2018-01-05: Ordeal of the Nahual
- Log: Ordeal of the Nahual
- Cast: Cyre H. Lorentz, Catenna, Ida Everstead-Rey, Jacqueline Barber, Jack Van Burace, Rosaline Calice, Ryudo, Yarobeleedt, K.K.
- Where: Baskar Colony
- Date:
- Summary: The Nahual of Wehaca Village undergoes his ordeal.
===============================<* Baskar Colony *>================================ Baskar Colony is the closest thing to a capital for the Baskar Tribe on Ignas. Nestled high in the northwestern mountains, this small village is where many of the Baskar elders dwell. The homes here are simple but imposing structures, often carved into the walls of the mountains themselves. The scant wood here he goes to providing fire and warmth for cold nights. Provisions are limited to what is given by families who live here, as there aren't any dedicated stores; similarly, no inns or hotels provide respite. However, the elders' knowledge will sometimes lure the determined and desperate to this place. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKKhBT0A1pE
DG: A party led by Cyre H. Lorentz is now entering Ordeal of the Nahual. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
====================<* CHALLENGE - The Land in Despair *>=====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Rain pelts the land outside the Ordeal of the Nahual relentlessly and
without cessation. It's hard to tell just how long this storm has lasted,
but it has turned the ground below you into a sludge of mud and uprooted
grass, creating a swamplike mire out of what was once a beautiful landscape.
Approaching the temple grounds might have just been a minor inconvenience in
conditions like these... but there is something else here, lacing itself
through the muck. Whispers seed themselves in your mind, the thoughts of the
dead and gone, speaking the futility of your existence and your efforts
here. You will fail here, they say, just as you have failed everything, and
as the hopelessness tries to seed its way into your soul, the very mud
itself begins to rise up in viscous tendrils of wrongness, trying to wrap at
your legs, ensnare you, and drag you down into the quagmire.
Where you belong.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Cripple=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Homecomings are supposed to be happy times. They are supposed to be opportunities to reunite with friends and family you haven't seen in ages, to exchange stories and make up for hours spent apart. A reunion after so much time apart is a small miracle, something that allows a life to live far beyond its own skies and climes.
It's as though Cyre has not been home in a long, long time. The winds are unfamiliar to him now. It's as if the land mourns for a tragedy that has not yet come to pass; as if nature itself has given up before it had even tried to fight. The winds are unfamiliar, but only because the memory of that invincible, prideful gale is so powerful in his mind.
This is not the homecoming he desired.
Once news of his homeland's plight had reached him, the prodigal son sped to its aid as quickly as he could. But just as they had begun ther approach to the hamlet itself, he turned their path towards another destination, not to the town in which he grew up, but somewhere... else. Somewhere closeby- the place where all who walk as he does begin ther journey, the metaphorical and metaphysical heart of this community.
But, looking at it now, it may already be too late.
The Ordeal of the Nahual was never meant to be this way. The pounding rains and colorless fog have devoured the natural beauty of this place, painting over the mighty canyon walls and rolling prairie with morose and lifeless grey.
And the marsh here...
It doesn't take more than a glance for the shaman to recognize it for what it is. The land is choked with despair.
Cyre's expression clouds over not with despair, but with rage.
"Grab hold," he instructs the others as the muddy tendrils of doubt and despair begin creeping up their legs, into their minds. A raw, animal fury pushes it back as the shaman unfurls his parachute, "The storm winds are dangerous, but I'd rather test myself on them than wander through... This."
"We go to the heart of this place. Whatever it is afflicting the Ordeal, we will find it there."
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
This darkness, in the hometown of the one dearest to her... just beholding it is enough to make a part of Catenna curl up under a cot somewhere.
The hood of her Ellurian-style cloak keeps the rain out of her hair, but the murk and muck are only part of the story. The shamaness gazes on with quiet horror at the state of things ahead - at the sheer feel of the place. She's been to a few Baskar villages; they usually have a predictable feel to them.
Here, there's only a horror that seeks to root itself in her mind. Whispers of old thoughts she thought she had put to bed a long time ago. Whispers of fresh ones.
As she moves over to Cyre, she gently curls her hand into his. With her other hand, she looses the rope at her belt, unhooking the grappling line and whirling it to cast it over the undulating, rolling earth before them. Furious coils of muck grasp for the rope as Catenna lobs it high above them, the hook escaping their grasp to anchor to an outcrop in the distance.
"That should help," she says quietly before stepping into Cyre. Settling into his right side, she looks up at him. Catenna's arm slips around his waist, as if to assure him it will be alright.
Then Catenna glances back, towards the group. For a moment, her eyes linger on Rosaline Calice.
/Of course she would be here with us. He always seems to want to be around her. Her and that other Etone.
As she shifts her grip on Cyre, Catenna fixes her eyes forward and tries to put the burning ember of doubt from her mind. It continues to gnaw at her.
Just my luck, that the only person to show a hint of romantic interest in me is probably bored of me already.
I wonder if he laughs at me behind my back for thinking he cares about me.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Grappling Hook toward her party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida left her horse back at the nearest Baskar settlement that had stabling, and seemed relatively free of... whatever was happening. Cyre felt that there was rain in the winds, which is bizarre, even for winter in this part of the world. She didn't want to risk testing to see if the mechanisms in her new ARM were waterproof, so she field-stripped it, leaving only the shell of the metal gauntlet. She's wearing it as what amounts to a good-luck charm, because Luisa wore a gauntlet-ARM like that, too, right?
Ida walks at Cyre's left flank, wearing her wide-brimmed hat and the oilcloth poncho she packed in case of rain way back when she left Guild Galad. She's never seen the ritual grounds before, but... she can't imagine them looking like this normally. And that terrible feeling creeps up in the back of her mind, confirming her worst suspicions. "Malevolence," Ida whispers. Something shifts beneath her poncho ever-so-slightly, but the garment's presence makes it difficult to tell she's hugging herself for comfort. "We can't afford to linger."
Stupid child. What did you think it was? The exact same symptoms on display as the outbreak at Port Timney--what manner of idiot are you?
Cyre's rage seems to ignite a kindred spark inside her. Ida steps up next to him, and grabs a corner of the parachute, as she's done many times before.
Don't you remember what happened when you tried this in the dream?
You'll only weigh them down.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It was not long after her second venture into the Hadal Temple, an adventure which left her shaken, but there was no time for extended recovery. A friend - a member of her Kinship - was in need, and there was no way she would turn down a request for aid.
This land before them must have been beautiful, once. Jacqueline had seen the images shown to her by that orb, but now...it was dreary and full of mud.
Fortunately, she's dressed for the situation with a thick hooded coat, underneath which her bags were stored safely, and durable boots for tromping through muddy mires...
This mud, though, was something else entirely. It reaches out, trying to pull them all down into the muddy abyss - physically and mentally. She can feel that darkness weighing on her mind.
It's a familiar darkness, that lays all her failures bare before her mind. That taunts her with the lives she couldn't save, that tries to instill her with a hopelessness that had been in her mind many times before.
She couldn't let them take hold. Not this time, not when her friends needed her...
Jacqueline shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head, reaching into her coat for some bottles of pale-green liquid which are passed out to everyone present.
"Here...take these, it should help deter some of the side effects..." Jacqueline murmurs, before grabbing hold as Cyre instructs.
It would be best to go over the mud entirely, if possible.
Her eyes fall on Catenna for a moment, and then on Ida.
Their last meeting hadn't exactly gone...pleasantly. Hopefully enough time had passed that it wouldn't be a problem...they all needed to be together on this one.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
There had been a swordsman around the colony of late. A tall, surly, ponytailed swordsman. Most of the reason that he had been there of late is because he was...as were so many others...healing. His body recovered quickly enough of course. Flesh and bone knitting back together. Leaving new scars for him to show off.
Not that he's felt much like showing off lately.
Thankfully Hanpan was with him, and the elemental beast with the quick wit and ready friendship had at least prevented Jack from starting anything that anyone might regret. Still restlessness sets in and eventually one must move on. Or at the very least pick a direction. That direction had been with others and towards trouble.
Which is about normal for him.
Like the others he's left his horse behind, though Hanpan is ever at his side. The little wind mouse grimicing at the waves of pressure the Malevolence gives off. The feelings of doubt and pain that creep though the cracks of the person into the soul.
Jack's hand grips the hilt of his blade in a white knuckles grip as the voices batter at his psyche. Echos of a White Knight that pointed out his weaknesses so elequently not so long ago.
"So this is what it looks like, given form." He growls as he glowers at the swamp. "At least there is something I can actually tell to go to hell here now."
The rage inside is a friend. Old a trusted. It keeps him warm in the face of all this...mess. It feeds on Crye and Ida to grow stronger. Bull and rip and tear though the fog around him as he steps closer to the glider.
Hanpan looks...well. Worried. But the stalwart little mouse looks towards the rest. "I'll do what I can to give you more lift." He says in his piping voice towards the baskar.
Jack nods towards Jay though at the offer of the bottle. He'll deftinally take a drink.
...because this? Is defintally time for a drink.
DG: Jack Van Burace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Rosaline should be resting. The events at the Garmia Tower have left her physically and emotionally exhausted. But no, there's simply so much to do, so much horror to keep at bay.
Besides, she felt she owed Cyre. He had played an integral part in saving Elena and, indeed, all of their lives. But even if that hadn't been the case, she wouldn't have turned down a friend in need.
Besides, he had spoken of corruption spreading. She had assumed Malevolence, perhaps jumping at shadows, but... she was correct, unfortunately.
They cross the marsh through the storm, something that would already be an ordeal, were in not for the despair gripping at her. Malevolence has a lot to work with, of course.
Cyre instructs them to grab on, and she does so as he rises, with some difficulty. THIS time she's fairly confident the situation is too dire for him to joke about it. ...Right?
She notices Catenna's look at her. She sees right through me, Rosaline thinks, I don't belong here. I am a heathen to them, aren't I? What a hypocrite.
Her hold slips. The bog seems like an excellent idea right now.
I'll only slow them down, then flare up at the worst moment yet again. What's wrong with me? They don't deserve me.
Jay hands her a bottle. She doesn't react at first, but finally takes and drinks it after some hesitation. It clears her mind enough that she strengthens her grip again. There's still fight in her. Try as it might, that voice in her, Malevolent or otherwise, has never managed to extinguish her will to live entirely just yet.
DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
A great, oppressive discomfort fills the brooding heart of Ryudo, casting a stonier shade on his ever-present frown than the usual. Unrest. Disquiet. His soul is not at peace, and his mind screams for him to get away from here as quickly as possible. ...It has nothing to do with the state of this land, however. It has everything to do with the fact that there are far too many familiar faces in this adventuring party. Ryudo gravitated toward the profession of Geohound because he is decidedly *not* a people person, and his very presence here is violating several personal rules. Chief among which: Don't stay with one group for long.
But while Ryudo stews in a personal darkness several paces behind Cyre -- the person who talked him into this and solely responsible for the current personal dilemma -- he remains largely oblivious to the malevolent forces at work here. Fortunately he has a comrade familiar enough with his quirks to discern the difference. The hawk sitting on his shoulder, Skye, shuffles restlessly as he offers en explanation. "The land here is wounded. It struggles against something...unnatural. Ryudo, we had best be on our guard. Malevolence is at work here."
The Geohound tilts his head in mild annoyance at this declaration, befure turning his gaze to the back of Cyre's head. "Cyre, a thought occurs to me. Why is it that we never go anywhere...nice?" Careful there Ryudo, you might start making the Catman's entourage think that you're jealous for his attention to.
Without offering further sarcasm, Ryudo climbs aboard the parachute as instructed. It's a testament to his personal failings that Ryudo is well-accustomed to the procedure at this point. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM CYRE
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Land in Despair.
====================<* CHALLENGE - The Land in Despair *>=====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Rain pelts the land outside the Ordeal of the Nahual relentlessly and
without cessation. It's hard to tell just how long this storm has lasted,
but it has turned the ground below you into a sludge of mud and uprooted
grass, creating a swamplike mire out of what was once a beautiful landscape.
Approaching the temple grounds might have just been a minor inconvenience in
conditions like these... but there is something else here, lacing itself
through the muck. Whispers seed themselves in your mind, the thoughts of the
dead and gone, speaking the futility of your existence and your efforts
here. You will fail here, they say, just as you have failed everything, and
as the hopelessness tries to seed its way into your soul, the very mud
itself begins to rise up in viscous tendrils of wrongness, trying to wrap at
your legs, ensnare you, and drag you down into the quagmire.
Where you belong.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Cripple=======================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Catenna has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Lion *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- These grounds are not without its protectors. The tiger and the lion, sacred beasts of the Guardians of the storm. Once, they were a trial to be overcome as much as they were guardians to protect this place from those who would mean it ill. Now? Now, the thing before you is a mere shadow of what it once was. What was once a lion to the naked eye has become warped by Malevolence, veins of it flowing through in pulses of sickly blacks and violet, curving angry, ichorous horns at its maw and wings at its back, a blackened, ugly beast that snarls despair at you before it charges, the very ground thundering beneath its mighty advance and eyes wild with helpless fury and fear. Because it knows how hopeless this all is, and soon you will too Fight it, and release it from its misery. However you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Suffer=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
YOU WILL HAVE FRIENDSHIP AND YOU WILL LIKE IT RYUDO.
"It's almost like cats are bad luck," he says to his fellow Baskar as he joins the various ladies (and one Jack) on a magic parachute ride. In another genre, this would be when the hysterical sexual tension starts up, but the mood today is too somber for that. "Of course, I wasn't the black one, so I'm not sure why exactly I'm the one on Chapapanga's bad side."
Fortunately for Rosaline, it is entirely too serious for Cyre to joke... Too much.
Humor, it seems, is how he deals with situations like these. Well. And by nursing a healthy dose of righteous indignation.
Lightning flashes ominously across the sky. Not that kind of indignation.
"Thanks, little wind mouse," Cyre says to Jack's not-pooka as the group takes to the skies. Jay's offer of one of her patented Invigoring Elixirs is also well received. (As all adventurers know, caffiene is the truest antidepressant.) A mixture of it, experienced fliers, supplemental wind magic and Catenna's anchor see them through.
Anchor.
Yeah, that's about right. But not in the sense of weighing anyone down, but rather...
"Hold on tight," he whispers to her as he wraps one arm around her waist. "Don't let go. This place, I..."
