2018-02-27: Before Gravity Wins
- Cutscene: Before Gravity Wins
- Cast: Cassidy Cain, Jude Moshe, Morgan Newkirk, Gwen Whitlock, Molly Mason, with a cameo by Vorthuzahl
- Where: The Pleasing Gardens
- Date: February 27, 2018
- Summary: A group of unlikely individuals band together to retrieve the biggest pain in their asses from the clutches of an extremely dangerous creature intent on bringing her back to life just so he could kill her himself. Yeah, that sounds par for the course with the kind of stories these guys have.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Platform Control *>++++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
When you step into the center of the entry platform, things begin to go
awry. The platform is connected to others by three bridges. Each of them
withdraws, however. Then, the platform lurches forward and separates from
the tunnel entrance, which leads back down to Lost July. This means that you
are promptly separated from the way back.
Unfortunately, the platform begins moving away from the other platforms in
the Pleasing Garden. A leap to the next platform would be very, very hard --
and may soon be impossible. However, a strange console sits at the center.
It is nearly ineffable: a large stone pylon, with carved lines aglow with
light. They emit distinct tones, when you wave your hands over them.
Somehow, the platform responds to these controls.
+Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Maim, Suffer++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rumors of a shadow have brought them here.
A FEW DAYS AGO...
Wayside's destruction should have been that - the refuge built by displaced Metal Demons to be a place where anyone could belong has been reduced to rubble and dust, its buildings destroyed; a testament to the ruinous power of the mankind-hating Quarter Knights, a warning left for those who come across it that nobody ought to stand in their way. It was also, supposedly, the final resting place of one Cassidy Cain, whose last act on the world she both loved and hated was to pull the attention of the deadly Berserk away from one Gwen Whitlock, and paid the ultimate price for it, laughing, still, as she fell.
That should have been it.
Everything in this place should be dead. What gave it life carted off upon the back and bowels of one massive airship.
Everything in this place should be still. Like all beautiful dreams, Wayside was not meant to last, left to crumble under the weight of a more cynical reality.
But when the group comes, there is no body to find. Nothing left but the heady smell of metal, dust and blood where it stains a rust-red over stone and sand, the glinting remains of what few pearls Gwen was unable to pick up before she had been placed in the airship....and gaping holes that plunge deep into Wayside's secret canals, a few tunnels blocked by an explosion that appeared somewhat recent (though the observant would note that the damage is clearly older than the town's destruction). The rush of water echoes eerily in the dark, barely glimpsed save for the shafts of light spilling in from the crater Berserk had made above.
They find a quaking scavenger a few moments later.
He had been cowering at what remained of the bar, attempting to make off with what stray bottles of booze were left when a massive, dark shape descended from the sky and started digging amidst the rubble, roaring furiously and beating its wings. It made off, he says, with a corpse.
"It was talking," he continues, his voice low with horror and amazement, still clutching half-filled bottles of whiskey to his chest, crammed against a shadowy corner of the ruined building and unwilling to be coaxed out of it, so shaken by what he saw. "Talking to itself. Like it was crazy. Like it was mad. But when it got its food, it flew off that way."
A grimy finger points towards the direction of Lost July, barren, forgotten and desolate.
"I didn't..." He swallows. "I didn't know monsters like that acted like vultures."
Monster, he says. And could anyone blame him, really, for not realizing what it is that he saw?
After all, it has been a long time since Filgaia had seen a dragon.
NOW...
It is a unique sight enough that tracking it isn't impossible. The wastes of Filgaia, as Jude Moshe, Morgan Newkirk, Gwen Whitlock and Molly Mason know all too well, are crawling with ghosts and dangerous things.
Occasionally, however, those that are lost and hauntingly beautiful can be found, still, in the sands. Their journey takes them deep into the forgotten tunnels of Lost July, where caverns and crevices slowly push the climb higher up into the mountains past its southern borders; higher up until the trail they have been following ends and another begins...
...across the skies.
They are high enough that shapes are hazy here, silhouettes wreathed by the wisps of chill that ultimately give the clouds shape and form. Bridges arch between floating platforms at a distance, should one try and squint. Morgan, with his superior Beastman's eyesight, would find more - craggy rocks and lush, exotic vegetation, situated upon a large skyborne island, surrounded by others. He'd be able to smell flowers, too - distant, but real. How long has it been since he's scented such a thing?
The air sings with the hums and vibrations of the long lost technology and know-how of the Elw - that, everyone can hear.
But the moment they try to make it across upon stone suspended by nothing but air, surrounded by the faint light stitched across stone like veins, the bridges that connect them to the island separate away, making egress back towards where they came impossible.
And since the place is as old as sin itself, platforms start to falter.
One of them crashes into their main portal of entry, forcing it to tilt. Luminous threads of energy, possibly the only things keeping their portal aloft, start to sputter and fade. The impact turns them towards a collision course towards the drifting island's rocky side. They would only have seconds to act...
...or not make it, and somehow find a way to survive the deadly plummet down.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"I told you," Morgan Newkirk had said as he looked to the place where Cassidy Cain had fallen. A smirk on his face, leaning against the pommel of his saddle as he loomed over the desolation. "No body. No death."
That simple mantra. That simple bit of faith. Its sustained him though at least half a dozen near brushes with the deaths of friends. Sometimes he was right. Sometimes he was wrong but always he kept to those words.
'No body. No death.'
He always wondered if someone would think the same of him one day. After all, with how his previous life was...well...he was living proof of that statement.
So he had followed the trail, cold and impossible that it was. To the city of Lost July, Lost it is now. Nothing but ruins upon older ruins. And no where to go but onwards.
He pauses though, lifting his head skywards to stare at that island lost in the clouds. And he sighs. "...well...this is gonna be fun."
Then up they go on a rock. Hovering over nothing at all, carried along by nothing but magic lines of light...
...that start to fall.
"...I WAS RIGHT!" He shouts as he clutches for the center console, waving a hand franticly over the lines of power, trying to coax the fading magics of the Elw to get them at least aimed in the right direction. "Someone open that thing up before gravity wins!"
DG: Morgan Newkirk has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Platform Control.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
Nothing's ever easy on Filgaia. Somedays it seems like even dying's getting complicated. Somehow it's not all that comforting, because gods know Molly has never wanted to live forever. The mere idea is tiring.
The journey to the ruins of Lost July was longer than any trip she'd made in quite a while, and it's only her obstinate nature and Albert the horse that got her here without complaint. She chose to just complain about Morgan instead, despite him being the very person that asked her to come along. Someone hadn't really died, he said, though the name didn't ring much of a bell besides a few tall tales she'd heard come through the door of her gunsmithy. Blonde hair, weird accent, a devil without a care...?
"For dragging me out this far you'd better give me your share of whatever's in there," she demands idly of Morgan as they come to the entrance. Despite the verbal abuse she's laid on him the entire trip, Molly always treats him with some kind of casual assurance that he'll be there, rising to the challenge.
Is she really going to have to trust some godforsaken lost technology here? She doesn't trust flying shit.
And for good reason, because everything immediately goes to hell. "Why the FUCK does nothing ever goddamn work around you?! You luckless polecat!" she snaps at the Beastman, stiffly going to a knee beside the console to look for instructions or buttons or something.
DG: Molly Mason has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Platform Control.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
An important thing to remember in life, when you're not sure where to go and what to do:
Just follow the bird.
Jude Moshe isn't present when they arrive at Wayside. Perhaps he's already been. Perhaps he's taking care of other matters. Regardless, the presence of the nuts-and-bolts bird that is Jacob is the redheaded reporter's stand-in as they arrive at the dessicated, ruined place that was once a haven. The bird flutters through the air as the others investigate, eyes shuttering, chirps filling the air. It dives into the chasm for a moment, gaze flitting about, before ultimately returning to land, quite comfortably, on Morgan's shoulder.
No body. No death.
The bird just tilts its head at the Beastman as if trying to wrap its head around his words.
A tinny chirp will have to suffice for dubious confirmation of his mantra.
~*~
When in doubt, follow the bird.
That is the mantra to remember when they arrive in Lost July, a ruin of a different stripe. This city was no haven, and yet the totality of its destruction is far more harrowing. Buildings crumble and falter, dust gathers in the build up of almost a century of entropy in action. One could envision this entire place being wiped out in an instant. And just what madness could accomplish that?
