2018-07-15: Stone Lotus
- Log: Stone Lotus
- Cast: Yarobeleedt, Fei Fong Wong, Cyre H. Lorentz, Rebecca Streisand, Dean Stark, Seraph Beast, Avril Vent Fleur, Cecilia Adlehyde, Ida Everstead-Rey
- Where: Mount Manfred
- Date: July 15th 2018
- Summary: In search of answers, Fei ascends Mt. Manfred with his friends. The way up is difficult and plagued by the Malevolence clinging to the mountain, and atop the summits and outside the gates to the castle, a potential tragedy unfolds.
DG: A party led by Fei Fong Wong is now entering Mount Manfred. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - The Shuddering Bridge *>==================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The only way up the mountainside is a precarious footpath that might once have been a cobblestone road. Up ahead is a decaying stone guard post, which seems to be an indicator that you're going in the right direction. Unfortunately, it's at the far end of a wide, steep-sided ravine. At one point, there was a bridge here, but now the only thing left of that bridge is a handful of chunks of rock, suspended in mid-air by the Malevolence saturating the mountainside. Tension builds in the air. The Malevolence takes hold of fear, indecision, and anxiety, amplifying them. Little worries seem terribly important, and deep fears grow all the more ominous. The floating stones shake and whimper whenever they're touched. This will not be a pleasant crossing. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
LAST TIME ON YOU'RE CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN FEI FONG WONG
Seraph Lanval says, "Maaaaaaaaaaybe don't climb that evil malevolence mountain?"
Fei says, "But I gotta. It's spooky. A friend may be there."
"Well okay," Seraph Lanval says. "Want some tea?"
A RANDOM FIRE TYPE SERAPH OUT OF NOWHERE, "NO TEA FOR YOU! GO AWAY YOU SUCK"
Then Fei slapped that Fire Seraph in the face.
NOW
Fei Fong Wong has an interest in scaling Mt. Manfred and has asked Dean (who presumably asked Rebecca and Avril) to join him figuring that his anime level of cheer and good will towards all (but mostly golems) will help deal with the rigors of pushing through a triple domain malevolence-fest. Similarly, he asked Cecilia to join him because, well, Jack's probably there and besides which SOMEONE has to purify and/or explode these people. That's a good reason for Cecilia to come along. Fei similarly invited Cyre to come along just in case. As for Beast?
Well, Fei didn't ask Beast to come along. This was less out of hubris or ill will than it is general uncertainty about dragging a Seraph into hellion-space.
But perhaps Beast invited herself.
Nevertheless, Fei has brought along some climbing gear but is largely going as he always does since he figures he's here mostly to punching problems. "If it's not them, it's still worth heading in and seeing what the fuss about," He is saying as he walks up the mountainside. "But we should try to get there in as good condition as we can."
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Now is about when Cyre really wishes that TERRIBLE MENAGERIE EXPLORATION didn't necessitate leaving his favorite flying cape at home. Instead, he'll just need to make do with climbing this horrible malevolent mountain the hard way. Honestly, he'd really prefer to just stand waaaaay back and fire lasers at it for however long it would take for Solais Emsu to reduce the thing to dust, BUT Fei asked him nicely.
So, you know, obligations.
"And if it IS them, then what do we do?" Cyre asks, hopping up onto a stony outcropping with all the catlike agility of... Well. Of a cat. Being a beastman comes in handy sometimes. "I'm personally for beating them up until they regret what they did, but I'm guessing that might not be the best idea today."
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca isn't too resonant, so she doesn't quite quite understand when she's entered a malevolent domain before they even hit the mountain. She does however - start to experience the effects some, "Say - remember when we fought that - thing - and found that cave? Well rumor has it that... that place was cursed."
She let's out this small laugh, like she's trying to play it off and it's not working. "So just hypothetically speaking - what if the whole mountain range is cursed? Just saying."
It's a little off for her as Rebecca isn't the most superstitious person. In fact she seems like the first person who'd roll her eyes at things.
Right now she's dressed warmly, but otherwise lightly. Her shorts having been traded out for fur-lined climbing pants and a heavy coat slung around her shoulders.
A pack with food, climbing gear, and some camping gear but otherwise... nothing that would weigh her down.
"And fighting these folks on a cursed mountain - doesn't sound like the best plan. My vote is that we all be a little extra careful today - and don't do anything rash if we run into them."
She raises a hand up high like she actually is taking a vote, "Anyone with me on that? Anyone?"
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The other day at Pendrago Castle was pretty rough, but nearly getting sliced in half won't stop Dean from helping his friends help his other friends! Thanks to Jay's healing magic via the Guardian Grudiev, his wounds have even been patched up, though he probably doesn't want to overexert himself or he'll end up opening the slash on his stomach. Probably he should rest before heading to that place that Avelina said that Neriah was going, especially considering she talked about a statue of the stars or something along those lines, but, well, this just isn't something he can ignore. That's why he asked Rebecca and Avril to come too; not only are they his best friends, but he can count on them to watch his back as they climb this mountain!
This. Triple-Malevolent Domain mountain. With Hellions who probably aren't open to visitors, even if Dean is friends with (one of) them.
"Yeah, I agree," Dean says to Fei. Where the climb is especially steep, he uses his Freeze Ray to make climbable ice blocks to make the ascent easier. He pauses at Cyre's input, then makes a face. "I'm more for trying to talk to them first. If they want to fight it out, that's one thing, but we should at least *try* to help them peacefully. Right, Rebecca?"
He looks over at his redheaded friend, whom he doesn't know has recently brawled it out with Ida. She talks about the mountain range being cursed. He blinks at her, but then she brings it in. Dean scratches his head. "Well... That Malevolence stuff sure *sounds* like a curse... I don't think it'd hurt to be cautious, at least until we find whoever's living on this mountain. At least, we gotta get there in one piece first!"
W-wait, did Dean just agree to be *cautious*? He must've gotten hurt worse in that fight yesterday than he's letting on.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Freeze Ray toward his party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
Conviction and certainty...
Ah, they should not wound so deeply. The words of an interloper are just that: poison things to wear away at the inner workings of the soul. The Trial Knight cannot know her.
(And yet the Trial Knight knew she was no elder.)
The Beast of Lohgrin has come to the base of the mountain which holds Ida in thrall. She comes here, at times. She does not ever climb far. It is an ill place, for the likes of her. It only promises ruin. There is so much she could lose - so slight the chance of success against a mind so tainted.
But she knows the purpose of her vessel.
And she has never shied from the truth. Has she?
When Fei comes to this place, he will find the Beast lurking there, and she will insert herself into his party as soon as she reckons his intention to climb. No matter the unfortunate ending of their last meeting... she is not blind to Ida's pain. She can no longer wait at the edges, fearing for the safety of it.
Perhaps it's a boon, that she dwells in such a vessel - broad iron plates, the size of a carthorse, draconic shape. It means she is visible, at least, to those without Resonance, even if they cannot hear her say: "They have listened to reason before. I am sure they will do so again." There is an underpinning of unnerved energy to the words, though they are meant as a comfort. Even here, the Malevolence can be felt.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Dean had asked, so naturally Avril had come along with. It's as simple as that for her.
Besides which, if what he had said was true -- that it was possible this was where the three of them had holed up -- then it was doubly important that they investigate further.
Perhaps it was because, in turn, they were important to Dean. Perhaps it was the mysterious origin of the forboding she had received regarding the three of them, those many months ago.
Perhaps it might even be by turns what had happened at the library in Vane.
But she could tell immediately upon her own entrance across the border of the domain that things are horribly awry in here. Whatever reasons she might have had, they now pale against the threat this domain poses by itself, a realization made plain by the way she had paled when crossing that boundary.
"It may be that they have made use of or accessed something that already existed," Avril comments now, similarly bundled up against the chill hanging in the air. "Perhaps that is another thing we should investigate, if we are able." She pauses, her gaze gliding away. "The... presence of the Malevolence here is rather strong. It may only grow more so the higher we climb. We should proceed with caution."
Which, as it happens, is also a topic Rebecca speaks to.
"Yes. We are not here for a confrontation," Avril agrees with Rebecca, inclining her head in a formal nod. "We are only here to learn more about this place... and the means by which we might reason with them. We should proceed as prudently as is possible."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde, Rightwise Born Princess of Adlehyde, Crown Princess to the Royal Throne of A Duchy Somehow, Princess-Medium of the People of Adlehyde, Glutton Princess, has been called out to do her dang job and slap the taste out of Jack van Burace's mouth and also heal his troubled soul. As for the others...
Cecilia's fingers, as they do often when she is troubled, curl in the black undershirt she wears beneath her vests, looking up at the mountain they are to climb. "I can hear it," she says, as she finds herself doing often for others' benefit. "The song of this world is discordant, here...there is something terribly wrong, above."
Her fingers uncurl, lying flat against her chest to calm her racing heart. "I guess we knew that already, though," she admits, quietly. "As Fei says, let us investigate with care."
She glances to Cyre, stepping back and away from the walls. "Well if we find them, I'm not entirely above smacking them a few times," she says. "I can't say I understand the mindset that's taken them now. At times they seem calm...sadder than before, if anything. Other times they seem like strutting villains posessed fully by some wickedness..."
Her lips curl with worry and she finds herself looking up at that poison she can sense on the periphery. "And I haven't seen Jack since he left us," she murmurs. She wonders if she'd feel something through the Medium of his that she holds. She wonders if she might not know until it were too late.
And then Beast walks up, and as a reminder, Cecilia has spent most of her time on Lunar dramatically increasing the annual food needs of Meribia Town. She leans slightly to the side. "Fei, the statue is talking," she asides, worried because the last time that happened she got attacked by a couch.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"I mean - preferably!"
But Dean's answer for the rest of it is strange. With none of that Dean-like youthful recklessness. And Rebecca feels it's strange for him. For right now though she's so delighted that her reaction to it is, "Hey that's a real mature attitude Dean - gimme five!" The raised fur-lined glove turns into a quick high five, their gesture of solidarity between childhood friends.
And when Avril responds in a positive way - "Just as expected from you Avril!" Agreement with prudence that is. "You too - up high!" With her opposite hand.
She's never done that before with her. So the question is - will Avril leave her hanging!?
Afterwards though is when Beast walks up. "Uh - so - anyone else seeing this - Metal... dragon... golem thing? We're not... going to all act like this is a normal thing right?"
When Cecilia says it's talking, Rebecca looks up to Beast - then back at Cecilia, "Sure you're not just hearing things miss?"
She must not have gotten the memo that she's a Princess.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The cobblestone path winds its way up the mountainside, past tumbled-down piles of rock that might've been buildings, decades ago. The resonant can see the boundary of the Domain as they pass through it--it's more of a grey, fuzzy blur than a solid marker. Malevolence is present almost everywhere on Lunar, but here it thickens into a red-violet miasma, like a mist that the sun cannot burn away. It flickers along the edges of falling snowflakes. It glimmers in the frozen surfaces of ponds and rivers. It crackles like lightning through the branches of trees.
The taint in Wehaca stank of despair. The mud created by the endless rain became an extension of that despair, thick, immobilizing, and suffocating. Here, things feel similar, but the emotional resonance is different--the air is full of tension, as if the land itself were holding its breath, waiting for something horrible to happen. Expecting something horrible to happen, because why shouldn't it?
And then the party comes to what's left of the bridge. A handful of stones float above the chasm the bridge once spanned, buoyed up by Malevolence. Touching them makes them shudder and shiver, as though they're afraid to bear the weight of travelers. What happens if they can't? What happens if someone falls?
