2017-12-15: Deep and Pale and Frigid
- Log: Deep and Pale and Frigid
- Cast: Elhaym van Houten, Lily Keil, Fei Fong Wong, Hiro, Avril Vent Fleur, Fenrir
- Where: Hadal Temple
- Date: December 15th 2017
- Summary: In the aftermath of the attempt to seal the statue, a group finds themselves in the mysterious and foul Hadal Temple. Hiro and Ruby see. Lily hears a noise. Elly shows everyone the power. Fei makes a confession. Fenrir lends a hand. Avril calls upon a friend.
DG: A party led by Elhaym van Houten is now entering Hadal Temple. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Flow of the Deep *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Devour and destroy... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. You could manipulate the water wheel shrouded in eyes and tendrils near you to push water into the other cistern and trap them, but it's quite the complex mechanism -- be careful, or you might well push water into your side of the bank. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Something screams deep within the bowels of the depths, and Elly van Houten knows how it feels.
The thing about Elly is that even as she surges in past the fleshsome doors, even as she misses the dimming light and the wails of dismay of those who attend to the will of the Guardians, however problematic and crotchety - she is not in the mood to listen right now. Her thoughts before she entered this hot burning realm were ones of fear and loss.
She walks with a stiff bantam strut as she gets in deeper, the cold and dank air as her eyes dart around. It almost seems as if she is glowing.
The Deep Soldiers stand below them, spreading out in the cistern. Elly comes to the lip of the cistern and a screeching gash in her soul quavers and wails, pain half forgotton rising upwards as she looks down at them. Her lip curls.
"Surface-dwe-- no, you're not EVEN surface-dwellers. Worms!" Elly shrieks down at the soldiers. "Maggots! Salamanders! WHERE IS HE? You are going to tell me where he went this very moment or I am going to FIX YOUR WAGON!" Her left hand sweeps around with a gloved flourish and live crackling energy snaps out to gather around part of the waterwheel, making a latching mechanism creak, snap - then clank back into place as Elly glares at it, her eyes trembling.
The live blue energy, an impossibly dense, almost palpable if blessedly not-enormous plasma of raw etheric distortion, crawls up into the device. "All I have to do is look at you and see how you're going to DIE!" she shouts downwards, voice hot and grating. "Your lives are measured in the time it takes me to open this up!"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily chants. ...Lily falls. Down, down into the depths, past the monster and into the abyss. She hits stone hard, rolling to absorb the impact and tucking the Sealing Rod against herself to protect it. Her ARM clatters against the ground, pressed against blood from her side. She's bruised, tired enough that her muscles ache already from her fall and from her wounds and from exertion... and here, in the temple, when the scream echoes from the depths. The scream--
And the voice. Devour, and destroy, it says, sinking into her mind as if it's an invader and her own thought at once. Golden eyes snap upward as, letting the pain fuel her, the black-haired sorceress looks up and around. A gloved hand contracts like a claw as she pushes herself upward, spotting... cretures. Graceful, bizarre. And--
Elly. Shrieking. Maybe she heard the voice too. Lily's eyes snap to her, search for differencews, search for explanation of this particular change of demeanor. ...Sure, it might be that they haven't spotted Fei yet. It might. ...But that level of rage... Lily thinks of it, as she waves her hand and a red glow envelops her.
Lily remembers the primordial scream she heard. She remembers the sound of it, echoing dully against her ears, and drags herself to her feet, eyeing the monsters and the cistern. They could trap--
Lily stops. Her eyes widen, as she sees something horrific, something wrong, something that should not be present. Anyone looking at her could see the shock in the pale woman's expression at first, and for long moments still she remains frozen, looking at it. The wheel...
She takes a step back, looks for an alternative. "What--" Elly's power starts to work it. It does not help, as far as Lily is concerned, and she finds no alternatives herself. ...She pulls her satchel suddenly, flipping through to a part of her manual that covers mechanics. HEre, and here, and...
She'll have to...
Lily stares again at the hand, and grits her teeth. She puts away her notebook.... and abrubtly with a glow of flickering flame-like light from her arm at her torn left sleeve, Lily's hands ignite. She grits her teeth as she starts to work the wheel.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Notebook toward her party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei was frankly knocked out for a bit when he hit the ground.
He dreamed.
ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO
White lotus blossoms drift upon the muddied waters of a reflecting pool. Around it, the hazy memory of some vast structure--once grand, now all charred beams and tumbled-down brick. The woman with the gauntlet is here, tired and dirty and looking like she hasn't slept in days. Behind her, in the distance, is an ancient graveyard that now bears fresh graves. The two of them buried as many of the dead as they could. She hadn't been back here for more than a year, and she'd left without tending to the fallen. It was eating at her the entire time.
"Now you see," the woman says. She doesn't look at him--she stares into the muddy reflecting pool, at the lotus blossoms. "Now you see why I hate them. This was my home. This was the second home I lost to them--the second family."
She trails off into silence. Snow starts to fall, landing on the blossoms in the pool. Somehow, the water hasn't frozen over.
I
The woman stands in the snow in front of a freshly-built cairn.
hate
The woman with the gauntlet looks down at someone who could pass for a human, if not for the steadily-expanding pool of quicksilver blood beneath him. She places a white lotus blossom on the body as a calling card.
them.
A giant stops mid-stride, stares down at them--as though it's caught them. Artillery fire sails over a distant horizon, slamming into it in plumes of flame, but it does not budge. It looks very much like the one he saw at the dig site, but whole.
White lotus blossoms drift upon the waters.
NOW
Fei's eyes jolt open. A dream with that woman again. He sits up and rubs at his bruised skull before he sees something moving in the darkness. He freezes.
Monsters. Creepy monsters. He doesn't have time to reflect on the past right now--the present is dangerous enough. He sees the water wheel and rushes for it, quickly studying his notes on architecture to see if there's something that might help move the wheel, but very quickly indeed because soon he's pulling and twisting at it. He either doesn't notice the EYES AND TENDRILS or he doesn't care.
He spots--and hears--Elly shortly before he gets going. "Elly! You're okay! That's great!" He laughs, relieved. "We couldn't--we weren't able to save the statue!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Hiro awakened to the tiny slaps of precious pink pawsies, "Ugh-" But he stayed awake due to the screech that he can hear with senses that he didn't know he had. Jolting himself back up- "Okay I'm alive... I'mmmm alive..." "Good good- now our top priority is staying that way."
Limping to his feet out of the rubble for his fall, he feels his way along the wall - holding his side with his other hand.
Until he hears shouting - and then rounding the bend - Oh there's Elly.
Now normally he'd be a little excited to see someone recognizable alive- despite his current state, despite the horrors of the deep, just to get the opportunity to see ruins noone else had ever seen. Even as soul-screechingly terrible as what they are and what they contain. Instead he finds himself more worried about the horrors from above that found their way below. "Ah Miss-"
He says while braced himself up against a column. Reaching out - and then when energy crackles out of her hand, he bristles - and looks sidelong at Ruby.
He then whispers, "You said you knew her. Is she always like this?" Ruby just grins from ear to ear as she whispers back - "I am SO proud of her right now. I mean look at her - telling off those abominations - she's brilliant. It's that kind of take charge attitude that's going to get us out of here."
After a moment - Hiro let's out a long sigh as his eyes trace a line to Lily to Fei. "Well - at least most of us made it. There's plenty more statues to seal up..."
Grimacing, he limps over to Lily - reaching into his pack for his book and turning to the section on engineering. Looking it over - he directs a downdraft to another part of the wheel - causing it to shudder as he tries to force it to work. Part of its instinctive - working on the problem - and staying close to the healer.
Whereas Ruby flutters over to Fei and whispers - "Why didn't you tell me she got like this Fei?" And after a moment she nudges him - "Explains a lotttt~"
DG: Hiro has used his Tool Grandpa Gwyn's Notebook toward his party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Something was wrong.
The sensation had come in out of nowhere, shaking the young woman to the core. Something terrible was happening...
And she wasn't where she needed to be. Trembling and rising to her feet from the garden out behind the orphanage, Avril had stared straight ahead, as if it were possible to grasp the feeling she'd just had, hold it tight, uncover its meaning...
And then had abruptly stood and turned, racing off.
There was still time, another feeling told her. But she couldn't waste any of it.
Footsteps fall hurriedly as the whole chamber shakes violently. Here, under the earth, is not a safe place at all to be. But chasing a feeling -- something that seems so real it feels more like a fragment of a memory, Avril presses on alone. Just a little further. This isn't far from where Lucadia's power had left her once -- it feels like it had been lifetimes ago -- and thus it can't be far from
the earth shudders and
breaks
...Hasn't this happened before...?