I'm not strong enough face it without you.
Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The swamp, left far below, does not take kindly to the group cheating it of its meal, though. Tendrils of swampwater swirl up in eddies of whirling wind, lashing at the makeshift flier as it approaches the Ordeal in the distance. Arcs of cutting wind and rays of brilliant light slice through as many as Cyre can reasonably hit while still concentrating on navigation, but... Some get through for long enough to seize hold.
Hopefully, Jacqueline's elixir is enough to staunch the effects.
Before long, though, they cross the swamp. "Here, this way," Cyre calls, making his way into a great cleft in the rain-slicked stone. "We need to keep moving, or else--"
Or else... what?
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna's misery is quietly compounded by the presence of Ryudo, the man who - when last she met him - talked down to her for caring about respect for the dead. Oh, look. He's here to try and humiliate me in front of everyone again, because of course he is. Just in case I needed a reminder of how miserable a failure I am as a human being.
Then Cyre wraps his arm around her. She looks up at him, her lower lip bitten - and for just a moment, she can see what's in his eyes. That moment of quiet doubt and admission. Her pale grey eyes soften a little.
You won't have to face it alone... my love.
When finally the little band lands, Catenna looks up at Cyre again and manages a small, weak smile, then follows him into the cleft. Once through it, she steps away from him to draw her sword. The blade seems duller with so little light slipping through the unnatural storm.
The depths of the Malevolent power seem all the more abyssal here, almost forming a haze visible only to the spiritual eye. Through that haze comes the low sound of something rumbling. It may be a cloud of thunder - or perhaps something given voice by the low, dark shape prowling through the sheeting rain and slowly undulating coils of mist and Malevolent fog.
The shape lets out a shattering roar, then, and the haze gutters. The beast that comes roaring through the rain is unmistakably a very large lion - though no ordinary one, its hide marked with swatches of colour here and there, ritual symbols demarcating it as a guardian of this place.
Those symbols have been warped into ugly, violet runes that stream guttering trails of Malevolent fire. Veins of it surge through the twisted Guardian's body and ooze from its eyes and horns, along the spars of its hideous batlike wings. The immense lion hurtles forward in a vast lunge.
Only the fact that Catenna knows how to duck saves her from having her head bitten off. She gasps as she hits the ground and rolls forward, the twisted guardian lion lunging over her and hitting the ground amongst the party. Its eyes blaze with helpless fury and a spark of something incredibly fearful as it whirls and lashes out with talons and venom--
Because there's no hope. There never was.
Catenna grapples with the thought, heart beating rapidly as she runs her fingers over her Medium, seeking solace in the familiar spark of serenity that is the knowledge that, even amidst the despair, Celesdue is with her. "Cyre," she cries out with alarm, before uttering a few words.
The power of gravity resonates in the air. The lion cannot be so easily bound, but as it whirls upon the rest of the party, it struggles to move its own body weight as Catenna fights to weigh it down. You've got an opening.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Celesdue Medium toward her party's challenge, The Lion.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida downs Jay's tonic in a single gulp. As the parachute takes to the air, she turns her head up--she doesn't dare look down. She shuts her eyes, and keeps them closed the entire time. The rainwater drips down the parachute in sheets, and she can feel her grip slipping.
Let go. You're only weighing them down, and you know it. What are you trying to prove?
Ida clings tighter, and tells herself that it's raining, and they can't tell that she's already crying. The lie almost works.
You're going to die here.
Ida is still with the group when the glider lands. She doesn't let go until she has both feet on solid-seeming ground, and when she does, she has to flex her hands to try and get the tension out of her aching knuckles. She opens her eyes, and sees filmy, Malevolent fog over everything. Ida sucks in a breath, and then realizes that she can't hold her breath here--there's no clean air, no refuge from the fog. She takes deep breaths, tries not to imagine the taint seeping into her lungs. On one breath out, she lets out a cloud of chi, which drifts off like ghostly golden fireflies. Lifeforce, up ahead, but... wrong. Entirely wrong.
"GET BACK!" Ida cries, moments before the monster almost takes Catenna's head off. Ida leaps to the side, tucking and rolling. The rain-slick rock face turns the roll into a skidding slide, and she plants metal-clad fingers into the ground to stop it. She skids to a halt, pushes up on a knee, and fumbles through her belt contents for the spark striker and a flare. Please, God, Ida thinks, please let the fuses be dry.
What makes you think He's listening to you? You know you shouldn't have brought those--and now you're going to complain about something that's entirely your fault, like you always do. Idiot child.
Ida fumbles with the striker. It doesn't want to work--it's like the air itself is trying to extinguish the sparks before she can start them. "Cyre!" Ida cries. Realization strikes in the panic. She holds the grenade up, trying to shield it with her hand while keeping it in his line of sight. "Light the fuse!"
If he does, she immediately covers it as best as she can, and then chucks it right at the lion.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, The Lion.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Rosaline manages to hang on, barely. It's a familiar story.
She is soon all too glad to be out of the swamp. It's a small relief, but she is very fond of firm ground. "Thank you," she manages.
Her spiritual eye is all too open right now, and the miasma hangs thick in the air in front of her, blotting out almost all light.
And then comes... that roar.
'They say it makes us closer to some of the Guardians. Fengalon. Noua Shax. They're depicted as manifesting in the form of big cats, so... That's how it goes, you know?'
Rosaline knows she would know if she were in the presence of a Guardian, but the lion's connection is clear.
"HYDRO STORM!" Rosaline cries out, clutching her holy water. Blessed rain mixes with the tainted storm, its effect diluted but not entirely. It can't cleanse Malevolence, of course not--
I'm not nearly strong enough. Why would anyone rely on someone so weak? Are they out of their minds?
--It would be like trying to wash a bloodstain with only water. But it's a start. And combined with Catenna's spell, it should hopefully slow the beast down, in addition to mitigating the wounds it inflicts.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline very carefully removes herself from the glider once they're safely on the other side. A part of her hopes that don't find out what 'or else' means. Unfortunately for her, it doesn't seem like that's the case. As they proceed, a shattering roar breaks the silence, heralding the arrival of a large lion, twisted by Malevolence.
Jacqueline backpedals. She can see it in its eyes...the fear. She knows that fear all too well...and that fear makes it all the more dangerous.
Jacqueline moves quickly, drawing a Crest from within her coat and invoking it. As the beast is weighed down by Celesdue's power tendrils of earth shoot up from the ground, seeking to bind it even further.
Would they...? Would they have to kill it? It seemed wrong. She didn't want to do it, but the least she could do is do what she could to prevent it from harming anyone...
She also quickly returns the Crest to her coat, because she doesn't want it getting too wet from the rain.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Lion.
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Lion *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- These grounds are not without its protectors. The tiger and the lion, sacred beasts of the Guardians of the storm. Once, they were a trial to be overcome as much as they were guardians to protect this place from those who would mean it ill. Now? Now, the thing before you is a mere shadow of what it once was. What was once a lion to the naked eye has become warped by Malevolence, veins of it flowing through in pulses of sickly blacks and violet, curving angry, ichorous horns at its maw and wings at its back, a blackened, ugly beast that snarls despair at you before it charges, the very ground thundering beneath its mighty advance and eyes wild with helpless fury and fear. Because it knows how hopeless this all is, and soon you will too Fight it, and release it from its misery. However you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Suffer=============================================
DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Holy Water toward her party's challenge, The Lion.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedtppl
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
There is a primal fear at the heart of every human being. It's a small but undeniable voice- the little, basal seat of the brain that demands action when action is merited. Fight. Flight. We all have that voice in our heads. In Cyre's- in someone who is arguably more bestial than the average man- it is even stronger than usual. The Malevolence chokes this place, suffusing it in its entirety. A terrible chill runs up the shaman's spine, long before the true nature of the danger he senses reveals itself.
It does so in the most devastating manner it can conceive of: by nearly cleaving Catenna's head from her shoulders.
And the form it takes is...
Familiar.
"No," Cyre breathes, momentarily petrified by the guardian-turned-monster. "L...eon?"
Catenna screams. Cyre growls, shaking himself free of the dreadful reverie that had seized him. No. It's not him. This is just a beast. One of the guardians, driven mad. "Damnit. How long has this been going on!? I should have come sooner, but...!"
Had you come sooner, what would you have done? There is no putting off the inevitable...
Cyre snarls as the darkness surrounding him suddenly seems to split in two. A vast aurora of chromatic light erupts as thin beams of pure, holy energy split and prism through Rosaline's rain. One scythes down and ignites the wick on Ida's grenade, but the majority...
The majority are focused on burning the corruption right out of this great guardian beast. The question lingers in Cyre's mind, though...
An omen of what is to come...?
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Lion.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Ryudo grudgingly accepts the tincture offered by Jacqueline, quaffing it with little fanfare. Some of those here might have assumed him as the type to refuse such generosity as a matter of course, but one element that separates career mercenaries from the cannon fodder is knowing when they're out of their own element. That doesn't mean that he has to be friendly about it.
But while the Ryudo may have little interest in socializing, the hawk Skye is less so. Choosing to fly alongsode the parachute under his own power than risk getting accidentally smooshed between its occupants, his head swivels in the direction of Hanpan when he feels the added lift under his wings. "A kindred spirit, I see." The beady eyes of the hawk are unblinking, but seem to focus on Van Burace for the briefest of moments. "And one who keeps similar company no less. How uncanny."
Ryudo cranes his neck back, an act which has the unexpected consequence of rocking the parachute. "Have something you want to say to my face, bird?" "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." Fortunately, Cyre is an adept enough helmsman to compensate for the deviation. This doesn't stop one of the spiteful swamp's sliced tendrils from whipping across his face and leaving a slimy trail of murk, but he weathers it with mild grumbling.
All of this calls further attention to the Gehound's seeming refusal to acknowledge Catenna's existence...but she's correct. The Geohound is here, judging her by virtue of simply being here, and with every expectation that at any moment her delicate sensibilities will demand control of the expedition and tug them toward potential downfall. The fact that he feels no need to sarcastically rub it in her face seems little more than him being resigned to his inevitable fate. ...Or she could just be imagining it, but who are we kidding?
As the group disembarks from the glider, the Geohound draws his bastard sword as a matter of course. He may be largely numb when it comes to the spiritual matters sensed by the others, but he's not stupid. This proves to have been an apt bit of caution when the lion announces its presence and begins its charge toward the party. Ryudo wipes the murk from his eyes with a free hand -- did he just imagine some sort of purple mist exhuding from those ceremonial markings? -- before instead using it to brush the medium attached to his bandolier. "Schturdark...do your thing." He's not very good at the praying thing. As a warm protective light envelops him and those near, he shifts to place himself between the lion and Catenna before it can turn back around. Blade drawn, he has none of the reservations that a 'true' Baskar might feel for having to put down such a creature. It bared its fangs at him, and he reciprocates in kind. The only thing preventing him from moving to slay it as it stands is Cyre's apparent attempt to purify it. He grits his teeth, but shifts his stance to focus on defensive swings rather than mortal ones.
"I'm only giving you a moment, Cyre! If kitty sinks his fangs into someone, I'm putting him down."
DG: Ryudo has used his Tool Schturdark Medium toward his party's challenge, The Lion.
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Lion *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- These grounds are not without its protectors. The tiger and the lion, sacred beasts of the Guardians of the storm. Once, they were a trial to be overcome as much as they were guardians to protect this place from those who would mean it ill. Now? Now, the thing before you is a mere shadow of what it once was. What was once a lion to the naked eye has become warped by Malevolence, veins of it flowing through in pulses of sickly blacks and violet, curving angry, ichorous horns at its maw and wings at its back, a blackened, ugly beast that snarls despair at you before it charges, the very ground thundering beneath its mighty advance and eyes wild with helpless fury and fear. Because it knows how hopeless this all is, and soon you will too Fight it, and release it from its misery. However you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Suffer=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Jack clings to that glider with on hand, the other firmly engaged with downing the bottle that Jay so kindly provided. Concentrating on drinking. On ignoring the voices that bubble up from inside. Bubble up from below.
Weak.
Useless.
Never be enough.
You should be dead.
You have no power...
...unless...
The roar of the charging lion distracts him from those darker thoughts and the tempting spiral that comes with them. The corrupted beast charges and Jack's eyes widen. Partly in shock, partly because...well...
"Finally," The swordsman growls out as fingers close around the hilt of his sword. "Something to hit."
The sweet release of having a target. Of being able to vent some of his rage. He can almost feel the horror of whats happened to the guardian of this place eminate from the people there even as that sword of his is torn free from the scabbard.
With a roar of his own Jack flings himself forwards. There is no thought to defense, no thought to his own safty. No there is only a wonderous release for his own anger and fustration.
Hanpan clings to his shoulder and his voice is shrill but insistant in his ear. "Jack! Its not the creatures fault! Its been corrupted against its will!"
And with a snarl that takes most of his remaining willpower the former knight shifts the stance of his just enough to slam the dull back end of the blade towards the corrupted fanged maw of the beast. Instead of the deadly edge.
...at least he's still listening right?
DG: Jack Van Burace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Lion.
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Lion *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- These grounds are not without its protectors. The tiger and the lion, sacred beasts of the Guardians of the storm. Once, they were a trial to be overcome as much as they were guardians to protect this place from those who would mean it ill. Now? Now, the thing before you is a mere shadow of what it once was. What was once a lion to the naked eye has become warped by Malevolence, veins of it flowing through in pulses of sickly blacks and violet, curving angry, ichorous horns at its maw and wings at its back, a blackened, ugly beast that snarls despair at you before it charges, the very ground thundering beneath its mighty advance and eyes wild with helpless fury and fear. Because it knows how hopeless this all is, and soon you will too Fight it, and release it from its misery. However you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Suffer=============================================
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Lion *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- These grounds are not without its protectors. The tiger and the lion, sacred beasts of the Guardians of the storm. Once, they were a trial to be overcome as much as they were guardians to protect this place from those who would mean it ill. Now? Now, the thing before you is a mere shadow of what it once was. What was once a lion to the naked eye has become warped by Malevolence, veins of it flowing through in pulses of sickly blacks and violet, curving angry, ichorous horns at its maw and wings at its back, a blackened, ugly beast that snarls despair at you before it charges, the very ground thundering beneath its mighty advance and eyes wild with helpless fury and fear. Because it knows how hopeless this all is, and soon you will too Fight it, and release it from its misery. However you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Suffer=============================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* CHALLENGE - Bridge of Sin *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There was, at one point, a trial here. But something has wormed its way into the foundations, cracking apart everything that once was this chamber until only a giant gaping chasm remains between this room's entrance and exit. And wedged there, in the place of whatever once was? A bridge of rubble and pure, concentrated Malevolence, threading ruin together into a laughable facsimile of structure and order. To pass, you will have to maneuver through the spires and obstructions along the bridge, and the tiny, grasping hands clinging to you, holding you, wanting you to stay and become part of their beautiful architecture with them and feed your sins to the malevolent machine. Running. Running might be a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The significance of the lion is far from lost on Catenna. So, too, is the absence of a tiger. And the wind has not blown the storm off....
