2018-03-15: An Obscure Relief
- Log: An Obscure Relief
- Cast: Loren Voss, Elhaym van Houten
- Where: Tintagel Ruins
- Date: March 15th 2018
- Summary: Elly and Loren set out in search of a missing patrol group. Instead, they find a particularly hostile ruin.
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Tintagel Ruins. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Go No Further *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Oh hey, look, the door is open! That's good! Oh hey, look, the door immediately shut behind you! That's bad! But there's a door over there! That's good! But there's no immediately noticeable way of opening it. That's bad. But maybe you can just beat the crap out of it until you destroy an ancient and valuable piece of history just for the selfish sake of proceeding further in your adventures! ... ... ... That's good?? =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
After the crash came the real challenge. It didn't take long for the crew to find out where they were, generally, but that only granted them some marginal gain since, technically speaking...
No, they do not really know where they are outside the immediate sea of trees the Tzadkiel had landed within.
Hence a few expeditions were in order.
Largely, they've found that there are definitely a lot of trees, and some not-too-friendly wildlife creatures.
It's possibly the former, possibly (and somewhat more likely, banking on past reporting) the latter that's the reason why another group has failed to check in as scheduled. Consequently, another group has been sent to see if they can find anything.
Said group includes Second Lieutenants Elly van Houten (Infantry) and Loren Voss (Medical).
----
In a distant way, he's a little impressed just how much moss can grow in a forest this dark and tree-laden. Save from a brief interruption by a rather hostile and very purple deer, progress has been steady, though without sign of the missing patrol.
It's for other reasons that Loren has been on edge the entire trek, however. He straightens from investigating what is clearly a recently used camping site deep within the ruins -- in the process of being eaten by the forest -- and glances sidelong over at Elly.
As if he were wondering if she were considering something untoward.
No one would ever hear you scream.
He grimaces at that thought, then indicates at the recently-used bedding strewn about this chamber. "Someone's been using this as a camp often, possibly as recently as the last week or two. But not recently enough to be one of ours." He doesn't see any other indications of it, either. "Still, it's possible they came this way."
Which just means venturing onwards, into the depths of whatever remains of the ancient fort.
The moment they step beyond the next set of doors is the moment those doors slam shut with a very particular sort of finality. Loren immediately rounds back on the door and shoves his whole body into it in an attempt to budge it.
Spoiler: it doesn't move an inch. Sorcerial trickery is possibly involved.
There is, however, another door. A more... tender-looking stone door (to the right sort of eye) than the monstrosity behind them.
Giving up on the impossible task, he sighs, slouching against the treacherous door. "This looks like your speciality, van Houten," he says, before sinking himself a portion of his will into the door before them and scrambling its structure in the most elemental of ways. "...I suppose the other team would have been caught by a trap like this themselves."
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Go No Further.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly van Houten had been laid up for two days with strain in the cranial nerves. Nothing too terminal - basically a medicalized form of fatigue - but it means she didn't go anywhere right away.
She woke on another world.
Her briefing suggested the obvious answer that there was a massive distortion that they only survived due to the power of the Tzadkiel and the armor of their Gears. Something in Elly tells her, though, that - somehow -
Maybe he got clear, Elly tells herself. 'He' is in this context one particular person, though she has spared thoughts for many of those present.
But...
Maybe she won't ever...
...
Anyway, that's why Elly van Houten, agent of G.E.B.L.E.R., has been subdued coming out here. Lost in her own thoughts, relatively subdued, Loren has no doubt had the impression that she's plotting to axe him. It doesn't help that she's back in uniform and even has her sidearm, although it has a modified mag with three heavy anti-wildlife rounds instead of the usual -Lamb- -Blasters-.
The structure is an obscure relief. Less so the slam of the doors.
Even so, Elly... laughs? It's kind of tired, but it's the brightest moment she's had since waking back up.
"I suppose the perils of doors don't change... even on other worlds entirely... do they?" she says, before she breathes out and expresses her focus forwards. It's a simple motion - disrupting the stone, spreading it apart like melting margarine on a slice of toast.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Go No Further.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Go No Further *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Oh hey, look, the door is open! That's good! Oh hey, look, the door immediately shut behind you! That's bad! But there's a door over there! That's good! But there's no immediately noticeable way of opening it. That's bad. But maybe you can just beat the crap out of it until you destroy an ancient and valuable piece of history just for the selfish sake of proceeding further in your adventures! ... ... ... That's good?? =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 1 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Go No Further >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Overzealous(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Loren Voss has posed.
