2018-01-20: Set Things Right
- Log: Set Things Right
- Cast: Leon Albus, Jude Moshe, Elhaym van Houten, Lily Keil, Josephine Lovelace, Fei Fong Wong
- Where: Ash Hare
- Date: January 20th 2018
- Summary: Leon gathers compatriots to the recently-found Zeboim ruin known only as 'Ash Hare', which appears to have some connection with the rogue machine known as Gryndille. Therein, the group finds what they're looking for and then some.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
It took months of searching -- months more than Leon would have liked -- but he found the ruin that, supposedly, Gryndille used as a recharge station. He told Josie a little about it, yesterday. A place called Ash Hare -- he doesn't know why it is named that -- nestled in the northern mountains of the Gunsmoke Desert. It isn't so far from November -- a half-day's walk.
Leon sent requests out.
For Lily, it was simple. He told her when she returned to the inn, the day before. They agreed to leave the next day. He spoke with Josie in person, before that. For Jude, he left a message at the hotel in November City that Jude indicated, and gave the date and time. He sent word by Memory Cube to Fei and Elly.
They gathered in November -- and then made the long trek up into the mountains.
They have come to their destination. It stands out from last time, for this time, Leon and Lily did not think to come alone. Instead, Leon stands at the front of the group, and looks up. A pathway winds and cuts, up through the mountain. He lets out a low, rattling sigh.
"...Thank you for coming with us," he says. He turns, to look back at the others. "Ash Hare is a Zeboim-era ruin. Supposedly, no one has successfully penetrated very far into it. I don't know what to expect in there. It could be Gryndille... it could be something else. But, I suggest we all be on our guard."
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Jude Moshe never uses Memory Cubes. If he does, they tend to be for pointless messages to the people in Guild Galad that he calls family and friends. For everything else, well.
He's found that private correspondence in hand-written notes to be much more personal.
Which is why the mechanical tweet of Jude Moshe's messenger bird Jacob fills the air instead of the laid back, dulcet tones of the respectable reporter on the date and time specified in Leon Albus' note. Which is why, when the automaton circles around, it seeks to land on the former Black Wolves Captain's shoulder. Which is why, Leon might notice a little white slip of paper attached to the the mechanical bird's ankle.
Which is why the little slip of paper has some private correspondence, hand written, on it, which Jude Moshe is sure Leon will appreciate, personal touch as it has:
Dearest Leon,
I have experienced an emergency of an incredibly personal nature and will be late.
Please don't cry for me while you wait.
It's embarassing.
Sincerely Yours,
Jude Moshe
PS: Jacob will know if you cry.
The bird, of course, just stares vacantly. Almost judgingly.
---
Eventually, though, Jude Moshe arrives. He's a little late, but not as much as one might expect from the incorrigibly lazy reporter. Despite coming alone to their meeting spot, he seems relatively fine, dressed in his typical tan frock coat; his vest, however, is unbuttoned, and his shirt looks like a more wrinkled affair than usual, and did he forget to buckle his belt?
Perhaps most pressing of all, however, is the presence of a strange pair of tinted spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. Shades. He wears shades, while he rubs at his head, and grimaces as Jacob tweets a happy song at his arrival.
"God, Jake, could you just -- keep it down," he grouses, in that hapless way of his, "it sounds like a cannonade going off in my skull."
Is he--
"Ash Hare. Zeboim. Right. Let's get inside, then. There's probably less sun inside."
-- yes he seems very hungover, his incredibly personal emergency was apparently that he is incredibly, personally hungover.
... It should be fine.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly had shown up in yet another new outfit. This is perhaps the last for a while, although that ensemble of stockings and a denim dress with a high hemline has continued. Maybe she likes it. It does sort of move like the uniform which she has not worn since she got to November, although, no doubt, she hasn't thrown it - or the three eggs of spare nylons - away.
The journey up had been unremarkable in some ways, but Elly had brought a paper bag with her. The contents of this paper bag were mysterious for most of the journey. A packed lunch? A present?
No. The truth was revealed when a pair of Sand Sharks had accosted them and Elly had, instead of her traditional habit of keeping in the backish lane and throwing a supportive blast of her mysterious mastery of unnamed and untattooed magicks, said - "Wait!"
The bag had opened.
Out of it had come a strange flat object, like the cover of a book but thicker and with a strange gunmetal cast to the case. It is wrapped in a thin layer of what looks to be rare roast beef, like you might get to make a sandwich. It has been loosely tied together with a hank of recognizable red hair. Elly had then proceeded with grim determination to pull out a lancet and gash her thumb, grimacing and... bleeding all over it.
The truth of this may be clear when she throws the entire assemblance into the oblinging mouth of the monster.
"... Try to drive that one off," Elly then says, sucking on the injury on reflex.
ANYWAY, THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW.
Elly is fine now. To Leon she gives a crisp and disciplined nod.
But it is to the staggering form of Jude Moshe that she gives a look of concern. "-- Are you alright? Did you get bitten by something on the way?" Elly asks, voice relatively small.
Elly is not used to seeing hung-over people staggering about.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily would not have missed it. ...Despite unpleasant events in recent memory, she would hear nothing of needing to recover further; she is physically fit, the wound from Matilda's knife in her side largely healed, soon to be nothing at all anymore. The request came, and she made arrangements for Dog to be cared for in their absence, because she is not bringing that creature into a dangerous dungeon today. ...She needs to have as few distractions as possible.
Lily walked largely in silence; she has been quieter than usual for some time, and while she is still somewhat pale, she shows no signs of shortness of breath or difficulty walking. She has her gun; she is completely herself... Just, focused. She is preparing.
Leon in front, and Lily in back. She could have tried to do this alone... But no, not this time.
"I'm not going to insult you by suggesting you go home," Lily points out. ...She glances at the bird again... and then Jude, as he approaches. For her part, she is in her usual military-style clothes, her armored jacket repaired and her scarf helping to keep the sun off of her neck. She has her medical satchel. But--
...Lily had lifted an eyebrow when Elly threw the item to the monster. She didn't offer a healing in this case.
But now, she rolls her eyes as Jude arrives. "No," she answers Elly. "He wasn't bitten by something." She waits a beat.
...Then claps, once, loudly, with a smirk at Jude, before she shakes her head. "Ready?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's the fact of all ruin exploration -- in fact sometimes exploring the ruins themselves is the easy part. Finding them -- and getting to them -- can be difficult if not ruinous.
The experience at the mountain last time is proof enough of that. Even getting in meant crossing an army.
As for Josie, well, she'd immediately put anything else on her calendar -- such that it was -- on hold and focused on preparations. Getting supplies was a simple matter. Slightly more tricky: the traveling part.
There are frequent interruptions on the trek there, including one very interesting encounter with some sand sharks.
Elly may have been the recipient of a thoughtful gaze.
Perhaps even the occasional look, the rest of the way in.
There are trees, up these mountains. They're never much too speak of -- scraggly pines, bent against the direction the wind blows. One of them, perched on the edge near the point they're at upon the arrival of Jacob has become a temporary rest for a certain pigeon. Penelope settles on the branch.
Penelope does not at first see her personal white whale.
It would be a hard thing to describe Josie's own reaction as Jacob delivers a message as anything like impassive or uninterested.
She would really, really like to disassemble Jacob someday. Maybe even put him back together.
The archaeologist tilts her head, as if to ask Leon after the content of the note quietly.
And in the tree, Penelope rises from what had been a peaceful rest and fluffs her feathers. Murder glints in her dark eyes. A crisis is impending--
One that's stopped when Josie off-handedly palms the pigeon and stiffly reaches into a pocket with her right for a small object: a tiny hood, for a bird.
Penelope is notably calmer afterwards.
"Trust me, it's better this way," is the sum total of her comment about a pigeon who may think she's a hawk.
The rest of the climb -- as far as Penelope's input goes -- is a quiet one. As Leon regards the path still left to climb, Josie has chosen this moment to wet her throat, taking a swig from her flask (this one may actually just hold water). "Looks like it's a bit of a way to go," she comments.
Before her gaze slowly swings to regard Jude
very
carefully.
"Well, well."
He has her full attention.
"Actually, I think he was bitten by a dog," she comments to Lily. "Don't you think?"
She rounds towards Jude, smiling like the cat that stole the cream. "Tell you what. As it happens, I've got a liiiittle question for you. We can do a trade." She tosses the flask his way without warning. "Sound good?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
There's no way that Fei can refuse the call of Leon-senpai even if he's still feeling a little woozy from his fight with Fargo. Having fire erupt out of your own body is unpleasant in most circumstances.
EARLIER
Fei Fong Wong looks at Elly. "You want me to kick this thing around?"
Elly confirmed that she wished him to kick this thing around.
Fei turned over the strange but familiar device around in his hands. He studied the glass cover and the tough back. He then shrugged and flung it up high into the air. before catching it with his knee and tossing it back up into the air, then with his foot with the same result. He keeps at it for a while before adding, "This is a lot tougher than it looks," to Elly. Eventually he snags out with his hand and glances at it, studying the cracked screen before offering it back to Elly. "You want more?"
Elly confirmed she wanted more.
LATER
Fei grimaces as Elly gashes her thumb, but he endures it. He believes he understands what's going on here. When Elly suggests they drive the sand shark, he uses low powered but impressive looking chi blasts to encourage just that. Watching the beast scurry off, he breathes out, watching it go.
"Guess they were tracking that?" He asks of Elly, and then considers. "Was it hard?"
NOW
Fei waves over to Jude upon seeing him. "Huh! It's Jude. Hey man," He grins at him. "Long time no see." He thinks he's a pretty cool guy.
He's not sure why, but it might be because he doesn't tuck in his shirt and doesn't care. That's pretty cool.
DG: A party led by Leon Albus is now entering Ash Hare. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - First Stage *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- One might think that the first step is getting inside of Ash Hare, but they would be mistaken. The first step is getting to the doors. The huge double doors, composed of a solid grey-blue steel, are closed shut and the panel lines on them are darkened. The pathway up to them is smooth, though, as if something had turned the slope here into a gravel-lined, packed dirt road instead of the rough, rocky canyon terrain. That might make it seem as if the approach to those closed doors and the overhand are safe. That is until a trio of mechanical eyes flash with a green glow from the rocky mountainside above. Then, a massive construct rises: broad and flat, with a body a little like a crab, and the size of a shed. Tubes along its front open up, and missiles come flying down from the construct. They slam into the ground near you, exploding in fiery blasts -- and even where they miss, they might well knock you over with the backblast. The crab-like construct leaps after that opening volley, vanishing higher into the mountainside. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Injure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
When Jacob flew down, Leon frowned. When Jacob landed on Leon's shoulder, his frown intensifies. And then he takes the note, and reads it over, and he scowls down at it. His eyebrow twitches -- and he gives Jacob a long glower.
There are no tears.
Nor are there tears at Jude's arrival. He looks him over, taking in the shades, the disheveled look, and the complaint about the noise. He sniffs, as if he could smell the liquor on Jude. (He can't. He isn't that close to him.) "Are you--"
He glances at Elly. He raises an eyebrow, and opens a mouth. Then, he remembers when she killed a sand shark with her own blood and a bomb. He closes his mouth and decides to let someone else explain. He doesn't know what Gebler thinks of alcohol. Besides, Lily has the situation well in hand.
As does Josie.
He sighs, finally. "Let's be moving, then. It shouldn't be too much further."
And, indeed, it isn't. The path is smooth at first, and they can see Ash Hare: a pair of huge, metal doors built into the mountainside above. The path leading there is a smooth road, like packed gravel, as if things were meant to move down this. Which seems fine, at first, until the flash of green can be seen. A massive construct lifts: flat, like a crab, and with wicked missile tubes.
"That--that isn't Gryndille, but--"
The first missile fires. It slams down behind the group, and then more come down. Explosions erupt, throwing out packed dirt and stone, and fire to boot. Leon shouts, in a hurry: "RUN!"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
The debate over what Jude might possibly have been bitten by, of course, is met with a good-natured half-grimace half-smile from the redheaded journalist as he digs a thumb against his temple. Nothing, says Lily.
Acually, I think he was bitten by a dog. Jude Moshe's hands lift, palms up towards the heavens as if in offering to Great Granas and/or Guardians above, head bowed in worshipful contrition.
"And here's me, without even so much of a handful of hair to treat it with. What a cruel world we live in, huh?"
Dog bite, indeed.
Unceremoniously does Jude shove his right hand deep into the left interior pocket of his frock coat, fishing around it as Fei offers that friendly wave. Amber eyes peer behind those shades, and Jude's answer is a lazy, easy tilt of his left hand.
"Hey, kiddo," he says, in that effortlessly big brother way despite the faintly hoarse voice which is surely just another symptom of his terrible dog bite. "Keeping alive, huh--"
But whatever else he might have to say is interrupted by that loud CLAP -right next to his ears-. He winces visibly like someone just fired a gun right up next to his eardrum as he stumbles, mildly, with the emerging cigarette case in his gloved hand.
Ready?
Jude Moshe just stares like a man abused for a solid three seconds.
"... You really have a way with words, you know that?"
And then he opens that precious nickel case, and untucks a lone, white cigarette to slip between his lips. "Is that any way to treat a man suffering from a dog bite?"
Josie, it seems, has a friendly solution definitely not suffused with ulterior motive, and it's probably saying something how the redheaded reporter can catch that flask from the air despite his apparent hangover, even if he seems like he nearly drops it in the process. Beyond him, Jacob flutters off towards Ash Hare for recon scouting, blissfully oblivious to the wrath of Penelope as his owned squints at the flask, opens it, and takes a mild sniff of what's inside.