It is through this landscape that Jacob flits, chirping insistently for them to follow. He knows the ways to go to avoid other, less savory (??) Drifters, to traverse the dangerous paths, to find the short cuts, almost as if he's been here before. And ultimately, the path takes them to a strange, underground hall. A hall that takes them...
"Huh. Took you long enough."
... far, far in the skies above.
And it is here that Jude Moshe is waiting for them, smile lopsided and head tilt as he sits upon a stony perch of the platform they find themselves on, smoking his cigarette in peace. Jacob flutters. The man's amber gaze tilts. The wonder of this place seems to go utterly unappreciated by him, if his blase attitude is to be believed.
"Unfortunately, things are a little fragile here, so you might want to step--"
And the second they arrive and press forward, the platforms start to falter.
"-- lightly."
Dark yellow eyes squint. Brows furrow inward mildly. He feels the platform CRASH against their tilting grounds enough to make him lurch forward and onto his feet.
"Morg, can we agree this one's on you?"
And for however light his tone, Jude Moshe is instantly on the move, making his way towards consoles in the distance even as the platform begins to tilt dangerously and sends him stumbling into one, attempting to maneuver those controls with the know-how of someone perhaps more experienced with these things than one ought to be. But still... it's complex. And old. And faulty. And, just to press the importance of it all, Jacob soon falls onto another console, trying to manipulate it with his beak, god bless his heart.
Just so you know how dire things are.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Jacob toward his party's challenge, Platform Control.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen was understandably distant, separating herself into whatever quarters guaranteed her some privacy. When she finally emerged, she had the few pearls set on a piece of leather string around her neck, set over the handkerchief knotted around it.
Of course, for some reason Gwen wasn't amenable to anyone really examining her, either.
Some other things happened since, but those are stories for another day.
Because the story here is that Cassidy isn't actually dead. No body, no death, he said, and while a part of Gwen wanted to believe it, another part wondered if allowing herself the option of believing it would deny Cassidy some dignity in her death. If her body's down there, would she really want people to remember that, instead of her going out in style, laughing as she left this mortal coil.
... Well, then again, it *is* Cassidy.
Poking around the ruins of Lost July, Gwen's certain she doesn't ever want to come back here again if she can help it. Having to follow a cute metal chirping metal bird helps, however! "I wouldn't mind goin' through a place like this more if I get to have something cute to follow," Gwen comments, biting back the temptation to coo over the bird's little beak and the feets and the tailfeathers and-
SO. Somehow, they make it into the sky. And Gwen manages to meet the bird's maker. "By chance, you got another one of those for sale? I'd like-"
And gravity demands its toll. Gwen grips onto whatever she can with a shriek, then looks at the aforementioned panel.
Taking out her med kit, Gwen looks at the console, the med kit, and back to the console, and-
... uses its weight to smash the console.
DO THING SMASH BUTTONS NO FALLING STAHP
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Medical Kit toward her party's challenge, Platform Control.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Platform Control.
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Platform Control.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Rockslide Remnants *>+++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
The sudden movements of platforms has, at times, caused buildings to
collapse. You come to one such problem here. The facade of a building has
collapsed, and a huge pile of rocks blocks the way forward. You need to
excavate your way through them. As you do, though, the building may collapse
more -- so care, and even construction, may be necessary to tunnel your way
through.
+Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Exhaust++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
True to Morgan's own past, he takes upon the reins of piloting a falling platform, leaving Jude, Jake and Gwen in their attempts to bring power back into their transport. This leaves Molly with the inenviable task of lambasting Morgan's ill-luck, because it appears to be rather contagious.
Deft fingers fly over the console, and Jacob attempts to use his beak to redirect power. He has just a few seconds to hop away from the wake of Gwen's medical kit when the strawberry-blonde uses it to smash the metal console open, and reveal complicated circuitry within, glowing a faint blue-green with touches of white. The innards may be familiar, in spite of the mess - at least, to Morgan and Jude, who have attempted to sabotage certain pieces of Elw technology before.
And just like then, it is hopeless to figure it out.
The platform's fall starts to pick up speed. The Beastman, however, either with brute strength, pilot's instincts, or the luck that Molly doesn't think he has, is able to at least angle their descent right into one of the lower platforms closest to what appears to be the main entrance, slightly above them.
The impact that follows is bone-jarring and if they have not braced themselves on time, they would be sent flying, to tumble into one of the ancient buildings that dot these floating satellites, tangling into verdant twists of ivy and strange blue-violet flowers. In such a still and silent space, the sound they make just crashing into architecture nobody has seen before in centuries is downright deafening, injecting violent life into their surroundings.
...and once they disentangle themselves from the vines, they'd find moss under their feet, caking old stone, and more ivy crawling up intricately carved columns that have been a pristine white in a former life, now yellowed with age, and covered with dust and the leavings of spiders.
The crash gives them some moment of respite, to catch their breath.
Unfortunately, it has also made their job harder; the impact has shaken loose decrepit masonry and it has collapsed on the only entrance afforded to them, leaving their path strewn with rubble that requires quite possibly even more noise and pyrotechnics to remove.
Though that also holds its share of risks; it's clear that the foundations of the structures here have been eroded by time. And so the party is faced with a question: can everything really be solved with explosions?
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Its open for debate!" Morgan shouts back towards Jude as he tries to do...something. The something doesn't work well it seems. "Its not MY fault this is old tech, Molly! You can't blame me for everything that happens!!!"
He pulls the panel out he looks at the inards. He looks for a second like he knows exactly what he's doing...perhaps there is hope....
Then he kicks the console.
"WHY DO THE ELW NOT USE BASIC SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES!!!"
That comes the cry of frustration as he vents his annoyance on the ancient piece of tech.
The tech says nothing. It just keeps falling.
Just before the impact he wraps his arms around the console, ARM lashing energy ropes around him and others to give them a place to brace from if they need it. As there is precious few in the way of things to grab on a stone platform.
The impact is bone jarring. Slamming into the stone with stone as neither side gives way. The rocks fall, dust explodes upwards and the Drifter closes his eyes, pinning his ears back as he wraps those tendrils around people so they don't go flying.
When the noise settles and the dust falls the fox opens one eye.
"...well. We ain't dead."
The other eye opens as he looks around towards the entrence and the rubble there. A frown comes to his features as he shakes his head. "Well. That could have gone worse." He calls as he stands, dusting himself off before his ARM glows again. This time the short, ugly looking demolition rifle appears in a flash of science in the back of his hand.
"So. Who brought the explosives?"
They aren't here to be quiet after all.
DG: Morgan Newkirk has used his Tool Everyone Loves Fireworks toward his party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
She can't blame Morgan for everything, can she? "YOU FUCKIN' WATCH ME, YOU WALKING DISAS--"
Whatever else the gunsmith has to say is lost in the deafening sound of a crash landing and the desire to not bite off her own tongue. Everything hurts, the constant low ache in her legs aggravated by an impact that truly lives up to the descriptive 'bone-jarring'. But they're alive, and mostly in one piece, and now they've got another problem on their hands... but at least they're not falling anymore. Even Molly is grateful for that.
"Ugh," she grunts eloquently, swiping her bangs out of her eyes. "Everybody okay?" She's just going to casually sit here a minute, as if she's resting, until she's certain she can stand without falling. Morgan will see through the ruse, of course, because Morgan has known her for a long time now. But she can still pretend to have some dignity in front of Gwen and Jude.
Okay. Nothing broken, nothing torn, just a little achey. Molly can go on, so she does so. Pushing herself up off the stone, she looks critically at the crashed-shut entrance to the ruins. "Well, shit."
At least this is something she knows how to do - move rocks, nudge things out of the way, avoid getting in the blast zone of Morgan's stupid fuckoff demo rifle that she is absolutely not envious of, goddammit. "Better back up, y'all," she offers as a warning to Gwen and Jude (and Jacob). There's a leaning piece of the doorframe, and if she plants her shoulder into the wall just right, she ought to be able to use her leg strength to shove it back in place.
DG: Molly Mason has used her Tool Steel-Toed Boots toward her party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
For some reason ~~
BOOOOOOOOOM
~~ Jude Moshe doesn't think this is going to end very well.
Cigarette abandoned (that's just how important this is), the redheaded sellsword is busily working on consoles that he rightly ought to not have much in the way of direct experience with; journalists. They just get everywhere. It does them little good, however, as Jacob lets out a metallic squawk of protest, flitting away seconds before Gwen hammers that console open with... a medical kit, of all things. Jude slowly straightens from where he works. He manages a jolt of power, at best. The skybound satellite is still falling, bound for what is to be a very messy impact.