Rising from the shattered rock with a wince, Avril soon realizes she's not alone. Her heartbeat quickens, and without a moment of hesitation, she rushes over. "Excuse me--"
Only to cut herself off as she sights the rising horde about her.
"...Oh," she exhales after a few moments, gazing at them steadily as they surge. "There are a lot of them." Her attention shifts. "The water in here is deep. Perhaps if we were to adjust the wheel, we might be able to..."
Here she trails off, color draining from her face. "The statue... was broken? Then I was too late..."
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
Hitting things hard is a cure-all for many things, like having planned to kill a guy as soon as you saw him, because now you're sort of confused and dazed instead. Fenrir smashes face first into the ground, snapping her out of her murder-rage as the Metal Demon pounces up to her feet, clutching her temple. There's screaming, there's a bunch of humans, and there's a woman shouting crazily. Fenrir, however, has different priorities, as she points her index finger at Fei. "YOU! How dare you interrupt my battle? You threw me off!" The wolf-woman growls...and then, luckily, realizes the situation of the strange creatures and them sort of being stuck down here. She luckily does not go for violence.
Instead, Fenrir paces up to the water wheel, before turning to Fei. "We fell pretty damn far, so I'm not going to kill you yet. You'll get to see the sun again, don't worry." It sounded really cool in her head, as Fenrir rushes at the water wheel to try and assist in pushing it. She has no idea how mechanisms work.
DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Flow of the Deep *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Devour and destroy... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. You could manipulate the water wheel shrouded in eyes and tendrils near you to push water into the other cistern and trap them, but it's quite the complex mechanism -- be careful, or you might well push water into your side of the bank. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 1 *>========================== =========================< Results - Flow of the Deep >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fenrir 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hiro 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Grandpa Gwyn's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Lily's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Elhaym van Houten 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten 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> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
A voice echoes out to Elly. She turns her head then, blinking as the fate of the deep-dwellers (who did not seem to react much to being shouted at; but then, they weren't being struck) is left in abeyance. She sees Fei, sketching.
"U, uuh," she says aloud, feeling her mouth dry out. She walks towards Fei with that same over-energized half-strut, gets near him, and -
Engulfs him in an embrace, squeezing him close with crushing force. Her voice has that weird, hyper-intense sibilance to it. She says something in her weird language again but it sounds heartfelt, and perhaps there are weirdly heartfelt words in it... but it lasts about two sentences, at which point the crushing hug ends, and she snaps Ruby a look.
Ruby might tell that something reflexively almost happened but was stopped. "I remember you," she tells Ruby. Her eyes turn towards Avril and Hiro and Lily and Fenrir, even as her hands clasp Fei's shoulders and... squeeze again. It's kind of uncomfortable. She isn't a musclehead, no, but there is force there, more than there really ought to be. (Fortunately Fei IS a musclehead and can handle some kneading. Right?)
When Fenrir addresses Fei, Elly gives her a dead-eyed smile that reveals all her teeth. As she moves to the waterwheel, Elly asks Fei quietly, while still grasping his shoulders, "What do you think? We might need her later."
"Not them, though," Elly says as the wheel overcomes aeons of rust and gears and levers that were probably meant to divert motive energy to accomplish some other damn thing, instead produce a brief fog. Elly giggles a little and leans forwards to press her forehead against Fei's: "I'm going to watch."
It's a short step to the lip of the cistern. Elly crouches there and puts her hands on her knees. "You don't need to worry yourselves, about the statue," Elly calls over. "But that's pretty IRRITATING that after everything we PUT OUT there for there, that it's a bunch of IDIOT STATUES..."
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Stair into the Abyss *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've been sequestered into a riotous landscape of impossible stairways, painted with the blue blood of the Deep. The staircases twist and turn in nonsensical directions, and it's difficult to find any sort of pattern in the maddening shapes. Who knows what might happen if you fall? Yet perhaps to let go of common sense is the only way forward here. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"It was broken," Lily agrees. It's simpler to address that than Ruby's comments about Elly, serves as a way to acknowledge Avril as she glances over to Hiro briefly. ...There's the faint smell of burning flesh before she takes hands off of the wheel, lets her hands go back out. Fei's here, at least. Lily takes stock, examining the group, checking for obvious wounds, clear difficulties...
--Demons. "Fenrir," Lily states, looking over the demon as she threatens Fei. She glances between the two, noticing that it... won't come down to a fight, for the moment. Her gaze flicks back to Elly at that embrace, and prepares to give her privacy for such a moment before she hears a strange language barely, before she sees the strange look again from Elly and... Something, something is strange.
"...What do you mean?" Lily asks Elly, in her usual near-emotionless tone. There's the hint of a lifted eyebrow in it. ...But regardless of the answer she stretches briefly, adjusting her scarf, checking her half-closed wounds. She's still in pain, of course. But that's how it is. ...With Elly looking after the others...
Lily takes stock, and makes a plan. "...Let's go," she says. It's the closest to leading the taciturn woman intends to get, taking off towards an interior door. It's the only way forward, the only one she sees. And it brings them forward...
Into the first stairway. The first is sensible, hard angled stone steps upward towards a second that moves downard--and then they're passing the original. The stairways twist, and turn, and bend. Lily slows at points, staring down at the ground by turns before she puts a flame up above her head to serve as better light in the darkness. Still she sees it.
"...To let go," she murmurs, without realizing it, eyes still staring forward, entirely lucid... except for the fact that that isn't the only time she repeats it.
The water drips, in the distance. It is cold. The flame does not make it feel less dark or oppressive.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong is just trying to get to his papers but in this kind of lighting, you might never really be sure. He turns bright red at Ruby's whispers and says, "Not really. This is actually a fi--URK!"
Elly has unleashed the CRUSHING HUG TECHNIQUE.
IT WAS SUPER EFFECTIVE.
Fei isn't actually getting any broken bones right now but you do hear comical bone-cracking sound effects all the same. He stammers something bashful back, if still heartfelt, in the same language but it's just a sentence and he doesn't seem to realize he said it until after. That's pretty weird but really, speaking in tongues is the least insane thing going on right now. He's set back down eventually and says, "Yeah, we don't really know what we're going to find." in agreement. Fenrir was kind of mean earlier you know? Not that Fei can really comment.
He says, to Fenrir, "Does this kind of thing happen every time a statue is smashed? Because if so, can you please stop doing that? Because this is pretty horrible, you know? I mean like even horrible for you."
He is nudged by Ruby and he stoically endures the teasing but he does admit to Ruby, "But I can't really blame her. We really tried to reach out to her, you know?" He's kind of pissed too, but Elly acting as she is means that he better keep his cool. Everybody needs to unwind sometimes and he shouldn't get in the way of Elly's time.
He sees Avril, after, and says, "Oh! Avril's here too! Not much time to talk, unfortunately..."
He hobbles after Lily and starts walking. He tries mapping it out with his sketchpad to help. That's probably not going to help, Fei, with noneuclidian geometry.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Lips pressed thin, all Avril can do in the wake of the unfortunate news is nod grimly. "I see..." Her gaze averts as others take to the task of moving the waterwheel.
And then the silver-haired woman asks: "Do you know where we are? I endured a fall, it seems." She pauses, as if considering the surroundings beyond the temple entrance (and besides the surge of creatures) "...As did all of us?"
One of the people here -- who seems vaguely familar but whose name Avril can't recall -- grabs ahold of Fei (who Avril does know) which draws the young woman's lingering contemplative attention for a handful of seconds. Then, pulling away as another woman -- dark hair, another who stirs that by-now familiar-as-the-back-of-her-hand sense of deja vu -- urges they move on, she nods. "Yes. We should take caution. Lingering in this place may be unwise. Shall we?"
Apparently unarmed and clad in strange garb, the young woman steps into the temple.
The staircase leading down seems odd in some way. They, however, are not what draws Avril's attention. "...Fei, are you alright?" she asks Fei, noticing the way he's limping. Before she turns her head and sees Lily, lingering by the steps.
Her eyes go wide. Realization snaps across her psyche--
"Look out!" she cries, raising a hand towards Lily as if she could reach the woman from here.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Perhaps she learned this from Seraphita. (No.) Elly says to Lily, with a half-laughing scoff, "Don't you hate it? After everything we did, they break the statue anyway. That's just how things go, isn't it? Hard work just pissed onto the ground."