"... Looks like you've already made the answer for me, Josie," is his answer, met with a lopsided smile. "Well, you've saved my life yet again. What d'you need? Keep in mind, I'm not personally responsible if you don't like the answer to your question--"
And it is only then, as they reach those massive doors, with Jude about to take a sip of that magical cure-all that is solving the consequences of liquor with more liquor, that he hears a groan and a crack from the distance. A flash of green. The shuffling of earth and steel. Amber eyes tilt up.
The first thing he sees is the payload, and, Gryndille or not, that is really all he needs to know.
"Couldn't it have waited until I finished my drink--"
Apparently not, considering it starts raining death on them not a half-second later. And to his credit, hangover or no, Jude Moshe moves -fast-, rushing for a way around the door or at least to -safety-.
Holding his cigarette and flask in a death grip the entire way.
He's just -that- dedicated.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"A particularly hairy dog," Lily agrees with Josie. She does not move for any alcohol herself, just shaking her head and glancing to Leon. ...It's at least lively. That's not so bad. But Jude's stare is a reward of its own. "So I'm told," Lily answers him about her way with words, and adds deadpan as she looks forward again, "It's a special prescription. Treats dog bites."
She is moving, all right. She steps ahead, looking to the gigantic doors, and narrows her eyes. At first it's fine... But the green is there. The missle comes. Leon shouts--
Lily throws up her hands and a barrier of golden light crashes around her, taking some of the packed dirt and stone and stopping it from where it goes. The backlasts make her stumble--and she starts running. "Still a problem!"
Another missile crashes down beside her, knocking her from her feet. ...She keeps getting back up, but it's not a pleasant time.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
BACK THEN
"... It was easier than I thought it would be," Elly answered Fei.
NOW
Elly knows what 'the hooch' is, but there was at least that much discipline in the Gebler forces she saw. That or they used some other kind of drug instead of Lamb microbe piss. As they descend, Elly's footing is sure - the sole material of her boots may outlast the rest of them, and possibly Elly herself. A miracle of material technology, if not one that is necessarily great for the planet.
You know what else isn't great? Missiles. "!!" Elly vocalizes as she continues her descent, saying to Jude as they go, "We don't have time to drink right now - this is a" THOOM! "barrage!"
She tacks to the side to try to prop up Lily, glancing at Fei with concern and possibly hope that his advanced karate training means he won't be tumbling downhill and hitting every pricklebush along the way.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's with considerable effort that Josie manages not to laugh.
What a miserable world they live in, where a man in Jude's condition is so mocked.
But at least there is a remedy on hand. For a price.
"Hmm, well, I'm not so sure it's a matter of me liking the answer. But, I suppose we'll just have to see, won't we?" She props her hand on her hip, the curiously hooded Penelope managing to stare off in the wrong (?) direction. "So, let's see... how to put this." Her forehead scrunches up, and she's deep, deep in apparent thought. Then ultimately sighs, shaking her head. "...Well, I'll keep this simple for a change, alright? Let's just say a little bird told me you might know about a certain particularly pristine fossil I may have lost track---"
The rest of the way has been relatively easy going.
A little too easy.
Josie cuts herself off then, kneeling momentarily to inspect the roadway, running a gloved finger along it. "It's awfully well-kept," is her tight-lipped assessment of the place into which they walk.
Gryndille, a machine with remarkably pinpoint targetting for something of its age. A machine that had not yet attempted to massacre a mountain or walk off into the sea.
This is going to be interesting.
Particularly as something rises as they continue along.
"--Shit!" is Josie's first barked response as she snaps back to her feet. "Guess we know why--"
Penelope's response in the meantime is -- the bird still hooded -- to essentially bellyflop for the back the collar of Josie's (brand new) duster and insinuate herself down the back of the coat.
"--No one's come back! Hey, that's my flask!"
Priorities?
Whether it's the missiles (it's the missiles) or the sudden theft of her flask, Josie doesn't linger. She runs, powering up for the doors -- the closed doors. They might be a problem.
(And may be why she's palmed a small firearm.)
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong says, "Managed it so far," regarding staying alive. Fei isn't expecting to get attacked before they even reach the ruin. He makes his way carefully at first, rather than rushing out but before he gets too far, suddenly--there's missiles! And that's... BAD!
And it's especially bad because it looks like the doors they're heading to could use a hand in opening. Luckily, Fei's MONK class means he's fairly decent with his footing and even if he stumbles, he has a practice of jumping down wells so he will probably be okay. But the tricky part will come when he tries to leap forward and jumpkick the doors open ahead of the group. Though there may be another problem before that happens, and also his jumpkick may not be enough which might result in a hilarious tumble. Either way, that's Fei's plan.
"Well on the bright side," Fei says. "There could be THREE killer robots trying to kill us!"
Wait, Fei thinks, is that the bright side?
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - First Stage.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - First Stage *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- One might think that the first step is getting inside of Ash Hare, but they would be mistaken. The first step is getting to the doors. The huge double doors, composed of a solid grey-blue steel, are closed shut and the panel lines on them are darkened. The pathway up to them is smooth, though, as if something had turned the slope here into a gravel-lined, packed dirt road instead of the rough, rocky canyon terrain. That might make it seem as if the approach to those closed doors and the overhand are safe. That is until a trio of mechanical eyes flash with a green glow from the rocky mountainside above. Then, a massive construct rises: broad and flat, with a body a little like a crab, and the size of a shed. Tubes along its front open up, and missiles come flying down from the construct. They slam into the ground near you, exploding in fiery blasts -- and even where they miss, they might well knock you over with the backblast. The crab-like construct leaps after that opening volley, vanishing higher into the mountainside. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Injure=========================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 1 *>============================ ======================< Results - UNFERTH - First Stage >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Injure(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon dashes over the ground, keeping low and concentrating as best he can. He still feels the earth shake, rumbling underneath each footstep. His eyes track to the left, towards Jude while he carries his cigarettes and liquor carefully. "Are you--are you trying to keep those things safe!?"
They have other problems. For one, even though the automaton has sank down into the mountain -- vanishing to who knows where -- the doors ahead are cold and darkened. He can see lines on them as he gets closer. "Elly's got the right of it!" the Kislevi man calls out, as he keeps running. "And that's--Fei! If we're unlucky, we'll be pinned against those doors if that thing comes back! We had better--"
A massive explosion thunders behind them. The blast slams into their backs. Leon is sent flying forward with a yelp, and he slams against the door. His palm touches it. And then, abruptly, panel lines on it all glow a light teal. They flash and shoot up the length of the doors. Then, the double doors open. Leon falls down, flat, and looks up.
A darkened hall awaits -- but begins to light up, slowly, as if beckoning in them. "...that... was entirely too easy."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Convection Coil Room *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this square room, you find three doors -- one on each side of the room -- and all of them, simultaneously, slam shut. The door behind you does, too. The panel lines on the wall, carved in their criss-crossing shapes, all begin to light up. The shade starts as a soft, gentle yellow glow. Which matches the spire in the center of the room. It winds upward, to the ceiling, composed of elaborately connected cables of steel, which wind in a massive coil. The coil and the panel lines begin to change, though, starting to glow a more frantic orange and ever shifting towards a fiery red. You also break out into a sweat, as the whole room begins to heat up. A way out is needed, and quickly -- or the destruction of the device in the center, before it cooks you alive. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Suffer======================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"It looks expensive...!" Fei shouts before being exploded into the dungeon proper.
He lies there for a moment.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The explosions slam people into doors. Whether Fei hit an opening panel by sheer chance or if it was already opening up due to the sensing of approaching humans, or perhaps due to being triggered by a malicious ARM - who can say? Elly doesn't have time to do it, although she does give Jude a lingering look when Fei chimes in in support of his habit of "day-drinking."
Indirectly so.
People get inside. Elly bounces on her feet as she does a momentary double take at the sight of a bird of prey wiggling into Josie's coat, but once all seem to be moving inside and under at least some cover from further AP rocketry attacks, Elly joins them.
CHUNK! All the doors slam shut.
Elly has JUST gotten a small white light out of her purse and activated it, casting a cool glow like a concentrated starlight beam into the area, when the walls start with their soothingly gentle glow. Elly looks upwards towards the winding ceiling, and then she says aloud, "What in the world...?"
Then comes the warm glow of...
"It's an oven!" Elly shouts in dismay. A moment and a sharp glare later and crystalline ice tries to form out of the air, forming a glittering circular cage of rime on the curlicue in the center which almost immediately half-liquifies, sits for a heartbeat or so, and then cracks with a venting of steam.
"What kind of a place was this--!?!"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Spy Purse toward her party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily feels the little touch of the surreal that she often does around Jude, in the way that he is. It's strange. ...She lets it be. She runs anyway. She comes out worse for wear, with a couple of cuts from stone at her temple and cheek, but not particularly impaired. The Kislevi woman is already whirling around when they get to the doors. "I'll set up a barrier--"
Not in time. Lily, too, slams to the door, but she sees Leon's palm. She sees the way it glows. Her eyes widen for an instant. "..."
She shakes her head. "...Too easy," she agrees, and steps inside. The room begins to heat. Elly's light is helpful--and the talk of an oven indeed seems accurate. Elly works ice, and Lily immediately drops a hand into her bag, pulling something quickly and cutting a fuse with a fingertip that somehow works like a blade.
"Hup--" Lily is sweating, profusely now, but she hurls the makeshift bomb upwards towards the coils, and snaps her fingers. A barrier of fire starts to surround the coil, making it even hotter--before the device explodes, the bomb amplified by her magic.
"Everything can break," she comments helpfully to Elly.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Explosive Charges toward her party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"One that people weren't meant to enter, I think!" Leon answers Elly's shout. He realizes what the problem is immediately after she declares it. Sweat begins to bead on his forehead, as he starts forward. He glances at the coils -- and the ice forming over them, then the bomb that Lily hurls. He starts forward, quickly, and moves towards another of the coils.
There is a moment's hesitation, before he draws Argent Divider from its holster. The weapon is unfurled with a snap of his wrist; barrels fold out, and the blade telescopes out. He begins striking at a coil, repeatedly, trying to slash it and cut it to bits.
Nevermind that his bangs cling to his forehead, and sweat is beginning to sting his eyes.
"If this doesn't work, we should try the door!" he calls out, looking at the door across the room. "That should get us free!"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Are you--are you trying to keep those things safe!?
"I've just got a good grasp on what's actually important in life! Don't worry, you'll get there once you grow up a bit more, Captain--"
BOOM
The explosion rippling behind them brings an impromptu end to Jude Moshe's lecture about life and maturity and the importance of alcohol. Feeling the force billowing at his back, the redheaded reporter's jacket flaps violently around him as he goes flying with Leon. He hits the door, just in time to see a hand plant into the door. See the panels of it light up as if they had been jolted to life by a blessed touch.
Behind shades, amber eyes narrow quietly before the journalist goes tumbling face-first into the darkened halls of Ash Hare.
Above, Jacob circles, the camera lenses of its eyes shuttering with rapidly blinking interest at the entire process before the automaton swoops down into the dark recesses of the Zeboim structure.
Jude, of course, hardly notices anything amiss, obviously, because of his hangover, letting out a long-suffering groan as he drags himself back into a seated position. He stares at the crumpled ruins of his cigarette. To the puddle of liquid courage decorating the ground in a nice, alcoholic gleam. His lips purse. He heaves a sigh.
"I'd like to say 'now it's personal,' but honestly... I think if I even put in that much effort right now, my head is going to burst."
At least he's honest.
(??)
A second later, a forlorn Jude Moshe drags himself back up onto his feet. "Well, at least now we know all it takes to open doors in this place is some well-timed explosions," remarks the journalist conversationally. He turns, tossing that tragically empty flask Josie's way.
"Sorry," he says, with a smile that, to its credit, looks genuinely apologetic. "Guess the answer'll have to wait until we find some more hair."
He'll continue on, grateful for the quiet reprieve and the sensation of heat to relax his blood vessels. Except -- that heat isn't stopping, is it? It's intensifying.
"... huh, is it just me, or is it starting to feel like a sauna in here--"
And then all the doors SLAM shut in a way that rightly ought to reverborate in an intensely painful way in Jude Moshe's skull. He stares, blankly, his dark red brow twitching once.
"God....... dammit."
This is just not his day.
Alcohol-induced headaches aside, he quickly starts to put two and two together; a gloved hand reaching into his frock coat, the impressive sight of his shotgun is produced seconds later, ratcheting open the revolver cartridge and sliding in a shell as he grimaces. Sweat drips at his brow. His eyes start to dry. His head is pounding.
"This is not the kind of remedy I had in mind, ancient civilization--" he mentions, offhandedly, as he snaps the revolver shut. The barrel begins to spin, symbols glowing with a bright orange whine that a very few in this room would know is largely just for show.
"--sorry. I know you tried your best."
And
BOOM
goes the explosive shell as Jude squeezes that trigger, sending the high-powered, magic-infused demolition round screaming on a path for that central construct with intent to lodge into a vulnerable section in its plating and then just -- blow.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Demolition Shell toward his party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong rubs at his skull with a hand. What kind of place is this? He's not really sure? But he is finding himself to be burning hot. In fact, he feels like he's sweatin' real hard. He understands what's going on enough to understand that he has to get out of here ASAP. "Hey Leon. We can break what we want right?"
Fei glances over to his friend for a moment as he grasps at something hidden within his pocket, and holds it tightly.
He closes his eyes.
He exhales, then he smiles and raises up his hand, aiming it towards the coil.
"It's just something to break. I mean..."
A large blue-white burst of energy erupts out of Fei's hand and hones in on that coil. It's much larger and thicker than the coil--but that might not be enough. The true test is how he pushes the chi into his target, not the target area that his chi encompasses.
Push it in, he thinks, and let it burst out. That's what Fargo did to you. Do it like him. He knows what he's doing.
And if you know enough of what you're doing, one day...