Cyre breathes out. The priestess presses her lips together tightly as she watches the tigerman prepare to call down that holy light of Fengalon.
Rosaline's blessed rain pounds into the monstrous lion, but the corruption of Malevolence will not be so easily dampened. Slashing at the beastwoman with its ichorous horns, the distorted leo roars an utterly inhuman roar, then hurtles towards Jacqueline, smashing through an earthen pillar to strike at her with fang and claw. It whirls upon Jack, then; the swordsman's blade hits that fanged maw -
And deflects away, leaving only a dent behind. The lion barely flinches as it rears upon Jack, looking to knock him to the ground. Claws flash with lethal ichor--
Before Jack can be felled, Cyre and Ida, together, finally do their work. The beams of light spark that hurled grenade; it blazes in the air and erupts in a brilliant explosion, slamming into the mighty lion. More rippling beams of divine light slash through the flame and fire to bombard the twisted leo. The fiery bomb hurls the beast backwards and saves Jack for another day; as it rounds upon Cyre, however, it slams into the holy barrier around Ryudo.
Cyre's divine beams rake down from the heavens to purify the beast... and simply bathe it in light. There is no salvation for it. The fear in its eyes blazes as it opens its mouth and prepares to charge at Cyre.
Catenna widens her eyes and gasps. "NO," she shouts as she dashes forward, her hand at her Medium. She levels the other forward -
And there's a sudden, gut-wrenching lurch of gravity.
All at once, six members of the party are propelled violently backwards. Almost the entire team hurtles clean out of the battle zone, hurled by a powerful gravitational source that radiated out from where Catenna was standing. The lion, at the same time, goes sailing in the other direction. Far in the distance, there is the sound of a thud, then a much softer one.
Those familiar with Catenna may recognize her ability to do this sometimes: To create a large gap between foe and friends by repelling everyone with a short-lived gravity source.
One thing is missing, however. Cyre, Ida, Rosaline, Ryudo, Jack and Jay land safely near each other.
Far off in the mist, in the direction the lion went, the faint sound of roaring suggests that Catenna stayed behind to hold the lion off, for Cyre's sake.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida reaches down and grabs Jack's hand, hauling him bodily away from the ravenous beast. For a brief instant, it doesn't matter that he's much bigger than she is, or that she's aching and terrified and running on adrenaline. "Cyre!" Ida screams, as the beast whirls on its replacement victim. Save one, and another dies. Catenna lunges--
A gut-wrenching twist. The team flies through the air, landing on a narrow strip of rock outside of the entrance to a cave. Ida stays curled up on her side for a moment, and then gets up--and realizes...
"Catenna," Ida says. She can't see anything through the rain. Despair twists in her gut like a knife. "We have to--perhaps we can go back around and--" Ida walks forwards, into the cave, and out of the rain.
The cave is vast inside. The only way across is that. It sticks out in Ida's field of vision like a splinter, a concentrated, knotted mass of something that should not be there. The bits of floating rubble only highlight how out-of-place it is. Ida looks up, and sees a high, vaulted ceiling studded with stalactites glistening in the pale light, longing to shred anything within reach.
"Cyre," Ida says. Her voice is a dry creak. She's shaking.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre is sent flying with all the others. When he hits the ground, it's not a pleasant landing. The shaman rolls into a rock formation, something in his shoulders popping in a distinctly unpleasant way. "Damnit," he hisses, forcing himself up with the arm that doesn't feel like it just got knocked from its socket. "Catenna, what--"
Catenna?
Cyre stares at his companions, the dread building with each head he counts, until the realization punches him right in the gut.
She's gone.
So.
That's it, then. The light of Solais Emsu has as much hope of purging this place as a candle in a stiff wind. There will be no helping it. No cleansing of what has taken root in the land. And now... Now.
Cyre is silent as the world seems to come crashing down around him. His ears ring as he stares blankly into the rain. Ida is saying something... Something. He can't hear. His mind is racing too fast to think. The lion is still out there. Still chasing her. It'll devour her, this plague will take from him everything that he loves and there is no stopping it and--
A shiver passes through his body.
"...No," he mutters, clutching his staff. Clutching to hope. The tiger bears his fangs and the wind howls in reply, "No. Despair... Giving into despair is the first step. Death is the second. We haven't seen her body yet and Catenna is strong. Stronger than me. She's running in the other direction, the two roads join up further ahead. We have to have faith."
The shaman turns to the blighted path. His parachute unfurls, catching in the furious winds. "If we chase them, we will only waste our strength. We go this way, pass through the mouth up ahead and then turn to intercept the beast if it's still chasing her."
They need to believe.
Hope is all they have to cling to, here.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Bridge of Sin *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- There was, at one point, a trial here. But something has wormed its way into the foundations, cracking apart everything that once was this chamber until only a giant gaping chasm remains between this room's entrance and exit. And wedged there, in the place of whatever once was? A bridge of rubble and pure, concentrated Malevolence, threading ruin together into a laughable facsimile of structure and order. To pass, you will have to maneuver through the spires and obstructions along the bridge, and the tiny, grasping hands clinging to you, holding you, wanting you to stay and become part of their beautiful architecture with them and feed your sins to the malevolent machine. Running. Running might be a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
The Geohound does his best to interpose himself between the beast and the rest of the party, but feeble warding blows without killing intent can only do so much when your opponent does not share your good intentions. Worse is the fact that his companions fare poorly in their attempt to subdue it peacefully. His head tilts downward as his expression takes on a grim cast, shifting to a two-handed grip. There is very little mistaking his intent to end the creature's life in the next few moments. Just as he's preparing to charge at the beast once more, an unexpected wall of force sends him teetering -- nay, flying -- off balance and away from his foe.
Surprisingly, the Geohound is among the first to rise, his face contorted with fury. "We didn't ask you to be a goddamn martyr!!", he howls futilely into the distance as he takes in the new surroundings. One could interpret Ryudo's inclusion in the gravitational shove as her desire to protect him along with the others, but that's most certainly not how he interprets it. She put her life at risk for Cyre's sake _to keep him from killing it_. But this isn't the time to ruminate on the why of it. First and foremost comes damage control. And he doesn't have time for the stammering indecisiveness of others.
"Off your asses, people." It's a command. "I'm going after her. Do what you came here to do, but don't get yourselves killed in the process. I can handle myself." The 'unlike her' part goes unstated.
Rather than board the parachute with the rest, he turns his back on his companions, shares a grim nod with Skye, and vaults into the air. Grasping on to the hawk's talons, the two begin backtracking with all the speed they can muster. "CATENNA!" It's the first time he's spoken her name in any context. "Answer me if you can hear. ANSWER, damn you!"
Ryudo will catch up. Apparently. Maybe the peace of mind that Catenna stands a fighting chance will help the others focus on the task at hand.
DG: Ryudo has used his Tool Skye toward his party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Its a fine swing. An excellent swing. He knows the speed. The strengh. The technique behind it. Its all just right. Perhaps its the balance of the pulled stroke that causes the deflection. Or where he decided to place the blow. This corruption is difficult to guess...
'Or perhaps, Garrett Stampede'. A voice echos in his mind. 'Perhaps you simply are that weak.'
He snarls. He shakes his head at that errant thread. He starts to get up, a snarling, hateful ball of rage. Distantly he feels himself flung backwards and towards the cave opening. The way they are suppsoed to go. Even as he shoves himself back to his free its obvious he's going after the lion...
Until Ida hauls him back towards the cave entrence. Its with reluctance he goes, but the greatful look on Hanpan's face is worth it. Hopefully.
Though faced now with a bridge pulsing with dark energy, Jack simply starts to pace. His sword shoved back into its sheath with hardly contained fury. Back and forth even as Cyre starts to deploy his parachute.
"Faith." Hanpan's voice is still solid. A rock against the pulsing dispar of this place. "We must have faith, as the boy says."
Don't feel bad he's three hundred years old he calls everyone boys.
"Come now all, take heart. The two will be ok and will join us soon. For now I shall help again with the flying contraption."
DG: Jack Van Burace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
The beast draws Rosaline's blood with a swipe of its horn. Her own rain knits her flesh back together, but as it's mixed in with the malevolence-tinted storm, she discovers that the process is incredibly painful. She staggers back and winces, struggling to do much more than stand upright and breathe while this poor beast is hurting her friends, and Ryudo too.
You're useless.
And just as she thinks that, she is ragdolled away by an unseen force.
"Catenna!" she cries out as she picks herself back up, and Ida comes to the same realization she did. Surprising... She slowly raises to her feet, turning to Cyre and listening to his decision.
"Okay... You're right." She pushes the despair out of her conscious mind, as much as this place is doing everything it can do wrench it back out.
Surprisingly, Ryudo goes his own way. Rosaline's eyes are wide. That's certainly unexpected. "Granas watch over both of you." She turns back to the chasm...
"I'll... I'll try running, if nobody minds," she says as Cyre unfurls his parachute, before taking off to take on the grotesque bridge herself. She doesn't seem to mind using her hands to run here, even if people are watching. It actually makes it easier for her. And she can't weigh the others down every time. If she does, they all go down.
...Though it would be nice if someone could catch her, if she makes a misstep.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
The beast draws Rosaline's blood with a swipe of its horn. Her own rain knits her flesh back together, but as it's mixed in with the malevolence-tinted storm, she discovers that the process is incredibly painful. She staggers back and winces, struggling to do much more than stand upright and breathe while this poor beast is hurting her friends, and Ryudo too.
You're useless.
And just as she thinks that, she is ragdolled away by an unseen force.
"Catenna!" she cries out as she picks herself back up, and Ida comes to the same realization she did. Surprising... She slowly raises to her feet, turning to Cyre and listening to his decision.
"Okay... You're right." She pushes the despair out of her conscious mind, as much as this place is doing everything it can do wrench it back out.
Surprisingly, Ryudo goes his own way. Rosaline's eyes are wide. That's certainly unexpected. "Granas watch over both of you." She turns back to the chasm...
"I'll... I'll try running, if nobody minds," she says as Cyre unfurls his parachute, before taking off to take on the grotesque bridge herself. She doesn't seem to mind using her hands to run here, even if people are watching. It actually makes it easier for her. And she can't weigh the others down every time. If she does, they all go down.
...Though it would be nice if someone could catch her, if she makes a misstep.
DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Bridge of Sin *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- There was, at one point, a trial here. But something has wormed its way into the foundations, cracking apart everything that once was this chamber until only a giant gaping chasm remains between this room's entrance and exit. And wedged there, in the place of whatever once was? A bridge of rubble and pure, concentrated Malevolence, threading ruin together into a laughable facsimile of structure and order. To pass, you will have to maneuver through the spires and obstructions along the bridge, and the tiny, grasping hands clinging to you, holding you, wanting you to stay and become part of their beautiful architecture with them and feed your sins to the malevolent machine. Running. Running might be a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's eyes widen as the lion, enhanced by the Malevolent taint, smashes through her earthen pillar and goes right for her. Fortunately, the earth reduces its momentum...but it still forward, unleashing a brutal swing of claws to Jacqueline's midsection. If it wasn't for everything in between, or if it pressed the attack, it truly could have killed her...even now blood blossoms across her front, and she has to quickly down a potion to stop the bleeding.
She forces herself to her feet to get back to fighting, but she sees the creature barreling towards Cyre.
She reaches for a Crest, but... There's no time to react...!
And then, she finds herself, and her companions, hurled rapidly backward away from the scene of fight.
All of them except Catenna.
"Catenna!" Jacqueline shouts, terrified.
It happened again.
Another of her friends was sacrificing herself, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could do to stop it.
Was she so weak, that they all needed to sacrifice themselves for her safety?
She had come to the conclusion that she was there to support her friends, that that was one of her main purposes...
And yet, this kept happening and she could do nothing to stop it.
It's Ryudo's rough command that gets Jacqueline to stand up, breaks through her fog of despair, and Cyre's assertion that she's fine that get her moving.
"R-right...let's get moving, she might need our help..." Jacqueline agrees, breaking into a run.
As she moves, yet more potions are passed out through the party...and one is kept in reserve for Catenna if - WHEN - they reach her.
The structure before them is fragile, constructed of rubble and malevolence and reaches out at them, trying to get them to stay behind...
So Jacqueline draws her Crest, and forms her own bridges - bridges of earth pillars to help them on their way and possibly catch anyone who might be about to fall.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The group works their way across the chasm, though not without challenges. They'll be at it for long enough for some time to pass.
From the mouth of the cave, there is a subtle glimmer of blue - and a breath of a breeze that stirs the air in this malevolent chasm with a soft scent of something.
A crisp, salty scent, like wind and waves.
There's a sudden crash of sea water at the mouth of the cavern, a spray of it bursting around the opening - and from it, a slender figure hurtles at a shocking rate of speed, trailing crystalline droplets that shimmer in the air like stars in a moonlit sky. The shape sails through the air in a long, fast arc, as if thrown across the dungeon grounds by a single, absurdly long Jump.
Catenna's not in great shape; she's bleeding from a few deep slash wounds and from somewhere in her mouth, and one of her pant legs is mostly missing, leaving tatters of blue silk streaming behind her. Mingling with the droplets of ocean water are a few drops of bright red blood that trail from a bitemark-shaped wound to her left bicep; it seems to have been partially healed, but not completely.
She's also got Ryudo hurtling along behind her.
--------
A MINUTE OR TWO EARLIER....
Ryudo circles back around, making it a few metres before, ahead, there's a flash of silvery light. Then a long silence, followed by a soft voice. "I am surprised you would come back. Ow."
It's Catenna's; moving forward would reveal her kneeling near the lion, which is still alive.
It is also presently upside down, and anchored to a spot about twenty metres in the air. It's thrashing and wriggling but doesn't seem to be able move from that spot.