Did she just swear? Well that one's borderline. She lets go of Fei, gradually, breathing energetically. "Are you hurt? Who hurt you?" she asks Fei as they go, keeping pace with him. When the stairs get surreal, strange, Elly takes Fei's hand, but it is not a friendly sort of thing.
Her hand is clammy. Damp, even. Normally, warm. "Watch where you're going," she hisses at him and even her breath smells a little weird. Like blood.
"Idiot! Don't stumble around in the bloy drec!" Elly shouts at Lily suddenly, perhaps guided to view her directly by Avril reaching out.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
As Elly snaps Ruby a look - the motion startles her a little and gets a tiny "Meep." out of her lips. And a deer in the headlights look.
Until she let's out this lengthy sigh when Elly seems to remember her. "Ahum- um-" She then eyes Fei and gulps, "So this isn't... common... aha... ahaha... great..."
She'd just assumed Elly was the take charge type. Now she's getting worried given Dva up top. "Say Elly if you hear things... whispering to you... let us know? Long- long before you do anything they say."
Whereas Hiro gives Fenrir this look which might be best described as sort of optimistically unimpressed by the attitude - "Well at least you're being practical."
Avril gets a startled look as she comes out of nowhere to help the water wheel - "Were you trapped down here - before?" But she offers an explanation - "Ah. So you fell in after the battle. Like us. Well - looks like we're kinda stuck in a bad situation together Miss-" Then Fei identifies her - "Avril!"
Fortunately the wheel overcomes all that rust - and they're able to move on. Hiro as he follows gives Lily a look - sniffing the air and eyes her hands - "Uh Lily - your hands okay?" Hiro kind of assumed that if someone could light themselves on fire that it'd be - non harmful. Now he's not so certain.
Ruby has decided to shift from following Elly to following Lily around - when she notices Lily repeating the same thing - over and over - and starts floating in front of her - she eyes her once - then twice - then looks at Elly once - then back to Lily as she repeats it again. "Aha - everyone..."
Hiro is a little distracted looking over his notebook - then at Fei's drawing. Then at a picture of something in his notebook that looks like Escher's worst nightmare. Then he closes it abruptly, "You know I wonder - since this place doesn't make any sense... maybe we should try something that doesn't make any sense to us - like doubling back some? See if anything changes."
Since Ruby's flying she doesn't sense it until Avril does. And lacking the mass to hold her she takes another tactic.
Flying abruptly front of her face she mashes both her pink pawsies into Lily's cheeks. "Lily - you are the absolute last person I ever thought I'd say this too - but get a grip!"
DG: Hiro has used his Tool Grandpa Gwyn's Notebook toward his party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
Disapproving glares aren't a surprise, especially after what just happened - Fenrir just bares her teeth back. As they continue forward, Fenrir turns to and frowns at Fei. "Hah, trying to make this our fault? You saw that the monster smashed the statue, that means they're unrelated! Order's wrong!"
Once again, Fenrir does not use critical thinking skills to get through a puzzle room. She decides to follow the others, transforming her arm into a grappling hook to pull herself up or around the stairways where she might lose her footing, as she speaks to Lily. Of the people here, she can tolerate Lily. "You're spacing out, human. Get a hold of yourself - do you really want to trip and die down here? Hell of an unflattering way to go!"
DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Stair into the Abyss.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Stair into the Abyss *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You've been sequestered into a riotous landscape of impossible stairways, painted with the blue blood of the Deep. The staircases twist and turn in nonsensical directions, and it's difficult to find any sort of pattern in the maddening shapes. Who knows what might happen if you fall? Yet perhaps to let go of common sense is the only way forward here. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 2 *>========================== =======================< Results - Stair into the Abyss >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 10 --(28)--> 38 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fenrir 10 --(28)--> 38 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hiro 10 --(23)--> 33 Pass Grandpa Gwyn's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 10 --(28)--> 38 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 15 --(28)--> 43 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 10 --(23)--> 33 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Elhaym van Houten 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Madness|Overwhelm|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily keeps walking. The dark-haired sorceress may be familiar to Avril, but she seems enough part of the world, not particularly a dream--her eyes linger on the blue. On the blood. ...But they all walk through; Fei, with his mapmaking, Elly along with Fei, Fenrir grabbing hold of stairs to avoid slipping and being treated to some stomach-bending sensations in the process. ...It goes, for a while; it's gray down here, gray and dripping and cold, and the stone they see from the undersides of staircases and the sides of wall is dirty. It stays maddeningly as it is.
Here's how it happens; Fei's map accurately catalogues every twist and turn that they go through in this crazed place. ...But they don't stay consistent; the map quickly turns in on itself, bending place by place such that it can't be held track of.
Lily was still walking, lucid, not noticing the murmurings or the fact that she was about to step one booted foot off the pass--but the others, many, are distracted by her presence. Elly snaps at her, and Lily snaps back instinctively in a strange language most here don't understand, "<Quiet!>" ...Those that speak Zeboim might recognize the word. It works though; between Avril's warning, Elly's order, Fenrir's question, and Lily's... pink... pawsies...
"What?" the Kislevi woman asks. "You..." She looks down, at the sheer drop, at the others, looks back to Ruby. "I didn't..." She sounds distant, confused. "...You hear it, don't you? The voice."
She quiets again, shaking her head. But once she's brought in she doesn't get closer than 'almost' to the edge again. It takes more time, but eventually--after tiring, nauseating minutes that stretch beyond mere minutes--Hiro's suggestion works. They double back, and Avril recognizes a few twists and turns, somehow. So, they make it to a door.
...The door looks stable, but it's best to go through it quickly--Lily leans a hand on the wall as she does, accepting solid ground... Hopefully.
DG: Fenrir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - An Ancient Password *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The next gate you come across is peculiarly out of place -- a metallic wall of high technology, thrumming with leylines. There is a functioning metal door with a keypad upon it -- but the letters are ancient and unintelligible to you... until a cold whisper briefly tells that these are the script of the Zeboim. Failing that, you seem to be able to see white, mercurial blood prints on the keypad -- this could drastically reduce the amount of guesswork needed to pass through. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
"Atleast you still have some survival sense." Fenrir remarks to Lily, as they procede forward - even as the pain of the sensations causes her to grip her head again instead of the staircase. The group comes upon a wall made of reflective and pristine metal, of absolutely bizarre technological level for being in an elder god funhouse. Leylines pulse through the wall, the magic practically humming. On the wall is a door made out of the same material, and it has a technological keypad to unlock it (it is currently locked). However, there's a problem: the script is not in any common language. Fenrir herself squints at it, having no clue what the writing is, though there's some sort of prints on it.
And then, Fenrir suddenly to the side, not looking at anyone, and barks out in confusion. "Huh? Who's there? What's a Zeboim? Show yourself, you bastard! I'm not playing any games!" Fenrir's paranoia is palpable, as if she is willing to lunge at the thin air itself.
DG: Fenrir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Upon Lily asking if she heard the voice - Ruby says flat out, "Nope." Then as they move on - she looks disturbed - just looking at Lily every so often for signs that something is going wrong.
Hiro a little less certain that something is outright wrong in the sanity department whispers to Fei and Avril - "Did the two of you hear anything?"
Fortunately they find their way out of the non-Euclidean stairwell eventuall - to a wall. Hiro squints at the magical pulse - then looks at the keypad and - strangely enough unsheathes his sword.
That might look seem like a threatening gesture - or a sign of danger. Until it's clear that he's holding the silver blade point down at eye level to look at the runic script etched into the blade. "Some of these characters are - similar..."
But that's about all he manages to work out. He's not familiar enough with the language to even guess what to enter.
Instead he's just looking to the others - when Fenrir starts to shout in paranoia. "Alright - now let's just try to stay calm..." Though at the same time, he's glad he already has his sword out.
He holds up a palm to Fenrir in a conciliatory way whereas Ruby's solution to a slightly unhinged Fenrir is - put everyone else - between herself and Fenrir.
DG: Hiro has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Um," Fei tells Fenrir. "You know you broke the seal keeping the monster in right? Well Dva did."
He glances towards where Ruby went but she has flown off to Elly. He hopes Ruby's okay.
"A small concussion." He asides to Avril. He considers Elly's question. "I guess.... the giant monster hurt me."
That's probably close to accurate considering what happened. Fei is distracted because he's trying to map the unmappable. "Ughnnn..." He manages evnetually. "What's with..."
He stalls for a moment. Did Lily just speak it? Reading it and speaking it are two different things. He didn't know anybody could speak the Zeboim language! Yes Fei totally forgot he did!
"It's a dead civilization. Before your time so, like, that--that's not on you at all."