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"We might not want a 'fight'," Fei admits. "But can't count on there not being one." Sometimes Fei feels uneasy things about Avril. Amnesia isn't something he can just assume just happens to anyone anymore but it's tapered off lately and Fei supposes maybe that strange feeling was just baseless paranoia which is honestly cheering as it means that how bad he thinks things are may not actually be that way despite the frequent reminders to not relax on that front.
But hey, Fei supposes, at least the kid wasn't murdered for not being a master statesman at 14.
Fei is grateful for Dean's ice bridges and Rebecca's caution but it's not like he doesn't sympathize with Cyre. If only anything was ever that easy. "Each of them would be a rough fight on their own, fighting them together...I'd rather not tempt it."
But then there's a statue. Fei blinks a few times at Beast before saying, "The last Seraph I talked to said they couldn't go up there but... If you want to come along I won't say no. Just don't risk any more than you have to."
He looks over to Cecilia and nods to her once. "This is Seraph Beast. She is a Seraph who is a statue for some reason." He says this in the tone of 'just go along with it i'm sure it makes sense somehow'. He doesn't mention the death threat to Lucia (he will tell Cecilia about that after this adventure) because he doesn't want to create complications NOW. "She's generally a prosocial statue."
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
Someone can hear the statue! What a pleasant surprise. "I am known as the Beast of Lohgrin," she says, though upper and lower headplates do not move with the motions at all. "I am a friend of Ida, and so I am here." There are some people she is not friend to. She does not mention them. She can be diplomatic too!
Of course, for those who cannot hear: the statue simply seems to turn to Cecilia and regard her with its empty eyes. It doesn't seem aggressive, at least, though its tailpieces lash against the ground like a bothered cat.
To Fei, those headplates shake. "My vessel is my protection. I will be..." A hesitant pause. "... fine." Please let her be fine.
The Beast picks her way up the cobblestone path, and metal grinds against metal as the plates lock together as if to ward off some invisible threat. It's not that an attack is coming - only that one feels like it ought. A Domain can be many things, and yet this one...
... it's strangely familiar, isn't it?
When they come to the bridge - or rather, its remains - the Beast shakes out her plates. "I will carry you," she says. "I would not like to see you fall."
And then the statue crouches down, and - hey! There's a broad saddle on its back, trimmed in green silk. It's more than big enough to carry a few people. It looks back at it, and to the group. Could the statue... be helping?!
DG: Seraph Beast has used her Tool Big Saddle toward her party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean still can't hear Beast's voice, but he does recognize that armor, so when she slopes in to join the group, he gives her a smile and a pat on the metal head. Looks like he's still not afraid of her. Then again, she's basically like a tiny mini-Golem in appearance, so why wouldn't he like her?
Meanwhile, Rebecca praises him for once. Dean's eyes widen. "Woah! You think so?" Then he grins and returns her high-five. "Hehe, I actually got praised by Rebecca!" He grins at Avril too. "Yeah! It'd be best if we didn't have to fight friends." Though if it turns out to not be them... then what? Well, they'll cross that bridge when they reach it.
Speaking of, there sure is a rickety Malevolent bridge here. Dean can't feel or sense it, but Avril says it's especially thick on this mountain, and he trusts her implicitly. Another shot of his Freeze Ray provides some stabilizing ice--hopefully that'll help do the trick in regards to making sure it doesn't crumble once they all put their weight on it.
Then he looks over at Cecilia, whom he recognizes from the battle at Castle Pendrago. He doesn't know she's a close friend of Jack's, but she purified Avelina, so she must be a good person. "The song of the world, huh... I don't know about that, but I *have* talked to Ida a lot," he says. "If she wants to fight to vent her frustrations, I'm okay with that, but I think we can get through to them if we're just patient and talk." He may or may not be right on that count. And, well, they may or may not have to be patient and talk while also clonking Ida, Rosa, and Jack on the heads. He does blink at her namedrop, though, and adds, "You know Jack?" A beat. "Oh! By the way, my name's Dean!" He gives her an easy smile. "I didn't catch your name yesterday. Nice healing, by the way!"
Rebecca eyes Beast. "Oh, that's Beast. She's a Seraph," Dean tells her, nodding along with Fei's own introduction of the Statue Seraph. "Fei introduced me to her a while ago. I can't hear her talk, but apparently she talks. She's nice!" (mostly) "I shook paws with her!" Case in point: Beast offers a saddle-ride. Dean beams at Rebecca. "See?"
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
There's a certain comfort in having particular people around. Maybe not so much Dean, considering what happened the last time they were out in a mysterious ruin together.
LAST TIME - DEAN SHOOTS IRREPLACABLE BASKAR ARTIFACTS
NOW
But two others here: Cecilia, the Glutton Princess and the speaker of those who would preserve the existence of all that live, and a giant hunk of ambling metal who Cyre is quite familiar with. "Yeah, she's a really nice statue," Cyre says of Seraph Beast, "She's nice and reliable and very good at carrying injured bodies down mountains."
Which is good! Excellent really. Because on the subject of 'not fighting things,' Cyre... pointedly does not raise his hand.
Instead, he just kind of scratches at a scar right over his sternum.
Wonder what that's about...?
But soon they get to the top, and Cyre is suddenly wishing even harder that he had brought his parachute. You'd think he would have taken something like that to a mountain castle of all things, but sometimes a guy is allowed to forget important things, okay? But more importantly, he can feel the emotions soaking the land. The anxiety itches at the inside of his ribcage like a bad case of bone ants. He huffs softly at the strange, floating stones, looks to the others, and then...
"Hey, time's a wasting, right? Let's go!" And so the shaman leaps! Jumping, forward and forward and forward, hop-hop-hop. Anxiety makes you hesitate, and that just makes you do what IT wants you to! Cyre says: nuts to that! Semper fi! Do or die! Gung-ho! Gung-ho! Gung-ho!
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
It's the appearance of Seraph Beast that steals Avril's attention for a moment or two; she gazes at the living statue for the second time. This time at least it's not in the middle of a pitched fight outside a library, and as such she has the time to really look at the Seraph.
"Ah, so a Seraph can be a statue," she voices, as Fei explains matters, a gloved hand lingering in the air at around chin height.
Then Rebecca says something to her.
You too -- up high!
It takes Avril a moment to realize she's been spoken to. It takes her a moment more to look over at Rebecca, to gaze up at that hand in the air.
She blinks.
Up... high?
Her gaze tilts towards Dean, then tentatively, Avril lifts a hand to touch to Rebecca's.
...Well, it's the attempt that counts.
But her attention drifts towards the young blonde woman who has joined their team. A friend of Jack's...?
For a moment Avril's gaze drifts from Cecilia, as if troubled. Then, quietly, she voices: "Are you able to sense it, too, then? I..."
Then she speaks: "I have met your friend since the change. He..." Her gaze drops downwards. "...If he is here, then we shall speak to him, ourselves."
For now there is the matter of the way up. The bridge ahead looks -- feels -- unstable, as if the anxiety and tension in the air were somehow transmitted into the crossing.
"...Here," Avril voices, drawing out the strange Medium she bears at last, closing her eyes as she invokes the power held within it. "Lucadia... please, if you can hear me now..."
Steady them and the road they now tread.
Light shines; Avril ventures forth.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"Hehehe - Well you deserve it when you act this way Dean - it's real adult of you!" Rebecca says cheerfully. She'd prefer it maybe if he said some other things - but this put her in a good mood all the same. Whereas Avril - lightly touches her hand in the high five.
And Rebecca looks a little surprised, but then she just smiles, "Wow that's such a cute high five Avril." She begins to realize that she might not have known what one is - since Avril has forgotten so many things, "You don't need to make it so dainty though. They're for celebrating - so give it a little energy! Let me show you. Keep your hand up for a moment..."
She waits to see if she'll comply. Then, she does a quick 'pap' of her palm against Avril's with a satisfying clapping noise. "... there! It's like that!"
Dean however reaffirms that Beast is a Seraph which rules out Golem right away. Because if she were a Golem - well... few forces on Earth would hold Dean back.
Still - him vouching for him/her puts her mostly at ease. Mostly. She gives this small wave, "Well nice to meet you. Sorry I can't hear you talk Ma'am. But I hope we get along." Before, "Wait you did?"
Rebecca looks at those claws that look like they could tear Dean apart with little difficulty, "-Of course you did." Rebecca sweatdrops.
The path up reminds her so much of that town... and yet she tries not to think about that place.
And then they come right up to the stones floating in mid-air. Raising both pointer fingers up, she points them at the floating stones, "Yep that looks pretty cursed as things go." Before Dean points out the saddle, "... Whoa that's practical thinking. Nice of her to carry folks like she was their noble steed or something."
Briefly she gets this image of someone she knows riding Dragonback and she shakes off that daydream real quick.
Is she going to balk though at the challenge? Nope. Instead she actually gets this small smile, "Well good thing pretty cursed won't stop us in this case." The stones might be afraid to bear weight, but with Dean freezing them- and Avril's prayer to Lucadia she feels pretty confident.
She gets this running start, and leaps to the first, vaulting off of it into a front flip onto the second. She doesn't give the stones a chance to shudder, she keeps up the momentum by pushing off of it hard with both legs, landing into a handstand on the third. Then she just allows her weight to fall and- slides down Dean's ice the rest of the way to the other side where she'd do a little kip up.
Maybe this places makes her nervous - but it'll take more than a little acrobatic obstacle course to shake her confidence.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia has, despite having had the resonance to see Seraphs early and often, not had What Are Seraphs 201 yet so she doesn't know what a Domain is. Or a Vessel. She finds herself inspecting Beast's statue with a certain degree of curiosity, but she accepts Fei and Cyre's guidance on the matter. Also Beast's, for that matter. "Ah, are you," she says, and turns to make way up the trail. "It's good she has such stalwart friends, then," she says, with possibly conspicuous diplomacy to her choice of words.
As for Dean, her eyes turn worried, and she doesn't look at him for long. "Jack was a very good friend whom I promised to help. He....we..."
She doesn't entirely know how to describe it; that moment where Jack muttered a frustration that sent Cecilia into such fury. Fortunately she does not have to, because she feels the quality of the air change, and finds herself looking around. "Oh, I've been hearing things for a while," she murmurs to Rebecca, drifting off, her eyes flitting about with curiosity, like she were trying to widen her perspective to see the universe. "This place is different. I feel..."
She glances at Cyre, who she knows has some similar sensitivities. "The song changed," she murmurs, quietly. Yes, anxiety, she thinks, looking at those stones. She wishes she'd brought her Change Staff now, she thinks, lips curling in annoyance. "Uhm."
...sometimes she misses Claude, she thinks.
And then, with Cyre's belting call to guide her, she sucks in a breath and throws herself out, because it's not like she has any better ideas!!!
DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Shuddering Bridge.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - The Shuddering Bridge *>==================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The only way up the mountainside is a precarious footpath that might once have been a cobblestone road. Up ahead is a decaying stone guard post, which seems to be an indicator that you're going in the right direction. Unfortunately, it's at the far end of a wide, steep-sided ravine. At one point, there was a bridge here, but now the only thing left of that bridge is a handful of chunks of rock, suspended in mid-air by the Malevolence saturating the mountainside. Tension builds in the air. The Malevolence takes hold of fear, indecision, and anxiety, amplifying them. Little worries seem terribly important, and deep fears grow all the more ominous. The floating stones shake and whimper whenever they're touched. This will not be a pleasant crossing. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
========================<* Mount Manfred - Round 1 *>========================= =====================< Results - The Shuddering Bridge >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Freeze Ray 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Beast 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Big Saddle 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cecilia Adlehyde 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Cyre lands atop a chunk of stone maybe two feet across. It wobbles beneath him, shaking like a leaf, making footing perilous. It doesn't talk, of course, but it sure feels like it's worried about dropping him. Cecilia, of course, feels the same thing, as does Fei. Rebecca just feels the stones jittering for no apparent reason. The crossing is about as nerve-wracking as one might expect, and it only gets worse after Rebecca miscalculates, or perhaps misses a patch of treacherous black ice. One unexpected slip sends her plummeting!
