnae ask me about them, nae, but sommat happened tae a church that he wanted tae ask about and-- "
Pause.
"Are you bloody fookin' kidding me?!" she cries, pointing accusingly at the shadows. "Who the fook builds a stairs tae bloody nowhere?! This is nae functional at all and gives absolutely nae value tae the property! You oughtae have your interior decorator fired! -- if he's still alive..."
Impatiently, she vaults on the banister itself and starts running along it. "Come on, lass. Sommat tells me this is another bloody trick, methinks we ought tae take the stairs out of this stupid equation."
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Endless Stairs.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Kiddo's not such a bad one once you get to know her. Prickly as a cactus, needs to relax a little, but she's not too bad," Josie remarks, with obvious fondness. No, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that Josie and Lily not only know each other but get along. Probably they're the only ones relentless enough to cope with each other's shortcomings and complain endlessly about the other at the same time.
"...Haven't seen her in a while, though. Hope she hasn't gotten herself killed..."
Case in point.
On the subject of information brokering, Josie appears to consider this in silence for a moment or twelve before she begins to ascend the steps. "Hmm. Point, point, I guess. I guess I can see what you mean. It might be a bit of a pain if I was just trying to take the day off and people were coming around to ask questions all hours. Then again," she suggests with a shrug, "That just means I'd charge them triple."
How pragmatic.
Here, Josie's until-now nearly indefatigable cheeriness fades. "You too, huh? Fengalon's breath, that makes at least two, three people he's gone after by now. ...You got it in one. All I'd been doing was traveling about, and here this asshole comes and puts a brand new hole in me. Luckily it wasn't something fatal, or I'd be like our librarian friend back there, but..." Her gaze narrows. "Let's just say it's tit for tat, if I see him again. I'm not letting that slide." It's a grim promise, if there ever was one.
Hmm, so that wasn't what Jude was after? Josie tilts her head to one side, but says nothing, as if waiting for Cassidy to continue.
Until she sees it too. "...Fengalon's teeth," the archaeologist swears.
There's something to be said for balking once she finds there are no steps to be had at all after a certain point. Dark eyes flicker hither and yon, in search of any way forward at all--
Josie is impulsive.
Josie's never met a suggestion, one would near-rightly assume, that she's said no to. Hauling herself up onehandedly onto the bannister, she's quick to join Cassidy atop it. Possibly not a bad plan at that, either, considering the condition of the steps. "On it! Now, let's try not to fall off. It's a long way down~"
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Endless Stairs.
============================<* Haunted Library *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Endless Stairs *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The stairway up to the library tower is ahead. It stretches on seemingly endlessly, doubtless due to some otherworldly weirdness. You'll have to climb, and climb, and climb to the top. Some parts of the stairway have collapsed - you'll need to leap across, or carefully edge your way up. No one said this would be easy. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
=======================<* Haunted Library - Round 5 *>======================== =======================< Results - The Endless Stairs >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cassidy Cain 20 --(33)--> 53 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 25 --(33)--> 58 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Cassidy Cain 80 --(0)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Tire(1) Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain has failed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Hope she hasn't gotten herself killed...
"Ay, well. Between you and me, lass, methinks if she is nae now, she will eventually. Told her verra recently that for a healthcare professional, she certainly gets in enough situations tae warrant one."
Charging people triple has Cassidy laughing in spite of herself. "I appreciate that, lass. I s'pose in my advanced age, it's less about the gella now and more for the challenge of it. Competition's vicious in my side of the world too, y'ken. Got tae stand out and make sure the reputation's stellar before..."
Something clicks; the sound is thunderous, echoing through the relatively silent halls of the library. The blonde is forced to pause on her own uphill climb.
"....fook me."
The staircase suddenly folds within itself, forcing both women to tumble into its center, stairs flattening by way of centuries-old wheels and gears and forcing them to not just slide down, but to meet the very end of a sudden trap on the floor that opens up, abyssal darkness waiting for them in the underbellies of the library.
"What?!" she shrieks, visibly enraged. "WHAT?!"
All discussions about every single mutual acquaintance they have are forgotten for a moment when they reach the end of the slide and find nothing but air, reaching the apex of their launch, before plummeting into the darkness below...
...they impact the floor, clouds of dust and cobwebs exploding upwards, coating their clothes and clinging into their hair. At least one of them escapes unscathed - Penelope, after all, can fly.
The pale-tressed conwoman coughs somewhere in the darkness.