He looks at the words on the wall, and then over to the keypad. He reaches into his pack and draws out a small spray can. He sprays it over the keypad, hopefully revealing some fingerprints.
"How'd you end up in here, Avril? Is Dean okay?"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Pink... pawsies...
Elly is not easily distracted by them. "I hear you making excuses," Elly tells Lily. Forwards. She keeps walking, keeps stalking, before her brow furrows at Fenrir's words - the energy in the air is immense but it seems of no import to her, not right now.
"Well look for a clue or something," Elly complains about the password. Then Fei -
Elly goggles at the spray can. This seems to have taken her genuinely by surprise. Maybe... maybe she was just kind of over-excited earlier! Right??
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
"Have we met?" Avril asks Hiro, blinking as he addresses her. "Yes. I had come to assist, but it appears that I have arrived too late." Her blue eyes flick downwards a moment. "However, all shall not be lost. Other statues yet remain. Indeed, once we escape this place, we can resume once again." She pauses for a moment, wrinkling her brow. "Though... I do not think I know your name. Yes-- I am called Avril. Avril Vent Fleur."
Perhaps giving her full name may be unwise under circumstances, but at the same time...
Under also currently-existing and entirely different circumstances, letting people know who she is -- people she must put her faith into in order to escape this place -- also makes complete sense.
"A small concussion... Here." From under her wrap, Avril draws out an octagonal plate, a thing that reeks of ancient technology. "Lucadia," she murmurs, gaze hooded. The disc -- the Medium -- glows bright for an instant. And with that, a degree of spiritual pressure descends as Avril invokes but a small portion of the Sea Medium's power. With a breath of seabreeze in the air, wounds and pain begin to vanish.
And Avril looks at Lily. What was that word...?
For a heart-pounding instant, Lily looks as if she's about to fall.
Only to come out of it in entirely as long as it will take Avril to -- a moment later -- exhale a relieved sigh.
And then she shakes her head. "No. I have not heard anything, myself. Did you hear something...?"
Her gaze narrows a touch as they make progress, by twist and turn. Has she been here before? It seems familiar...
But the fact of the matter is this simple thing: almost every place Avril has been -- and almost everyone she's ever met -- she's been struck by that very feeling. Visions of the future, perhaps?
Or maybe she's merely being reminded strongly of people and places she once knew, elsewhere.
"This way, I believe," she voices, pointing at another doorway out of several.
This one -- though not all of them have been -- is the right way.
So at last they find themselves in here, where a keypad awaits.
Her gaze lingers on it. This, too. "Why am I here..." Avril echoes for a moment, frowning again. "I felt as if I needed to hurry here, and so I came, though I am not entirely certain why. Perhaps it might have been the will of the Guardians?" she supposes. "Dean is not here. I do not think he knows I came here, either. Ah, excuse me, Fei..."
And she approaches the pad to inspect it for a moment.
"...These three," she says, pointing a few of the keys. "I feel these are the first numbers in the sequence."
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Survival sense. ...Something like that. Lily looks back to Fenrir and nods, absently. "...Right."
Ruby looks disturbed--and Lily watches her for a moment, before shaking her head, setting a gloved hand to her temple. ...She didn't answer Hiro before when he asked, and it floats back into her mind. "...I'm fine," she says, though she moves her hands a little slowly still, and a close look at her gloves makes it look like they are a bit burned. It's not quite true though; apparently, she's hearing things. ...The burns abate somewhat, however, at Avril's healing invocation, and Lily looks over to her thoughtfully for a moment. "...Lucadia," she repeats, and thinks of the Medium she carries.
They reach the wall and she looks to it--at first she doesn't spot the letters, as she looks around for anything else nearby. Elly's remark hits Lily and she looks over to her with a frown. ...That frown lacks a lot of malice but is still strong enough to make more timid people back down. Elly is unlikely to.
"...Yeah, I guess so," she settles on, shaking her head, before Fenrir--Fenrir barks out--she hears it. Hears something, anyway. Lily doesn't explain. Fei explains. ...It's good enough. For her part, Lily steps forward, and starts murmuring to herself in the language on the keypad. "...So this..."
She pulls her notebook, flips through to a section written in... her own handwriting, if anyone has seen her notes enough to recognize it. It shows some of the symbols on the keypad linked with more typical modern Filgaian letters. It's not a one-to-one match, generally, but--
"Here. Like this. So the code must be..."
She's willing to show others to work it out. She considers Avril for a moment. "Those three together mean..." She looks thoughtful, "So we can conclude these--" Lily starts tapping keys carefully. Her gloves shouldn't disrupt the fingerprints much.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Notebook toward her party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - An Ancient Password *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The next gate you come across is peculiarly out of place -- a metallic wall of high technology, thrumming with leylines. There is a functioning metal door with a keypad upon it -- but the letters are ancient and unintelligible to you... until a cold whisper briefly tells that these are the script of the Zeboim. Failing that, you seem to be able to see white, mercurial blood prints on the keypad -- this could drastically reduce the amount of guesswork needed to pass through. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Tire===========================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 3 *>========================= ======================< Results - An Ancient Password >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 38 --(28)--> 66 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fenrir 38 --(28)--> 66 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hiro 33 --(28)--> 61 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 38 --(23)--> 61 Pass Lily's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 43 --(28)--> 71 Fail Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 33 --(23)--> 56 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elhaym van Houten 30 --(10)--> 40 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Madness|Overwhelm|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
"Maybe the Guardians shouldn't seal things behind their statues, then!" Fenrir spits back, and it'd probably come off as kind of bratty if she wasn't sort of horrific looking from earlier shifting. As the whispers don't speak up again, she simply howls, barking at Hiro as he has his sword out. "Try it. I'll rip you in half." The fact that he also has his palm out, though, leads to Fenrir just approaching the wall and leaning against it, huffing.
A mixture of spray can, analysis of the first three numbers, and actual translation allows the group to decipher the code. Well, mostly - it errors on the first try. The keypad thrums with energy, slowly...and then the leylines suddenly spark out, a shock through those directly near the door. It pulsates for several more seconds, before the keypad seems to be safe again - one of the numbers seems to have been misprinted, and a second try gets it open. Fenrir, leaning on the wall, gets shocked as well - and finds herself on her knees panting, grabbing her head again from the pain. "The...the hell is up with this place?"
DG: Hiro has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Charge of the Dragon *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The ground rumbles. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from the gloom. It's a Metal Dragon, at least fifty feet long and running at you on all fours; its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. It is in deep agony, laced with writhing tendrils of water, streaked with bulging eyes across its metallic scales. It manages to close you into a dead end -- a space too tight for combat without the risk of hurting yourselves. You'll have to force the Dragon back if you're going to get to more advantageous ground! =Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Hiro gives a light shake of his head when Avril asks that - "Don't reckon we have." Then answers, "Hiro. Nice to meet you Avril." She vaguely sounds familiar from the wanted posters out there - but that doesn't bother him because who doesn't he know without a price on their heads? ... Besides Ragnell. Because Seraphs are bullshit.
He then proceeds to watch her heal the concussion - "Huh. Handy." Between her and Lily - their chances of survival just went abruptly up. Assuming Lily stops trying to step off stairwells...
And starts looking after her own health. He gives her a look when she says she's fine - wondering if he still smells the faint smell of burning flesh. Then looks over to Avril briefly as if wondering if she's noticed.
Fenrir though starts reacting erratically - "Noone's threatening you..." He doesn't put the sword away, he just keeps the point down - but when Fenrir seems to calm down - he doesn't say anything to aggravate it more.
When the keypad sparks - the shock runs through the region - and afterwards - everything is darker than before.
Like the magic has powered down - and even Lily's magical light seems dimmer - illuminating nothing beyond a few centimeters.
Which is when there's a shriek that resounds within the dark - seeming to come from all around them.
BGM Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv-3o5o97IU
To absolutely noone does it sound like a Metal Dragon - even though that's what in fact it is. Fenrir might get a better sense than anyone else. What it does sound like however is big - and terrifying - and as it scrapes on by the chamber seems more claustrophobic instantly - it's footsteps disintegrating rubble all around.
The brief glimpses it gets in the few remaining light sources show signs of injury more than anything - it's ever - shifting bulk starting to pound into them and herding them like cattle. An attempt to run this way is met with a motion and blistering force. An attempt to escape that way is blocked by a shape in the dark.