Everyone makes it to the other side, though. That's what matters, right?
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Irrational Fears *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A cluster of run-down buildings sits astride the trail ahead. As you approach, the tumble-down walls subtly shift, back and forth, as if breathing. Something moves in the corner of your eye--something you could swear is a limb moving, languidly--but when you look, there's nothing there. The wrecked settlement is simultaneously fallen stone and rotting wood and a massive, unknowable entity, deep in slumber. Or is it? Either way, the Malevolence in the air is doing nothing for the sense of lingering, foreboding dread. Get through as quickly and quietly as you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The Beast of Lohgrin straightens, passenger in hand (or on back), and Althena's wind gathers about her as she leaps. It is a breath of fresh air in a place so forboding. It is such a brief and tenuous respite, in the face of a Domain.
She watches the others as they make their way across - she can't help but worry. And when she spies Rebecca slipping, she naturally leaps to intercept. "Here!"
Of course, she has no arms to catch her, and wingplates can only do so much to catch a falling figure, even as they bend out of their assumed shape to slip underneath her. Perhaps Avril will help to pull her up onto the saddle?!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The path ahead leads past more of those tumble-down ruins, hulks of stone and rotten wood buried under the snow. Maybe this was a village, at one point--a place where people lived and worked, much like they do in Zulan Village. It's not the only ruin here, either. Maybe these people had neighbors, or--
Did something just move?
There. It's just the wind blowing through that sad-looking krummholz pine. Right? No. That's not it.
Did something shift over there? It's rhythmic. Is something breathing?
It may be easy to dismiss this as a trick of the light, at first, but in a place this saturated with Malevolence, is that really a smart decision? How do you know there isn't something lurking just out of sight, ready to take all those horrible what-ifs and make them reality?
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
MOMENTS AGO
"For celebrating..."
As ever, when faced with such norms of a life she appears to have utterly forgotten, Avril's brow creases as if she were in deep thought. Quite soberly, she nods when Rebecca prompts her to give it a little energy--
Then lifts her hand when asked.
pap
Her eyes widen as if in mild surprise. "A little energy... ah, now, I understand."
SECONDS BEFORE
With the path unstable before them and the light of the Medium's benediction fading, Avril glances over at Beast. "If I may, I would like to accept your offer, Beast."
When she climbs onto the Seraph, it's with unconscious ease, even in spite of Beast's rather... beastly form.
NOW
Horror is as a mask on Avril's face. Rebecca is--
"Rebecca--! Beast, catch her!"
That was more of an order, less of a request. As Beast dives, Avril leans, halfway out of the saddle, arms outstretched. "--I've got you--"
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
LOOK, THEY WERE RUBBER BULLETS, DEAN DIDN'T EXPECT THEM TO SHATTER THE SHINY STONES, AND HE FELT REALLY BAD ABOUT IT AFTERWARDS
Dean nods to Cecilia, his own expression sobering. She doesn't actually introduce herself, but given how worried she seems to be about her friend, that's understandable. He's sure he'll catch her name later. "Don't worry. We'll all help," he reassures her, smiling again. "We'll figure out a solution together!"
He grins at Rebecca, pleased, and then grins even wider at Avril's dainty high-five. "Haha, it really is cute!" he says effusively, which Rebecca might well take the wrong way. His affectionate smile doesn't abate when she shows Avril how to do a proper high-five though.
Then the group is crossing the bridge, and Dean too slides along the ice. Perhaps it's because he can't feel the Malevolence at all; perhaps it's because anxiety is a mostly foreign sensation to him; but even though Rebecca's more agile than him by far, he makes it across, while she--
"REBECCA!!" he shouts in alarm, twisting around. However, his momentum keeps him moving forward to the other side of the bridge. Fortunately, Beast is there, and Avril snatches a hand down and catches Rebecca, pulling her up. Dean sighs a breath of relief, though he waits on the other end for his friends. Once they're safely across, he gives his childhood friend a concerned look. "You okay, Rebecca? That must've been scary!" He smiles over at Avril and Beast. "I'm sure glad you two were there!"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei can't help but chuckle as Avril learns about hifives. Rebecca is clearly a vital member of that team. She's clearly going far one day.
5rFei Fong Wong says, "...Mm, I think Ida will be..." He pauses for a moment because honestly he's not sure of much of anything. "...influenced by her presence." This is a HARD LINE TAKE of course that takes real guts to take. Luckily (for once) Fei Fong Wong isn't sent down a pit, a pit trap, or just flung off the mountain by high speed winds so a good day so far.
Also maybe Rebecca almost took 'going far' a bit seriously and nearly fell? But that's okay she didn't actually fall right? Right?? Oh wait she did. But she got caught!!
"That was a close one." Fei admits. "You okay, Rebecca?" He looks over to Dean and nods. "You three make a good team. Always looking out for one another." He pauses. "If the entire mountain is a hellion, by the way, I quit."
But he does draw out a sketchpad and start working on scheduling out a path that's both quick and involves the least amount of noise making. Maybe it'll help folks get across the village without getting eaten.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
(Naturally, the Beast would have returned any high fives which may or may not have happened earlier. Very carefully and with not a small amount of concern.)
Through the combined efforts of the Beast and Lohgrin and Avril Vent Fleur, Rebecca is saved! It cannot be said that those claws truly impact with the loathesome stones which sent her flying; rather, the air catches her above them, as she leaps away.
She does not want to stand on them.
Perhaps it's understandable.
When they come to the other side, the Beast crouches down again, to let them off. "There is water in my saddlebags," she says, "perhaps you ought take a moment to drink." It's important to stay hydrated in the face of terror. For those members who can't hear her, she reaches back bonelessly with a claw to pluck waterskins from that saddle and passes them out expectantly.
It is important to take care of a human's mortal needs!
That she might be missing the point a little from her distant perspective goes right over her headplates.
Or maybe she's distracted. There's certainly a more painful edge to her words, now, higher up the mountain. As they come to a place which might have once held life, she expands her form so that her plates do not scrape together any more; it is the best concession to stealth something as lumbering as her can make. She'll follow Fei's lead, on the matter of getting through.
She'll follow Fei's lead and try not to think too much about what dwells here. How this could be any village, any village she cared for at all.
DG: Seraph Beast has used her Tool Emergency Supplies toward her party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Cyre feels the anxiety and fear in the very stone itself. This is way too similar to what happened in Wehaca, which means that the only real way to deal with it is to find whatever the source might be and deal with it. No amount of purification will do much without doing that first. At the very least, Cyre whispers a quick, calming refrain into the earth, beating out the rhythm of the ancient song with his leaping footfalls.
He makes it to the other end-- see, rocks! No need to worry about anything. Even dropping one person isn't really THAT bad considering how many people were crossing. "Hey," Cyre calls to Rebecca as Beast and Avril swoop down to rescue her. "You alright down there? That looked like it was almost bad."
Almost. But not actually bad. ONWARDS!
But first, a quick drink.
Cyre splashes some of the water on his face just to make sure he isn't imagining the way the buildings seem to quake and waver. He pauses to think for just a moment... Then shrugs and proceeds down the path Fei is sketching. Considering how frightened the rocks were, this place is probably as scared of them as they are of it.
Right?
Right!
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
They alight on the ground just beyond where the path had grown treacherous. Only once they've landed does Avril relinquish her hold on Rebecca, glancing over at Cyre, at Dean and at Fei.
"We appear to be unscathed... This mountain is dangerous, if even someone as quick on her feet as Rebecca can slip," she states, her gaze flickering over at Rebecca. "It appears there are even unguessed at perils here."
This is the point when Beast mentions the water she has carried in with her, to which Avril nods. "Yes, that may be a good idea. We should take the moment to regroup and consider our next step. ...Something doesn't seem right about the terrain, here."
She steps over to take one of the waterskins, sipping carefully from it before taking in the area around them.
...Are there structures here?
Perhaps it is but an illusion, or a manifestation of the domain into which they are venturing.
"Be careful," Avril says, as they set out again. "I do not think those are real. We may not be able to trust what we can see."
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
And - Rebecca miscalculates.
Just a simple slip - and she's in freefall. One of the first things you do when you learn acrobatics though is how to fall gracefully. And ho boy has she fallen. More times than she can count. So already she's thinking about how to recover. Whether that's catching the side of the mountain with climbing gear - landing on a lower ledge and climbing back up...
Or even you know. Magic. That's an option to her now.
With each moment though she's growing increasingly scared that death might just become a certainty if she falls far enough.
And then there's Avril's voice - and a blur of a shape diving beneath her. And then she's... in Avril's arms.
She's really startled for a moment, "Avril!? You... you're flying?" On a Dragon statue's back. It takes a moment for that to register. All those factors to line up in her head. Line up too well, "Um - wow you're strong."
And for some reason the realization of that fact makes her flush a little pink. It's probably the cold though right? And I mean she already knew she was strong. Just watching her - but it's a different thing when you're being carried by her. "Thanks for the save..." She sounds a little self-conscious as she adds, "...it was... it was really cool Avril."
She makes no move to go anywhere from where she is... calling out to the others: "I'm okay! I'm... okay." She gives Dean this small wave - she's glad he's so concerned, so concerned even she tries to play it off some, "Come on Dean you know me. It'd take more than a little tumble to get to me."
Before waving at Fei and Cyre. "Yeah! I'm good. No sweat. Eheh - we do make a pretty good team." She says, sharing a look with the other two.
Once Avril puts her down and she nods quickly, "Yeah... usually I'd have no trouble. This place is getting to me I think." She confides in a whisper to Avril.
She feels way better even in this place - until they get to the ruined buildings. The way they're shifting and Rebecca gulps. And so while Fei is sketching - Rebecca takes a break of her own to calm her nerves. Opening her travel diary to her poetry section she starts to jot down a draft with a little nub of charcoal.
Dragons and riders are there at play
dipping and diving
searching for princesses to save.
A bright noble prince atop
Rebecca looks up at Beast and hesitantly crosses it out.
A shining warrior pri
Thinking on it she glances at Beast and strikes through it again.
The line just wasn't quite working this time and she couldn't figure out why. Eventually she gives up- "I'll come back to it later." She decides finally closing it decisively.
Taking a few minutes though sure calmed her nerves though... which may make it easier to get through here.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Rebecca's Travel Diary toward her party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean grins at Fei, rubbing a finger under his nose, when he calls him, Avril, and Rebecca a good team. "Of course! We're best friends, after all!" Once Rebecca's safety is assured, the group heads onwards along the trail until they find the remains of what used to be a town, maybe. It's a ghost town, now, and much like a ghost, it takes on a semblance of being alive while simultaneously being anything but alive. Even for Dean, who can't sense Malevolence yet, there's something about the environs that prickle the hair on the back of his neck. It's like it's telling him that this is dangerous, that they need to hurry onwards...
"The entire mountain, a Hellion? You mean, like the mountain *itself*? That would suck," Dean says quietly as he looks around. Fei sketching the village reminds him of that one time Id stabbed a monster with a pencil... The thought makes him smile, and he shakes his head ruefully. Well, no point in getting scared over nothing! They've just got to keep moving forward.