Catenna herself is holding another Medium to her breast. She seems to need it; she's bleeding from several horrific wounds, one nearly biting through her left arm, another taking a gruesome chunk out of her side. Kneeling in a growing puddle of her own blood, she breathes slowly and in obvious pain.
She murmurs something. Shimmering light dances across her, with a scent like the ocean.
As the arcana of the Sea Guardian works its magic, the priestess sighs with relief as the most grievous of her wounds begin to knit. She lifts her eyes to Ryudo, then, polite but with a hint of guardedness to them. "...Purifying or destroying it will not be possible with this place so strong with the darkness," she says simply. "We must catch up with the others. Please hold on."
--------
NOW
Catenna and Ryudo touch down at the foot of the bridge of sin with most of the party already across. Breathing heavily from the exertion of all that casting, Catenna begins to uncoil her grappling hook, ready to try and make the crossing with herself and Ryudo.
From across the horrific chasm, she tries to find Cyre's gaze and meet it with a small, reassuring smile. It'll be OK.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Grappling Hook toward her party's challenge, Bridge of Sin.
========================<* CHALLENGE - Bridge of Sin *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There was, at one point, a trial here. But something has wormed its way into the foundations, cracking apart everything that once was this chamber until only a giant gaping chasm remains between this room's entrance and exit. And wedged there, in the place of whatever once was? A bridge of rubble and pure, concentrated Malevolence, threading ruin together into a laughable facsimile of structure and order. To pass, you will have to maneuver through the spires and obstructions along the bridge, and the tiny, grasping hands clinging to you, holding you, wanting you to stay and become part of their beautiful architecture with them and feed your sins to the malevolent machine. Running. Running might be a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Cyre's parachute opens, and takes to the air. Ida clings to it once more, feeling a little less like a burden on the entire group and more like a burden on Jack and Cyre, specifically.
You know you'll only weigh them down.
As the group begins to cross, the Malevolent bridge shifts, queasily. Streamers of violet uncoil from it, unfolding into hands. As the parachute drifts by, several of them grab for Cyre's legs, as if sensing his despair. Once they've gotten that handhold, even more of them grab hold of Jack.
don't fly away
stay with us
please
you know you'll only fall if you try
Ida lashes out. Her bootheel smacks against one grasping hand, and then another. More hands come, but they're quickly distracted by Rosaline, making her way across.
please
One of the hands grabs at her, but she's too quick. More go for Ryudo and Jacqueline and Catenna, but their attention is divided--desperate. Despairing. How could you leave. They always leave...
The parachute lands on the other side of the chasm. The group is free to regroup, and move on.
DG: Rosaline Calice has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* CHALLENGE - The Wind *>===========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The wind is ever present in the storm. The howl of Fengalon, the thing that
carries the raging elements through the elements. It is both guide and
destroyer, and at its whimsy, people have found both blessing and ruin. The
roar of the wind is a thing to be harnessed as much as it is a thing to be
struggled against, and one must always remember that as easily as it can
ride at someone's back, it can just as easily become a ceaseless wall of
resistance. And that has never been more true here, in a long stretch of
hallway that has been engineered to be the perfect wind tunnel: infused with
the blessing of Fengalon, the winds in this large hall blow violently and
continuously, with force enough to whip the unprepared away like a ragdoll.
The exit, situated at a perch at the dead center of the room, is located
precisely to force the people in this room into a situation where they must
work against and with the raging winds in order to reach it. Know the truth
of the wind. The thing that carries, and the thing that hinders. Knowing and
harnessing its mercurial ways is the only way to master it and triumph over
this room.
And for what? A pointless endeavor. Nature cannot be controlled; ever will
you be at the mercy of its whims. The Guardians must delight in watching you
struggle; Fengalon must laugh at your endless failures. Jokes to the end.
Everything is hopeless Carry on. Ride the storm.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Hesitate========================================
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Rosaline is focused as she runs, tuning out the rest of the world. Only when she's gotten to the other side of the bridge does she see Catenna and Ryudo are right behind her.
Tears bead at the corners of her eyes. "Praise be..."
There's healing to be given to the two of them, and Ryudo doesn't even get an ambiguous look because Rosaline has very briefly forgotten that he's terrible. (He needs to fix that in short order.)
The group proceeds through the cave. The more animalistic of them are the first to hear the howl in the distance. Rosaline's ears twitch, and she reaches for her ARMs, expecting a terrible beast lurks ahead. Cyre may know better.
As they approach, every step more laborious than the last, the nature of the test becomes clearer. "Cyre, have you... done this before?" she asks, letting him explain while their voices are still hearable at all. Her ears are already flattening to mitigate the noise.
She looks up. It seems another parachute ride is in order. She prepares for it by tucking her coif in as tightly as she can, to make sure no one is suddenly blinded by a torrent of fluffy shoujo hair. "Whatever I can do to help navigate this..."
DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
It'd be so easy to give in to despair here. To let the grasping hands seize upon that heavy, guilt-ridden heart and drag it down into the depths of silence and surrender. It would be so easy. It would be.
If that voice weren't calling out to him.
"Catenna," Cyre breathes as a sudden gust of wind sends him hurling out of the clutches of the grasping bridge and into a warm embrace. He holds her tightly-- maybe even too tightly-- but given the circumstances, it's hard to blame him. "I knew you were alright. Please don't ever almost kill me with worry like that again. Not without telling me ahead of time."
Cyre takes a moment to stand there, holding her. He releases a breath he didn't know he was holding. "I'm glad you're alright."
Beat.
"You're injured," he realizes, "Jay! We need a potion! I--"
"Oh."
This... This place is familiar. The pushing and pulling of the winds. This... Is where he learned how to parachute-glide. "...Yeah," he says, after a moment, his glider coming unfurled yet again. "Just... Okay, just a disclaimer, here. I failed this one a lot before I got it right. It's hard. It'll be even harder with passengers. So if we get roughed up a little..."
Cyre shrugs.
It seems... he's in better spirits, at least.
"Just hold on tight and yell if you see a stalactite."
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Reverse Parachute toward his party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Beat.
"Oh! Ryudo, you're back too!" Cyre sighs in relief. "Good. You okay?"
Well.
At least we know his priorities.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Somehow, some way, Catenna manages to make it across the bridge without being grasped at and tossed over the ledge.
Not animalistic enough to hear the first howl, Catenna just stops with a blink as she sees Rosaline and Cyre reaching for weapons up ahead. She frowns and squints ahead, watching for a moment and reaching for her sword once more.
Then Rosaline curls in on Cyre, and Catenna bites down to her bottom lip as her thoughts begin to mock her again. I doubt Cyre even noticed I was missing. Go figure he'd take the first opportunity to cuddle that heretic priestess. I bet they've been sleeping together all along.
She forces the thought aside. After all, Cyre is reaching out to her - and she's beginning to understand how much of this doubt is coming from without.
Catenna wraps her arms around Cyre and steps into him, holding him close for the moment that he shares it. She closes her eyes for a moment and inhales.
He smells warm, like a summer wind. It's a nice feeling.
"I am alright," she says, her voice a bit thin with weariness, but steady. Smiling, Catenna glances down at herself, then clears her throat, finally looking up again towards the howling wind chamber looming ahead. "...It seems challenging," she says, her voice low. "Perhaps there is a way...."
She steps forward. Catenna's chest presses into Cyre's side as she curls into him, one arm encircling his waist. The other hand lowers towards the ground as she begins to murmur softly. While she's undoubtedly low on mana, this spell won't be hard - and indeed, everyone in the party will feel their weight beginning to decrease a little as the effects of gravity upon them lessen. "...It should be easier now, Cyre."
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Please don't ever almost kill me with worry like that again.'
"Agreed," Ida whispers. She reaches up to brush something out of her eye as the touching reunion commences. Try as she might, though, she can't ignore the horrible, hollow feeling in her own heart.
You will never be together.
Ida takes a breath, and tries to focus on the here and now--on the path ahead of her. She puts one foot in front of the other, following behind Cyre. As the two in the lead draw weapons, she shifts into a fighting stance--feet shoulder-width apart, hands open in front of her.
How cute. Did you do that just because you remembered him? You know he looks down at you. You're just a thing to be protected and coddled, and you'll die before he's even middle-aged. He'll forget you.
The roar of the wind is almost welcome, because it stops that train of thought abruptly. Ida takes her position up at the corner of the parachute, and takes a look around to see how the others are doing.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
"Very well!" Rosaline says, her fists balled up as she mentally prepares herself. "I can do this... I can definitely do this."
No, of course you can't.
She is, at the very least, completely unaware of Catenna's private thoughts. (She is inccorrect, if you were wondering. (If only she knew.))
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
----
EARLIER...
Ryudo's reply to Catenna is predictable: "It's a good thing that no one asked for your opinion then." Normally this would be accompanied by a sneer, but presently Ryudo is too pissed off to operate under the usual facade of indifference. His eyes quickly scan Catenna's body for injuries, and being no stranger to combat it's fairly easy for him to fill in the gaps of how much worse they were before he happened back upon her. This only serves to further fuel his anger, brows knitting together in an open display of hostility toward the risk she placed herself in for their sake.
Fortunately, there are other priorities at hand. Chief among them is rejoining the rest of their company before reduced numbers result in either group being picked off. "Do it." His grip is vicelike in its unfriendliness, but in no way untoward.
----
Now!
Once the two touch down at the bridge, it's far from Ryudo to simply rely on Catenna to ferry them both across with the grappling hook. And he's certainly not about to lose her here after having invested the effort to ensure her safety. Skye assists them both in the crossing, flying close behind and prepared to take action in the event that either show signs of losing their purchase. ...Or if any of those hands venture too closely to a mostly malevolence blind Ryudo. Caring after chicks can be a pain in the tailfeathers sometime.
Having rejoined the rest of the crew, the mercenary's mouth is a firmer line than usual. He's very angry, and clearly so -- and that is answer enough to Cyre's question. The only reason he isn't laying in to Catenna right now is because this party has enough trouble not disintegrating under the weight of its own stupidity. It doesn't need him further effecting morale or otherwise distracting them from the tasks at hand. ...For now.
In the interim, Ryudo puts his anger to good use and steps into the wind -- not even waiting for Cyre's parachute. One foot after the other. It's times like this that it's good to have a sturdy pair of footwear, and the boots are so tightly strapped to his legs that there is little room for imprecision in his footholds. Skye looks at him in askance as he struggles forward unassisted, but he shakes his head in answer to the unspoken offer for assistance.
The roar of the wind is too great for him to hear others, and that suits him just fine right now. Sometimes a little physical exertion is just the recipie for boiling off some rage.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Catenna!" Jacqueline shouts again. This time, there's joy and relief in her voice and a smile on her face, at seeing her friend alive and well once more. She would go in for a hug, but, well...
Cyre probably needed it more than she did.
Instead she produces a potion, the potion she had saved for Catenna.
"Here. I figured you might need this..." Jacqueline offers, before turning her attention to the task at hand.
They needed to use the wind to progress here, but fortunately Cyre had plenty of experience with that...even if it seemed like it had been difficult at first.
"Stalactites? I can deal with those." Jacqueline says, holding on and drawing out a Crest. "I can blast them away...a-assuming that's alright with you, of course..."
Focus...dealing with the situation at hand...that was the only thing that was important right now.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, The Wind.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
The hands grab at Jack and his reaction is predictable as it is vicious. The sword flashes, slashing at the grasping hands. Severing shadowy fingers with every stroke. They whisp away and fall into the abyss...though their messages are heard by the swordsman.
But no pleeding words resound in his mind.
'You should have died with us.' Recriminations. Blame. Guilt. They fling at him like arrows from a bow. 'A coward. Always leaving. Never facing your demons. Running from anything that means anything.'
His eyes are wide and wild by the time they reach the other side. His breathing ragged. He looks twoards Cyre and Catenna for a moment and there is a moment or relief in his sigh as he closes his eyes. Ryudo's reappearance helps with that. Trying to master the words in his head and the hammering in his heart. Its nearly impossible but when his eyes open again they hold a bit more sanity in them. So that is at least something.
"I can help with the rocks." He offers as he shift his stance on his sword slightly and glances at the trial of the roaring wind ahead. "Hanpan can you help with the wind?"
"I can do my best." The little mouse replies, trying to remain one of the becons of faith in the midst of all this dark.
DG: Jack Van Burace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Wind.
============================<* CHALLENGE - The Wind *>============================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
The wind is ever present in the storm. The howl of Fengalon, the thing that
carries the raging elements through the elements. It is both guide and
destroyer, and at its whimsy, people have found both blessing and ruin. The
roar of the wind is a thing to be harnessed as much as it is a thing to be
struggled against, and one must always remember that as easily as it can
ride at someone's back, it can just as easily become a ceaseless wall of
resistance. And that has never been more true here, in a long stretch of
hallway that has been engineered to be the perfect wind tunnel: infused with
the blessing of Fengalon, the winds in this large hall blow violently and
continuously, with force enough to whip the unprepared away like a ragdoll.
The exit, situated at a perch at the dead center of the room, is located
precisely to force the people in this room into a situation where they must
work against and with the raging winds in order to reach it. Know the truth
of the wind. The thing that carries, and the thing that hinders. Knowing and
harnessing its mercurial ways is the only way to master it and triumph over
this room.
And for what? A pointless endeavor. Nature cannot be controlled; ever will
you be at the mercy of its whims. The Guardians must delight in watching you
struggle; Fengalon must laugh at your endless failures. Jokes to the end.
Everything is hopeless Carry on. Ride the storm.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Hesitate========================================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - The Wind *>===========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The wind is ever present in the storm. The howl of Fengalon, the thing that
carries the raging elements through the elements. It is both guide and
destroyer, and at its whimsy, people have found both blessing and ruin. The
roar of the wind is a thing to be harnessed as much as it is a thing to be
struggled against, and one must always remember that as easily as it can
ride at someone's back, it can just as easily become a ceaseless wall of
resistance. And that has never been more true here, in a long stretch of
hallway that has been engineered to be the perfect wind tunnel: infused with
the blessing of Fengalon, the winds in this large hall blow violently and
continuously, with force enough to whip the unprepared away like a ragdoll.
The exit, situated at a perch at the dead center of the room, is located
precisely to force the people in this room into a situation where they must
work against and with the raging winds in order to reach it. Know the truth
of the wind. The thing that carries, and the thing that hinders. Knowing and
harnessing its mercurial ways is the only way to master it and triumph over
this room.