And so, Jude Moshe just sighs, pulls out that nickel cigarette case, a match, lights up anew...
And shrugs, a hapless little shrug.
"Ah, well."
It's deafening, the sound of two landmasses crashing together. More than that. It sounds like a cataclysm in minor, like one's ears were trying to shred themselves apart in protest of being unable to process what they're hearing. It's enough to confuse and disorient and make one hesitate at exactly the wrong time.
Which is why Jude doesn't. He leaps.
And aims for the bushes.
Staying on is too risky. The possibility of the land coming undone underneath him and crushing him too great. So if he's going to die, apparently, the reporter decides to do it in a flashy if not more insured way -- by lunging for vines and greenery that make for a comfortable bedding beneath him.
He still lands with a crack of bone on stone, regardless.
Hairline fractures burst to painful being across Jude Moshe's ribs. Dust and dirt cake his red hair as he coughs, expelling some of that powdered debris from his lungs as his amber eyes slowly squeeze open. Fingertips scratch across cool moss resting beneath them.
And slowly, he looks up, first at that collapsed stonework in front of him...
... and then down, at the crumpled remains of his cigarette.
Everybody okay?
"I'm alive. And I know I should be grateful I'm alive..." he begins, slowly, head tilting,
"... but I have to admit, it's hard to find a reason to feel gratitude about that right now."
A cough, again. Jacob falls, landing on his shoulder. He pauses a moment, looking at the automaton, before whispering something to his constant companion.
"Got it? I'm counting on you, buddy." And, as Jude slowly rises with a stumble, Jacob takes off again, towards the other platforms -- looking like a bird on the hunt for something. Something important.
"She'll probably be here somewhere, stealing whatever amounts to Elw narcotics. Some kind of moss, maybe?"
And here, as he talks so conversationally, Jude scrapes his feet across that moss, braces himself... and produces that large shotgun ARM, runes flaring to orange life as it begins to whine. Who brought explosives?
"That'd be me, I guess. Better back up -- fire in the hole!"
Which is about the only warning Molly and the others get before that demolition round is shot off.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Demolition Shell toward his party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen remembered thinking how the scent of distant flowers reminded her of the rare flower patch she came across with Vash, high up on a plateau. Now, crashing into the side of one of the ancient houses, Gwen finds her impact awkwardly cushioned by the lush vining plants, some spent petals tumbling to land against her hat. She coughs as she moves, one hand patting herself down for any injuries before she tries to move, and finds herself sneezing for her trouble. "Uh, y-yeah, things're good here?"
The question mark is intentional.
Watching Morgan bring out the demolition rifle, Gwen curses their lack of time. If she could, she'd try to collect some seeds. "Hold on, Morgan," Gwen calls out, grunting as she finally gets up to her feet and, wincing from a movement her body didn't quite like,, bends to dust her jeans. "Lemme see what I can do with a few good punches. We're on some pretty fragile stuff here, n'... uh... " Her freckled cheeks grow pink. "I like the flowers here." She clears her throat into her fist. "Now, if they start movin' n' tryin' to eat us, then I'd say this place kinda gave up any sorta charm it might've gained in my mind."
Just in case, she reaches one gloved hand underneath her poncho and, after some rummaging, is just about to produce a few shells for Morgan-
And Jude comes in with the explosives. Gwen barely has a chance to cover her ears up. ".... Um. I'll just... be over here. Punching things." If anyone could hear that or anything Gwen said over the ringing in their ears, congrats, they can still hear!
Gwen's still trying to get the ringing out of hers.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Rockslide Remnants.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Teleporter Tile Maze *>++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
The current platform ends with a small ledge, which has two orange
teleporter tiles on it. Ahead, you can see a vast series of small, narrow
platforms with two or more tiles. They form an interlocking, intricate maze
of teleporter tiles that must be crossed before you can come to the next
full-sized platform.
+Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Overwhelm+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The remains of the platform from which they just vacated break up further at its plummet into the cloud cover underneath the skyborne island, showering the land below with falling chunks of extremely large and very heavy debris. Hopefully nothing important is making a crossing through the desert, there, otherwise a bloody accident would probably happen.
As everyone prepares to blow their way through the next series of obstacles, Jude's metallic companion tilts its head to the red-haired journalist's whisper before it takes off into the skies, gliding like a miniature metallic aircraft to the hazy shapes of other platforms beyond from where they are. He vanishes from view in short order, leaving the party bereft of what is, quite possibly, their most intelligent member.
Molly is able to make their work easier, with the push she gives with her leg. With Gwen offering up shells to Morgan, and the latter holding onto his rifle; Jude with his strange, Symbology-laden firearm, both men aim and fire...
...another deafening BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM echoes through the landscape, once again shattering the stillness that has yet to recover from the earlier crash.
The explosion reveals another passage - another bridge, though thankfully, it appears to be a sturdier one. Crossing it, they would find more platforms, though unlike the others they have come across before, they remain unmoving, no matter how far up they're suspended - hundreds of feet in the air.
There are a few holding different sizes and weight of debris; shattered remnants of old archives, rocks from nearby landslides. As precarious as their height is, it is clear at the very least that they will hold if stepped on by human feet. Strange sigils are etched on stone, glowing that same blue-green and white from earlier. These flashes leap between tiles, stretching across the distance. If they squint, they'll find another bridge waiting for them at the end of the run, leading towards the heart of the main island and its ivy-smothered main plaza.
But how to get across?
The rocks provide a clue - there are occasions that, when a tile occupied by past debris glows orange, the pile vanishes, and reappears in a corresponding tile on the other side of the sky....
~*~
Jacob finds a trail.
The automaton flits on a smaller island, pecking at bits of metal that glint like crystal, left embedded on the side of a ruined building - easily lost in the nest of floral outgrowth that seems determined to choke such an ancient place with life...
...blood, in the other island, thorns and brambles decorated with a tattered triangle of scarlet cloth.
A circuitous route, around the main island and somewhere within.
~*~
All the noise rouses something sleeping.
Deep within the hauntingly beautiful ruins, something stirs, and a single large, lidless eye cracks open.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
Gwen remarks about the plants. "I wish my mother could see this. Without having to go through all this bullshit first, mind you." She'd always wanted to see a rose, Molly recalls. There aren't any here that she can see, but all this stuff would be good enough. Maybe she'll have a chance to take a flower back, hung carefully upside down from her pack to dry on the trip home.
Well, assuming they live through all this bullshit.
Inside the ruin, Molly sees another set of floating platforms and just about turns to walk the hell back outside. "Fuck this--!" Only to remember that there really isn't another way back. They're just going to have to do this. "Ugh..." Palming the side of her face as she stares up and across at the floating platforms, she frowns sourly. "Well, fine, let's try yet another goddamn fool idea. Whoever made these things can go suck a big mess of dicks."
One, two, three... and then one, two three... She watches the pattern repeat, hoping she'll remember it correctly, before stepping out onto an orange tile.
DG: Molly Mason has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Heat and kinetic force pummel rubble into so many bits of charred stone and granular dust, gushing a heavy veil through the freshly-opened entrance of that passageway. Jude Moshe whistles, his ARM falling back into his coat and hands locking behind the back of his head as he cocks it curiously to the right.
"You'd think," he begins, conversationally, "that they'd want to build a giant floating landmass of little islands a bit more sturdy than this."
He looks around him, around one of those heavily damaged, floating islands they now occupy.
"... Well, it ought to be fine."
And with this ambivalent declaration of their potential fate, Jude Moshe carries on, taking a forward point as they delve deeper into the life-choked gardens.
Offering only a brief, thoughtful glance back in the direction Jacob has flown off to before he goes.
He feels the winds caress violently at his cheek as he steps out onto that bridge; errant bits of stone crunch under his heel as amber eyes take in the sight of the platforms in front of them. Rubble seems to only enhance the beauty of this place, lending its aesthetics a tragic air of loss. Here, there was once greatness. And here, greatness still finds a way to exist even in its ruin, greenery clinging and sprouting and -thriving- where it might otherwise die anywhere else on this dustbowl of a planet.