The silence, perhaps, has generally been mutual -- between the thoughts weighing heavily on his own mind, the worries that linger in lockstep alongside them, his own lingering fatigue (that he'd downplayed when requesting to return to active duty, but which even a couple days' rest hasn't completely eliminated, between his deep and abiding suspicion of his fellow lieutenant...
Well, it hasn't been a chatty expedition between the two of them.
If he'd thought he'd get any reduction in his overall level of stress, well, so far it's just not happening.
"...What are you even talking about?" He's a little short, tone clipped when she comments on the nature of doors across worlds. But though he shakes his head as if in disbelief at it...
His gaze rests on her as she converts with a thought stone into slag.
Fear? Envy? ...Both?
It's ridiculous in a way and he knows it -- that level of power is a liability. He wouldn't know what to do with it. Fear by contrast is more reasonable, considering what she did to certain members of their graduating class.
Nevertheless, there's that sickening twist of envy's knife. With that sort of power she--
...
Between the destabilization of the stone door and the sudden melting of it, it would seem that something structurally has gone awry. The door might not block their path in any significant manner... but there's part of the ceiling now caved in which most certainly will cause problems.
...The stone floor is also having some problems, too. Step carefully.
"...Great job," Loren mutters, as if he wasn't the one who made that suggestion in the first place.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Squirreltastrophe *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- They're coming for you. Skittering through the ventilation of this place. Chattering with their horrible teeth. Staring at you with their gleaming eyes. Ever on the peripheries of your vision, they are. Watching. Waiting. And then you find them. A bunch of... adorable squirrels? A bunch of... adorable, Hellionized squirrels? A bunch of... adorable, Hellionized squirrels that just took down a giant Hellion ten times their size without issue and oh my god they're coming for you FIGHT OR FLIGHT FIGHT OR FLIGHT Your Doom: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-101.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound, Vault=====================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"..." Elly's eyes turn down to the floor of the ancient ruin and she doesn't reply to Loren with more words. Her arms fold. She seems to be embracing herself. Even as the ground rumbles, even as the structure is damaged. She picks her way forwards, going ahead of Loren.
He speaks again. Her head droops forwards.
Lost in thought, lost in black feelings of guilt and humiliation, Elly van Houten does not seem like much of a threat; it is probably more relaxing for Loren, at least, to be around her in this state, since she isn't chirping or bleating or trying to kill him.
Then she seems to say something.
No, it was some kind of animal.
Elly, eyes on the ground, is heedless of the gathering swarm, and their hellionized teeth and their cruel green eyes are revealed far too late, the old ventilation shafts teeming, the sudden looming roar of SOMETHING around a corner startling her -- but the squirrels are upon it.
"Oh... oh no," Elly says, glassy-eyed. "I, I'm sorry," she blithers.
She's going to get engulfed in the squirrels first -- but she doesn't seem to be even trying to get out her rod or a grenade or gather together Ether. Is she going to commit suicide by rodent in front of Loren-- no, suicide by SEVERAL HUNDRED rodents?? HUNGRY, AGGRESSIVE rodents?!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Squirreltastrophe.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The 'more relaxing' part is perhaps arguable, since though she looks very much like she's been wounded by his comment, there's a part of him that wonders still just what ticks on beneath the surface with her. There had been a time when he'd wondered if it was some act on her part, before unease and fear had parted for a strange sort of jealousy.
And now, again, he's wondering if his first impression had been correct.
Still, at least, perhaps it's some faint relief for her that he says nothing more, instead picking his way carefully across the damaged section of the ruins and climbing over the ruins for the corridors beyond.
Or, at least, not until he hear something skittering, deep in the walls.
"Did you hear that?"
His gaze lifts. Did he just see something moving quickly? Boots crunch on a mixture of moss and stonework; he rounds back the way they came, his back towards Elly.
They come as a flood. He draws his own sidearm, takes one step backwards as the horde advances as a tide and--
Something roars, further down the corridor ahead.
He glances back over his shoulder -- a shock of realization on just how unprotected he'd left himself little more than a punctuation mark in the sentence of this moment -- and watches on in something approaching numb silence as the squirrels are on it, reduce it to little more than...
Well, that's good.
"Van Houten!" This should be simple for her to handle, right, runs the most coherent of his thoughts as the squirrels switch targets and turn on them en masse.
She, however, is just standing there as if she had opted for this to be the place she died.