And for what? A pointless endeavor. Nature cannot be controlled; ever will
you be at the mercy of its whims. The Guardians must delight in watching you
struggle; Fengalon must laugh at your endless failures. Jokes to the end.
Everything is hopeless Carry on. Ride the storm.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Hesitate========================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Ryudo has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* CHALLENGE - The Lightning *>========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The lightning, the consequence of the thunder that always comes before its
heralding warning. Chaotic life given form in a brief jolt of ionized air
and heat and friction. It is lightning that destroys, lightning that sparks
the fire, lightning that prefaces wiping the slate clean. And one must learn
to harness that element to overcome the Ordeal. Elemental stones infused
with the blessings of Noua Shax line this place, spitting electrical arcs
from their depths. Insets dot the walls where these stones can be inserted,
creating an electrical circuit to feed a seemingly stone-slab engraved with
the image of Noua Shax. To open the way forward, Noua Shax's appetite must
be sated. A specific charge must be fed to the slab. Too little, and he will
not be satisfied, and the way will not open. Too much, and the stone will
overload unpleasantly. It isn't enough to just use the lightning, after all.
Without control, without knowing how to use it to foster growth, what is the
point?
What IS the point? A fool riddle developed by people just trying to waylay
you in your hour of need. You will fail here today and it will be all the
fault of those who came before. What point is there in control when your
actions are all dictated and decided by those dead long before you? What
point is there in living when the ancestors have already lived your life for
you?
GIVE UP Persevere.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
And Cyre takes off, carrying most of the group...
Ryudo, meanwhile, goes at it alone, foregoing even the help of his trusty eagle companion. It... goes about as well as you would expect.
Cyre has done this before, and this test would likely be impossible if he hadn't. But unfortunately, the passengers add to the difficulty of the task. They make the glider unstable and a challenge to maneuver at the best of times.
The group is well-intentioned, and Jay and Jack both destroy stalactites before the party runs into disaster. Hanpan's read of the wind provides naigation even Cyre may need here.
And yet... It's not enough. One by one, the craft's passengers lose their grip and are blown away. Each time the load is lightened, Cyre has to compensate to avoid further catastrophe, which catches up with them a moment later.
In the end, only Rosaline is left hanging on, which is unlikely to help Catenna's insecurities in that regard. Cyre can almost make it, but... what would the point be, without the rest? There is no choice but to land and call this one a wash.
And so, the entire group finally ends up at the other end of the cave, in a very undignified pile of limbs. The roaring wind is too fierce on this side to make a second attempt seem like a good idea.
Jokes to the end.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
It's not without its bumps, but they make it. A few bruises is getting off easy for the degree of risk that they've taken so far. And judging from the succession of passengers that are forced to abandonship without a parachute, Ryudo didn't really miss out on much by not helping Cyre relieve his childhoog glory days.
Alternatively, maybe the pile of limbs is exactly what the pilot was secretly was going for. "Cyre, you're grabbing the wrong ass. That's mine." Swatting the hand away, the Geohound hauls himself out from under the others and proceeds to scout ahead into the next chamber.
With a pronounced sigh, the Geohound turns back to the group and declares: "We've arrived at the inevitable Baskar puzzle room. I really hate these things." Unlike Cyre, his branch of the family wasn't really huge on these things. Probably yet another reason for the schism.
Shadows play throughout the room as the flickering of luminescent stones containing varying degrees of electrical charge slowly pulsate. Most predominantly eminent is the giant stone slab in the likeness of Noua Shax. A number of stone sized insets line the space before its mouth. The Guardian is hungry and demands a banquet.
Ryudo, for his part, seems less than enthusiastic. "I've got no sense for this sort of thing, so I guess I'll...haul rocks? That's helping, I guess." Bonus points: Accepting none of the blame when the others get the puzzle wrong.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Lightning.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Thank you, Jacqueline," Catenna says with a blush as she takes the potion. She smiles before taking a drag from it.
Oh sweet Celesdue does it help.
Until she falls off of Cyre and drops to the floor with a stumble, staring up after him as he sails off with... that priestess.
For just a moment - a deep, stabbing, horrible moment - Catenna finds herself seriously considering murdering Rosaline Calice.
With a horrified blush, she fights to bury the thought, a surge of shame simply drowning it out. She settles for struggling through the wind and through the opening, ending up not far behind Cyre. Just in time to land in the tangle of friends.
"Then someone else must be grabbing mine," she grumbles, squirming out of the heap.
That oppressive Malevolence in the air weighs down on her - but the arcs of lightning rippling through those elemental stones clue her in immediately to what is at stake here. The priestess closes her eyes, inhaling, then letting it out, sinking into a quiet prayer.
After a moment, Catenna begins to trace a finger across the floor. A small piece of chalk is in her hand. The edge of it scrapes across the masonry near her. She moves her wrist subtly, changing the angle of her line.
Wordlessly, eyes closed, she's drawing out a diagram of how the lightning should flow - feeling it out through sheer spiritual awareness. As if sensing the magic.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Lightning.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Well.
That could have gone better. It could have gone worse. At the same time, the fatigue and the pain don't seem to have the same kind of... edge as they had before. There's a notion that, whatever happens here, it'll all be fine.
After all, they're all a bunch of cynical, flawed people and that's just fine, right?
Well, maybe not. The future is uncertain. This, however, is not.
Because unlike Ryudo, Cyre actually did make it up to the entrance.
"You wish that was me," Cyre chides as he (and Rosaline) sail down from on high. "No, that's Jack's meaty mitts all over your back end. Come on, there's another way up ahead. My brother used to come this way while I was up in the winds. If I'm right, we should find..."
Yep. Giant electric lion.
"Alright. So if I'm right, the stones over there," Cyre gestures at the obviously important stones, "Go in the openings in the wall. We need to find the right circuit to feed Noua Shax, and the path will open."
"Man, of all the times for Ethius to not be here, though..."
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Beat.
"Well," Cyre says of Catenna's butt. "Someone is clearly luckier than me."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Cyre, you are incorrigible!" Catenna huffs in mid-prayer, blushing hotly.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Lightning.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The good news, if there can be any, is that the wind dries Ida off a little. She has to jam her hat into her pack, lest it blow off, and the wind yanks her hair out of its bun as Cyre takes off the first time. She goes flying off the parachute after the second course correction, and by the time everyone else regroups, they find her sitting at the entrance, trying to breathe. This place is getting to her. Who is this not getting to?
Stop being a child about this. Everyone else wants to keep going. Stop moping about how you want to turn around and go back. Stiff upper lip. That's what Father tried to teach you, but you didn't listen to him, did you? You hated him for it.
She has no comment about the matter of hands going where hands should not go.
The group changes course. Ida takes a moment to calm herself, mostly by taking a long swig of water. She rummages around in the metal-framed pouch on her side, and comes up with a packet of biscuits that only got a little broken in the fall. "Here," Ida says, as she tears it open. "Take some, eat, recover." She takes two biscuits for herself, and allows the others to take some, too. Once everyone's eaten, she turns her attention back to the puzzle. A circuit. Father taught her how these work, too. He showed her the assembly he used to ignite the torches he used in his workshop.
"It's an electrical circuit," Ida says. She knows this.
You're going to fail anyway. You don't know nearly as much as you think you do, and you always crumble under pressure.
She looks at Catenna's diagram, at the marks she's using to measure the electrical charge. They don't know how much it is exactly, so she just thinks of it as X. This type of stone is 2X, this type of stone is X, this type stone is 3X, this groove in the stone looks like it might be a resistor.
"Ida picks up some of the stones and puts them into place on Catenna's diagram. "Try this," she says.
Jay probably knew the answer anyway. You're wasting everyone's time.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Chocolate Biscuits toward her party's challenge, The Lightning.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
"My mits are not meaty," Comes Jack's comment from somewhere under the pile. "They are finaly honed hands of a swordsman." He does at least clamber up slowly to stare at this newest threat.
The tumble and crash has at least served to center him somewhat. And the insistance of the room to 'GIVE UP' is just met by an internal scream of rage. He will not give up. He will die before he gives up.
Part of him though wonders if he'll die before he sees his quest to the end.
Die before he sees the Demons driven and dead.
"...I bet I could just smash though all of this if I had that thing..."
His growl a comment directed at no one in general. Though Hanpan's face turns worried before he bounces atop Jack's head. "I've seen things like this before, perhaps I can help with the arrangement. If not so much the pushing..."
His arms are very tiny you see.
DG: Jack Van Burace has used his Tool Hanpan toward his party's challenge, The Lightning.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"What 'thing?' Ida says, a moment later. She's holding up a stone she's marked as '2X'. Hanpan can probably double-check the charge if he's so inclined.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Rosaline makes a safe landing and immediately steps away to make sure everyone is okay. She is once again far, very far from imagining where Catenna's mind is going with this. She starts blushing when the conversation turns to butts and the holding thereof.
And soon, she just remains quiet and worried as Cyre guides them to the Plan B room.
Her eyes light up as she sees the statue and Cyre explains the puzzle.
"I know this!" she realizes.
She goes through her bag, pulling out her Extreme Teen Bible. She opens it, turning the pages quickly. The sight may horrify Ryudo. People who have dungeon-delved with her before would know she's preparing to boldly read a quote from the Word of Granas that is also, somehow, paraphrasing lyrics from a Smash Mouth song.
But no, instead, she pulls out a handwritten cheat sheet she was using as a bookmark.
"I made this to help with emergency Gear maintenance," she explains, holding it up for people to see. "This could be helpful, maybe... We just need to find the right voltage, control the power accordingly, and..."
She falls silent.
I never had a choice in any of this, did I? The path that led me to this awful place was only doing what I had to, the entire time... I don't even have control over myself.
--Oh, biscuits. They're great for making terrible thoughts go away. She finds a stone resembling something on her cheat sheet, considers the statue, and offers it to Catenna as well.
DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Extreme Teen Bible toward her party's challenge, The Lightning.
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Lightning *>==========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
The lightning, the consequence of the thunder that always comes before its
heralding warning. Chaotic life given form in a brief jolt of ionized air
and heat and friction. It is lightning that destroys, lightning that sparks
the fire, lightning that prefaces wiping the slate clean. And one must learn
to harness that element to overcome the Ordeal. Elemental stones infused
with the blessings of Noua Shax line this place, spitting electrical arcs
from their depths. Insets dot the walls where these stones can be inserted,
creating an electrical circuit to feed a seemingly stone-slab engraved with
the image of Noua Shax. To open the way forward, Noua Shax's appetite must
be sated. A specific charge must be fed to the slab. Too little, and he will
not be satisfied, and the way will not open. Too much, and the stone will
overload unpleasantly. It isn't enough to just use the lightning, after all.
Without control, without knowing how to use it to foster growth, what is the
point?
What IS the point? A fool riddle developed by people just trying to waylay
you in your hour of need. You will fail here today and it will be all the
fault of those who came before. What point is there in control when your
actions are all dictated and decided by those dead long before you? What
point is there in living when the ancestors have already lived your life for
you?
GIVE UP Persevere.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
That could've gone...better.
"O-ow..." Jacquline murmurs. Partially because her potion bags were pressing into her claw wound from earlier, and partially from all the bodies on top of her... People are arguing about who's hand is where, and Jacqueline realizes...
"A-ah...my apologies..." Jacqueline murmurs, still trying to untangle herself from...well, everyone. She brushes herself off - as much as she can considering the situation - and as she progresses she finds herself in, as Ryudo expertly put it, the inevitable Baskar Puzzle Room.
With a frown, Jacqueline folds her arms in front of herself as she studies the puzzle before them, and as she idly munches on one of Ida's offered biscuits, she comes to a realization about the same time as Ida does.
"Ah! It's a- yes, exactly." Jacqueline says with a nod. "We use something very similar to power the Carakin. I feed electricity into it through Crest Sorcery to get it moving, essentially..."
The problem is...she was familiar with the Carakin's inner workings. She knew how much it needed to top it off at any point, how much was too much, and when it just needed things to be moved around. But this?
This was a very different device - more a puzzle than a device, really.
Even if she thought she knew the answer...was she really correct? Or would she just end up make things worse for everyone?
Maybe she would just sit this one out...let everyone else handle it. They were smarter than she was. They were better than she was. Maybe she should just -
No. Jacqueline shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head. She can feel the darkness creeping into her thoughts again...she has to shake them off. Focus.
"How about...?" Jacqueline makes a few suggestions on the diagram using Rosaline's provided cheat sheet.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Lightning.
=======================<* CHALLENGE - The Lightning *>========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The lightning, the consequence of the thunder that always comes before its
heralding warning. Chaotic life given form in a brief jolt of ionized air
and heat and friction. It is lightning that destroys, lightning that sparks
the fire, lightning that prefaces wiping the slate clean. And one must learn
to harness that element to overcome the Ordeal. Elemental stones infused
with the blessings of Noua Shax line this place, spitting electrical arcs
from their depths. Insets dot the walls where these stones can be inserted,
creating an electrical circuit to feed a seemingly stone-slab engraved with
the image of Noua Shax. To open the way forward, Noua Shax's appetite must
be sated. A specific charge must be fed to the slab. Too little, and he will
not be satisfied, and the way will not open. Too much, and the stone will
overload unpleasantly. It isn't enough to just use the lightning, after all.
Without control, without knowing how to use it to foster growth, what is the
point?
What IS the point? A fool riddle developed by people just trying to waylay
you in your hour of need. You will fail here today and it will be all the
fault of those who came before. What point is there in control when your
actions are all dictated and decided by those dead long before you? What
point is there in living when the ancestors have already lived your life for
you?
GIVE UP Persevere.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Jack Van Burace has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* CHALLENGE - Drown Yourself *>========================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You find yourself at a small antechamber within the main body of the
Ordeal's temple. It is here that aspirants would be purified before being
taken to their final test at the very heart of the grounds. Now? Now, ichor
drips from the foundations of this place, like the blasted valve of a
bloated heart. The grounds of purification have been drowned in viscous
Malevolence, a veritable pool of impurity that stands between you and the
grounds beyond. And through the entire room whispers a single sentiment, a
challenge, a plea: drown yourself.