There's no real sentiment of awe there in that yellow stare. No real object fascination at the wonderment before them. They just watch, careful, observant ~~
~~ and couple themselves with little sigh the second they glean a piece of rubble shifting space instantaneously across platforms.
"Teleporters," he utters. "Wonderful."
This, too, is something he has experience with.
And he entirely blames Leon Albus and Lily Keil for that.
With Jacob likely still winding his way back from his scouting, Jude just does without his steadfast companion for now; instead, he tilts his head towards one of those orange tiles, glancing towards the rest.
"That way. It'll take you to another platform instantaneously. Ancient technology. Pretty neat, huh?" And he'll wait until at least one of them is just about to step on it before he helpfully continues, off of Molly's proclamation,
"It's pretty frustrating, right? And from what I've read about the ways of the ancient Elw and the reliability of their technology, there's no telling if it's going to be you coming out the other side or you, spliced with a gnat that just happened to land on it at the same time, but~~"
He's being helpful. It's a distraction from how dire their situation is.
He tries his best.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Gwen?" Morgan says with a smirk as he glances towards her. "Don't ever change." He says when the Courier mentions something about flowers. The fox doesn't fire until she's done and out of the way, but when its over? Well the Demo rifle lives up to its name. The roar and rush of explosions and the shower of stone is a worthy testiment to someone like Cassidy he thinks.
Though what it reveals doesn't make him any happier at all.
"...why is it always teleporters." His grumble coming after Jude's similar sentiments and Molly's. At least everyone agrees on this point.
A shake of his head then.
"Well...coming out on the other side something else wouldn't be the worst that's happened to me. Though I better still be this handsome when I come out." The fox replies as he starts to peer towards the controls and...
...those Beastmen eyes of him stare towards where Jacob lands.
"Did your bird find something?"
DG: Morgan Newkirk has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen can't help but whistle her appreciation over the fireworks, as well flinching as the big chunk of what was a platform begins its plummet down to the ground. "... I'm gonna make a bigggg note never to travel in this area without one eye pointed at the sky, ahhaha.... eh..." Her laugh is a little too high-pitched for her liking, but the image of her being smashed platter than a pancake is even more distressing.
She coughs. "... So we're here because Cassidy might be here, right? Or the monster is here, and it has her, uh, body, which I'm *assuming* is in some state of bein' alive, or, uh, at the very least, is in decent enough shape that we can give her a funeral she'd be proud of, n'-" She wavers, a hand fidgeting to her neck to feel the pearls there, rolling them between her index and thumb. "... I'm just gonna assume she's alive right now, for my own mental well-bein'. Maybe she's just laughin' her ass off on one of those islands up there."
Flowers. Maybe they should collect some. "Maybe we should grab one or two for the road, Molly? Seems like a good idea. But uh, yeah, let's move on to, uh..."
This bridge, and beyond, more platforms, which are not in a state of 'about to fall', which is very nice. But there's a strange mix of tiles, on which seem to appear and disappear any debris that happen to fall on them.
Teleporters, Jude explains. Gwen's eyes light up. "Really? I gotta try one of thes-"
The completely different Gwen that is on the other panel, probably besides Molly, just looks at Jude, a look of absolute terror on her rapidly draining face. "D~DON'T JOKE ABOUT THAT!" She just freezes in place, one hand gingerly plucking the med kit from underneath her poncho.
From it, she produces two paper bags. She offers one ot Molly.
Regardless of whether or not Molly grabs one, Gwen breathes into hers, until she's convinced herself that she hasn't just turned somehow into a gnat.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Medical Kit toward her party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Teleporter Tile Maze.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - A Bao A Qu *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
A creature lumbers in the hallway before you. It is a massive thing, looking
something like a slime -- though shaped not unlike a dragon. It has a
massive, spined ridge on its back, and on its head, which is vaguely
reptilian. Its limbs are mismatched; the fore limbs are huge, armored claws,
while the hind limbs are massive, spine-covered flippers. It lunges forward,
snapping with its jaws -- and trying to absorb you into its slime-based,
acidic body.
+Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Overwhelm++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
They step into the teleportation tiles and their bodies get shuffled across the ether.
It feels that way at least - strange, and for a moment it seems as if Jude's assertions might be correct. Like electricity, or static, webs of sensation crackle over their flesh and ripple over their clothes, and the way they pass through leagues of empty air is as quick as an eyeblink. One moment, they're in the eastern platform; another, in the west, hopping all over where the tiles turn orange. Closer and closer, they get to the end of that bridge to seemingly nowhere....
....which vanishes completely.
They never make it there.
Perhaps they thought wrong; plenty of Elw technology and how it works is speculation, and the theories bandied about among the party may be just as accurate as the truth. But they may never know now, really, for they find themselves upon solid ground again, covered in the same green moss as it bleeds over what were once grand mosaics, colors painted on pale stone muted, now, by Time, faded until it, too, will forget how they were once adorned - if stone had memories, anyway.
When they look up and around, they would find a garden.
A series of gardens, actually, flanked with cobblestoned paths and lined with ponds, where green continues to grow in defiance of the dead and dying world leagues below them. The rare flowers that Gwen and Molly were admiring earlier find their cousins in more vibrant blooms - reds, oranges and golds; a touch of fire amidst cooler tones. The scents here are headier, spores clotted with perfume...
...as they trek forward, it carries, clinging to their clothes. The leaves stir at their wake, the only movement for now. But in such haunting, quiet environs, they'll start to see things, eventually.
It might be the spores, or something else in the magically charged air...
Shadows flit past their peripheral vision and they take on different shapes - the familiar presence of old faces, of people they once knew, symbols of their histories slipping through moss and vines like silent spectres. They come upon a hollowed-out shell of another compound, eventually, the lost grandeur of the Elw etched upon the walls and architecture, but the whispers follow them still.
They shouldn't be here, they say.
This is a world in which they do not belong.
And as if to emphasize the fact...
A creature bubbles out from one of the emerald ponds nearby. It tears out of it like a wyvern in flight, viscous fluid splattering over flowers and moss as it rages towards them without warning. It takes upon the shape of an interloper, an intruder, and their surroundings suddenly come alive at this remembered slight. A sticky maw opens up, revealing the jaws of a different kind of death.
It seems to sense weakness, the ephemeral strains of an illness nothing but animals can detect. Baleful eyes round on Molly and like the beast it seeks to emulate, it lashes out with a roar, in an attempt to catch her by its mouth and drown her in its fluids. Its tail lashes out as the sinuous, serpentine body twists, to try and catch Morgan and Jude by the legs. A foot and its slimy talons tears off a chunk of the beautiful stonework underneath, to try and knock Gwen against the wall.
It is fast.
....and pretty gross.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Almost there....
...almost theeeeeeeeereeee.....
..........almost the-
NOPE!
The last teleport goes haywire and the destination changes with a lurch. A lurch that ends with all of them in the middle of a garden. Morgan's nose wrinkles with the smell though its not unpleasent. He pauses a moment to glance towards the pair of Molly and Gwen. "...well...you two wanted flowers right?" A pause. A glance at Molly. "Wait. You like flowers?"
A shake of his head then before he starts to move on, though the last chambers of the Elw and their once-glories.
The sound of gravel crunching under the foxes boots is loud in this ancient chamber and he flows as he stalks by those emerald pools...
They just don't look right...
And then bursting out of the pools themselves is a new terror.
A new hate.
"What in the..." And the fox is smashed by a tail, sending him rolling across the garden. "Have I mentioned to anyone that I hate this place!!" He shouts as he comes up with his ARM already screaming with power. The roar of the minigun that is suddenly mounted on the back of his arm tearing the silence of the hallowed halls to shreads.
DG: Morgan Newkirk has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
So. After a moment is taken to realize that she is still human (mostly, some things are still unconfirmed), Gwen is quickly moving onto the next br-
There was a bridge here. It's gone now. "Whoah..." What replaces it is something much more to Gwen's liking. If the flowers before were beautiful, they are merely an appetizer to the sights and smells the group encounters now. "They don't even look real," the pale redhead stammers, pausing to take off the glove on her left hand so she can feel her fingers along a nearby flower's silky petals. "What, you're surprised, Morgan? It's like seein' an oasis after months spent in a dry desert. It ain't unusual at all!"
There's so many people she's wanting to bring here. Her gaze grows distant.
She shouldn't. She shouldn't bring any of them here.