"What are you doing--?!" Reaching into his kit with one hand and unchaining his will just long enough to release a surge of earthen ether, he tries to hurriedly assess what might be useful or at least feasible against hundreds of ravening rodents.
This would be an embarrassing place to die, he thinks distantly.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Squirreltastrophe.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Squirreltastrophe *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- They're coming for you. Skittering through the ventilation of this place. Chattering with their horrible teeth. Staring at you with their gleaming eyes. Ever on the peripheries of your vision, they are. Watching. Waiting. And then you find them. A bunch of... adorable squirrels? A bunch of... adorable, Hellionized squirrels? A bunch of... adorable, Hellionized squirrels that just took down a giant Hellion ten times their size without issue and oh my god they're coming for you FIGHT OR FLIGHT FIGHT OR FLIGHT Your Doom: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-101.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound, Vault=====================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 2 *>========================= ========================< Results - Squirreltastrophe >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 10 --(10)--> 20 Fail Conditions: Fright(2)|Overzealous(1)|Vault(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Inside of Elly, things are less mysterious. She realizes she's let herself lose her way and lose her focus. She is going to be eaten alive by evil squirrels on an alien world.
Somehow she expected this.
"I didn't want to hurt you," Elly answers Loren with a choking sort of hesitation. Loren raises a rampart and the squirrelwave washes against it; he has bought time as the hellionized creatures pitch and wheel one over another, like living, writhing animals. Are their tails fusing together in the heat of their Malevolent infestation? Are they simply stronger here - a hive creature, like the Aveh mole-rat?
"I didn't want to hurt anybody," Elly blubbers further.
"All of this... I... I don't -"
Is she having an attack? No. Elly shakes her head violently with a rustling fluff of copper-red locks and it is at THAT moment that the hellionized rodents clear the lip of the ruins just in time for Elly to raise a hand. The etheric tension in the air inverts like a thunderstorm rolling in fast or like a void puncture in a cell in Etrenank's light pressure system.
There's a flash of shimmering white and a displacement of air that throws her hair back and then it's like a bulb going off, her eyes squinting against the light as the Thermo Cube forms and develops and bursts outwards and MELTS part of the rampart that Loren had raised, liquified stone pouring out and entombing dozens of hellionized squirrels at the same time that others are thrown back, skeletons incinerated, the stink of burning air and meat filling the ruin--
FOOM!!!
Elly coughs wretchedly in the aftermath. "... sorry... it's, ah, it's stressful, isn't it, being in a place like this? I suppose I need to get my head together..."
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Controlled Drop *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Ruins are old. There's no getting around that. It's prrrrobably why they call them ruins. Regardless, this probably helps provide some context for when the stone floors start to crumble beneath you and fall apart far more quickly than can be reacted to. So that might be a comfort for you, when you find yourself in a free-fall down deeper into the depths of the Tintagel ruins. You can try to stop your fall to climb back up, or maybe try to guide it so you don't break every bone in your body, but regardless, you are totally falling. But at least now you have context for WHY you're falling to your death. Hurray, context! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's the suddenness of this comment that steals Loren's focus -- a stutter in the manifestation of rock pulled up in a rise from the floor -- and prompts him to emit a confused, "What--?".
The context for the comment follows close at its heels, as the teeming mass of squirrels rise over the lip of the ridge he's summoned; he pours more force into it, but not nearly fast enough. They're coming.
"Van Houten, I don't know if you've noticed but we're--"
There are things that can stop him dead in his tracks. This is one of them, a heart-stopping second when it seems she's about to strike out at the world around her with blind deadly force. He's frozen there, as if uncertain whether which precise breath will be his last when the detonation of ether -- accurate, lethal -- cracks out amidst the hallway. For an instant, the rodent horde are shadows in the light. Then not even shadows.
He's blinking away the afterimages by the time the explosion dies down, waving away the air in front of his face. He can breathe. He sort of regrets it based on the quality of the air, but there's that.
"...A little less, next time?"
Her question goes unanswered, but perhaps the fact that he offers over one of the Rosesols from his pack might suggest he doesn't hold it against her (this time).
This is the point where the floor -- damaged by the uplift of rock and the subsequent blast of plasma -- decides it's had enough of this and gives out entirely.
A long dark pit awaits below. Gravity's hand is quickly a merciless one.