There are two people in the room who see it all too well though. First Ruby starts to giggle - in that way of hers when something amuses her - but it becomes more unhinged by the second. Her eyes gleaming with a sudden eyeshine from on high as she speaks in synch with the stumbling Hiro. Despite that prior giggle, they both speak in a hissing monotone that sounds soft compared to the creature's thrashings - but clearly audible by all-
"Death is -close."
It feels like part of the chamber is collapsing with every passing second -
"It comes from the deep."
And then they've run out of space. And now there are just tortured - gleaming eyes blocking their path - and the smell of something absolutely awful.
"Reaching. Seeing. It's heeerreeee."
... Better act fast.
DG: Hiro has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is having a rough time today. If it wasn't for Elly, if it wasn't for Elly...
Something's wrong with Ruby, he thinks, and that's the one thing that loosens his hold on hope. Ruby...Ruby's supposed to be the voice of reason.
He stares at the Metal Dragon. He lowers his head. He shakes.
"We did survive the fall right?" He asks thoughtfully. He grips his hand tightly, and then loosens it. "Ruby... Hiro..."
His breathing is unsteady. "Hang in there... Seperate the voices that come from within you...that come from outside you!"
He throws a desperate chi blast into the beast as his back pushes up against the wall. Come on, come on.
Dying with her again
"Stop it..." He says. "Stop messing with Ruby and Hiro!!"
What's he shouting to? He doesn't really get to shout back at Fenrir. "Fenrir, can't you--can't you get that thing to stop??"
You get used to it
Fei cringes his eyes shut. "Stop...!"
Maybe this time, we'll be first.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
As time goes on, Elly seems to calm down. In fact, if Fei or anyone were watching closely, it would be pretty obvious that for whatever reason she is - drained.
That sharp glittering edge is receding into a tired fog, a gray haze. 'Elly' feels more like herself, except 'herself' is agonizing. She feels like she has thin glass rods in her muscles and they're cracking up, but it's a pain she can push through. She has to. She's here... so is Fei. They just have to put one foot in front of the other, push through the haze...
It's dark. Stone is falling? What?
Fei's speaking in that tone of encouraging helplessness. Elly feels herself prickle up her spine. She straightens up, and then she says nothing, and she reaches into her pocket even as the darkness deepens. Fei closes his eyes.
Elly bites the tip off something and in the failing light lowers it towards her thigh. It hurts - she stings -
ALL of her hurts -
There is a brief flash of blue light. There is an impression of purple from Elly's hair because the wind has suddenly picked up and threw it back but then darkness falls again. The wind howls all the louder even as a hand grasps Fei's wrist with sudden tightness.
"stop it," Elly rasps. "Stop giving up like that. Stop leaning back like you want to lay back and DROWN. Do you understand me?!" The wind howls, stirring up water and raising a stormy scent in the air. "Do you think you have the right to give up, to not even try!? Do any of you have any idea what the purpose of this place is, why we're even down here? This is the toilet of that miserable little hamlet on the surface!!"
Elly has somehow started shouting. "So stop whining about DEATH - and"
MEANWHILE, while doing all of this, Elly was producing a free-standing aerial wave in which a sudden nexus of hyper-air pressure, forcing three or four atmospheres' worth of air through a 'nozzle' on a perpetual basis, fueled by Ether and thus immune to problems normally associated with a pull-down blast fan like this. This would have produced a chilled area - maybe enough to frost over, but hardly enough to hurt - E X C E P T
That at the bottom of this 'Funnel,' Elly places a sudden -- it's not even a 'cube' of incinerating heat, it's more like a ragged prolate sphereoid, an egg of destiny that is going to be a point of combustion-inducing contact against the hide of WHATEVER IT MAY BE... and which is now being force-fed massive amounts of oxygen.
"LIVE"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool MORE DRUGS toward her party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
The light goes dim. Fenrir frowns sharply, not that anyone can likely see. It's the shriek, however, that gets her on guard. It sounds familiar, but she can't play it. What could it be, she wonders, when she gets more of a glance in the glimpse of light. That's a Metal Dragon. But not any Metal Dragon she's seen before. For a moment, she can feel her blood chill. She doesn't even snark at or respond to Hiro and Ruby's weird speech, instead stalling in place.
But then, things happen. Fei asks her, desparate, if there's anything she can do. Elly's trying to keep going, keep it back. Fenrir can't falter here. She's a proud Metal Demon. "It's...I think it's a Metal Dragon. We need to force it back - I told you you'd live to see the sun, didn't I? I don't tell lies!"
Fenrir's arm shifts. In the darkness, it's not fully clear how as she heads forward, but it seems to be massive - and it is, heavier than her. The Metal Demon leaps forward, trying to manuever around the spheroid of heat so she can slam into the Metal Dragon and push it back, and then continue to push, push, push. She's putting all of her inhuman strength into it. "If you can do something, do it! Otherwise, run!"
DG: Fenrir has used her Tool Smasher Claw toward her party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I doubt the Guardians had anything to do with this seal," Lily says, and it sounds almost absent if the listener doesn't look back and see her intent stare forward. "Holding back Mother is too important to risk, from what they say. ...But then, holding back this thing might be that important, too." The blue, everywhere. The voices. She still imagines there's something there, in the silence, just not speaking to her yet.
The shock gets her when they work. Her hands shake until she manages to still them, closing her eyes and closing her hands into fists. She takes a deep breath. Hiro does still smell burnt flesh. Lily is bloody, and bruised, and largely going on willpower... Though not only on willpower. Something else, too.
The smell was there before the sparks, and now it's worse.
The shriek resounds in the dark, and Lily's fiery light winks out in an instant as she turns her head around, to hear the scrapes, to see dust falling... But she can't see much of anything. The light isn't enough; it's huge, and the bulk hits, knocking her backward against an icy shield that causes her arm to glow blue. She tests with a burst of flame here, a lance of frigid mist there. It doesn't work. What works instead is that... shine, from Ruby.
"Ruby--"
It assaults her mind. She can feel something in Hiro and Ruby there, wavers in place as for an instant she has a vision of pain, of tendrils stretching across. It's--
"Death," she breathes, and stumbles backward as they are out of space with great eyes. The scent is nauseating, even for someone accustomed to dealing with the sickening smells of breaking bodies. A Metal Dragon, Fenrir says, as Elly steps forward. This time, Lily sees it--she sees the failing light illuminate something driven down into her leg. ...And she sees the light. Lily knows, for a moment, though she does not know enough. She remembers the feeling, and feels hollow for its absence.
Ether floods her awareness. She is unfamiliar with this particular kind of spell, but it has Elly's signature to it, destructive yet precise, intended. The egg of destiny is there. Lily sees it, senses what it's meant to do, what it's going to do. She thinks of Fei's question, that Elly has already answered, thinks of the voices.
The rent at her arm begins to glow violet, as she channels, her eyes darkening and darkening and darkning as she draws in more utterly black Ether to the point that even that glow turns to dark. Her eyes stay on the dragon; she senses where the working Elly is performing is, feels for the place beside it, around it--
She wrenches it with both hands channeling, and the strange, photo-negative explosions that result pulse downward, set to amplify the force of the coming fireball.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Sparks.
Then, darkness.
"This..." she murmurs, glancing here and there. "There must be something--"
She takes a breath. Her shoulders tense in the dark. Already, she can feel the chill of foreboding, a pang that arises in her belly and works its way higher, slowly.
Already, it's too late.
"...Something's here." She pauses, a second in which she must have blinked, judging from the timbre of her voice in the response that follows. "...Hiro?"
Death.
And everything shakes.
Just once, she takes a step back.
And she sees it. Her face is expressionless as she stares at the creature crawling its way down the tunnel.
"...Run. Everyone, you must run away."
Avril does not turn and flee. Instead, her gaze lingers on the thing making its way forth a moment longer, then bows her head as she retrieves something from beneath her wrap. Her lips move, silently, as if in a prayer.
This fragment of stone is perhaps more familiar -- if it can be seen at all under the current environmental effects -- for it is no less than a Medium, in the Baskar tradition. A single engraved snowflake adorns its surface.
Avril lifts her head. The final words come with as much finality as the frost: her gaze hooded, with a single invocation of a name, Avril bids the Guardian forth. "Aru Solatu."
Ghostly, limned in a haze the color of ancient ice, the furred beast of the tundra surges forth through the constrained tunnel, claws bared and jaws wide. Frost sublimates wherever it touches as Aru Solatu makes its charge.
Still gripping the small stone Medium, Avril has not budged, her will urging the brief manifestation of the Ice Guardian onwards. Add to it: the working Elly has placed, the lick of darkness from Lily empowering it, Fei's chi blast, Fenrir's charge. A little more. Just a little more, and you can go.