That's the thought that comes to her when she compares the look of her pale but callused fingers next to the smooth, colorful blooms just beyond. She is a being born from the wastes, of the wastes. Seeing such things could only dull the sights she sees in the world below, like feeling what it's like to have one night on feather soft bedding before going back to a scratchy blanket and a dimming fire under the cold stars.
They don't even have time to think on this, as a much more violent resident makes its appearance, knocking Gwen against a stone wall like a toy doll, slime and tilework showering over her dazed form as it passes for another round of attacks. "D-damn it!" Gwen yells, hastily undoing the buckle on her right glove and thrusting that uncovered palm towards it, her right arm held steady against a rock. She fires, a chunk of raw plasma all she can manage at such a dazed state. "Havea load of this!"
It's also really, really gross.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
She takes the bag because it seems like Gwen may have bigger problems right now than remembering not to litter. Plus you never know when you're going to need a bag. Molly folds it away somewhere on her person and waits for the courier to stop hyperventilating, giving her an even pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it," is her only advice. "If you got combined with a gnat or something you'd be dead before you ever realized it."
But they find themselves in a garden instead, the kind that Molly has barely known enough to imagine. "What's wrong with liking flowers?" she challenges Morgan, but it's with less heat than usual. The gunsmith seems a bit preoccupied, casting her gaze around the alien landscape. Even she has to be a little quieter, a little more thoughtful, in a place like this...
And that's why she hears the whispers. She knows she doesn't belong. If whoever's hissing in her ear would shut the hell up, Molly could tell them that they don't plan to stay, thank you very much, they're just here to pick up some crazy woman (who may be dead) and get the hell out. They could find this Cassidy and finish the job and she could spend a couple of days alternating between bathtub and bed.
Instead, there's a spluttering splash that precedes the sight of something so disgusting it makes her lip curl. A quiet noise of raw disgust is her only verbal reply.
Even crippled as she is, Molly can still fight. She will still fight. In the time it takes the creature to cross the gardens to them, she's drawn two relatively large gunsmoke revolvers from their holsters underneath both arms. She can't move fast enough to escape it, so Molly just stares possible death in the face, boots planted on the paving stones, and unloads large-caliber bullets into what passes for its face.
There's a choked sound as the monster snatches her off of her feet, followed by a muffled shout and the bang of a weapon firing inside the monster's dripping mouth.
From the pitch of the shout and the wiggling, it seems that Molly is upset. Just a little bit.
DG: Molly Mason has used her Tool Gunsmoke Revolvers toward her party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Sometimes, theories are just wrong.
Sometimes, people make up theories on the fly just to pass the time getting a rise out of people.
Jude's theories on the direction of the teleporter was one thing. Jude's theories about fly-splicing teleportation technology is another.
Maybe which one is which is best determined by the fact that they -aren't- somehow all turned into Cronenbergian monsters by the time the crackle of electricity heralds their moss-soaked entrance to god knows where, the bridge now completely and utterly out of sight.
Maybe.
Or maybe the fly-splicing just takes a while to set in...?
Regardless, by the time they reach the moss-soaked stone of... wherever they end up, Jude Moshe is in the middle of completing a teleportation-scrambled shrug for Gwen's panicked declarations. "Oops," he says, after a moment. "Sorry. Guess it was a different teleporter I read about." Just... so he can leave the possibility that this is a real thing that can definitely happen with some, nebulous form of teleporter. He runs a hand through his red hair, looking at the ground beneath them with a frown.
Has Jacob found anything?
"Who knows? I'll get back to you on that one," is his response, vague as it might be, before he offers an apologetic smile and wanders off.
Maybe he really just doesn't know. It's always possible, isn't it?
Spores flit through the air, green growing endlessly amidst a sea of color and life. Jude tilts his head for a moment with that first inhale. His brows furrow, faintly. He says nothing; he just quietly takes a single, deep intake of oxygen... and then just stops breathing entirely.
It helps. But not entirely. But what he sees in those passage of shadows is anyone's guess, as those amber eyes stare stubbornly forward, as if unwilling -- or unable, to spare those things at the corners of his vision a second's glance.
It sounds amazing, but kinda sad, doesn't it?
"Move!"
Slop sputters into some sort of horrible, mocking facsimile of life in a matter of moments, bubbling, burbling ooze given draconic and asymmetric form. He lunges almost on impulse, a kneejerk action for a man who rarely partakes in them, attempting to interpose himself between Gwen and any other assault -- and in so doing, finds himself unable to react to the lash of that tail in time. Regardless of the outcome, he finds himself ensnared, quickly lifting into the air. Teeth grit together. Maybe this'll be where it ends. To a dragon. Made of slime.
"... Sorry, but I can do better, I think," he decides, seconds before his shotgun is produced and several, searing blue rounds are fired off in short succession -- each one hammering into the tail to -freeze- it, seconds before the sword of the weapon snaps into place, -jamming- into the appendage in an attempt to shatter it.
And it is just about then that he hears the familiar sound of a mechanical chirp in the distance. His response is immediate, even as he fires off several more ice rounds into the goopy hide of the beast.
"Follow the bird!!"
A mantra to live by.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Bao A Qu.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Growth Algorithm *>++++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
The Pleasing Garden was a place where things grow. The platform you reach
has, of all things, an oak tree. It is currently a sapling -- though careful
investigation reveals it is not a natural tree, but rather a piece of
stone-based artificial biology, meant to resemble a tree. There is also a
stone tablet that projects light patterns and tones -- which you can move,
with your hands. Interrupting the projected light patterns causes a tone.
It also causes the "tree" to grow, though in strange ways -- tree limbs
extend up and to the side. This could help you reach the platform above, but
may also bring you in reach of a few caches of Heal Berries growing upon the
walls.
+Dungeon Conditions: Save Point+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SOMEWHERE IN THE ISLAND...
Jacob finds the Tree of Life.
For as much as he manages to prove his worth time and time again in difficult situations, he is bereft of the words necessary to communicate what he finds, but eyes and their unusual shutters take it in, the biological merged seamlessly with the purely synthetic; veins of glowing crystal etch over the 'bark', extending upwards to its wide, near-sentient branches, and tunneling deep into the earth below. There are no consoles here, because the trunk itself is the console.
And something more.
The automaton lands on the edge of a rocky outcrop jutting out of the ground.
He tilts his head, looks down at the surface, and his eyes shutter again.
~*~
BACK TO THE GARDENS...
The monster gets Molly.
It whips her up in the air, maw opening to meet her flesh when she descends - but she is not idle, and despite her injury, she is better with her bullets when she is airborne - something she and Cassidy Cain have in common. The rounds slam right into its eyes, and once blinded, its fury intensifies almost immediately, and it spins around with every intent to take it out on the rest of them.
This does leave Molly crashing onto the ground, covered in slime when it descends on Gwen, who fires her ARM - it dents its center mass, but unfortunately for the strawberry-blonde, its biology is built to absorb impact and the slime simply swallows the heat.
But Jude is there, interposing himself between the courier and danger - and conveniently acting as a distraction for Morgan, thrown off further in the midst of the garden, and giving him room to chamber the rounds he needs. The tail swipes him up, intent to drown him within its body, but the rounds he snaps off from his Symbology-laden shotgun freezes the liquid appendage grasping him, and he's able to shatter it in emerald shards. The roar that it emits is a deafening thing. It rears up on its hind legs, intending to annihilate the both of them....
...when shots explode from Morgan's end.
It's still alive, once the smoke clears, and it shifts towards the direction of that new threat. It is not going to die here. Not like this. Like a loping wolf, the creature changes form, four-legged and snarling. Its tail starts to regenerate.
It leaps for Morgan, but it leaves the rest of the party to move. Especially with a drifting shadow passing over their heads.
Jacob comes at a screaming collision course on the slime monster's face, wrenching it to the side before he flies away again, the slime-thing suddenly confused at the unexpected turnabout of its direction; it can't see, thanks to Molly, and it can't really smell. He thus allows Morgan the opening he needs to get out of the way, or keep firing. The bird's wake continues in a drift, before he lands on something, hidden within all the vegetation, though once his weight registers on whatever it is, it glows a strange orange - much like the teleportation tiles they had to deal with earlier. And within his talons...
...is a silver lighter, engraved with a snake eating its own tail.
It is as emphatic of a sign to go as any.
~*~
They find the Tree of Life.