He shakes himself out of his shirt when he's done because whoo boy, it's hot. He's sweating up a bunch and he doesn't want to ruin his shirt. He wipes his face with it to get off some excess sweat.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Mother's Cross toward his party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie springs free of the missile fire.
But there is one remaining major problem. The doors are defiantly remaining closed. She raises the gun in her hand, but even that feels puny right now.
She mouths a word that can't be repeated, turning back as if she expects the machine to make a strafing run against the doors next.
Leon slams into the door next though and--
that's interesting
She doesn't wait around. Pushing forward, Josie races into the hallway beyond, holstering the firearm.
And makes a little stifled sound of dismay as she spots Jude.
...More specifically, the little puddle by the reporter's side and the very very empty flask. "No good deed goes unpunished," she laments, catching the flask flung her way. She shakes it experimentally, only for her face to fall further.
"I'd say you owe me double for this one now, but..."
The coil flickers ON.
"Maybe, we have another problem at hand." The little shape just under the collar of her jacket begins to squirm. "One of these things..." She frowns, shrugging off her pack and stoops to rifle through its contents. "Mmh. Worse than the last one I found, I think. Now, where is it-- aha!"
She branishes a mattock. "Hey Tiger, let me soften this one up for you--"
As she makes all haste for the coils.
She huffs out a breath, the air seeming to solidify somewhere in the back of her throat. "You know, there's been some debate about rooms like this. Academically, that is," she says. "One of the leading theory's for incineration of garbage, but if you don't like that there's always Bruckner's runaway heating element theory..."
Covering her face with her free arm, she without consideration of any findings that could result from this ancient convection device smashes the mattock into it.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, Convection Coil Room.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Convection Coil Room *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this square room, you find three doors -- one on each side of the room -- and all of them, simultaneously, slam shut. The door behind you does, too. The panel lines on the wall, carved in their criss-crossing shapes, all begin to light up. The shade starts as a soft, gentle yellow glow. Which matches the spire in the center of the room. It winds upward, to the ceiling, composed of elaborately connected cables of steel, which wind in a massive coil. The coil and the panel lines begin to change, though, starting to glow a more frantic orange and ever shifting towards a fiery red. You also break out into a sweat, as the whole room begins to heat up. A way out is needed, and quickly -- or the destruction of the device in the center, before it cooks you alive. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Suffer======================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 2 *>============================ =======================< Results - Convection Coil Room >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Demolition Shell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 10 --(10)--> 20 Fail Spy Purse 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Explosive Charges 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Mother's Cross 4 Brute Effects: None -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 10 --(20)--> 30 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Injure(1)|Overzealous(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Lily sends fire and explosion into the heating element - or at least one of them. There is a shrieking SPANG and Elly has to throw up her arm to avoid getting splattered by superheated metal droplets, but that's not the first time, and she laughs weakly at Lily's words, ruefully.
Jude joins the parade with a revolutionary invention that will change the face of crime fighting forever - a GUN. His rounds smash into the metal coil and deform it swiftly. The wire within gleams, still conducting power even as Fei de-shirts and hurls forth his chi, not necessarily in that order. The bare copper gleams all the brighter. And then Josephine's mattock comes down, like some meddlesome cop --
KSSSNKHK!
It rips apart. The circuit, broken, produces transient arcs but soon enough dies. The room does not exactly get pleasant, but that sense of imminent *baking* begins to fade. When Fei wipes his forehead, Elly envies him obscurely.
She exhales. "Oh," she says to Josephine. "That makes sense." In Solaris, of course, all the ovens are electric, but there's no need to bring that up, is there.
"I'm not familiar," she asks Jude even as the party is now able to deal with the doors at a relatively leisurely pace. Elly moves towards the one that Leon indicated, the one across from the entrance, perhaps from a lack of a stronger plan. "What's a 'sauna' exactly?" From the purse she produces a small collapsible tool -- is that a prybar?
WHY is it a prybar?
Well, no time to complain. At least it will almost certainly be cooler and more pleasant on the far side of that door.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===================<* CHALLENGE - Matter Transference Maze *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next chamber that you enter ends abruptly on a large, railed catwalk. Two shimmering teal tiles are on the floor ahead. The rest of the room is a pit, dropping down into sheer darkness below. There are, however, catwalks and islands spread across the room -- and one on the opposite side. Each has one or more glowing tiles on it. When stepped upon, the tiles teleport a person to another catwalk -- and sometimes one across the room. Clearly, finding the way to the other end will take trial and error, and a great deal of patience. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Bad Luck===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
A puddle that used to be good booze. ...Maybe that says something important, considering. Lily doesn't comment; but when Fei asks about breaking things she says, "Break what you need to." She's the Lieutenant, after all, she can totally authorize breaking things. And once that happens...
"Thanks," she says to Josie, who did soften it up. "...Yeah, we'd best hit the door before what's left heats back up." Lily reaches up and wipes her brow with the back of her hand.
"A sauna is something where you sit in a bunch of heat to relax. Sweat out your stress, so to speak."
Lily explains... and once Elly finishes prying open the door, she steps forward, with a look at Leon before she keeps walking. The next chamber ends, though--the railed catwalk looms ahead, and Lily frowns. It's a pit.
...Lily snaps her fingers and a fireball appears in her hand. She throws it down... finding the pit goes a long, long way down. "...I don't like it," she says, and steps down, hopping onto a tile that shimmers.
Abrubtly she's gone. ...and then visible on the other side of the room. She frowns. ...And pulls out her notebook. This is going to take some trial and error. "Least it doesn't kill you. ...I wonder how they do that..."
...She's going to take notes.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Notebook toward her party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Break anything you need to!" Leon answers Fei. His shout has the barest edge of panic in it. It is getting hot inside of here -- and as a result, he is a little surprised at the blue-white flash when Fei sends a blast of chi down at the coil. His eyes widen, slightly, but he shakes it off quickly.
And all the better, because the coils are ripped apart. The room begins to cool -- it feels like it's a rapid cooling, but he knows better. Especially as the air from the next room feels even more frigid. He sighs, and then wipes at his brow -- and comes to a stop on the platform. He looks between the two tiles, studying them for a moment, and looks up at Lily. "Nor do I."
He lets her step on one first. No good comes of rushing in. He frowns, before he steps on the other one. When he does, he reappears on another platform across the room -- opposite Lily. He leans down, and then makes a mark with a piece of chalk.
"Let's mark which ones we've used," he calls out.
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
"Bruckner's ideas were always a little too romantic for my taste."
This is said, conversationally, before the detonation of a demolition shell and everyone else's efforts makes Jude Moshe look as if he deeply regrets ever having offered any sort of helping hand in this endeavor. The shriek of metal, the crackling collapse of circuitry.
"... I don't think he'd be very happy with what we were doing here, anyway."
So Jude Moshe says a quiet ode to their near death by thermal runaway, and the romanticism (??) of Brockner.
With that, the reporter's strange ARM falls back into his frock coat, arms almost leisurely stretching up and over his head until he laces fingers at the back of his scalp. When Elly asks her question, and the door is opened, he walks past. What's a 'sauna' exactly?
"It's place of spiritual awakening that's even more sacred than the most hallowed mass in Aquvy culture," is his further explanation after Lily's answer, and to his credit, he gives it so unflappably grave that it -has- to be serious, right?
It's all about fostering a sense of wonder for the unknown.
But the heat slowly dissipates the further they get from the cooking chamber; cooling sweat rolls down Jude's tanned skin as he looks around him beneath those shades, curiosity in amber eyes hidden as he sees that long stretch of catwalk. And the endless pit below.
Quietly, Jude Moshe whistles.
And whistles once more, when Lily Keil suddenly teleports across the room.
"... Huh."
A second passes. Jude slowly tilts his head.
"Don't see something like that every day, do you?"
Lily takes notes. Makes her commentary. And Jude... just stays where he is, hands in pockets, as Jacob flies over them all in a seemingly random pattern, flitting from tile to tile, stepping on one, teleporting, and then moving to the next in short order.
Least it doesn't kill you. ...I wonder how they do that...
"Unless they take you apart molecule by molecule and then assemble a replica of you based on your flashscanned genetic pattern on another tile," Jude suggests, in a conversational tone that, again, suggests he's being perfectly serious.
"Read it in a book once. Then? Yeah, the old Lily Keil is probably dead. Sort of like a ship that has all its old parts replaced over time. Same boat, but the old boat's gone forever. Dead."
Long silence passes after that, and Jude Moshe amiably leans back to light a cigarette as Jacob does his diligent work for him.
"After you," he offers, generously, to the others after his theoretical explanation of the old Lily's potential demise.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Jacob toward his party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong laughs at Lily's comment. "Well fine! I just don't want to break somethin' I'm not supposed to!"
But hey, if Lily authorizes it, it's something he's supposed to break. Makes sense to him. It's actually kind of refreshing, come to think of it, at being allowed to smash without having to worry about whether he'll smash too much. Usually, Fei has to hold back on his strength lest he get someone killed or worse, but objects like this--it's actually okay to be a little overkill, come to think of it.
But regardles he fwips his shirt over his shoulder and leaves it there where it somehow just holds position. It's a mystery of how this works but what's not a mystery is that Fei does indeed keep up on his workout in spite of his concerns about being too buff sometimes. It's like he just can't help himself.
But then there's a portal maze. It's tile based, though, so that actually makes it easy.
"I'll take a map down too," He tells Lily. "We can compare notes if we get turned around."
He glances over to Jude. "That's not how it works." He says, but he doesn't actually provide details on how it DOES work despite sounding very confident in this.
Maybe he just doesn't like the idea on a philisophical basis.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"I always thought it was a bit of a stretch," Josie comments, stepping back on the follow through of her swing. "If you ask me, rooms like this seem too /deliberate/. But I guess that's what you get when you sit in your ivory tower! I'll tell you, you won't make any discoveries in your /library," she half-grouses, as if reviving some old academic grudge from the dead again.
"Probably not," she adds, on the question if the old romantic scholar would care for how they're treating the place. The (now slightly warped?) mattock is sunk back into her bag, which she slings over a shoulder. "Anyway, let's not stick around. These things have a horrible habit of not being quite broken."
She slips through the door, pausing in a rare moment of thinking before she leaps. "Lily--"
Lily reappears.
"Unless they take you apart molecule by molecule--" Jude comments.
Very casually, she leans over and moves to elbow Jude in the ribs.
"Don't start that 'axe of my grandfather' business now," she says, stalking over to one of the unused tiles and...
Reaching down the back of her jacket. She withdraws a single (one would hope) pigeon.
Penelope coos confusedly as Josie sets her down on it and... vanishes.
Reappearing on a tile perhaps all of twenty feet away. Still very confused and very, very hooded.
"So not that one. Got it."
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Penelope toward her party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh, like a steam bath... but perhaps without the steam?" Elly hazards, before they are faced with the familiar environs of a gigantic pit in the ground. She looks downwards.
Lily plumbs the depths. "Um," Elly says. She rummages in her purse, coming out with what looks like some kind of a fat pen, which she uses to make marks as she moves along. Moving on ahead, Jude explains in greater detail, and Elly asks him with a sober thoughtfulness, "Are you putting me on?"
Jude then theorizes about the nature of teleportation.
Elly actually smiles. "That's wonderful," she tells him. "It's really plausible, too. I suppose we haven't met yet - my name's Elly. Are you a storyteller?"
She moves towards the tiles, evidently content to let people with mapping equipment and/or trained birds step ahead for this challenge.
"... In a way, I suppose 'the old Lily Keil' died long ago, but the same's true of all of us," Elly then muses, which is missing the point but seems plausible to her.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Matter Transference Maze.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===================<* CHALLENGE - Matter Transference Maze *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next chamber that you enter ends abruptly on a large, railed catwalk. Two shimmering teal tiles are on the floor ahead. The rest of the room is a pit, dropping down into sheer darkness below. There are, however, catwalks and islands spread across the room -- and one on the opposite side. Each has one or more glowing tiles on it. When stepped upon, the tiles teleport a person to another catwalk -- and sometimes one across the room. Clearly, finding the way to the other end will take trial and error, and a great deal of patience. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Bad Luck===========================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 3 *>============================ =====================< Results - Matter Transference Maze >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 30 --(8)--> 38 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 25 --(5)--> 30 Pass Jacob 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Penelope 3 Wits Effects: Resilient and Liabili -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 25 --(5)--> 30 Pass Lily's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 30 --(10)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Overzealous(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily often favors the direct approach in these kinds of matters. In this case, it suits well enough. She disappears first. ...But it's nothing that interrupts the conversations especially, as they go. "No, the steam's a factor," Lily answers. "Sounds like it's two words for the same thing. Some people use them for bonding. ...THey're good, if you can find one."
Of course Lily's been to one. Not that she talks much about relaxation to begin with.
She... does not answer Jude's explanation instead. The talk of teleportation though...
"It's fine," Lily calls back on the other side. And then the others get to work. Leon marks with his chalk--but keeping up with it, and keeping the others' morale going in all of this, is a bit of a strain.. and the chalk washes off with the glow starts up with each teleport.
Jacob does the diligent work. Josie has Penelope 'help'. And Elly... Well, Elly goes through them and it works out great.
Eventually they make it to the other side, where Lily pauses to say, "...Yeah, the old Lily Keil did die a long time ago," pretty seriously. "It happens for a number of us, sure. ...Philosophy aside, can we get going?"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Ash Hare *>================================ ================<* CHALLENGE - Gravitational Reorientation *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- When you walk into this room, you find that you are standing on the ceiling -- or is it a wall? This cube-shaped room, composed of the same blue-grey steel as the rest of the place, has complex panel lines woven throughout all of the walls. The same appear on blocks that hang suspended in midair, which you might be able to jump to or push off. There are also silver orbs, however, also suspended in midair throughout the chamber. These emit periodic blasts of electricity. The panel lines on the blocks, every fifteen seconds, flash purple. When they do, gravity suddenly shifts orientation to a different side -- and yanks whoever was moving in that direction (and potentially into a shockwave of lightning). Crossing the room requires caution and a careful orientation, because the door to the other side is located flush with the ceiling of the side you entered on. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Suffer, Vault======================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei smiles at Elly. "Heh, I guess if you put it that way, a lot of us have died plenty of times, then." Something about that philosophy, actually, makes Fei feel a little more at peace. It's with a good mood that he moves on, glancing briefly to Penelope and Josie and then continues on.