A wordless shout escapes from Loren as he plummets. How far down is it? He can't see the bottom, only some fading glint of light on the stonework all around him as he continues to fall--
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end, run his thoughts, unhelpfully. Even shielding himself with ether only would go so far. He'll have to--
Extending a hand, he stretches his will into the walls. It's stone, it should bend to his command--
He should be able to make--
--something--
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Controlled Drop.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly reaches out towards Loren, and his proffered Rosesol. Perhaps there can be peace among them, forged on the battlefield if nothing else. Her fingers curl -
crunkch
Elly falls and she has an idiotic little half-smile on her face for a full four seconds as the two of them descend, her hair streaming out behind her in a scenic way. She looks around for a moment, smiling continuously as she does, as if a circuit broke or as if in the depths of stress she has finally achieved FULL SERAPHITA MIND - BULLETPROOF, BUN-CRISPED ENLIGHTENMENT -
No.
I'm falling, Elly thinks. The walls are closing in - Loren's doing something -
And Elly kicks out both her legs in a perfect gymnastic leg split. She ends up lodged, with only mild hyperflexion of her hamstrings, in between the walls of the splitting crevase, the stone falling around her even as she arches her head back, grits her teeth, tries to cause some kind of buffering updraft - she reaches again, blindly to try to grab Loren -
Can her boots really make all the difference??
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, Controlled Drop.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Controlled Drop *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Ruins are old. There's no getting around that. It's prrrrobably why they call them ruins. Regardless, this probably helps provide some context for when the stone floors start to crumble beneath you and fall apart far more quickly than can be reacted to. So that might be a comfort for you, when you find yourself in a free-fall down deeper into the depths of the Tintagel ruins. You can try to stop your fall to climb back up, or maybe try to guide it so you don't break every bone in your body, but regardless, you are totally falling. But at least now you have context for WHY you're falling to your death. Hurray, context! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 3 *>========================= =========================< Results - Controlled Drop >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 40 --(5)--> 45 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Secret(2)|Slow(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Loren Voss has posed.
He has one fleeting look at her face as they fall. Of all things, she looks positively beatific, no matter the fact that they're falling towards certain injury if not death.
He'll have to wonder if it's something about Fire ether specialists -- or just particular to van Houten -- later.
Rock erupts at his beck and call, and it would have made a perfect if somewhat (but not fatally and this is the important part) painful landing if it weren't for the fact that, well.
He's currently falling past it, about two feet to the left.
This is not a good day, he thinks distantly.
And then Elly's hand closes around his wrist. That's good!
General momentum, now arrested, means he's more or less swung into the wall. That's bad!
"Gkh," Loren enunciates to the stone wall. Rock, at least, answers his will shortly thereafter, making for a better handhold.
And after a few moments, a platform of sorts.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Smoke Break *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Tintagel really liked to create chambers that just kind of lockdown at a moment's notice and leave the people inside in some sort of terrible deathtrap. Case in point: whether it be by someone deliberately or accidentally tripping something or by sheer accident or someone claiming it was sheer accident when really it was the first thing, the doors of this stone chamber abruptly seal up tight the second you walk inside. Seconds after that, vents open, filling the air with smoke, which most studies have found is, not exactly a great thing to be inhaling in large quantities, or any at all. Looking for some sort of clever mechanism to open the doors or shut off the vents or preferably both would probably be a good thing. Or you could just smoke yourself to death. Nothing is really off the table here. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Overwhelm======================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Hsshhhhhh" Elly hisses as her body strains, but he's not dangling by Elly's ligaments for long. She sags afterwards, untangling herself with a small whimper and a lingering grasp on the stone. The platform is crawled onto miserably.
Elly finally drinks the Rosesol. After this she doesn't move or progress for about twenty seconds, before exhaling, the cramp in her leg muscles - no doubt well earned - fading out.
"... I think we should... head up a little," Elly says, finally. "I saw some kind of a gap."
Soon enough - painstakingly enough - there is an opening, a circular drainpipe or sink pipe or something, long abandoned by anything but a few beetle shells. Which crunch under Elly's hands uncomfortably. It widens up afterwards. Soon enough they can walk again. Elly produces a chemical light rod in order to help them not lose their way.
"... Loren," she says. "Can I ask you a question? It's... not about me, or anything like that." It's perhaps the most she's said that wasn't strictly based in observing wildlife or other prevailing conditions.
At this point of course the lockdown comes. A red light glows in some sconse and Elly cries out, "Oh no!" just in time for that sudden HISS and the rising billow of choking, slightly greasy smoke. Whatever Elly might have said or asked vanishes into a hail of wet, miserable coughing, because of COURSE - of course it hit the blaster first. Why wouldn't it?