It is the most convincing facsimile of such a thing to ever exist, harkening back to old stories about bearded deities who hang themselves upside down upon it to achieve the wisdom of the ages, or those that claim it can grant immortality to those who drink from water dripping from its boughs. But it is nothing organic - its trunk and branches are stone, but inexplicably, still, its leaves seem real, twined with vines heavy with lush, red fruit - they can replenish themselves here, should they choose. The heal berries present here are cool to the touch.
Amidst the hum of technology and ancient mysticism, they'd find metal on stone.
It adheres the pale body onto the trunk, glowing crystal veins crawling upon it. The head is limp and lolled back, leaving sunlit streamers of hair to spill down on lower branches and get tangled there. Her hands are visible, and so is half her body, but the rest of her is not, as if being consumed alive by the Tree that holds her prisoner.
But looks can be deceiving. Amidst such beauty, it can't be as insidious as that, can it?
The metal is an unnatural addition; unlike everything else that seems to just belong in this platform, it simply doesn't. It gleams like gems, but it moves as if alive, liquid serpents winding around her, crawling up the side of her empty throat. From this vantage point, it is unclear whether it is trying to digest her...
...or make her whole again.
Or change her into something else. Something more.
Something she hates.
After all, would that not be a fitting revenge against Cassidy Cain and her hatred of Metal Demons, if she was transformed to become the very thing that she has tried to destroy?
The Tree flickers. The panels on its bark illuminate as if alive, glowing and producing sounds whenever they're touched. Fitting, too, given the musical leanings of the body they hold in place.
The right note. The right sound. And then maybe...
Maybe.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
DG: You use your Tool Pocket Lighter against your party's Challenge, Growth Algorithm!
DG: Cassidy Cain has used her Tool Pocket Lighter toward her party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
With the shatter of frozen slime, Jude Moshe hits grown with an expulsion of air and a groan heaved past increasingly-protesting ribs. He rolls once, immediately, until his booted feet can plant on the moss-slicked stone beneath him, snapping his ARM upward and preparing to fire off another volley in what seems like a hopeless situation --
When Jacob finally arrives after that opening call, to save the day. As always.
"Atta boy," says the redheaded journalist, a lopsided smile painting itself on his lips as he lumbers his way back up onto his feet. He wobbles -- but eventually, wiping a small smear of blood from the corner of his lips, he is already moving.
"Think we've overstayed out welcome here!" he suggests as he makes his way past Jacob, the bird flitting just past him in short order to lead the way forward. "Let's just let our friend get back to all his crevice-oozing in peace."
He refuses to change the wording on any of that.
No judgements.
Eventually, though, the path leads them onwards. Towards a veritable Tree of Life. Jude Moshe looks up at it. Squints. His head tilts, slowly, to his left.
"Well, at least the Elw have a strong appreciation for humility, I guess," he observes, bland as can be. It's then, that Jacob lands on his shoulder. Then, that he notices the glint of metal in his talon. Tanned fingers lift to curl around that rectangular slip of silver, easing it from the automaton's grasp...
But he doesn't have to see the distinctive sight of the thing to know who it belongs to.
Just like he doesn't have to look up to know just what kind of situation Cassidy Cain has found herself in now.
Others might panic. Others might shout. Jude Moshe?
Carefully produces that nickel cigarette case even as his amber eyes fall on the blonde maned ne'er-do-well all but bonded to that tree, crystalline life veining itself through bark and reaching upwards as if trying to assimilate her into a nature she has all but rejected.
He slips out his cigarette. And, with the flick of flint, lights it off the orange tongue of Cassidy's lighter, the smile he adopts all but exasperated.
"I thought you had already reached a zenith on creatively shitty situations to shove yourself into, Cassie," he begins, even as he approaches the tree, to lightly flick at one of those panels. Sound fills the air, like the first note of a song.
"... but you always just have to find ways to surprise me, don't you?"
And so Jude works, deft fingers flicking, here and there, working paneling like one might work a piano, aided by the stray pecks that Jacob provides, here and there.
To find the right melody to match her predicament.
DG: Jude Moshe has used his Tool Jacob toward his party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
"Auh--" Impact leaves her gasping, knuckles scraped bloody against the stone because she won't let go of her father's guns. Covered in slime and half-blind herself, Molly swipes roughly at her face with one forearm. She's only got four bullets left, she knows without counting because the body remembers what the mind forgets.
It goes for Jude next, and Molly pushes herself off of the ground with a quiet grunt as minigun rounds pop off behind her. Jude can take care of himself clearly, and so can the others... but she plants her feet again and braces herself for the recoil, emptying every last round into the monster's back as it tries to reach Morgan.
Molly's teeth remain gritted until she's sure the damn thing is finally gone. Then she glares at the Beastman for a breath before reloading, bloody hands steady.
~~
The Tree of Life is somehow heartachingly beautiful, just like the gardens had been. Molly has no intention of picking any of its leaves - but the heal berries are too much temptation to resist, and she settles at the foot of the tree with a taut sigh, tucking one into her cheek as she stares up at the woman trapped and unconscious.
So, this Cassidy Cain is alive after all. "Damn," she grumbles. "Morgan! Come get your damn ten gella."
She lost the bet!
DG: Molly Mason has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
So mental notes. Chain gun is not effective vs goo monster.
Morgan should make some kind of list on what is effective against what kind of damn stupid monster there is in Filgaia. Call it a hunter's journal or something. Because there are TOO MANY MONSTERS ON THIS DAMN WORLD TO KEEP IT ALL RIGHT IN ONE HEAD.
Ahem.
"Time to go!" Shouts the fox as Jacob gives him the opening he needs to scramble out of the way. He'll thank Jude and his bird later, for now though he'll keep his eye on the orange flash of teleporting energy that seems to be coming from wherever the mecha-bird landed. He'll reach out to help Molly along, still spraying fire behind them as he goes. "First you like flowers and now you're trying to fly! What's gotten into you today!" He calls towards her as he offers cover. "Jude! Phrasing!" He adds as he tries to help the woman towards the dubious safty of yet one more teleport.
...one innards lurching moment later the fox stands in a new room. With a new garden. One that is as strange and beautiful as the rest of the place.
One that holds a familiar figure in complete thrall.
"...yeah." The fox says with a shake of his head as Jude speaks. "She's good at that. Always finding new ways of making our lives difficult."
His arms are folded as he stares at the strangeness of the tree and its prisoners with a half smile on his face. "This is a good one though. Byte." As Morgan calls out a tiny flickering mote of white light flickers into existence. It bobs around the foxes head for a moment before Morgan nods forwards.
"What do you make of that?"
The light bobs again before fluttering forwards and then back. "Weird!" Comes a voice from said light.
A sigh as the fox gives the little ball a sideeye. "One day I'll get you fixed. Right now, just help us find the right sequence."
"Wierdweirdweirdweirdwierd."
The fox snorts. "You said it."
Then he'll step forwards, trying to figure a sequence that might just release her from the bonds while Jude works on the tree itself.
There is though a slow smirk as he looks back towards Molly a wicked and sharp grin. "I told you. She's full of surprises."
DG: Morgan Newkirk has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Jude coming to stand between her and the beast is enough, for now, for Gwen to politely forget about any comments he made about them being possibly fused with gnats or whatnot. And how Jacob comes in to save the day seems to settle the matter entirely. Jude's okay in her book now.
For now. Even with... whatever he just said, as the creature retreated.
Seeing the glint of a familiar metal object in Jacob's claws, Gwen stops in her tracks. This could be a good thing, or a bad thing.
Gwen naturally chooses to believe it's a good thing.
~*~~
A nearly perfect melding of synthetic and biological.
"Ca...."
Gwen takes back everything she said, About assuming Cassidy'd be alive, joking about how she'd be laughing at them, or how, at the very least, they'd find a whole body they could give a proper funeral to. The latter option was one that Gwen's mind naturally blanked out on.
Cassidy is alive.
Gwen would've commented on Morgan's new 'pet', or laughed at their remarks at the utter absurdity of the situation.
She just can't, because images of Jack, Harken, and Alhazrad flicker through her mind. Is this what happened to Elmina? Is this what's happening to Cassidy?
Panick begins to build in her stomach.
Gwen's hand touches her own chest, where her heart is, through the fabric of her poncho. She closes her eyes.
She decided to survive, no matter what.
"We just need to figure out how to get her down." she states solidly, opening her eyes, her resolve strengthening through the added comradery of those around her. "If she's the same Cassidy when we get her down, that's all that matters." Noticing the panel that Jude begins working on, Gwen winces. "Never was musically inclined." Maybe there's something else she can do.