He does keep Twin Fenrir in hand, though--*juuust* in case anything leaps out at them.
"Yeah, no kidding," he says to Avril, of this place being extra-dangerous if even Rebecca could slip and fall. "You two really called it when you said to be cautious. Though..." Though, there's something in the air that makes him think that maybe the mountain wants them to be *too* cautious. To be afraid of everything, like they are. It's just a gut feeling, though. Dean frowns, wondering about it for a moment, before Rebecca pulls his attention back to her. "Good! Yeah, you're right. You're way tougher than that!" He grins. "Avril really is cool, huh?"
Then, once Fei has finished drawing and Rebecca's finished writing, forward they march with no fear in their hearts!
...theoretically.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia is able to navigate floating stones. She's gotten stronger, out on the road, but every jump like that gives her a flutter of anticipation, which this place insists on gripping and twisting like a knife. She forces her way through it. She remembers being that worried - back before, back in Adlehyde, when she was an adventurous princess just out of school with no sense of where she was going or what she was doing. She's become stronger since then. She's forced herself to continue through far worse.
It helps some that she can feel the energy of this place, that nervous anxiety throbbing out of the air itself and into her. She's able to breathe as they walk, trudging through the fallen township. Fighting her own instincts to snap her head around to glare at shadows. Though she does murmur, "What an uncanny feeling..."
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Standard Cartridge toward his party's challenge, Irrational Fears. DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Irrational Fears.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" Cyre asides to Cecilia. "The best way to deal with this kind of thing, I find, is to try to not overthink things. Just keep your eyes forward and keep moving. It only gets really bad when you stop."
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Irrational Fears *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A cluster of run-down buildings sits astride the trail ahead. As you approach, the tumble-down walls subtly shift, back and forth, as if breathing. Something moves in the corner of your eye--something you could swear is a limb moving, languidly--but when you look, there's nothing there. The wrecked settlement is simultaneously fallen stone and rotting wood and a massive, unknowable entity, deep in slumber. Or is it? Either way, the Malevolence in the air is doing nothing for the sense of lingering, foreboding dread. Get through as quickly and quietly as you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
========================<* Mount Manfred - Round 2 *>========================= ========================< Results - Irrational Fears >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Standard Cartridge 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 5 --(10)--> 15 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Beast 5 --(10)--> 15 Fail Emergency Supplies 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cecilia Adlehyde 5 --(10)--> 15 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Rebecca's Travel Diary 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 15 --(20)--> 35 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Reckless(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
That uneasy feeling does not go away. Nevertheless, there's something to be said for the power of cameraderie, as well as the distraction provided by favorite activities. Whether by writing, drawing, or just ensuring that one's trusty ARMs are at hand, most of the group is able to keep their wits about them. It isn't long before those ruined structures--whatever they were--lie behind. To those who were less able to deal with it, well... it's all to easy to imagine that the threat hasn't gone away. Why would it go away? Why would it, in a horrible place like this? Why have you even come here?
DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Unearthly Fumaroles *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The ground beneath you splits and buckles without warning, tearing apart to reveal a geyser-like rent in the earth. It looks eerily like a bullet wound, and vents flame, sulfur, and smoke into the air, all thick with Malevolence. The ground seems unstable in the aftermath, and it certainly feels like more of those geysers could erupt at any time. Even the slightest misstep could set one off, resulting in a catastrophic explosion of anger. Malevolence laced with anxiety settles into the air, and into you. You have to make your way across, regardless. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Wound==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Perhaps wariness is warranted. Isn't that the worst feeling? That incessant, gnawing certainty that there's proof behind your suspicions, that everything can and will go wrong. Case in point:
The path leads through an unassuming patch of ground. Nothing, right? Nothing to be scared of. Nothing to be scared of, until the group is halfway across, and a thunderous, booming roar issues from the earth. The ground gives way, some of it spraying outwards, and more of it falling inwards. The hole is perfectly circular, looking like a gunshot wound in the earth itself. Sulfurous, Malevolence-laden smoke wafts into the air. Within, the Malevolence forms an image--
"Shut your idiot mouth," snarls an apparition that looks like Cecilia.
Another thunderous roar. Another hole tears itself open like a fresh wound. "She's lost it, says another apparition, this one indistinct.
"grow up, hisses a third.
That can't be all of them. Crossing this place is like navigating a minefield, where the slightest stimulous can trigger an explosion of rage.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Well that wasn't so bad. Sure, Fei feels a bit queasy and still feels like something is about to swallow him up and spit him out, but it didn't happen YET and so that means it may not happen in the future either. He does not, notably, try to kill the mountain by stabbing it with a pencil. Actually, he doesn't stab anybody with a pencil at all. That's a terrible thing to do and even awfuller would be licking the pencil who would do that? Graphite tastes awful. Sounds like something a dummy would do and Fei is no dummy. He passed the wits challenge, see?
Of course the pencil does look similar to the other pencil. But that's probably nothing. Most pencils look pretty similar.
"Avril is 'cool' huh?" Fei says. "Did you do that intentionally or...?"
He does catch Rebecca working with the charcoal. "Are you an artist too?" Fei asks of her. "I shouldn't think I'd have the nerves to do charcoal art while hiking."
Meanwhile nothing to be afraid of. Fei walks through the path and then suddenly--the land gives way! Fei jumps back just in time as the ...
"...The mountain's a hellion. I quit..." Fei says, turning to walk back down the way he came.
Presumably he is comically prevented from doing this forcing him to move through this latest area.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Now it's Avril's turn to seem a little... well, perhaps this is the way she shows flustered, by glancing away like a high-born lady asked to dance by another at a ball. "I only did what was necessary," she states simply, as both Rebecca and Dean alike call her 'cool'.
Still, she smiles when they're called a good team. "I suppose that is so. I have known them as far back as I can remember."
which is like a year and a half ago, avril
Rebecca lingers once they've landed for a moment, mentions something to her.
"I believe... that may be what it is intending to do," Avril murmurs back to Rebecca. "That appears to be how Malevolence operates. Tapping into the fears and uncertainities that rest in peoples' hearts..."
She can feel it, too, a crawling niggling sense at the back of her mind.
Are you sure?
What if this is all real?
What is lying in wait here?
Are you sure this is where you meant to go?
Whatever the doubts might call out to, though, they still push on as one, together.
Until the path before them shudders and from below, fuming smoke roils up in a burst of Malevolent fury.
"Ah--" Avril starts, drawing back a step. Already, the hilt of her ARM is in her hand, but neither blade nor beam of light come forth.
The apparation is there and gone again, smoke dissipating into the air.
It isn't the only one, even if the sudden surge of mago-geologic activity calms.
"...I do not think this area is safe. We should cross though, quickly," Avril states, returning the ARM from whence it came and drawing out the Medium once again. "If there is an outburst of Malevolence like that again..." But she focuses for now, drawing out the Guardian's benediction at once in a shimmer of light. No Jumping, this time -- who knows where they would land -- but perhaps Lucadia's attention would be 'enough'.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Huh.
Wow, it's true, the entire mountain IS a Hellion. What the heck! That's not exactly fair, is it?
"Fei," Cyre deadpans as pure elemental hatred splits the landscape ahead of them. He wastes no time just kind of hooking an arm around the martial artist's midsection and beginning to trudge right into the proverbial minefield of wrath, anxiety and fear. "We can't just look away from this kind of thing, you know? It's not healthy. Plus, you want to go back through that weirdo village again?"
"The only way to deal with something like this," Cyre huffs, glancing with a nod in Avril's direction, "Is to hurry on through before things get worse. Worst case, we give these spectres the metaphorical finger and keep moving forward."
"Forward, forward, always forward," the shaman says, even as spiritual landmines erupt nearby. Possibly, even, underneath him. "You can look back and worry and try to figure out what all these things mean, as long as you keep moving forward. Getting a bit singed is fine, but stopping here is death in more ways than one."
Is he... speaking from experience?
Maybe... Maybe.
Maybe there was once a Cyre Lorentz who spent his days dreading what people would say, left, right and center. Maybe.
This one- the one of today- wears a more determined expression on his face though.
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"That's what makes you cool!" Dean insists to Avril. "You didn't even hesitate to save Rebecca!" Fei chimes in, though, and he pauses. "Intentionally?" Dean echoes at him, blinking. "Yeah? I just said it?" ...looks like he didn't notice the pun at all.
He doesn't hear what Avril and Rebecca murmur to one another, being a bit ahead of the group. Because of that, when the earth rends itself and a crack bursts open, leashing Malevolent gas and haunting whispers into the group, Dean leaps into a forward roll, then comes up with his ARMs pointing at the geyser. "Take that!" he declares, firing the Freeze Ray upon it in an attempt to close up the hole in the mountain. Whether it works or not, he nods fiercely over to Cyre and Fei. "Cyre's right! We won't get anywhere if we run away now! We've got to keep pressing forward!" He nods again firmly. "Don't worry, Fei. We've got your back. Just like you've got ours!"
As more geysers erupt, Dean, who has the dubious advantage of not seeing the malicious apparitions that appear with them, will attempt to seal those too with his Freeze Ray. That might make the pressure in the mountain worse, though, so it's best if the group as a hole hurries on. When Avril urges the group to hurry, he nods and hurries along in her wake. Hopefully Lucadia will be kind enough to get them all out of here right quick this time.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Freeze Ray toward his party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
They should never have come here.
It is a beat which drums in with every careful step, so guided by Fei's deliberations. The Beast of Lohgrin betrays no emotion through an iron mask as she moves through the bones of what was once good. There is no way for her to communicate her distress at all.
Perhaps her silence is indication enough.
The earth screams out. The Beast realises, a moment too late, that she is screaming too. "NO!" It is a raw sound, pain and despair, as plates pull back discordantly from the explosion.
She should never have come here.
Is it better to be blind to these things?
It is blindly she charges forward, evading the Malevolence as it bubbles out more on instinct than any deliberate motion. If she comes across anyone, well - she might just scoop them up in her wingplates and deposit them in her saddle on the way. She's not of the right mind to ask them about it, right now.
DG: Seraph Beast has used her Tool Big Saddle toward her party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
She called it as Dean put it - then sure stepped in it by being a little reckless. Mentally she's kicking herself for it. I mean some circus star she'll be if she screws up because she got butterflies in her stomach.
Rebecca is about to agree with Dean in such a casual friendly way, "The..." But that the response is so automatic makes her lock up just a little. "... coolest."
She agrees. Her voice just a little lower. Still smiling though. And as Avril herself looks flustered which causes her to want to back up what Dean said more, "Well - you did what was necessary in the coolest way Avril! I mean swooping down like that on the back of a dragon and catching me like it was no big thing... it doesn't get much cooler than that!"
But as Avril whispers back, Rebecca seems surprised. "Really? So that's why I feel so..." Rebecca looks around suddenly, as if Avril calling attention to it just makes her more... on edge, yet at the same time. "It's almost a little like when I fought that girl the other day." Closing her eyes, she tries to steady her thoughts, taking a deep breath, "It's okay. It's okay because Avril knows what's going on."
And slowly it becomes easier to breathe - easier to think. It's still there, but at least it feels knowable. She's glad that Avril and Dean are here with her all the same.
But as Fei surprises her - she quickly keeps angles her diary away from being seen, "Oh! I'm actually writing - i-it's just what I use when I want to jot down a quick draft without getting out the ink and quill you know?" She looks pretty flustered though.