Think fast, Loren!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Smoke Break.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Even under better conditions, very few people could bear the full weight of another person hanging off their arm for long.
Fortunately, she won't have to bear it long -- with the raw material right at his fingertips, it's comparatively easy to bid it into the shape he desires.
He similarly doesn't move immediately, waiting apparently for her to recover before moving on.
She might just be waiting for the right time to plant the knife between his shoulderblades, but as long as she's infantry and he's medical, she's his responsibility, in a way.
Getting up into the gap isn't easy. He wonders, more than a few times -- particularly when his fingers find dessicated beetle shells -- if they shouldn't have just tried to create a way up out of the pit. But in the end, there they are, in a mysterious side passageway. Fortunately, there is light.
"What?" is the sum total of his acquiesence, such that it is, to hear out her question.
But he's never very nice to someone without immediate social authority above his own, even on the best of days.
Right now is perhaps not the best of days.
This is before the doors slam shut, sealing them into an airtight room, which quickly fills with black smoke. Even on the Old Moon, traps are built with cruel killing intent.
She's not the only one so struck by a coughing fit. But he ducks as the smoke billows over them both, cupping a hand to his mouth as a (poor) excuse of an air filter.
He grabs for the light rod -- wrenching it from her grasp if needed -- and bears it against the haze in the air. His hand departs his mouth, flitting upwards to brush against his glasses. He holds his breath.
There-- a weak spot, where the vent meets the stonework--
Desperation drives the force behind this shattering vibrational wave flung up from below. A crack is all he needs to clear the air but he'll take more than that if he can get it. If only he could break this whole room wide open.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Etheric Lenses toward his party's challenge, Smoke Break.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Smoke Break *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Tintagel really liked to create chambers that just kind of lockdown at a moment's notice and leave the people inside in some sort of terrible deathtrap. Case in point: whether it be by someone deliberately or accidentally tripping something or by sheer accident or someone claiming it was sheer accident when really it was the first thing, the doors of this stone chamber abruptly seal up tight the second you walk inside. Seconds after that, vents open, filling the air with smoke, which most studies have found is, not exactly a great thing to be inhaling in large quantities, or any at all. Looking for some sort of clever mechanism to open the doors or shut off the vents or preferably both would probably be a good thing. Or you could just smoke yourself to death. Nothing is really off the table here. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Overwhelm======================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 4 *>========================= ===========================< Results - Smoke Break >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 45 --(10)--> 55 Pass Etheric Lenses 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 45 --(15)--> 60 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 40 --(25)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Overwhelm|Secret(1)|Slow(1) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 25 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.
Naturally, Loren doesn't get his answer right away. Elly staggers and coughs, but has the presence of mind not to resist Loren when he grasps for the light rod. She pushes her hands against the wall then, struggling for breath before -
swish -
f-CRACK!
There is a sealed gap there and it ruptures, and nothing comes in - no, not nothing. The fresh sweet air of the world Lunar, pressed down gently by the inevitable increase in pressure drawn in by the subterranean location. The smoke is forced downwards enough to get down past the head and face level, which lets Elly's coughing finally stop, and, one low-key effect of Ether later, recedes further.
The room is not CLEARED, but it's possible to see in it now. Possible to breathe. It's more like a kitchen where someone burned their bacon very recently than something getting close to a gas chamber. Elly's eyes are as red as her hair, but she's able to breathe.
"C, can you see - a - a door, other than," Elly says, before there's more coughing. "Ugh, I can TASTE it..."
"That wasn't the question," Elly concludes, with a deep shuddering sniff.
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Why Did it Have to be Snakes? *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Ah, the snake trap. A classic of ruin trap design. And yet, it brings with it many troubling questions. How do the snakes live this long in ruins that have clearly been abandoned for centuries? Why does anyone think this is a practical plan? You fill a trap with snakes and -- then what? Hope one bites something instead of just trying to slither away? Well. Regardless, you just triggered a snake trap, and a lot of these concerns are voided by the fact that the snakes that drop from the ceilings are well and thoroughly Hellionized and are really, really good at biting everything around them and not slithering away. Thanks, Malevolence! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE...s: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-183.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Bad Luck=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It keeps them from dying. That's good!