There is but one way forward: through the morass. Dive into the blackness
that was once sacred water, immerse yourself in its depths, and triumph
through it. Force your way through its ichorous depths, even as it strangely
does not steal your breath away, but instead drown your soul. Filling your
heart with visions of everyone you will fail to protect. Everyone you will
let down. Every potentially disastrous failure that could go wrong for you
in this very wrong world all happen now, right before your eyes. The Metal
Demons win, burning humanity from the earth. The Malevolence spreads like a
cancer across Filgaia, seeping down to its very core. The world shrivels and
dies because of the greedy actions of the ancestors who came before you and
there is nothing you have the power to do to stop it.
Drown Push through. You are almost there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
It's a good thing that the resident spirualists are also excellent electricians, because everyone else is decidedly out of their element. Even Hanpan, despite his best efforts, experiences a great deal of difficulty attempting to effectively steer Van Burace and Ryudo as his remote hands. Skye simply looks on at the spectacle with a baffled look, one wing beginning covering his head in the avian equivalent of a facepalm.
Ultimately Catenna's precise measurements prove key, acting as a cross reference against Rosaline's cheat sheet. Cyre has it easy: the catgirls are agreeing on something, and if the tie breaker vote lies between 'catgirls' and 'everyone else', his vote is already spoken for. Even were that not the case, his own experience seems to indicate that they're on the right track. Their work also serves to point out a few subtle mistakes on the parts of the others...Ida had overlooked an easy to miss symbol for inversion, and while Jacqueline's math is correct on the surface...it helps to be using the correct number system. Whoever invented Base 13 all those years ago deserves to be shot.
In any event, sufficient current is supplied without overloading the circuit, and the slab slides away to reveal a staircase descending downward. Without exploding on them, no less.
"You can stop now, they've solved the puzzle.", Skye helpfully offers to Hanpan and the Incredibly Broody Duo.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Of course Cyre sides with the catgirls. I mean, come on. That's just obvious.
Catfolk gotta stick together.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
"Just some sword the White Knight used to nearly kill me." Jack's distracted mutter comes as Hanpan calls out more orders. While flailing his arms. Which is adoreable.
...and lets face it they need all the adoreable they can get here.
What faces them in the next room is even worse of course. It always is. Of course it is. How could it not be.
The swordsman stares at the corrupted pools before them. He feels the very pressure of the place. Telling him to give up, to give in. To drown. To find rest in oblivion.
To hell with that.
His sword flashes out glancing up at the ceiling and the surrounding room. "Lets cut down a bridge." He rumbles. "We have to go though it. Might as well do it quickly."
The longer he spends here the more the voices work on him. The more they tear at him. The more angry he gets.
Hanpan? Well he's trying to help them calm down. Which is why he, as Jack goes to work on this idea of his, hops around to the swordsman's back and though a tail, limbs, wind magic and several hundred years experiance starts to play Jack's gituar.
He's actually good, and the tune of it seems to fight against the overwhelming miasma of the place a little bit.
DG: Jack Van Burace has used his Tool Guitar toward his party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
"Praise be," Rosaline says, putting her hands together in what is very technically not blasphemy here, since she's not specifying who is being praised.
They proceed. The air ahead is choked with Malevolence. It begs them to embrace the futility to of it all. To just end this farce once and for all--
Rosaline steps away from the pool, having walked towards it without even noticing. Her tail sways with the music. "Thank you, Hanpan," she says softly.
Jack's plan registers. It's foolhardly but better than nothing. "O-Okay."
She fishes in her bag for explosives, and her brow furrows as she finds none. That's right, she remembers, she used them all in...
Garmia...
Tower...
Recent events flash through her mind. The tower torn apart. All those dead bodies. Elena swallowed by the darkness. What about her? How is she faring back home? Surely fending off Valmar's corruption must be torture. Why isn't Rosaline at her bedside? Why must she be HERE, going through HELL for judgmental HEATHENS? Why does SHE have to solve all of the world's problems? Why can't she just REST, and be where she wants to be? Why won't you just LET HER--
"NO!" she shouts, abruptly, and finds she once again wandered near the liquid Malevolence. She mumbles a frantic series of apologies, then once again walks as far back away as she can, transitioning to incanting prayers under her breath, as she casts a series of spells.
She can only summon motes of light homing towards the ceiling. These are the spell she had prepared most suited to an act of demolition. It's only a little, but... hopefully it will help.
DG: Rosaline Calice has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Oh. There.
See? They didn't need you. You overlooked something simple. You're an idiot.
Ida doesn't question Jack any further, mostly because she's hugging herself beneath her poncho in a vain effort to calm herself down. The scent of Malevolence gets thicker with every step she takes, and it feels as though she's descending into the darkness again. Her gaze falls upon what was once a pristine ceremonial pool.
Drown yourself.
Ida thinks back to the time she spent in Wayside, sitting on Kalve's front porch, and wondering if anyone would miss her if she died. She gave her ARMs to Lily--she didn't trust herself with them, but not because she was afraid she would shoot someone else. She kept thinking about how easily she could end her life with them, and do so in a manner that would sear it into the minds of bystanders.
Ida looks up, suddenly, after staring into the depths of the pool for a good minute or so. She turns to Hanpan, and twists her face into something that might, theoretically, be a smile. "The only way out is through," she says. She sounds absolutely certain for no apparent reason. No one else can see into her memory, and relive the days when she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep on living.
And yet, you've accomplished absolutely nothing. The Statues are a delaying action. As long as Mother lives, the Demons will attempt to free her, over and over again. If they cannot live on Filgaia, you will lose the only man who has ever made the mistake of loving you. If they can, then you will become obsolete, a footnote, the heir to an empire of criminals. There is no way out.
"The only way out is through," Ida says, again. Presuming Jay has a potion on offer, she takes it, drinks it down in a single gulp, and steps off the edge of the pool.
She'd braced for the numbing, crippling sense of hopelessness. It's an exaggeration of something she's lived with every day for months now, if not years. Ida sinks down, down, down, until her feet touch bottom. It feels like she's immersed in tar--the liquid Malevolence is thick and viscous, and it's actively trying to resist her. Ida was prepared for that, too. She puts one foot in front of the other, like she did in the Labyrinth.
What she isn't prepared for are the visions, clear and bright and personal.
The dragons return to Guild Galad. White-hot flame sweeps through the streets, consuming factories and melting tenement blocks to slag; the Drakes are torn apart, their pilots devoured. Her home burns. Her mother is immolated while trying to protect her fleeing family with an anti-Gear emplacement. Her father dies a moment later, and then Edward and Sylvia and even poor Lola--all wiped from the earth in a single breath. There is nothing left of them but ash, a carbon smear on the ground.
Word of Kalve's treason reaches the Quarter Knights two days later. Alhazred exercises his authority to claim him as a test subject. What is left of him is spat out into the Gutter weeks later, a mindless, ravenous, half-liquid husk.
Ida stares straight ahead. Rage flares in her heart--as if her body is rebelling against the feeling of hopelessness by manifesting the other horrible feeling she's been experiencing. She sets her jaw. Her eyes see nothing but thick, murky goo. She keeps going.
The only way out is through. Anything would be better than that horror. Any sacrifice would be worth it, to avert this nightmare scenario.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The antechamber itself may not be one Catenna has been in before. However, there have been more than a few chambers or purification and fountains of ritual ablution in her life. A pure spring under a full moon. A blessing.
This is nothing like that. Catenna presses her lips together in consternation as she gazes down into the hideous corruption of that morass of ichor.
Even before she touches it, the pressure of it nearly causes her to wilt. A thousand doubts seem to ripple from that blackened surface. Jack proposes dealing with it in a more brutal fashion.
Shaking her head, Catenna moves to kneel at the edge of the mass of murky ichor. With a soft click, she undoes her cloak, shrugging it from her shoulders with a slow, anxious hiss of fabric over skin. "Physical strength alone cannot spare us this challenge, Jack van Burace," she murmurs in a low, grave voice, her eyes haunted with some understandable dread. "Only a strong spirit, and an abiding faith."
Catenna leaves her cloak behind. Bowing her head deeply, she murmurs a soft, pleading prayer in her own language. And then, slowly, she steps over the edge of the darkness, and into the scudding pool of absolute despair.
It is deeper by far than it appears; she wades into the darkness, pushing through it with hands held before her. Her hair fans out across the darkness before she sinks deep into it, swallowed up completely. She vanishes from view.
Breathing is not a problem. She inhales. Breathes in the scent of despair.
Breathes in the dry, dead scent of what remains of a dying world. Opens her eyes to find Filgaia laid out before her.
A parched place, cracked, blasted. Utterly grey. Devoid of any hint that life once dwelled upon this place, save for the skeletal remains of the damned. The dry bones of dead friends.
The decaying skull and shoulders of a tiger at her feet. Not far away, a sprawled skeleton with horns, clutching the bones of a cucco. She lifts her gaze towards the horizon but there is no rush of the sea anymore. The water is as black as pitch.
It is as still as a sheet of ice. Above, no moon shines in a sky empty of anything.
Please do not let it be this way, Catenna's mind sobs as she pushes through the morass of insanity. Her tears vanish into the sea of Malevolence. She cannot see; she cannot hope.
Celesdue... Guardians... Cyre... Riesenlied... Jacqueline... mother... everyone...
...How can I find the strength to not fail you...?
She does not feel everyone else blowing up the water behind her. She does not even feel Ida six inches away from her.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
It just goes to show that even with an engineering degree, sometimes you forget that energy doesn't flow backwards across a temperature gradient.
There's no small amount of irony in this. While Fengalon's trial rebuffed their progress, it was Noua Shax's that finally led them here, to the very heart of the Ordeal. Another omen? Is there something of the Guardians' will left in this place? Perhaps. But judging by the state of the place, it's unlikely. The sight of it almost has Cyre doubling over in disgust. This place... What happened to it? Who could have done such a thing to this sacred place?
Cyre... Remembers.
He remembers coming here alongside another. He remembers the kind, proud words of their teachers and masters, welcoming them both into the grand tradition of their people. This... This was where he stopped being a boy and became a man. It was a near thing, he can remember. Even then, they were comparing him against...
Cyre growls, rubbing at his eyes as he struggles to gain his bearings amidst the morass of Malevolence. The only way forward is... Through. Through to the heart of whatever is responsible for this foulness. Ordinarily... Ordinarily, there would be no question about it. It would be preserved. It would have to be. But now...
Now.
By the time Cyre recovers, some have already pressed forward. But the shaman...
The shaman does not.
He is not so quick to through the impurity. He does what he has to- what he was trained to do. In this place, he became what he is. And as he is, he returns here.
Through the haze of Malevolence, through the despair and the angst, there is a sound. A song, reverberating through the stagnant, hateful air. It's almost not even there at all, but it comes with a scent, a nostalgic fragrance, carrying memories of better days.
"The grass, the trees, the birds, the beasts amidst the trees, upon the land, in the sea--" Cyre's voice reverberates, even as he steps into the foul ichor that was once pure, holy liquid. Even as the stew assaults his senses with images of failure, of despair. The sight of the world he loves overrun with unnatural landscapes of quicksilver and lead. The image of his people laid to waste, drowning in their own despair and helplessness, their temples and holy places shattered, their purpose and traditions lost. The sound of all those he loves ending themselves in an orgy of foolish, reckless self-sacrifice against forces they could never hope to stop. All these things he sees. And he sings. "--the people who tell their stories, who turn their hearts away, who open their hands to one another and the common melody they all share--"
In the end, Cyre H. Lorentz is what he is. He is what he is, even when the world is filled with darkness. Even when he feels as though he will never measure up to those who are so much greater. Even if everyone and everything abandons him, he cannot abandon himself.
These and the world they reside -- these are the songs we are glad to become.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Invigorating Vapors toward his party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Drown Yourself *>=========================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
You find yourself at a small antechamber within the main body of the
Ordeal's temple. It is here that aspirants would be purified before being
taken to their final test at the very heart of the grounds. Now? Now, ichor
drips from the foundations of this place, like the blasted valve of a
bloated heart. The grounds of purification have been drowned in viscous
Malevolence, a veritable pool of impurity that stands between you and the
grounds beyond. And through the entire room whispers a single sentiment, a
challenge, a plea: drown yourself.
There is but one way forward: through the morass. Dive into the blackness
that was once sacred water, immerse yourself in its depths, and triumph
through it. Force your way through its ichorous depths, even as it strangely
does not steal your breath away, but instead drown your soul. Filling your
heart with visions of everyone you will fail to protect. Everyone you will
let down. Every potentially disastrous failure that could go wrong for you
in this very wrong world all happen now, right before your eyes. The Metal
Demons win, burning humanity from the earth. The Malevolence spreads like a
cancer across Filgaia, seeping down to its very core. The world shrivels and
dies because of the greedy actions of the ancestors who came before you and
there is nothing you have the power to do to stop it.
Drown Push through. You are almost there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Everyone else sees horror, hears voices, tastes despair. Ryudo...sees an expanse of fetid water. Is it any wonder that he tends to think that most of the people he has to work with are a bunch of babies? "Ryudo, he's right. You...really don't want to swim through that, no matter how it looks to untrained eye." The Geohound shrugs, but even in following Van Burace's suggestion he's having trouble spotting anything that they might be able to knock off of the walls or ceiling into the drink. Rosaline makes an attempt to shed light on the situation, but ultimately the deciding factor is Ida and Catena. A team goes together or not at all, and they've already had a close call with someone's solo heroics tonight. Once is once too many. And so, ignoring the advice of animal companions winged or not, Ryudo forages forward into the sludge.
Unfortunately for Ryudo, he made a mistake tonight. A certain someone forced him to loosen the mask. To be honest with what really drives him, despite the harsh cruelties that were forced on him in his early years. The lies he wears like a cloak, the coarse weave that ever stands between him and his numbed spiritual perceptions...are loosened. The walls are leaking, and as the sludge welcomes him into its embrace, it begins to seep in.
(Despair. Doom. Failure.) All things close to his heart. He actually smiles a little, growing cocky. What can the filth force on him that he hasn't already forced on himself? Who can be taken away from that he hasn't already abandoned, or has abandoned him?
(Catenna's mauled body, ribbons of blood scattered all over the trees. Too late for him to save.) Nice try, but she's standing in front of him by several paces. So long as she doesn't fall into the muck that won't change.
(Cyre, impaled by a scorpion monstrosity of Valmar. Rosaline sobbing as the stinger descends again, Ryudo's arm paralyzed by unholy venom.) Again...they're right in front of him. That isn't going to work.