She might as well be a statue, for all that she holds her ground.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Charge of the Dragon.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Charge of the Dragon *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The ground rumbles. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from the gloom. It's a Metal Dragon, at least fifty feet long and running at you on all fours; its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. It is in deep agony, laced with writhing tendrils of water, streaked with bulging eyes across its metallic scales. It manages to close you into a dead end -- a space too tight for combat without the risk of hurting yourselves. You'll have to force the Dragon back if you're going to get to more advantageous ground! =Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 4 *>========================= ======================< Results - Charge of the Dragon >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 66 --(13)--> 79 Pass MORE DRUGS 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fenrir 66 --(13)--> 79 Pass Smasher Claw 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hiro 61 --(13)--> 74 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 61 --(18)--> 79 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 71 --(18)--> 89 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 56 --(18)--> 74 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elhaym van Houten 40 --(30)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Madness|Overwhelm|Tire(1)|Vault(1) Effects: Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 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> Hiro has posed.
A Chi-flash briefly illuminates the tortured creature. It's hide looks like the canvas of a macabre artist. As it stagger stumbles beneath Fei's onslaught - Ruby giggles -
"Shhh shhh don't cry..."
Elly - infused by the power of Drugs creates a sphere cube of incineration. Lily's ether of blackest pitch turning the twin strobe effect of Fei and Elly's blinding assault - and plunging them into pitch.
There's a Krak-DOOM of force as the thing shrieks - a whole piece of it disappearing in the blast wave.
Now it's Hiro who's laughing - or is it crying? Maybe both at once.
"The reaper always gets its due."
Fenrir's massive arm shifts and she leaps forward into the new dark - the strobe flash of Elly and Fei's twin assaults fading. Now there's just the darkness of an inhuman struggle between titanic metal claws. They can feel the weight of something being thrown back.
"But its already taken enough from youuuuuu."
It's fortunate that that moment parted Fenrir and the creature - because the Guardian is summoned - and the tunnel is filled with ice as it charges through and rams it. The ice is pure on it's own - but within moments it takes on a ghastly tint as it refracts some terrible light source part of the way back- and shows a metal dragon which looks more like a shattered hulk of former self. Frozen. The thing twitches.
"And you."
And a limb shudders.
"And you."
And cracks-
"But we can always find new new things to take."
Flicking the ice off - it seems to lurch forward - then crashes down. It's weight shattering part of the floor in front of it. In that moment before it topples over into the newly created abyss- they all see it for just a brief moment. Like static - watery tendrils and eyes all over it's tortured form.
And then it vanishes - leaving them in the dark.
Except a moment later - a part of the dimmed leyline wall at their flanks that had been gashed in the struggle tears further apart with a metallic shriek - giving them a passage to move onward.
Hiro himself stumbles like he's having the first and worst hangover of his life - while Ruby gives off a soft whimpering sob. "C'mere Ruby..." He says eventually, eyes a little distant, as Ruby lands on his shoulder, and he reaches out to pick her up and give her a hug, "C'mere..."
DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Devoured Machinery *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A pile of ancient wreckage fills this taint-laden outcropping, eerily teeth-marked from where it has been ripped apart. The metallic scrap is eerily biological, reminding you of the shapes and designs of various beasts, but it currently stands in your way and is very heavy... and you think you can see the sinister shadow of bone just beyond, ready to consume you. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Even in this moment, there is hope.
Hope, in this instance, is Elly shouting at him. Fei's eyes snap open in shock. There's something that he sees in Elly in this moment that's not JUST Elly. It's not unusual for Fei to see Elly in others, or others in Elly, but in this moment it feels as clear as ever. His heart is pounding like it's about to leap out of his chest. In this moment, it's not fear or, at least, not just the fear.
He always thought it was a curse. Some curse someone put on him to make him suffer, but it wasn't...was it? He doesn't have the right to give up, does he? Maybe he does, the fatalism says, but--to not even try. To die not even knowing why this place feels so familiar, so wrong, but familiar all the same.
Elly makes a demand of him. It's not the first time she's made the demand either. Live, Lahan. Live, Kim. Live ??????, Live ???, Live ?????, Live ????, Live Live Live Live Live Live Live.
Fei holds his head in one hand. He has the will, but his body is struggling. He sees the sinister shadow of bone just beyond, but in truth--he saw everything didn't he? He saw the bulging eyes along the scales, he felt the agony, he heard the whispers of the Zeboim, he saw the blood of the deep, he's seen the tendrils. You can hide your messages from Fei Fong Wong. He's just a guy who solves problems with kung fu.
But you can't hide your messages from The Contact. Reach as deep as you want into his mind and your thread will be cut and cut and cut and cut!!! if you're not a careful little elder thing.
"You're right." He says, smiling. "It's not over yet!"
He turns towards the latest blockage of biometal blocking the group's progress.
"I love you," He tells Elly, because he can actually speak his heart and in this moment he's certain of it.
He starts plowing through it, shouting at the Entity. "Dig in deep...!" He shouts. "Because we're going to rip you out!!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Holding one's ground is something Lily can respect. She spots that in Avril, as she calls forth a Guardian. It is hard not to see what is going on in the flashes of light of these twin assaults. The reaper gets its due, Hiro and Ruby and neither of them say. Already taken enough....
Lily stares into the awful, tortured creature. It was no dragon. ...It was something else. Something different, a shriek before that passage...
Lily quiets, and steps immediately to Hiro and Ruby, looking to the two of them, checking for any obvious signs of something wrong. "...You're back with us," she says quietly, but the effect is somewhat ruined by her entirely black eyes, without sclera or iris visible. Lily does not seem to notice it.
Fei smiles. He tells Elly he loves him, and Lily's heart aches for them in this place, in this awful place devoid it seems of hope. ...The reaper has its due. It's taken...
"Has it really taken enough?" she finds herself asking, shaking her head for the sentimntality of it all. The wreckage looms before them regardless.
The dark-haired sorceress winces a moment, flexing her fingers again. ...Up close, if he looks, Hiro can see that she's injured. She was when she came in, and it's only gotten worse. But still, with this wreckage in their way...
"Always more..." She sees something beyond. It doesn't matter for now. Lily puts out her hands. Wreckage simply turns to nothing under her attention, though only a small amount at a time. Her lips twitch. Already it's more than she should be doing.
"<I won't stop," she murmurs, as if swearing it to something.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
A wet metal object is set on fire. Elly would feel satisfied if she felt anything other than white-hot sinus-swelling agitation. Ruby is being tended to, Lily's supported her, Elly notices these things but they kind of just whirl through her awareness which shines gloriously. Her pupils are the size of neutrons, or feel like that.
Nevertheless she can see.
"Y," Elly begins before she is COMPLETELY DERAILED, her head swivelling to look at Fei with her mouth open even as he proceeds onwards, leaving her gaping in silence for the space of a full second even as the skeletal way before them is wrought. Elly's tongue darts out of her mouth for a moment, then her teeth grind together, and then she leaps after him.
Fire rains from the heavens! It is less intense than her imitation of a blast furnace, in the same way that the firebombing of a certain city was less intense than the thermonuclear device that cored out the center of another. "If -- You're going to SAY things like that -- then start behaving like it!!" she shouts after him, her voice ragged. "You always DO this - you always ACT like this - the only REASON I'M HERE is because of YOU!!"
The bursts of flame erupt near Fei. There is no whimsical near miss; Elly's voice sounds, at most, "faintly flustered" because she has continued to shriek and to carry on. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that everyone is in some kind of bowels-of-Hell situation, it would probably be cause for concern.
Lily can see blood dripping down the inside of her arm if she looks. Anyone really, but perhaps it would mean the most to her. Elly's teeth grind together again and she strains and the shrieking flame stops...
And lightning crashes on every spot the flame had touched, all at once!!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool MORE DRUGS toward her party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
Fenrir's lucky to not get hit by Elly's blast. Once they're forward, Fenrir shifts her horrifying arm back to normal, taking a brief second to rest before moving forward. The fact that Fei 180'd causes her to be slightly surprised, so instead Fenrir decides to not interact with any of the party because she doesn't actually...know them well enough to talk to them right now. It's a weird feeling - wanting to talk to humans and interact for even a moment and then feeling you have zero room to do so. But it's not a new feeling for Fenrir...not by any means, no matter how she hides it.
The Metal Demon rushes to assist Fei with the metal, slamming her own arm (which shifts into a claw) into it repeatedly. "How much farther do you think we have? This place is horrible."
DG: Fenrir has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
For an instant, Avril sees it.