"....s'pose at this point, there's going tae be a line out the door with people trying tae flay strip out of Blue Eyes' hide. Take it you ken the other victims, too? Lily, you...what about Gwen bloody Whitlock, you ken her too?"
At this point, she would not be surprised.
She groans as she picks herself off the ground, dusting off her jackets, feeling the sting of reopened injuries. Fishing out her lighter, she strikes the flint, the single tongue of flame poorly illuminating their surroundings to reveal another library underneath a library.
"...just how many libraries are in this god damn place," she mutters, reaching down with a hand to help Josie up. "Come on, lass, up you get, there's..."
The mound - constructed from a large pile of books in the middle of the room - starts to shift.
Her expression flattens immediately.
"Tell me I imagined that," she tells Josie.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Book Golem *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This room has had the shelves shoved against the walls and all the books piled haphazardly into a mound in the center. As you enter, the mound stirs, rising into a towering construct of books and ghostly magic. The massive book golem raises a tremendous arm and swings it down, splintering a bookshelf that had been lying on the floor beneath it into so much kindling. Then it turns to face you, eldritch light glowing where its eyes would be. Fight for your lives! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
At that, Josie can only sigh. Long-sufferingly. "You and me both," she mutters. "That girl..."
But Lily is not nearly as here-and-now as the topic of charging people triple for the privledge of information.
Or, rather, the subject of age. "Oh, come on, you can't be nearly as old as I am," Josie counters, balancing herself carefully as she finds her footing on the railing. "Anyway, think of it as a retirement plan someday. Can't be enough competition in little old ladies who know too much--"
Something clicks. Cassidy isn't the only one who pauses, uncertainly, atop the bannister. "That's not--"
Oh, it is. It is.
There is screaming.
There is also a traitorous abandonment -- a blur of white erupts from the back of Josie's coat as Penelope jettisons herself to safety. Alone.
And there is a very, very long fall.
Josie twitches where she lies in the pile of books. From on high, Penelope descends slowly to perch up high on a loose beam atop the shaft they've fallen down.
...Wherever this is. It honestly looks like some kind of book purgatory, broken and discarded shelving shoved here, there, and everywhere, with the huge pile of discarded, bent, and otherwise gently-used books piled high in the center. Somewhere from far above, light shines downwards in a dim shaft.
She opens her eyes once, then closes them again, pressing her left hand against her face. "Some of 'em, I guess... urgh. The courier? I've met her once or twice..."
Josie groans, finally picking herself up from the pile.
Josie... then slides right off the pile.
...Since the pile is busily picking itself up.
"...What the..."
Even a well-traveled archaeologist can be caught agape, it seems. Dark eyes trail slowly at the mound of books as it rises, roughly forming human shape, eyes hideously aglow with an inner light. "A... huh. I don't think you imagined that--"
She scrambles to her feet, dodging nimbly out of the way of pounding fist the construct drives at her and ducks low, circling around it in a wide arc. Fingers and lips move, running through the motions of a spell; electrical light spirals down around her left arm and the scent of ozone wafts through the air. "You know, I always said academia would be the death of me, but this is a little on the nose--"
Overhand, she hurls the conjured lightning spear at the golem.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Book Golem.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Well, she's definitely not surprised that Josie knows Gwen Whitlock, also. Deep down, she wonders whether everyone they know was holding out on them; was there some cosmic conspiracy at work to prevent the two of them from meeting? If so, why? It's not like things will explode, dead will rise and monsters reveal themselves from the deep when they're together in one room...
The book golem looms over them once they've managed to pick themselves up. Constructed of worn leather spines and pages clung with rot and mold, it smells like moisture and decay. It makes her wrinkle her nose.
"Ach, well, this place can go to the darkest depths of Hell!" Cassidy rants. "These are just books! Nae any harm came out of reading a boo-- "
The book golem shrieks, a loud deafening roar spilling from its 'mouth', or whatever the hole is in the middle of its face. It's lurid tongue flaps out, printed as it is with faded profane images, folded from an old copy of the Kama Sutra. Page sixty-nine.
The Butter Churn position.
It is the last thing she expects to, quite literally, come out of the monster's mouth.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, Cassidy Cain suddenly bursts out laughing. She absolutely loses her shit. And Josephine's quip doesn't help, hearing it only makes her laugh harder, a hand clutching helplessly on her side and the bleeding bandages within, staggering backwards as she fumbles for her engraved revolver.