(The horrors a Geohound sees. Children who died because they didn't need to. Who died because someone wasn't there soon enough.) ...None of which is his fault....
(Elena, surrounded by an engulfing darkness, wings attached to her back and consuming her life. Driven to it because in her eyes it was either her who must be sacrificed, or countless other girls like her who would follow if her will was not strong enough.) ...
Gritting his teeth, the mercenary wills strength into his limbs, and forces himself to hasten his pace. "No dawdling up there. Keep moving! You're not the only ones who are going to need a bath after this, and you're in my way!" Whether they enjoy his company or not, they're not alone. He reminds them of this, makes sure they understand that he is behind them and that failure is not an option. It's better that they focus their negativity on him than the darkness of their hearts.
"I said MOVE!"
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Only now does Rosaline realize that Jack's plan is unlikely to work. She gives him a look that tells him, silently, that he should jump in too. But hey, no pressure, right?
And soon, she closes her eyes... and lowers her body into the thick miasma.
The world is overrun with Metal Demons and Reapers, warped into a hellscape beyond recognition by Malevolence's inexorable influence. And above it all, flying over the destruction on wings of darkness, is a THING wearing the face of her friend, ushering in the Lord of Darkness to spell the world's final end. We did not heed the warnings.
But Rosaline doesn't care. She left all of her friends behind. Talise and Layna sailed away from it all to commit terrible crimes. Ida had more courage than she did. Sephilia hugged her plush toy until the bad things went away.
And Rosaline, on a blood-stained path, remembers what she intended to do this entire time. She was looking for answers, wasn't she? And she finds them, in the fire-cleansed ruins of Hope Springs.
'Oh. I did it.'
She was deluding herself the entire time, wasn't she? How could she have been so BLIND? It's OBVIOUS now.
Cyre's voice can be heard. A nostalgic smell cuts through the pure dissonance.
When Rosaline emerges, she's laughing uncontrollably. Well, it seems his vapors got through to her.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline realizes her mistake as soon as she makes it. She blushes profusely, but it's too late to take it back...the others had already taken care of it. With her held down she decides to just move on, glad she at least didn't ruin everything.
In the room beyond the door they opened, there is what was once presumably a sacred pool. Jacqueline stares deep into it.
The deep, infinite darkness...it's inviting. It calls to her to surrender herself to it... it shows her truths she knew deep in her heart, but couldn't bring herself to admit...
Why did she think she could make a difference? She knew it deep in her heart. She kept trying to assert that she could support and protect everyone, but in the end, she was just a single human...and the enemies before them were vast, and far more powerful than she could comprehend...
And not only that...
Dear, sweet Lunata...what hope did they have of overturning her horrible fate? The Wheel was a constant truth, one that many people undoubtedly had fought against throughout the ages.
And yet, inevitably, they were all consumed.
And Lunata would be next.
In her hands, Jacqueline holds a potion, bright red. She shuts her eyes tight, shaking her head.
No.
No.
No no no.
"No...no! There...there has to be...there has to be aNOTHER WAY!!" Jacqueline shouts, her voice equally anguished and defiant. Her hands tighten around the bottle, smashing it open and splattering the ground with red liquid. She reaches into her bag of Crests and invokes one, putting all of her power into it, aiming to tear through the black waters with a series of earthen pillars to hopefully allow them a safe way through.
W-was she talking about the pool or something else...?
...Fortunately she made allowances for those already inside it, but...will it be enough...?
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Brewte Force toward her party's challenge, Drown Yourself.
========================<* CHALLENGE - Drown Yourself *>========================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You find yourself at a small antechamber within the main body of the
Ordeal's temple. It is here that aspirants would be purified before being
taken to their final test at the very heart of the grounds. Now? Now, ichor
drips from the foundations of this place, like the blasted valve of a
bloated heart. The grounds of purification have been drowned in viscous
Malevolence, a veritable pool of impurity that stands between you and the
grounds beyond. And through the entire room whispers a single sentiment, a
challenge, a plea: drown yourself.
There is but one way forward: through the morass. Dive into the blackness
that was once sacred water, immerse yourself in its depths, and triumph
through it. Force your way through its ichorous depths, even as it strangely
does not steal your breath away, but instead drown your soul. Filling your
heart with visions of everyone you will fail to protect. Everyone you will
let down. Every potentially disastrous failure that could go wrong for you
in this very wrong world all happen now, right before your eyes. The Metal
Demons win, burning humanity from the earth. The Malevolence spreads like a
cancer across Filgaia, seeping down to its very core. The world shrivels and
dies because of the greedy actions of the ancestors who came before you and
there is nothing you have the power to do to stop it.
Drown Push through. You are almost there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness==================================================
DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* CHALLENGE - A Rusted Blade *>=======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The heart of the temple. The final ordeal. Whatever it once was, it has
become warped and twisted beyond all repair. It is here that the source of
the distortion can be found in the form of a simple sword forged of
materials of the blackest pitch. A blade impaled through the stony ground
beneath it like it was a murder weapon still lodged in the chest of its
victim, the edges of its blade pulsing with a sickly, purple glow. It
radiates pure hopelessness from its black depths, injecting it through the
land, into the fabric of existence around it, a howling chorus of lost souls
rippling from its sleek blackness. And that feeling is just growing more and
more intense until it becomes undeniable what is happening: the blade is
overloading with pure, unfiltered Malevolence being drawn to it from unseen
locations. Growing stronger and more unstable with every passing second, the
blade is going to explode any moment now unless you can find a way to stop
it before it reaches critical mass. Find a way to stop it -- while it
screams the futility of your efforts into the very depths of your soul,
tries to find purchase, tries to cut you with its rusted edge of madness.
You have no hope You are the only hope of stopping this.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
They emerge, one by one, through the pools that once were meant to cleanse, bathed in an impurity of dissonance that seeps and soaks down to the very bone. The emerge to what was once the heart of the Ordeal, where Baskar of Wehaca came into their birthright. Once a sacred and profound place where one communed with the Guardians, learned to become one with their powers.
Now a blasted and profane mockery.
The chamber is large, carved from stone in a wealth of natural splendor. Ringed by rising, interlacing layers of stone that draw people up a majesty of natural architecture towards a central altar bedecked by two statues -- Fengalon, and Noua Shax. The brothers of the storm. These are no Guardian Statues, but they are lovingly rendered all the same.
Or, perhaps, were.
Now? The Fengalon statue weeps tears of ichorous contradiction made manifest that seep from the cracks in its eroding structure, as if in mourning. And the statue of the great lion of the lightning? It is crumbling. Broken. Shattered and reassembled by something into a hideous, twisted mockery of itself, bent and twisted around twining tendons and corruptive tissues of pure Malevolence. Everything here is twisted, bending, churning, a blasted, fetid sanctuary for every contradiction of the soul as vapors of black and violet seem to draw in from -somewhere- in the outside world. From the Baskar Sacred Grounds, all the way...
... to a single, black blade. Edged in violet. Punctured through that stony altar at the center of the chamber like a blade impaled through the heart of everything that Cyre and his people cherish. It pulses. It ebbs. And disgusting contradiction and despair ripples off it, growing ever-more intense. Warping space. Carving its sorrowful rust through reality itself. Growing ever-brighter and yet ever-darker, because there is one, hideous truth here:
"Bear witness."
This blade is being purposefully overloaded.
That voice resounds, warped to a metal din that would no doubt be recognizable to some here. It is difficult to see them, as they stride forth, through the howl and swirl of Malevolence, through the chorus of trapped, despairing souls funneling into that blade. But they are there. Dressed in white armor. Standing at the eye of their own storm.
The Trial Knight.
"This is the reality of man. Despair unceasing. Have any of you the strength to overcome it? You, trapped within the host of your own sins?"
The weight of their stare hangs heavy. And the Knight leaps, landing upon the top of one the warped and ruined statue of Noua Shax like a conqueror stamping their bootheel into their trophy. Standing high, and watching. As that sword begins to float. Begins to crackle.
Begins to be.
And unless it is stopped...
"Choke upon the mire of your own making, and know that this futility was borne of no one's hearts but your own."
pulse
I am...
... All will crumble beneath the weight of its overcharged sorrow.
<Pose Tracker> Ryudo has posed.
Long ago, a sword was the root of everything for Ryudo. The beginning of the end. Bonds torn asunder. A slow and inevitable decay that continues to this day, one that Ryudo left behind and does his best not to think about. An island lived by the sword and and died by the sword, but not in the way its denizens thought they would.
Before Ryudo today is another sword. A sword that threatens to become a new beginning.
The youth who desperately needs to be a Geohound in order to not be who he is finds himself confronted by a sick and twisted spectacle of irony. If it's a coincidence, life is suffering. He already knows that life is, so ultimately whether or not it's a coincidence does not matter.
One thing that Ryudo has working in his favor is the knowledge that he should not claim this blade as his own.
"I will strike down any person who puts their hands on that hilt." The same goes for the rest of them.
Ultimately, Ryudo is no expert on what is going on here. He wasn't back then when he was too young to do anything, and he isn't now when he is old enough to do something. That is the most twisted irony of all, because he told himself that the past was no longer his problem, and here he is again with an opportunity to do something.
Ultimately, Ryudo settles on doing the only thing that feels right to him. The twisted, mangled, profaned statue of Noua Shax. He does not do this because he seeks to spite the Trial Knight, whose path he has only crossed fleetingly on one occasion. He does this for the same reason he would have put down the profaned lion from earlier in the evening, the one that Catena struggled to perservere. He strikes the statue to put it out of its misery, a mercy he bequaths upon it.
He strikes down th is mockery because Fangalon weeps for his brother.
DG: Ryudo has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Rosaline makes it out, laughing for no discernable reason. But the sound falters soon enough, when the nun returns to reality, or at least when she stops seeing the humor in the revelation she's just experienced.
They emerge to a sickening sight. She has seen a few Guardian temples now, but none so twisted as this one. Who could have done this? Who would be so cruel? So monstrous?
Ah. Of course.
"YOU!" Rosaline immediately draws her ARMs and pulls the triggers, unloading her clips towards the Trial Knight. This is extremely unlikely to be the solution to the puzzle.
The Knight's words are taunting. An unspeakable sword is drawn and manifests terrible power.
What can they do? What can they even do in the face of this? Tears stream down Rosaline's face. It's always that way. It always comes down to this moment of despair and powerlessness. When she sees the horrors of the world unleashed and finds she can do NOTHING.
No. No, no, no. She is here now. At the very least she is HERE. She has to at the very least try. She opens her bag to retrieve her book and... Aha.
She holds up a piece of Valmar's Seal in one hand and the Holy Book of Granas in another. She incants the words within, using them to focus her mind so she can draw from the choked leylines and turn their power to light.
"'The Light descended then, and chaos was bound; the rivers of blood were dammed. Their eyes were opened; this the Light did. No longer did man war with his brother. This was paradise.'"
The Seal glows faintly. Wind picks up around Rosaline, sending her hair whipping every which way. "'The Light of Peace is Granas, the one whose praises we sing!'"
A pillar of light bursts down from above, impacting the sword. The spell is familiar and potent, but will the Seal give it the extra kick it truly needs? Rosaline has no idea. She is no Songstress, and not knowledgeable about magical theory besides.
She is, quite literally, and in her own way, praying for a miracle.
DG: Rosaline Calice has used her Tool Extreme Teen Bible toward her party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
There are some things that should not be done. To profane something holy is desipicable no matter what. With everything there are degrees, but the degree to which this place has been laid to waste is... Disgusting. Cyre emerges from the ooze and the song slowly dies in his throat as he bares witness to what has become of the beating heart of the Ordeal.
Someone has driven a fetid, rusting blade into it. Cyre does not recognize it for what it is, but he knows what it is doing, and he has seen its ilk before. Righteous fury surges through his veins, pounding, thundering against the inside of his chest. He is angry in a way he did not realize he could be.
But this... This... This atrocity must end.
The shaman moves towards the sword, the howling winds gathering in his hands giving voice to Fengalon's grieving monument. But then, as Cyre lifts his fist to try and shatter the blade... It comes away.
At somebody's bidding, it moves.
"You--" Cyre glares at the Trial Knight, his armor a stark, terrible contrast to the maelstrom of darkness and wrongness surging around him. "You are responsible for this? For defiling this sacred place?" As if in reply, the knight stands astride the statue of the great lion of the heavens. Vitriol boils Cyre's belly, rage, fear, justice all demanding action.
"Is that what this is about? Futility? Some demon, some monster with no respect for places of beauty, showing man that living is meaningless?" Cyre... Cyre laughs. "Damn, if you aren't a petty son of a bitch."
He could go on a rant. Go off on a bender on how, of course life is without meaning, except for the meaning that we make. Of course it's futile, but we'll do it anyway and laugh and make merry as our lives wind down. And how no Demon or Mother or bastard in a suit of armor will stop that. But no. Ryudo has the right of it.
They're trapped within the host of their own sins?
Fine.
Cyre lifts his staff. The winds gather around its tip, howling, burning bright and blinding. This place. How many memories does he have of this place? How many summers spent under the starlight, nursing wounds and aches and slowly but surely learning the old ways. To live them. To pass them down. To perpetuate their immortality. Striving to become part of that unbroken chain, extending forever into the past, leading forever into the future.
"Ah. One of the lessons of the wind."
Cyre says, as he strikes his staff upon the earth, and calls the wind to grind the blade to dust. To shatter the disfigured trophy-god of the monster that claimed this place. To sever the rotten limb to save the tree.
"What is a place?"
Somewhere to find.
Somewhere to leave behind.
Somewhere to return to.
Somewhere to never be seen again.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Death by drowning is often a calm-seeming, silent process. Someone wwell on their way to drowning cannot breathe regularly, and thus cannot flail or scream for help. Someone could swim by and assume they were just paddling in place, perfectly fine. Ida is not physically drowning, but this is still what it feels like. The anger fades, like a dying fire. Her body keeps moving, but there is no emotion left in it--only that hollowed-out emptiness where emotions should go. She breaks the surface at the other end of the tunnel, but does not gasp--Malevolence pours off her in sheets, boiling into vapor as it hits the ground. Ida coughs, and more of it comes up, in a horrible, hacking wheeze that leaves her doubled over.
Why did you come here?