As the group enters into the same room, Fei stops suddenly. "This is obviously going to be a horrible room. Nothing good comes out of a cube-shaped room." That's a fact. He guides out his shirt and suddenly the gravity shifts and the shirt is yanked out of his hands and it slams into the ceiling.
"Huh. Well at least my shirt's okay." Fei says.
It also gets electrocuted and bursts into flames.
Fei frowns. "It sounds like the interval's every...fifteen seconds." He trails off and sighs. "...Let's just... let's just get this over with."
He runs on in. A lot of panels flash and seem to aim in on Fei. This...this is probably going to be awful. But at least...
Actually what is the good side to this?
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Moshe, that's absurd. You're absurd," Leon says, with a twitch of his eyebrow. Even though he finds himself ruminating on it, which results in him not paying attention. He steps backward, into the wrong teleporter. He vanishes in a burst of green.
He reappears on the other side, eyebrow twitching even more. "What sort of damnable security system is this?" he balks to them. "This entire thing is built to annoy and frustrate. It--ugh. Focus, Albus."
He grumbles, and then he catches up. He glances sideways at Lily. 'The old Lily Keil did die a long time ago.' He frowns, for a moment, as he looks down. "...It's true enough," he says. "For everyone, I should imagine. You don't tend to get into this business if your life was simple and stable."
Enough philosophy, though.
He slows to a stop behind Fei, though -- and then draws in a sharp gasp, when gravity yanks the shirt from his hand. He looks up, and stares at the lightning pulses. Then, he nods, and unspools his climbing rope. He throws it up, and latches it on. Which is when the rope yanks to one side, but he keeps a grip. The rope leads to the door, almost.
"For what it's worth," he says, before he starts pulling himself up it. At several points, he is yanked violently to one side -- or has to hold on to not fall, uncontrollably, up the rope.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I read a poem once that was about how in a sense, you die whenever you go to sleep, but it wasn't something sad; because every time you wake up, you're born anew--"
Elly stops when the topic of the shirt comes up. It is snatched forwards, raising upwards. Elly's eyes follow it, like a warrior of light - to wit, heavensward - and then the shirt bursts into flames. "Oh... and it was already wet, too, that must be -"
Flash! Reorient. Elly's hair leisurely, gently, almost philosophically rises upwards. She closes her eyes for a moment, long enough for Leon to throw that rope.
Come on, Elly tells herself, it's going to be fine. (The smell of burning cloth fills the air, tanged with ozone.) She leaps forwards, hooking her toes together once she's near the rope even as the gravity shifts AGAIN and draws her hair laterally. She extends a hand while trying to shake herself free enough to see where she's going, as if proffering the option of latching on to those who may be left behind...!
"Maybe it's meant to kill people," Elly speculates to Leon. "And nothing more."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Are you putting me on?
"Trust me," Jude assures, voice sublimely weary as he takes a drag of his cigarette, "you do not want to find out what happens if you don't follow proper etiquette in an Aquvy sauna. And the etiquette is -very- -thorough-."
He speaks as if from that bottomless pit that is personal experience as he huffs smoke lazily into the air. Brows scrunch up faintly.
"It's... a little daunting."
And this, coming from the most laid back man in the world.
But the others (and Penelope and Jacob as brave proxies for Josephine and Jude) start to work on figuring out the tiles, Jude gives an effortlessly playful wince and a casual lift of his hands in surrender as he receives the divine intervention of Josie's elbow in his ribcage and Fei's confident denial in answer to his musings. "Ouch," is his first sentiment, lacking conviction when paired with his tiny, nonchalant smile offered up to Josephine and Leon both at his scoffing -- and then his clear, open thought process that follows after. "Hey, hey -- just a little harmless theorizing." Made after Lily stepped headfirst into the tiles.
He can't help if the timing was perfect by, of course, sheer coincidence.
"It's probably fine." Fei seems confident, at least -- and Jude feels confident putting his confidence in Fei's confidence.
So there's that.
But Elly, it seems, has a very different reaction; curious amber eyes turn towards her behind the veil of those darkly tinted shades, considering her for a moment before a friendly, easy smile touches his lips. "The world's full of wonderfully plausible things, I guess, huh? Jude." He'd offer a hand, but, well -- a way forward is found through the efforts of bird and man, so instead, he pushes off that wall, offering Elly a flash of a grin as he goes. Is he a storyteller?
"Something like that, I guess," he says amiably. "More of the written word variety than the word of mouth kind. Still." He takes a step forward, and despite his earlier theorizing--
--He doesn't hesitate to walk onto the tiles to shuttle him away towards the next room, one after the other.
"Always nice to meet a fan of a good story."
And then, New Jude or Old Jude, the reporter arrives at the other side.
"None of us come out of this kind of world the same person. Doesn't really matter the job you go into. You either adapt and the old you fades away or--"
Stuck on a ceiling.
"--... you get flattened in a gravitational hellhole."
Gravity shifting. Churning. -Slamming- in fifteen second intervals that randomly shift gravitational directions. Jude Moshe's lips slowly purse. The technology to accomplish all of this must be staggering. And to remain operational -this- long, almost -explicitly- just to cause them problems--
"Wow. The Zeboim sure were something, weren't they."
The affect, perfectly flat, heralds Jude's careful movement across the shifting gravimetric fields, chucking his cigarette just in time for a shift that sends it crushing into the ground, stubbing it out in a flash-fried surge of lightning.
"That's convenient, at least." Thank goodness for small favors.
"I'm thinking of lodging a formal complaint to our ancient ancestors in the near future. 'Dear Ancient Ancestors -- Stop.'" One might think he were reciting a telegraph.
If he didn't just stop right there.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"You know," Elly answers Jude as the gravity changes polarity again and slaps her hair directly into her face again from ANOTHER direction ENTIRELY, "I think they were just sadists. I don't think ANYONE would build something like this now, even if -"
Finally! Freedom! Her hair is pointing straight 'up', though, and looking ridiculous. "They could."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
She briefly -- and only half-seriously -- rolls her eyes at Jude before retreating from his personal space (and his ribs).
"It's just a lot of navel-gazing," Josie grouses, retrieving the unusually placid and perhaps quite nonplussed Penelope from her adventure of all of feet away. "I think it's simple enough. You're either alive or you're dead. One or the other. Anything other than that's just some scholar without enough to do in their life. Right?"
Bit by bit the path is found; Josie wastes little time passing through.
Though fleetingly, she wishes she had.
Gravity shifts.
A shirt is destroyed.
Penelope -- perilously! -- floats.
Josie, once again, grabs a pigeon.
The hood -- loosened, loose, lost -- floats free.
Before it's incinerated in a single arc of ozone.
Penelope saw it too.
Archaeologist and bird share a moment where they lock gazes. "...Sorry?" Josie says to the bird. "It was for your own--"
Gravity changes. The ceiling is now the floor; Josie collapses against it.
"--Right."
She rolls upright, twisting out of the way as another bolt discharges. Penelope flails in her grasp.
"You know, kiddo, I think you're right." This Josie says to Elly, as she takes a leap -- making a wild guess at the next shift in the process -- with a furious pigeon in one hand. "I don't think even Bruckner'd be able to theorize his way outta this one."
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily remains as dour as ever. They step into the next room, and Fei indicates it's a terrible room. The gravity shifts--"What the--"
Lily slams into the floor/wall with a thud. "...Shit," she mutters, shakes her head as she drags herself back up. She is at least not electrocuted or burst into flames... THough she almost might prefer it. Fei rushes ahead, and Lily looks to the strange panel lines, considers. ...The changing orientation of the room...
She thinks about it. She glances to Leon, though. Security. "...Annoy and frustrate are good tactics," Lily points out to her Captain. "We've used them ourselves." She did share his look, before that frown. True enough...
"No. None of our lives are that." Pause. "...Except Jude's, I guess." Lily has stood by now, and when Leon throws the rope--
Lily lunges for it and takes hold just before the gravity shifts again.
"...I don't go in for poetry," Lily points out to Elly. "...Killing people though, sure."
Jude, the most laid-back in the world, with his theorizing... Lily leaves it at that. Plausible things. Except--That...
"Yeah. Deliver the complaint, I'm sure it'll work out--" Shift. Lily grunts, running into a wall.
"I'd build it."
Alive or dead... "Simple, huh."
Josie starts talking to Penelope. Penelope is flailing. Lily--
"Hate... This... Kind of thing..."
In a fit of pique, Lily throws a fireball at one of the silver orbs eventually.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gravitational Reorientation.
================================<* Ash Hare *>================================ ================<* CHALLENGE - Gravitational Reorientation *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- When you walk into this room, you find that you are standing on the ceiling -- or is it a wall? This cube-shaped room, composed of the same blue-grey steel as the rest of the place, has complex panel lines woven throughout all of the walls. The same appear on blocks that hang suspended in midair, which you might be able to jump to or push off. There are also silver orbs, however, also suspended in midair throughout the chamber. These emit periodic blasts of electricity. The panel lines on the blocks, every fifteen seconds, flash purple. When they do, gravity suddenly shifts orientation to a different side -- and yanks whoever was moving in that direction (and potentially into a shockwave of lightning). Crossing the room requires caution and a careful orientation, because the door to the other side is located flush with the ceiling of the side you entered on. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Suffer, Vault======================================
===========================<* Ash Hare - Round 4 *>=========================== ==================< Results - Gravitational Reorientation >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 38 --(15)--> 53 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jude Moshe 30 --(20)--> 50 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 25 --(20)--> 45 Fail Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 30 --(20)--> 50 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 40 --(5)--> 45 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Slow(2)|Suffer(1)|Tire(1)|Vault(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has failed this challenge! The party gained 5 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Maybe they were just idiots." Fei says, channeling his inner Kim Kasim who was a totally reasonable scientist who didn't build insane things for no reason just because he could, mid-travel though he considers Elly's suggestion. "Actually I mean, it's not like those two traits are mutually exclusive..."
Either way, Fei is jostled by gravity, thrown into electricity, thrown to another gravi panel, electrocuted again, and then dumped to the floor at the end next to the exit.
In fact, that's pretty much everybody's experience going through this except for Leon who is waiting patiently by the exit for like a full minute before the rest of the party manages to get there. Maybe he shouted some encouragement. Fei is a little on fire and doesn't even notice at this point, because everything is hurting. He shoves like three heal berries down his throats.
"So uh." He tells Leon. "What were you going to say? For what's worth?"
His entire body is pain and he flops against the exit door for a moment to catch his breath.
Then the door slides open and Fei falls over onto his back.
DG: Jude Moshe has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - Faulty Holographic Map Projector *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You reach a room with a large, circular pit in the center. The pit has a series of glass projectors, which flicker online when you enter. A teal series of lines appears, hovering in midair: a map of some of the surrounding tunnels, which may point to hidden rooms and ways ahead. However, just as your eyes start to focus upon it, the images turn off. Then they flicker back into existence, but static runs through them. This continues, repeating a few times, and the static sometimes obscures one part of the map but not others. It shudders and distorts, making capturing it difficult. There is a console on the far wall, which may offer some help for those who do not trust their memory. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure, Reckless=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
You're either alive or you're dead.
"Yep. Guess that's pretty much what everything boils down to in the end for most people, isn't it? Keep it simple. Less energy wasted that way. Still..." Jude grimaces as he attempts to drag himself along the rope.
"Navel gazing and romantic theorizing gets really tempting when it's either that or think about how many grains of sand you have stuck in places you don't want to think about."
But he's made his opinions on deserts abundantly clear by now.
Not that Jude wouldn't have more to say, really, about what anyone else is speaking on, but things very quickly go pearshaped for all of them. Gravity throws Jude about violently in a single, careful shift gone terribly wrong; electricity shocks him roundly. Jolts of electricity rush through him, overloading nerves and sending spasmodic twitches through his smoking body. He thinks his coat has caught on fire.
He'd make a comment about the dismal luck of that coat, but really, he's a little too busy trying to drag himself through this hellish scenario before these electrical jolts give him some kind of seizure.
Eventually, he slumps onto the ground, body smoking, beating his coat into the hard floor to snuff out the flame. He takes a moment to catch his breath, and then adds, disaffectedly wry,
"The kid's right. They're just idiots."
And that, as they say, settles that.
Jude will recover soon enough, though, and offer a gloved hand out to Fei to help the young man up if he wants it with a simple, "Up and at 'em, we've got way more suffering to go," and a joking smile, before he wades further into Ash Hare. And there they arrive at a large, circular chamber, and a hollowed out pit of metal and screens. Images pop on, maps of the facility. Jude blinks, his head tilting in curiosity. Above him, Jacob flies, perching itself upon the console and watching with a tilted head as those images flicker on and off.
"Think we've got a decent shot at making an actual layout of this place here," he mentions, jerking a thumb in the automaton's direction. "Elly, you seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders. Want to take a look at that thing with me?"
As he makes his way to the console, Jacob continues to observe, taking off to circle the pit, eyes flickering like the shutter of a camera. Gathering visual evidence. Just in case.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Jacob toward his party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Gh... seems likely," Leon answers Elly. He looks to Jude, hesitating a moment, before he nods once in his direction. "You're right. There's... something off about this place, though. I don't know quite what it is. No damn rhyme or reason, save to kill people. Must be something they were protecting."
Like, he reasons, whatever bay Gryndille is hiding in.