Like walk right up to the upsidedown Cassidy, reach out, and gently poke her in the forehead. "Don't worry, Cass. We got cha. Not sure what the future's gonna be like, but trust me when I tell you this..."
She looks at the melding metalwork attached to Cassidy and swallows.
"If there're any consequences to this, you won't be alone in havin' to try to deal with 'em. So hold on tight. Things might be gettin' a little bumpy from here on out."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Growth Algorithm.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
+++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Teleporting Teleporter *>+++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 |
+++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >++++++++++++++
Your path leads you to a ledge, which stands above a platform below. No
pathway leads on from that platform, and the floor has numerous patterns of
sharp, painful spikes across it. Instead, there is a teleporter tile. Just
before you leap below, though, it flashes -- and reappears a distance away.
It keeps flashing and reappearing, requiring you to time a jump perfectly to
land on the teleporter.
+Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Vault+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jude's workings on the trunk, like the instrument to which he has a surprisingly adept facility, causes the branches to shudder. They struggle to extend upwards, but something about the sequence he and Morgan try isn't quite right. Even Jacob doesn't seem to have much effect.
But the sounds they produce. Melodious and discordant in different measures, from the redhaired reporter's expertise, to everyone else's improvisations. The living metal grille that holds Cassidy in place seems to not agree with it as it continue to shift like a nest of metallic snakes, pulling away from the body and winding down away from the stone trunk, to delve right into the roots. It leaves the woman free, gravity conspiring to have her back slide along the trunk to rest on the natural cradle the base of the Tree of Life makes, her head lolling sideways this time.
Unconscious, still. Asleep still.
But after a few moments of being released from the liquid metal, and what it's supposed to do, a single eye cracks open, peering from underneath a fringe of tousled hair. Images swim blurrily from without, slowly rediscovering the edges of defined shapes - people, and words, conversation that attempts to push through the cotton inside of her skull. And she feels...
...fine. She feels no aches, or pains, the agony of broken bones and pulverized meat. Confusion slowly worms through her addled senses...
And recognition flares within the depths of a virid stare shot with gold.
After a few moments of silence, chapped lips part to speak. And if there are any doubts that whatever this is has changed her...
"...if this is a token rescue," she remarks lowly, groggily. "....what contest in Hell did I lose?"
...her first few words after emerging from another situation that should have killed her ought to banish them well enough.
She sports the clothing she wore, still, while in Wayside, missing buttons, damaged corset and the metal chains and plates that provide additional protection poking out through gaps in leather. Hand pressing on the trunk, she moves to stand, swaying slightly on one side. Fingers press against the side of her face, stifling a groan.
"Where the fook are we? It smells like..."
With her sleep-fog slowly dissipating, she stares at their surroundings with the muted surprise of someone who has just woken up to another world.
"....plants...?"
What?
The branches refuse to grow, denying them a way out. But there is an alternative route: there is a narrow path out leads to a ledge, visible from their higher vantage point....and more platforms which to navigate.
DG: Vorthuzahl has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
The tree refuses to grow. Refuses to make them a path out. As if they simply weren't good enough, or perhaps did not meet the Elw's impossible standards of perfection.
In any other situation, Jude Moshe would have an endlessly glib comment about this locked and loaded. No doubt something about how the Elw's fate is hardly surprising when they have the least hospitable homes in the entire world. But none come. And maybe that's just the only, subtle sign of where his priorities are, right now.
Because a way out isn't really what he's looking for.
Instead, he just focuses on the dextrous dance of his fingers across panels and crystalline bark until, eventually, tendrils of branches and living metal shrink away from Cassidy like bundles of worms retreating from the sun. She slumps, and for a moment, Jude just watches, as if expectant, as that liquid metal bleeds away. She's unconscious for now.
But he knows Cassidy isn't the type to let herself be at that kind of ease for long.
So, as gold-flecked eyes of green slowly start to flutter open, the reporter crouches down beside her. His head tilts. And as her vision finds itself... he greets her with the cool familiarity of his lopsided smile.
"Morning," is the first thing he says to her first, mumbled words. What contest in Hell did she lose?
"Don't worry," he assures. "It's a lot worse than that." His hand reaches out, to take hers.
"Welcome to Heaven on earth, Cassie."
And with that promising answer, he'll slowly lift himself up, intent to help the blonde onto her feet only as far as she needs -- or wants -- before she can move on her own. Move her up, so she can see it all. All that plant-life. And moss. And natural life woven seamlessly into baffling technology, all around them.
"I think the Elw are trying to punish us from beyond the grave for playing with their toys," he explains to her, simply, before his amber eyes slide her way.
"So," he continues, as he carries her with them, towards those teleporting platforms, "have a refreshing trip to the afterlife, Cassie?"
It's about the only way he asks about what happened. But that's just how they are.
Perhaps a more clear indication of how serious he is, is the lack of tormenting the others about portals this time as he approaches, and prepares for the right time to move.
He'll just have to let his previous work stand for itself.
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"I don't know," Comes the Foxes drawl to that single groggy question. "But for us to be the rescue team it must have been a hell of a bet." The relief in the drifter's words is easy enough to hear even if his lips are curved into a mocking smirk. "But I think you're gettin' the group you deserve."
Byte circles Morgan's head at this point, continuing his chant of 'Weird'.
Look the VI is a little broken ok!!
He'll reach out to help steady her. "You're in the garden of delights and were all part of your imagination." He adds as he tries to steady her. Eyes casting round to find some way out past the stubborn vines that refuse to budge in any way.
At least the woman isn't being devoured by living metal now.
"Also," Morgan adds as he tilts his head towards that ledge. ARM glowing with energy as he starts to build an energy web to help with the climb. "The Elw were a goddamn bag of dicks." A beatpause. "Just saying. Though they do know how to decorate. Trust them to keep all the gardens to themselves though, and get mad at us for trespassing."
DG: Morgan Newkirk has used his Tool Force Lash toward his party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
<Pose Tracker> Molly Mason has posed.
What contest in Hell? "You're apparently friends with Morgan," Molly remarks, not standing yet. Her legs ache a bit, despite Morgan's help in running from the goo dragon thing. "This is the kind of bullshit he brings along with him." She gives the Beastman the side-eye, something wry twisting her mouth. "Also goddamn it you mangy fox, stop saying shit like that to someone that almost died. Someday someone will believe it."
With a sigh, she pushes herself up off of the ground, swallowing the last bit of her berry. It helps; she's not so sore as she was, though she'll be feeling this adventure tomorrow. Naturally, she will blame Morgan for asking her along and not herself for going with him. "So you're the famous Cassidy Cain. Good to see you breathing."
It's a bit of a shame that she can't take anything back home, but Molly doesn't trust anything enough to bring her mother back a souvenir. It'd be just her luck if a stolen flower grew eight legs and five mouths or something, and then she'd just have to shoot it. Better to not waste a bullet.
She's not a fast climber, but she's steady. "We better not be stuck here for the rest of time or some shit."
DG: Molly Mason has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen takes a moment to look towards Jude and Morgan. "How's it coming along?"
If there's an answer to that, there's not much time to give it, as the metallic restraints release Cassidy, gravity being allowed to take control.
"HUP!" Gwen tries to grasp Cassidy before she falls, but gravity proves itself as far faster than Gwen's reaction time at the moment. Seeing Cassidy slowly come awake, Gwen's lips curl into a sheepish laugh. "Er, uh, sorry 'bout that, eheh... You, uh, feelin' okay?" She shares a glance at Morgan, Molly, and Jude, stepping back to allow Jude to help Cassidy up. That is, if Cassidy will allow for that.
But where to, now? They got here more or less in one piece, but how are they going to get back down? "Aw, c'mon, Cass, what sorta Hell'd involve a nice courier like me?" Gwen offers what she thinks is an innocent smile, but it likely is still distorted from her grimace from earlier. "You look great fer someone who's supposed to be dead."
Someone who was supposed to be dead, because of Gwen.
... But that's one of the myriad of reasons she's here, isn't it? Here, and alive, greeting someone who is also alive.