And then - as the Mountain starts to form in malevolence laden smoke. She can't even see any of the image other than an... maybe an outline but she gives Cecilia a nervous look - "Uh... I think you're not the only one hearing things now."
Nervously she says, "Fei - you can't quit after you jinxing us like this come on!" It's a spiritual minefield - and she doesn't feel as confident as before, gulping as Avril says to cross it swiftly, "Quickly. Alright." And so she tries to cross it swiftly, and evasively - staying as close to Avril and Dean(Does anything faze him!? Just shouting 'take that' like that!) as possible in case she needs to return the favor.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "Yeah, yeah, I know." He lets out a long sigh. "We'll keep going." He waves a hand over to Rebecca and says, "Don't worry, I won't read it, I'm not quite that boorish. heh."
He is startled by Beast shouting NO! however and ends up tackled by Beast and scooped up and deposited right on her saddle. Fei does not seem to enjoy this experience particularly since he's kind of bowled over and in an awkward position on that saddle of hers.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia gives Cyre a crooked little smile at his advice. "It's not pleasant, no," she murmurs. "It's a lesson I've learned before, just..." Having it intrude upon her this way is....vexing. Still. She has doubted herself a thousand times. She flinches, a sudden awareness of tension in her brow, and raises her hand to her brow, grimacing, which is when she notices her teeth clenched tight. She intrudes her tongue between them quietly, an imperfect hack at best, but it unlocks her jaw for the moment.
Fortunately she's pulled it out before her jaw snaps shut again because HOLY SHIT EXPLOSIONS. "Gah!" she yelps, staggering back, eyes sweeping up to--herself. Spitting some of the cruelest words she ever has.
Ah. Right. Ida's involved. She grimaces but brushes past. That too is a trial she has had to surpass.
(...didn't she fail that one, though...)
The next step sees another eruption and another specter, and now Cecilia understands the challenge before her. So she--lashes a hand out at Fei to grab his collar, and is probably involved in tossing him into Beast's saddle. "If I have to put up with this you're coming with me, mister!" she snaps, and charges - what else is there to do but gather speed and run?
DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Unearthly Fumaroles.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Unearthly Fumaroles *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The ground beneath you splits and buckles without warning, tearing apart to reveal a geyser-like rent in the earth. It looks eerily like a bullet wound, and vents flame, sulfur, and smoke into the air, all thick with Malevolence. The ground seems unstable in the aftermath, and it certainly feels like more of those geysers could erupt at any time. Even the slightest misstep could set one off, resulting in a catastrophic explosion of anger. Malevolence laced with anxiety settles into the air, and into you. You have to make your way across, regardless. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Wound==========================================
========================<* Mount Manfred - Round 3 *>========================= ======================< Results - Unearthly Fumaroles >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 10 --(5)--> 15 Fail Freeze Ray 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cyre H. Lorentz 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Beast 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Big Saddle 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cecilia Adlehyde 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 35 --(20)--> 55 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Reckless(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Avril Vent Fleur has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Mount Manfred *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Eternal White *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The snowfall thickens around you, blotting out the outwide world in a curtain of white. It's so thoroughly saturated with Malevolence, that it's beside itself in misery--misery it spreads further by enveloping you. It is not a question that you will break through the snow--the question is how much the snow will break you in the process. =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The crossing is nerve-wracking, to put it mildly. Cyre puts his head down and keeps moving forward. Avril invokes the benediction of a Guardian, granting her allies grace and surety. Fei is grudgingly dragged along. Rebecca stays close to her friend's side, while Cecilia ensures Fei keeps going. Even the Beast of Lohgrin makes it across intact. Dean's freeze ray gives people breathing room, stilling several fumaroles before they can erupt--but as he surely knows, suppressing anger only makes it worse. A fumarole opens almost underneath him.
Everyone is alive, though. Alive enough to regroup in what is swiftly turning into a blizzard. The cold is numbing. The snow begins to pile up with unnatural speed, as though trying to suffocate the weary travelers beneath its bulk. Staying above it takes effort, though that effort might be difficult to manage. The cold is quick to sap away willpower. That all-pervasive anxiety has gained an undercurrent: lie down, and avoid everything else. Just stop, and it might go away.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
"Hahaha, I kind've figured you would have," Cyre laughs in spite of the constant crush of malevolence. It only stands to reason that Cecilia would have had to deal with... something similar. After all, being the Chosen One is hard work, isn't it? "Well, you probably don't need me telling you how to deal with it. Just keep your chin up, we'll be through this soon enough."
One way or another.
Even if it involves daring through a roiling field of fury.
Even if it's enough to drive the Beast of Lohgrin to terror and despair.
"Ah crap," Cyre winces, charging on after the racing dragon statue. "Damnit, Beast! We need to have a discussion about keeping anguished screams bottled up later! Just... Wait up, will you!?"
Chasing Beast is, perhaps, not the best idea. Soon, he may find himself out of the minefield, but quickly ends up mired in a frosty morass. The misery in the ice and snow is palpable, infectious, and not entirely unfamiliar. Cyre grits his teeth to keep them from chattering and pulls his cloak tighter over his head. But he also does... Something else.
He lights his incense burner.
This alone wouldn't do much, but the scent it gives off is sweet and spicy, reminiscent of a more pleasant, more familiar place. The heady aroma of fragrant, burning wood. The invigorating wisps of cinnamon bark. The heat radiates outwards as well, light and warmth eminating from the tiger-emblazoned censer into the driving blizzard.
"Beast!" Cyre roars into the storm, "Slow down, but keep moving! We'll catch up soon as we can!"
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Invigorating Vapors toward his party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
It's true, just bottling up feelings makes things worse in the long run. Dean doesn't think of that, though, as he mistakes the gas for regular gas at first. He nearly gest exploded off his feet, and it's thanks to the speed of the others that he avoids such a fate.
Now, as the group presses on further, chasing after Beast on her rampage (not that Dean can hear her to realize it *is* a rampage), it starts to snow. Dean holds out a hand in wonder, feeling the flakes fall down and melt on his palm. Maybe the Mt. Zulan range really is haunted. Well, even if it is, that won't slow him down! Even if... this snow... is so, so cold, and looks so, so soft, and invites him to lay down and curl up and forget... forget... it... all...
He shakes his head vigorously, then blinks wide. W-woah, what was *that*? Is that how Ida and the others feel...? That was unsettling. Still, you can't keep a good Dean down. He reaches back and pulls out his shovel triumphantly. "This snow sure piles up fast. Good thing I've got a shovel!" he declares, just before he starts digging into it with gusto. The incense Cyre burns help relieve the ache in his muscles, too, making him feel like he could shovel all night if need me.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool The Trusty Shovel toward his party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The Beast of Lohgrin slows, eventually, just as Cyre asks. Too far away, far from the explosions and their Malevolence. The fumaroles are behind them. If she had lungs to breathe, she would be able to again. (Of course, she doesn't. She is air. There is nothing about her which is not breath.)
And then, despite his guidance... she stops. It's enough to wonder whether she was listening at all.
"I apologise," she excuses herself, to Fei, as she crouches down to let him off. "I fear I may have panicked." There is still pain, lanced through those apologetic words. She can scarcely conceal such an overwhelming thing.
And yet, those words are the only indication to her turmoil at all. Iron reflects nothing of pain or anxiety, but for the way tailpieces lash and wingplates press closely to her chassis. She has brought them to a snow field, and it cannot freeze blood which does not pump through veins. Her form is chill; she does not have skin to detect the drop.
She crouches down to let Fei off, and she finds it is too much effort to rise at all.
At least those plates, still loosely collected in her form, provide a basic snow break.
DG: Seraph Beast has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
It's almost like when Rebecca fought that girl the other day. The question already alights in Avril's gaze, but there's no time now to properly ask it; already, the environment around them is turning quite hostile and only threatens to become moreso. Instead, Avril simply nods.
"We will do our best. It is what we can do."
Then, she pauses, and with a glance Dean's way, adds, "Nothing is impossible as long as you do not give up. Isn't that right?"
It's a sentiment to keep in mind as they rush through the roiling grounds of the pent-up Malevolence vents, taking care where they tread while also moving as quickly as is possible. This time, it appears that Lucadia has been able to hear their pleas.
But--
Beast screams.
Avril stops, blue eyes widening. She does not know much about Seraphs -- not much at all about what they can tolerate and what is anathema to them. Instead she just sees Beast as she bolts, and Lucadia's blessing still bolstering her, she races after her.
"Stop! You must calm down!"
Until the snowstorm intensifies.
Until it slows them, threatens to bury them in their trek upwards.
Just... give up, the storm seems to murmur.
Avril takes a breath.
"...No," she voices to the impulse.
She'd made a promise.
A heartbeat later, and she shunts a full half of the power she's been spending these months mastering -- half, to avoid error, to avoid destruction -- into the drifts, working to send them skywards in a hard burst of her magic.
It's not the Gift, it's not Symbology, not the work of a Guardian's power, certainly not Crest Magic. It's...
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei does eventually slough off Beast and after shaking his head. "It's fine. Cecilia and Rebecca are right anyway." He says, "Just ugh... that timing..."
Fei brought his own shovel along as part of his gear and he gets to digging. He has named this shovel Hammer because he often digs his own grave. It does not have any special abilities but Fei works through it all the same.
"How they feel?" He asks after a moment. "Oh, so this anxiety is theirs? Huh." Yeah Fei probably was feeling anxious enough on his own that he didn't notice the domain enhancing it. That might be the REAL reason Fei was trying to back off rather than just comic timing.
Yeah. That's the ticket. Just give up, the world says, certainly. It does that just fine even without malevolence making the request that much louder but he can't help but smile in Cecilia's direction..
Because Fei does take some small comfort in knowing that even if he wants to give up, his friends won't let him.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia is still panting when Cyre wanders back up to continue their chat, and the young woman huffs a low chuckle despite it all. "The thought's appreciated, Cyre," she says, with a little tension. She can feel her temper flicking like fire, aching to spread, from the tension of it all. She finds herself grateful for her troubles. She remembers other moments, other trials, other challenges.
People need her, she reminds herself. Even if this is a miserable experience...she mustn't allow herself to fail. She draws in a long breath of burning cold air, rank with the unclean feeling of Malevolence, and forces herself up despite it, trudging onward through the snow.
And in to a quagmire of a different kind, that slow, horrible burdening weight. She forces herself. Strength has never been her strongsuit and the snow is difficult for her. But with Cyre's incense perking her up, she is able to continue putting foot before foot.
But she can spare a smile for Fei, and draw strength in turn from that, forcing herself up straighter. "I don't know...what this feeling is, for sure," she murmurs. "If it extends from one or all of them. But..."
She grimaces. "It doesn't feel much like what I knew of Jack's struggles," she admits. "And one of those apparitions earlier was of something I had said to Ida, once. It may be primarily hers?" She can only guess, and force her legs to move.
DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eternal White.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
It's only once they're off the minefield that Rebecca stops to catch her breath, finding her hands are shaking. And then Beast keeps going, "Um. L-Looks like, she got it worst of all..." The anguished screams comment from Cyre makes her wince, followed by Avril's call, "Yeah... definitely..." Thankfully she slows down and stops. Unlike the words from the malevolence, she still can't make out Beast's. "Um... hey." It's not quite loud enough to get her attention.
Like she's going to say something anyhow, but she stops for a moment to think about what she was about to do, "Wow. What would you even say Rebecca...? 'Gosh that was scary - wasn't it?' Wish I could actually hear her..."
The snow is piling up really fast.