He lands on the ground, next to Fei. His hair is slightly frazzled. "The rope," he croaks. "And it wasn't worth much." He yanks on it, and it falls down. He hurries to the door, after Jude and Fei. He steps into the room, and his eyes narrow -- as he looks over the map projectors, and then frowns.
He also frowns, a moment, at Jacob.
Leon turns on a foot to look at Lily. "Do you think you can sketch some of these, as they flicker on, or...?"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Jude, did you ever consider there might be answers to questions we just don't need?" It's said pleasantly enough, though that smile on her face might be a little bit strained. It's... a little too aggressively cheerful.
Bad timing or bad guess? Regardless: Josie jumps, gravity shifts, and she passes right on through one of the arcs of lightning. A somewhat muffled scream ensues. Her hand, twitching spasmodically, releases Penelope at a critical moment.
Penelope... glides on through the doorway, taking full advantage of a mastery of flight and a good fifteen seconds of gravity in a consistent direction.
She passes unscathed.
The same cannot be said of Josie by the time she finally lurches through the doorway, singed and smoking gently.
"This... was a new... coat," she groans, leaning heavily against the wall.
She doesn't move, as if immediately desiring some sort of passage to the afterworld, for a good thirty seconds.
But she does rouse herself and joins the group investigating the console. "D'ya need a shirt or something, kid?" This is said to Fei in passing, as Josie brushes herself off. She regards him for a moment, and his bare chest. "Though, I don't think anything I've got would fit you. Hmm..." A white eyebrow lifts. "Maybe your girlfriend over there appreciates the view anyway. Well, I wouldn't want to get in the way of romance~"
Fun fact: the room has a somewhat high ceiling, with a few convenient dark pits high above.
Other fun fact: guess where Penelope is.
Other other fun fact: Penelope wishes for Jacob's untimely demise, for reasons known only to herself.
This is the reason why, from out of nowhere, a streak of white and black swoops down from the ceiling in full attack mode for poor innocent Jacob.
...Whatever that counts for, for a pigeon.
Attack mode or the state of innocence in a bird.
Josie jerks her head up, too late to prevent whatever's about to happen from happening.
Her expression runs curiously blank for a moment.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Penelope toward her party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Don't remind me," Elly says when it comes to sand.
She endures the lightning, the fire; she does not cry out. It is a close thing; after the exit door is opened by Fei, she comes sling-shotting through, landing on him with another "!!" and rolling to the side. Smoke does rise gently from where the denim is smouldering.
She sits upright, slowly, catching her breath. Getting to a crouch, she is able to kip up the rest of the way, swaying slightly but only for a moment. Her eyes follow Jacob as he flies, and for a moment Elly feels the Ether patterns for a stroke of lightning forming in her mind - but only her mind.
Right, she thinks. That's Jude's pet. Bird. Something. If it's the enemy, somehow, it's a subtle sort of enemy... and we have bigger problems. Exhaling, she says to Jude, "Yes," and after giving Fei a lingering look of apology for squooshing on him, she approaches the console.
And stops dead when Josephine speaks, stuttering wordlessly. The rise of Penelope escapes her notice but as her face turns beet red, Elly doubletimes it to the console and begins to fiddle with it in distracted haste. On the up side, any outcomes will occur like thirty percent quicker.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"oof!" Fei exclaims as Elly lands on him. "Ah..." He averts his gaze as Elly stands up and laughs awkwardly. "Well...that was something."
Fei Fong Wong is finding himself liking Jude more. Not just because he agreed with him, but he seems willing to call spades spades. He flashes him a brief smile before they head onto the next area.
"Maybe this is just one big killer robot." Fei says. "And the first killer robot was like a personal defense drone." He supposes it's possible, if unlikely. It's hard to imagine what kind of operation would make a killing machine this large, quite frankly. Still, he can't help but worry. There's always something bigger and more destructive, right?
Of course now it seems like they might have a bit of an easier time as he sees the circular pit. Lines. Hidden rooms. He focuses on it. It vanishes. It repeats a few times.
"..shit!" He says. "Lily, take as much down as you can..!"
He starts scribbling rapidly to try and get it all down.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
They're all pretty hurt. Lily, for her part, is surrounded by a red glow--that she'll pass on to any of the others who look too badly off. ...She says nothing about her burns. Or about her pain. That's pretty normal. But Jude's statement about why to do it...
"Suck it up," she says amiably to the man who saved her life. She starts dusting herself off. ...She's... also been smoking. Idiots is fair. "There's always more suffering," she suggests. And inside... hollowed out maps. Strange texts. The layout--
Visual evidence. For her part, Lily pulls her notebook as Leon suggests something. "...Yes, something is very off," she agrees. "Maybe..."
She starts copying down with Fei--and about as quickly as she can, for that matter, scowling at the way it goes out. "...Someone..." She considers, and glances to the console.
"We'll get a new coat," she suggests to Josie. "...Whatever, Fei doesn't need a shirt. You--"
Penelope strikes. Lily lifts an eyebrow.
...She goes back to copying down. "If this layout... Then we can assume--" Write write.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Notebook toward her party's challenge, Faulty Holographic Map Projector.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - Faulty Holographic Map Projector *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You reach a room with a large, circular pit in the center. The pit has a series of glass projectors, which flicker online when you enter. A teal series of lines appears, hovering in midair: a map of some of the surrounding tunnels, which may point to hidden rooms and ways ahead. However, just as your eyes start to focus upon it, the images turn off. Then they flicker back into existence, but static runs through them. This continues, repeating a few times, and the static sometimes obscures one part of the map but not others. It shudders and distorts, making capturing it difficult. There is a console on the far wall, which may offer some help for those who do not trust their memory. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure, Reckless=======================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 5 *>============================ =================< Results - Faulty Holographic Map Projector >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 53 --(5)--> 58 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Jacob 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Penelope 3 Wits Effects: Resilient and Liabili -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 45 --(5)--> 50 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Lily's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 40 --(5)--> 45 Fail Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 45 --(20)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Reckless(2)|Slow(1)|Treasure(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Strained smile. A pleasant question, just a little -too- cheerful. Amber eyes peer at Josephine past the brim of dark sunglasses.
"Off and on," comes his answer, a light and easygoing response -- but for as effortlessly nonchalant as it is, maybe it's the fact that he happily leaves it at that rather than press the issue that says more about Jude than anything else.
He doesn't call attention to it; instead, he just works on his console even as Elly gets endlessly distracted by Josephine's teasing words. Without her help, though, Jude still doesn't seem overly concerned, fidgeting with the thing with the faintest of thoughtful frowns -- one marred only by the hapless wince that overtakes the reporter at Lily's critique.
"Ouch," he says, his pride deeply wounded. "Call it like you see it, huh?"
Still; he works, multitasking away even as the others try to copy or otherwise memorize the flickering panels. He asides, conversationally, "So this is like a triple date then, huh? Lily and Leon the time-tested lovebirds, Fei and Elly, the adorable honeymooners, me and Josephine, star-crossed partners," yes, he's still running with that joke andor trick andor white lie, uttered like the most natural thing in the world, "it's really kinda sweet."
Click. Vrrrrr--
The screens sputter, warble, and then... lock into place, no longer shuttering on and off. As clear as they could hope to get it. Jude Moshe whistles.
"Ah, hey. There we go. Lucky guess there, huh?"
And even as he says all this, in the background?
Penelope divebombs like a true bird of prey for Jacob, and Jacob--
--obliviously hops off his perch by sheer fluke of luck barely even a second before Penelope strikes with deadly intent, hopping to a new site to take its recordings of the maps from a new angle. And if Penelope pursues, this probably continues to happen, a relentless chase of cat and mouse, or bird and bird, or robot and bird -- it's hard to say just what the analogy here is, really.
Anyway, there's a lot of oblivious bird-hopping and vengeful deathstrikes going on in the background in a truly epic collision that goes mostly unnoticed by Jude Moshe as he taps away.
The secret lives of birds and automatons.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===================<* CHALLENGE - Observation Drone Fly-by *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you move down this hallway, one of the functioning drones comes flying up in front of you. Its single camera eye glows a distinctive green which gives you warning. Unfortunately, the bowling ball-sized thing flies on anti-gravity systems rather quickly. Those systems look like a dragonfly's wings, though composed of pure light. It flies straight towards you, and the narrow hallway here makes dodging it non-trivial. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "Nah," to the offer of a shirt, though by the time he's saying this Lily has already answered for him. "I'm still cooling off from the heat zone we were in."
He lowers his head though. Did...did he just get intimidated into shirt silence?!
Of course then Jude starts calling Elly and him honeymooners, he turns bright red and okay maybe he doesn't still like Jude Moshe? Actually despite turning as red as a tomato, and somehow sweating nearly as much as he was in the HEAT ZONE, he smiles a little. "Heh...Well, I always feel like this dig runs go a lot better with everybody around." Judging from the success ratio Fei has on his digs, it might even be true.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"What--that's not--Moshe, please," Leon says, with a sigh. He rubs at his forehead, looking almost flustered. He glances sideways at Fei, though -- who seemed to take it in stride, for a given value of stride.
Then, he nods. "Despite some of our... differences... we do seem to make a solid team," he adds. "Better than most of the ones I've been on."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Yeah, yeah," she mutters in response to Lily saying she can just buy a new coat, waving a hand through the air. She's arguably not even thinking about it anymore, eyeing Elly in a way that well may be a little 'predatory'. "I dunno, if his little lady's getting distracted..."
Jude, naturally, follows up her comment on the two young lovers (??) with a reminder of their own situation (!?).
From the split-second look on Josie's face, she might have forgotten about that whole thing from him.
But she recovers quickly enough, and shrugs as if it were nothing at all. "Just partners, huh. So when are you buying me the ring?" She pauses, as if considering this. "Or perhaps I should take initiative, this time?"
The map flickers on, briefly. "Hey, not bad! Got any reads on what's ahead?"
There's something. A long corridor. And then?
In the background, as Leon mentions what a good team they all are, a truly epic -- complete with explosions -- 'battle' between bird and machine ensues. Josie's gaze flickers to one side of the room as a shower of debris rains down, then back at Leon.
Then she grins lopsidedly and shrugs. "Birds of a feather?" she suggests.
In extremis, Penelope is ultimately forced to withdraw. With a flutter of wings the pigeon, defeated, settles on Josie's shoulder, wilting.
Josie nudges her with a finger. Penelope blinks wearily and closes her eyes again.
"Or something like that," she appends.
A short hallway follows soon after. It's narrow, with no obvious exits seen save a light in the far distance.
A green light in the far distance, advancing at a high speed.
It's moving quickly. It doesn't look inclined to dodge.
And those wings -- beating fast, fast through the air as it beelines through the hall -- look anything but harmless.
Assuming it doesn't just collide into and through anything in its path.
"What the hell--" Josie starts to say.
Before she draws, takes a shot at it, and immediately ducks low in anticipation of its pass.
Penelope sways on her shoulder but remains firmly perched.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The hallway, Leon decides, is not so bad. The other rooms thus far have done variations on murder attempts. The moment he thinks that, however, is when he sees the flash of green light. He turns his head, eyes widening -- and then he gawks for a second, before he looks at Josie. "I have no idea!"
He already had his climbing rope unspooled, and in one hand. He hastily ties a circle with it -- forming a lariat, which he spins once over his head. Then, he gives the rope a good toss. He doesn't aim for the dragonfly-like wings; the drone seems too fast for that. Instead, he tries to tie it about the front.
Then he snaps his wrist, and tries to yank the drone into the wall.
The opposite wall. Leon throws himself against the other one, trying to make as much space as he can.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly's face starts matching her hair as Jude declares it to be a triple date. In her heart she's wailing and flailing, but she has the military discipline to keep her mouth shut and her eyes clear. She IS biting on her lower lip hard enough that she'd probably have sucked the gloss clear off.
She looks at Leon with gratitude. Then she hears what he says. "Well... I always feel like I learn something from you or Lily," she tells Leon. Her eyes glance to Fei "Shirtless" Fong Wong after.
Then she laughs at Josie's remark. It's a little too loud, a little too much for the jest, but it expresses the tension in her gut at all of this, at what Jude pointed out, at -
The -
Drone?
Elly blinks once and then throws herself down. What?
No, she's doing a handstand in order to sweep both legs back with a "hiiiyih!" sort of sound and try to smash both heels into the incoming drone rather than let it swing on past towards whatever outcome it might have. This may help with the lassoing, of course.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Generally," Lily replies. ...She seems almost in a decent mood, strangely enough. Almost. The teasing is a good sign. "Sweet," Lily replies dryly to Jude. Leon sighs, and Lily shakes her head. She doesn't bother arguing the point. Instead... "To be honest I'm tempted to do away with a layer or two myself," she admits. "Probably not though."
Definitely not. Leon for one knows that's not going to happen in the least.
"Funny," Lily points out. "Last I heard it, Jude was my competition for Leon. I feel like I'm back at the Academy with all of this."
the... battle occurs. Lily lifts an eyebrow. She shakes her head. And then they move on, continuing to go. The light... The light--
Josie takes a shot, and Lily ducks to the side, probably still getting hit by it before she thrusts out both of her hands and--sees Leon using his rope, so she conjures an ice barrier to try to box it in against his lasso and Elly's heel.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
"I figured the light was good enough. Non-traditional, I know, but..."
Ultimately, Jude can only give a helpless shrug and a lopsided smile as if to say,
'What can you do?'
Debris explodes, machinery hitting ground with a clatter with each ferocious divebomb and tinny chirp. Jude looks behind him, blinking once.
"Jake, stop riling up Penelope. Come on, you know better," he calls out -- and as the pigeon is forced into a (temporary??) retreat, Jacob flutters obliviously back towards Jude, head tilt and optical arrays blinking. Is the innocent look just an act? Is Jude correct, that this was all an elaborate, cunning and long-term ploy on the part of the automaton to drive Penelope mad with her hunt for her personal Moby Dick? Is the automaton gaining devious self-awareness--??