The fact that Loren achieved only what he set out to do, and not anything more than that? ...Less great, as far as his ego is concerned. Logically, he knows better. His talents play out into a different realm. He doesn't -- and probably never will -- have raw destructive power the way she does. But it doesn't mean it's any less bitter a pill to swallow.
He exhales a breath, exhales stress, and regrets doing that the moment his mouth is coated with the stench of this room on his next draw of air. "...Ugh," runs his own statement on the matter.
They're still stuck in here, in the end.
"A door? --Over there." He jabs a hand its way.
"Here," he says, handing the light rod back over before stalking over to the other, smaller, less definitely sealed door.
It'll take a little doing, but between the two of them, they'll...
Honestly? This is one point where he'll encourage any mass destruction Elly offers. Forget the cautious approach, they're stuck in a room that smells like someone carbonized an entire gamebird.
Which is why, after the shards of that door's destruction likely finally settle, he glances back over his shoulder at her and asks, "So, what was it?"
Once again, she might not get a chance to actually answer. Some mechanism within the walls makes a dull 'click' and against all logical odds snakes begin to shower down from the great many holes in the ceiling.
"What? --Why?!"
Though the haze that clings to these snakes might be its own answer.
"Watch it! They're probably venemous. Careful with your fire, this time--"
His own answer to the situation is apparently to deliver unto her a prophylactic vial of antivenin, handed over before he sees to his own needs.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Why Did it Have to be Snakes?.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The up side is that Loren didn't hurl either of them into a second abyss. Elly staggers towards the door, taking back the rod and holding it aloft. This door, while apparently airtight, succumbs easily to Elly after a quick shove reveals that it needs more.
The smouldering ruins of the door aren't in the way.
She takes another deep breath and lets it out. "We're on this planet now," Elly says. "I was just... wondering... Do you think we're going to end up the same way as the Guards that --"
Elly falters.
"This place is horrible!" Elly wails in dismay. "Why are there so many snakes?!" One of them manages to fall directly onto her front and her face contorts again, this time in almost-tearful dismay at the unfairness of this turn of events; most particularly, of course, when the snake bites down.
Elly takes the antivenin and stabs it into the area near the snake, which seems pretty dug in. She hisses as it hits tissue it probably shouldn't be in - the uniform is surprisingly needle-permeable - but then the snake seems momentarily displeased, before suddenly falling off.
It's an icicle now. A snakecicle. Clutching at the wound Elly gazes forwards and says, "Don't worry."
The temperature drops two hundred degrees on the ground. Many of the snakes just straight up go 'welp' and flop over and die; some of the others actually thrash around more before they spot-freeze like some kind of low-budget movie about the gulf stream overturning circulation.
"... I'll be careful."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Why Did it Have to be Snakes?.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Why Did it Have to be Snakes? *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Ah, the snake trap. A classic of ruin trap design. And yet, it brings with it many troubling questions. How do the snakes live this long in ruins that have clearly been abandoned for centuries? Why does anyone think this is a practical plan? You fill a trap with snakes and -- then what? Hope one bites something instead of just trying to slither away? Well. Regardless, you just triggered a snake trap, and a lot of these concerns are voided by the fact that the snakes that drop from the ceilings are well and thoroughly Hellionized and are really, really good at biting everything around them and not slithering away. Thanks, Malevolence! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE...s: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-183.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Bad Luck=========================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 5 *>========================= ==================< Results - Why Did it Have to be Snakes? >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Fright(2)|Overwhelm Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Loren Voss has posed.
He blinks at her question, as if he doesn't quite understand. "The same as... what?"
Though this will have to wait as the Hellionized snakes rain down on the two officers, fangs bared.
They might get a few bites in before they're handled, should the two of them be less than savvy.
"Where are they even coming from? Is there a-- a snake nest?"
Being good at medicine does not make one necessarily good at zoology, though Loren is a lot closer to the right answer than he realizes. He kicks aside one that comes a little too close for comfort aside before handling his own injection, a wince crossing his face as the needle bites in.
Prophylactic antivenin, perhaps not a great feeling. But better than finding out whether or not they've been envenomated by some fiendish moon snake toxin or another.
Which is... probably mostly a problem for Elly, as several snakes are converted into flash-frozen snake meat.
One of them writhes on the floor before giving up the ghost. Loren just watches it.
About five seconds pass without further serpentine incident.