Which means there's only one thing that can save them.
Rebecca's inner self screams 'no no no'. And yet the miserable press of malevolence and anxiety and insecurity finally gets her to make one realization.
She wants to give up. Which means she absolutely can't. She has to exercise all possible options. Which includes...
"Dean we need..."
She was about to say it. She was about to say 'White Fenrir'. It was on the tip of her tongue.
And then he says 'Good thing I've got a shovel.' Rebecca's expression locks up. Then - she puts a gloved hand to her face, "Whoever is listening - thank you for not making me have to say it."
Freezing as she stops to think about it - she remembers how panicked Avril herself looked for a moment when it came to Beast.
She can't ask Beast if she's okay but...
She doesn't understand what Avril is doing right now. After all she can't see the pulse of magic into the ice. So without hesitation she steps over close to her murmuring, "You know it always feels like things don't get to you. You're always so calm."
A beat, "So calm that sometimes I think I find myself watching you when I'm feeling a little scared. But you've got fears and insecurities this place is hitting upon too right?"
Taking a deep breath in the freezing air, she finally says. "It's funny but that's feels a little reassuring too. That we're nervous together - huh?" Maybe it was actually a dumb thing to say. After all she could have said something to reassure her or make her feel more secure. Instead she said that...
"Anyhow... yeah..." After a moment she takes out her Sky Medium and lacking a fire ley point, takes advantage of the earth one to cause the stone of the mountain to blast upright in a spiky barrage. "...Solais Emsu." Which should hopefully move a lot of snow too. In theory.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eternal White.
==============================<* Mount Manfred *>=============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Eternal White *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The snowfall thickens around you, blotting out the outwide world in a curtain of white. It's so thoroughly saturated with Malevolence, that it's beside itself in misery--misery it spreads further by enveloping you. It is not a question that you will break through the snow--the question is how much the snow will break you in the process. =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
=========================<* Mount Manfred - Round 4 *>========================== ==========================< Results - Eternal White >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 15 --(5)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass The Trusty Shovel 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Invigorating Vapors 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Beast 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cecilia Adlehyde 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Fei Fong Wong 55 --(20)--> 75 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Overwhelm|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Mount Manfred *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Endure It *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The mountain path ends in front of a strange, shrine-like structure, all jagged ice and pulsing, congealed Malevolence. Heatless violet flames crackle in the crater-like braziers encircling it. In the very center is a stone platform, surrounded by slabs of cloudy ice and pale white marble--it looks, at first glance, like a giant white lotus. The Domain itself seems to impress a task upon you: one of you must step onto the stone platform, and endure whatever follows. As soon as someone steps forward, the lotus blossom closes, trapping them inside. The faintest hint of Malevolence seeps into the tiny chamber, flavoring the air with hot, tense anxiety. Thoughts spiral out of control under its influence, turning worries into fears, and fears into overwhelming, paralyzing dread. It's enough to make one shut down, to curl up into a little ball and sit there, trembling, until it's over. On the outside, Malevolence seeps out from the base of the lotus, infusing the air with desperate fear. You should break the lotus open. Should you break the lotus open? Will it even help if you do? This test is arbitrary. It's cruel. Why should anyone have to endure this? What do you have to gain? =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Clearing away the snow is a miserable experience. Perhaps it's fortunate that the most enthusiastic shoveler is also very emotionally resilient--Dean clears a path for the others, even as he wonders if this is an extension of what the Domain's lords are going through. Avril remains focused on the task ahead, while Rebecca confides in her dear friend. Both of them channel the forces of nature to blow away the snow, widening the path and easing the burden for others. Cyre's vapors give everyone something to focus on, while Cecilia simply keeps trudging forward. Even when Fei's shovel breaks, there are people there to help him keep going.
Eventually, Dean clears away one final snowdrift, revealing dark spires and a slate-grey sky beyond. The snow is still coming down, but it's less Malevolence-laden than the blizzard they just waded through; this feels like the eye of the storm, or perhaps merely a calmer, less-saturated space. Ahead?
Ahead is a massive structure, a castle made of dark, heavy stone. At one point, it might've had reasonable architectural proportions, but all the pieces fit together in ways that don't make sense, and not because of incompetence on the part of the builders. The Malevolence in this place has distorted spacetime, twisting the building into something more convenient for its inhabitants. Wide, dark windows peer out onto the splendid desolation outside. There are lights on in several, but making out anything more is impossible.
The castle is, of course, well-defended. Malevolence swirls outside its gates in thick eddies, forming an effective barrier. The gates themselves are drawn and barred. In front of the gates is a small, shrine-like structure, all cloudy ice and pale marble.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean beams at Avril. "That's right! I was just saying that to a girl yesterday!" Not in as many words, but the sentiment was there. He sobers when he looks over at Cecilia as she talks about Jack and his struggles. "It's not too late," he reassures her. "That's what we're all going up this mountain for, to find them and talk to them. You can still take the time to understand him." Like he took the time to understand Ida. He doesn't understand her fully, but... he does a lot more than if he'd given up on her.
He pats Beast's head, misunderstanding the meaning behind her hunkering down for a break even as Cyre tells her to keep moving, then gets to shoveling with Fei. Well, almost. "Not have to say what?" Dean asks Rebecca, blinking at her. Then he grins, thrusting his shovel up into the air. "Don't worry! WHITE FENRIR will save the day!!"
He's right, too. He's not untouched by the Malevolence, but it doesn't cling to him and fester like it does many other humans. He has the emotional purity of a Shepherd, perhaps--now if only he had the Resonance to match. He shovels, and shovels, and shovels, and soon clears a path through the snow to the castle ahead. He gazes upon it, thunking White Fenrir on the ground, with a serious expression; then he nods to the others and strides forward steadily. What waits ahead might be nothing good, but he won't give up.
And within the castle, whose twisted form Dean cannot see--just the sad remains of the stone. Windows dot the walls, and there are lights within. This definitely is an inhabited castle. "Looks like someone's home," he says to the others. "Now we've just gotta get inside." He looks ahead towards the gates, and the structure in front of it. He doesn't see anyone manning the gates or anything, but maybe there's a device inside that shrine thing to open them up or call for someone, maybe? At least, he gets the strongest impression that to get inside, he has to enter that thing first. "I'll go check that out!" he tells the others without questioning this impression, then dashes on ahead.
The moment he steps into it, stone petals rise up and enclose him in darkness. "What the--" he can be heard saying, just before he's entombed.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
There's a light on in a window with a clear view to the gates. On the other side, Ida sits in a chair, drinking directly from a bottle of cheap gin. On the table lie notes that she took before conducting the Iris Gem experiment. She's gone over them several times, but she can find nothing to account for the anomaly--nothing except for the interference from outside. She tried, and yet everything fell to pieces just because someone thought to contact her using the systems she implemented to dissuade intruders.
One of those systems flickers to life again, outside. Ida sits bolt upright, raw fear breaking through the alcohol haze. She glances out the window, past the tempest of Malevolence, and sees figures standing literally on her front porch. One of them is seconds away from activating the lotus. He has a shovel.
"Dean," Ida whispers, her voice quietly agonized. Dean cannot hear her. "Dean, no!"
The lotus closes, trapping Dean Stark inside. The pale white petals shimmer, and begin to glow. Images flicker across their surface, a tableau laid out for those attempting to rescue their comrade.
A tallish woman with dark hair, pale blue eyes, and fine features slumps against a doorframe of the servants' entrance, breathing heavily and staring at nothing. A smaller woman who looks very much like her watches from behind another doorframe, half-certain her mother is sick, or even dying.
It's Ida.
"Mother?" Ida rushes forwards, throws her arms around her mother's waist. Ida's mother doesn't see her until she's right there, but reacts in a way that Ida's never seen. She all but jerks away from her daughter, twisting around to stare at her. Her face contorts in a look of fear. Ida can clearly see the strange half-moon scars on her right forearm. "Mother, what's wrong?"
Her mother cannot tell her what is wrong. She looks through Ida, plants a hand on her daughter's shoulder, her fingers tightening.
"Mama," Ida repeats. Mama looks like she's seen a ghost, or worse. Mama is trembling. Mama is terrified, even though she's at home, and safe.
Ida doesn't understand.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Snow spirals up onto the air at Avril's beck and call. Her gaze if for a moment unfocused, as if she were staring at some invisible point right before her.
Rebecca speaks. Rebecca, by turns, pours her heart out to Avril as Avril, still standing there and sending the snowdrifts aloft, at first says nothing.
But at last she turns away from the drifts, facing Rebecca.
She asks her friend quite honestly thus: "...Do I really come off as untroubled?" She exhales a breath. "You're right, though, Rebecca. This place is unsettling. It plucks at my mind, causes me to doubt what I'm seeing and thinking. Nevertheless, I..." She falls silent for a moment.
It's just second nature to let such things drop aside and carry onwards, whatever feelings she might hold in her heart. She's heard of people being called 'cold' before...
"...I suppose it's simply how I am. And you are the way you are, Rebecca. I don't think it's a bad thing... to worry out loud. A burden shared is a burden lifted, as they say."
The way, piecemeal between the lot of them, is thus cleared.
There, ahead, are the gates.
A small structure stands outside them.
"I do not think we will be able to enter through this gate," Avril says, after a moment's contemplation of the building and environs all. "Nor do I think we should. It would draw attention, wouldn't it?"
It might even provoke a confrontation. Is there another way in?
"...What is that, over there?" She points, at the small shrine structure.
This is the point, naturally, when Dean similarly comments on it and runs over to investigate.
Avril's eyes widen before he even steps foot into it. "Wait--" she calls.
It's already too late. The flower slams shut, enclosing the boy inside it.
"DEAN!"
Avril has long enough to process what's happening.
Avril has long enough grapple with the realization that she's seen this -- or, something like it? -- happen before.
A vision, fleetingly, plays out before her -- before them. Ida, a young Ida--
Dean is trapped--
No. She's already made up her mind.
Avril, without mercy now, with destructive intent, draws the device from the depths of her pocket, where she had tucked it securely away hours before they'd set out for this place.
It opens with a twist of the wrist. She pushes the button within it.
Rocketing up from the snow underneath, it comes in like a battering ram. Tarnished, worn, thoroughly ancient, with sections of it missing, the Golem's arm rises up to try to smash the white lotus open.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Remote Golem Override toward her party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei looks at his broken shovel and just chucks it over his shoulder. So much for that. "Or we just got unlucky." Fei tells Cecilia. "And that's just what we happened to come upon." He pauses. "Well I mean, it isn't really lucky or not either way but you get what I mean."
Wait Cecilia told Ida to shut her idiot mouth?
"Why uh, why did you tell Ida to shut her idiot mouth? Actually--maybe we shouldn't go into that right now."
He moves on.
Unfortunately as he comes upon the castle he looks at it for a long while, staring at it. This lets folks like Dean easily get ahead of him as he just...stares at the castle. It's not out of fear, or awe or anything like that. No, he's looking at it like it's...
...familiar.
"This place..." Fei says. "Have I been here before? That's impossible, but..." Fei sinks to one knee, holding his head for a moment. It's not a dramatic gesture that should draw much attention, but when Dean says 'what the--' Fei stops and looks up again at the stone petals. Fei jerks up to his feet, sways a bit dizzily for a moment, then steadies himself. Why this place looks familiar to him will have to wait.
"Cecilia...I sense malevolence in that flower. In that concentration, I'm not sure even Dean could..." He pauses as energy starts swirling into his hands. He says, "Cecilia... I'll give it all I got but I'm counting on you...to make it count!"