Obviously, setting it on fire is not an option - not this time, anyway. There's too much kindling around, and while she is not opposed to killing things that try to kill her, she doesn't want to create her own pyre today. And while she's not above setting herself on fire to get out of a scrape, and has in fact done this before, she hurts way too much to willingly add onto her already extensive list of hurts.
"Fook me," she gasps around her laughter. "Doing this shite only gets more ridiculous the more I decide tae."
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Book Golem.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Book Golem *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This room has had the shelves shoved against the walls and all the books piled haphazardly into a mound in the center. As you enter, the mound stirs, rising into a towering construct of books and ghostly magic. The massive book golem raises a tremendous arm and swings it down, splintering a bookshelf that had been lying on the floor beneath it into so much kindling. Then it turns to face you, eldritch light glowing where its eyes would be. Fight for your lives! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
========================<* Haunted Library - Round 6 *>========================= ============================< Results - Book Golem >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cassidy Cain 53 --(100)--> 153 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 58 --(100)--> 158 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Cassidy Cain 80 --(10)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Cassidy Cain is too exhausted to continue! DG: Josephine Lovelace 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 Cassidy Cain has been fully Exhausted by Haunted Library! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
=============================<* Haunted Library *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Run Run Run! *>========================= |Type: Escape |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- That's it! You've had enough! It's time to turn tail and flee back the way you came! Disembodied voices mock you and spectral laughter follows you throughout the library as you flee in terror and shame. This is not your finest hour, and probably not a tale you'll want to share with others. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Suffer===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
This has actually gone beyond being amusing or funny and has plunged on straight towards 'outright weird'. Is she going to find that Cassidy sometimes frequents a budding young mechanic and her golem? Knows a martial artist who is a little too good at killing?
Is there a joke she's just not been let in on here?
There may be somewhat more looming concerns at the moment, though. A horrible shriek echoes across the library-within-a-library as it rolls -- electrical lance shot going wide to disperse itself into the far wall in a shower of sparks that smolder only to go dark in the damp -- to face Josie despite her attempt to kite around it, and staring into the mouth of the beast, at a lolling tongue, Josie...
Kind of tilts her head to one side and stares, a curl of a smile on her lips.
There's just a point where you can't help but be faintly impressed.
Or perhaps contemplating other more pragmatic concerns, namely: "Is that a first edition copy? You know, even if it's been in a monster's mouth, that's worth quite a lot on the market--"
She's forced to dodge before she can speculate overlong on the value of a section of a pornographic illuminated text that used to be a golem's tongue on the bibliophile black market, the golem coming in a headlong charge towards her as Cassidy makes to pepper it with bullets.
Like a bull (in a bookstore?), the golem -- enraged -- rushes towards... the wall.
It might be a golem, but its body's still just books.
In what is probably the least satisfying denouement either of them have ever been present for, there is now a pile of books, a hole in the wall... and a faint coo from up on high.
Penelope, of course.
Josie reaches up to rub at the back of her neck.
"You know what?" she decides after a moment or two of staring and glancing around the little chamber they'd fallen into. "I don't want to find out what else is in here anymore."
She jerks a thumb towards the hole in the wall. "Want to get out of here?"
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
As the book golem charges, Cassidy is forced to dodge, training her revolver to its back with a shaking grip. She's still laughing, because it is always her primary defense mechanism when things become too strange, even for her. And she's left staring at its wake, when it keeps going, and going and going...
...and destroys itself when it crashes into a wall, exploding into a shower of rotten leather and ruined pages. The thief drops on her knees, nearly losing her gun, wrapping her arms around her stomach instead. There doesn't seem to be an end to her fetterless and slightly unhinged outpour of mirth. Tears glisten at the corners of those green-gold eyes.
Finally, it dwindles down. She struggles on her feet, choking back another gale, wiping her eyes with the back of her knuckles. Pale cheeks stained with the slightest hint of pink, she turns towards her present companion, glancing at the bird that coos at them. "Ay, well. Smartest member of the party, are you? It's always the god damn birds."
I don't want to find out what else is in here anymore.
"Ay, same here." She swallows another snicker, gesturing to the ruined pile of books. "Besides, sommat tells em that we found the best part anyway."
Taking several steps closer to the ruined of knowledge strewn at their feet, she takes a knee, fingers brushing over a dusty cover. Scrutinizing the title, she lifts her brows a bit before she picks it up and tucks the small book at the inner pocket of her jacket.
"Let's go," she affirms, falling a step next to Josie as both women start to pick their way through the hole in the wall. "It's a long haul tae civilization. Hopefully we'll be able tae find a passing caravan this time of night..."