"...Guess that's it," he says at last.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - By Fire Be Purged *>======================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Long ago, the Tintagel referred to this corridor as the Cleansing Chamber. Now, it's just a giant hallway with a bunch of stone dragon heads mounted on the sides of the wall, but the reason such an ostentatious chamber received such an equally ostentatious name is revealed the exact second someone tries to walk past one of those mounted stone maws -- and it proceeds to spew a gout of broiling hot flames. And then they -all- start to, in irregular, hard-to-discern patterns. It seems learning those patterns might be the trick to getting through, if there weren't -so many heads- that it'd take most peope weeks of devout study and worship to learn the complexities of their firing rates and downtimes. So. Running real fast. That might also work. Maybe try that. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly is feeling a dull pain settle into her torso. Hopefully she won't have a heart attack and overlook it, given this context. She steps forwards, then, swaying slightly.
"I mean... You saw how they were... the Guard, in Adelhyde, in everywhere," Elly begins. "I don't know if this is... I may just still be recovering from the exhaust--"
FWOOSH!
The bursting eruption of incinerating fire in front of them displaces enough air to stir Elly's locks again. She almost sobs out, "How can they still be operating?!" The presence of all the dragon heads just adds insult to injury, although, at least, they're stone.
Elly raises a hand and that TENSION fills the air again - straining forth to try and snap those mouths shut. Well, that's one way to deal with things. The Ether invocation, casual as it may be in its scope and power, is going to be transient. "C, come on," she tells Loren. Her hand reaches for his -
But -
She doesn't yank it back, but Loren will actively have to take it. After this she leans down and rushes forwards, blindly maneuvering through space with a slight serpentine motion but an otherwise direct dash. There has to be an end to it all, right?
No. There is no end. Life is a hallway of agony, forever.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Sassy Boots toward her party's challenge, By Fire Be Purged.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Things snap into place. He shakes his head, as if to shrug off his own exhaustion, rather than in direct disagreement with her.
But--
He fixes her with a look. "No. It's not the same thing. I don't know what they thought they were doing, but you can't seriously be comparing the two, can you? We have our mission. They..."
He gestures vaguely. Dismissively.
"Come on. We need to hurry up and find the--"
(In actuality, and as a side note that Loren will only discover later, once back at the ship, the patrol -- having merely been waylaid and suffering a communications equipment failure -- has since made it back safely and without incident otherwise.)
(He won't be very happy about this.)
In the here and now, Loren stares into the flames a little blankly. His thoughts congeal around a single word:
Nope.
But they can't just turn around and walk out anyway, can they?
Even in the most practical sense of it. The way is blocked.
She extends a hand. Towards him. He blinks, looks at her, looks past her, down the hallway.
His head inclines in a slight nod, and he reaches out to take her hand. Is this trust, though, or just practicality? Fundamentally, there's a better chance of making it through this if they work together. He takes a breath, drawing on ether.
She'll let you burn.
As she starts forward, leading him after her, he stares at her for a moment as if in shock.
Before reality consumes illusion. For now.
He breathes out, completing the circuit. Ether settles into the both of them, granting strength and speed to exhausted and aching limbs. Just for a moment.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, By Fire Be Purged.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - By Fire Be Purged *>======================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Long ago, the Tintagel referred to this corridor as the Cleansing Chamber. Now, it's just a giant hallway with a bunch of stone dragon heads mounted on the sides of the wall, but the reason such an ostentatious chamber received such an equally ostentatious name is revealed the exact second someone tries to walk past one of those mounted stone maws -- and it proceeds to spew a gout of broiling hot flames. And then they -all- start to, in irregular, hard-to-discern patterns. It seems learning those patterns might be the trick to getting through, if there weren't -so many heads- that it'd take most peope weeks of devout study and worship to learn the complexities of their firing rates and downtimes. So. Running real fast. That might also work. Maybe try that. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
=========================<* Tintagel Ruins - Round 6 *>========================= ========================< Results - By Fire Be Purged >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 60 --(100)--> 160 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 70 --(100)--> 170 Pass Sassy Boots 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 85 --(10)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Fright(1)|Suffer(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Loren Voss is too exhausted to continue! DG: Elhaym van Houten 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 Loren Voss has been fully Exhausted by Tintagel Ruins! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* Tintagel Ruins *>============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - The Fall *>=========================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As the challenges of the final impasse in these ruins grows to be too much, escape becomes the only, viable option. Withdrawing takes you down a different path cutting through the bulk of the ruins, and it is as you go through this winding path that you see a chamber you have not yet come across: a large, circular space, the walls of this place are entirely taken up by a massive, intricately wrought mural carved into the stone itself, depicting a truly massive dragon wreathed in fel fire drowning an entire city in flames. The work looks to be of ancient Rolance stylings, and the city depicted also seems to be rendered to the architecture of ancient Rolance, as if this were representing a real event -- but just what it could mean is perhaps something left to be pondered for later, once you are back in the safe comforts outside of these ruins. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
They come to the end of the hallway and the fire fades behind them, the superheated air desperate for sustenance. Slumping against it, Elly says, weakly, "You're... right; I'm just... It's all so much. I wish we could go on leave..."