Questions that go tragically unanswered as Jacob just flutters off ahead of the group, as thoughtless and uanware as ever.
"I swear," mutters Jude, "he's going to be the death of me some day."
Dun dun dun...??
Still, as the others move on, Jude follows along, taking up the rear just in case of any unexpected attacks. "Please, I don't have a prayer with you two. My love for Leon is going to be unrequited, and I've made peace with that. For example, this whole 'something isn't right' thing," asides Jude to Leon and Lily, conversationally. "You two have experience with a weird place like this, or is this just your collective gut speaking to you both? I heard when lovers share a close enough connection over a long enough period of time, they tend to think on the same wavelength..."
Yes, he just used the word 'lovers.'
Yes, he is potentially talking about their love life in the same way some people might ask about the weather.
But, as it turns out, there are surprise attacks in store.
They just come from the front.
A burning green light shines. Jude Moshe blinks behind shades, and the redheaded journalist tilts his head. "Hundred gella that's a bad sign."
And, regardless of whether anyone takes his sucker's bet, seconds later the drone -rages- past, looking to knock over anyone in its way. Jude grimaces. He -lunges-. Rolls -- and then just attempts to maneuver his way around the tiny drone, ARM produced to fire off a few warding potshots as he goes. Too fast to really hit, but--
"I suggest moving!"
And all the while?
Jacob just putzes through the air, oblivious to their vain strugles.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei continues to believe Josie and Jude are actually an item. Hell, even their names begin and end with the same letters. That's fate.
Fei isn't the first to react, but once he sees Elly moving to kick it, he throws himself to the side of the hallway to try and avoid the pass should she fail. Of course, Josie's popping a shot off too. Fei has seen many people outrun him, but he hasn't seen anybody yet outrun bullet.
That he recalls. It probably happens all the time.
"Flock together," He murmurs to himself.
He looks at Leon on the other side and gives him a nod. Yeeeah, chillin' like a villain. Or anti-heroes, really. With attitude. Yeah.
"Who'd you hear that from?" Fei asks. "That'd be--" He looks to Jude and feels bad. "...Hey, there's plenty of--"
He considers Leon and realizes, really, that there's nobody with that perfect combination that he can think of.
"Yeah, maybe not. He could be a full time model."
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Observation Drone Fly-by.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ===================<* CHALLENGE - Observation Drone Fly-by *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you move down this hallway, one of the functioning drones comes flying up in front of you. Its single camera eye glows a distinctive green which gives you warning. Unfortunately, the bowling ball-sized thing flies on anti-gravity systems rather quickly. Those systems look like a dragonfly's wings, though composed of pure light. It flies straight towards you, and the narrow hallway here makes dodging it non-trivial. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 6 *>============================ =====================< Results - Observation Drone Fly-by >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 58 --(5)--> 63 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 55 --(5)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 55 --(5)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Reckless(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Oh so thaaaaat's what that was about," Josie says, drawling out the word. "Well, you should have said. I suppose I'm just a little too materialist for these things..."
She shrugs, as if to say 'who am I to criticize'.
The little drone is moving fast. It goes right on through the wall of ice. Jude, pushing on ahead, may have a briefly tricky situation.
Jacob flies through completely unscathed.
Even the bullet doesn't quite hit the mark; Josie might be an expert at sharpshooting, but this thing is moving quickly.
This does not, however, mean she misses.
The bullet clips the wing, slowing its advance a critical moment. It buzzes along overhead the archaeologist.
Long enough for a rope to adhere to its front and yank it towards the wall. Long enough for Elly to deliver a devastating kick to the apparently somewhat fragile-when-abused-by-Drifters machine at just the right time and catapulting it towards the relatively lower (compared to the previous room) ceiling.
It shatters, raining down another short shower of debris.
...Josie will linger long enough to pluck a few choice scraps from the wreck, but leave the sparking remains otherwise alone.
(And Penelope sleeps through the whole encounter.)
DG: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - Second Stage *>==================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next chamber that you enter is of clear import. It is a square, cavernous chamber that is so tall that the ceiling cannot be seen. The back wall looks like it may retract upward. However, the center of the room draws the eye first. There is a small pyramid there, standing waist height, with a flattened top. Perched upon that dais is a small, familiar tile. The pyramid has words written across it in Zeboim. Those that can read such a language may recognize the words, though they would not know its meaning: "SYMBOLOGICAL CONTROL." OOC: It is suggested that this be done in two rounds -- one for Josie to find the tile and the second for the events that occur next! A short time after the tile is removed, a rumble can be heard throughout the room. The back wall retracts down into the floor, and reveals the remainder of the room: a trio of platforms, with two closer and lower, and a center one at the very back, higher than the rest. The platforms to the left and right have a large pylon, consisting of steel latticed around a crystal core, that pulses and glows with the same teal light that fills much of this place. That center platform shakes as the massive, flat, crab-legged automaton from the outside comes crashing down and lands upon it. The pylons pulse, and a massive yet translucent barrier of cyan light forms a bubble around the automaton. A scorpion-like tail lifts out of it, and then fires a laser that penetrates through the barrier and scorches the floor -- and you, if you are unlucky. To have any hope of harming the automaton, the barrier will need to fall. The pylons hum with energy, and the occasional arc of blue lightning snaps towards the barrier to power it. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Suffer, Injure==============================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon looks down at the shattered, ruined drone. He feels, for a moment, briefly saddened to see the damaged thing. It could have been interesting to take a part or look at, he reasons. But, no, the pile of debris is a sign of progress. He looks back at the others, as he draws the rope in, and curls it up. "Good work, everyone," he says. "Now, let's see what's through this door. Perhaps energy cannons?"
He steps closer. Once again, teal light flashes as he gets near the door -- and then it parts open, and there is a crackle of light through the cavernous chamber. His eyes dart up to the ceiling, to find only darkness. He hisses, softly, for a moment, before he looks ahead. "A dead-end. But... look, there."
A pyramidal dais. He frowns, as he steps in. His eyes dart down to the words across it. Words that are in a strange script, unlike any common, modern language.
Unthinkingly, he reads it aloud. "Symbological control? What the hell does that mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Energy cannons... a girl can dream."
Absently tossing into the air and catching what might have been a part of the lensing in her one good hand -- before pocketing it -- she follows after.
Light streams into the room, flashing as Leon passes the gate.
Once again, Josie has noticed this, but her attention doesn't stay on him long. It's drawn, ultimately, towards the shape at the center.
"Is that..."
Even at a distance, she can see it.
The shape, after all, is very familiar to her. It's quite nearly identical to the one found in the depths of Doomed to Obscurity, the only obvious differences at this range the lack of the protrusions Lily had evoked from the thing and the (probable) lack of scorchmarks.
She waits for no one. If anyone gets in her way, she'll push them aside. Approaching the dais, she moving as it to attempt to nudge Leon out of the way.
And pauses, her hand lingering in the air above it.
"'Symbological control'... what?"
She glances down at the tile on the dais -- she can't read it, not even a little -- then over at Leon.
"You can read that script too?"
A look is tossed over her shoulder at Lily. "What, is that contagious now, like the clap?" Shaking her head, the archaeologist now reaches out and takes it from the platform.
This may be ill-advised.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The tile is lifted away. Leon starts to open his mouth. He closes it, when he hears the rumble that rolls through the entire room. The source of the rumble is clear: the huge wall at the back of the room retracts downward, pulled into the floor. It reveals that they had only entered about a third of the room. The remainder leads on, to where a huge doorway rests -- and a trio of platforms behind it. The teal light glows through the whole room.
And then metal-upon-metal shrieks, as something comes dropping down. The very same automaton that attacked them outside crashes down onto the central platform in the back of the room. The raised platform shakes, but does not give way underneath its weight.
The two platforms on the side flare with energy, as light pours out from them -- and a great bubble of light forms around the center platform. The automaton's eyes flash an ugly green, and a voice shrieks out -- in Zeboim: "INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS! Repel them from Heorot Support Station one, Aeschere!"
"Did you follow that?!" Leon asks Lily. "Heoh Rott, Ash Hare--" He frowns, and then calls out, as the automaton's tail unfurls. A massive laser fires down, scoring and burning the ground. Leon gasps, before he starts forward. "Josie, if you need the tile, uhm--hold onto it! We need to get that barrier down!"
He pulls out Argent Divider. He lifts the shotgun-like weapon, and starts firing, pumping slugs into the pylon on the left. A few crystal chips explode off it as he shoots.
He gives Jude a glance. "Not a word about wavelengths!" Then, he shoots more at the crystal.
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei glances towards Leon as he just...reads the language. He frowns, but he doesn't comment on it. He doesn't comment on 'the clap' but it does seem strange to him that an ANCIENT DEAD LANGUAGE seems so well known, mysteriously, by people that he knows. He seems to just..understand it sometimes too. That's the strange thing.
What he does do is say to Josephine, with a completely deadpan expression, "What... you can't read it? It's only been a dead language for a few thousand years."
Fei is a little more nervous about smashing full out here so he runs for a pylon on the right, trying to kung fu it to oblivion.
"Josie!" He shouts. "Didn't you have me sketch something like that once??" He tries kicking the pylon hard but his hesitance may prove his undoing here. There's something about this tech he's a little more hesitant to hulk smash. "Was that one as insanely guarded as this one??"
He never heard the story and never asked. Sometimes, Fei, you might want to start asking questions. You might actually learn something.
Or, you know, he can just continue wandering through these adventures with only the vaguest of comprehensions of what's going on so he doesn't have to think about the reprecussions of what he's doing by trying to kung fu anything weird that tries to kill him.
Yeah, we'll go with that.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Energy cannons," Lily repeats deadpan. "You are an optimist today, Captain."
Lily steps along after him, remaining closer to the doorway as she looks to the darkness for traps, enemies... Danger. Until Leon reads it aloud, and Lily is not close enough to notice that it was Zeboim. Until--Josie. Just... Josie.
"You what." Lily answers, her composure briefly interrupted by her flat tone and stare at Josie. "Oh, my--"
The shrieking spares her for an instant. ...Because she hears it too. The voice. "That--"
"I caught it!" Lily shouts back to Leon. "Worry about it later!" She switches immediately to Zeboim as she reaches into her bag, "<We'll worry about a lot later.>" This, more darkly, under her breath almost but still called loudly enough, as she pulls a whole set of bombs this time, lunging amidst the darkness for a pylon and starting to plant them, cutting fuses as she goes. The blue arc of lightning crashes--
"Fei, careful--" Lily skids to a stop and lunges back away from the pylon as she sets the fuses. It's... gonna be a big boom.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Explosive Charges toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
"Well," says Jude, as they finally manage to make it into that strange chamber, past the wreckage of that drone of a sentry.
"This place looks important, doesn't it?"
Hands slipping nonchalantly into his pockets, Moshe makes his way through the room, looking at everything with a keen stare hidden behind those shades.
Behind them, Jacob apparently has decided to linger in the hall to picket at the remains of the drone, plucking free important looking hardware every now and then, but that's really neither here nor there.
Especially not in comparison to what happens next. Ancient script on a tile that Leon discovers draws the reporter's attention. His brows furrow faintly, looking at the text there, eyes hidden behind his shades. He looks just as flabbergasted as anyone as Leon reads off the word, though, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He remembers what Doc told him all the way back when Jude saved Lily's life. She kept talking in a strange language he never heard, just to piss him off, he thought.
"..."
Jude, of course, lifts his shoulders.
"People reading nonsense. Sure. I'm just going to thank my lucky stars nothing bad's happened yet--"
And then lands the drone, shrieking in that same, bizarre language as the tile activates the strange device at the back. Rubble crashes down around them, and Jude's expression goes flat as he leaps -backwards-, one hand interposing between him and the gouts of dust and dirt kicked up within the automaton's wake.
"Granas, or Guardians, or whatever nonsense they worship on the goddamn moon -- one or all of you have a real annoying sense of irony!"
Leon understands the machine. Of course. And Lily...
Eyes snap towards the tile for a moment. As Leon produces his shotgun, though, so too does Jude, spinning the revolver open and inserting the shell.
Not a word about wavelengths!
"Wow. It's like you read my mind!" is Jude's rebuttal, coupled with a wink.
It's not explicitly about wavelengths, and thus, Jude figures, he is completely in the clear as he fires off a screaming, force-pent demolition shell at the crystal intent on EXPLODING with a violent surge of supercharged kinetic force and heat.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Demolition Shell toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
With one comment, Josie probably destroys Lily's day. She flashes the young woman a grin before reaching for the prize.
The tile comes away easily. A low bass rumble follows.
"Hm," Josie murmurs as the wall starts to unfold, turning towards the light. "It's possible that might have been a mistake?" She weighs this for a moment or three, then shrugs, swinging her pack off her shoulder.
"Well, you can't unring a bell."
A statement she's said before. What's passed is done, and there is no point in regretting it.
She stuffs the tile deep into her bag.
"Already on it! This is the thing I was talking about--"
Josephine glances up, at the sound of words that scrabble past her brain without imparting any scrap of information save impending trouble. It's an alert.
"--But we'll chat later!"
She is, of course, assuming there will be a later.
"You sure did!" she calls back to Fei. "And nope! There's a first time for everything!"
A barrier rises.
As if in exchange for the tile, she pulls the mattock free from the recesses of her bag, stuffing it under an arm as she works to close it (mildly surprised when Penelope stirs and hops right into the bag as well but then simply shrugs and finishes the task) before slinging it back over a shoulder.
Here she holds the mattock with both hands. Gritting her teeth, she puts all her strength into the swing that follows.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Maybe a microwave emission antenna," Elly hazards, perhaps to get into the spirit of things. Of a hazard! Then it becomes much less of a joke.