For an instant, her composure shatters. Eyes wide, the young woman staggers backwards, the last traces of the already-fading presence of the Ice Guardian winking out of sight as her concentration snaps. Still clutching the tablet in her hands, she stares into the space it had occupied.
And slowly, slowly takes a breath.
"Is... is everyone alright?" she voices at a distance, turning in the silent darkness that remains behind.
That, and the wreckage left behind. "If we are able to cut through this point, here," Avril begins to say.
Before trailing off into nothingness as a confession is had...
And fire and lightning rage in the (near) immediate aftermath. Avril's gaze -- as figures are illuminated in the dark by flashes of magical energy -- lingers for a moment.
Then, drawing an object from beneath her gown, she advances on the obstacle in silence. Light, briefly, flashes from Absolute Zero's hilt as she invokes the blade form of the ARM.
And she lays into the metal with the edge.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
There is at least catharsis in Ruby's crying. There's that much. Some things may not be forgotten - but time may give it a chance to heal. He nods to Avril - when she asks if everyone is alright - though it comes so long afterwards that one might wonder if he was nodding at her question. He turns to Lily after a moment - and it's like he doesn't comprehend for a moment before he nods, "Yeah. Sorry about that - saw something... I don't know what I saw - and things went... weird."
They come to the next obstacle - and Hiro still looks a little shell-shocked as he eyes the biometal mass - like he's not quite certain what to do yet. His mind a little elsewhere - but then Fei says something and he turns his head his way a half second later.
Closing his eyes - he pinches them shut. And even in the elder possessed trance from earlier - he can still hear Elly's words then. And Fei's now.
It seems to neatly slice through that as Hiro gives Ruby one last pat, and folds her in his orange scarf for comfort.
"He's right."
And then Fei says something else - and suddenly Ruby's sobbing hitches - and then after inhaling one raspy breath - then another like she's having to work herself up to it and then finally blurts out - "IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU CONFESSED FEI!"
And dabs at her eyes with pink pawsies before blowing her nose on the orange scarf - actually managing a soft giggle at Elly's response - even in the frustration and the flustered state.
Thoughts of her favorite subject at least allowing her to fight off the horror.
Hiro's cheeks are a little pink - though not quite as pink as if he just hadn't had an eldritch horror brush up against his mind.
"Well..."
He puts a finger to his chin, and rubs it there - like just the situation was making him feel a little fuzzy.
"... that's one way to do it." Then clears his throat - as if adding to an afterthought to Fei's rallying cry that let's him just temporarily break through the rest of the experience, "Anyhow - that's right! Whatever is out there is going to regret messing with us."
Ruby nudges him and points to Fei - "You really should be taking notes. Sure you don't want to take a breather to write this down?"
"Why would I need to do that!?" Hiro says - as she starts to - chant a quick wind spell - which drive into the biometal wreckage with cyclonic force from a different angle. This is a messy affair as creating tornados indoors is not always the best idea - but it might be effective in this case. Especially with all of that fire about.
It also thankfully drowns out Ruby's response to that final question at just the right moment.
DG: Hiro has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Devoured Machinery.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Devoured Machinery *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A pile of ancient wreckage fills this taint-laden outcropping, eerily teeth-marked from where it has been ripped apart. The metallic scrap is eerily biological, reminding you of the shapes and designs of various beasts, but it currently stands in your way and is very heavy... and you think you can see the sinister shadow of bone just beyond, ready to consume you. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 5 *>========================= =======================< Results - Devoured Machinery >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 79 --(20)--> 99 Pass MORE DRUGS 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fenrir 79 --(20)--> 99 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hiro 74 --(25)--> 99 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 79 --(25)--> 104 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 89 --(25)--> 114 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 74 --(25)--> 99 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Elhaym van Houten 70 --(10)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Madness|Overwhelm|Weaken(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Lily Keil is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fei Fong Wong is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's spirit may be willing but the body can only manage so much. Indeed, even as Fei's body starts to give out, his spirit only seems to be getting stronger. Dangerously so. The rubble starts to shift around him before he even touches it. His eyes take on a yellowish tint. He's not trying to push away The Detestable Pale. Far be it, he's trying to drag it into his psyche. Endless Endless Endless. Would It Like To See Something Truly Endless? A conciousness without end? An eternity without a beginning?
"Ah--you're feeling better, Ruby?" He says, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow. "I don't think, haha..."
He cuts himself off because of Elly blasts fire nearby. He stalls for a moment. "Right again," He says. "Thank you for coming all the same."
Eventually the destruction from Elly and Fenrir is enough to open up a path and Fei starts moving forward, reaching, reaching, REACHING--
And then something inside of him cuts it off.
'Not again,' The coward whispers as he stares at his mother. 'Never touching that again'.
And Fei says, "Shit. Suddenly I--"
And he collapses, out of it.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Hiro apologizes, and Lily's strange eyes stay on him through it before she nods. "...It's fine," she says. "This place..." She shakes her head. "I can feel it, too."
Avril's asked if they're all right and finally, belatedly, the ex-soldier answers. "I'm fine," she says again, as she's said before. It continues not to be true on nearly any level, but she says it all the same. She is even quieter than usual as they move forward, her fingers still burned and aching as she channels more power through. ...But the emotion that requires, too, is a drain.
She glances to Avril again. Glances to Fenrir. How much farther...
She doesn't know. But she does see the blood dripping down Elly's arm, and that interrupts the tender moment for her. "...Van Houten," she says. "let me...": She tries to finish it, blinks, shakes her head as she moves forward. She's still bloody herself, after all. Fei, above, starts to talk. He collapses, then. SHe looks, and stays where she is a moment. "No, that's..."
She sounds almost confused, as she watches. Then, the voice starts to close in again. The image. The lair...
"I.. I see... I see it..."
Pained, Lily stops where she is--and then drifts, collapsing with a slight spin to hit the ground.
She doesn't move after that, in a tangle of her own limbs. The exhaustion is plain in her body; her skin is too, too pale.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The water is closer, deep and pale and frigid. Elly would remember what it was that that woman, Dva, called upon in the lands above, if she were in a better state right now. That bizarre moment, the furious chaos of combat that she detests on some level, or wishes to see only from the comfortable seat of a Gear.
But she's here, now.
And right now NOTHING is unclear. Everything is crystalline pure.
Then Fei collapses.
There is something eternal here sliding in the background and yet some part of Elly is enduring it, or perhaps more accurately it feels like something that... isn't there. She can't define it, barely recognizes it. Fei falling down is more urgent, although she says aloud, "FEI"
Lily falls - something massive barrels forwards and Elly throws herself forwards too, throwing herself atop of Fei. Lily might not mind, but for a moment Elly feels nothing, thinking in shimmering green lines as she looks towards Hiro and Ruby, at the woman she doesn't know closely whose ARM seems to be of a swordlike nature -
Fenrir speaks.
Laying in the water, hair soaked in icy wetness, Elly answers Fenrir, "I don't care. All of you get over here."
Elly cradles Fei close, looking down at him. She moves him, not fireman's carry but a simple pull closer to Lily, staring at him. Her breathing starts to quicken, a deliberate hyperventilation.
"Miserable worm," she says around breath number six, staring at nothing in particular. "There's more important things in this world than your mockery of life... the same shield that protected those creatures guards you for now. Will you - cherish your time?" The water seems like it's getting colder.
Did the waterfall slow down? Staring at nothing in particular, Elly keeps breathing with swift deep strokes, like a piston engine. Her mouth hurts, dry as a bone, but she can't stop now. Not yet. If she stops now she'll never get back up again. There's a crack, a creaking, and then she and Fei - Lily a moment later - rise out of the water.
The waterfall itself has stopped completely now. What is rising up from its flow, as it touches some impossible point and is subducted, shaped, is another of those egg-like forms, with a rise near Elly and a longer dip in the front. It is made of ice.
"This is, the power, of an Element," Elly says, between breaths, staring at nothing in particular. Quietly, the ice-disk raises off the ground. "I won't, let you, have your way--!!" It seems she is intending to quit the depths in style.
Or crash and die. Either-or.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Fenrir has posed.
Lily and Fei collapse. Fenrir grimaces visibly. She may not like them, but something still strikes in her - she's not compassion-less. It's because of this situation that when Elly tells her to get over there with the others, she reluctantly obliges, through the Metal Demon still tsks. Humans elicit such complex feelings, ones that make Fenrir pretty frustrated. But not enough to reconsider her goals. Just enough to reconsider how she'll accomplish them, in some ways.