Gwen's ungloved hand moves up to the cord of leather around her neck, and the few pearls it holds. "Sorry I couldn't grab all of em', and they definitely need some better presentation, but these belong to you. Just lemme get the knot... out..." Gwen fiddles with the knot at the back of her neck. "Damn it, I tied the knot too tight! Uh-"
Better save it for later. They have to get out of here. Gwen's fog blue gaze settles on the platforms. "Well, this'll be a doozie t'pull off, won't it..."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Cassidy, this is Molly. Molly. This is Cassidy. You have a lot in common. You both shoot people and blame me for everything."
DG: Cassidy Cain has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Teleporting Teleporter.
DG: Cassidy Cain is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Vorthuzahl is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Gwen Whitlock is too exhausted to continue!
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain 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> Cassidy Cain has posed.
A familiar face, in particular, swims before her eyes - like reflection on moving water, it slowly solidifies itself once the wind has stopped and her senses have righted themselves. Jude Moshe, intrepid reporter for the Guild Gazette, armed with an expression so familiar, she can etch every trace of it with her eyes closed.
Welcome to Heaven on earth, Cassie.
"Saying that while being the first thing I see when I wake up," she murmurs. "S'pose being as talented as you are, you cannae help but be confident." As always, no matter what state she's in, she can still aim those verbal shots with remarkable precision, but it is her smile that carries the truth of it. Absent, almost dreamy, but genuinely meant, its usual edges blunted by a different sort of brilliance.
Nevermind that she knows that's not really what he means. As his tanned fingers reach for her pale ones, they intertwine and tighten, words bandied about to mask an exchange that do not need much of them. She slowly stands, though her other hand lifts when Morgan grasps her by the forearm, to help the injured reporter right her back up. At the relief on his face, something unreadable passes through the look of her, and while she says nothing, her hand reaches out, to tug lightly on one of the fox man's ears, followed by a wry turn of her mouth. As always, she says nothing, ill-equipped with the ability to express softer sentiments, leaving gestures to speak for her.
Her sharpening stare falls on the faintest smear of blood on the corner of the reporter's mouth, easily glimpsed with how he directs her to see the vista presented before them.
And now she knows what he means. For as jaded as she is...
...she has always been drawn to beautiful and imperfect things, much like the pearls she usually wears - what she has lost. Ruins steeped in lush, colorful beauty amidst the backdrop of cloud-clotted mountains, the expression on her face is appreciative to the point of indescribable. It is not every day that she wears anything other than her usual blunt mischief and cynicism openly. For a second or two, she is actually stunned.
Eyes slowly turn towards the rest - Morgan and his scars, Gwen and her missing arm. Molly and her obvious limp, a face that she recognizes from Morgan's past.
Jude, himself.
Beautiful and imperfect things.
Green-and-gold irises fall on Gwen and at the pearls she gestures to around her neck, something more inscrutable slips over her eyes. A hand reaches out, to toy with the lustrous beads - fewer now, than they were, but they have not all been lost. Not all of them, this time. Not everything. Something fountains up between her ribs, a dull ache...bittersweet, but not unwelcome.
"Methinks you saved them from myself, luv," she tells her simply. "Dinnae have tae say sorry after that, ay? We can worry about them later, once everything else is settled. Hold ontae them for now."
She cracks a grin after that and it reflects the dying sun, gleaming off pearlined edges at the quips bandied in her direction - the Elw getting mad at playing with their toys. Morgan's remark about ancient long-earned beings keeping all of this to themselves and getting mad for trespassing. Molly's own shots against Morgan. "S'been a while," she tells Molly, first. "Climbing all the way here, then? Cannae ask for better physical therapy, methinks."
With Jude's support, the two of them move with the rest, to slip down the narrow path.
So, have a refreshing trip to the afterlife, Cassie?
"Ay, well. The usual," she says, good-humor and exasperation curling over her brogue. "A whole lot of nothing. Peaceful, but a place cannae help but be boring, without you there." She tilts her head at him, flashing him a wink. But after a short, expectant wait, brows lift to her hairline. "Since you dinnae keel over from that bit of outrageous flirting, though, I'm assuming this is nae another traipse intae some imagined paradise and this is actually happening."
And at the sight of those platforms, her expression flattens.
"Ay. This is actually happening. Think we oughtae do the tortoise approach for now."
With that, she takes a ginger step onto the platform along with the rest and it teleports them out....
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++ <* CHALLENGE - Not One! Not Two! But Three Giant Rolling Rocks! *>+++++++
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
++++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >+++++++++++++++
Sometimes, the pathways through the Pleasing Gardens lead inside. Here, you
find yourselves coming to a cross-shaped intersection. Which is when you
also hear a soft "click." Behind you, there is a rumble, and a massive round
rock drops down, and rolls straight towards you.
Then, a second one drops down from the ceiling in front of you. It starts rolling forward -- and a third drops down from the left, leaving one hallway to rush towards.
And yes, somehow, each boulder will turn the corner and chase you.
+Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Overwhelm++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...to a place somewhere within the labyrinthine construct that makes up the strange heart of the skyborne island.
It is a cavernous chamber once they step off a platform, and certain doom comes in the form of clicks as three heavy thumps fall on the ground. Boulders that start to roll towards them...
....boulders that do not manage to get to them, because...
DG: Jude Moshe has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Not One! Not Two! But Three Giant Rolling Rocks!.
DG: Morgan Newkirk has used his Tool Force Lash toward his party's challenge, Not One! Not Two! But Three Giant Rolling Rocks!.
DG: Molly Mason has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Not One! Not Two! But Three Giant Rolling Rocks!.
DG: Jude Moshe is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Morgan Newkirk is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Molly Mason is too exhausted to continue!
DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over.
DG: The party led by Cassidy Cain has been fully Exhausted by The Pleasing Garden!
DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <* The Pleasing Garden *>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++ <* CHALLENGE - The Terrible Depths *>++++++++++++++++++++++
|Type: Escape |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
++++++++++++++ < Challenge Information: >+++++++++++++++
In the midst of crossing the Pleasing Garden, you are knocked off the
platforms. At first, it seems like certain death -- but as you go crashing
down through the sky, you slam into a building below. There is a network of
narrow, decaying passages that lead into the Pleasing Garden's depths --
filled with vicious, half-shattered constructs.
OOC: You have fallen into the depths of the Garden! If you choose to come to
"My Way" or "Under My Skin," you can enter through the depths. Assume you
had a long, arduous journey through the depths (and determine the details
are you see fit).
+Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
So, have a refreshing trip to the afterlife, Cassie?
Trust them to keep all the gardens to themselves though, and get mad at us for trespassing.
We better not be stuck here for the rest of time or some shit.
Well, this'll be a doozie t'pull off, won't it...
Ay. This is actually happening. Think we oughtae do the tortoise approach for now.
They joke and speak as friends would speak, as if their world is not befit of a terrible doom, one already woven into a tapestry of fate. They take their steps and find themselves ELSEWHERE, a cavern most immense, one that seems all but devoid of the life they saw all around them just moments before.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
(BGM: Monster Hunter World - Battle/Bazelgeuse)
Dislodged by the energy discharge of the teleportation, one entire wall collapses in a crash and the largest of the boulders tumble forth to bring them an inescapable, certain doom. Or would have, if not for the sudden lash of a metal tail that utterly annihilates the first boulder into a fine, grey dust that will shower them in a near-blinding cloud. The other boulders bounce in the wake of that tail, and for the heroes gathered, those who have come to save a friend, the threat has become something else entirely.
Red eyes open, reptilian and burning through the dust as anything molten might, and so too does that voice made of a malice older then them all, a primordial evil reforged into the shape of a reptilian God. Wings draw back, swirling the air and rumbling the cavern as he the Dragonlord speaks, the unmistakable voice of Vorthuzahl enough to nearly bring the cavern down on it's own.
"Not an end so swift, so just, for the friends of the Corseted Curse upon this world. No, you will all live to know that what you could not do, I have done. And Cassidy Cain, you will have survived by my hand, for I will have my victory. I will have my enemy's hopelessness reflected in my eyes!! PREPARE YOURSELVES, FOR THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS PLACE, CREATURES MEANT ONLY TO DIE, IS THROUGH!!!"
The whole of its body crashes down, a great shadow before them that quite literally splits the earth. Fire erupts over head, cascades all around, smoke chokes and threatens to suffocate. Then gravity, and the fall, a tumble into an abyss....
....of an underground river, one that is a far more safe place than any other they have encountered this day.
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF DREAMCHASERS: "UNDER MY SKIN"