That teal light again, Elly thinks. She crouches when she sees Leon do it, and when he speaks, she looks blankly to Fei (who may know? or remember?) and to Jude (who might know things? or make them up plausibly?) Symbological control is absolutely a thing she doesn't recognize.
I could look it up, she thinks.
But...
I...
Did I need to do that? Was it even a good idea?
Elly's eyes turn to the ground. He'd never say it, Elly thinks, but the Major needs Kent Hauch more than he could ever need me.
Her cheeks puff out slightly. But then-- Fei DID see it before! Elly reaches into her purse again and draws something out. It is, thank the heavens, not the one thing that Fei might fear most (and which she only has two ampoules of any more, anyway) in this moment, but is simply a rosesol in a brown glass bottle with a wax cap. She bites the cap off and lets its clove-sweet infused taste wash over her tongue before she downs the medicine.
Elly rises upwards, hands spreading outwards. Her eyes half lid when she sees Lily moving in for what is now a relatively familiar explosive array-setting. She follows Lily with her eyes and with more subtle senses. Exhaling outwards, she presses into the shape, the air supercooling. Frost forms, then something denser, the processes that form glaciers occuring in moments instead of dozens of decades. Ice curves in thick spreaded petals behind the charges: blast channellers.
Then Elly sees Josie going in with a pickax. Her eyes bug out and the 'petals' stop forming as an uncertain series of ice lumps form on the ground, Elly staring right at her because "it's going to blow oh no please don't --"
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Spy Purse toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Second Stage.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - Second Stage *>==================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next chamber that you enter is of clear import. It is a square, cavernous chamber that is so tall that the ceiling cannot be seen. The back wall looks like it may retract upward. However, the center of the room draws the eye first. There is a small pyramid there, standing waist height, with a flattened top. Perched upon that dais is a small, familiar tile. The pyramid has words written across it in Zeboim. Those that can read such a language may recognize the words, though they would not know its meaning: "SYMBOLOGICAL CONTROL." OOC: It is suggested that this be done in two rounds -- one for Josie to find the tile and the second for the events that occur next! A short time after the tile is removed, a rumble can be heard throughout the room. The back wall retracts down into the floor, and reveals the remainder of the room: a trio of platforms, with two closer and lower, and a center one at the very back, higher than the rest. The platforms to the left and right have a large pylon, consisting of steel latticed around a crystal core, that pulses and glows with the same teal light that fills much of this place. That center platform shakes as the massive, flat, crab-legged automaton from the outside comes crashing down and lands upon it. The pylons pulse, and a massive yet translucent barrier of cyan light forms a bubble around the automaton. A scorpion-like tail lifts out of it, and then fires a laser that penetrates through the barrier and scorches the floor -- and you, if you are unlucky. To have any hope of harming the automaton, the barrier will need to fall. The pylons hum with energy, and the occasional arc of blue lightning snaps towards the barrier to power it. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Suffer, Injure==============================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 7 *>============================ ======================< Results - UNFERTH - Second Stage >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 63 --(10)--> 73 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Demolition Shell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 50 --(10)--> 60 Fail Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass Spy Purse 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Explosive Charges 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 50 --(10)--> 60 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 85 --(0)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Overzealous(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus 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: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - Third Stage *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The barrier collapses when the pylons do -- though one reason for that collapse may be the guardian automaton overloading them, sending a shockwave that rolls through the room. After the barrier falls, the automaton shifts. Its form splits down the middle, unveiling a massive cannon. Huge motes of teal light begin to glow and gather before it. They draw in, as the cannon prepares to charge and fire -- and likely blast everyone out of the room. The way to the automaton is clear, though. Its claws unfurl, snapping at whatever comes close. Though its missile tubes are deactivated, with its body split open, the laser-armed tail is still functional, and fires shots at those that dare to get close. =Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Glaciers begin to compress the pylons. While Leon's bullets don't do much, they still chip some crystal away. And another chunk of it flies out, as the mattock rips through it, and finally, Fei punches one.
The explosive charges cause one of the pylons to blast apart -- and the barrier around Unferth shudders, and flickers. Another laser blast fires -- it comes careening in, scorching near Leon and leaving a burn on his leg. It also slashes out, coming close to Fei and Josie too. It flickers, though, as the ice begins to compress the other pylon down. More crystal shatters and flakes off -- and then Jude's shell slams into it.
That pylon, too, explodes in a fireball. This is when the bubble of light around the crab vanishes completely. The automaton turns, whirling around to face the group. Once again, its voice booms out:
"PREPARING HIGH ENERGY ION CANNON."
One need not speak Zeboim to know to worry about that. Motes of light begin to draw in, as the crab-like machine splits down the middle, unveiling a massive cannon. Those motes draw into the barrier, as a wicked glow appears -- and then Unferth leaps. Leon aims Argent Divider up, firing a flare round up at it. The round explodes with light, but the automaton crashes down near him. It slams a claw at him, hurtling him bodily across the room. He slams into the wall and kicks off it. He comes down, stabbing with the now sword-mode thing.
The tail turns, sweeping another heat ray across Josie and Jude. The floor melts, a rivet cut into it, where the beam strikes. It whirls towards Fei and Elly, then, and barks out something: "COMBATANT IDENTIFIED! EXTERMINATE!"
The intent is clear without speaking Zeboim. The claws open -- and come crashing down, to try to pincer both. The other claw then whips out, and tries to slam bodily into Lily, and hurl her across the room. All the while, energy is drawn into Unferth's opened center.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Flare Gun toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Pylon after pylon is decimated, the force field slowly starting to crumble around the Unferth. But Jude knows, even if the barrier collapses -- they're going to have another problem shortly thereafter. That drone is still active, still firing, and for all Jude Moshe by all appearances has been miserably hung over this entire time --
It's almost shocking, just how professional the man can be when the chips are down.
There's no room for doubt, no room for glib words, no room for considerations. The fireball of his explosive demolition shell comes, and he is already moving in anticipation of what is coming next. The shotgun ARM snaps open, empty shells spilling free as he reloads with new, rune-carved ammunition. Zeboim words screech violently through the air.
PREPARING HIGH ENERGY ION CANNON.
It's an intention that is clear even if one didn't speak that ancient tongue, and the Unferth has not even so much begun to unfurl its immense cannon by the time Jude Moshe is already firing upon it. Two normal, high-power shells ricochet off the top of the splitting automaton as it leaps, to try to veer the thing off a potentially fatal path before Leon meets unfortunate punishment at the hands of his mechanical assailant.
The tail swings. Probably weaponized. It'll target the next closest priority to distract and keep distance while it charges its weapon.
In a matter of moments, Jude Moshe makes a decision.
And then, with almost no regards to his own safety, he -shoots- the ground in front of himself and Josie before -leaping- over it. The ice barely lasts a handful of seconds before heat melts through it, but he banks on the ray following after -him- instead of the archaeologist as he soars through the air, having used that block of ice as a springboard. If it follows, he'll have a nicely cauterizing wound sheering a burning hole through his side.
Regardless, shotgun snapping out its sharpened bayonet edge, Jude has only one real destination --
-- landing on the thing in concert with Leon to -drive- the tip of the blade into the thing, to try to use the combined impact to wedge their weapons straight into it and its cannon.
Safety, right now, seems a secondary concern for him.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong is blasted off his feet by the laser. He goes flying but manages to catch himself on his hand and slide to a stop before twisting back onto his feet. He looks over to Elly to check on her, shrapnel embedded in his chest that he hasn't noticed.
But then the crab is about to attack. Despite the very threatening language--"Elly! Jump!" He suggests. Jump with the power of sassy boots! Of course, Elly might have a better idea. Elly's usually coming up with ideas like that in clutch moments like this.
Fei leaps into the air himself, drawing out his RPS Badge. Is he going to try to beat the crab drone monster in an rps battle to demoralize it. Fei curls his fingers around the badge, channeling Chi through his body. He thinks about Fargo, how he did it, how he did it. He has to keep practicing...
Fei then punches outward with his palm, forward. "PAPER!"
Fire erupts out of Fei's hand and comes crashing down upon the crab monster before he drops down onto one of the crab's claw arms and switches his fingers into a scissor shape.
Is he.... is he actually using the RPS Badge as a weapon for once?
"SCISSORS!" It seems so. The badge acts as a focus to better channel his chi, acting as a dampener to avoid it running out of control. He slices through the arm with chi scissors bursting out from his finger tips before he infuses his fist with it to grant it extra strength and throws it dead center for the machine's mass.
"AND ROCK!" Fei shouts.
This, Fei thinks, is true strength.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie introduces a pylon to her mattock. The pylon doesn't take too well to it.
Almost belatedly, she turns to Elly and shrugs, shouldering the digging tool. "Right, that was the point!" ...To make it explode almost in her face?
Perhaps it's the result that matters most for the archaeologist. That's one down, though not without its costs.
"Shi--"
The cuss is swallowed up as Josie banks hard, the beam coming a little close for comfort.
Then the barrier's gone, but...
Sometimes you don't need to speak the language to understand the intent. Like with that, right there. She can already read those dancing motes for what they are.
Offhandedly, Josie reaches for the flask in her coat pocket with her bad hand... and remembers that it's empty.
"If I'd known it was going to go this way, I would've kept it to myself," she remarks to Jude, perhaps a little cryptically. It's coupled with a quick flash of a smile, so it may be a little more difficult to read her intent.
"Oh well."
"Still, I don't intend on dying just yet--"
Her right hand moves stiffly in a series of gestures, the few syllables needed for this incantation spilling from her lips. One after the other.
Not many are needed.
But then, this is no powerful incantation of Symbological force. Merely a practical one.
Electricity spirals down her arm, its origin perhaps on what is etched on her back. It wraps around her hand, collects there.
A heat ray cuts a swathe too close to her feet; she falls back still holding a thunderbolt in her hand.
"Now. This might be an advanced machine, but it's still a machine. Let's see what happens if we cause a surge--!"
With that, her eyes wide -- it's excitement, nothing less -- she hurls the bolt in an arc for the cannon, a javelin joining the assault on the ancient weapon as Jude and Leon join blades.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The barrier falls! The glaciated petals unfurl and melt and crack, their purpose done. Elly turns her head just in time to catch sight of that gigantic crab.
That statement is not one that Elly needed to hear twice, even if the only word she thought she recognized was 'ion.'
Everyone leaps into action. Elly spreads her arms as if to embrace the world even as the creature crashes downwards, as Leon and - Jude?? - and, somewhat less surprisingly, Josephine leap into the thick of battle. Fei's Jankenpon action comes with words - Elly! Jump?
Elly closes her eyes instead. The image of Fei with bleeding gashes on his chest is pushed aside because the presence of everyone around and on the creature presents certain subtle complications. Except, Elly thinks, there's no reason it has to, does it? If I can create the necessary electrical potentials... I can also control where they would go, wouldn't I?
Is it worth the risk?
Her eyes open again. There, she thinks. In her mind's eye she traces a path along the curving scorpion's tail on the back of the creature, down its rearmost left leg. Then she traces back up, starting at the point where it contacts the floor. She pauses for a heartbeat before the creature, in its maneuvering, raises that leg --
To streak upwards towards the far-off heavens! Which accomplishes nothing for another heartbeat or so, until that creature, UNFERTH, lowers its leg.
The circuit is complete.
There is a star-bright flash of light-- an arc of lightning producing a single clear C-sharp note even as it grounds itself in the back half of the great invertebrate automaton!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The language, strange as it is, sounds utterly natural on Lily's tongue. One would be forgiven for assuming she's spoken it all her life, so comfortable she is with it. ...She watches as Elly's Ether channels the blast she creates, watches the explosion for an instant before she looks to the other pylon--which the others destroy.
The crab turns, whirls, faces the group.
"<High Energy-->"
"Josie!" Lily's... not pleased by what happens with her. The heat ray comes, and Lily watches Jude, gritting her teeth. Combatants. She doesn't exactly have to try to translate--she starts moving immediately, and sets her stance--before the claw crashes straight into her, crunching about her and hurling her across the room where she hits a wall with a crack and slips to the ground an instant later. ...The energy is drawing into the opened center.
"You..." She rises to a kneeling position, narrowing her golden eyes at the creature. And--
There's a brief flash of light, brilliant, and her eyes fill with a deep glow that makes her sway where she is, as she locks her eyes on the creature's energy. "...You..."
But the others are attacking. Lily shakes her head.
She lifts both hands. "Right. It's a machine... so if it wants energy..."
Lily places her hands down on the ground, and golden magical circles erupt around both, brilliant light coming into being before her--and gathering into a single plane, parallel to her body. She lifts her hand--
It erupts into a cascading beam of erupting power, nuclear fire crashing straight for the opening of the cannon. Right in time with the others' assault.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, UNFERTH - Third Stage.
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - UNFERTH - Third Stage *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The barrier collapses when the pylons do -- though one reason for that collapse may be the guardian automaton overloading them, sending a shockwave that rolls through the room. After the barrier falls, the automaton shifts. Its form splits down the middle, unveiling a massive cannon. Huge motes of teal light begin to glow and gather before it. They draw in, as the cannon prepares to charge and fire -- and likely blast everyone out of the room. The way to the automaton is clear, though. Its claws unfurl, snapping at whatever comes close. Though its missile tubes are deactivated, with its body split open, the laser-armed tail is still functional, and fires shots at those that dare to get close. =Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
============================<* Ash Hare - Round 8 *>============================ ======================< Results - UNFERTH - Third Stage >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 73 --(5)--> 78 Pass Flare Gun 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jude Moshe 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 85 --(35)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Vault(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Leon Albus has successfully explored Ash Hare!