And with that he unleashes a large wave of red chi for the stone flower. It practically erupts out of Fei's hands as if it were waiting to be used and flows outward like water through a broken dam.
"Ghnhnn!!" Fei says, eyes widening as Avril summons a GOLEM somehow to help out here. How is a golem here??? What! who? WHAT?
But ultimately well...hopefully Dean....is enjoying the movie?
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Mother's Cross toward his party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The statue's headplates are cold, and do not react to any headpets, well-intentioned they may be. Timorous words may or may not reach something which can only be inferred to be alive. Certainly, there is no movement to indicate comprehension. The statue is still, as the snow builds around it.
"Of course," says the Beast of Lohgrin in reply, though Rebecca could not hope to hear her. The words labor in their agony. "I fail you once more..."
It is a bitter truth to swallow, as snow crowds those hollows which pass for her eyes. Each time she comes to humanity, each time her heart aches, and each time she cannot hold their pain. She would need a thousand arms, and still there would be aught enough to grasp.
There is nothing to be done. She should never have come here. She cannot heal a thing. She is but a child, and she knows nothing of this world. It is arrogance and foolishness.
'Oh, so this anxiety is theirs?'
There are words, on the wind of the blizzard.
'It may be primarily hers?'
There are questions, in the air, and their answers are so obvious, to the Beast of Lohgrin.
Those headplates shift in the snow, look up - there is Cyre, proof if proof be needed that not all her efforts have ended in such tragic failure. It is an effort, to shift plates standing, to shake off the snow. It is an effort she makes. "... yes, this is Ida's domain. There is no mistaking it."
The Malevolence is thick, and it is such sickness to move through, and there is terror in her soul. But she must not lose control. These mortals have done nothing. They are good people. She would destroy them in an instant. She must not lose control, in this place. She must not.
She moves forward, with them, and the only indication is the slight lag of those plates, as if it takes so much concentration to place one claw before another.
They come to a castle. They come to the castle's Malevolence. It is so much worse than she feared.
It takes such concentration that she cannot hope to stop Dean, as he rushes forward. "DEAN!" She yells, alarm and fear for a man who has always tried to help, even as he understands so little. She does not think of his inability to hear her, in that moment. She does not think of it at all.
She rushes forward, plates sliding one over another, only to pull up whole as the images begin to play. "Ida -" She chokes out, horror in the name. Horror - dawning comprehension.
The figures are different, of course. The environment, different. And yet --
"No," the Beast of Lohgrin shakes herself bodily, pieces rotating. "Dean!" The horror eminating is an overpowering force. She cannot imagine how much worse it must be, inside. She cannot allow such a goodhearted man to suffer.
She does not have a golem, to bring to bear. She does not have chi to bring to bear. She sets about it with claw and tooth in the wake of the golem's smash, and she tears at it with all the force of her fears. She must not lose control - but neither must she lose even one of the humans under her care.
DG: Seraph Beast has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia nods quietly to Fei's assessment, and then he spots something in there and asks a somewhat loaded question. Her lips flatten down. Fei may or may not recall this as the face she tends to make shortly before she sets her problems on fire. She replies, flatly, "She said something I disagreed with," to Fei's question, and then does not produce her Tinder Staff from wherever the hell it got off to, but instead - looks up to the structure above. "I think...we are close," she says. "Of course, that never means it's the easy part does it," she sighs, and sure enough, there it is. She can...feel that imposition. She grimaces, the spite and displeasure - like an ouroboros, a thing designed to mock itself and all things like it - plain to her. It stokes something else in her, a different frustration at the egoism necessary to doubt the wisdom of the power that sustains the world.
Even if they're jerks sometimes.
She doesn't really emerge from that before the lotus has entombed Dean, and the waves buffet her anew with doubt and spite. Fortunately: Fei. "I think I have an idea, then," she says, and steps back, whirling her staff as she gathers her own powers.
Fei releases, and Cecilia lashes out with her staff, Crest magic erupting out of it and out of her, a thin tether of magic flying between Cecilia and that massive blast.
Then she whips it to the side, like some horrifying meteor hammer, whirling the massive blast around to slam it into the lotus from several different angles before finally whipping it around to drop it DOWN, exerting all of its possible force down directly.
Dean's tough, Dean can take it. Ida wouldn't make a trap that fails intentionally just to spite someone for going brute force....right.......that's presuming it's actually Ida, and--
She shoves harder on the staff, forcing worries aside with action. The tricks are not so different from Cyre's, in the end.
DG: Cecilia Adlehyde has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
As Avril says that, she wonders how ridiculous she sounded, "I mean... a little. Sometimes. It's more that you seem just... so calm I guess. That it's surprising when you're not." But as she says it. She realizes how ridiculous it sounds. Of course a girl without memories is troubled, and gets scared sometimes, and insecure. "Huh..." When it comes to how they're different. Worrying out loud is a thing she does but...
... she's usually not saying everything she's worrying about. It's like camouflaging the reality of it. Berating Dean because she doesn't want to admit she's scared.
She wishes suddenly she could worry aloud more honestly. But it's even more frightening the thought of putting herself that far out there. "... I like the way you are Avril." Is what she says right now, rather than saying she wishes she could be more honest. "I guess it's just nice to know a little more about how you feel. That's all." She says before they part.
And then - Rebecca's eye twitches as Dean substitutes White Fenrir yet again. As she starts mumbling to herself, "Remember he actually took on a Kalivos with a shovel. Remember... that actually happened." Rebecca looks to the malevolence laden air like it's a thousand yard stare - whispering, "Why did he have to look the manliest he'd ever been while using a shovel like a pogo stick?"
And then they come upon the castle. It's a dark place that just looks... wrong. Especially atop this mountain. Giving her a shiver down her spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
Looking towards the shrine as Avril points it out, she says, "Dean don't rush a-"
And then the flower petals slam shut. Who knows what's happening to him right now? Who can even say? Avril shouts. And Rebecca stands wide-eyed, speechless for a moment. As if rendered speechless by it. And then it blurts right out, "THAT-" She almost said idiot. Almost - but Fei is saying something. "Wait - what are you saying!? What's going to happen to Dean!?" And the panic swells up. It gets inside of her. Gets to her.
Ida had already instilled insecurity about her future.
What happens if Dean gets crushed? What happens if Dean changes - not for the better but for the worse from this journey?
What if he comes back a broken shell of the person he was - or not at all?
Avril is already acting, as a golem bursts forth, rocketing into the barrier. And Rebecca feels the panic getting in her throat and freezing her up before she rasps, "Give him back. Give him back right now."
The Medium she holds surges forth to blast it with a pressurized blast of air, powerful enough to shatter stone.
She hopes.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
Unfortunately, the continued chat of shaman to Shaman will have to be temporarily postponed.
From a hate-blasted field to a blinding blizzard to this castle swaddled by roiling currents of a far-too-human darkness. Ida's darkness, Cyre thinks- a notion which is only confirmed by the chorus of voices around him. The shaman's expression turns thoughtful for but a moment, but he realizes the trap and pushes it to the back of his mind. To think too much, to doubt too much right now is foolish with the malevolence so thick all around them.
Let it flow in, then out. Wash across the mind and then past it. Consider only when it's safe to do so. It'd be a lot easier if he had a brain like Dean's, Cyre considers.
It's only for that reason that he merely becomes furious rather than desperate with worry when the shovel master decides to proceed on his merry way on ahead and inevitably ends up trapped in--
Oh.
Oh no.
Even someone with the slightest bit of Resonance would be able to detect the sheer wrongness eminating from that flower. The disturbing picture show playing out across its surface notwithstanding, the stink of Malevolence is impossible to ignore, and the one at the heart of it is... "Damnit, Dean! Hold on!" Cyre yells as the others begin charging in, pouring in with chi and raw power and solid steel and-- a golem arm?!
...
Avril is mysterious waif among mysterious waifs. Cyre will ask her more about that later.
Now, though. Now he has a job to do.
"Dean, I know you probably can't hear me, but I really hope you're still breathing!" Cyre produces the censer again as Cecilia harnesses the might of Adlehydian Crest Magic against the stone lotus. She's right, in a way; the Guardians CAN be jerks sometimes, but...
If that thing is designed to corrupt instead of kill, then whatever is inside will still need to breathe. That means there's still air. And that means there's still wind! Cyre clutches tight around his medium. The Gale Claw glows a brilliant green as wind begins to howl around the incense burner. Vortices pull and gather the sacred smoke, twisting into a thin spiral: A drill of hurricane-force wind, carrying that fragrant scent with it.
And with a roar, Cyre dives forward, thrusting the aromatic lance directly into the point where two of the petals are joined. "Focus, Dean! Hold on to the world as much as you can! I'll give as much help as I can too! Hold onto this scent, hold on for a little bit longer!"
DG: Cyre H. Lorentz has used his Tool Invigorating Vapors toward his party's challenge, Endure It.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"--heck?" Dean's voice echoes, just before the pale marble petals close him in. His first thought is that it's good he's not scared of tight spaces, before the surface of the marble lights up with... "Ida?" he says, reaching out to touch the memories played therein.
Malevolence rises up around him. Though he can't see it, in this intense concentration, he can most certainly feel it--anxious, terrified, agonized, paralysed with doubt. He clutches his chest and staggers back a step, his grip on White Fenrir loosening. A woman trembles in fear, her fear sourceless and unknowable, and a young girl he recognizes as Ida calls her mother, asks her what's wrong, but receives no reply. Ida doesn't understand. Dean doesn't, either. And the Malevolence swirls around him, assailing his heart and mind with the same fear and doubt that Ida's mother--and Ida herself, as a child unable to comprehend what has someone she loves so terrified--must have felt.
The lotus around him rocks and shakes as his friends bring all their strength to bear, to attempt to smash it. Dean screams as he rocks and shakes with it, mind flashing with images of the lotus collapsing and crushing him under the weight of its broken petals, and falls to one knee, holding tight onto White Fenrir to keep himself from falling over and curling up with mindless panic.
Those same attacks that could crush the lotus and him with it... are proof that his friends are outside, worried about him, and trying to save him. He can't hear their voices clearly, but he thinks he can sense their intent, like a faint trickle of incense between cracks of marble. And... if he's the one inside... then he's the one who has to endure this. Not any of them. And after the illusion at the church in Felkirk, where all his friends vanished but he could still hear their suffering, where he could *only* hear but do nothing to help... then enduring this emotional agony brings its own strange kind of comfort.
At least it's not Avril. At least it's not Rebecca. At least it's not Fei, or Beast, or Cyre or Jack's friend whose name he still doesn't know. When he thinks about it like that... he can be a rock in this storm of Malevolence.
So in response, it starts to whisper to him, thicker and more clogging than ever--and *he hears those whispers*.
You should break the lotus open.
"I should... break the lotus open."
Should you break the lotus open?
"......huh?"
Will it even help if you do?
"It's better... than doing nothing."
This test is arbitrary. It's cruel.
"...It's... what Ida feels like all the time... isn't it?"
Why should anyone have to endure this?
"Why...? I don't know. It's horrible. No one should have to go through this. Not me... and not Ida. Not any of my friends."
What do you have to gain?
"To gain...?"
His grip tightens on his dear shovel, and Dean leans forward, using it as a crutch to help him rise to his feet. "I don't know... if I'll gain anything. Understanding... or just pain. But... I won't let that stop me! No matter how much this hurts... I know there's a future ahead! For me, and for the others! Including you, Ida!! So I won't give up! So you better not give up, either!!"