As Elly speaks and begins to change the water, Fenrir takes a step back. "You...haha. Alright. Let's all get out of here, before this place kills us. Lead the way!" The sheer audacity of that ability. Of a human capable of just doing that. Of them putting in so much effort - she's seen similar, but it's never really clicked to her, because she's always been on the receiving end. They're pretty interesting. Almost admirable.
Fenrir's arm shifts, a claw attached to a chain. With a sudden whip, Fenrir's latching onto the ice-disk, moving to hang to it as they go down. There's a small pang of fear. They could die here. But then, well...if they did, she's broken her promise. And Fenrir's not a liar.
DG: Fenrir has used her Tool Grapple Claw toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
It isn't enough. Not on its own.
Two together is better than...
Avril draws back, considering -- if quickly -- the situation. One finger eases over the trigger on the hilt of her weapon; she twists her wrist sharply and the blade vanishes. There are still sufficient charges.
And yet, she hesitates.
An instant later, the barrier comes down. Lightning and Fenrir both see to it.
But it isn't without its toll.
Something screams horribly.
As winter's grasp rises to snarl around them, staggering into the water, first one person then another collapse. Her lips part, her eyes widen.
Be practical about this.
Save them.
Rushing to the side of the nearest person -- Lily, blooded, disoriented -- she tucks the ARM away and draws out the Medium.
The oddly designed, oddly ancient, oddly artificial Medium.
"Here," she murmurs, beginning to focus, heedless of the presence that forces its returning, crawling back out of whatever hole it had dropped into before.
But before the decision she's made can really come to a head, things happen.
Frost engulfs the cavern. Temperatures drop to freezing. And then... all is ice.
It's familiar, isn't it?
"...You want to protect them both, do you not," she answers Elly, though the words were not meant for her ears. "I understand. This, I also desire." She closes her eyes and kneels atop the block of ice she's found herself upon.
"Lucadia, please..."
And she once again asks for divine intervention of a sort. Lift them up, grant them all the grace and speed of the currents of the sea. The Medium shines.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
"FEI!" Ruby flies one way - but Elly is there first - and Hiro calls out - "Lily..." Coughing once, he staggers in that direction footsteps splashing in the water, "This place is just eating away at us..." The water's rush from the waterfall sound takes on an ominous feeling to him - after seeing all those watery tendrils -
And then it's there. The mangled - quite dead form of the Metal Wyrm. And now without the grip of whatever horrors were in there Ruby grows a shade paler and gapes - "It's... it's..."
There's something between a strangled gasp and a mournful whimper to see a dragon reduced to such a state of horrible unlife.
And Hiro looks downstream to see the waterfall's dip - then back to see it. His mind whirling about options - then finding none.
And then Elly says something - to get over there. And whirling about with his instinctive trust - his feet pound at the water as he makes hiw ay for her.
He's not quite certain what he expects to be happening. When the water gets colder - a wisp of breath comes from his mouth - then his footing lurches - and there's just a note of awe in what's happening. How it's rising - "Elly..."
There's a note of stunned awe in his voice - which contrasts his earlier uncertainty and fear of the woman tearing her way through the depths.
But he doesn't say anymore. He seems to instinctively understand that maybe distracting her right now is possibly the worst thing to do.
Instead he scrambles near the edge - trying to take care with his footing on the ice to make certain the dragon isn't going to reach them.
The hulk let's out a screeching nails on the chalkboard scream - as Ruby flies right down and puts a small whoosh of flame not in it's eyes - but right in its eyes.
"Get out of its body! OUT!"
It is perhaps the tiniest - most effective - defiant 'screw you' in all of Filgaia's history.
And then she pulls up - flying after the rising ice floe in a desperate flap of wings - eyes pinched shut with a 'nonono' shake of her head. But once out of range - she looks back once at the creature - her expression is pained as she whispers - Somehow... I hope you find a way to rest."
DG: Hiro has used his Tool Ruby Being Helpful toward his party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
==========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 6 *>==========================
========================< Results - Fall of the Dragon >========================
Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten 99 --(10)--> 109 Pass
Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenrir 99 --(10)--> 109 Pass
Grapple Claw 2 Agility Effects: Quicken
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hiro 99 --(10)--> 109 Pass
Ruby Being Helpful 2 Agility Effects: Resilient
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lily Keil 104 --(X)--> X
Effects:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong 114 --(X)--> X
Effects:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avril Vent Fleur 99 --(10)--> 109 Pass
Sea Medium 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Elhaym van Houten 80 --(0)--> 80 Pass
Conditions: Madness|Overwhelm|Save Point(1)|Weaken(1)
Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Elhaym van Houten is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fenrir is too exhausted to continue! DG: Hiro is too exhausted to continue! DG: Avril Vent Fleur is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has passed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over. DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has been fully Exhausted by Hadal Temple! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
===============================<* Hadal Temple *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Derelict Ship *>======================= |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- With a thunderous roar, the Primarch departs, its mass pulling deeper into the earth like water being sucked down a drain. Within a minute, it's gone, and its departure reveals a path in the wreckage around its nest. It leads to a cliff-face, overlooking a cavern saturated with a thick haze. Nevertheless, you can still feel the Primarch's foul presence in the air -- you can only take a brief look around before it regains its strength. Moving towards the edge of the cliff, you catch a glimpse of the fore of a massive, derelict skyship with a particular insignia at its bow. However, between the mist, the sheer drop, and your own exhaustion, you'll have to wait another day to get there. (You should send a +request about this discovery!) =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The ice Fenrir hooks onto starts to crack -- But then it seals up again. Elly was probably just surprised.
In her high seat she gasps out, flecks of red in her saliva. That searing feeling is coming back again, like her veins are full of gasoline.
... I guess even the Drive has its limits, Elly thinks, feeling a terrible clarity even as the glittering chromium edge of life on the ragged edge of stimulant medication begins to fade. Or I do. I'm sorry, everyone...
The disk of ice hangs in the air, as the cosmos holds its breath.
And then Lucadia intervenes.
Perhaps it is the ability to take a breath without falling. Perhaps it's simply the presence of Avril, or the encouraging words of Hiro, or Ruby's defiance. Fear of the dragon. Something. Elly can feel a pain in her eye but the Ether pattern is still there, she made it even if she can't quite remember how. She doesn't have to match what she did, she just has to not wreck it. And it is much easier to do that.
Up. Keep going up.
Up. Up. Up. Go home, Elly thinks. Fly away so high you get home. You'll get home and you can rest. You can take a real shower and you can lay in your bed and you can sleep and sleep until everything feels better. She knows she's lying to herself but sometimes you have to do that. The disk of ice rises with a ponderous leisure, and it would be easy prey for the Primarch, but perhaps Ruby has warded it off for now...
Or perhaps it doesn't want to fight with an Ether manifestation like this.
Is this what having a stroke feels like? Elly thinks as the pain settles in like hot lead from the nape of her neck all the way to the space between her eyes. When she opens them slightly, the left eye is red like rust, almost matching her hair.
I hope I don't have to get my brain replaced, Elly thinks further.
She speaks, her voice a rusty mumble. "Tell me... tell me which way to go... I can't look right now... Ruby..." She hasn't met Hiro officially, after all, and the other people are partway strangers.
It's a shame, considering the looming derelict bulk to starboard. But then, it's probably best that right now, for this exact moment, that Elly is settling on being a dutiful little Do Bee, considering the sheer drop and evil undead dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.
Promptly - Elly feels precious pink pawsies on her shoulder. Ruby doesn't question Elly's need for a guide.
She just does it, "Up - further up. Now a little left... your other left."
Under any other scenario - she'd probably suggest Elly lean over in the direction of Fei and kiss as a light joke.
This scenario where she needs her to steer and not break her concentration is not one of these scenarios.
It's a tense ride for the rest of them. Hiro sort of wearily yet excitedly points in the direction starboard at the dilapidated skyship.
Alllmoosttt... allllmooosstttt... ... ... actually a smidge more to the left. Okay we're good. Just bring it a little forward and we'll be over dry land. Maybe uh - 5 sools?"
A beat pause - and then suddenly she blurts out in a panic.
"I mean Sharls! Sharls! Ahahaha - I always get your Blue Star measurements mixed up - that..." She laughs some nervously, "...that could have been bad."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Hah... hah," Elly says as the ice disk moves forwards gently, and also very gently, leisurely even, crashes onto a smooth expanse leading to a negotiable if unpleasant crevice outwards.
"I think it would have been. How far is..."
* Elly is defeated.
(* but she's breathing and everything, don't worry, Hiro!)