=================================<* Ash Hare *>================================= =============<* CHALLENGE - Pristine Gryndille Recharge Station *>============== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Once Unferth is dispatched, the only way ahead is a doorway that has opened for you. The inside is a massive, automated recharge and repair station. The station has seen no damage, and there is a hangar bay door that leads outside. The technology is advanced, to say the least: large robotic arms, with a variety of tools, hang from the walls. However, some parts were meant for human access, and those can be seen along one wall. A large console is there, with a wall-spanning display that depicts a map of the continent of Ignas. The map is an outline, with few features visible. However, there are circles across the map. Most are a solid black; next to them are images of individuals, digital photographs taken by technology far more advanced than Ignasian standard. Nearly all of those have a red X over them, save for two: photographs of Leon Albus and Lily Keil. One circle flashes a yellow color, over an estate outside of Nortune. An image is also next to it -- and the image has no red X over it. The photograph shows Kaiser Sigmund I of Kislev. A date and time is printed under it -- in a time not quite soon, yet fearfully close. =Dungeon Conditions: Secret, Bad Luck=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Fei slams into Unferth, the RPS badge wielded like a weapon. Fire slams into its claw. Armor blisters and melts, and then he slams the claw backward, before the chi scissors form -- and slash clean through the thing. The claw rips down the middle, as Fei grabs the hunk of shorn off metal, and throws it. It slams into its body, and smashes it backward. Its legs drag across the floor, scraping and screaming, as sparks go flying in every which direction.
Unferth stands, if only for a moment. The tail swivels -- turning back towards Josie, as Jude had leaped away. The beam fires down -- but just before her javelin is fired. It slams down, burning another gouge into the floor, near her and burning the javelin of lightning out of existence. The beam begins to adjust, quickly--
--and then a colossal blast of lightning rips up through the leg, and shoots up through the tail. Armor plates pop off; the heat ray explodes in a spray of sparks, as Elly's spell rips through it, and then the tail collapses down.
Lily's eyes glow -- and Unferth turns its head, mechanical green eyes meeting living golden ones. She sways -- and then a cascade of nuclear fire slams into the cannon. It blows backward, plates and fire exploding, and then the bright teal beam begins to form as Lily's fire melts and distends the barrel. Which is precisely when two swords, in perfect tandem, slam into the base of it. The beam that began to fire instead ripples through it, as the bayonet and Argent Divider pierce the casing.
Leon turns to look at Jude. There isn't time for words. He nods, once, before he kicks off the back of Unferth, simultaneously (hopefully) with the reporter. The two land.
And the automaton explodes in a blast of flame and devastation, leaving its wreckage smoking. The door behind it opens, and Leon turns to look.
A SHORT TIME LATER
The inside of the chamber awaits. A massive hangar door is closed -- and there is no small amount of information. Tools and weapons -- enough Zeboim ARMs to make a small fortune -- hang on the walls. Of course, the display is what draws Leon's eyes. He looks, slowly, over the photographs. "The Wolves--and others. Mount Eldrin," he says. He points to one location, in Adlehyde. His teeth grit. "And that's..."
His eyes widen. "The Kaiser. Dietrich's sending Gryndille after the Kaiser..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei doesn't give any dramatic one liners as the automaton explodes. He just watches. He looks into the fire, the wreckage, as if he's looking for something in there.
But he doesn't find it. Instead he thinks about how those two people from the Zeboim era, the ones that wanted them to live forever with them in undeath, how they recognized Lily.
He turns away and heads for the chamber inside. Even Josephine is connected, he thinks, is Jude Moshe a reporter from the Zeboim era then? Was he some kind of time frozen journalist?? Or is he the one person in this party who doesn't have any connection to any of this nonsense regarding the Zeboim because if that's true...
...if that's true...
.......If that's true he kind of envies the guy honestly. Him and his untucked shirt.
He looks at the photos on the display as he heads inside. His eyes narrow as he sees the photographs of Leon and Lily.
And then he sees the yellow circle. He stares at it, at first frowning, and then--he actually does smile. It's a small one, actually, and he doesn't seem to realize he's giving it.
"Hey Leon...Lily... this means we're one step ahead of them..." The smile widens. "...We can fulfill your mission, save the Kaiser, and maybe even clear your names!" He frowns. "Can we download this, or something? It's evidence we could use."
He jabs a finger at the date, the time, and he memorizes it, burns it into his soul so he doesn't forget it. Even that little red voice agrees with him on this one.
That fucker is going down.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily watches Unferth explode, watches as her foe is destroyed by the tandem efforts of all those here. ...Only after that does she rise to her feet, shaking her head again as her eyes return to normal. "...?" she asks. ...But whatever the feeling was, it's past.
Lily, too, steps into the chamber with the others, boots clanging softly against the metal beneath. She looks around the room. She sees the tools and weapons.. but the display draws her attention, too. She looks to the photographs, to those she knows--to the locations. "The Wolves," she agrees softly, stepping up beside Leon. She sees their pictures. And then--
She stares. Silently. The Kaiser's picture is there before her. ...Anyone who happens to look at her face in that moment will not see the hard, closed-off woman that Lily tends to be, but something raw, wide-eyed, wanting to disbelieve. Fei talks about how good this can be...
"Father," Lily whispers, that feeling spilling out in her words. She sounds almost lost with it.
"Father, what are you doing...?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
She tosses out her bolt, and--
And--
Dark eyes widen. What was that? "Did it just--" Certainly, that was no powerful display of Symbological fury on her part, but it's the principle of the thing, she thinks somewhat furiously.
She retains about one second of that indignation before the arc of the beam bends in a slightly different direction.
Tossing her mattock aside, Josie darts forward and under, making a snap decision that it might be easier for it to aim outwards rather than inwards.
In the process she loses a section of the trailing ends of her coat, which will annoy her briefly later when she sees it.
Right now, she has other things on her mind.
Survival tops the list.
She ducks left, keeps moving, continues moving.
Confuse it.
Don't be a target.
It's not a problem she'll have for long.
Unferth explodes.
Waving a hand through the smoke that wafts from the wreckage, Josie considers what was Unferth.
Then she whispers to it, "I'll be back for you later."
...To disassemble, that is.
What's within the chamber might even wipe such a prize as an entire only sort of (...sort of) damaged Zeboim-era construct from her mind. Josie actually gasps, her gaze rapt on the astonishing array of ancient (and possibly still functional weaponry).
She wears the same faintly giddy rapturously glassy expression someone else might have on seeing a gorgeous vista, or attending a wedding of a loved one.
This could be the best moment of her life.
At least, in those seconds before Leon -- focused on more sensible things than the weapons -- remarks on something on the screen.
"Ah?"
Josie makes her way over.
"Wait. Are those... is that?"
She pauses.
"...Is this a coup?"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
That was easier, all told, than Elly thought it would be. But then Elly's greatest enemy is, in a very real sense, herself.
The photographs are more prosaic than the Zeboim equipment. Elly squints. Slowly, she realizes.
And what comes to her mind first is to look at Lily with grief and with sympathy. She steps nearer to her and says, in a low and gentle voice, "We'll stop him. I promise you."
Fei presents a very important question. I could have photographed this, yes, Elly thinks, if I HADN'T DESTROYED MY COMPUTER.
ELSEWHERE
A sand gator burps.
HERE AGAIN
"I don't know if this is the sort of thing we'd need to - Oh! You mean to the Kaiser or the Nortune military authorities," Elly says, nodding along. "Yes, I understand. It..."
Elly just trails off then because she doesn't really want to remember the last time she went to Kislev. Her arms fold in front of her loosely. She looks down at the ground when Josie asks that question.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Leon looks his way. Behind tinted spectacles, those amber eyes are as sharp as a knife. No words, but none are needed. Just a nod--
--and the journalist-slash-sellsword-slash-jack-of-all-trades is flipping backwards through the air after Leon to land besides the former Black Wolves captain in a low crouch, bladed ARM snapped towards his side.
He sees the glow in Lily's eyes in the brief moment before the explosion of the Unferth obscures everything, and his lips draw towards a silent, pensive line.
"Guess it's not a treck through dangerous unknowns with you two unless there's at least one giant pain in the ass to deal with," Jude Moshe remarks of Lily and Leon in that effortlessly glib way of his. Also, that unknowingly prescient way of his because
SMASH CUT TO
Somewhere afar, Jacob continues his diligent scavenging efforts. No good bird's work is ever truly done.
"Huh," says Jude Moshe as he stares at that information. The Black Wolves, targeted for extermination. And the main goal...
Kaiser Sigmund I. A date and time and everything.
... Is this a coup?
"It's a better guess than a surprise party," comes the reporter's answer, as he slides out that precious cigarette case once more. He flicks it open, looks inside with quiet consideration, and then slips a cigarette free. Lily, understandably, is confused. He knows the reasons why even before the words slip out of her mouth in disbelief. Father...
He could try to reassure her. Try to make some sort of statement about how all of this is going to turn out for the best.
But all he says is, "... Well, we've got time still. We should comb through this area as much as we can to see what we can make use of."
... because he would rather not risk coming off as disingenuous.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon's eyes are narrowed, as he looks at the screen. He swallows, while he listens to Fei -- and then he turns to look sideways at him. He nods, once, though he doesn't quite smile. "We are ahead of them. I'm--not sure. Let's get a good look around the room. We can see if we can find... something."
He steps away from the screen, and then looks down. He doesn't have an answer for Lily. But, what Josie says -- that, he thinks, is an answer. He looks sideways at her for a moment, and then he nods. "That's what it looks like. Overthrow the Kaiser, and take over for himself. It's..." His fingers curl, into a fist. "...We've got where Gryndille can be. We can set things right."
He glances sideways at Elly, then he nods once. He walks to one of the workstations and looks down at it. He starts rooting through things -- and frowns when he lays a hand on a set of diamond-shaped, dark blue panels. They all light up, teal, at his touch. Then, they still -- but glow nonetheless. His brow knits, and he stays quiet about that, even as he looks down at his palm.
Why...?
He looks sideways at Jude. "Mm. We should do that," he says. "Let's see what we can find. I suppose... this is as good a time to mention as any. We were thinking of reforming the Black Wolves. As a mercenary company."
He hesitates.
"If you're interested," he finishes, "I believe the Kaiser just hired us."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"One heck of a surprise party," she remarks off-handedly to Jude. "...Pretty simple stuff, though. Off the Kaiser, make it look like an accident -- or blame it on the enemy -- and no one's going to ask questions, especially not in wartime."
Her hand rests on her hip.
Josie's gaze, meanwhile, tracks over to Leon and rests there for a long moment.
"...Heh heh. Never a dull moment with you two, is it? Well, I've already been doing a few merc jobs on the side. What's another one? And with a client with deep pockets, at that."
She glances over at the rest of them, the whole motley of them, and shakes her head.
"Well, then. Here's to career moves."
She lifts her hand briefly, as if holding a drink.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's mood is somehow cheerier about all this than Jude is which might indicate something or another. Does Fei not understand what it's like when your own father rips out your world from under you, torments you, upends everything and for power? Does he even understand how painful that must be for Lily? He almost looks excited.
Fei looks towards Elly and says, "Well I already promised to help with Gryndille but I'm thinking...of sticking around after too." That's his way of saying he's in. He even adds an 'aye aye cap'n' after Jude supplies the nickname. "I just feel like...even if we never ran into Gryndille ourselves...we're not exactly...unconnected. I think there's more going on here."
Fei smiles at Elly too in a way that indicates that he is definitely not thinking about how useful her computer must be which might present the query as to how he knows what 'downloading' is but sometimes Fei just says words without thinking it. It's just a simple 'I'm glad you're here' smile. "Elly's right." He agrees before turning his gaze finally to Lily, whom by all appearances he wasn't paying attention to until now.
Fei rests a hand on Lily's shoulder, the angle just so only she can see his face.
"We're with you." He says, a strange color in his eyes. "Even if he's not."
No. Fei understands fathers like Lily's very well. Too well, in fact, judging from that look in his eyes. This isn't the first time he's experienced foolish fathers and the treasures that they throw away.
Such treasures cannot be stolen, they can only be given away.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly looks to the two people she knows least well here - Jude and Josephine. Josephine seems committed. Jude is the remaining unknown but there is some air about him that is making Elly smile. It is an amiable sort of feeling.
Maybe it's hallucinatory.
"Well," she tells Leon, "I do think my salary situation is poor, so... I'll accept, but we may want to talk about some of the armored operational details..."
Elly then looks towards the others. "I have a favor to ask of all of you."
After a beat, she says, "Don't let me visit Nortune without..." She gestures vaguely at her face. What? Is she from there originally? Is she secretly the Kaiser's love child? (Ridiculous.)
"I mean, they may recognize me, if I don't change my look," she concludes.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
'Aye aye, Cap'n,' Jude says.
Leon looks between all of them in turn -- to Fei, to Josie, to Jude, to Lily, and finally to Elly. His eyes close for a moment, as he considers that. A team, once again. It feels strange. It feels stranger, he realizes, to find that it feels right.
He turns to look at Elly. "We'll help with that. We're going to need some idea of what Gryndille's doing... so we'll need to head there. Fortunately, I'm sure Josie can help you think up a good disguise."
MEANWHILE -- OUTSIDE
A single hard, blue eye looks down into the slightly cracked hangar bay doors. Ptolomea stands up straighter, his muscled frame keeping him upright. He only knew what to look for because Antenora shared the design with him; a sketch they had, from what one of their men found. Of course, they never got what they were looking for. His good arm catches his pants pocket, thumb hooked in it.
His cybernetic arm rests over his shoulder, immense serrated blades split and open. Behind him, a gutted sand shark sits there -- torn open and bloodied. A few red hairs sit on the ground, as he looks down at it. Its recent meal has been removed.
Ptolomea lifts something up. A radio. He speaks into it. "Tell Commander Vinsfeld..." A smile splits his lips. "...tell him that Lovelace has secured the second key-tile. We'll let her keep it, until we need it."