CHUNK. With all his strength, he grips White Fenrir with both hands and *wails* it on the seams between the stone petals. "You can do anything... as long as you don't give up!" he tells himself, arms shaking from effort both physical and emotional. Another swing, and CHUNK. "You can do anything... as long as you don't give up!!" CHUNK. "You can do anything... AS LONG AS YOU DON'T GIVE UP!!" CHUNK. "HRRRAAAAUUUUGGGH!! METEOR... DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!"
'CHUNK'
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool The Trusty Shovel toward his party's challenge, Endure It.
==============================<* Mount Manfred *>=============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Endure It *>=========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The mountain path ends in front of a strange, shrine-like structure, all jagged ice and pulsing, congealed Malevolence. Heatless violet flames crackle in the crater-like braziers encircling it. In the very center is a stone platform, surrounded by slabs of cloudy ice and pale white marble--it looks, at first glance, like a giant white lotus. The Domain itself seems to impress a task upon you: one of you must step onto the stone platform, and endure whatever follows. As soon as someone steps forward, the lotus blossom closes, trapping them inside. The faintest hint of Malevolence seeps into the tiny chamber, flavoring the air with hot, tense anxiety. Thoughts spiral out of control under its influence, turning worries into fears, and fears into overwhelming, paralyzing dread. It's enough to make one shut down, to curl up into a little ball and sit there, trembling, until it's over. On the outside, Malevolence seeps out from the base of the lotus, infusing the air with desperate fear. You should break the lotus open. Should you break the lotus open? Will it even help if you do? This test is arbitrary. It's cruel. Why should anyone have to endure this? What do you have to gain? =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
=========================<* Mount Manfred - Round 5 *>========================== ============================< Results - Endure It >============================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 20 --(100)--> 120 Pass Mother's Cross 4 Brute Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 20 --(100)--> 120 Pass The Trusty Shovel 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 25 --(100)--> 125 Pass Remote Golem Override 4 Brute Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyre H. Lorentz 20 --(100)--> 120 Fail Invigorating Vapors 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Beast 25 --(100)--> 125 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cecilia Adlehyde 25 --(100)--> 125 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 20 --(100)--> 120 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Fei Fong Wong 75 --(10)--> 85 Fail Conditions: Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Fei Fong Wong is too exhausted to continue! DG: Dean Stark is too exhausted to continue! DG: Avril Vent Fleur is too exhausted to continue! DG: Cyre H. Lorentz is too exhausted to continue! DG: Seraph Beast is too exhausted to continue! DG: Cecilia Adlehyde is too exhausted to continue! DG: Rebecca Streisand 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 Fei Fong Wong has been fully Exhausted by Mount Manfred! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* Mount Manfred *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Afraid and Overwhelmed *>==================== |Type: Escape |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- It's too much. Is the Malevolence getting to you, or is it your own fear telling you that you need to get out of here, /now/? Is there any meaningful difference between the two? Whatever the case may be, you're in no shape to keep climbing, and the best course of action is to retreat back to the relative safety of civilization. The mountain will still be here. Try and get some sleep, if you can. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The lotus shatters. Motes of Malevolence flicker off into the distance, tinged with helpless rage. Did you prove yourself? Does it matter? At least you can take a look around now.
In the snow, just near a rock, a dull gleam catches the eye--a silver necklace wrapped around an ancient dagger. The weapon's scabbard is battered, but the craftsmanship is impeccable. The dagger's hilt and scabbard both bear a strange sigil, and their delicate craftsmanship suggests that whatever it was is important. The dagger's blade, likewise, is ancient, but clearly the work of a master craftsman. Still, it's battered and seemingly discarded now, flung away with enough force to nearly shatter the rock that it landed against. Strangely, the weapon itself seems not the worse for wear. Wrapped around it is a silver necklace, the braided metal cunningly crafted by a master smith. The links are small, but beautifully intricate. Hanging from the braided chain is a small token bearing the same emblem as the dagger--a proud wolf snarling in defiance of the cold and snow that surround it.
Go on, take it. Whomever threw it away couldn't possibly want it back, right?
OOC: Congratulations! The Malevolent Domain has grudgingly granted you passage up the mountain. Narratively, it will be a lot easier for your character to get to subsequent digs in Castle Rabenstein. You might have also gained a small measure of spiritual strengthfrom the experience!
You should also send in a +request about this Discovery!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
In the room overlooking the gates, Ida stares down at her last line of defense, her face a rictus of horror. She'd designed that thing as a sort of proof of concept--a means to make people understand what she'd been going through, since in her eyes everyone seemed so eager to tell her to cheer up or keep going.
Now, Ida sees it in action. Not only that, but she sees it in action against someone she cares about, one of the few people who still called her "friend", even now.
You knew it would happen. You knew it would happen, but you did nothing to spare him, to drive him away for his own safety. You cared more about yourself than about an innocent person.
Ida remains rooted to the spot. Her eyes widen as one of the other figures--Avril?--steps back, does something, and the ground next to the lotus rises up. Ida watches in mute shock as a massive, disembodied limb breaks free of the earth, snow spilling off of it. It slams into the side of the lotus, cracks spreading through it.
Get down there, idiot girl. Get down there and help them. Are you just going to hide after doing this to them? Coward. Monster.
"Mama!" The Ida in the panes of the Lotus is sobbing, now, tears streaming down her face. "Mama--!" A man in a heavy leather apron takes her hand, pulls her gently away. Ida's father looks down at her, smiles a smile that doesn't show in his eyes.
"Mama will be fine," says Adam Everstead-Rey. Cyre's wind-drill slams into the side of the flower, chipping off bits of Adam's face. Somehow, that horrible, stomach-churning anxiety in his eyes gets even worse because of it. Ida is young, but she can still see the desperate denial. Adam cannot let his daughter see this. He can't let anyone see this. Rebecca's own winds chip off bits of Flora until nothing is left but those hollow eyes.
"But Papa--" The Beast's claws dig through solid stone, desperate, scrabbling. The scene playing out on the flower before her hits far too close to home. Next to her, Cecilia's sorcery and Fei's chi combine, the two of them working together to hammer into the lotus from all sides.
Inside, there is the steady kchunk-kchunk-kchunk of White Fenrir digging into stone.
'You can do anything as long as you don't give up!'
In the upper room, Ida remembers what Dean told her when she told him about the voice in her head. "Shut up, Ida hisses, at the hateful little voice that is also her. "SHUT UP!"
She reaches out. She reaches out, like she did when someone used the Lotus to contact her at the worst time possible. This is her Domain. She is its master.
Inside the Lotus, Dean hears something."Dean? That's not the voice that was speaking to him, earlier. That's Ida's voice. As the Lotus begins to break apart around him, it feels like she's there, terrified. She's done something unforgivable to him, at long last. It's like she's expecting him to hate her, to tell her to go away. It feels like she's hoping he won't.
"What does it mean to give up? Haven't I given up already by becoming this?"
The lotus shatters. Dean is free. That brief, strange feeling--like his friend is there despite not physically being there--lingers long enough for him to answer.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
'Dean?' says a voice--a voice he knows well. "Ida?" Dean calls back. He can feel her feelings--her terror, her regret, her remorse, her tormented hope. It surges through him like an ocean swell as the lotus cracks in a hundred million places. "Ida!"
The stone petals of the lotus shatter, blasted from outside and from within, and rain chips of marble down on Dean's head. Exhausted, he falls again to his knees... but his eyes are clear, and while he leans on his shovel for support, he keeps his head high.
Her words still echo in his ears. He reaches out, physically, hand stretching towards to that sensation of her being by his side. "Maybe," he says. "But that doesn't mean you can't try again. And if you try again... if you've *been* trying... that means you haven't given up. Hellion *or* human."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong looks up partly through his assault, looking over to that castle and--no, he shouldn't get distracted. It's just a feeling. It doesn't mean anything. Not yet. He doesn't hear Ida's voice, being outside of the contraption as was.
But it seems wholly destroyed, at least, even if Fei can't help but think 'so much for being careful and saving energy'. He pants for a few moments to catch his breath, get his bearings, before he looks over towards Cecilia and grins at her.
"That was incredible! Your technique and control..." He kisses his fingers then spreads them out like a chef complimenting a meal.
He is about to rush forward to check on Dean when something else catches his eye. He turns towards it and jogs over to it before some other awful thing can happen. Something shining...in the snow.
He crouches down and plucks it up out of there and stares at it. A silver chain. And after Fei nearly cuts himself on the dagger it is wrapped around, Fei recognizes the weapon's presence as well.
He looks at it for a moment. Perhaps in another world, another time, a blade like this could be used to cut a lady's hair before an important journey, but perhaps in this world it has a no less important fate.
Fei picks the items out of the snow. Jack.
A red haired woman he couldn't save. A lost homeland. Blame for oneself. These are traits Fei is intimitely familiar with. He remembers Jack playing his guitar.
Fei stands himself back up and approaches Cecilia. "Cecilia, I think you should hold onto these."
He extends his hand to place the silver chain and the dagger into her hands, looking into her eyes for a moment.
"You'll have to return them but...I think he'd appreciate it if they were from you."
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia giggles at Fei's compliment. "Well, thank you," she demures, blushing and fidgeting. Gosh!! "Breaking things is probably my weak point, but...I can do it with some help," she says. She feels vaguely like she didn't help very much for some mysterious reason. Probably this awful place. She tries to recover some breath, even in this noxious place...the song, the air...it repels her, sinks into her in a way that makes her skin crawl. She wonders how much of this is the presence of the Guardians in her, finding this poison alien and hatesome.
Still, she suppresses the urge to just leave, as she has the rest of this trip, angling over to where Fei is digging around. Her eyes slowly widen as the icons reveal themselves. "That's the emblem of Arctica," she murmurs. "These are Jack's..."
She shifts her gaze, staring up the towers. She thinks she feels the Medium of Aru Solato in her case respond - Jack's Medium, left with her on that day at Guardian Temple, with his usual laugh and a smile. She lays her hand on it. "...we're coming," she whispers, and she feels the cold bite at the tears in her eyes. She hastily scrubs them out. "Gwen's been keeping his belongings safe with Hanpan," she says. "I..." She hesitates, hands hovering over the dagger and chain, uncertain. Is she worth it? Does she deserve it? He said so little to her of her pain, and what he did say she took like insults. In the end, he left what little he wanted to save with Gwen, not with her. She shouldn't--
Her fingers twitch in the air for a moment, swallowing. And then she sucks in a breath and reaches to take the two items, tucking them away as safely as she can, the chain in her Medium case next to the Medium of Ice, the dagger into her belt. She has no sheathe. "I'll...keep them safe," she affirms, and nods.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
The stone lotus shatters, and Cyre...
Immediately notices that Dean is apparently HEARING VOICES and TALKING TO GHOSTS. "Dean!" The shaman near-shouts in that way people do when they realize they're too close to someone else's eardrums to do so whole-heartedly. He leaps over the crumbling rubble and places a hand on the young shoveller's shoulder. "Dean, are you alright? Did you hit your head? Was the flower talking to you?"
Cyre lifts his brazier, filling the world with fragrant smoke. "Here, breathe this. It'll help clear your head."
Not that... Not that Dean needs help... clearing his head.
...It tends towards being pretty empty normally, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Then all of a sudden Cyre is in Dean's face. "Waugh!" he utters, half-turning his way. "Well, actually--" Then the brazier fills his view, and its scent, his nose.
Dean sneezes.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.
...all over Cyre's face.
...
...
g-gross.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
TRUE END
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"S-sorry," Dean says sheepishly, rubbing a finger under his nose.
WHOOPS