And she stops it there. It is perhaps not to her credit, but, Elly reminds herself, slowly, you aren't going to stay with them forever, are you? But maybe I'll have to, now, she thinks bleakly. But then again, they need never know, do they?
Straightening up, Elly moves - and says, "Ah! You dropped..."
Elly pauses. Then she crouches and picks up a small plastic Rosesol vial. Looking at it, then she looks to Loren. "It didn't disintegrate, but it's dry inside. So, they must have been here recently..."
-=-=-=-
The campsite has no lingering traces of the technology of Solaris, but if you're familiar with procedure it is clear that there was a small campfire on a stand, three bunk spaces, and a distinct lack of blood or corpse remains, or signs of a severe struggle.
The mural looms behind them, a titanic dragon and fire bathing a city. Elly purses her lips. Especially as she sees the trail towards what seems to be an upward arching passageway. "Ah, I see," she says, quiet, ashen. "We must have taken another route."
-=-=-=-
The exit is completely uneventful other than a couple of stray antelope, partially Hellionized and extremely bludgeoned, probably by
"The team."
-=-=-=-
Three pressure plates have three different sets of weights on them from a nearby moss-covered rack.
"The team," Elly says, stonily.
-=-=-=-
The place where they came in is revealed as a fallen piece of masonry is shoved out of the way. "It must have fallen recently," Elly says, glacially.
-=-=-=-
At the crashed Tzadkiel, "Lucky" Bergenholm looks up from where he's been eating a pot of soylent hash. "Oh! Voss, van Houten! Hi! Wow, you guys look awful!"
MacDougall, who is also a redhead with a completely different color mood to Elly, points a spoon towards Elly's front. "Did you get bit?" she asks.
"Ha ha!" says Bergenholm brightly. "You're going to hate us for this, but we actually just had a circadian rhythm problem. When we got out of the ruin we realized we were sixteen hours late - we must have been exhausted by the trip!"
Van Buskirk, the beefy guy with the nunchucks, chortles heartily. "Lab's seeing if we can process those runner things, though. We figure they've gotta have unmutated forms, cuz these ones can't - uh -"
"I'm just glad you are all safe," says Elly, glassily.
"Yes I did," she concludes. "I need to go throw up now, so please excuse me."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He similarly allows himself to lean against the wall, closing his eyes briefly as his cheek presses against the stone. "Ha... Go on leave, huh..."
He straightens, turning to flatten against the wall, opening his eyes to stare unfixedly at the opposite wall. "There's nowhere to go but the ship, though..."
And you don't feel the least bit at home there, do you. Not anymore. ...Or was it ever?
His thoughts are quite pointedly elsewhere when Elly comments that he's dropped something. He jerks away from the wall. "Where? ...That's not one of..." He meets her gaze.
The both of them have approximately the same brainwave, it seems.
-=-=-=-
It doesn't take long to track backwards from there to the campsite, to ascertain the little tell-tale signs only someone like them would know to look for. "No signs of disruption. They decamped without incident." He glances back over his shoulder, sighting the mural.
Turns to face it and regards it for a moment.
"...Huh."
He turns back towards Elly. "See if there are any signs. They must have left from here."
-=-=-=-
There are.
A great many.
Signs.
...Loren's expression ultimately crosses some sort threshold for blank world-weary. Catapults right into some sort of murderous barely-defrosted stare.
His ultimate lament for an unkind and unfeeling world is thus: "...Why."
-=-=-=-
So by the time they all get back to the ship and meet the lot of them right outside with barely a scratch to show for it, well.
A gaze is traded between the three of them, withering and weary.
Loren sighs, shoulders slouching. "Perhaps I'll take you up on the suggestion, Bergenholm."
Is it... at all possible to commit murder by staring alone? Is this a power that he can have, immediately?
Such thoughts aren't a comfort for long.
"I need to throw up now," Elly announces.
"Not here!" ...And he launches right into crisis-management mode.