More of the Malevolence drips off. Ida's thoughts start to reconstitute themselves, and the first emotion to surface again is panic. Her eyes dart back and forth between elements of the ghastly tableau before her. Her brain still feels like it's mired in fog. Food, she thinks. She pops the lid off the metal-framed pouch, which is blessedly free of contamination, and wipes her hand off on the floor. Ida immediately begins eating what's left of the biscuit package, and possibly a little Malevolence. She's liked these biscuits ever since she was a little girl, and the help would give them to her in exchange for doing odd chores to make their lives easier. She remembers reading carefully to as not to get crumbs on her books.
YOU WILL DIE
Ida's pupils narrow to pinpricks. Her lips twist away from her teeth. Riesenlied would know what to do. Riesenlied would just throw herself on it and somehow survive because life loves her and hates you, and why didn't you go drown in that corridor when you had the chance. They have to stop this, but there's no way they can, this is all a set-up, they were doomed from the begining. How can they even try when everything has been rigged against them?
"Jay," Ida says, "pillars. Pillars, now." Ida looks up at the Trial Knight. She is crying, but her face is twisted in a rictus of helpless rage. "Does it feel good to lord it over us like this?" she says. "Knowing that we'll never be good enough, no matter what we do?"
"Fuck you," Ida says, because there's no other word that can encapsulate how visceral her emotions are becoming, now that they are back. Jay, pillars. Pillars now. Pillars immediately.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
They made it thought. Though the screaming, sucking, soul wrenching ichor. Though the hateful visions.
Jack once again felt the tug of frigid wind and the smell of smoke. Once more he saw friends lying in pools of crimson on snow and soot covered stones. Felt the wounds and rents in his armor as he fled though the hallways of his own home. The eletion seeing the open front gate. The feeling of escape so close.
The heart rending realision that when the gate came down, he was alone outside of it.
It crashes back in waves against his mind. The sights and sounds but most importantly the emotions.
'Horror'
'Powerlessness'
'Fear'
'Dispair'
'Shame'
It doesn't matter if he built a bridge or walked though the muck it still comes. This close to the center of it all there is little or no defence against it.
Nothing but his towering rage.
Its all that seems to sustain him as his shoulders haunch and his head lowers. Finally breaking though the miasma into the innermost chamber and seeing...
That. Sword.
The strains of Hanpan's music falls on def ears as he stares at the weapon. Then at the White Knight that towers above them all. His teath grit down. His eyes narrow. His hand grips his sword so hard it trembles in his fury. His eyes fall to his blade for a moment.
Flickering down to the ancient sword of his family. Possibily one of the last remaining swords of his people. A blade of Knights and Kings. One of the finest examples of bladecraft left in the world...
...and its as useless as a twig against the White Knight. Against the Demons. Against everything that this thrice damned planet throws in his direction.
"What is that doing here?"
His eyes flicker towards the glowing blade pulsing in the air and...
...and its likely that Ryudo's intervention may just have saved Jack from acting on instinct and anger.
Because there is a lot of the latter right now.
He takes a step towards the blade even as Hanpan's eyes widen and he tugs on the Swordsman's ear. "NO!"
The wind mouse throws a desprite look towards Rosaline and the others. "Purify it! Healing magic! Light magic! Curse removal! Do whatever you can to keep it from going off!"
He hops up on top of Jack's head and stomps it a few times. "USE YOUR HEAD! USE YOUR HEAD!"
At least that seems to snap Jack out of things. He at least stops stepping towards the blade. There is a snarl of rage from Jack, a curl of that deep and bright anger as he lashes out with his own sword. The air pressure iteself enough to shatter the statues that others are hitting as he lashes out in fustration.
Yeah. Defintally saved him from making a very bad decision.
=========================<* CHALLENGE - A Rusted Blade *>=========================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
The heart of the temple. The final ordeal. Whatever it once was, it has
become warped and twisted beyond all repair. It is here that the source of
the distortion can be found in the form of a simple sword forged of
materials of the blackest pitch. A blade impaled through the stony ground
beneath it like it was a murder weapon still lodged in the chest of its
victim, the edges of its blade pulsing with a sickly, purple glow. It
radiates pure hopelessness from its black depths, injecting it through the
land, into the fabric of existence around it, a howling chorus of lost souls
rippling from its sleek blackness. And that feeling is just growing more and
more intense until it becomes undeniable what is happening: the blade is
overloading with pure, unfiltered Malevolence being drawn to it from unseen
locations. Growing stronger and more unstable with every passing second, the
blade is going to explode any moment now unless you can find a way to stop
it before it reaches critical mass. Find a way to stop it -- while it
screams the futility of your efforts into the very depths of your soul,
tries to find purchase, tries to cut you with its rusted edge of madness.
You have no hope You are the only hope of stopping this.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
DG: Jack Van Burace has used his Tool Hanpan toward his party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline has to take a moment to stop and breathe after that...outburst. But it seems to have had an effect, allowed them a way through. Her left hand is still coated in red liquid, her potion mixing in with blood from where she cut herself by breaking the glass.
She proceeds forward, to the chamber that awaits them.
It was once an altar to the Guardians of the Storm, but now...
Now it stood as a mockery of what it was, of everything it represented, twisted and corrupted by Malevolence.
And emerging from that altar is a sword, pulsing and ebbing with that Malevolence. It reminds her of the Orb, the orb that gave her the vision of this village...
And then, a voice. A familiar voice.
She had heard it a few times before. Most recently, when she accompanied Riesenlied into the Hadal Temple the first time. That figure was there, overseeing Riesenlied's trial...
And now, it seems, there is another one before them.
But against this power...what can she do...?
The sheer force of the malevolence pushes her to her knees, reacting with her wound from earlier and causing her to ache.
There was...nothing she could. It was hopeless. The sword would overload and detonate, and undoubtedly, in the aftermath...
Everything she had felt before comes back to her, more intensely. She'll fail, she'll die, and Lunata will die, and the rest of the world die after her, their futile struggles only a mere breath in an uncaring void...
Jacqueline takes a deep breath and forces herself to her feet, her body shaking as she fights against everything her mind is telling her with all she has.
She draws the Crest Graph. She doesn't verbally acknowledge Ida's request, but she rapidly begins to summon as many earth pillars as she can, in the vain hope of providing them some cover should they fail in this endeavor...
...And something within her whispers, of course they'll fail. And these fragile walls won't be enough. She's seen what Malevolence can do to her earth pillars...
But she has to try.
Has to do something. She may be struggling futilely...but no one could say she didn't at least struggle.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Hideous corruption rolls off of Catenna as she emerges from the dread pool, wet and much paler than she normally is. She gasps as she slouches to her knees at the far end of the pool. Her eyes are wide, haunted with utter horror.
All the moreso as she beholds the statue of Fengalon - twisted into some desecrated idol out of a nightmare and weeping tears of absolute despair, and its Noua Shax brother crumbling brutally away into dust, its shape somehow illuminated by the horrendous darkfire streaming from that overloading sword driven into the floor like the world's most dire land mine. The priestess begins to move forward, stumbling, still overwhelmed by the disastrous darkness of the tainted ablution pool.
The white-armoured knight rises ahead. Catenna clicks her teeth together with alarm. "You," she hisses; in truth she's had few chances to deal with the Trial Knight, but by now the Knight's reputation precedes it like a battering ram.
But a fight isn't in the cards. Quickly, Catenna goes over her options.
Calling upon Celesdue or Lucadia to try and purify the sword is out; if they could simply do it, they wouldn't need human instruments, after all, and Catenna certainly doesn't know how to banish Malevolence. This leaves her with her immediate bag of tricks:
1. Gravity stuff, which won't really... do much to something embedded in the ground.
2. Sea tricks, which... won't accomplish much either.
3. Somehow collapsing the room atop the sword, which would destroy a place sacred to two Guardians. The two statues may not be blessed statues, but they are nevertheless important.
She begins to move, but as Ryudo begins issuing threats, she lowers her eyelids and breathes slowly out through her nose.
Catenna sinks to her knees at Cyre's feet, clasping her Moon Medium in both hands and lifting her eyes to the Trial Knight. Cyre says his piece. Only once he does so does Catenna speak.
"Join the long line of those who destroy those things sacred to the believers in the Guardians," she says quietly. "All of us know despair... rejection. All of us.
"It is your turn to know the joys that we also know."
The blistering wind Cyre calls forth does its work. Catenna's contribution is much more subtle. She begins to chant in a sonorous voice; her words echo, pouring forth in stately Zortroan. The gale of the tiger Beastman's magic screams around her, carrying her words through the room.
Something else begins to pour towards the vibrating sword. Shimmering in the open air, little motes of silvery light descend. They radiate out from around Catenna, still more dancing slowly down from the 'bove.
Like drops of the moon.
As Catenna prays, those serene, shimmering moondrops spiral inward, like butterflies floating on a moonlit breeze. As they reach the sword, they glint softly and begin to fade into it. The magic they carry is simple and halcyon.
As though through the power of the Moon, Catenna could try to dilute all that Malevolence with the power of lunar tranquility.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Rusted Blade.
=======================<* CHALLENGE - A Rusted Blade *>=======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The heart of the temple. The final ordeal. Whatever it once was, it has
become warped and twisted beyond all repair. It is here that the source of
the distortion can be found in the form of a simple sword forged of
materials of the blackest pitch. A blade impaled through the stony ground
beneath it like it was a murder weapon still lodged in the chest of its
victim, the edges of its blade pulsing with a sickly, purple glow. It
radiates pure hopelessness from its black depths, injecting it through the
land, into the fabric of existence around it, a howling chorus of lost souls
rippling from its sleek blackness. And that feeling is just growing more and
more intense until it becomes undeniable what is happening: the blade is
overloading with pure, unfiltered Malevolence being drawn to it from unseen
locations. Growing stronger and more unstable with every passing second, the
blade is going to explode any moment now unless you can find a way to stop
it before it reaches critical mass. Find a way to stop it -- while it
screams the futility of your efforts into the very depths of your soul,
tries to find purchase, tries to cut you with its rusted edge of madness.
You have no hope You are the only hope of stopping this.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz is too exhausted to continue! DG: Jacqueline Barber is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ida Everstead-Rey is too exhausted to continue! DG: Catenna is too exhausted to continue! DG: Rosaline Calice is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ryudo is too exhausted to continue! DG: Jack Van Burace is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over. DG: The party led by Cyre H. Lorentz has been fully Exhausted by Ordeal of the Nahual! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
======================<* CHALLENGE - Rust in the Soul *>======================
|Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The blade pulses. Slowly, it rises from the depths of corruption-soaked
stone even as you struggle to stop it. It glows with sickly violet light...
and whispers the beginning dawn of a sentiment into your souls, like
something on the dawn of a terrible self-awareness. A new birth.
I am despair...
And then it bursts.
PULSE
Everything goes black within the rippling impurity of the shockwave. It's
impossible to tell how much time passes as the senses simply short out. But
within that blackness, visions can be seen. The village of Wehaca in flames.
A statue of Noua Shax laced with vines of Malevolence, slowly crumbling at
the seams. A hulking creature made of bones, and four arms, a sword in each,
and that black blade driven through its bleak, grayed skull. Visions of a
golden lion falling to corruption, falling so very far when so many people
once venerated him.
And a knight in white, standing impassive and unmoved amidst the
conflagration...
When you come to, the blade is long gone. And there can be only one place it
left to:
Wehaca.
=Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Does it feel good to lord it over us like this?
"Does anything about what you have done up 'til this very day feel good, Ida Everstead-Rey?"
Bullets fly. And as they do, before they can even reach the Knight, their hand lifts. They exude nothing of the impurity that wreathes this place, and yet... it seems to bend to their will like putty, warping around those bullets until they stop scant inches from pure and polished armor as if frozen in molasses.
And one by one, they fall with a clink of metal on stone. So many fallen hopes.
They try their best. It is a valiant effort. A defiance of despair. A rebellion against futility. Jacqueline's pillars rise like a shield of pure earth against its blighted counterparts. Silvery light dances about the sword as its glow seems to suck in the light, diluting the impurity that chases its very essence. Jack and Ryudo strike out the best way they know how, demolishing the statues with their weapons; the blighted statue of Noua Shax seems to simply -EXPLODE- as K.K. leaps back from it a second before that impact. Rubble flies, Malevolence churns, and the contradictions around the sorrowful sword seem to waiver.
So close. So close...
Cyre's staff strikes ground.
What is a place?
He grinds the wind into the blade. It trembles. Flecks of black shed from its depthless surface. So close...
"A thing you shall soon find tested, Cyre H. Lorentz."
... but too late.
I am despair...
And then it bursts.
PULSE
Everything goes black within the rippling impurity of the shockwave. It's impossible to tell how much time passes as the senses simply short out. But within that blackness, visions can be seen. The village of Wehaca in flames. A statue of Noua Shax laced with vines of Malevolence, slowly crumbling at the seams. A hulking creature made of bones, and four arms, a sword in each, and that black blade driven through its bleak, grayed skull.
Within Rosaline's mind, an orphanage burns. The truth of it just within the fringes of reality, but she knows the truth, doesn't she? It was her fault, in the end. Her failing. And she will fail, time and again.
Ida Everstead-Rey's home burns. Because she could not rise to the challenge. Because the Trial Knight is a creature of their word. Something large and terrible looms upon the horizon of everything she holds dear. Her family. Her city. Her home. Something wreathed in purple flames, so large it blots out the very sun and any hope as it burns away everything of her identity, just as she cast to the flames...
A blade touches Jack Van Burace's heart. Cold. Lifeless. But it finds the spark of rage within him. A connection. A power vast. Vast enough to topple his enemies. If he could just reach out and touch it...
And visions of a man large and strong like a lion, falling to his knees, clutching a gaping wound of darkness in his chest as the impurity of despair sinks into his soul and twists him into something so much more and yet less than what he was fills Cyre's mind. A man he knows. A man who took those trials with him.
Leon...
As consciousness flickers, they can see the blade as it falls to the earth, brimming with Malevolence. As booted heels crush the ground beneath them. They can see a knight bending to grip that blade, to walk away as consciousness fades within the bleakness of their nightmares...
"Show me, then, the joys of your life.
"And we shall test their mettle soon enough."
And the last vision, a knight in white armor, standing at the center of a burning village... unmoved, uncaring. Unstoppable.
And -demanding- they challenge that very notion in that fleeting vision, before consciousness fades...
When you come to, the blade is long gone. And there can be only one place it left to:
Wehaca.